Revenge Plan and Intelligence-Gathering Glavenus

The abnormalities Xingyan had noticed in himself did not end there. Although he had yet to see any other Glavenus hatchlings, he always felt that, compared to Glavenus hatchlings of the same age, he was at least a full size larger.

After all, their energy absorption efficiencies were different.

In light of all these unusual phenomena appearing one after another, Xingyan finally confirmed that he was different. Whether it was because he had transmigrated or for some other reason, all he knew was that these abnormalities could help him survive better in this world, and that was enough.

As for anything more... that was not something he needed to consider right now.

Scrape! Scrape!

Out of habit, he ground his tail against the ground twice. The crisp, forceful sound of metal scraping against metal was truly pleasing to the ear. Ever since he had eaten enough ore and coated his tail, which had yet to fully harden, in a layer of mineral secretion, Xingyan had developed this hobby.

That sound, along with the sensation of his tail cutting through things, gave him an incredibly solid sense of security.

Every Glavenus forged the most perfect sword for itself. It was an instinct and pursuit carved into their bones.

Moreover, while searching for mineral veins, he had also found some coal and combustible minerals. At last, an organ located in his throat began to serve its purpose—the Flame Sac.

He stuffed all the coal and combustible minerals he found into his Flame Sac for storage. This organ possessed temperatures unimaginable to ordinary dragons; inside it, the coal and minerals would be burned, melted, and refined into something like magma.

When facing battle, Xingyan could spit out this refined high-temperature magma or use it to grind his Sword Tail, causing it to undergo Red-hot Transformation and increasing its lethality.

Of course, he could also spit it directly at an enemy. This stuff not only inflicted direct physical impact damage and burns, but it also exploded.

With such a weapon at his disposal, his sense of security naturally kept rising.

He bent his Sword Tail, already polished to a shine and with a blade edge reflective enough to serve as a mirror, upside down before him. Xingyan gazed with satisfaction at the handsome dragon in the mirror.

A jawbone with a protruding tip, curved brow ridges bearing a pair of horns—though he was still young, he already carried the fierce air of a top predator.

(Adult version)

He directly opened his mouth and bit down on his Sword Tail. He did not even need to recall the details from the game; Glavenus instinct had already clearly told Xingyan exactly what to do to maximize the damage of this move.

Sharp Blade Grind!!

Ahem, in reality, it was Tail Bite Great Spin.

Like a tightly wound spring suddenly launching itself, as swift as a gale, Xingyan crashed heavily onto the opposite hillside in the next instant.

Before him, the massive protruding boulder that had previously blocked his way slowly slid down at that very moment—only its upper half.

It had clearly been cut into two pieces by the attack just now, and the cross-section between them was even exceptionally smooth.

Iai!

Don't ask how it counted as iai. It just did!

"Gugi!!"

Having witnessed the entire process from the side, Bird Bro immediately cried out in amazement. Now that it had grown familiar with Xingyan, it was not frightened at all. Instead, it hurried over to the severed rock and inspected it curiously.

Clang! Clang!

The little fellow was pecking at the rock's cut surface, looking deeply suspicious.

"Roar! Roar roar roar!" (Well? Your brother has mastered divine arts!!)

"Chi! Gugi-gugi gaga!!"

Bird Bro looked very happy... well, at least Xingyan thought it looked happy.

Scrape! Scrape!

He ground his tail against the ground twice more. This behavior was actually how Glavenus marked their territory, though even Xingyan himself had not realized it at the moment.

He was already a little impatient to get his revenge.

So you're called Mudfish Dragon, huh? Huh?

You dared steal this dragon's food? Sooner or later, I'll send you flying!

Glavenus were large carnivorous monsters of the Beast Dragon Species. Outside of mating season, only one Glavenus could exist within a territory. If two of their kind met, either one side fled after losing its tail, or one of them died there.

They were extremely aggressive, with savage, warlike temperaments. It was an instinctive, heartfelt desire for battle—as though someone were constantly tickling the soles of his feet with a feather. The longing for revenge and battle kept urging Xingyan onward, sometimes even making him suddenly wake from his sleep.

