Chapter 190: Fire Feather Dragon
Xie Feng was stunned for a long time. “Meng Chao, do you know that the way you speak often makes students have the urge to ‘spar’ with you?”
“Does it?” Meng Chao asked calmly. “Every night, I spar with ten students from the Ultimate Style Study Group. If you have that intention, I can fight with you at any time, but you’ll have to make an appointment first. Let me see... Right now, my slots are filled until the night three days later, which is the seventh. What do you think of that?”
Xie Feng sucked in a deep breath. When he looked at the silver light that kept shining between Meng Chao’s fingers, his expression turned a little stiff.
Suddenly, two sparks shone in Meng Chao’s eyes. His ears moved a little, and he became excited.
“A superbeast, and a huge one,” he mumbled.
Xie Feng was slightly stunned. “Where did that superbeast come from?”
Meng Chao moved his hands to the saber hilt and licked his canines. He said eagerly, “Northwest. It’s three or so kilometers away from us. It should be a tyrant of reptile-type monsters. It might even be a dragon-type superbeast. I’ve been waiting for days for it to appear!”
“Are you serious? The soundwaves from a superbeast so far away are blocked and distorted by the fog. How could you hear them?”
Meng Chao had already jumped backwards and landed on the mountain of flesh from the Blade Shattering Pythons. Then, he jumped again and disappeared into the depths of the fog.
The Four Great Kings from Agricultural University’s martial arts course were left by themselves. They looked at each other with strange expressions.
“What’s going on? Even if there really is a superbeast, the pract.i.tioners of Beast Soul Style should be the ones handling it. He’s just a broken-star superhuman practicing the Ultimate Style, why is he jumping into the fray?” Jiang Rui grumbled.
“Let’s go and watch. We’re coursemates. If he really runs into a superbeast, we can’t just watch him walk to his own death,” Sun Ya said.
A mysterious lake had appeared after the storm.
Due to the influence of the crystal mine and meteorite from s.p.a.ce under the lake, the lake water and the swamp around it had a sticky, orange-red texture. It bubbled like a hot spring while releasing the scent of sulphur. The temperature in the area was twenty degrees Celsius higher than the area several kilometers away.
Three freshmen, who were lost in the fog, stumbled about the swamp helter-skelter.
One of them was in such a panic that he could not tell where he was. He stepped into a quagmire, and his right leg immediately sank in up to his knee. Numerous fine, vine-shaped etherealized plants shot out from the mud. They wrapped around his leg, and even if he had the defenses from the nanotech fighting suit, his leg muscles were horribly torn, and he screamed in pain.
His two companions quickly came forward to help him. After spending a lot of effort to cut through the etherealized plant, they dragged him out. Then, a shocking boom rose in the fog and a long whip that looked like a fire snake shot through the air. With a loud slap, it struck the area beside the three people.
The fire snake might not have hit them, but the sparks that followed it did, and they started burning like a napalm bomb. No matter how much the students rolled around in the mud, they could not get rid of the fire completely. And when they finally did, the fire had already burned through their nanotech fighting suit and left painful wounds on their limbs.
When the three people stood up while enduring great pain, the heat around them was already so high that it was unbearable. The hot spring nearby had turned into magma.
In the depths of the fog was a large, crimson object. It slowly moved over in the manner of a king.
It was a dragon-type monster that was longer than five meters.
At first glance, it looked like the amalgamation of a huge lizard and a prehistoric dinosaur.
Embedded in its forehead were three red crystals. On its body were dazzling feathers that looked like they were burning. When the feathers stood up, the dragon looked twice as large, and it let out a presence as if it could destroy everything in its wake.
Even the weakest of the Fire Feather Dragons were Grade Two superbeasts, and when they grew to adulthood, they usually reached Grade Three. Among all the Nightmarish Beasts, they were tyrants second only to Lightning Dragons.
One of their inborn talents was Fire Breath, which allowed them to release heat that was more than one thousand degrees Celsius. It could burn for more than five minutes, and it also had the characteristics of a napalm bomb, which made it very difficult to extinguish the flames.
The Fire Feather Dragon could form a wall of fire that would shrink down at the moving speed of its prey. It could even suffocate the prey.
Another one of the inborn talents was Hot Torrent. It could burn the area, which created the shrinking and expansion of hot and cold air, which would then form a shield from air torrents. This could interfere with other monsters’ poison and the humans’ bullets as well as distort the attack trajectory of opponents’ long-distance attacks.
The last inborn talent was Flame Dance. The Fire Feather Dragon could make their sharp feathers stand up, then spin their bodies at high speed to fire thousands of feathers in all directions. It looked like a meteor shower once released and was a very effective large-area attack that could kill large amounts of normal monsters and human soldiers.
When humans categorized monsters, aside from a handful of exceptions, they usually categorized them based on a few simple and crude principles, i.e how many inborn talents they had.
Fire Feather Dragons had three talents, so they were definitely creatures that would cause a lot of problems to low-grade superhumans.
The three freshmen had been separated from their companions and had been wandering around like headless chickens in the fog for a long time. After going through various fierce battles, they were now incredibly tired. They had also used up all their ammunition and eaten all of their food.
Due to the interference from the spirit energy magnetic field, the communication channels only released white noise. No matter how much they shouted, they could not get any response from reinforcements. But even if they had managed to get through, they would not know how to say where they were.
