Of course, to be fair, although it couldn't fly, when the titanium dragon charged on its two stubby legs (compared to an ostrich's), it was still astonishingly fast. With just a little hop, it could easily cross mountains and rivers, and in an instant it had charged into the woods and disappeared from sight.
By the time the Imperial military finally opened the main gate's shield, Yu Lian and Feifei had already ridden the titanium dragon far away.
Bucephalus charged ahead, making two or three leaps along the way, and reached the end of the space in barely half a minute. What appeared before their eyes was no longer mountains, flowing water, forests, and grasslands, but a particularly dispiriting metal wall. At a glance, it looked like the armored ramparts of a prison.
"You like soaring freely too, don't you?" Yu Lian laughed.
The titanium dragon indicated that it didn't want to talk, dragged its stubby legs into an emergency stop, then continued charging along the wall. Before long, the wall turned a corner.
The dragon charged around it and found itself facing a long passageway. From its direction, it was clearly leading to the ship's outer hull.
So that was it. This must have been the dragon's launch tunnel. Though creatures like dragons were completely unscientific and didn't need a running start at all—they could take off with a casual flap of their wings, which by all rights shouldn't have done a thing, lifting a body that looked to weigh at least a hundred tons right off the ground. Still, charging through a tunnel like this while carrying its rider into the sky would probably give the titanium dragon a thrill of headlong excitement.
It was a kind of ritual, too.
With nothing blocking the way, they ran even