Chapter 68: Breath Overlay 2 |
【Killed Hogg, Legion Commander of the Dwarven Kingdom's Seventeenth Legion (Challenge Rating 10). Reward obtained: 'Strength' Experience +3, Craftsman's Craft.】
Before Xia'er's eyes was a sea of fire.
"Below the Paragon level, almost no individual can cause me harm..."
Watching the fiercely burning, difficult-to-extinguish sea of fire, Xia'er mused inwardly.
The intensity of Xia'er's flames was actually a bit stronger than that of the Red Dragon, Tyrone.
The reason was also quite simple.
Xia'er drinks Black Oil.
Therefore, unlike Tyrone's dragonfire, Xia'er's dragonfire was hard to extinguish, continuing to burn for a long time once ignited.
This was the superiority of drinking Black Oil.
After killing the Legion Commander, Xia'er turned her gaze towards the direction where Tina was fighting.
As for Tina...
Xia'er didn't quite know how to describe it.
Pure ground-level, close-quarters combat.
Tina hadn't mastered any type of breath weapon, so when dealing with these dwarves, she could only resort to the most primitive attacks: biting.
Tina's massive, pale blue body tumbled and crashed through the dwarven military formation, like a deep-sea behemoth stranded in a jungle of steel.
Although lacking a lethal breath weapon, there was a beauty in the raw numerical... ahem, in the execution, the beauty of execution.
In short, every swipe of Tina's dragon claws was a fatal attack for the dwarves. A dragon claw coming down would smash a dwarf, shield and all, into a crumpled, deformed mess. Her massive maw, lined with sharp teeth, would clamp down fiercely, tearing dwarves apart like rags and flinging them away.
Her thick tail, covered in smooth scales, swept horizontally, clearing a fan-shaped empty area, sending dwarf warriors flying like kites with cut strings.
The numerical advantage made the dwarves feel utterly helpless at this moment.
However, even so, Tina was 'covered in wounds'.
The dwarves stopped at nothing. Dense axes and hammers, carrying the sound of wind, smashed viciously against Tina's body, while sharp crossbow bolts rained down like hail.
Most attacks were deflected or glanced off her exceptionally tough pale blue scales, but they still left white streaks or shallow wounds. The intense pain, however, only further ignited Tina's ferocity.
Dozens of dwarf warriors had also turned into cold corpses under Tina's frenzied physical assault.
And Xia'er, having witnessed the entire process, finally understood why Tina had been chased around by those fishmen.
Tina couldn't use breath weapons, thus losing the most important capability of a dragon.
Air superiority.
On the ground, even if a dragon could crush these dwarves one-on-one, the dwarves had numbers on their side. With over a hundred dwarves, they could simply wear Tina down to death.
As for dropping boulders from high altitude... one could only say the dwarves weren't fools, standing still to be hit. Moreover, dwarves were skilled craftsmen and also made various anti-air weapons. Using such primitive methods to attack dwarves, while they retaliated with crossbows and other anti-air weapons, could only be considered an even match.
However...
"Perhaps I could improve the Black Oil and make it into bombs?"
Xia'er pondered inwardly. The reason boulders weren't very effective was because the damage was too singular. But if combined with Black Oil to create some explosive alchemical items, then there would be no problem. A biological technology version of a 'bomber', so to speak.
But for now, Xia'er didn't have that much Black Oil to do this, and even if she did, the cost-effectiveness wasn't high.
After all, only Tina could do something like that.
And Xia'er currently urgently needed Black Oil to enhance her own breath weapon capabilities. Her own breath was obviously much more convenient than airdropping bombs.
In the future, perhaps she could go to the glaciers to catch a few white-scaled... ahem, invite a few White Dragon kin from the Chromatic Dragons back, and train them.
Most White Dragons, before reaching the young adult stage, had questionable intelligence. Having them simply throw alchemical bombs shouldn't be a problem.
With a shift in thought, Xia'er's massive emerald body suddenly beat its wings, adjusted direction, and dove towards the battle group where Tina was, like an arrow released from its bow.
Tina was fully focused on dealing with the ant-like swarm of dwarves surrounding her. Her sharp claws tore apart a shield-bearing warrior, her tail swept away enemies pouncing from another side.
