Chapter 804: The Magical Dragon Rose’s Dragon Breath

The old pirate Henry had been furious ever since learning that the goods Solas Light Foot had sold them were nothing but unsold stockpile inventory that nobody wanted, and his eyes were now filled with murderous intent directed at Locke.

The next moment, the poisoned blade in his left hand shot toward Locke.

Its speed was extraordinary, and he was hopping on one foot like a spinning top. In just an instant he had thrust toward Locke's throat, eyes, and heart over a hundred times.

The poisoned blade clashed violently against the permanent defensive force field and natural force field on Locke's body surface.

Spell sparks flew one after another.

Locke used Lone Tree Cannot Form a Forest to maneuver the Magical Dragon Rose and pull back, intending to retreat only ten meters, but unexpectedly, in an instant he shot backward several thousand meters and flew directly out of the transport port into the void.

Hmm?

Locke noticed that some black text and markings had appeared on his body surface, all of them enchantment magic runes.

'Just now he used rapid movement with the enchantment spell model, Storm Step. And the attack on me was the enchantment spell model, Swift Thrust.'

'And after attacking me with his left-hand artifact, he placed an enchantment-school spell model on my body called Spell Disruption.'

Locke's clone on the wizard floating vessel purchased an advisory session from Wizard Akman directly at the price of fifty thousand magic stones.

According to Akman, the consultation fees of a generalist scholar were variable.

After all, it was just answering a few questions.

For wizards he found agreeable, the fee would be lower. For those he found disagreeable, it would be higher.

At this moment, Wizard Akman directly told Locke the names of the three spells the opponent had used, and Locke, as a Second Circle wizard, immediately used the free library system within the network to look up information on these three spell models.

They were all combat spells of the enchantment school.

It was just that these combat spells should not, by any reasonable account, have had this level of power in actual combat.

The old pirate sneered, and at the same time his eyes drifted toward the location of Zone C on the transport station below.

The old pirate covered his face with his left hand, and the next moment his face seemed to don a red-and-white opera mask, after which his physical capabilities were enhanced and in an instant he launched another attack at Locke.

His feet employed the Storm Step spell model, moving as though on solid ground, while his right leg, the alchemical prosthetic, gave him even greater kicking force. The poisoned blade in his hand drove toward Locke, bearing a powerful penetrating enchantment, the Absolute Penetration enchantment spell model.

"I had originally intended to kill you cleanly and quickly."

The old pirate wizard, Henry, laughed loudly and said, "I did not expect an unknown junior like you to be this capable."

"To have endured so many of my attacks."

Locke possessed two ancient creature bloodlines, and the Magical Dragon Rose and the dragon bloodline mutually reinforced one another, so with the Magical Dragon Rose as his protection and his permanent defensive force field and natural force field guarding him, he had barely managed to hold on against the old pirate's continuous assault.

It was only because of the enchantment spell Spell Disruption that any slight movement sent him shooting forward or backward hundreds of meters, making it completely impossible to control his own body.

'This is the pirate wizards' special human artifact method. Ordinarily an enchanter is not skilled in frontal combat, but human artifact magic has changed that situation.'

Locke used the Second Circle spell model Burn to the Last to enhance his physical capabilities, so that the poisoned blade Henry the pirate wizard drove toward his throat did not land squarely on his throat but grazed past his cheek instead.

The blade clashed violently against the permanent defensive force field on Locke's face. The permanent defensive force field was damaged, sliced open with a gash, and the flesh beneath the force field was wounded.

A flower of blood bloomed on Locke's face.

'I see now. The magical artifacts on this pirate's body number more than one, and those artifacts were not necessarily all refined by himself. They may very well have been crafted by a higher-level enchanter.'

Locke now understood why some of these Second Circle pirate wizards were so watered-down, while the one before him was such a difficult opponent.

The reason was nothing other than magical artifacts.

These wizards had refined themselves into Second Circle magical artifacts, proving themselves as Second Circle wizards belonging to the truth-seeker wizard, and as such their entire bodies were magical artifacts. Naturally they could apply the logic of artifacts and assemble themselves into composite magical artifacts.

For these pirates who wanted to increase their combat power, they could entirely bypass the normal path of raising magic pressure and improving spell models, and instead walk the path of composite magical artifacts.

The reason those Second Circle wizards were so watered-down was that within the conventional system of spell models, Grand Magic, and magic pressure, they were weak.

