Chapter Seven: The Dragon Worshippers

Dragon Worshippers.

According to Alice Aidale’s words, they were survivors who had narrowly escaped hell, only to turn and pursue the very calamity that had once threatened them.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”

That was not a lie.

Until today, Gongsun Ce had never encountered such a group.

“Likewise, I find it difficult to understand their mindset. The dragon phenomenon is only one part of natural disasters—earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, volcanic eruptions... These kinds of calamities happen in corners of the world every year. By your logic, we ought to be seeing Storm Cultists, Lava Lurkers, and Earth’s Chosen madmen every other week.”

Alice shot him a strange look. “You think they don’t exist?”

“They really do?!”

He was genuinely shocked.

“You’re such a typical citizen of the Empire. Those kinds of lunatics are everywhere in the United Kingdoms. The day before I came to Skyhaven, I even busted up a small cult. The leader was a self-taught spirit mage, using his half-baked skills to brainwash a bunch of middle-aged and elderly folks in a neighborhood. He convinced them that communication signals were the machinations of an evil dragon invading the world, and they had to hand over their cell phones, computers, and TVs for him to destroy if they wanted to survive the cyber-apocalypse seventy-seven years from now…”

“My illiterate great-grandmother wouldn’t believe such idiocy!”

“But they did. Do you know what’s even more absurd?”

The young man spread his hands. “I can’t imagine anything more ridiculous.”

“The cult leader was a novice spirit mage, barely able to brainwash fewer than ten people. The rest joined just because of simple rhetoric, psychological manipulation, and herd mentality.”

The world was truly vast.

Compared to aliens and hunters, it was these bizarre incidents that made the youth feel the enormity of the world.

The esper slumped powerlessly onto the small sofa, while the female hunter, on the contrary, appeared more spirited. “You’re already overwhelmed by this much? Let me tell you, since joining the Wild Hunt three years ago, I’ve seen far more outlandish things than this. Just last month there was a group obsessed with stinky mandarin fish—”

“Miss Alice, please, let’s get back on topic. I fear my common sense can’t withstand another blow.”

The fortress named Common Sense was already teetering; another strike might shatter it to dust.

He desperately needed time to recover.

In real time, he estimated it would take about five minutes.

“Finish in five seconds.”

“Can you read minds?!”

“It’s written all over your face: ‘I’m badly wounded and desperately need to recover.’ How am I supposed to discuss business with you like that?” The blue-haired woman crossed her legs. “From my vivid example just now, you should realize that humans—at least some of them—are incredibly fragile and prone to believe in the supernatural or pseudoscience. Dragon worshippers are much like other absurd cults, but what makes them worse are two things that set them apart.”

She raised both index fingers.

“For the record, at your age, poking your cheeks like that isn’t going to come off as cute.”

“Right now we can either have an all-out fight or you can compliment Miss Alice’s cuteness. You have three seconds to choose.”

“Miss Alice… is… beautiful.”

He just couldn’t do it.

It was impossible to call a woman who could only be described as dashing “cute,” so he had to take the opposite route and praise her looks instead.

What effect would such a curveball have? Gongsun Ce glanced up.

Across the sofa, Miss Alice looked as if she’d seen a ghost in broad daylight.

“Eek, how terrifying! And you weren’t even lying—are you one of those rare, pure-hearted youths?!”

“Even being complimented on your looks makes you react like this—your awkwardness has doubled yet again. Would you please show a bit of the composure befitting your years?”

A bizarre smile crept across the huntress’s face.

“Hehehe~ Such an innocent little brother~ Ever been in love before~?”

If a dashing, strong woman was the mountaintop, and an awkward, older single woman was the foot of the hill, then Miss Alice had, in these past several minutes, ridden a high-speed train straight from the summit to the ground, and five seconds ago, crashed headlong into the earth with no intention of stopping, about to tunnel straight to the planet’s core.

He couldn’t let this hopeless woman get further off track.

The esper interrupted her, “We’re talking business now—please be serious.”

“What are you saying? You started it! Anyway, back to the point: what sets dragon worshippers apart from other groups is their extreme psychological distortion and their connection to actual, physical dragons.”

“By extreme psychological distortion, you mean… having survived a dragon disaster, their minds completely collapsed and they ended up worshipping dragons as gods, making them the pillars of their psyche?”

The blue-haired woman dropped her unserious demeanor.

“You catch on quickly. Exactly—unlike those swayed by deception or brainwashing, these worshippers choose to believe entirely of their own accord, making it nearly impossible to persuade them otherwise. The world they see, the beliefs they hold, are fundamentally different from ordinary people. To them, it’s the rest of us who are the abnormal ones.

“And the second, even more troublesome point: the evil dragons truly exist. They are visible, tangible, real. What’s the difference between the intangible and the real? Think back to your battle with that spirit mage just now, and you should understand.”

He recalled the sight of that red, eyeless serpent.

The Void Serpent.

A bizarre creature impervious to any matter or energy except its chosen target.

Though that thing wasn’t an intangible creation like the youth’s own powers, the hunter wasn’t pointing out such superficialities.

From the perspective of tangible versus intangible, a snake unable to interact with the outside world and untouchable by anyone is no different from a phantom conjured in the mind, even if it has a visible body. Besides the witnesses, no one can prove that a “vividly colored air snake” exists.

An untouchable snake is intangible.

But for Gongsun Ce and the alien, for the serpent’s target and its controller, things changed. In their eyes, the red serpent was a visible and tangible entity. Gongsun Ce’s fists could land on its body; its crimson fangs could sink into his flesh.

With this realization, he understood.

