The four of them withdrew, to about two kilometers away from the battle scene.
“Stop!” Bi Fan said loudly.
They all came to a halt. Blue Dragon and Lone Leaf were completely confused, and they simply couldn’t understand what Bi Fan was trying to do. As for w.a.n.g Zhong, his face was as dull as ever, and reflected nothing of what was going inside his mind.
“Brother Bi Fan, why did we withdraw?” Lone Leaf asked.
Bi Fan smiled: “There were a lot of people over there, and the longer we would have stayed, the more attention we would have gotten from them. They were already quite alert with respect to our presence, and it would not have been easy for us to get anything from the Dragon’s carca.s.s.”
He paused for a second, and the continued: “Now that we have backed away, most people will forget about us. And when the time is right, we can jump in, take everyone by surprise, and get something out of it, and who knows, maybe they would have already killed the Dark Drake by then.”
“Sinister! Really sinister!” w.a.n.g Zhong mumbled.
Even to this moment, w.a.n.g Zhong was still taking his defeat to his heart, and every move that Bi Fan was making, was a conspiracy in w.a.n.g Zhong’s eyes.
Bi Fan pretended to not hear w.a.n.g Zhong’s words, and carried on: “First, let’s wait and see how things go for those guy, otherwise, we might have to kill the Dragon all by ourselves.”
Bi Fan knew one thing very clearly, that no matter how many strong individuals were confronted with the Dragon, they wouldn’t win unless they decided to co-operate with each other.
The Dark Drake was insanely powerful, physically, and was capable of killing even the ‘transformation’ layer fighters without using much of his inner energy.
The fatigue from the usage of physical strength was much lesser than that of inner energy, and when coupled with a Dragon’s abnormally fast restoration speed, the Dark Drake could continue to carry on fighting, for a long time.
Even though they were two kilometers away, they could hear the sounds that were emanating from the battleground, which was a clear demonstration of the Dragon’s might.
Bi Fan and his group decided that they must meditate a bit, and restore their energies to full capacity. As they stood there, they saw several people running away from the battle, and of course, several new people, running towards the battle ground.
Those who were running away from the battlefield, were busy spreading the word, and were probably trying to make some money by giving directions for the battlefield.
Bi Fan’s group, decided that it was best to hide behind a small hill, so the pa.s.sersby couldn’t see, or disturb, them.
The Dark Drake was roaring relentlessly, an obvious indication that he wasn’t exactly having it easy either.
The four of them were trying to ignore all of that, so they could concentrate on their meditation.
The Dragon’s huge body, was visible from a distance, and he was surrounded by several martial artists, who were trying all kinds of moves to inflict injuries to the Dragon.
Magical Weapon, Seals of all sorts, and even melee attacks were being employed. Anything, and everything, that could be thought of, was put to use.
The Dark Drake had a very rough scaled armor, and a very thick flesh, and hence, hadn’t sustained too many injuries so far.
The Dark Drake was surrounded by at least a hundred or so humans, many of whom were injured, but still, most of them didn’t want to leave.
Obviously, there were a few, like Bi Fan’s party, who were hidden nearby, and were waiting from the right time to join the fray.
The battle against the Dark Drake was being led by ‘Transformation’ layer martial artists, as they were the only ones strong enough to stand any kind of a chance against the Dragon.
If the Dark Drake was to lose its mind, and go berserk, then even the strongest of the men involved at the moment, wouldn’t be able to withstand the brutality of its strength, and eventually, many more would die.
Many of the teams were falling back because their, ‘transformation’ layer, leaders had been slain or injured. Most of these teams were forced to retreat from the scene altogether, which was a very sensible decision, tactically, as they might end up becoming the targets of other humans, who were stronger than them.
Many humans, didn’t mind killing the ones who were weaker than them, and then divide their wealth amongst themselves. The law of jungle was in play, here.
So long as the ‘transformation’ layer lead was there, and alive, to hold the ranks together, the team would stick together and fight, and in case, anything happened to the leader, then they would all break up, and flee for their lives.
Several new, strong fighters had joined the fray, giving it all they had, and managed to increase the pressure on the Dragon.
The Dark Drake had an excellent rate of recovery, but still wasn’t able to match up to its rate of consumption, at the moment.
Gradually, the Dragon’s movements and actions, began to slow down, as a result of fatigue, and his power too, began to wither down a bit.
