The young blue dragon had no idea why Gauss was growing stronger again, but that did not stop it from becoming afraid.
It could faintly smell death approaching.
Anxiety began growing wildly in its heart like weeds.
It was a noble blue dragon. How could it die silently in a place like this?!
With that thought, it no longer had any intention of continuing to entangle itself with Gauss.
It had to survive.
The young blue dragon glanced at Gauss, who had kept a safe distance from it the entire time. It knew this enemy was cautious to the extreme, only exchanging ranged magic with it from start to finish, never giving it much of a chance to break through.
But clearly, he seemed to be preparing some special method. That much could be judged from the way his aura kept rising.
This stalemate could not continue!
A warning bell rang in the blue dragon's heart.
If it could not severely injure the enemy in a short time, then it had to find a way to escape.
So the enormous lightning spheres floating around it, each over three meters across, suddenly shot upward toward the invisible barrier overhead.
Boom!
The ball lightning slammed into a formless, invisible, yet indestructible shackle.
The lightning sphere's power erupted the instant it struck the Silent Cage. The blue dragon's full-force attack, poured through with a vast amount of mana, made the entire sky tremble.
Blinding white light swallowed half the horizon, and the aftershock turned into circular ripples of electric arcs spreading in every direction.
Wherever it passed, even the air was ionized into a pale blue plasma state.
As the blue dragon continued flying at high speed, it stared fixedly at the invisible barrier above, hope filling its vertical pupils.
The barrier seemed to tremble violently under its all-out strike, and through the core of the thunderblast, the true sky beyond the barrier could even be faintly glimpsed.
Unfortunately, just as a sliver of hope rose in its heart, the barrier seemed to draw energy from elsewhere, and its shaking state rapidly stabilized.
"Damn it!"
It cursed inwardly.
That attack had been genuinely powerful. If it had fallen into a human town, it could easily have caused thousands of casualties.
But the Silent Cage, as a special gold-grade artifact with strict usage conditions, was not so easy to break through.
The overwhelming majority of transcendent creatures would struggle to destroy it in a short period of time.
Perhaps it could only wait until the duration ended and the barrier dispersed on its own.
Of course, the Silent Cage could only be used under specific conditions. First, the enemy could not be too strong. It could trap most transcendent-level creatures, but against top-tier transcendents or even stronger epic beings, its effect would be much weaker.
A casual blow from such beings might exceed the Silent Cage's tolerance threshold.
Second, the Silent Cage trapped both enemy and ally alike. Aside from that, it provided no other support effect. If the user was not strong enough, activating it would only be drawing a prison around themselves.
So its use cases were actually quite limited.
It just so happened to be useful for Gauss right now.
In a few more years, once Gauss became stronger, he might not even care for it if it were given to him for free.
After a brief moment of despair, the blue dragon refused to believe it and once again began condensing the 5th-circle spells it knew, bombarding the barrier all at once.
It seemed to be trying to make up for insufficient quality with quantity.
In terms of the number of high-level spells mastered, the vast majority of spellcasters could not even dream of catching up to it.
The upper limit of spells it could master at once was several times higher than that of a talented human caster.
Although the Green Dragon Queen placed certain restrictions on their movements, she still provided necessary cultivation resources. Adding the spells that awakened from its bloodline from time to time, the blue dragon had mastered many kinds of magic.
Attack spells, dispelling spells, even spatial spells it could not use very smoothly—it tried them one after another.
But the effect of the Silent Cage was simple: if an attack's power could not break through its upper limit, then it was extremely difficult to make it collapse. Trying to make up the gap with a sea of spells was nothing more than wishful thinking.
And Gauss was not simply watching from behind either. He kept releasing Magic Missiles and Confusion spells to interfere with it.
It could be said that the young blue dragon was under tremendous pressure.
It also worried that Gauss's silver giant hand, with its terrifying control ability, would suddenly imprison it.
Although it believed its own physical strength was far superior to the other three dragons, it had no desire to test that personally.
Just as the blue dragon was growing increasingly anxious and wondering whether it should risk everything to strike Gauss hard, the battle in the valley below finally reached its conclusion.
First was the female green dragon.
After Gauss dealt with the other young green dragon, her situation had gradually worsened.
Among chromatic dragons, green dragons were not especially known for physical power. In other words, from the moment they were seized by Bigby's Hand, if no outside force helped them, their only fate was to slowly move toward death.