“A real dragon is different from intangible natural disasters. They can be perceived, and they can affect people directly. That’s another reason why dragon worshippers pursue dragon disasters—and also why that alien possessed such strange abilities, isn’t it?”

“Correct! The dragons at the apex of anomalies twist people’s minds, and humans with fragile psyches are especially susceptible to their influence.” The hunter snapped her fingers. “The weaker the mind, the easier it is to interfere with; the more it’s interfered with, the weaker it becomes. Ordinary minds become warped and mutated in an endless vicious cycle, even gaining forbidden knowledge through resonance with the dragons. The most aberrant of all, the Impermanent Mages, are born this way.”

The huntress offhandedly tossed out a wealth of intelligence.

How confident was she in his ability to process all this?

Ordinary people would have been thrown into chaos long ago, bombarded with so many strange terms in such a short span.

The youth tried to chew over, break apart, and grind these concepts into dust, molding them into shapes that fit the grinding logic chains in his mind.

Dragon worshippers, their minds twisted by dragon disasters, gained knowledge from their resonance with the dragons, thus acquiring strange powers and becoming what she called “Impermanent Mages”...

What should his next question be?

Alice’s intuition was, it seemed, extremely sharp.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, he carefully weighed his words.

“It’s enough for me to have a general understanding of the situation. My next question: what, ultimately, is the purpose of the dragon worshippers—”

“Wrong, boy.”

He was interrupted before he finished.

“I’ve found something odd about you since we first met, and during our conversation just now, that feeling only grew stronger. So I have to ask: you didn’t seem surprised by the magic I and that rooster-headed guy used, and even now you’re framing your questions around the dragon worshippers. Why is that? From what I know—no, just thinking about it logically—wouldn’t the Impermanent Mages be the most curious concept for you?”

The blue-haired woman met his gaze directly.

“Wouldn’t anyone think so? Some lunatic infected with delusions or another runaway esper—that’s what people would assume. Yet you didn’t even ask what kind of power we used, or whether we were escapees from some research institute or school.”

“Even if you’re a weirdo who can calmly accept all these anomalies, it’s still strange. Too strange. Could it be… you already knew about the Impermanent Arts before today?”

In her brown eyes, his own face was faintly reflected.

He found a hint of discomfort on his own features.

Only at times like this did he feel envy toward Qin Qianbai—an expressionless, iron face was the best shield against any probing of the heart.

But Gongsun Ce couldn’t control his features as that girl did, nor his emotions like Shiyu Lianyi.

He experienced emotional ups and downs like any other, felt joy, anger, sorrow, and delight at others’ actions, and would shout and holler with friends like a fool.

Naturally, as a non-expert, he couldn’t hide his expressions perfectly either.

“I haven’t seen before—”

“Liar.”

The accusation was merciless.

She gave him no room to maneuver.

The youth sighed inwardly; as expected, Alice’s intuition was exceptionally keen.

“It is a lie. As you guessed, I have met someone who used this technique in the past. Though her abilities were nothing like yours, I believe they belonged to the same system.”

Alice frowned. “Then why did you…”

“Dragon-Slaying Arts, Impermanent Arts. So-called Impermanent Arts were developed solely for slaying dragons—a technique usable only by humans.”

Unconsciously, and beyond his control, his words came faster.

“But that’s all. I only know of its existence; I understand little of the art itself.”

He was wearing his glasses now, the world before him clear and sharp, with no distracting illusions. Yet as he spoke, memories long submerged resurfaced.

He seemed to see mist.

Gray-white, hazy, seeping gently into the room where the two sat facing each other, ready to drag him from his peaceful life and hurl him once more into the hell of his dreams.

Gongsun Ce removed his glasses and closed his eyes.

“It was three years ago, in the capital of the Kingdom, that I met that Impermanent Mage. May we end this topic here?”

He couldn’t see Alice’s expression, but her apologetic tone betrayed her regret.

“I didn’t know… I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t surprising.

Three years ago in Supebia, anyone who survived that place had witnessed unspeakable horrors.

Back then, humans melted in the mist.

Living bodies vanished bit by bit, or, quite literally, turned to sludge. Nearly all survivors had watched the entire process as those around them disappeared.

The survivors’ fragmented testimonies were so harrowing that even some rescue workers vomited.

It was a hell brought into the modern world, more brutal than any ancient record.

“It’s my fault for dwelling on the past. You have nothing to apologize for.”

The youth rubbed his brow and replaced his glasses.

It had been a long time since then. Time had smoothed the wounds, allowing him to mention the incident in daily conversation with a semblance of composure. But whenever he recalled the details, the helplessness and terror in his memory assailed him anew, dragging him down into an abyss.

It resembled what is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but he knew better than anyone that this was no mere pathology.

It would be more accurate to say it wasn’t just a simple illness.

The esper laughed at himself and spoke again: “Don’t worry about me. Please continue—about your purpose, the Impermanent Arts, and why you gave up the hunt to sit here wasting time with me.”

“You recover so quickly!”

“What else did you expect? Should I bury my face in my hands, weep a few times, and then wait for you to come comfort me before continuing? I may not be an expert, but I do have some sense of dignity.”

“I’m starting to think you have a strange masochistic streak.” Alice twirled a lock of hair. “I already told you my purpose: it’s to protect you—don’t give me that look, I really did cuff you for your own good. Dragon worshippers are the most dangerous Impermanent Mages, and you—a complete amateur—actually fought one head-on! Who knows if you’ll go mad in the next second or few minutes and lunge at me with your jaws wide open? In that situation, restraining you first was perfectly reasonable!”

The esper raised his hands like claws.

“Rawr.”