Starting from Zero

Chapter 158: Dragon Riders [Vol 5 Chapter 9]

Translator: blackberrry Editor: blackberrry

Upon arriving on the streets, Scott and the other Phantom Knights placed the Dragon Eggs onto the ground, cut their fingertips and dripped a drop of blood on to the eggs. When the black colored blood of the Phantom Knights was out of their bodies, it was immediately enveloped in blue flames which made the blood look like oil!

The demonic blood dropped onto the Dragon Egg, which immediately formed cracks, and a small head popped out from within. The newborn little Heavy Armored Dragon already had an extremely sharp pair of eyes and was using it to take in everything around it curiously.

The Phantom Knights helped to crack the remaining egg shells, to which the little dragon jumped out from. Upon leaving the egg shell, the little Dragon's body suddenly unleashed a transparent ripple, and then started to enlarge like inflatable doll. In 15 seconds, 10 fully mature Heavy Armored Dragons appeared in front of me, these 3 meter tall Dragons roared at the same time, forcing me to cover my ears. All of the citizens on the road were bewildered by the spectacular scene and looked at the huge monsters strange. When they heard the roars of the Heavy Armored Dragons, they immediately covered their ears and ran in panic. All of the Dragons might be excited upon being born, and their roars started turning sharper and sharper! The window panes around the area could not withstand the high frequency and shattered, littering the entire street with broken glasses!

The Phantom Knights realized that the Heavy Armored Dragons had caused troubled, and immediately got them to quieten down. After all, they had the 'master-slave' relationship, the 'little' dragons all immediately quietened down and obediently sat down and stopped moving. Right after that, the City Guards came running over. The leader dismounted from his horse. "What the hell happened here?"

"My apologies, my apologies, these Heavy Armored Dragons were overly excited upon being born!"

"But that doesn't mean they can just roar out loud! You have to pay for all of all the breakage!"

"Oh! I'll pay for it then!" I ended up paying a 100 Crystal Pieces (which consisted of a fine) before being able to resolve the matter!

The Phantom Knights were Level 850 while the Heavy Armored Dragons were level 750 monsters, thus upon being hatched, all of them were automatically raised to their max limit of Level 750, that was why they were so happy!

Clark ran out of the house somewhat unsteadily, most likely due to the roar from the Heavy Armored Dragons! He wanted to hand over the Dark Dragon Lord set to me. "Was that your Heavy Armored Dragons that roared?"

"Yeah! Their roars are extremely unpleasant to the ears, it was too high pitched and loud!"

"Give me a moment, I'll make something for you!" Clark dropped the armor in front of me and ran back into his shop.

I picked up the armor and took a look at it. There were not many changes to the armor, just that there were a few more lines in the description of the Armor due to the Gems. But all 4 Gems actually had changes to them. The Ice Crystal on the right arm that was sparkling did not have any changes to its attributes, but like the Fire Gem, the summons was different. It was the same for the other Gems, all of their summons were different, and I guessed that it might be due to the Demonification from the Dark Lord Dragon Set that could change any gems that were embedded into it.

The Fire Gem embedded at his waist had one additional line of information: Gives User Ability to control liquid silver, with its own passive control. This additional passive control meant that it could be controlled at will, but in addition to that, after meeting certain requirements to activate the silver liquid, even if I did not want it, it would move by itself. For example, I could now control the silver liquid as a form of defense, but if I was not consciously using it and suffered from an attack, it would automatically protect me.

As for the Ice Crystal, the original ability to summon a Yeti had been changed into summoning a Snow Demoness. I summoned Phantom and asked: "Do you know of Snow Demoness?"

"Snow Demoness are Level 400 Dark and Ice type monsters, they have no tangible bodies and are not afraid of being harmed by others, rely on offensive spells as their main form of attack, but know of very limited spells, all of which are Ice type spells, but they wield astonishing power in their spells. The Snow Demoness are innately compatible with Ice types, thus all the Ice Spells that are produced by them are extremely terrifying!"

After listening to the introduction, I moved on to the Poison Gem on the left side. The Poison Gem was embedded into the dragon head shaped pauldron on the left arm onto the dragon's forehead, making it look as though the Dragon had three eyes. The Poison Gem had almost similar properties as the Ice Crystal, the changes only to the summons. The Poison Gem's summon had turned from the King Butterfly into the Bewitching Butterfly, and as per usual, I sought Phantom for an explanation.

