Long Nuhuang’s heart brightened just the tiniest bit to see how hard their family was working.

She then looked at her husband. “What now?”

****

Long Huangdi was just as lost as his wife in figuring out what their next move would be. They had been locked here in the cave for a few days now and no news had come to them this whole time.

The wait had been torturous since they didn’t know what to expect.

Long Nuhuang wasn’t faring very well either. The injuries her body sustained during the battle with the wyrm weren’t healing as she expected them to.

Instead, they festered and ate away at her body making her far weaker than before.

Long Huangdi had no way to stop it and his attempts to destroy the boulder that locked them in the cave were as fruitful as a pine tree in the middle of winter struck by lightning, set on fire and cut down by a haunted lumberjack.

“Hhhmmm…”

“Family Leader Long! She’s awake!”

A man by the side of Long Nuhuang shouted when she finally stirred.

To make matters worse, Long Nuhuang was suddenly afflicted by an unknown illness.

It started with an intense fever, but the symptoms abruptly scaled up to an obscene degree.

Her skin literally started tearing itself apart, causing blood to spill everywhere. Her muscle mass was diminishing by the day and she looked no more than a skeleton with skin draped over it.

The pain had caused her to pass out several times. She was drifting in and out of consciousness, never more than a few minutes at a time.

A man in the Long family who had some medical training was charged with looking after her as best as he could.

People with medical training were not something of a necessity in a cultivation world save for mortals. However, they were still required in cases where spiritual qi or spiritual medicine was in scarce supply for whatever reason.

This was the case for Long Nuhuang. She wasn’t healing, so this person who didn’t have much use for this particular skill suddenly had a need for them here.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to help her beyond just making sure she was as comfortable as possible.

When Long Huangdi heard that his wife was awake, he came sprinting over. As soon as he arrived and saw the sunken eyes, mutilated skin and overall tortured state of his wife, Long Huangdi gritted his teeth in rage.

“Damn it!”

Boom!

He punched the ground of the cave in anger at his own powerlessness.

He never knew he would be able to feel such pain again. It was like someone knifed him in his heart.

His own wounds were healed right now, but they could all reopen for all he cared as seeing his wife like this was a thousand times worse.

“Huangdi’er…” her weak voice drifted into his ears and he took her hands in his own, holding them gently to not cause her any more pain than she was already experiencing.

“Yes, Nuhuang!” He said softly.

Rumble…

“!”

Her next words were cut off by a powerful tremor that rocked the cave they were in. The massive boulder that made this place a prison rolled to the side and Long Huangdi stood up in response.

The rest of the family came to his side and blocked Long Nuhuang from whatever it was that was coming their way.

Ta, ta, ta…

The faint sound of footsteps tapping echoed within the cave and before long, a woman bountiful in curves and beauty came into view.

Fire-red hair flowed behind her like a waterfall and severe eyes slid from side to side to take it all in.

The men of the Long family felt their hearts quicken in response and their breaths cut short. They were all affected as they had never before seen such a peerless woman..

She scanned the people before her with cold indifference before asking. “Who was the woman who gave birth to the existence that caused my prince to call out its name?”

…

“We need to kill them immediately! Why is this an argument!?”

“This isn’t something simple! Obviously, they are here for a reason. We need to find out why first at least!”

“These are our lands! You would permit humans to set foot here!?”

“First Claw, Second Claw, why are you two not saying anything!?”

“Especially you First Claw. You wanted to kill them at the outset. Didn’t you?”

Five monstrous dragons were present in a room, arguing about something. Two of the dragons were familiar to the Long family. One was First Claw Long Jin, and the other was Second Claw Long Baofu.

Long Jin stirred upon hearing his name called. He snorted, causing white plumes of smoke to exit his nostrils.

He looked at Long Baofu who looked away disconcerted. It seemed the earlier chastisement of his actions stuck with him even now and orchestrated no small part of his activities.

Long Jin reckoned the Second Claw would be absent if these types of meetings weren’t mandated for their attendance.

He then turned his attention to the last dragon who addressed him. It was a brown dragon as large as Long Jin himself, which was really saying something.

His scales didn’t lie flat on his body like other dragons. Instead, they were sticking out at awkward angles. Their shapes were also unusual, appearing more like sharpened jagged blades in some areas to inflict harm on any soul foolish enough to brave them.