Yet the reason the black wizard before him now was so formidable was that he had assembled a heap of powerful Second Circle magical artifacts into his own body, literally turning his entire person into a powerful composite magical artifact.

Locke used the Primordial Fire to burn through his own body, breaking the enchantment-school spell model Spell Disruption the opponent had placed on him.

The old pirate Henry looked again at Zone C and then pressed forward after Locke, saying, "Golden Crown Mountain's bloodline studies really are impressive. I did not expect you to be able to use bloodline spells to enhance your physical capabilities to this degree."

"To actually be able to keep up with my Storm Step."

Storm Step was, after all, a Second Circle enchantment spell model, and its enhancement of physical capabilities was truly immense.

Or rather, the enhancement this spell offered to physical capabilities was not originally this great, but because he had transformed his body into a magical artifact and had a magical artifact installed on his right leg, his speed far exceeded that of a normal Second Circle enchanter.

Old Wizard Henry's poisoned blade drove toward Locke's eyeball, and Locke frowned, activating the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes to slide along an ice track, gliding forward.

Old Wizard Henry immediately activated the Archangel Battleboots on his feet, using Light Riding to stay on Locke's tail without letting him pull away.

The next moment, his poisoned blade thrust down toward Locke.

A malicious gleam flashed in the old pirate wizard's eyes, and at the same time his gaze drifted again toward the transport station.

Boom.

The poisoned blade clashed with Locke's eyeball, and the permanent defensive force field and natural force field on Locke's eyeball immediately erupted into spell sparks upon contact with the artifact. Crack after crack appeared in his permanent defensive force field.

And the blade bore lethal poison. If it penetrated, the toxin would flow through the blade into his body.

Old Pirate Henry thought to himself, 'I have done it. The white wizard brat is finished.'

But in the next moment, Old Wizard Henry looked down and saw the two buds of the Magical Dragon Rose attached to Locke's back had each clamped down on his shoulders.

And Locke had dodged the strike an instant before the poisoned blade reached his eyeball.

Just now, Locke had used his Grand Magic, the Moon of Evolution, to apply the Lunar Cultivation Method and enhance his two magical plants, one being the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes and the other being the Magical Dragon Rose.

Because Wizard Trajan had killed many black wizards earlier and Locke had extracted their energy to reverse-refine them into the Zero Potion, his reserve of moon essence had increased by at least three times, and he could now evolve three Second Circle magical plants directly.

And at this moment, Locke used the moon essence equivalent to two Second Circle magical plant evolutions and poured it into the Magical Dragon Rose and the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes respectively, strengthening the magical plant traits of both.

Furthermore, using the Firetree Silver Blossom Enchantment Blade, he trimmed away the void information within, achieving pure enhancement without allowing the surrounding void information to flow back in.

In this way, Locke's final speed had in fact completely surpassed that of this black wizard Henry.

His Storm Step combined with face mask enhancement, artifact enhancement, and wizard shoe enhancement could not match the combined power of Locke's Magical Dragon Rose flight capability, the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes, and the amplification of the Moon of Evolution.

His speed had therefore lost to Locke by a margin, and as a result his final strike had missed Locke's eyeball. Instead, Locke had dodged it and countered using the Magical Dragon Rose.

At this moment, the three buds of the Magical Dragon Rose were like three dragon heads. Two of them had bitten down on the opponent's shoulders, and the Magical Dragon Rose flames flowed down like liquid. The third bud bit into the opponent's chest, then a burst of Magical Dragon dragon breath erupted outward.

A dragon's breath was one of a dragon's most formidable weapons.

And in the course of using the Magical Dragon Rose, Locke had gradually discovered that as long as he simultaneously used his dragon bloodline and the Magical Dragon Rose, he could cause all three buds of the Magical Dragon Rose to simultaneously emit dragon breath.

That was to say, triple dragon breath.

And Locke at this moment had all three heads clamped onto this black wizard and simultaneously blasted him with dragon breath.

The black wizard let out a scream and was sent blasting from the void toward the ground by the flames.

But before he had the chance to flee, Locke had already dived after him, the two dragon heads of the Magical Dragon Rose quickly extending behind Locke and each biting down on the opponent's shoulders again.

"When your speed loses to mine by even one tier, you must endure one extra round of attacks from me. Your problem is that you do not have a good pair of wizard shoes. You are an enchanter yourself. Do you not understand how the magic weavers think?"