"Bewitching Butterflies are Level 350 monsters of the Underworld, their most proficient attacks lay in their extremely poisonous fog, they can create a dark fog within an area that prevents the enemies from having any visibility, and aside from disrupting sight, the black fog is itself extremely poisonous and corrosive. But the terrifying thing about these Bewitching Butterflies is that they are able to locate their enemies within the black fog and attack them, these attacks will induce a momentary dizziness as well as a plague effect that lasts for a long time! If the victim doesn't find a Light Priest or someone who has high-level antidotes, the victim will slowly die to the plague effect."

Listening to Phantom's explanation, I found the Bewitching Butterflies not too bad, as long as the enemies did not bring high-level antidotes or did not have any Priests by their sides, the Bewitching Butterflies would be able to kill them with certainty. But in [Zero], hardly anyone would have too full inventories, the carry weight of each Player was relatively huge, so almost everyone would carry many cures and medicine with them, even if they lacked them, they would have a Priest with them!

I took the Helmet up and had a look. The Fire Gem at the glabella had been changed to the waist, and the sparkling Black Water Gem had replaced it. The Black Water Gem was a darkness type treasure, and not putting it on the helmet would be belittling it! The Black Water Gem was originally able to summon the Underworld Skeletal hands, but it had changed as well, to be able to summon - War Skeletons.

This time, before even the need to ask, Phantom started to explain. "War Skeletons are Level 200 Undying Monsters and are a different type of skeletons. The War Skeletons are all equipped with armor and wield sabers and metal shields. Although their ATK is not very high and they do not know spells, but as they are Undying monsters, as long as they are not completely shattered, they can crawl back up forever, and they do not rely on individual strength to win but by numbers, they are definitely the ultimate horde that utilises their numbers to crush their enemies! Furthermore, the War Skeletons are not afraid of poison type, dark type, curse type, mental state type, wind type or water type spells. Fire-type spells cannot harm them much, which leaves the light type spells as their only kryptonite! Ordinarily, as long as they do not encounter many light Battle Priests, they will never be afraid of anything!"

Hehe, doesn't that mean the skeletons are even more powerful than the Silver Wasps? The number of skeletons summoned is 10 times that of the Player's Level, which also means I can summon over 3000 skeletons, although they are not very high leveled, but even a Dragon will have to reconsider fighting 3000 skeletons!

Immediately, I had the desire to summon them and started to equip the Dark Dragon Lord Set. After equipping everything, I entered the shop to look at myself in the mirror. Clark's shop sold armors and customers would always want to admire themselves when they chose an equipment, thus the large mirror in the shop. But when I entered, I realized that the mirror had been shattered, the roars from the Heavy Armored Dragon had shattered all glass, and not even the mirror was spared! But still, Ideas came from men, I immediately summoned Aldeina and got her to form a water mirror. This spell was used to reflect projectile type spells, but because of its extremely reflective surface, it was perfect to replace a mirror!

I checked myself out in the Water Mirror, due to their bright colors, the Gems on the Armor were very prominent and striking, but there were no other differences to the Armor. Although the Black Water Gem on the Helmet was glossy and black, it still looked extremely beautiful. First, I tested my control over the silver liquid. With a thought, the Fire Gem on my waist flashed with a light. Instantly, white lines flowed around the black armor in grooves, forming beautifully carved engravings, the silver liquid was extremely prominent and contrasted against the black armor and in a few seconds, my entire body was flowing with silver liquid (less my Helmet). The grooves along the Dark Dragon Lord Set was already very beautiful, but after being lined with the silver liquid, it increased the mysteriousness of the Dark Dragon Lord Set!

I tested it a few times, I could easily control the silver liquid with my mind, transforming into various shapes and sizes. I could even transform it into a form of me, but somehow, the silver liquid could no longer be retracted, although it made my black armor look extremely beautiful and striking, I felt that going out with it would only attract even more attention!

I could not do anything about the silver liquid. Thus I summoned the Snow Demoness. I summoned only one as we were not in battle. A white mist suddenly appeared in front of me and the temperature in the room dropped by a few degrees! The white mist dissipated and revealed a translucent beauty. It was not only her clothes, her entire body was translucent, and I could still see the things behind her body! Her body emitted a faint blue light and she looked exactly like an ice statue, just that she was even more lifelike and beautiful. Phantom had mentioned that they did not have any tangible bodies and I actually wanted to touch her, but right when I extended my hand out, I felt an extremely cold chill at my fingertips. I immediately retracted my fingers, I did not want to get a frostbite!

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I unsummoned the Snow Demoness and summoned the Bewitching Butterfly. I had completely underestimated the size of this thing, upon appearing, I was instantly forced to the ground. The Bewitching Butterfly was not like the ordinary butterfly but was a terrifying bug with an exoskeleton, it looked exactly like a large mosquito with armor (Imagine the Bugs in Starship Troopers)! On its back were a pair of Butterfly wings that were actually slightly scary! The wings by itself looked beautiful with a myriad of colors and had a few reflective surfaces, but the size of them was overboard! They had a wingspan of over 3 meters, and it was because of the wings that it could not fly inside the shop, but instead knocked me down onto the floor!