For dragon swordsmen like Glavenus, fiery tempers and fierce pride were everything. They were the most proactive and ruthless of predators. Once they had filled their stomachs, they would actively seek out monsters within their territory to fight.

Such a nature and behavioral logic were exceedingly rare even in nature. After all, if animals truly acted according to logic, they should avoid battle as much as possible after taking in enough energy, thereby reducing the chances of injury and energy expenditure.

After all, getting injured could mean death, or being exploited by other predators.

Perhaps this was nature's invisible restriction. Creatures with vigorous appetites and powerful combat abilities usually possessed this kind of competitive spirit and desire for battle, which in turn reduced their numbers and prevented the ecosystems of their habitats from becoming unbalanced.

Well, Deviljho had something to say about that.

And in this dragon-dominated world, creatures higher up the ecological hierarchy often possessed considerable intelligence. Some Elder Dragons at the peak of the hierarchy were even smarter than many humans... Rumor had it that some Elder Dragons even commissioned hunters to do work for them.

Ahem, rumors, just rumors... In short, when respectable intelligence combined with bodily instinct, many dragon species developed distinct personalities and different behavioral logic from one another.

Xingyan was the same. Unlike ordinary Glavenus, however, he possessed greater intelligence.

But he would not reject this instinct for battle. Instead, he would make full use of his intelligence—employing tactics, ambushes, and traps. In short, he would increase his odds of winning and make himself the victor of battle.

Yes, Xingyan knew that this was not yet the time when he would be at his strongest. If he waited a few more months, until he had completely left the hatchling stage, or even continued hunting until adulthood, then a mere Mudfish Dragon—even one considered large among Mudfish Dragons—would be nothing more than meat on a chopping block to him.

But Xingyan could no longer wait that long—he already had combat ability, didn't he?

Most importantly, he believed he could win now.

What if that Mudfish Dragon got killed during this time? Wouldn't that mean he'd never be able to avenge himself for the rest of his life?

For a dragon that had been starving desperately since birth, the grudge over a single meal truly was a bit too deeply ingrained.

More importantly, he just couldn't swallow that indignation!

He was a Glavenus! A Glavenus whose place in the ecosystem was far above that of a Mudfish Dragon!!

And yet he could only watch helplessly as the first prey he had ever hunted in his life was stolen by another dragon!!

Could there be anything more humiliating than that?!!

That was precisely why, after confirming that he had gained a certain degree of combat strength, Xingyan could no longer wait to find that Mudfish Dragon and test his skills against it.

Flower Field Marshland Area.

Tranquility and peace remained the dominant tone of this region most of the time. The gentle evening sun no longer looked as though it wanted to bake every dragon to death like it had at noon; instead, it seemed to drape the area in a soft veil of gold.

The hazy light blended the pale purple flowers and layers of green leaves together, making Xingyan almost reluctant to break this peace.

He was pretending.

Xingyan wished he could fight that Mudfish Dragon right here and now, chop it into seventeen or eighteen chunks of fish, and scatter them all across the marsh.

As for the flowers and grass... they could grow back. Under the effects of Ley Line Energy, even though the Ley Line Energy beneath the Great Sand Sea was somewhat clogged and prevented the plants here from growing as wildly as those in the Ancient Forest, their growth rate was still far from slow.

That Mudfish Dragon could be considered the ruler of this small stretch of marshland. From Xingyan's observations, it came here every evening at dusk to prey on the Carapace Dragons that came to drink.

Able to dive beneath the marsh and swim at great speed, the Mudfish Dragon could easily break through the Carapace Dragons' defenses from below. After all, no hard shells grew on their soft bellies.

It liked eating Aptonoth innards, currently had no mate, and always hunted alone. Perhaps because it had dominated this marsh for too long without encountering any danger, it was not especially vigilant while hunting or eating and was extremely relaxed.

