The Strongest in Our Neighborhood - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Our Town’s Strongest (105)
‘I can’t tell if it moved so fast because of the thick demonic energy, or if it crossed through space itself!’
Jang Gain gritted his teeth as he watched the demon’s hand falling toward him from above, drawing upon the Strong Thread with all his might to make it as thick and powerful as possible.
Since he hadn’t managed to sever it before, this time he’d pour everything he had into the cut.
Shrieeek! Boom—
The Strong Thread that burst forth from his all-out sword strike collided with the duke-rank demon’s hand, but instead of cleaving through, it exploded.
He dodged the demon’s hand and glanced down, noticing the flesh was sliced shallowly open.
“Tch, remarkable. To cut me even with layers of demonic energy wrapped around my hand! You’re clearly not a human transformed from a dragon, but a pure human—yet that sword strike is unbelievable. You really are human, aren’t you?”
Na’adra withdrew his hand and examined the wound, his eyes widening as he stared at Jang Gain in shock.
“I’m human. What else would I be?”
“You’re hardly human at all, the way you carry yourself. I never dreamed I’d have to exert myself this much just to kill one human. Consider yourself honored—I’ll face you with my true form!”
The man made of blood swelled to monstrous size in an instant, great horns sprouting from either side of his brow, his face transforming into something like a mountain goat’s, his arms thickening with crocodile-like plates of horn and scale, two pairs of wings erupting from his back, and the legs dangling in the air becoming thick and solid like a hippopotamus’s.
The pressure radiating from him was greater than three dragons combined, his bulk rivaling a dragon’s, his entire body drenched in crimson as though drowning in blood.
While the demon was shifting to his true form, Jang Gain saw his chance and swung his blade repeatedly, unleashing Strong Thread, but it barely pierced the thick wall of demonic energy—leaving only shallow scratches.
“You little rat!”
The moment Na’adra settled into his true form, he spread his wings wide and released hundreds of feathers in a torrent.
The feathers fluttered through the air, some streaking toward Jang Gain, others scattering across the surrounding space.
The instant he saw them, Jang Gain’s skin crawled.
‘Each feather is a ball of demonic energy! Damn it!’
The feathers filled every direction so completely that there was nowhere to run.
He pulled back and swung his blade—infused with Strong Thread—at the feathers rushing toward him, but instead of being cut, they exploded.
The shockwave alone felt like a fist slamming into his face.
Bang, bang, bang—boom, boom, boom, bang—
Dodging between feathers and striking at roughly a dozen of them with his blade, he felt blood pour from his nose just from the backlash, and the cumulative impact shattered his sword.
Jang Gain quickly pulled a spear from his Subspace, switching tactics to thrust at the feathers instead.
Even when he stabbed them with the spear, they still exploded, though the shockwave was somewhat weaker.
‘Damn it! There’s no end to this! At this rate, I really might just die blowing up feathers!’
Desperate to land at least one lethal blow on his opponent, he weaved between the feathers and prepared to strike toward where he sensed the strongest demonic energy—when a massive hand appeared beyond the barrage.
‘When did—?’
He thrust at the hand with his spear and stumbled backward, but the hand suddenly swelled to dozens of meters across.
It was so enormous there was no gap to escape through, and though he drove his spear through the demon’s palm, his body was caught.
The enlarged hand shrank back down, squeezing him motionless in its grip.
“Ugh! Ngh—ngh—!”
He strained against the crushing pressure bearing down on his entire body, trying to wrench himself free from the demon’s grasp, but he couldn’t break loose.
“At last. Got you, you miserable rat!”
Jang Gain was pinned in the demon’s fist with only his head protruding, so he could have spoken—but all that came from his mouth was a scream of agony.
The immense pressure crushed blood from his nose, eyes, and ears; his eyeballs swelled as if about to burst from their sockets, and the pressure on his abdomen forced his organs up through his esophagus. He heard bones cracking throughout his body, and if this continued much longer, they wouldn’t just break—they’d be pulverized.
