"
The moment the curse — one that clung to him like a parasite — was mentioned, Burdak the One-Eyed Dragon's face fell. His enormous body slumped to the ground, and his eyes gazed pleadingly up at the ant-like figure of Leylin before him. The scene was quite comical.
"This… is very troublesome…"
Leylin furrowed his brow deeply, looking as though the matter were truly thorny.
"Why not try to reconcile with that Disaster Lord? After all, it's currently in a dormant period and probably wouldn't want to provoke an outside powerhouse of laws too severely?"
Leylin put forward a suggestion.
"Absolutely not — it's still in possession of its Zoro Gem… I mean… no, Burdak hasn't stolen anything, it's all a misunderstanding…"
The One-Eyed Dragon blurted out the truth without even being pressed.
"So that's how it is…"
Leylin turned on his heel to leave. He had no interest in offending a far more powerful Disaster Lord on behalf of a thief.
"Wait… wait! My friend, Burdak can help you!"
Seeing Leylin's intention to leave, the One-Eyed Dragon grew frantic. Having been tormented by the injuries on his body for so long, who could know better than him that, apart from the Disaster Lord, the
"Oh? Help me?"
Leylin paused and studied the One-Eyed Dragon's massive frame and yellow eyes with interest: "Do you know what I need?"
"No…"
The One-Eyed Dragon shook his head honestly: "But Burdak once caught your scent in the northern Disaster Lands…"
"My scent…" Leylin couldn't help but find it simultaneously amusing and exasperating, though he knew these One-Eyed Dragons possessed extraordinarily keen senses of smell.
More importantly, they didn't simply detect particles in the air — they tracked by the scent of one's soul. As a result, even after tens of thousands of years, anything that had once come into contact with Leylin could not escape its nose.
"Yes… it was a small region of native activity. At its very center, I detected your aura… quite weak, too. Both that tribe and the you of that time!"
A cunning gleam flickered in the One-Eyed Dragon's yellow eye. "I imagine… seeking out the friendships forged in your youth is also one of the reasons you came to the Dream World?"
"So it really did meet
Leylin nodded. "However… you're still far too naive if you think I'd offend a Calamity Lord over a handful of natives."
"The value of those natives, even stacked on top of whatever emotional attachment I might harbor, doesn't come close to the potential cost…"
In terms of his actual relationship with Gillian and her people, it had been nothing more than a chance encounter where both sides took what they needed — and Leylin had actually given more than he received. Seeing them again would merely be a matter of convenience.
And to cure a complex curse and earn the enmity of a Calamity Lord just to obtain this information? Leylin wasn't that stupid.
"I hate Wizards the most — all so cold-blooded, brimming with icy calculation… Don't you know that in the Origin World, being helpful and altruistic is supposed to be a admirable virtue?"
The One-Eyed Dragon grumbled in discontent.
"That is precisely why the Origin World was dragged into one catastrophe after another, falling from a mid-tier world to the low-tier world it is now — until it faded into total obscurity, with perhaps only you remaining as a being of laws…"
Leylin fixed the One-Eyed Dragon with his gaze, making the creature involuntarily avert its eyes. "Did you really think I hadn't read the *Epic of the Rise and Fall of Origin*?"
"Fine! Your boundless knowledge means you'll never come out at a loss! I really ought to add this to my impression of Wizards and pass it along to the rest of my kind…"
The One-Eyed Dragon looked thoroughly dejected. "You win! Out with it — what will it take for you to agree to heal me?"
"There we go."
Leylin turned back, a smile on his face.
The news of a few natives alone was never going to sway his decision, but throw in a seventh-tier dragon of laws and it was just about enough.
"First… the [Dragon Covenant] between us needs to be amended! Then, give me the information about those natives as an addendum… And further… even if the Calamity Lord eventually tracks me down, I will have been nothing more than a physician you hired — with absolutely no connection to this affair whatsoever… All of the above must be sworn upon your law-grade true spirit, to the Astral Plane and the River of
Having spent time as a Hell Lord and mingling in the depths of Hell, Leylin's expertise in binding contracts now rivaled that of the great archdevils. The terms he dictated made the One-Eyed Dragon break into a cold sweat.
"Heavens… even the Tie'ermannians of the Astral Plane, who are famous for their ruthless contracts, couldn't draft something this strict and one-sided…"
Bodach clutched its massive dragon claws to its head and wailed.
A pity, really. This was a seller's market — it had no choice but to beg Leylin to solve its problem. There was simply no room to refuse.
"Your body is far too large — change into something like me!"
After both had sworn soul oaths using their rules true spirits, Leylin looked at the one-eyed dragon that was as massive as a mountain and furrowed his brow.
