BXBX NOVEL Chapter 33: The Power of Faith
Chapter 33: The Power of Faith
“Wuwuwu…… Jiligulu…… Gulu gulu……”
After becoming a dragon, Louie’s vision and hearing had outclassed the senses of mundane creatures. If he condensed some of his divine power into his eyes, he could peer into the deepest secrets of the world if he so wished.
He spent some time marveling at his powerful vision. With its acuity, he could analyze the components of matter on a molecular level. With one glance he could peer at the quarks, leptons, and atoms that made up the world around him.
For regular humans of a technological civilization, the elementary particles and fundamental forces were the means by which they understood reality. The Gods, however, were more concerned with the underlying rules of the universe than they were with matter and energy.
The sound Louie had heard was not the roar of an animal, and a closer listening didn’t tag it as any modern language he was aware of either.
Interest piqued, he made his way towards it. Perhaps in San Soliel, he might have been more careful, but here in the forest – as the literal king of the jungle – he had nothing to fear.
Soon the mystery cleared itself up.
‘Intelligent Brain, is this really 21st century Earth?’
Louie asked his companion telepathically.
[The probability of the teleportation having failed, is extremely minuscule. I am confident that this is the same planet that the host departed from.]
Hearing its answer, Louie took a deep breath, “Then why are there still primitive people here?”
In his line of sight, he could make out twenty to thirty dark-skinned people. None of them, male or female, clothed their torsos, and all wore only a short piece of cloth over their loins. Their skins were painted with strange colors. Of the men, some had pierced lips while the women had coiffured their hair in exotic hairstyles.
They carried wooden spears, and some held crude bows and arrows whilst herding a group of crocodiles by the other side of the river.
Through the gaps between the trees, Louie could make out straw houses in the distance. This confirmed his perception of the people’s underdevelopment.
“Hmm? Primitive people?”
A spark of insight flitted through his brain, “I got it! So I’m in the Amazon rainforest!”
When he was an undergraduate student, Louie loved to watch television and read books. Although he did not know the technical details of things, he knew a lot of trivia.
The clues had all perfectly aligned for Louie. The tropical rainforest, the primitive tribes; with these alone Louie could guess where he was.
“Am I in Brazil? Or perhaps some other country?”
Louie was slightly befuddled. How did a person end up millions of miles away from their home and in the thick of the Amazon?
He pondered for a moment before deciding to reveal himself to the indigenes. They would pose little threat to him anyways.
His appearance immediately caused an uproar. With his large frame, glittering scales, and lethal claws and teeth, the natives froze in both awe and fear. Bearing a golden crown he strolled with a kingly air before them.
At the sight of him, the crocodiles’ instincts gave out completely. They cowered and lay prone on their bellies, not daring to move an inch.
The natives on the other hand trembled and seemed to speak some words of their language to him. They raised their bows and spears, but their facial expressions clearly betrayed their terror.
Louie could speak fluent Chinese as well as some basic English. In San Soliel, he could understand others’ words due to his godhood. But here on Earth, it didn’t seem to do anything. Looking at them, he felt a headache coming on.
After obtaining the Five-Coloured Dragon God’s godhood, Louie’s very soul had been transformed, and at present, he could learn languages with extreme ease. Nevertheless, he still couldn’t derive a language’s entire lexicon in an instant. San Soliel had a magic spell called Proficient Language, but Louie did not yet know how to use it.
“Silence, you indigines. Get down on your knees!!!”
Opening his maw, Louie roared at the indigenes. His declaration seemed to rend the air itself, and several tree branches snapped.
Louie spoke neither Chinese nor English. Rather, he had communicated his intentions in dragon tongue.
Louie had partly chosen to disclose himself out of boredom. The other part was from his perception of their circumstances. Looking at the natives, he could understand that their tribe had been untouched by modern civilization.
The people became even more alarmed. They began to converse with one another in a heated and impassioned debate while making sure to keep an eye on the strange beast before them.
Louie frowned. Their language itself was complete noise to him, and their chattering seemed more like the buzzing of flies. He filled his lungs with air and opened his mouth once more. A pulse of heat seemed to erupt from within him as his scales glowed and the air shimmered.
A burst of golden flames erupted from his maw. It streaked across the riverside’s mud, baking it to a cracked dry before charring the crocodiles into blackened logs. It continued unabated and roared over the river. The waters instantly began to churn and bubble, releasing a hot white mist.
This was the well-known dragon breath!
Unlike the Emerald Dragon Breath that he had used when he turned into a demigod dragon, this dragon breath belonged to Louie’s own body.
“Hmm?”
Louie noticed that within himself, the organ responsible for breathing flames had another unexpected function.
This should be part of what the Intelligent Brain had said about his evolution being different from a normal dragon’s. Louie suspected that this was also one of those changes, but in front of the indigenous people, he could not do experiments, so he only took note of it in his heart.
“Kneel, mortals!!”
Louie spoke once more. This time, the natives fell silent, looked amongst themselves, and collapsed onto their knees. Simultaneously they chanted the same word.
At present Louie still could not understand their language, but given the context of the situation and his intelligence, he could understand that they regarded him as a deity of some sort.
At that moment the godhood within him trembled almost imperceptibly. The divine power which had been depleted earlier had filled up just a little more.
‘Is this the power of faith?’
Louie trembled inwardly.