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EDEH Chapter 1

Landing

“They were born in an age of collapse, died on the altar of faith.”

 

[Spacecraft has reached the atmosphere, continuing descent.]

 

“BOOM!!” Pale lightning illuminated the dark sky.

 

[Currently in thunderstorm area, danger!!! Emergency evasion activated, good luck—]

 

 

“So beautiful.”

 

“Haven’t seen such delicate, fair skin in so long, damn this radiation.”

 

“Tsk tsk, looks quite young too, wonder if he’s of age.”

 

“Young and exquisite, would taste even better!”

 

Sticky gazes brazenly examined the youth on the platform. He was curled up on the carpet, clothes torn and tattered, the half-covered appearance more enticing than complete nakedness. His exposed toes were round and fair, curled up in a way that inspired pity.

 

[Multiple human life forms detected, language conversion chip activated.]

 

His long black lashes pressed against his lower eyelids, somewhat itchy.

 

Sang Jue’s eyelids felt heavy, only vaguely seeing the crowd below, countless gazes focused on him.

 

“Whoa, he seems to be waking up!”

 

“Such a small one, I wonder if he can handle me…”

 

“Tsk, win first before you talk!”

 

Sang Jue had a terrible headache, chaotic voices buzzing in his head, and a foul stench lingering at his nose.

 

“So noisy.”

 

“…” The entire venue burst into laughter, “What a little spitfire!”

 

Sang Jue propped himself up, causing a clatter of iron chains. Looking down, he discovered his ankles were locked with iron chains, the cold texture making his skin shiver.

 

He was deep inside a closed underground fighting arena, about seventy to eighty square meters, roughly the size of two classrooms, packed with male humans wearing white masks.

 

They raised their hands high, whistling, and many wore only thin white tank tops, their heavy sweat stench almost making Sang Jue faint.

 

The host wearing a black mask shouted: “Same old rules, winner takes the beauty—which two will go first!?”

 

“Me! Watch me knock you all down!” A muscle-bound man stepped onto the platform.

 

“And the other?”

 

“Me!” An equally matched strongman walked up from the other side of the fighting platform.

 

Before the fight began, they both glanced at Sang Jue, their eyes filled with determination to win.

 

Sang Jue: “…”

 

Where there are many males, the spring atmosphere is particularly intense—these are all people who want to take him home to mate.

 

This was nothing unusual; most males in nature win female favor through fighting or displays of beauty.

 

The problem was, Sang Jue didn’t want to mate at the moment, and his true form was an evil dragon, a **male** evil dragon! These people all reeked of odors he disliked.

 

The little evil dragon pinched his nose—males who don’t bathe don’t deserve mating rights.

 

“Beat the hell out of him!!”

 

The two on the platform fought fiercely, fist to flesh. They were both ruthless, targeting vital spots, seizing every opportunity to grab each other’s limbs, waist, or entire body, until they slammed their opponent hard onto the ground with a thunderous crash.

 

“Those muscles are useless? Strangle him!”

 

“Can you do it or not? If not, let me up!”

 

“If you can’t win, don’t waste time, get down here!!”

 

In the excited crowd, a well-dressed man kept staring directly at Sang Jue.

 

Like the host, he wore a black mask and seemed to be one of the arena’s organizers, his gray pupils filled with desire. Seeing Sang Jue look over, the man licked his dry lips and silently mouthed a few words.

 

—I regret it.

 

Sang Jue, through the chaotic and noisy crowd, caught a familiar scent from the man—this bastard was the one who brought him here!

 

A day ago, Sang Jue had just awakened from his hibernation pod.

 

The spacecraft had passed through this planet’s atmosphere, but unexpectedly, when descending to two thousand meters altitude, lightning struck the craft directly. To avoid total destruction, the spacecraft’s emergency evasion program ejected him.

 

Sang Jue crashed into ruins, and before losing consciousness, he only saw several humans in black masks approaching him. One of them injected him with something, causing him to completely lose the ability to resist.

 

The fighting platform was about to determine a winner.

 

The man who entered later was being strangled by his opponent, his face turning red, eyes bloodshot, yet maintaining a stubborn refusal to surrender.

 

Sang Jue watched the show expressionlessly. Having just woken up, he still needed time to recover his strength.

 

Finding sitting on the ground too tiring, he propped up his chin, appearing both obedient and calm.

 

He didn’t quite understand why, as a male evil dragon, these people wanted to take him home when they couldn’t even mate with him. Why were they trying so hard?

 

After thinking it over, Sang Jue reached a conclusion—perhaps the disaster had lowered this planet’s human intelligence, making them unable to distinguish between male and female.

 

Yes, that must be it.

 

The strongman was really about to be strangled to death, but unfortunately, the host called a stop.

 

He knelt on the ground coughing violently, but no one paid attention to the loser. All eyes focused on the victor raising his fist in celebration: “Anyone who disagrees, come fight!!”

 

“Winner #1 gets thirty minutes of rest time. Who’s next!?”

 

“Let me try!” A man took off his jacket and jumped onto the platform.

 

“Good! So who will face him?”