There was also a faint earthy aroma that wafted from him that gave some clues to his affinity.

“I didn’t wish to inflict harm on them Fourth Claw Long Shi Kuai.” Long Jin replied.

“Bullsh*t!” The Fourth Claw snorted, causing brown dust to exit his nostrils. “Had we not been there, that woman would be dead right now!”

“Are you calling me a liar!?” Long Jin’s anger was enkindled, but a little.

Long Shi Kuai didn’t back down in the face of Long Jin’s ire. “Take the title for yourself if you wish, but I demand sense from you! You were going to kill her, yet you dare say you didn’t want to kill them. Make it make sense!”

Long Shi Kuai’s words were like water to the fires of Long Jin’s fury. They doused the agitated flames lest they explode. The resulting rising smoke hid the remnant coals that could reignite at any moment.

His voice calmed, and he tried to explain. “I didn’t…” he sighed then went on. “The woman thing… she destroyed the reverse scale of the wyrm.”

“What!?” A collective gasp filled the chamber they were in.

“Impossible!” Another dragon bellowed. This one was pitch black, even its eyes, teeth and tongue were black. A perpetual dark mist covered it, obscuring its features.

This was the Fifth Claw, Long Xiu, a powerful dragon of a species possessing incredible and mysterious powers. Even the Dragon King looks upon this species with some level of wariness.

“She’s from a secular city. How could it know where the reverse scale is!?” Long Xiu asked in astonishment.

The reverse scale and its location were not necessarily secrets known only to the dragons. Powerful cultivators have fought dragons in the past, and the reverse scale was discovered either intentionally or unintentionally through these fights.

As a result, powerful forces knew of these things, but they wouldn’t necessarily disseminate information like this freely. After all, information is power and so things like this were only known to the super-powerful.

Though the term reverse scale was known to many, it was not to the point where people knew of its location or anything like that. Not unless you were of the powerful few.

Someone like Long Nuhuang couldn’t possibly be aware of such information.

Long Jin shook his head. “She couldn’t have, because the reverse claw wasn’t there in the beginning.”

“What do you mean?” The last dragon, Third Claw Long Yushui asked. This dragon was of the same species as Long Cang. A Veristic Water Sage Dragon. They were extremely powerful and were prestigious in rank among the dragon race.

“The wyrm went berserk in a last-ditch effort to fight her and coincidentally broke through, birthing its own reverse scale in the process.”

They all sucked in a cold breath of air at the mention of it. It wasn’t uncommon for a dragonkin to break through, but for one to birth a reverse scale, and at such a low rank at that, meant that its future prospects would be bright.

“Even then, I didn’t want to kill her.” Long Jin went on. “But you know how it goes when we see a reverse scale being… ‘touched…’ like that.” He said the word touch with a semblance of gravity to pass on his feelings about the subject.

The reverse scale or inverted scale. The dragon is wise, powerful and beyond the understanding of mortal men. However, if its reverse scale is touched, it will drown in rage and subsequently drown the world in blood.

Sanguine rivers will flow, and mountains of bones will form. A dragon’s reverse scale is not to be touched.

This was the saying passed down amongst mortals and cultivators alike in the cultivation world.

“I understand.” Long Shi Kuai nodded after a while. Not much needed to be said after Long Jin admitted what happened.

“But why are they here!?” Long Xiu asked once more, his gaze fixed on Long Yushui.

“Why look at me!?” Long Yushui didn’t like the way Long Xiu was glaring at him.

Long Xiu’s eyes narrowed. “Your race’s genius was there. Of course, I would expect you to know!”

Long Yushui bared his teeth in response. “Don’t even think of slandering the genius of our ra-”

“Alright, calm down all of you.” Long Jin tried his best to stop the meeting from erupting in chaos. He was usually the one adopting this role, which was why the other Claws afforded him more respect than their other counterparts.

“Emissary Long Cang told me that the women survived the application of our low-grade dragon salve.”

What!“ Another furore erupted at this mention. How was it possible for a human to possess the will needed to do such a thing!?

“There are two of them actually,” Long Jin stated, stirring the excitement in the room further.

“The woman bore marks from the Dragon’s Ancestral Monument. I propose we open the Draconic Ancestral Blood Pool.”

All the dragons went silent at the audacity of this request. Long Baofu who was silent the entire time growled as he glared in Long Jin’s direction.

“Are you mad!?”