As the dragon is about to unleash its devastating attack, he racks his mind as fast as he can and immediately overloads. Seeing the fireball coming out of the dragon's mouth, he has lost his hope. He is just transported to another world for unknown reasons and he is about to be killed.
In the face of despair, his perception suddenly speeds up and everything he is seeing is moving so slowly that he feels like the time almost froze. His accelerated mind has double or greater its speed.
His panicking mind instantly calms down as well. He never felt such peace of mind. Not like he is relaxing in a paradise, rather, his mind is just as clear as a void. The problems he has been through has been filtered out, disregarding unnecessary things.
He does not know that his body, mind, and spirit are deliberately trying to slowly strip away his empathy in exchange for such powers. More of his humanity would lose if he continued to seek for more. That is the rule of this world.
Upon realizing he can perceive the sluggish world, he immediately checks himself and notices that his body has gained a massive power-up. His strength increases, his mental speed greatly accelerates, his magic power and mana reservoir skyrocket, and his body metabolism feels a lot faster.
In addition, in this suspended world, he can move his physical body as normally as he can in the normal passage of time. He does not know what just happened, but just now, he felt a powerful surge of energy jolted in his core.
Knowing that he can move freely in this slowed time, he utilizes his improved metabolism and quickly transforms himself back into his gryphon form. He powerfully moves his wings once and he takes off the ground.
BOOM!!
He successfully removes himself from the blast radius of the dragon's explosive attack and only suffers second degree burn. He has deployed the gargoyle's anti-magic defense on himself beforehand, that is just how powerful the attack is.
Even though he avoids getting burned alive, the explosion still creates a powerful shockwave that violently pushes his higher in the air. The shockwave sends him a hundred meters from the surface.
(That hurts. But it's manageable.) He says to himself surprisingly nonchalantly. Aside from the burns, his body is emitting smoke from the rapid healing.
After taking a U-turn midair, he hovers and peers down at the ground, which is covered with dust and smoke. Once the dust settles, the dragon has been staring at him and then prepares itself to fly.
(Hmph. So slow.) He mocks the dragon before he swoops down and clenches his talons into fists.
Whoosh.
The dragon just rises itself ten meters above but he is about to cross paths with it. Before the dragon realizes it, he already strikes its head using his clenched fist with incredible force, dealing fatal head trauma on impact.
"GGWWR!!"
The impact immediately stuns the dragon, which stops its entire body from moving and eventually goes back to the surface.
CRASH!
The dragon loses consciousness for a few seconds. The moment it raises its head to look for the gryphon, the dragon suddenly feels a powerful grip on the back of its head, which pushes its head hard to the floor. The gryphon is already on top of the dragon, stepping on its head.
"!!!"
However, the dragon, which is a monster known for its pride, cannot accept the humiliation and it forcefully lifts its neck and head in order to get rid of the gryphon. As soon as he backs out, the dragon quickly turns its body and swings its wings once with a synchronized and powerful motion.
Whoosh!
The swing creates a powerful air pressure that blows tremendous gusts at him. In response, he replicates the dragon and flaps his wings. Despite having a smaller wingspan, the air pressure he generates is powerful enough to match the dragon's winds. The collision of their winds results in a storm that actually pushes back both of them.
The wind is actually for the dragon to buy time to prepare for its real attack. Unlike the attacks earlier, the dragon uses a larger amount of mana to power its attack. The preparation only takes less than a second and the dragon ultimately unleashes its most powerful offensive attack.
(!)
When the dragon opens its mouth, a beam of highly concentrated energy fires out of it. The beam is much faster than the previous ones. It travels so fast that even his improved eyes can barely react to it.
He reflexively rotates his body and manages to avoid it, only disintegrating a few of his feathers. Afterwards, he flaps his wings and flies fast away from it. The beam eventually hits a wall and explodes.
Boom!
However, the dragon is not finished yet as it stirs its head and redirects the beam to its target, chasing him wherever he flies. His flight path is followed by a continuous series of explosions as the dragon's beam attack hits the wall, floor, and ceiling.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The place is illuminated by the continuous explosions. Any monster nearby have either fled or caught by the attack, instantly killing them. Nevertheless, the black walls, floor, and ceiling of the place remain mysteriously unscathed.
The beam continues to chase him until the dragon runs out of breath. The beam attack lasts longer than he expects. Once the dragon finishes, he turns midair and charges himself to the exhausted dragon at the supersonic speed, creating a loud sonic boom behind. From the distance of around a kilometer, he will reach the dragon in less than a second.
The dragon immediately senses his sudden approach and hurriedly fires a blue fireball that is flying at subsonic speed. He just rotates his body and effortlessly lets the flames pass beside him before the fireball disintegrates hundreds of meters later.
The gryphon immediately reaches the dragon. With his talons thrust forward, he pierces his claws deep into the dragon's nape and grips on its flesh and scales. He then clings on the dragon and he ultimately delivers the final blow to take down the dragon.
(Die.)
He tightens his grip on the dragon. After a few seconds of resistance, the dragon's movements suddenly go jolty until it stop moving. Shortly after, the dragon begins to shake terribly before it loses its strength and collapse to the floor.
Thud.
He stands on the dragon for a few seconds before he concludes his judgement. Upon taking out his claws from the dragon, he has confirmed that it is no longer breathing.
(Victory.) As he takes a look at his clenched right talon, he says those word to himself in a monotone.
The key to his victory lies in his claws. His claws actually have been modified into a lethal weapon. The claws are hollowed out to serve as the passageway for delivering the spider queen's deadly venom, which is one of the most lethal toxins in this world.
A single drop of this venom can even paralyzed an small dragon. He actually tried to inject the venom into the dragon at the start of their fight, but the injection is too shallow and the dragon is just too big for the venom to take effect immediately. With his drastically enhanced power, the potency of the venom spikes up more than double.
Using his eight claws, he injects a large amount of the spider's venom into the dragon at once. The venom quickly enters the dragon's blood vessels, delivering its fatality throughout its body, and secures his victory.
(This dragon is quite big. Looks like I will be having a feast today.)
Satisfied with his challenging yet successful hunt, he starts to dismantle the dragon and consume it piece by piece.