Old Pirate Henry attempted to use the mobility of the Archangel Battleboots to break free from Locke's continuous assault and find an opportunity to reset, but Locke gave him no such chance, using his one-tier speed advantage and the powerful perception of his tiger's eye to come around to his back.

Two dragon heads bit down on the opponent's shoulders, and the third drove again toward the opponent's chest, with a spell model forming behind that dragon head.

Then all three dragon heads once again unleashed Magical Dragon flames.

Old Pirate Henry took the full force of Locke's attack one more time.

At this point, Locke's spell attacks were relying on the several magics of the Moon of Evolution to enhance the combat power or adaptability of his magical plants and to use Alternation of Generations for amplification.

And the combination of Locke's Magical Dragon Rose, the Great Blood Wave Bromeliad wizard shoes, and the Lunar Cultivation Method's temporary multiplicative trait enhancement just now had happened to form a state of high attack combined with high attack speed.

This was also what Locke had judged to be the most effective method for countering the pirate before him.

This pirate was inherently in a high-attack, high-speed state, but with relatively average defenses.

Although one could also improve one's defenses through the composite artifact approach, he did not appear to have invested heavily in that area.

And his own defensive force field was too ordinary, and his Grand Magic was a human artifact, so once he encountered an opponent with faster speed and higher spell damage, he would fall into the disadvantaged position of the lesser facing the greater.

Old Pirate Henry spat out a mouthful of blood. He opened his magical eye in an attempt to use it to track Locke's trajectory, but Locke's innate magical eye was faster than his, and in the very moment he opened it, Locke detected his intention and moved around to his back.

His magical eye fired a rocket toward the front.

The rocket passed straight through the transport station and shot off into the distant void, heading off to who knew where.

In the void, there was little to obstruct anything, so a spell once cast could often fly for a great distance before dissipating.

Locke, meanwhile, had come around to his back and took out a Pinellia plant. He poured his third portion of moon essence into this Pinellia, temporarily doubling all of its magical plant traits, then used the Summer Grass Mars Bewilderment.

A phantom spell sphere resembling a spark appeared behind the old wizard's back and crashed heavily into him.

In an instant, countless fire sparks flew up across this black wizard's body.

"Ah!"

Old Pirate Henry let out a scream.

Those sparks burrowed into his body and critically wounded him.

Locke then used a Magical Dragon Rose bud-head to clamp down on his shoulder, suspending him in midair, and questioned the old pirate, "Speak. What is in Zone C? Why did you keep looking in that direction?"

Old Pirate Henry weakly began to cough.

"To think I would lose to a wet-behind-the-ears brat like you. I truly cannot accept this. What are you going on about. I came here purely to kill you. After killing you, I was going to take your head to that executioner wizard and force him into negotiating with our captain."

"Going out on an operation is not easy for us pirates. If we come back empty-handed, morale is going to collapse."

Locke sneered.

"You looked toward Zone C twice while fighting me. And you were deliberately driving me in the direction of Zone C, shifting the fight's location. Your true objective was never to kill me. Your true objective was to destroy something in Zone C."

"You are indeed cunning. You nearly succeeded. Pity that you miscalculated your ability being less than mine."

Old Henry's pupils suddenly contracted sharply. He had not expected this little-known white wizard to have, throughout the battle just now, seen through his intentions so completely and with such confidence.

Old Wizard Henry closed his eyes.

"In that case, just kill me then."

"We pirates have our own code of loyalty."

"Do not expect to get anything out of me."

Locke pressed the Pinellia plant against his throat.

"An artifact body does have many conveniences, such as sufficient vitality and defensive strength. Even if your permanent defensive force field is not strong, your body is solid enough."

"But even so, at this close a range, you would die from a hit by an enhanced Summer Grass Mars Bewilderment from me, would you not?"

"After all, your Grand Magic and your flesh are one."

Locke said, "Last chance. If you do not answer, I will kill you immediately."

"You should know I am serious. What exactly is in Zone C?"

Old Henry's hair stood on end in an instant, because he felt that the young killer before him was truly, ready to make a move.

It was not a threat, not intimidation. It was: refuse, and die right now.

Old Pirate Henry said, "Wait. Zone C contains a batch of plant seeds that the Rose Council tasked us to destroy. The specifics are beyond me. You Golden Crown Mountain people are the experts."

"They are called Silver Ring Seedlings, I believe."

"We sometimes take on tasks from employers in exchange for magical resources that cannot be obtained through raiding. The Rose Council specifically requested that we destroy the Silver Ring Seedling seeds in Zone C of this transport station."