All Things Are Contracts

Chapter 3: The Woman On The Dragons Back

The Blood Moon Demon Lord raised his hands high, activating the grand formation on the ground, energy surging. However, after waiting for a long time, he was answered only with silence.

“Why aren’t the demon corpses responding?” He immediately tried to activate the formation again, but still, no one, or rather no ‘corpse’, paid him any attention.

“What’s going on!” The Blood Moon Demon Lord began to panic. With a palm strike, he blasted a thatched house to pieces, revealing the coffin inside. The coffin lid was already open, but it was empty. Seeing this, the Blood Moon Demon Lord’s blood boiled. His Blood Moon Demon Corpse Grand Formation had been destroyed in advance!

“Mi Hongchen, you despicable bitch!” the Blood Moon Demon Lord roared.

The woman named Mi Hongchen scoffed, “You lured me here just to watch this ridiculous farce? Blood Moon Demon Lord, for you, the most cunning among the 99 demons under the Night Lord, to say such things, it seems you truly have the thickest skin among all the demons.”

Based on her reaction, the Blood Moon Demon Lord could easily guess that the destruction of the demon corpses was unrelated to her. But who could have avoided the restrictions and entered his trap to destroy the demon corpses? Is that person still here? What if they joined forces with Mi Hongchen? Thinking of this, the Blood Moon Demon Lord knew his only choice left was to flee.

He didn’t know that when Zhanyue was transported here, he had already landed inside the restrictions. Hiding in the water vat, Zhanyue heard half-understandingly, but he also guessed that the demon corpses mentioned by the male voice were probably the monsters he had destroyed with sunlight during the day.

“This is bad. I hope that woman definitely wins. If the man wins, I’m dead for sure!” Realizing this, Zhanyue could only pray silently. Then came the sounds of intense collisions as the two experts began to fight.

In an instant, the earth shook and the sky trembled. Houses collapsed one after another. Fire illuminated the dark night, blade lights tore through the black curtain, and the sounds of clashing weapons were incessant, along with roars and curses. Zhanyue even heard sounds like dragon roars, but overall, it seemed the woman had the absolute upper hand, with the man called the Blood Moon Demon Lord constantly being beaten down.

“Mi Hongchen do you really dare to kill me?! The Night Lord… the Night Lord won’t let you off!” The Blood Moon Demon Lord’s voice was full of fear.

“Doesn’t the Night Lord hate useless people the most? If trash like you dies, would he care? Besides, if the heavily injured Night Lord dares to show up, it’ll save us the trouble of finding him. You rats who only dare to appear at night, we’re all humans yet you turn against your own kind. It’s your betrayal that gave the Nightmare race a chance to breathe and become the great enemy of humanity. How many of your own kind have you indirectly killed? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Or billions? Die!” The woman’s tone was filled with anger.

“Ahhhhh! Mi Hongchen! You bitch… I’ll fight you to the death!”

After another intense battle, the outcome was clear.

“Mi Hongchen, I… I know I was wrong. Please… please spare me. I was just following the Night Lord’s orders. I… I was forced to do it.” Having completely lost the ability to fight back, the Blood Moon Demon Lord changed from his previous arrogant demeanor and knelt, begging for mercy.

“Go to hell and repent!” Mi Hongchen was decisive in her killing, not a merciful person at all. Thousands of evildoers had died at her hands. As the empire’s eldest princess and the empire’s number one female war god, this was a quality she had to possess.

A terrifying wave of heat swept the surroundings. Even Zhanyue, not far away, felt the unbearable heat. The once invincible Blood Moon Demon Lord turned to ashes in the fierce flames.

“It’s finally over.” Zhanyue relaxed, seeing that he hadn’t been discovered. He just needed to wait until daybreak to leave. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he felt something staring at him. He looked out through a crack in the water vat. Under the blood-red moonlight, a huge eye was staring at him… it was a dragon.

Zhanyue was so scared he wanted to scream, but he covered his mouth just in time.