In that sort of situation, when they ran into the Fire Feather Dragon, the three people’s spirits plunged into endless, boiling despair.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz!
Right when the fuel sac under the Fire Feather Dragon’s chin started to glow a savage red and swelled to the maximum, which was a sign that it was about to fire another breath of fire, the three people heard the sound of propellers descending from the sky. The sound was as beautiful as the songs of immortals.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Four small and exquisite unmanned fighting vehicles fired at the Fire Feather Dragon from different angles, as if their actions were guided by an invisible thread.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Then, eight mechanical spiders that were no longer than half a meter but had sharp, chilling blades crawled over in a nimble manner. They jumped on the Fire Feather Dragon’s back.
Bullets flew, and they attracted the Fire Feather Dragon’s attention.
The blades shone brilliantly as they stabbed the Fire Feather Dragon’s back in an attempt to cut through its spine.
No matter how much the creature raged and thrashed around, the mechanical spiders remained fixed on its back and carried out their duty with great responsibility.
The pleasant sound of the friction of metal traveled into the trio’s ears, and a mighty steel giant tore through the fog.
It was like the combination of a strengthened exoskeleton and a heavy cavalry from ancient times. Its limbs were covered in blades, wheels, and crawlers. Swinging around on its back were four mechanical arms that looked like octopus tentacles and could be extended at will. There were three p.r.o.nged steel claws at their tips with exploratory needles, chainsaws, impact drills, flamethrowers, and other tools. At first glance, it looked even stranger than the Fire Feather Dragon.
But the three freshmen looked as if they had seen their savior, and they were so happy that they were in tears.
“It’s Xu Sheng! Thank goodness, we’re safe!”
Xu Sheng was a freshman from the University of Technology’s machine course and one of the four students specially recruited for the fighting courses in the alliance of the five universities. Since his youth, he was known as the Machine Maniac. After being born with disabilities, he designed multiple firearms and mechanical limbs on his own, and all of them received good remarks from professionals.
While the other “geniuses” were still working hard for the national college examination, he had already received the admission letter from the University of Technology’s machine course and worked together with the experts from the University of Technology and the Red Dragon Army to create an even stronger generation of strengthened exoskeletons.
“A Fire Feather Dragon, huh? That’s a Grade Three superbeast you seldom see in Shattered Starlake. Looks like I’m pretty lucky today!”
Even though this Nightmarish Beast caused normal students to tremble, Xu Sheng smiled when he saw it. He even whistled.
As he did so, the four unmanned fighting vehicles fired even more rapidly. The mechanical spiders that jumped on the Fire Feather Dragon’s back opened the plates on their stomachs to reveal a bone saw that could spin at high speeds.
Whiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzz!
Four bone saws cut into the Fire Feather Dragon’s spine at the same time.
The Fire Feather Dragon roared in pain, and the flames surrounding it instantly turned white. The temperature in the area increased rapidly by a hundred degrees Celsius.
Regardless of whether it was the mechanical spiders or the unmanned fighting vehicles, all of them were crippled by the high heat, and sparks flew out of their bodies as loud with crackling sounds.
The Fire Feather Dragon had its sharp feathers stand up, and they shot out like bullets. It activated its Flame Dance, and the mechanical spiders and unmanned fighting vehicles were instantly torn apart.
Xu Sheng’s expression changed, and he summoned even more mechanical spiders and unmanned fighting vehicles from the fog.
But the Fire Feather Dragon breathed out, creating a thick pillar of fire. It took up a circular area of twenty meters before forming a white wall of fire, thereby trapping Xu Sheng and his remotely-controlled machines inside.
The flames, smoke, and sparks reduced the visibility.
The rapid increase in temperature also affected the control chips in the unmanned fighting vehicles and mechanical spiders, so there was a brief lag in Xu Sheng’s commands.
Hence, right after the Fire Feather Dragon launched its second Flame Dance, it managed to reduce Xu Sheng’s unmanned fighting vehicles and mechanical spiders to sc.r.a.ps.
“How can this be?” Xu Sheng’s forehead broke out in cold sweat. “The length of this Fire Feather Dragon’s Fire Breath is longer by around eight meters compared to the average data recorded in the monster compendium, and the maximum temperature of the flames seems to be higher by around forty degrees Celsius. Even its speed and agility are much higher. Is it really a Fire Feather Dragon?”
Before Xu Sheng could understand what was going on, the Fire Feather Dragon charged at him like a burning armored train.
Xu Sheng instinctively controlled the four mechanical arms that could extend at will behind him. With a light tap against the ground, he jumped into the air.
But to his surprise, the Fire Feather Dragon seemed to have predicted his escape route. It jumped earlier than he did, and like a tiger with wings on its back, it crashed into Xu Sheng in midair.
The Fire Feather Dragon then opened its mouth while airborne to take a bite of him.
Xu Sheng blocked instinctively, and Fire Feather Dragon ripped his right arm at the elbow.
Fortunately, he was born without his right arm and legs, so what the Fire Feather Dragon tore off was just a mechanical prosthetic limb.
Xu Sheng used that chance to activate the high voltage rail run hidden inside his right upper arm. Three electric arcs intersected with each other and struck the Fire Feather Dragon’s throat one after another, electrocuting the creature so badly that smoke came out of its neck. It was only then that Xu Sheng was able to break free of the creature’s hold and crash into the mud.