After all, she was only an immature true dragon. Her own level had not even officially broken into the transcendent tier, while Gauss in Dragon-Ghoul Dual Synchronization had reached Level 13 combat strength. The upcast and reinforced Bigby's Hand he used was simply not something she could resist.
After holding on for another minute or so, the female green dragon finally swallowed her last breath in bitter hatred.
The moment she closed her eyes, the vibrant plants around her began to wither rapidly, as if mourning the passing of a true dragon.
As for the young black dragon fighting Hephaestus, its situation was also extremely bad.
It had already been at a disadvantage in close combat.
Hephaestus was a full size larger than it, and the defensive strength of his dragon hide, along with the offensive power of his fangs and claws, were superior.
As for why the black dragon did not use magic attacks or acid breath, that was because it needed the opportunity to do so.
As a true dragon, the black dragon naturally had magical talent, but it was mostly limited to poison, corrosion, and similar effects. On top of that, Hephaestus flew faster than it did.
Hephaestus was tearing into it like a mad beast, making it extremely difficult for the black dragon to find a suitable opening in the chaos of close combat to counterattack with magic. It was better off relying on physical instinct to resist.
Logically speaking, in a physical brawl between two giant dragons, even if there was a difference in strength, neither side should collapse in under two minutes. After all, dragon bodies were excellent, and even injuries healed quickly.
But the problem was that the first green dragon had been far too useless, dying violently before it could buy enough time.
That freed up the first Bigby's Hand, which then became the final straw crushing the young black dragon.
It had to be wary of the giant hand following from the side, trying to seize it, while also dealing with the mad-dog-like red dragon behind it. Add in the fact that it had been raised by the Green Dragon Queen and did not actually have much real combat experience, and it naturally began making stress-induced mistakes under such high pressure.
Hephaestus clamped down hard on its neck and flung it to the ground.
The black dragon struggled desperately, but Hephaestus was stronger and pinned it firmly against the earth for the moment.
And after a delay of several seconds, Bigby's Hand arrived.
The silver giant hand slammed down onto its body with dozens of tons of terrifying force.
Boom!
The powerful impact traveled through the black dragon's body and into the ground, causing the land within hundreds of meters to shake violently.
Black blood burst from all over its body.
When the dust cleared, the young black dragon could no longer move.
Its neck was caught in Hephaestus's jaws and pinned to the ground.
The main trunk of its body was ruthlessly pressed down by Bigby's Hand. The black dragon lay on its back in an utterly humiliating position, like a goose stretching its neck for slaughter.
Hephaestus looked down at the dark dragon pinned beneath him, whose resistance was gradually weakening. A flash of pleasure crossed his golden vertical pupils.
So this was a true dragon?
Didn't seem like much.
Just a clay chicken and pottery dog.
Not even comparable to Lord Hephaestus.
At that moment, Hephaestus's heart was filled with a twisted joy.
A defective creature like him could actually decide the life and death of a true dragon?
The only slight regret Hephaestus felt was probably that the true dragon beneath him was a black dragon, not a red dragon.
If it had been a red dragon, his joy would have been even greater.
Under the combined suppression of the giant hand and Hephaestus, the black dragon gradually lost all strength.
After his brief inner ecstasy, Hephaestus did not forget his mission.
Gauss had emphasized that this operation needed to be resolved quickly.
So Hephaestus soon restrained the pride in his heart.
Although he wanted to humiliate this true dragon a little longer, he would give it a clean death instead.
Once he made that decision, Hephaestus suddenly exerted force through his upper body.
The muscles in his crimson-scaled neck began to bulge. Enormous bite force traveled through his upper and lower jaws into the black dragon's neck.
Crack—crack—crack!
The black dragon's scales, pierced by Hephaestus's fangs, began to burst apart with sharp cracking sounds.
Both the dragon scales and the tough dragon bones beneath them could no longer bear the pressure and began to fracture.
The black dragon's vertical pupils snapped wide open.
But by this point, it had no room left to resist. The combined pressure of Hephaestus and Bigby's Hand made it impossible for it to even twist its neck.
Crack!
The first explosive snap rang out from the black dragon's neck.
That was the sound of the first cervical dragon bone breaking.
Crack! Crack!
Then came the second, the third…
Finally, once the pressure reached a certain limit, countless dragon bones cracked in a chain reaction like exploding firecrackers.
Riiiip!
Hephaestus jerked his head.
The black dragon's hide was stretched to the limit beneath Hephaestus's fangs and tearing force. Scales flew off one after another, exposing the dark red muscle tissue beneath.
