“Another mortal attempting to overstep his bounds. I will show you that everything you do is in vain!”
“How will we know unless we try? Gold Flame Dragon King, help me push him into the sky! We can't fight here!” You shouted before transforming into a streak of silver light and charging straight ahead.
Seranox understood immediately. He coordinated his power with You, striking at the black dragon in an attempt to drive him into the high heavens.
Desdoraka let out a cold sneer. The row of bone spikes along his spine suddenly stood erect and shot out like missiles.
“I will let you watch with your own eyes as everything you cherish turns to dust. Go! My minions!”
The bone spikes didn't fly toward You or the Gold Flame Dragon King. Instead, they plummeted straight toward the ground.
Spikes as thick as tree trunks slammed deep into the earth. A viscous black liquid slid down their surfaces, causing the surrounding soil to sizzle as it was corroded.
Even more terrifyingly, pustules resembling tumors began to bulge across the surface of the bone spikes at a rate visible to the naked eye...
“What are these things?! How disgusting!”
As the battle overhead shifted toward the high altitude, Po Kong-Mars watched the slimy, giant bone spike before him and couldn't help but shudder.
Before he could finish his sentence, the pustules burst open. Countless deformed creatures with dragon wings crawled out from within.
These monsters let out shrieks like crying infants, flapping their mangled wings as they took to the air and lunged at the group.
A few particularly thick bone spikes did not hatch small monsters. Instead, they twisted and deformed like living things. Amidst a cacophony of grinding sounds, these spikes expanded into terrifying bone dragons dozens of meters long.
Their skeletons were a sickly dark grey, and a pitch-black soul fire flickered within their hollow eye sockets.
Dark red blood vessels crawled across every bone, pulsing like parasitic vines and emitting a malevolent aura that filled every living being with revulsion.
Though these bone dragons didn't seem as massive as adult dragons, the energy contained within them was not inferior to that of a typical Saint Rank expert.
The lead bone dragon suddenly threw back its head and let out a roar, exhaling a decaying dragon breath that turned even the rocks it touched into greyish-white powder.
If a normal creature were touched by this power, death would be certain. However, a spatial rift suddenly opened in mid-air, swallowing the attack whole.
“Starlight, boy! Leave the big ones to us. You lot deal with the small ones!”
Yserazor let out a long cry, reverting to his true dragon form in the blink of an eye.
With him in the lead, Idra and Imira joined him to form a triangular formation, crashing head-on into the incoming bone dragons.
Even Lions, who had recovered somewhat, drew his weapon and charged forward to provide support from the flank.
“Understood! Be careful!”
Seeing the Saint Rank experts intercepting the bone dragons, Starlight immediately agreed. He waved his hand, unleashing his own spells at the deformed drakes.
A wall of scorching fire rose from the ground, blocking the deformed drakes that were swarming like a cloud of bats.
To his surprise, though these drakes looked insignificant, their magic resistance was exceptionally high.
The flames he released only left a few scorch marks on them; they couldn't even slow the monsters' advance.
“Their magic resistance is that high?”
Moen cried out in alarm. She slammed her slender hand against the ground, and her Power of Nature spread out like a ripple, catalyzing the growth of countless branches.
The branches quickly wove together into a massive net in mid-air, barely managing to halt the monsters' charge.
“Their weakness is the neck! Right where it connects to the torso!”
Lian's voice came from the side. Silver light flickered in her eyes as she instantly saw through the monsters' weak points.
“Good job, Little Lian!” Po Kong-Mars shouted in delight. He lunged forward, dragging the massive Sacred Wood Phantom with him.
Golden battle qi condensed into a crescent arc on the blade's edge. Wherever the blade passed, three monsters were decapitated. Dark green fluid sprayed onto the vines, sizzling into wisps of green smoke.
The decapitated monsters fell to the ground, finally lifeless.
Xia Duo also raised her longbow. Her slender fingers became a blur as arrows wreathed in crimson battle qi poured down on the trapped monsters like a rainstorm.
Every arrow precisely pierced the vital points of the monsters' necks, trailing brilliant streaks of fire through the air.
The monsters hit by the arrows exploded into balls of fire before they could even hit the ground.
Starlight took the opportunity to shift his tactics, condensing countless tiny light spikes with high piercing power in front of him.
“I might not be as accurate as Xia Duo... but how about this?” He threw his arms wide and gave a light shout.
“Rain of Light!”
In an instant, thousands of light spikes poured out in a saturated density, weaving an airtight net of light in the sky.
The monsters had nowhere to hide. Their bodies were pierced, spraying foul-smelling slime as they fell in droves like harvested wheat.
Even Little Gold transformed into his half-human, half-dragon form, spitting out bursts of flame tinged with golden light at the monsters in the air.