"That's simple enough..." Bodach agreed readily. Its entire body shrank and melted under a purple glow, eventually taking on the form of a middle-aged man with long purple hair.
However, due to what appeared to be a racial aesthetic difference, there was only a single yellow vertical eye on the creature's face, surrounded by a dense web of red veins that gave it a rather terrifying appearance.
Leylin wasn't particularly bothered by it. There were all sorts of bizarre humanoid species in the Astral Plane, and the Dream World was an especially common breeding ground for them — humanoid beings with grotesque appearances were nothing out of the ordinary.
"There is, however, one issue..."
Leylin glanced at the backs of Bodach's hands and the areas around its arms and shoulders. A ring of purple eye markings still stubbornly floated there, impossible to erase no matter what.
"Look at this... what a hassle..."
Bodach casually crushed a purple eyeball between its fingers. A flood of yellow pus rolled onto the ground, corroding everything it touched and boring several deep, dark holes into the surface.
And around where the purple eyeball had been, a fresh ring of new eyes surfaced — these ones even more elongated and narrow, radiating what seemed to be intense loathing and hatred.
"You stole from someone else in the first place — you've got the nerve to complain about it?"
Leylin rolled his eyes in exasperation. But his own actions had been even more reprehensible than Bodach's, and since he needed to make use of the creature now, he really had no standing to cast blame.
"The malice embedded in these will take me some time to deal with..."
Leylin extended his right hand and touched a bit of the pus with his index finger. The highly corrosive substance, of course, posed no threat whatsoever to him. It was burned to ash by a wisp of green phosphorescent fire.
Above the green flames, wisps of dark energy emerged and slowly coalesced into several wailing faces before gradually dissipating.
"A solid mastery of soul-related research — quite the expert..."
Leylin nodded, a spark of motivation and keen interest lighting up in his eyes.
"Leylin... my friend, according to the contract, you must first resolve at least a portion of the curse and prove that your abilities are effective before anything else..."
Bodach's one-eyed middle-aged form stared at Leylin with eager, pleading eyes, its single eye face filled with longing.
"I can't remove this curse immediately, but disrupting the other party's tracking is no problem at all. Put this on!"
Leylin rummaged through his storage artifact and found a silver headband, tossing it directly to Bodach.
The headband was entirely silver, with strange blood-red veins running across its surface, resembling human blood vessels that squirmed faintly.
"Hm? Leylin, have you been to the Dark Mist World too? The Duvarin people there are quite fond of this style of accessory..."
Bodach turned the headband over and over, examining it closely, even sniffing it carefully with its nose.
In the end, whether it determined that the headband posed no problem, or perhaps because of its faith in the contract, it chose to put it on.
"Hm? I can feel it... that malicious gaze that felt like it was right behind my back — it's finally gone..."
The moment the One-Eyed Dragon Bodach donned the headband, it let out a long, relieved breath.
Before this, it had been running like a stray dog, terrified that the Calamity Lord behind the curse was tracking it, which was how it had ended up crashing into Leylin.
No matter what method it used, it could not stop the curse's tracking effect. But now, that feeling — like a maggot burrowed into bone — had finally vanished.
"Wonderful! Truly wonderful..."
Bodach cheered, its voice waves rippling outward and stirring up vast clouds of dust in the surrounding area.
"Enough! Now take me to where you saw those natives related to me before... quickly!"
Leylin waved his hand, his expression flat and emotionless.
"No problem — that area is already at the border of the River of Annihilation's Sigh. We'll have to pass through the sealed-off territories of three Calamity Lords... Leylin, my friend, this thing truly has no issues, right?"
Bodach thumped its chest in reassurance, then looked at Leylin with a worried expression.
"Relax! Let's go!"
Seeing Bodach's demeanor, Leylin immediately understood that the Calamity Lord it had provoked was one of those three.
However, he had confidence in his concealment techniques. Moreover, even if the other party discovered them and caught up, two law-level existences on their side should be enough to give the opponent pause. At that point, he could simply hand over that so-called Zorro Gemstone, and the other party likely wouldn't push too hard.
"And besides... a single Calamity Lord?"
The opponent was an indigenous evil god of the Dream World, a law-level existence. Compared to himself — a Nightmare Energy Absorber — who truly held the advantage remained to be seen.
Leylin's eyes flashed briefly before he pressed that flicker of eagerness back down.
……
Old One-Eye Bodac truly lived up to his reputation as a seasoned treasure hunter.
He was intimately familiar with the geography of the Dream World, particularly well-versed in many exclusive underground passages.
Under his guidance, Leylin traversed the territories of three Calamity Lords without a single scare, arriving deep within the Northern Region.
The life energy here was considerably denser, and according to what Bodac had told him, Gillian's tribe should be in this area — and by the sounds of it, they were doing rather well.