There was a saying that overwhelming strength could overcome every trick—but only when the gap in power was vast enough.
When two opponents were evenly matched, the battle came down to timing, terrain, and support.
On a snowy mountaintop, one man faced a horde of Frost Dragons.
At that moment, Garen had none of those advantages.
The Saint Realm Frost Dragon was covered in thick ice armor, blocking Garen's attacks head-on. Dozens of other Level Nine Frost Dragons rapidly fired ice arrows—each equivalent to an eighth-level spell—at Garen, while some of them gathered power to unleash the ninth-level spell Ice-Sealing Heaven and Earth.
The One-Horned Rhinoceros herd's territory lay close to the Frost Dragons'. The Frost Dragon King had sensed the disturbance from Garen's earlier battle, in which he'd killed many One-Horned Rhinoceroses, so the dragons had been on guard well in advance.
The moment Garen appeared, ready to launch a surprise attack, the prepared Frost Dragons caught him off guard.
Do I have to transform? Or ask the Golden Sun Eagle to help? Then I'd lose the experience from the Level Nine Magical Beasts. A single Saint Realm beast wouldn't give me much experience anyway. It doesn't seem worth it.
Garen felt torn.
He was caught between a rock and a hard place. He could still gain some advantage if he fought the Frost Dragon King one-on-one.
But countless eighth-level ice arrows were flying at him. With the Tiger God Armor protecting him, he could withstand them, but the exploding ice crystals clung to his body. He had to expend battle qi to shake them off. If he didn't, he would eventually be frozen over, severely hampering his speed.
And then there was the ninth-level spell Ice-Sealing Heaven and Earth, a powerful spell second only to Absolute Zero. It could still injure him, even if only slightly, and would speed up the freezing process.
"Human, I advise you to leave at once. I have no wish to make an enemy of you."
The Frost Dragon King sensed the Saint Realm Golden Sun Eagle hovering not far above, and knew that the many Level Nine Frost Dragons wouldn't be able to inflict any serious harm on Garen in a short time.
Every time Garen struck him, he was injured. The Frost Dragon King was beginning to retreat.
Garen desperately searched for a solution.
"I have no choice. You brought this on yourselves."
After muttering that, Garen quickly sent a Soul Transmission to the Golden Sun Eagle, then transformed. His battle qi instantly surged tenfold.
With his speed greatly increased, he dodged the countless ice arrows and flashed beneath the Frost Dragon King.
He unleashed a full-power strike.
"Explosive Slash!"
The Profundity of Explosion erupted at full force. The Frost Dragon's ice armor shattered instantly, and the terrifying blast continued unabated, tearing a massive wound in the Frost Dragon King's belly. Blood poured out.
The blow sent the Frost Dragon King flying upward.
Garen's sudden change in fighting style caught the Frost Dragons off guard.
Before the Frost Dragon King could react, a Dimensional Blade five or six meters wide slashed down at an angle.
One of the Frost Dragon King's wings was severed, and half his belly was cut away. Unable to maintain his energy, he plummeted.
Garen wasn't about to let this opportunity slip by. He struck the huge wound several more times, ending the dragon's life.
Ding: You have slain the Saint Realm Frost Dragon King and gained 2,529 experience points.
Garen quickly stored half of the Frost Dragon King's body, ignored the other Level Nine Frost Dragons, and flew away without looking back.
The group of Level Nine Frost Dragons was dumbfounded. They hadn't expected their leader to be killed so easily.
As they watched Garen fly off, they wondered whether they should chase him—or not.
Garen flew away quickly, not because he feared the group of Frost Dragons, but because he was afraid the system would cheat him. Earlier, in the outer regions of the Magical Beast Mountain Range, he'd transformed and then changed back to human form before killing a Level Six Saw-Toothed Crocodile. The system had only given him half the experience.
Now he feared that if he changed back into human form and killed these Frost Dragons, the system would cheat him again. There were so many Frost Dragons, and the experience was worth a lot. Losing half of it would break his heart. Until he figured out how the system worked, he decided to play it safe.