It was too heavy and had pinned me down, preventing me from crawling back up. Phantom suddenly spoke: "This Bewitching Butterfly can actually change its form, this is its original form, but you can get it to become smaller in size!"

It can even change its form?

I quickly ordered it to change, and truly, the gigantic bug transformed into a beautiful young girl. With one look, this butterfly looked like the City Lord's daughter, even the size was almost perfect, with a pair of butterfly wings on her back. The strangest thing was that this little girl's hand actually held onto a bow. That was the reason why Phantom said that the butterfly could attack even inside the black fog, it uses a bow! The transformed Butterfly girl was much smaller, and the pair of wings on its back was only a meter long, and did not fill up the entire room and allowed me to stand up!

Lastly, the War Skeletons. I unsummoned the Bewitching Butterfly and summoned a War Skeleton, this time carefully done so on the main street, afraid of any unforeseen circumstances! In the end, the Skeleton was ordinary, and nothing out of the unexpected came out. After calling out for the Skeleton, the rocks on the ground suddenly moved, the ground split apart slightly and a white skeleton hand arose from within. The entire skeleton crawled out from the split, and actually even remembered to use a stone to cover up the hole, it was truly considerate and conscious, it was afraid others would fall into the hole!

The skeleton that appeared was slightly hunchbacked, but even with that, it still stood at a height of over 1.8 meters to 1.9 meters tall, making me suspect that the Skeleton did not belong to a human! If it stood straight up, it would have been over 2 meters tall! To verify that it was not just its appearance, I summoned another 9 War Skeletons. All of them were the same, they were all larger in size, high-quality Skeletons were just that different, just by their appearance, they looked f**king powerful!

The skeletons were equipped with light armor that had a few rust spots, with sleeveless cuirasses while their lower body was completely covered with greaves and sabatons, they were actually well protected if not for the holes! They did not have any head armor which revealed their crude looking skeletal heads that had a few holes! On the Skeleton's back was a huge circular and gold shield that had many green patches on it, most likely made of bronze! On its waist was a wide saber that was extremely black, but the black was not formed by rust, but by blood that had dried and stained for too long. From the size of the massive saber, there was no meaning as to whether it was sharp or not, with its large bulk, it could simply smash enemies to death!

After looking through all the new summons, I unsummoned the skeleton. Coincidentally, Clark came running over holding onto many straps.

"What're those for?"

I took one and inspected it, it was not a strap but more like a connection to something, it looked like a tool to put onto the saddle but I did not recognize it!

Clark called a Phantom Knight over who led his Heavy Armored Dragon over. Clark got the Heavy Armored Dragon to lower its head and looped the leather strap over the Dragon. I immediately understood what the strap was for, it was a mouth leash! It was what black bears or hunting dogs would frequently wear, it could seal their mouths shut, it could not even open its mouth, much less make a sound! Clark handed 20 of these straps to me since Night Shade did not need one, its intellect was far higher and would never make random and useless sounds.

Looking around, I realized that we were fundamentally fully equipped. I summoned Night Shade and equipped him with the saddle equipped with the Transformation Gem, then got him to transform into a Heavy Armored Dragon, god! We had become extremely imposing! Although we were extremely imposing, it had become slightly troublesome, luckily I had wings, he was not high level enough, and was only 3 meters tall as a Heavy Armored Dragon, I did not know how I would mount him and get him to fly! The Phantom Knights were agile with their movements, they got their Heavy Armored Dragons to kneel and stepped onto their claws and jumped up their saddles. The scene was truly too majestic and imposing, unfortunately, Night Shade was not large enough, and I had to climb up on him!!

I led the Phantom Knights out of Lost City, our goal was to look for Archaic Hall City for the Phantom Knights to bath in the blood pool to evolve into Bloodied Knights, my level was not much of a priority, we would still meet monsters along the way, and by killing all of them, I was sure I would gain a few levels! I was not in an urgent need to train either, I could simply find a place and fight and practice my skills easily!

When we reached the gates of Lost City, we encountered a problem, the bridge was gone! The stone bridge had dropped to the lake surface, but due to the battle, the lake had been sucked dry, and the exposed bridge was broken into half, thus could not be used at the moment. Night Shade suddenly spoke up: "My Heavy Armored Dragon Form seems to be able to fly, sit tight, I'll test it out!"

"Wait, what? Test it out?"