 

“Me.” A light, youthful voice rang in everyone’s ears.

 

The host looked around and discovered the speaker was actually this match’s prize—the beautiful young man locked in iron chains.

 

The youth said innocently: “If you want to take me home, shouldn’t you fight me first?”

 

“…”

 

“Hahahahaha! This little thing is really interesting!”

 

The host walked over to Sang Jue, crouched down with a mocking laugh: “Little guy, one punch from them might finish you off. If you want to fight, why not wait for the final winner to appear, then have a good fight in bed—Ahh!!!”

 

Sang Jue grabbed his neck and twisted hard, bones making an unbearable cracking sound.

 

“It hurts—let go!!”

 

Sang Jue maintained that innocent expression, but showed no mercy in his actions. He grabbed the host’s hair and slammed his head into the ground, each blow harder than the last, until blood soaked the carpet before releasing him.

 

The host collapsed on the ground, barely breathing.

 

The spectators below immediately fell silent, some whispering: “Damn! Did we capture a mutant?”

 

“Impossible! We tested this little thing’s contamination index before—he’s definitely a normal human.”

 

“He clearly hasn’t trained before. How could someone who’s not a mutant slam people around like that?”

 

Sang Jue pulled the key from the host’s waist to unlock the chains, and casually put on the host’s jacket to cover his tattered clothes.

 

Barefoot, he walked down from the platform step by step.

 

“Does anyone want to fight me?” Sang Jue tilted his head, “If not, I’m leaving.”

 

Not understanding the situation, no one dared to move for the moment.

 

The blood-faced, dying host used his last breath to roar: “Stop him! I swear he’s not a mutant!!”

 

Sang Jue unhappily clenched his fists—he needed to end this quickly.

 

He didn’t know what was in that injection from before, but his limbs still felt somewhat weak. He glanced at the nearest exit and formed a plan.

 

Hearing the host’s words, the masked men who had been hesitating rushed forward—as long as he wasn’t a mutant, they wouldn’t panic, and were even extremely excited.

 

In their view, Sang Jue surrounded by them was like a sheep among wolves, the only question being which wolf would catch him.

 

“Little thing, don’t bother trying to escape—”

 

As soon as the words left his mouth, the man was grabbed by the ‘little thing.’

 

The youth’s hands weren’t large, only able to half-circle his forearm. Thinking the youth was seeking protection, he had just begun to show a sticky smile when his body suddenly went airborne.

 

Before he could react, he was like the defeated #2 from earlier, directly swung up by the youth and hurled into the crowd, crushing a whole group of people!

 

Screams filled the air. Sang Jue broke through the encirclement and rushed straight for the nearest exit, but was blocked by the gray-eyed man who had injected him: “Such regret… I should have kept you hidden at home from the start.”

 

Sang Jue directly grabbed his outstretched hand and twisted it hard.

 

The gray-eyed man cried out in pain: “You can’t escape! Do you know where you are? There are infection zones everywhere around here. Go ahead and die if you’re not afraid!”

 

Sang Jue still wanted to twist off his head—but the people behind had already caught up, and he couldn’t waste time.

 

While retreating, he said seriously: “When I complete my mission, I’ll definitely come back and kill you!”

 

Sang Jue stepped into sewage water. He froze for a second, not expecting this to be a literal underground fighting arena—

 

Surrounding him were interconnected metal sewage pipes, about four meters in diameter, nearly three Sang Jues tall.

 

Every step splashed water, echoes reverberating through the sewers, with people in relentless pursuit behind him.

 

“Don’t let him get away!”

 

“Damn it, so many people and you still let him escape, bunch of useless trash!!”

 

Sang Jue couldn’t spare time to observe his surroundings. The water flow was dirty and rapid, the air stuffy and foul. He could only keep running along the direction of the sewage flow, catching sight of a faint light in the distance.

 

“Stop right there!!”

 

“That’s the spore infection zone ahead! Do you fucking want to die!!”

 

“Shit! He went in without a protective mask, he’s dead for sure!”

 

“Don’t chase him anymore. Once he goes in, he’ll get infected. At most we’ll bring back a corpse!”

 

Sang Jue kept running until he could see light before stopping.

 

“Cough… cough cough…”

 

This section of the sewer had visible white dust floating in it—probably the spores those people mentioned.

 

Spores? Infection?

 

It looked like no one had been here for a long time. The pipes were covered in rust, with wet, sticky moss attached to them. Some white, lingzhi-like porous fungal plants emerged from the gaps in the metal above the sewage, and the air carried a damp, moldy smell.

 

In the distance, sewage cascaded down through the pipes, with the sound of rushing water coming from outside.

 

The closer he got to the exit, the more Sang Jue’s head hurt. Various strange, subtle sounds poured into his brain, chaotic and bizarre.

 

So noisy…

 

Sang Jue supported himself against the wall, moving step by step toward the exit.

 

His pale feet stepped on the pipe’s edge, natural light illuminating half his face, fine eyelashes taking on a faint golden hue, his pupils reflecting bewilderment in the interplay of light and shadow.