However, although the Mudfish Dragon acted alone, a school of Bite Fish followed behind it to eat its leftovers. The two were very familiar with one another, and their coordination was highly practiced, somewhat like a symbiotic relationship. In other words, once he fought the Mudfish Dragon, these Bite Fish would become its helpers. They would be extremely troublesome and had to be dealt with first.

His luck was not bad. It was not currently the rainy season in the Great Sand Sea, nor had Kushala Daora brought any storms recently. That meant there were no young around the Mudfish Dragon, and the environment was not overly muddy... though these creatures did not seem particularly concerned about their young anyway?

They adopted a strategy of producing many offspring and then leaving them to fend for themselves. Only a small portion of the young survived to adulthood.

That was good news for Xingyan, because Mudfish Dragon young ate meat from the moment they were born. They would crawl into living creatures through openings such as their mouths, nostrils, and wounds, parasitize them, and devour their hosts' internal organs from within.

Even more disgusting, the gills of Mudfish Dragon young contained huge numbers of barbs, enough to ensure that their hosts could not remove them from their bodies—Xingyan had no desire to have something so revolting burrow into him during battle.

If that happened, his little stubby arms would not be able to save him. He could only wait helplessly for death. Even asking Bird Bro for help would be useless, since he had yet to find any signs of hunter activity. The entire New World was likely still in an isolated state before the hunters had arrived.

Xingyan's observations had been thorough. To ensure victory, he intended to suppress this Mudfish Dragon from every angle and deny it any chance to rely on a large monster's vitality to escape.

Sorry, but he was no ordinary Glavenus now. He was an intelligence-based Glavenus.

Plan first, act later. A true hunt began before the hunt itself even started!

Xingyan planned to first eliminate the Mudfish Dragon's helpers—the Bite Fish that swam around the marsh. They had even grown accustomed to gathering here every evening around this time to wait for leftovers.

Some distance from where Xingyan was hiding, he could clearly see more than a dozen long dorsal fins swimming across the marsh's surface. Each was roughly a meter long. Those were the Bite Fish that colluded with the Mudfish Dragon, gathering as their fixed daily mealtime drew near.

He could not afford to be careless. Even if his Sword Tail and the mineral greatsword coating it, which together accounted for nearly half his body length, were included, Xingyan's entire body was only a little over five meters long.

If he got surrounded and pounced on by over a dozen Bite Fish more than a meter long, that would be far from pleasant... Xingyan had no intention of ending up with a dozen thick, long toothpicks stuck in his body.

Bite Fish ate meat and were extremely aggressive. They would even leap onto shore to prey upon animals that came to drink.

Gently, slowly, ever so slightly, bit by bit—Xingyan lifted his tail from the water plants, held his breath, and cautiously clamped the sharp tip of his Sword Tail in his jaws.

Not gonna lie, brothers, Iai really was endlessly satisfying.

Rather than testing the waters before setting up his moves, Xingyan preferred to strike immediately with his strongest move.

The claws on his feet gripped the rocks at the bottom of the marsh. His powerful muscles bent and tensed as Xingyan gathered all the strength in his body. The faint creaking of his teeth grinding against the tip of his Sword Tail even caught the attention of the distant Bite Fish.

They raised their fish heads from beneath the water, their two catfish-whisker-like feelers constantly swaying as they gathered information about their surroundings. But it was already too late.

All that entered their eyes was a silver-white flash, as if the air had suddenly split open along a white line, or as if a wave had expanded in the blink of an eye.

Only after everything had fallen into darkness did the Bite Fish hear the dull boom of something crashing into the water and the sound of splashing.

To hell with all that—Sharp Blade Grind!!!

With overwhelming force, he tore through everything between himself and the Bite Fish. The swaying water plants were cut in two before they even had time to bend, while the Bite Fish were effortlessly cleaved into fish carcasses scattered across the ground.

Well, two fish had slipped through the net, but without the group, Xingyan merely swung his Sword Tail a few times and precisely finished them off.

Mudfish Dragon Accomplice Elimination Plan! Success!

And he had also gained a field full of meat. Killing two birds with one stone.

He could have an extra meal tonight.