“Come out, Ayue has already discovered you,” the woman said.

Knowing he couldn’t hide anymore, Zhanyue had to crawl out of the water vat. At first glance, he saw a huge red dragon standing not far away. It was very close to the image of Western dragons in his mind, but not excessively large, only three to four meters tall. The dragon was entirely red, with scorching flames burning on its tail. Just being close to it, one could feel waves of heat. The fire dragon’s eyes were warily fixed on Zhanyue.

Zhanyue’s second glance was at the woman beside the dragon. She was tall, wearing silver armor. The custom-made armor didn’t conceal her curvaceous figure. Her black hair was wavy, reaching her waist. With bright eyes and red lips, she was breathtakingly beautiful, with a golden dragon claw-like mark on her brow. The light in the woman’s eyes wasn’t gentle like water, but exceptionally sharp, like a sword. Even though the woman was very beautiful, Zhanyue didn’t dare to look at her for more than a moment. Her weapon seemed to be a knight’s lance. This woman was a true dragon rider!

“That Blood Moon Demon Lord was defeated by this human and dragon pair? No wonder he lost,” Zhanyue sighed. This human-dragon duo looked formidable at first glance, and Zhanyue suddenly had the idea of hugging that thick thigh for safety.

While he was sizing them up, they were also examining him. Strange attire and weak strength, yet appearing in this place. Mi Hongchen was extremely curious.

“You’re not from the Eastern Kingdom, are you?” Mi Hongchen asked.

Zhanyue shook his head. He decided to answer as little as possible; the more he said, the more mistakes he might make.

“You don’t recognize me?” Mi Hongchen asked curiously. Even if this person didn’t know her, he should know about the dragon beside her. As the only dragon rider on the entire World, it would be easy to guess her identity. Yet this person didn’t recognize her! Was he a Nightmare in disguise? No, that wasn’t right either. The Nightmare race should recognize her even more.

“I…” Zhanyue didn’t know how to answer. Should he know this woman or not?

“Alright, it seems you really don’t know me. Did you destroy all these demon corpses?” The woman pointed at the messy, broken coffins after the battle.

“Yes… during the day…” Zhanyue explained what he had done during the day. This was one of the few things he could honestly talk about.

After hearing Zhanyue’s words, the woman couldn’t help but look at him with more respect. “Your strength is weak, but your courage is not small. You actually used sunlight to destroy these demon corpses in advance. You’ve done me a great favor. How did you break through that old demon’s restrictions to get in here?”

“I don’t know. I was just walking and suddenly arrived at this mountain village, then I couldn’t get out no matter what,” Zhanyue honestly explained.

The woman found it more and more suspicious, but unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to dwell on these matters. She only knew that this person was weak but not a Nightmare, and she could judge that he wasn’t one of the Night Lord’s people.

“Perhaps he’s someone who grew up in a secret realm. They don’t have contact with the outside world for a long time, so they don’t recognize me. If that’s the case, he wouldn’t answer about his birth either. But it doesn’t matter. There are countless secret realms in the world, but very few can truly influence the world’s situation. However, it’s not a bad thing to be on good terms with these secret realm people, after all, they are humans too.” Thinking of this, Mi Hongchen put her mind at ease and stopped asking further questions. She wasn’t concerned about these trivial matters, and didn’t even ask for Zhanyue’s name.

“Let’s go. The wilderness at night is very dangerous. Besides Nightmares, there are also night beasts and night Clans. With your strength, if you’re a bit unlucky, you might not live to see dawn. I’ll take you to Sun City.” Mi Hongchen turned and stood on the dragon’s back.

“I… I have to get on too?” Zhanyue looked at the dragon’s displeased eyes, feeling a bit timid.

“Come on, Ayue. He did help us a lot. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to kill the Blood Moon Demon Lord so easily. Consider it repaying him a favor.” Mi Hongchen stroked the red dragon to soothe it.

