The Crimson Dragon - Chapter 30

Chapter 30

  Gudebar had no intention of negotiating with a Crimson Dragon, nor did he have the leisure to do so. He immediately pulled out his legs from the soil while slamming his thick arm onto the detestable dragon. As long as he could connect the attack, Gudebar would be able root his enemy to the ground; what followed afterwards was self explanatory. The Crimson Dragon would be beaten to death by his thick arms while being unable to counter attack.

  But his initial strike missed. The Crimson Dragon which walked on two legs dodged his attack with motions as swift as the wind. From Gudebar’s point of view, the dragon was almost like a ghost, avoiding every one of his all-out attacks with ease.

  “Oops, examining and interpreting the creatures with Earthly knowledge was a bad idea. Clearly there weren’t plants with consciousness and would attack people like that back on Earth!” Claudius mumbled in Chinese while dodging the incoming attacks.

  The old yet strong treant’s attacks were powerful, but they lacked speed. It didn’t matter how powerful they were if Claudius could not be hit. While the treant struggled to land a single hit, Claudius was enjoying the situation. It was amusing to see a plant which had emotions, could move and even strike people randomly…….

  After dancing around for a while, Claudius took action. He did not burn the treant straight away, as he was interested in the structure of it — to be precise, Claudius wanted to see if it had wooden organs or something along those lines. Due to this weird reason, he could only use his claws and tail to take down the treant.

  ‘Never get hit’ was his motto as a veteran player of Heroes of Might and Magic. Despite knowing that this was not the world of that game, Claudius figured that the special skill of treants should more or less be the same. The idea of getting entangled by vines after getting hit once was a terrifying one; it would only end in one-sided trampling if that happened.

  Treants did not seem to have blood, thus blood vessels or the likes were also absent. As the bark probably had a bad taste to it, Claudius was at a lost as to how to knock down Gudebar.

“Might as well end it with my claws and tail then,” Claudius thought.

  A single strike with his tail contained comparable power to an attack from a battering ram. Adjusting his posture, Claudius turned his body and swung his tail. The low-pitched sound of the hit resounded throughout the valley. A cracking sound soon followed, and it obviously originated from Gudebar. A deep indent could be seen on the treant’s torso, and shallow cracks were running across his entire body. Losing his balance, Gudebar tilted to his side.

The second strike landed as Gudebar tried to regain his posture. This time, the attack came from the sky; Claudius leapt up high and sent a mid-air rotational strike with his tail while the treant was busy standing up. It was a critical hit — the sharp thorns on Claudius’ tailed brutally slammed into the treant’s pelvis (the connecting point of the two supporting roots). The shallow cracks turned into deep fissures, extending up to Gudebar’s chest like lightning. The treant was in a severe condition; resin was leaking out through the fissures as if a tree being chopped by an axe. He was currently in a dilemma — trying to attack would most likely break his body apart, yet awaiting death obediently was not his style.

  Guderbar was not given the time to think; Claudius was not a sympathetic dragon. Swinging his arm, the three razor-sharp claws mercilessly punctured the trunk of the treant. Claudius’ claws were by no means inferior to a steel axe or machete; in fact, their sharpness and durability were above steel products. Embedding his ‘thumb’ deeper into the trunk, Claudius began twisting the treant in a manner similar to wringing dry a soaked towel. Along with a heart-strickening sound, poor old Gudebar’s arms were being fractured bit by bit. Claudius was a robust dragon, not to mention his muscular hind legs. Utilizing power from the pair of muscular legs, Claudius continuously dealt damage to the treant with his two front claws. Branches and bits of bark scattered everywhere along with the shrieks of pain from Gudebar. The life of the treant was fading away.

  As Claudius had never met a treant before, he did not know their weak spots. Unlike experienced treant slayers who would have excavated the trunk to remove the treant’s heart, Claudius was more like torturing Gudebar by dismembering him. Apart from breaking all the branches, he even chopped Gudebar into two large chunks of log; it was a miserable way to die.

  “What a weird creature.”

  That was Claudius’ reaction after ending the treant’s life. Dissecting the corpse, it was mostly identical to an ordinary tree. There were no organs or whatnot apart from a single heart-shaped structure which could be easily excavated from the trunk. For the first time, Claudius learnt about the exotic creatures of this world.

  He then proceeded to chop the corpse into smaller pieces for further examination. Even so, Claudius could not find a brain within the whole treant. He initially searched the part of the treant which looked like its head, but there was nothing even after breaking the entire corpse apart. ‘Trying to apply biological knowledge from Earth onto the creatures of Floren is something only a drunktard would try……’ was Claudius’ thought right now.

  The mindset of applying knowledge from Earth into this new world was something involuntary though. Despite having lived in this new world for over 50 years, the influence of studying for over 10 years on Earth was still way stronger than that of sleeping and hunting for several decades.

  For the natives of Floren, they would be able to salvage a lot more spoils of war after defeating a treant. Wooden organs such as eyeballs, the heart, skin (bark) and resin-filled branches could all be obtained. These were all expensive and useful materials with a wide range of uses, such as being the component for rituals, spells, armour as well as potions and alchemy purposes. Due to his lack of knowledge, all Claudius gained from the battle was the heart of the treant, which was also the most expensive and rare drop. The heart of treants would initially look like a wooden sculpture, but soon it would turn into a texture similar to an amber stone.

  “Is this thing even useful at all?” The ignorant dragon thought as he sensed magic elements gathering on the heart.

  Claudius did find a good use for the other body parts though — he began roasting bulls and boars with the remains of Gudebar. He found that meat roasted using treant wood gave off a special flavour which was more delicious than using normal logs. It was almost as ‘tasty’ as the favourite type of women Crimson Dragons loved to ‘eat’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

  “It might be a good idea to plant some treants and use them for firewood.” Claudius muttered while thinking that dragons and humans have similar sense of taste.

   While Claudius was barbecuing in the valley, a pair of jade eyes was glaring at the Crimson Dragon in fury under the surface of the nearby sea.