This attack clearly shared a common origin with the power of the Gold Flame Dragon King; the small monsters turned to ash the moment they made contact with it.
Under the group's perfect coordination, hundreds of deformed monsters were killed on the spot. Mangled corpses piled up like mountains, and dark green blood corroded the ground into countless pits.
However, against a swarm of monsters too numerous to count, this was merely a drop in the bucket. Soon, some stragglers broke through their defense line and lunged straight toward Moen and Xia Duo in the rear.
Four monsters tore through the barrier of vines, opening their maws filled with jagged fangs at Xia Duo, who was still drawing her bow.
Moen reacted instantly, slamming her short staff heavily against the ground. “Wall of Thorns!”
A wooden barrier covered in sharp spikes rose from the earth. The two monsters in front couldn't stop in time and were impaled through their chests on the spot.
But the other two monsters cunningly bypassed the obstacle. Their fangs and claws were less than three feet from Xia Duo's throat!
At the critical moment, a silver light arrived first. Lian, holding her daggers, blocked the path in front of Xia Duo and plunged a blade precisely into a monster's eye socket.
The last one was slammed into the ground by Little Gold, who had followed close behind. The golden flames erupting from his palm instantly incinerated it into charcoal.
“There are too many of them!”
Xia Duo panted heavily, having just escaped danger. She noticed that the bone spikes in the distance were still continuously hatching new monsters. “We have to destroy the source!”
Starlight's gaze followed Xia Duo's line of sight. The blood vessels on the surface of the bone spikes embedded in the ground were writhing, bulging and contracting like living organs.
He suddenly realized something and cried out, “Those bone spikes are absorbing the life force from within the Dragon Nest!”
“Moen, see if you can cut them off using plant roots!”
Moen immediately pressed her palm against the ground, but the things she sensed caused her face to turn pale. “No! These bone spikes have already permeated the entire ley line. We can't cut them with our power alone.”
“Tch. Then cover me. If I rush in and hack them all down, it should be fine, right?” Po Kong-Mars hoisted the Sacred Wood Phantom. Golden battle qi flared up on the blade again as he shouted.
Just as he was about to charge into the wave of monsters, a giant silver hand appeared out of thin air and grabbed him by the collar.
“Are you crazy, Po Kong?! Charging in like that is suicide!”
It was Lian who had acted. She knew that even with Po Kong-Mars's defense, rushing into a horde of monsters like that was not a wise move.
“Then what do you want us to do? Are we supposed to just stay trapped here until we die?!” Po Kong-Mars gritted his teeth.
“Lian is right. Calm down!” Xia Duo glared at him. She quickly scanned the entire battlefield and suddenly noticed an anomaly in a corner. “Look over there!”
In that direction, Imira and Idra were each locked in combat with a bone dragon. Though their frost breath couldn't freeze the massive bone dragons, some of it had accidentally landed on a bone spike at the edge, covering it in a thick layer of ice.
Under the influence of the low temperature, the energy pulsing within that bone spike had noticeably slowed down.
“These things are afraid of the cold!”
Starlight realized it immediately. The way these monsters were born was the same as the Dragon Race; they relied on absorbing heat from the ley lines to hatch.
Therefore, their weakness was naturally the same as that of young dragons—extreme cold.
“Everyone, follow me! Moen, coordinate with my magic!” Starlight raised his hand high, and water elements immediately began to condense in his palm.
Although his control over the water element was far inferior to the dark element he had recently mastered with ultimate power, the reputation of the Radiant Elemental Body was by no means for show.
Furthermore, because the Dragon Nest was designed to hatch dragon eggs, the humidity inside was naturally high, giving Starlight a great deal of room to operate.
Under Starlight's full exertion, the moisture in the air began to freeze rapidly. Even the originally sweltering temperature plummeted at a staggering rate.
At the same time, Moen waved her hand in a practiced motion. A breeze rose from her position, instantly transforming into a howling whirlwind that pushed the bone-chilling air in all directions.
Immediately, a vast swarm of incoming monsters was covered by the ice mist within a few breaths, and their movements slowed down instantly.
“It's working!”
Po Kong-Mars's eyes lit up. After a brief moment of charging his power, he leaped into the air. His giant scythe carved a crescent moon through the sky, quickly clearing a path through the tide of monsters.
With Po Kong-Mars leading the charge, the others immediately followed.
On this battlefield filled with icy mist, the Cold Domain constructed by the combined efforts of Starlight and Moen continued to expand.
Wherever they passed, the monsters' scales were quickly covered in thick white frost, and their joints let out cracking sounds.
The group broke through the encirclement and finally drew close to the first hideous bone spike.
Rate on N.U.