The sound of bones snapping echoed in his ears, and he realized that in just a few more moments, his skeleton would crumble to dust.
In desperation, Jang Gain looked first toward the dragons.
‘D—damn it! I’m going to die!’
But the sight that met him brought only despair.
The Red Dragon Tapacnaru had one wing torn off and was being trampled beneath the feet of massive demons, while Noxscasarsis had both wings shredded to tatters and was coughing up blood continuously.
Virus was in the best condition of the three, but even he had his tail caught in the grip of a marquis-rank demon and was being slammed repeatedly against the floor of blood.
“You rat of a human, where is my finger that you severed? Could it be in that Subspace of yours?”
Na’adra demanded an answer, but Jang Gain’s lungs were so crushed by the pressure that he couldn’t speak.
Na’adra’s eyes flashed as he examined Jang Gain, and his head tilted in confusion.
“My finger’s not in the Subspace? You there! What did you do with my finger?”
Jang Gain couldn’t answer, only coughing up blood, but Na’adra didn’t loosen his grip.
“Wait. My finger—I found it! I sense it coming from that lizard! No—surely you didn’t feed my finger to that miserable lizard?”
“…….”
“Bariagona.”
The marquis-rank demon who had been slamming Virus against the ground by the tail turned his head at the sound of Na’adra’s voice.
“Yes. Did you call for me?”
“That lizard you’re holding—don’t kill it just yet.”
“Very well, understood.”
Even after the marquis-rank demon stopped slamming him, Virus remained limp and unconscious.
Na’adra crossed the hundreds of meters between them in just two strides, reaching out to grasp the unconscious Virus by the horn and lift his head.
“Wretched little lizard, did you dare to eat my finger?”
As Na’adra shook him by the horn, Virus’s eyes finally fluttered open.
“Grgh—! Yes, I ate it. It was rather tasty, actually!”
“You insolent little lizard. Since you’ve eaten my finger, I’ll make sure to devour you.”
Just as Na’adra opened his mouth wide to bite Virus’s neck, light suddenly blazed forth from Jang Gain’s forehead.
Flash—
And the Demonic Qi touched by that light began to scatter like clouds pushed by wind.
Na’adra, who had been about to tear at Virus’s throat, looked down with a puzzled expression at Jang Gain clutched in his right hand.
From the hand bathed in light, Demonic Energy curled upward as black smoke.
“What is this? That’s Holy Power! But what exactly are you planning to do with such a pittance of Holy Power?”
Crack-crack-crack-crack—
At that moment, the dark clouds blanketing the sky suddenly tore open as if cut by a blade, splitting left and right. And through the gap, a dragon wreathed in brilliant blue light thrust forward its head.
Light flooded into the darkness-shrouded world, and every eye turned skyward.
‘That’s the dragon I grabbed by the tail on Daecheonsan Mountain!’
Remarkably, from the moment light began streaming from Jang Gain’s forehead, he found himself able to draw shallow breaths even beneath the suffocating pressure. And with each breath, a measure of clarity began to return to his mind.
The dragon cast its gaze about before spotting Jang Gain held fast in Na’adra’s grasp, and its eyes blazed with recognition.
“At last I’ve found you! The human who interfered with my Ascension!”
The dragon spoke in the language of Zhongyuan, which only Jang Gain could understand.
Moments later, as the dragon shredded the dark clouds left and right and thrust its enormous body forward, the murk splitting from east to west sky let loose daylight in a torrent.
Na’adra’s eyes flickered at the sight.
“This space was forged by my own power—torn asunder in a single stroke?”
Na’adra fixed his gaze on the dragon hurtling toward him through the torn space and bared his razor-sharp fangs.
“How long has it been since I’ve laid eyes on a being from the Heavenly Realm! Come then!”
He flung away the horns of Virus he’d been grasping and Jang Gain from his hand, then flapped his wings and soared toward the dragon.