Before I could even complete my sentence, Night Shade had leaped out of the Gates, and we were already 20 to 30 meters in the air. Night Shade immediately opened up its wings upon flight, but we were still falling, and right when we were about to touch the ground, Night Shade suddenly flap its wings, the sudden burst of force forced us upwards, we were actually flying.

Night Shade turned back and spoke to me: "This body has sufficient strength, but its flight is not as strong, to take flight, I will need a distance to run and gain speed. Furthermore, I don't think I can maintain flight for long!"

"No matter, all the Players are stuck to the ground now, we will hardly need to fly, and even if you can't maintain flight, I still have Lucky and the rest!"

Once out of the city, we quickly descended back to the ground. Although the Heavy Armored Dragons could fly, they were still monsters that belonged to the ground and were more proficient in running. To witness the 11 of us Heavy Armored Dragon Riders sprinting across the plains was so much more awesome than riding on horses! The Heavy Armored Dragons ran extremely quickly and were many times faster than horses. Soon enough, we reached the Dark Forest that I had crossed through two to three times, and would no longer get lost. We easily crossed the forest and got rid of countless Skeleton soldiers and Demon Trees. When we rushed out of the forest, we actually encountered a large party of Players.

A large group of cavalry had formed up in front of me, and their gigantic unit surprised me. It was not that I had never seen such a large force before, the war at Lost City was at a much larger scale than them, but it was my first time witnessing a large group of Players. I saw plenty over at Japan, but compared to them, China's population was far larger than Japan! The formation of Players in front of me had about fifty to sixty thousand people, and they were all cavalry, but how did I know that they were Players? Simple, NPCs would never be dressed in such bright and different colors! The army in front of me was a mix of all sorts of players, there were tall, short, fat and skinny Players. Even their mounts were different, many of them were actually riding on camels! There was not a need to mention their equipment, to be able to gather so many Players was a difficult action by itself, to have uniform equipment was something currently impossible!

Although it was a chance encounter, there was nothing much between us, thus I did not want to provoke them. I pulled on the reins of Night Shade and turned to another direction and walked a few steps, obviously revealing my intent of making way for them, which to me, was definitely already a sufficient show of face! The Phantom Knights retreated to the side along with me.

The people close to me saw that I made a path for them and revealed strange looks as they tried to look further into the forest, but could not see further. At this time, I noticed that their path of movement was not to enter the Dark Forest, but moving along the side of the Forest. I never had the intention of colliding into them head-on, but had coincidentally rushed out of the forest right in front of them, which made it feel as though I had appeared to block them, no wonder they were all staring at me cautiously!

Since they were not planning to enter the forest, there was no meaning for me to give way to them. I pulled on the reins, and Night Shade immediately turned and ran out of the forest with the Phantom Knights following behind.

"Hold up!" A shout suddenly came out from behind.

I got Night Shade to stop and turned, only to see a few Knights galloping over. The Phantom Knights formed a semi-circle by my side and surrounded the Three Knights. The three knights trembled upon seeing our formation, the Heavy Armored Dragons were truly too tall, and in the face of them, their mounts looked like tiny rhinoceros against mammoths. The three of them could only raise their heads to look at us.

"Are you a Player or NPC?"

The Phantom Knights and I were all dressed in full black, although the Dark Dragon Lord Set had been outlined with the silver liquid, but the overall was still black, adding that we were all on Heavy Armored Dragons, it gave the feeling that I was like an NPC Boss that had brought my brothers out to venture. Afterall, no Players had seen such awesome equipment before, much less 10 identical ones!

"I'm a Player, why?"

"You're a Player!" The three of them instantly spoke in casual tones and their postures became more casual. "What levels are all of you? All your things look awesome! And these Dragon Mounts" While speaking, he actually extended his hand out to touch the Heavy Armored Dragon.

A sharp roar immediately sounded out, causing their war mounts to fall to the ground in paralysis, the three of them were thrown down onto the ground! Clark's mouth leash was not good looking enough. Additionally, the Heavy Armored Dragon mouths were crucial in battle, and thus the leashes were not convenient, thus I had kept all of them since we could use the Heavy Armored Dragons in the wild to fight. Additionally, the Phantom Knights could control their mounts to not roar, thus I had chosen not to equip them on. How could I have known that this guy would actually try to touch the Heavy Armored Dragon, not knowing the difference in abilities, resulting in scaring the Dragon and making it roar out against the potential threat.

The Phantom Knight on the Heavy Armored Dragon comforted and consoled the Heavy Armored Dragon and finally got it to calm down, otherwise, the Player would have most likely been eaten by the Heavy Armored Dragon!