Suddenly, the suffocating draconic aura from above intensified sharply, and a shadow descended like a dark cloud!
Tina looked up in alarm. Upon seeing Xia'er, she immediately realized something and let out a mournful cry tinged with panic. Her massive wing membranes beat frantically, stirring up a mist mixed with the scent of blood, as she scrambled awkwardly upwards into the sky.
Just as Tina had barely escaped the ground battle group, Xia'er's target was already fully locked onto the cluster of dwarves below.
A low growl rumbled deep in Xia'er's throat. The scorching roar had dissipated, replaced by a corrosive, acrid aura!
Descending to a certain height, Xia'er's fang-filled maw suddenly gaped open.
"Huff!"
A thick, ink-green, oily mist-like breath, like a breached tide of poison, carrying a pungent, acidic, rotting stench, instantly cascaded down!
This was the Green Dragon's innate Poison Mist breath!
The dwarf soldiers below, already somewhat disorganized by Tina's sudden ascent, were caught completely off guard, utterly enveloped by this ink-green poison mist falling from the sky!
"Argh!"
Screams, even more desperate and agonized than those from the fire, rang out.
The poison mist seeped everywhere instantly, corroding their exposed skin, seeping into gaps in their armor, burning their eyes, mouths, and noses.
The heavy armor the dwarves relied on for defense now became a steamer pot, stewing their flesh.
Vision blurred by excruciating pain and corrosive gas, lungs feeling as if filled with scalding acid, every breath brought heart-wrenching agony.
The formation completely collapsed. Soldiers rolled about in the thick mist like insects thrown into a vat of strong acid, howling in misery, the scene resembling a living hell.
However, Xia'er's attack was not over.
Cold calculations raced through her draconic mind.
Just as the first batch of dwarves enveloped in the poison mist writhed in agony, the structure of Xia'er's throat instantly switched. The nature of her dragon breath underwent another earth-shattering change!
"Boom!"
Following closely behind the poison mist, a violent, golden-red flame breath, like a roaring fire dragon, tore through the not-yet-dispersed ink-green poison cloud and poured mercilessly into the area below!
Xia'er's original intent was to use this searing flame to finish off those dwarves struggling on the brink of death in the poison mist, delivering a final destructive coup de grâce.
However, the moment the churning golden-red flames made contact with the edge of the not-yet-fully-dissipated, highly concentrated, corrosion-laden vapor of the ink-green poison mist, a tremendous sound erupted, shaking the heavens!
"BOOOOOOM—!!!"
It was as if a giant powder keg had been ignited, or as if two diametrically opposed, yet under specific conditions violently conflicting, destructive energies had been forcibly merged together.
An earth-shattering explosion, far exceeding Xia'er's expectations, erupted right at the junction of her spewed flames and the lingering poison mist!
Blindingly intense light instantly swallowed everything below. A massive shockwave spread outwards in a ring shape, expanding madly in all directions!
"Huh?"
Xia'er was momentarily stunned, completely unprepared for her double breath attack to produce such a terrifying chain reaction!
The violent shockwave and scorching heatwave slammed hard against her tough emerald scales, producing a dull, thunderous sound like heavy drumbeats.
Her massive draconic body was violently flung back by the explosive force she herself had triggered, helplessly tumbling backwards in the air for several meters before she barely managed to steady herself.
Xia'er shook her slightly dazed head and looked down below.
The area once filled with poison mist was now replaced by a huge, charred, blackened crater.
"Whoa, that poison gas can actually be ignited by fire?"
Xia'er was pleasantly surprised.
This was indeed something Xia'er hadn't considered, but thinking about how certain special gases explode when ignited, it all made sense.
Who would have thought that in this world, one still had to consider science.
But looking at it this way, her Poison Mist breath and Flame breath seemed to be able to...
Produce unexpected effects?!
Thinking this, Xia'er felt a surge of excitement. She looked at Tina, who was hovering in mid-air nearby with a stunned expression, and immediately gave an order without ceremony: "Go look, see if there are any dwarves still alive."
"I'm heading to the Eastern Sea Port's warehouses!"