Chapter 34: There's a Female Pervert! (Horrified)
The sensation of manifesting as a cosmic dragon was surprisingly pleasant. The only minor inconvenience was his complete inability to shrink back down to a humanoid size.
Drifting through the silent vacuum of space, Rekka casually snatched a passing asteroid with his massive claws. He brought it to his jaws, gnawing on the jagged space rock like a toddler with a teething biscuit. He wasn't actually hungry. His jaw simply felt itchy, demanding some form of kinetic release to pass the time.
Inside the Astral Express, a rhythmic, booming vibration rattled the delicate teacups.
Pom-Pom jolted awake. "Mmm... Why is the Express shaking, Pom?"
The Conductor rubbed his sleepy eyes, his long ears drooping as he padded into the Parlor Car wearing his little custom pajamas.
"Passenger March 7th? Passenger Dan Heng? You are up so early... Speaking of which, why is everything shaking so much?"
Pom-Pom looked toward the viewport. Why was it pitch black outside?
Crunch. Snap.
A terrifying grinding noise echoed through the hull. Pom-Pom froze in his tracks, his soft fur standing entirely on end.
"What is that, Pom!!!"
"Conductor, please calm down first." March 7th quickly squatted down, patting the trembling Conductor's back with soothing strokes. "Deep breaths, deep breaths. The Express hasn't been swallowed. We are all perfectly fine."
"He is gnawing on a small asteroid nearby," Dan Heng stated, his arms crossed as he stared out the window. "Probably as breakfast."
"He? Who is 'he,' Pom?"
Pom-Pom blinked, his fuzzy brain working overtime before finally remembering the chaotic new passenger who woke up every morning like a randomized blind box.
Right on cue, the massive wall of cyan scales blocking the window shifted. A colossal dragon head lowered itself over the top of the train cars. Two golden, vertically slit pupils, burning like miniature suns, peered directly through the glass of the Parlor Car.
"He is going to crush the Express's interlayer, Pom!"
Well, today was going to be a difficult day. Everyone had fully anticipated this the moment they woke up and saw a mythical beast coiled around their train.
However, a moment later, a new problem surfaced.
Rekka was hungry.
His massive golden eyes locked onto a nearby planet drifting alongside the Express's route. It was a barren world, devoid of civilization, but rich in sweet, dense ore. Ore. Ore! To Rekka's current draconic senses, that giant sphere of raw minerals looked exactly like a massive, mouth-watering chocolate truffle.
His body began to expand, swelling with cosmic energy.
Food!
'I want to eat...'Food!!!'I want to eat... Food!!!'
The colossal body that had been protectively coiled around the Astral Express began to loosen. Section by massive section, his cyan scales scraped against the exterior hull, emitting a low, resonant creaking sound that vibrated through the floorboards. His gigantic head reared back, aiming his jaws at the defenseless ore planet. He opened his mouth wide.
The Trailblazers were fortunate enough to witness the sheer, terrifying majesty of an entity having a cosmic snack.
Paths crossed and merged within him. Permanence. Voracity.
A deep, primal hunger surged, resulting in a single, reality-bending gulp.
"He... he... he's not actually going to—" March 7th stammered, pressing her hands against the glass.
"Looks like he really is," Dan Heng replied, his voice completely flat.
"Oh my god..." March swallowed hard, watching chunks of a planetary body disappear into the void of the dragon's maw. "Is he chewing rocks? He has great teeth."
"This is no longer a matter of having good dental health." Welt Yang rubbed his temples, a headache already forming behind his glasses. "The planetary mass he just swallowed... Is this the Path of Permanence, or Voracity?"
"Do you think there is a possibility, Uncle Yang? I mean, is it possible... that he currently embodies two Paths simultaneously?"
Welt paused, his gaze fixed on the cosmic spectacle. Two Paths.
"...That doesn't seem impossible."
"As long as he doesn't set his sights on the Express, eating some uninhabited planet is just supplementing his trace elements."
"Trace elements where?!" March sighed, her shoulders slumping as she watched Rekka stretch his long, elegant neck to swallow the last chunk of the planet. "He has quite an appetite."
Having finished off the ore planet, Rekka floated in the vacuum, casually picking his teeth with a stray asteroid fragment. He still looked somewhat unsatisfied. Suddenly, his chest heaved. A massive cloud of fine stardust drifted out of his jaws, dispersing rapidly into the dark void.
"He burped." March's expression twisted into a complicated grimace. "Uncle Yang, with the way he eats, won't he get indigestion? He swallowed a whole planet!"
