"B-big..."
She tilted her head toward the thousand-zhang dragon, her voice broken by the howling wind.
"Such a big one..."
"I've never cut anything this big before..."
The giant dragon lowered his head.
Long Yuan's voice emerged from that enormous maw, deep as rolling thunder, every word echoing like an earthquake.
"Zhao Leer."
"That rotten bloodline of yours can indeed eat through my scales."
"But how much can your blood mist cover?"
"My body is a thousand zhang long. Corrode one patch, and I'll give you another."
"Can you corrode them all?"
Zhao Leer said nothing.
She shot toward the dragon.
Against his golden body, her dark-red figure was tiny as an ant, but she moved at blinding speed.
She tore a narrow crimson passage through the gale of golden dragon might surging around him and plunged between the scales of his belly.
She spread the fingers of both hands. Her nails became ten dark-red blood blades that stabbed deep into one of his belly scales.
The instant the blades pierced it, the dark-red power of her bloodline's decay poured through their tips and into the scale.
Starting at its edges, the golden scale visibly turned gray, grew brittle, and flaked away.
The dragon threw back his head with a roar of pain that shook heaven and earth.
Long Yuan lashed his tail toward his belly. Its massive tip came crashing down on Zhao Leer's position, wreathed in dense golden dragon might.
A heartbeat before it struck, Zhao Leer released her grip and dropped. The golden gale raised by the tail as it swept over her head sent her tumbling several times.
By the time she climbed to her feet, a thin trickle of dark-red blood had escaped the corner of her mouth.
She had no time to wipe it