 

He stared blankly at everything before him.

 

Below the sewer exit was a turbulent river, with only ruins and rubble on both banks. The cross-river bridge in the distance was shattered into pieces, only the steel reinforcement refusing to give up, continuing to hold the fragments together.

 

Abandoned cars were stuck at the edge of the broken bridge, precariously balanced, with the rushing river below.

 

The city had almost entirely become vast ruins.

 

Two buildings to the side leaned against each other, depending on one another for survival. Black birds occasionally crashed into the broken windows, glass shards reflecting light as they fell rapidly.

 

Among the broken tiles and crumbling walls, there was only endless silence—no human voices could be heard, no traces of civilized order could be seen.

 

 

With his head splitting in pain, Sang Jue tumbled down, choking on a lot of water. The turbulent river swept him forward, and he couldn’t control his body at all.

 

In his daze, he seemed to hear a distant conversation that felt like yesterday—

 

The night before coming to this planet, Dr. Anya sat by his bedside, her beautiful dark chestnut curls hanging by her shoulders.

 

“Don’t be afraid. When our little evil dragon wakes up from his sleep, we’ll have reached our destination coordinates. 007 will always be with you.”

 

Sang Jue was going to carry out a difficult world-saving mission.

 

A few months ago, their home planet detected another planet with human civilization, but this planet had suffered rapid surface movements that caused oceanic and terrestrial displacement, with huge cracks and abysses appearing everywhere.

 

Most terrifyingly, the cracks emitted a strange substance that continuously polluted everything in the world. All living beings except humans mutated in indescribable directions.

 

The planet fell into deathly silence, cities became ruins…

 

Human civilization was dying, resources were scarce, the environment was harsh—they had reached their last stand.

 

And Sang Jue was to bring precious resources there, bringing hope of revival to this planet.

 

Dr. Anya patted his head: “Let’s go over the mission one last time.”

 

Sang Jue: “Provide whatever help I can to the humans of this planet, and deliver the resources in the spacecraft to the Prince, until humans rebuild their homeland.”

 

“Prince” was a title Sang Jue had privately bestowed.

 

Sang Jue’s true form was an evil dragon who had grown up listening to fairy tales. Not knowing where he was born or who his parents were, he had always believed he was the evil dragon from fairy tales, destined to steal away princesses and then be defeated by princes.

 

But Sang Jue didn’t want to steal princesses—he wanted to be the prince’s knight, saving lost civilizations together.

 

For many years, this was the first time Dr. Anya had entrusted him with such an important task. He had to complete it well, even though he couldn’t do anything—couldn’t do research, couldn’t do construction, couldn’t farm, and didn’t even know why the doctor had chosen him for this mission.

 

He was just a little evil dragon.

 

With a tiny bit of combat power.

 

The doctor confirmed with him again: “What are the standards for a prince?”

 

Sang Jue: “Young, virtuous, powerful, tolerant of all things—and must be good to me.”

 

The doctor smiled: “That’s right.”

 

Sang Jue asked: “What if when I arrive, all the humans on this planet are dead?”

 

The doctor said slowly: “Then our little evil dragon will be very lonely.”

 

Sang Jue said: “I’m not afraid of loneliness. Will you wait for me to come home on our home planet?”

 

“Alright, let’s not talk about the mission anymore.” The doctor smiled gently, “Does Sang Jue want to hear a story today?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The doctor spoke with her characteristic gentleness: “Once upon a time, there was a happy and peaceful kingdom. It was prosperous and lively, and people lived very happily. Suddenly one day, they were attacked by monsters. To protect his people, the young prince voluntarily accepted a witch’s curse and became a powerful evil dragon…”

 

 

Sang Jue fell asleep to the bedtime fairy tale, drifting through the vast universe with the spacecraft for an unknown amount of time, until he was finally awakened by 007 a day ago.

 

He still remembered the scene he saw when the spacecraft descended to two thousand meters altitude—silver-white lightning tore through the dim view, distant valleys shrouded in smoky yellow clouds.

 

Directly below was a city in ruins, broken walls and rubble everywhere, countless skyscrapers tilted and collapsed, gray and dilapidated, as if they would crash down with the slightest push.

 

But that wasn’t the most terrifying part.

 

A massive crack like an abyss cut across the forest and city ruins, cruelly tearing them apart.

 

He heard ancient, deep, strange sounds coming from the crack, as if calling to him, yearning for him, making him shudder—all his scales were about to stand on end.

 

Then, damn his luck, lightning struck the spacecraft, he was ejected, and crashed into the ruins.

 

The bad guys in black masks tied him up in the city sewers—a bunch of dragon-disgusting stinky things wanted to court him.

 

So smelly.

 

You should know, evil dragons only like delicate, beautiful, sparkling creatures, not stinky things.

 

 

[007 Diary Entry 1]

 

[I successfully landed alongside the little evil dragon, safe and sound.

 

There are still signs of human life on the planet, worth celebrating.

 

I wrote myself a string of code to simulate joyful emotions.

 

Though false, it is my own unique truth.]

 

##


 


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