“If we work together, then we will surely be able to kill it off. Later, we can divide the loot amongst ourselves.” A strong man shouted out loudly, in a very excited voice, in the hope of rallying everyone together.
His idea received support from many of the people who were present on the scene, as most of them had already tried every trick that they had, and had still failed to achieve any results on their own. So, naturally, they felt that instead of competing against each other, they should work together and compete against the Dragon. After all, something is always better than nothing.
Humans had taken a long time to realize their inferiority in comparison to the Dragon, which is why the fight had been taking so long to resolve.
The Dark Drake was n.o.body’s fool either, and as soon as he realized, that more and more people were joining hands against him; he decided to flee for his life.
As soon as the Dark Drake started to run, most of the humans that had been hiding in the shadows, were forced to come out, in order to stop their escaping treasure.
The Dark Drake was on quite the rampage, and tore apart anything that came in its way, leaving a b.l.o.o.d.y trail behind it.
The Dark Drake was fleeing in the direction where Bi Fan and his companions were hiding, which meant that they were going to have to come out pretty soon as well.
The Dark Drake was really quick, and was running with all its strength. Every step that it took, left the ground under him shaking.
Behind the Dragon, hundreds of men chased after it in a mad pursuit.
“Zhum….” Dozens of strikes befell the Dragon’s body every second, but his scales managed to protect its body.
But no matter how good its strength was, the Dragon was still having a tough time, and issued a deafening roar to express its discomfort.
“Kill him! Don’t let the Dark Drake get away, do whatever it takes.” One of the leaders yelled out.
“Kill him!…. Chase him down!…” others roared after him.
At this point, some people had even resorted to the use of divine essence seals to keep up with the Dragon’s pace, while the others, who didn’t have any, looked on in despair, as the Dragon increased the distance between itself and them.
w.a.n.g Zhong felt the tremors, smiled, and said: “Looks like we are in luck, the Dark Drake is coming to us on his own.”
“What good luck? There nothing good about this.” Bi Fan said: “At the moment, the Dragon still has a lot of fighting left in it, and if we engaged it right now, we might not be able to kill it. And even if we managed to kill it somehow, how are we going to deal with the hundreds that are following it?”
“What do we do then?” Lone Leaf asked.
“Hurry up, the best thing to do right now, is to set up some kind of a barrier to obstruct the Dark Drake, just long enough for the others to catch up to him.” Bi Fan laid the plan out.
The four of them, along with the Chimera, retreated further.
There wasn’t much substance available to set up a barrier, so things weren’t looking very promising at the moment.
w.a.n.g Zhong had been noticing the detail with which Bi Fan planned his moves, and was somewhat, beginning to secretly admire him in a way.
If the barrier didn’t hold up long enough, then w.a.n.g Zhong and Blue Dragon would have to come out, and fight against the Dragon, in order to delay it.
The Dark Drake was really fast, but divine essence seals are amazing speed boosters, and the pract.i.tioners who were using them, were able to keep up with the Dragon, and were constantly attacking the fleeing beast, enraging the Dragon further.
Dragons have always been a proud and arrogant race, and their egos simply couldn’t tolerate being trampled on, especially in this manner.
Moreover, this Dark Drake was still quite young, and hence couldn’t control his emotions very well.
The Dragon could no longer run away, as it felt that its dignity was being challenged here, and so, he turned around, and started fighting again.
Bi Fan stood there and watched from a distance. He hadn’t taken this into account, but still, the result was exactly what he had been hoping for, but now, he needed to think of a way to make the best of this situation and get some valuable loot.
No matter what, there was always a big risk of offending the students of big martial arts schools, which he simply couldn’t afford to do.
The Dark Drake had managed to get itself surrounded again, and this time, getting out of the encirclement, would be pretty hard for it.
The Dragon was young, and had limited wisdom, had it continued to run, it might have gotten away.
“Let’s go for it.” Bi Fan decided, all of a sudden.
Blue Dragon asked: “Go and do what, fight it?” his voice was clearly expressing his excitement.
“Yes, but cover up your faces with some sort of cosmetics, so people are not able to recognize our true ident.i.ties, and make sure that you don’t use your usual weapons either.” Bi Fan added: “Once we go through with this, we are certain to offend many people, which will cause a whole lot of trouble later on.”
The trio, couldn’t help but admire Bi Fan’s scrupulous thought process. They were awed by Bi Fan’s ability to think of pre-emptive measures to nullify future problems.