"Logically speaking, a normal biological digestive system couldn't handle that," Welt adjusted his glasses. "But I highly suspect his internal structure is far from normal."
Rekka's proportion of Voracity today wasn't actually that high. Just a tiny fraction.
Then came another, much larger burp. A torrent of star fragments, crushed rock, and unknown luminous substances spewed from the enormous dragon mouth. The glowing debris scattered gracefully past the Express's viewport, painting the dark canvas of space with streaks of light.
It looked exactly like a miniature meteor shower. He literally burped out a meteor shower.
Rekka's massive body stretched out lazily across the starry sky. His cyan scales shimmered with a cold, ethereal luster under the ambient starlight, his long tail swaying leisurely back and forth.
"Woo—"
A deep, resonant dragon roar echoed directly into the minds of everyone on board. Perhaps Rekka had forgotten to turn off his telepathic microphone, broadcasting his voice at maximum volume.
Dan Heng nearly sublimated into deafness, his ears ringing from the sheer psychic force. Deaf, but... he understood it.
Rekka had been perfectly content, digesting his rocky breakfast, when his draconic senses suddenly picked up a foreign signal.
It was a female dragon of the Permanence. And she was actively soliciting him for mating.
The colossal cyan dragon froze stiff in the middle of the starry sky.
"Woo—?"
He tentatively let out a responding roar, a sound carrying three parts confusion, three parts rejection, and four parts absolute bewilderment.
Aren't all the ancient dragons supposed to be fossilized old timers? Where in the cosmos did a female dragon suddenly pop up from?!
The mysterious suitor clearly did not grasp his rejection. Instead, she transmitted an even more fervent, aggressive response.
"Woo—"
Rekka immediately shrank his massive form down slightly, bringing his large, panicked head right up against the Parlor Car's glass.
'There is a female pervert out here! Save me, everyone!'
Measured by the lifespan of an ancient cosmic dragon, he was basically a newborn infant! He was too young for this!
"Woo— Woo— Woo—"
He let out a rapid series of urgent, high-pitched roars, his tail anxiously thrashing against nearby asteroids and shattering them into dust.
"What is he saying?" March looked blankly at the giant creature outside the window, watching it frantically wag its tail like a cornered dog. "Can someone translate?"
Dan Heng's expression became incredibly subtle, a mix of disbelief and secondhand embarrassment.
"He says... there is a female pervert."
Rekka was so anxious that human words actually slipped through the telepathic link. "There's a female pervert!"
"Dan Heng, did I hear that right? Did he just say... female pervert?"
Dan Heng's mouth twitched twice. He offered no verbal confirmation.
"Woo—!" Rekka howled again, this time with raw, unfiltered horror bleeding into his psychic broadcast. 'We are not compatible!'
"Woo—"
Dan Heng's expression twisted into something truly strange.
"Dan Heng, why is your face doing that?" March asked, leaning closer to him.
"...Nothing." Dan Heng firmly decided to take the exact translation of this conversation to his grave.
"Woo—" 'I already have someone I like!'"Woo—"'I do not mind!' came the unseen female's sultry reply.
"Woo—" 'The person I like isn't even a dragon!'"Woo—"'I can transform!'Rekka felt his entire scaly body go completely numb. He was being aggressively pursued by some ancient auntie who was likely millions of years older than him.'Do not come over here!'However, the unseen suitor seemed to interpret his frantic fear as coy, playful resistance.'Aww, you are shy.'"Woo—!!!" Rekka's roar shattered the silence of space, the very tip of his tail splitting wide open in sheer panic.'We are entirely different species! There is no future here!'
How could a Western-style dragon possibly be interested in an Eastern-style dragon like him?!
"Woo—" The other party's voice remained gentle, dripping with a terrifyingly doting affection.
'We are all the same once we transform into humanoids. I really do not mind.'"Woo!!!"'I mind! I refuse to transform!'
But the ancient auntie clearly wanted to play out some twisted nurturing game. Rekka completely gave up on logical communication. He finally understood the grim reality of his situation. The old auntie on the other end of the cosmos did not care about a single word he said. She simply wanted to hit on him.
Inside the safety of the Astral Express, the crew watched the giant, god-like dragon spinning frantically in circles outside their window, chasing its own tail in distress. They all wore vastly different expressions.
"What is wrong with him?" March tilted her head, pressing her cheek against the cool glass. "Why is he suddenly acting so agitated?"
Dan Heng remained silent for two long seconds, his tone heavy and complicated when he finally spoke. "Perhaps... another dragon is chasing him."
"Huh?" March's pink eyes widened in absolute shock. "Chasing him? Another dragon? Where is it? I don't see anything!"
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