He and the Golden Sun Eagle flew together for a while, then found a flat boulder. Man and bird started roasting Saint Realm dragon meat.
After thoroughly enjoying the dragon meat, Garen lay on the boulder and took a nap. Only then did he set off again, flying toward the ice mountain.
"Heh heh heh... I've let the cooldown run for so long. There's no reason for the system to mess with me again. The Frost Dragons won't escape my grasp."
This time, it took less than half an hour to turn the entire Frost Dragon horde into experience.
Without the Saint Realm Frost Dragon to hold him back, Garen—even in human form—was like a tiger among sheep against the group of Level Nine Frost Dragons. He killed several with each slash and quickly ended the battle.
The system showed a little mercy and didn't cheat him this time. He gained an average of 1,200 experience points per dragon, for a total of 20,000 experience.
He also collected 69 Level Nine Magic Crystal Cores, one Primary Enhancement Stone, and two Gemstones.
Warrior Level: Level 9 (665674/1 million experience)
Wind-style
Laws and Mysteries: "Wind Element" (990,000/20 million experience)
Fire-style
Laws and Mysteries: "Profundity of Explosion" (1.26 million/5 million)
Transformation Level: Saint Realm
Magic Level: Level 9 (150,000/1 million experience)
His Warrior Level had reached the middle stage of Level Nine in human form. Nothing else had changed.
At this rate, unless a Saint Realm Magical Beast dropped an item, killing one wasn't worth the effort. They were difficult to kill, and the experience they gave wasn't much.
Garen checked his spatial ring. He was just one Primary Enhancement Stone short of combining them into an Intermediate Enhancement Stone. Once he had one, he could enhance the Tiger God Armor to Divine Artifact level. Then he'd be much tougher. Saint Realm attacks would at most leave him seriously injured, and even a Saint Realm peak expert wouldn't be able to kill him in one blow.
So Garen decided to head north at a leisurely pace, searching for Level Nine Magical Beasts.
Although there were no large groups of Level Nine Magical Beasts left in the Sunset Mountain Range, plenty of them still roamed alone.
On average, one item dropped for every twenty Magical Beasts killed under normal circumstances, and even that wasn't guaranteed. Usually, it didn't bother him much. But now that his Tiger God Armor was on the verge of evolving, finding a single Primary Enhancement Stone had suddenly become difficult.
A little over a month later, Garen left the Sunset Mountain Range and arrived in the southern part of the Yulan Empire.
From the core region to the central region, he'd encountered only six Level Nine Magical Beasts. Apart from experience and Magic Crystal Cores, they hadn't dropped a thing.
It was already early December, and he still had the Side Quest to rescue Doehring Cowart. He couldn't afford to lose sight of the bigger picture. Garen had no patience to keep hunting Magical Beasts, so he left the Sunset Mountain Range and entered the Yulan Empire.
Bare-chested and carrying the God-Slaying Blade on his back, Garen hadn't gained much experience over the past month. But by attuning himself to nature each day, he'd made a small breakthrough in his understanding of the Laws and Mysteries of the Wind Element, and his experience had surged by more than a hundred thousand. That was still a good haul.
After all, he'd used a Soul Golden Bead, which had strengthened his Soul Power. That made it much easier to deduce the Laws and Mysteries. Besides, the elemental Laws and Mysteries of each style were the easiest to comprehend.
As soon as he left the Sunset Mountain Range, Garen noticed red dots appearing on the System Map. He'd ignored the usual red dots in the mountain range's outer regions, since they were generally just low-level Magical Beasts.
But there were red dots beyond the Sunset Mountain Range too. Garen knew without looking that he'd run into bandits.
From the moment Uncle Luke died, Garen had sworn that whenever he encountered bandits, he would kill every one of them without mercy.
After Garen upgraded the System Map, it could detect targets within two kilometers. Now the bandits in the outer reaches of the Sunset Mountain Range were in for a bad time.
Even without gaining experience, Garen killed them without hesitation.
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