And inside, those muscle fibers snapped one by one like ropes pulled to their breaking point.
Swoosh!
Black-red dragon blood shot into the sky.
The black dragon's head, along with an entire section of neck nearly two meters long, was forcibly torn from its body by Hephaestus.
Dragon blood splattered all over Hephaestus's head, but he merely held the black dragon's head in his jaws and lifted his own, quietly feeling the scorching heat of the boiling dragon blood flowing across his face.
Deep in the sky, a flash of lightning split the clouds and illuminated his blood-soaked face.
Hephaestus quietly savored this brief moment of victory that belonged only to him, as if he had been reborn.
Deep inside him, some knot seemed to come undone.
Perhaps he would never become a dragon with true draconic inheritance.
But he could surpass them.
The dragon blood inside him began to heat.
If Gauss had been beside Hephaestus at that moment, he would have clearly sensed that the bloodline power within Hephaestus was gradually growing thicker.
It was much like those dragonborn creatures that underwent evolution rituals by bathing in dragon blood.
Of course, unlike dragonborn who received blessings, only a small portion of Hephaestus's change came from the stimulation of the black dragon's blood.
Up in the sky, Gauss, casually throwing spells with ease, finally sensed two kill notifications from below in quick succession.
Bloodline power began pouring into his body one stream after another, competing to enter.
"Transcendent Monster: Green Dragon (juvenile) Slain ×1"
"Transcendent monster: Black Dragon (juvenile) Slain ×1"
"Path of Transcendence: Kill five kinds of transcendent monsters (3/5). Reward: Randomly draw one racial talent from a transcendent monster."
"Because you have slain legendary-race creatures—true dragons—the title [True Dragon Slayer] has improved (3/100). Your attacks against true dragons will become stronger, and there is a small probability of triggering dragon-specialized true damage."
"Purple-grade racial talent [Dragonseed] is absorbing bloodline energy…"
Perhaps because of the experience from the first time, the speed of bloodline absorption was clearly much faster this time.
In just over ten seconds, Gauss had finished digesting it.
The purple glow of his racial talent, Dragonseed, now visibly contained a trace of gold.
Clearly, its quality had reached the very peak of purple.
Still not advanced? It's just a little short?
Gauss was somewhat surprised.
But then he thought about it and realized that perhaps it was precisely because the dragon race's racial talent was so powerful.
From his own perception, even racial talents that appeared to share the same quality rating on the surface could actually differ quite a bit.
And draconic talent was clearly superior to other talents. Among the many talents he possessed, perhaps only his mysterious ghost bloodline could keep pace with the dragon bloodline in terms of quality.
"Then that means…"
Gauss turned his gaze toward the final blue dragon.
It could only blame its bad luck.
If the sacrifices of its three dragon companions had successfully advanced Gauss's Dragonseed talent to gold grade, then there might still have been some chance he would let it live.
But now, that chance had fallen below ten percent.
First, after absorbing the bloodlines of three dragons, his condition had returned to its peak and remained overwhelmingly strong.
Second, only three minutes had passed. He still had seven minutes left.
And most importantly, he was only one step away from the guaranteed draw.
How could anyone give up at a moment like this?
True dragons were not goblins lying around on the roadside.
And immature dragons that openly wandered around before adulthood were even rarer.
If he missed this chance, who knew when he would next be able to absorb true dragon bloodline power?
Of course, Gauss could also use the transcendent points from the next stage after completing the first phase of the Path of Transcendence to advance Dragonseed.
But if he could save points, then naturally he would. He had far too many talents waiting to be fed.
There was also another reason.
His first transcendent monster talent draw was right within reach.
The first species was Eden, the Demon King species. The second was green dragon. The third was black dragon. If he added the blue dragon to that pool, it would become the fourth.
At that point, as long as the draw came from the first four options, whatever he pulled would be an exceptional talent.
Gauss sensed the power of his [True Dragon Slayer] title.
After its kill count increased from one dragon to three, its effect seemed to grow stronger.
It appeared to provide a steady enhancement to his attacks against dragons, while also giving him a small chance to trigger a specialized critical hit.
When that critical state activated, the destructive power of his attack would become even stronger, and it would also gain several extra effects such as armor penetration, healing reduction, and persistent damage.
In other words, this title alone could raise Gauss's odds of winning against a true dragon of similar strength by at least ten percent.
~~~
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