That astonishing halberd strike had consumed a truly tremendous amount of immortal essence. Moreover, it had come as a flash of inspiration while the Flame Dragon was in that state, allowing Lu Xiaotian to unleash the peak of his current mastery over spatial power. Without further insight into space or some external stimulus, it was hardly realistic to expect him to strike like that again. Even so, it had been enough to leave Du Yuan and the others trembling with fear.
"Roar! Roar!" There was no time to harvest the Flame Dragon's corpse. The dragon blood that had sprayed everywhere, together with the method the Flame Dragon had intended to use—sacrificing its body—had pried open a sliver of a crack beneath the earth, even though Lu Xiaotian and the others had disrupted it beforehand. A violent, almost primordial-beast-like aura surged up from the depths below.
Soon after those bloodthirsty, frenzied roars rang out, a strange beast several zhang tall burst from underground. Flames wreathed its body; it had a pair of wings on its back, a lion's body, and ox hooves. Like a mad tiger, it began devouring the Flame Dragon's remains.
The Flame Dragon's body stretched for dozens of li, but it still wasn't enough to go around for the fire-poison flying lions that kept pouring out. Before long, the beasts shifted their attention to the nine immortals from Skywind Valley, who were closest.
The nine men from Skywind Valley clearly hadn't expected this change to follow the Flame Dragon's death. They were caught off guard as the fire-poison flying lions charged wildly toward them in a torrent.
Still, Du Yuan and the others were powerful immortals. Their formation had been strong enough to suppress even the Flame Dragon, much less these fire-poison flying lions. Only if the lions