Synthesis-type adventurers

Chapter 58 Shifting the Blame East

Rhodes did not take the opportunity to finish off the enemy.

Because the [Analysis View] showed that even in this state, the woman's [Primordial Red Dragon Power] was still pumping at a high frequency, and the [Red Copper Dragon Skin] covering her body was enough to break the blade in his hand.

Even if the sword has the orange-level attribute [Soul Tear], it can't even leave a wound on the opponent, so how can its effect be triggered?

At this moment, Olivia is a tiger that has been slightly injured and temporarily blinded. Any attempt to get close will only result in her being torn to pieces by her wildly swinging claws.

Moreover, the crudely synthesized poison gas was losing its effectiveness, and the continuous torrential rain was diluting its concentration in the air.

But since we've gained some time, that's enough.

Although Olivia was temporarily blind and her sense of smell was severely impaired by the alchemical gas, with the stinging and astringent sensation filling her nasal cavity masking most of her scent, this did not diminish her destructive urges in the slightest.

"Come out! You disgusting lizard companion!" she roared furiously, slamming her fist into the wall to the side.

The half-meter-thick brick wall instantly disintegrated under the violence, and the rubble sprayed out in a fan shape, leaving the surrounding pile of rusty iron barrels riddled with holes and leaking liquid.

"I know you're here! I'm going to grind every bone in your body to dust and rip out your filthy heart!"

The red figure crashed through the mud and water, each swing of its arm cutting through the fierce howling wind in the rain.

Rhodes crouched behind a pile of dumped, abandoned industrial pipes, about 30 meters from Olivia.

This distance was just within the threshold of her auditory perception, and the roar of the downpour provided perfect environmental cover.

The word "familiar" used by the other party completely confirmed Rhodes's previous guess that it was because he had loaded the Red Dragon Blood attribute that she was chasing him.

He pressed down on his goggles to make sure the rubber edges adhered tightly to his skin, but the pungent chemical fumes, even after being diluted by rain and a damp cloth, still stung his nasal cavity and throat mucous membranes.

"Calm down, you crazy woman." Rod grabbed a hollow metal tube and spoke into the opening.

The sound waves were refracted and amplified by the inner wall of the pipe, creating multiple echoes in the narrow alley, completely blurring the coordinates of the location.

"You want to kill me? Fine. But before you do, don't you find it strange?"

"What's strange? Are you wondering why you're still alive?!"

Olivia's mind raced.

Although her vision was completely dark, her ears twitched slightly, and her vertical pupils, dripping with blood and tears, locked onto the general area of ​​the sound.

"Family? Have you ever seen a dragon's family member living such a miserable life, residing in a slum, and surviving by scavenging this kind of chemical waste?" Rhodes's tone was weary and rough, typical of a lowly wage slave. "If I were truly a descendant or family member of that red dragon, I would be sleeping in a nest filled with gold coins long ago. Why would I be here risking my life against a monster like you who could go berserk at any moment, all for a few orem?"

Olivia's punching motion faltered, her fist hovering in mid-air. The flames attached to it were doused by the rain, stirring up a sour white mist.

This line of reasoning... seems to make some sense?

Red dragons are greedy and arrogant, and their retinues usually inherit these bad habits completely, never tolerating living in a dead land filled with stench and waste.

"Then how do you explain the smell on you?!" Olivia maintained her fighting stance, her killing intent undiminished. "That nauseating sulfur smell, that's the bloodline etched into my bones! You think you can fool my nose with such a lame excuse?"

"Use your brain!" Rhodes raised his voice, his rage, aggrieved at being wrongly accused, carrying through the pipes. "That red dragon died two months ago, right by the dry riverbed. It was reduced to a mangled mess. Since you're hunting it, don't tell me you didn't know it was injured!"

"What...did you say?"

Olivia's body froze instantly, her violent aura seemed to have been stripped away from her spine, and she fell into a moment of listlessness in the rain.

"It exploded? No... impossible... I chased it for ten whole years. Although I did manage to injure it with a trap, how could it just die like that..."