“I came to kill the human who interfered with my Ascension, but now that I’ve caught sight of a Demonic Being so nauseating, I cannot simply let this pass.”
Rumble-rumble-rumble, crash-crash-crash—
As the dragon undulated once, torrents of Lightning rained down simultaneously upon Na’adra, the other Demonic Beings, and the Demonic Beasts.
Na’adra stretched both hands toward the sky, conjuring a massive magical barrier to intercept the Lightning. But the Demonic Beasts took the full force and burst apart like exploding fireworks.
“Bariagona! Aid me!”
“Yes.”
After blocking the Lightning once, Na’adra summoned a Marquis-rank Demonic Being who, like himself, had defended against the Lightning with magic, and together they began to battle the dragon.
While Na’adra and Bariagona unleashed a torrent of spells and the dragon answered with spells of its own, Jang Gain drank Potions from his Subspace, desperately clinging to consciousness that threatened to slip away.
‘One mountain after another, they say—barely surviving the Demonic Beings and now a dragon appears.’
Watching the dragon clash with the two Demonic Beings, Jang Gain felt despair settle over him.
He had no means to face even a single one of these creatures, yet the dragon was demonstrating overwhelming superiority against two of them.
“Virus, Gain, come here! Quickly!”
At that moment, Noxscasarsis called out to Virus and Jang Gain.
Turning his head, Jang Gain saw him retrieving a scroll from his Subspace.
Jang Gain could barely stand, but he gritted his teeth and made his way toward Noxscasarsis.
“Noxscasarsis, Virus’s Spatial Transfer Scroll didn’t work earlier, right? Is yours different?”
“Before, a Duke-rank Demonic Being had isolated this space from this world, but now that a being from the Heavenly Realm has torn the space apart, the Spatial Transfer magic should activate.”
“Right. Let’s just pray it works.”
The moment Jang Gain and Virus stumbled within the range of the Spatial Transfer, Noxscasarsis hastily tore the scroll.
Flash—
In an instant, glowing runes spread through the air, encircling the three dragons and Jang Gain. The light intensified, then vanished in a heartbeat, and the three dragons and Jang Gain along with them disappeared.
“Damn it all—”
The dragon watched Jang Gain and the dragons vanish through Spatial Transfer but had no opportunity to pursue them while locked in fierce combat with the two Demonic Beings.
* * *
Mayarbanta, the Ancient Dragon who had been enjoying his nap, felt someone Spatially Transfer into his Lair and snapped his eyes open.
“Who is it? Not Herna, and it seems to be Noxscasarsis? Sensing multiple auras, it looks as though Noxscasarsis has come with friends—but what’s this? Why are all these auras flickering like dying embers?”
Alarmed, he rushed outside to find three blood-soaked dragons and one human collapsed at the Lair entrance.
“Noxscasarsis, what in the world happened? Who did this to you?”
“Ah, Father. Please heal me and my friends first.”
“Of course. Let’s treat you first. Great Heal!”
As Mayarbanta cast his healing magic, the grievous wounds of the four began to mend rapidly.
‘Is this the power of an Ancient Dragon? My wounds were severe, and the dragons’ wounds were grave as well, yet he heals them all at once—’
Jang Gain felt his injuries, which had stubbornly refused to heal even after drinking potions, mending swiftly, and with each passing moment his breathing grew easier. He exhaled a quiet breath of relief.
“Hhgh! I think I’ll live now. Thank you, Father.”
After some thirty minutes of healing magic, Noxscasarsis, his face visibly eased, bowed to his father, and Jang Gain, Virus, and Tapacnaru offered their thanks as well.
Mayarbanta, his eyes still burning with fury, asked his question.
“Who did this to you?”
“A war broke out between the Kram Empire and the Bermuda Alliance, and a Gate connected to the Demon Realm opened. Duke-rank and Marquis-rank Demonic Beings poured through, and we were wounded fighting them.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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