Chapter 30: Black Frost

The dragon wrapped its wings in pleasure after landing gracefully to the ground. It then shot me a glance, and what resembled a smirk.

My heart began to thump at a terrible pace, and I found myself spellbound by fear at the point I was seated on the ground where I'd fallen down to.

Just as it stared at me, with contemplative gazes, it was suddenly distracted by a struggling voice before it. The leader's.

"Let me go this instance, Black Frost!"

My eyes dilated as I watched in disbelief.

'How can he be acquainted with such a terrifying monster?'

As if all the shocks I'd received under the past few hours were not enough, next thing I saw started making me doubt my very own existence.

The glacier-dragon with its wings behind its back, began to warp itself up. And looking closely, I realised that its height began to deteriorate, rapidly. The black, overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering its skin began to form a thick, black robe. This robe fitted perfectly well with the deteriorating dragon, giving it a look of royalty and grandeur. It's crooked hands and legs became much flexible, and a part of its scales formed thick, curly hairs on its head. Claws became fingers and toes, respectively.

In no time, what it was that was standing before me was not a hideous dragon anymore... but a teenage boy.

Suddenly, I heard a telepathic message close to my ears: "Transmogrification!"

Without bothering to guess too much as to who had spoken, I asked, also through mind telepathy, "What does that mean?"

"The legends have it that certain divine beasts from the Dragon tribe and Phoenix tribe, on accomplishing the Spirit realm cultivation, possesses the ability to transform into humans, to better blend with others. Take the dragons for instance, they speak the dragon language, which is a kind of archaic language that man has the inability to produce through normal means, because of its great requirements of both true essence and energy! Becoming humans, these dragons could learn the human language and even extend their ruling domains!"

I listened in apprehension, though my eyes had not left the one called Black Frost, for even a second.

Raising its head, the faint light, in addition to the Eye of Insight, revealed Black Frost to be a dashing young man in the late teens. It had cold eyes that seemed to be able to pierce through all things. It made a crest (a cap worn by nobles with a feather attached to it by the side) with its hands. It was not the regular kind of crest, but one he'd made out of frost and tucked its own dragon feather on.

It slowly raised the black crest to its head, placing it with all the patience of time, then gazed down upon the men frozen from neck below, and laughed.

"Helpless fools! Did you really think your old ploys could work twice on me?"

There weren't any responses, and the faces of the men seemed to have become paler and paler.

The leader finally broke the somewhat everlasting silence.

"Where's the princess?"

Black Frost laughed again in what looked like half mockery, half disdain, then shook its head and declared, "My love is perfectly safe with me."

"Don't you dare call her that!" the leader bellowed through his teeth.

Immediately, in reaction, Black Frost's countenance changed, and the temperature of the night became colder and denser. It carried a distant aura that made one have an imagination of a winter-ridden land with nothing but snow and cold. Its eyes were fierce and unreadable.

"And what does anyone of you think you can do if I decide to repeat that phrase?"

Fearlessly, the leader once again spoke: "Let us free, and we'll give you a satisfactory answer!"

It laughed once more, but in suppressed fury, this time. Halfway through its laughter, its peripheral vision caught sight of a moving figure it'd once ignored when it first landed.

Of course, that person was none other than me!

I was quietly retracting my steps to find a way to outsmart this... thingy. Who could have thought I'd have been noticed quite effortlessly?

"You!" Black Frost turned its head towards me. Despite its young looking face, it was nothing from 'innocent' with those looks. Its eyes seemed to be piercing right through my body and soul. It then turned around to the others and asked, "Who is she?"

They looked at me with concerned gazes, but could not help but shake their heads.

"She's someone we just met... leave her out of this."

I was touched that despite their death-like state, they were willing to protect me in the little way they could. Well... as the saying goes, "One good turn deserves another." Since I'd saved their butts from the crimson-eyed mystical tiger, it was only the least they could do. Right?

Black Frost shook its head as though it'd just finished listening to explanations from children, then faced me once more. This time the questions were direct.

"What's your name?"

I told him.

"What are you doing here?"

I replied that I was on an assignment from school.

It shook its head, disappointedly, then said, "It's okay to lie to them... but do you really think you can fool a Spirit realm divine beast?"

I thought about a few responses I could give, but gave up because none of them were feasible. So, I ended up saying nothing.

It continued: "The fact that I can't see through your real cultivation level and your disguise only points to the fact that you're an expert of unimaginable caliber. Just who are you?!"

I repeated the words it'd just said, in my mind.

'It knows I'm in a disguise? Even with its level of cultivation, it still can't see through my cultivation level just because I reined in my aura? What does it mean by " an expert of unimaginable caliber"?'

If I were to be in my true form, it'd have seen that I was much younger than itself as a human. It'd have also seen that I was just a mere 1-star beast tamer, and currently at the Transcendent Mortal realm pinnacle stage... How did I even get such a powerful disguise, to begin with?

While I was still thinking of a reply, its eyes quickly fell on my gloved arm.

"Interesting... a hidden expert!"

It began to laugh once again, approaching me in half-confidence, half-cautiousness. I was still watching on in fear.

"Stand up, Young Mistress, it must continue to believe you're someone who might be even more powerful than it!" MBI said to me.

"You mean... I should impersonate an... expert?"

"Yes. You must understand that your aura is unbreachable and your strength, unfathomable, in this world, so it seems. Take advantage of your disguise. Unleash your beast aura and, with a thought, release an air of killing intent with it!"

"Do you think my killing intent's beast aura can faze a Spirit realm cultivator?" I asked in fear.

"How do you think your bloodline is able to suppress all beasts and establish the Beast Hall?"

Black Frost continued to advance closer, slowly and meticulously, taking his time to observe me and — probably — to fathom my thoughts and predict my next reactions.

I, on the other hand, was posing hundreds upon hundreds of split-second questions at MBI.

Black Frost was covering the distance between the two of us.

Ten metres...

Eight metres...

Five metres...

Three metres...

"Be still!" I thundered, unleashing my complete beast aura prowess, causing my hair to float in the air as my body rose to stand as though I was unfazed by gravity. It was like breaking the barrier that held a powerful waterfall.

The dragon boy froze on its steps and watched me with horror and contemplative eyes. Soon, it found out that even if it wanted to move, it couldn't. The reason was because the fear I'd succeeded in planting in it had let it forget to guard its own body. My killing intent had already successfully slipped into its body, unnoticed.

Noticing this, a side of my lip curved up in an overly, confident smile.

'You could have trapped me when you had the chance, now just look who'd be doing the talking, and who'd be doing the answering,' were the words that sprawled in my mind. A glint could have been sworn to cross my eyes.