Hearing this, the red dragon lowered its wing, finally allowing Zhanyue to climb onto its back using the wing.

The red dragon flapped its wings forcefully, raising clouds of dust, and instantly flew a thousand meters into the air. Zhanyue almost fell off, but Mi Hongchen steadied him.

“If you can’t stand steady, put your hand on my shoulder,” Mi Hongchen said. “Ayue has never carried anyone but me before, so it probably doesn’t have enough experience.”

Zhanyue nodded shyly and placed one hand on the woman’s right shoulder, gripping the shoulder armor. The woman was like a nail fixed to the dragon’s back, as steady as a mountain. Zhanyue finally felt at ease and began to enjoy the night view from high up.

He was shocked to discover that in the distance, more than ten huge pillars of light pierced through the night sky, shooting straight up. These pillars of light were incredibly bright, visible from a great distance, and quite spectacular.

“What is this?” Zhanyue asked instinctively.

Mi Hongchen said puzzledly, “You don’t even know about the illumination Towers? Each pillar of light is an illumination Tower. Every city with a population of over a million has an illumination Tower to protect it. The pillars of light you see are the locations of major cities. The Eastern Kingdom has a hundred cities, so there are a hundred illumination Towers. In this direction, we can see the illumination Towers of about a dozen nearby cities. The closest to us is Sun City.” Mi Hongchen explained patiently. She was more certain that this person came from some secret realm, in other words, from the countryside. People from secret realms were not uncommon in this world and weren’t particularly special.

“Oh…” Zhanyue knew nothing about this world, but riding a dragon on his first night here made his adventurous spirit quite excited. “When can I have my own dragon mount?” Fortunately, this was just his inner voice, otherwise, he would have been laughed at by everyone.

When he turned his head to look at the blood-colored moon hanging in the night sky, he felt dizzy and almost fainted.

“Hey! What are you doing?! You dare to look directly at the blood moon? Do you have a death wish?!” Mi Hongchen exclaimed. This person really knew nothing. She didn’t know how someone with such weak strength dared to venture out alone. If he hadn’t met her, dying in the wilderness would have been just a matter of time.

That blood moon was like a demon’s eye. Just one look made one feel like their soul was about to fly away. Zhanyue was terrified, only now realizing that the moon in this world couldn’t be looked at directly.

Soon, the red dragon arrived at Sun City. A majestic city revealed its imposing appearance under the illumination of the illumination Tower. The city’s protective formation didn’t obstruct the red dragon, allowing it to land on the top of a tower.

“You can live here from now on. Don’t leave the city carelessly unless necessary. The wilderness is really dangerous. A contractor of your level could easily lose their life,” Mi Hongchen advised. After saying this, she seemed about to turn and leave. She needed to go back and report her mission.

“Um… what should I call you…” Zhanyue asked.

Mi Hongchen smiled charmingly, “You’ll know sooner or later.”

Zhanyue’s face reddened, and he suddenly said again, “Um… can… can you give me some money?” He felt a bit embarrassed to ask, but this was the best opportunity and his skin was thick.

Mi Hongchen wasn’t too surprised. Instead, she thought Zhanyue was quite smart. If he really came from a secret realm, he might not have currency to survive here. So she took out a piece of paper and used her spiritual power to engrave a number on it.

“Take this to the Sun City Commerce Association to exchange for currency,” she said, then stood on the dragon’s back and flew away.

Watching the graceful figure leave, Zhanyue felt only how lucky he was. It could be said he met a noble person as soon as he went out. Otherwise, safely reaching the city probably wouldn’t have been so easy. Also, the language of this world was not the same as his original world, but he could communicate without barriers and understand their writing. Perhaps it was a gift left by the mysterious old man?

Zhanyue’s eyes bulged as he looked at the number written on that piece of paper. It was actually 100,000! Zhanyue didn’t know at this moment what an enormous sum this was. It was enough for him to live comfortably for a lifetime.