"That's just the truth." Rhodes seized on the weakness in Olivia's defenses and continued to pierce her lie. "I was there. As an unlucky adventurer, I just wanted to scavenge for anything, see if I could pry some valuable materials out of that pile of rotten flesh. And what happened? I got nothing, and instead, because I got too close, I was afflicted by the 'Ember Curse' from its self-destruction!"

He poked half his head out from behind the pipe, pointing to his own eyeball—a gesture that reinforced the certainty in his tone, even if the other person couldn't see him.

"Why do I wear goggles? I have vertical pupils just like yours! Do you think I want these eyes? They're a curse, radiation, a disease caused by the loss of control over high-level magic!"

"This thing has given me nothing but auditory hallucinations and those damned vertical pupils in the middle of the night; it hasn't brought me a single penny! It's even attracted a madman like you!"

Olivia stood in the downpour, mud and water washing over her red leather jacket.

Her chest heaved rapidly; the impact of this information far outweighed the negligible corrosive effects of the alchemical gas on her body.

"I don't believe it..." Olivia gritted her teeth, her jaw chattering. "You're lying to me! It's so strong. Before I used the trap last time, I couldn't even inflict any effective damage on it... How could it die so easily!"

"Believe it or not." Rod's voice turned cold, with a sense of despair. "Go and see for yourself the dry riverbed twenty miles north of the city. See if there's a deep pit there now, and the surrounding land has all turned into glass."

"Also, you might as well ask around in this city; after all, the news of the dragon's fall isn't a secret."

He paused briefly, then added, "If I were its offspring or a member of its family, I would have moved the treasures from its lair and lived a good life long ago. Why would I need to waste my breath talking to you here?"

"By the way, here's a piece of advice—before you go berserk next time, you'd better put your hood on. Look at yourself, red scales, and those obvious vertical pupils."

At this point, Rhodes paused, his tone now tinged with a hint of sarcastic "concern": "In this rotten city, a half-dragon like you with pure blood is practically a walking gold mine."

"The bounty hunters and scum of the guild's dark side here will swarm around you like flies once they smell the scent of your 'rare bloodline'."

"You should know that there are plenty of wealthy people in this world who have a taste for this kind of thing. They would be happy to spend a fortune to buy a live dragon offspring and keep it as a caged collectible or a breeding tool."

"Although you are very strong, there are countless rats in the gutter here. If you don't want to cause a city-wide uproar and be hunted down, you should tone down your temper."

The sound of rain seemed to get louder.

Olivia stood there, motionless for a long time.

His eyelids, burned by the poison gas, were tightly closed, and red tears of blood streamed down his cheeks, dripping into the mud at his feet.

She was thinking.

Or rather, she was using her brain, which wasn't particularly good at logical reasoning, to try to process the information Rhodes gave her.

Although Olivia had never been to Rusty Harbor, the poor adventurer was right.

This is indeed a slum; the smell of garbage and decay here is undeniable.

Moreover, although that guy's aura had the stench of a red dragon, it was mixed with a strange, deathly feeling—like poisonous mushrooms growing on a rotting corpse, rather than fresh, flowing dragon blood.

Most importantly, there's that coordinate—the bank of the dry riverbed.

That direction...

Olivia suddenly turned around and faced north.

Even through the thick rain curtain dozens of kilometers away, her keen senses still detected the unusual fluctuations remaining in the air.

Those were scars left after a high-level magical burst, and even after two months, they still resonated at the elemental level.

"If you're lying..." Olivia began slowly, the murderous intent in her voice diminishing, replaced by a warning, "If there's no pit there, or if I find out that dragon is still alive... I'll come back and crush every bone in your body. I'll tear your lying mouth apart, making you regret ever being born."

The moment she finished speaking, she didn't linger any longer.

The red figure suddenly leaped up, exploding the soil beneath its feet into a deep crater.

Like a wounded beast, Olivia crashed through half a wall at the end of the alley and plunged into the vast rainy night without looking back, running wildly towards the north of the city.