"Retreat—call for reinforcements! Leave this place to me!!"
Zero Sum consumes an enormous amount of stamina. After executing Zero Sum several times consecutively in a short span, the Switch Axe user was clearly beginning to fall behind the rhythm of the fight.
This hunter—someone capable of forming a team to farm ordinary Elder Dragons—at this moment, even with his face flushed and exerting all his strength, could only inflict some negligible damage. Xeno'jiiva merely absorbed a small amount of the surrounding bioenergy, and that was enough to fill in the damage caused by the attack.
In the end, when the folds on Xeno'jiiva's head and wings, due to the massive supply of blood-like energy, became "swollen" and full, the muscles across Xeno'jiiva's body could then be fully mobilized.
Aside from still being unable to fly, Xeno'jiiva was already capable of supporting itself solely with its hind limbs, turning every part of its body into a weapon for combat.
At this point, Xeno'jiiva already possessed the close-quarters combat capability that only Disaster-level Elder Dragons could have.
Yet Darren had to divert his attention under such high-difficulty conditions to protect the Switch Axe user who could not keep up with the pace.
There was no choice—although doing so would damage a companion's pride, when facing an enemy of this level, there was no room to care about such things!
The Switch Axe user's advancing steps came to a halt. With reddened eyes, he looked at Xeno'jiiva as it continuously battered toward Darren's position, its entire body radiating blue light, bioenergy so abundant that it overflowed outward, forming high-temperature blue mist. Finally, gritting his teeth, he decisively turned around and retreated.
Such a battle was no longer something he could take part in!
With the last companion gone, Darren gritted his teeth and forced his body into overdrive, a trace of madness flashing through his eyes.
He leaped aside to evade Xeno'jiiva's swat. The clutch claw on his left hand shot out, firmly grabbing its shoulder, and his whole body sprang up onto it. With an agile midair spin, he dodged Xeno'jiiva's grasp, then flipped over and landed on the opponent's wing.
Before Xeno'jiiva could even flap its wings and force him down, the Greatsword in his hands was instantly charged, and he viciously chopped into Xeno'jiiva's wing membrane, which was steadily stretching and swelling full.
In an instant, flames and poison erupted at the same time, forcibly carving a huge gash across Xeno'jiiva's wing.
However, what sprayed out from that wound was not a creature's blood, but incomparably scorching bioenergy!
Struck by that surge of bioenergy, even though Darren had anticipated it, he was still blasted down hard.
After adjusting his body and carving a long trail across the ground, Darren stood with blade in hand, staring at Xeno'jiiva as it, in pain and fury, continuously destroyed everything around it. His hands gripped the hilt tightly.
That strike just now had been a full-power swing. His original plan was to directly tear open Xeno'jiiva's wing membrane and completely cripple its flight.
But he had not expected this—how long had the battle even lasted?
An attack like that, landing on a wing membrane with hardly any scales, had only managed to cut open a gash!
Fortunately, that strike had also triggered the Cinder Moon Dragon set's special effect, injecting that powerful poison and greatly slowing the opponent's recovery rate after absorbing bioenergy. Otherwise, that blow really would have come to nothing.
The wound on the wing stubbornly refused to heal. Even under the scouring of high-concentration bioenergy, Aki's poison still clung like a bone-burrowing parasite, buried deep in the flesh and wearing it down at a very slow pace.
As time passed, Xeno'jiiva's metamorphosis seemed to be not only physical—its intelligence was also rapidly evolving.
At this moment, it suddenly understood what the injuries Darren had inflicted earlier, as well as just now, truly meant to it. At the same time, knowing that as long as it could complete its first molt it would gain power surpassing its ecological niche, it cast a deep look at Darren, who was about to charge again.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, it swung its energy-laden tail, smashing one of the support points of its "incubation chamber" and blasting open a large outward breach.
Behind it, the extremely resilient yet still very soft and heavy wings beat rapidly. Its hind limbs instinctively exerted force, and the entire dragon quickly took flight.
Darren flashed aside to avoid the falling fragments of Bioenergy Crystal. Bursting out of the smoke and dust, he immediately saw Xeno'jiiva taking on a posture to flee.
Fully aware that he could not let the opponent escape, Darren completely disregarded his own danger. The clutch claw in his hand shot out, firmly seizing Xeno'jiiva's tail, and he was dragged along as Xeno'jiiva flew out of the incubation chamber.
Below his feet, sharp, massive Bioenergy Crystal clusters swept past. With an unsteady flight posture, Xeno'jiiva weaved through the crystal forest. Its bodily senses had not yet returned to a normal state, and it failed to notice that there was still an uninvited passenger hanging beneath its tail.
It sped over underground magma flows, passed through basaltic great fissures, and successfully reached a platform among the Bioenergy Crystal clusters of the Elder's Recess.
Waves of weakness came from its still-underdeveloped wings. Knowing it had reached its limit, Xeno'jiiva decisively descended.
Darren dropped down ahead of it, rolling to shed momentum while also evading Xeno'jiiva's unconscious tail sweep.
Watching Xeno'jiiva land and then stride quickly to the largest Bioenergy Crystal, greedily absorbing the bioenergy within it, completely unaware of him, Darren—who was just about to launch a sneak attack—suddenly realized the position he was currently in.
He halted his steps and quickly took out a distress signal from his pack, firing it into the sky.
The crimson signal flare shot straight upward, and the piercing noise it produced also drew Xeno'jiiva's attention.
Only then did it realize that this individual—someone capable of injuring it—had actually followed it here!
Although it could not understand what that commotion had just been, upon sensing the threat, Xeno'jiiva no longer bothered to actively absorb bioenergy. In an instant, it instead spread the energy from its throbbing heart throughout its entire body.
The whole dragon radiated blue light, while the luminescent organ in its chest further tinted red, turning the entire chest a blazing crimson.
With its speed greatly increased, Xeno'jiiva charged straight toward Darren. Wherever it passed, the overflowing energy from its body scorched the surroundings, leaving behind a massive charred trail.
Perhaps having gained a deeper grasp of itself, every strike from Xeno'jiiva now carried dense energy impact. Even attacks such as swats and tail sweeps were capable of triggering a resonance with the energy of the land veins.
Even with Xeno'jiiva's extremely crude energy control, the effects it displayed were still exaggerated.
At this level of wanton expenditure of bioenergy, if Nergigante were to see it, it would probably be drooling all over the place.
Of course, Xeno'jiiva did not care about this amount of bioenergy, nor did it matter to it.
After all, for several hundred years, of the bioenergy flowing through the Elder Dragon Crossing of the New World, it took seventy percent, while the New World took thirty percent—pure extravagance!
And the effects brought about by such attacks were equally obvious. Darren, who had originally been trading blows with it evenly and even with some ease, became flustered when facing this kind of onslaught.
Especially as he watched Xeno'jiiva continue to undergo metamorphosis before his very eyes, seemingly without end, the anxious Darren began to fight desperately!
The entire battle took on a level of ferocity never seen before.
And it was precisely amid such a battle that the three Elder Dragons that had been waiting in the Elder's Recess finally arrived at the battlefield!
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