Garos concentrated calmly, his face covered with a hazy mask, and [Star-Self Visage] quietly turned on.
In this state, his own perception and insight were raised to an unprecedented peak, which was enough to allow him to penetrate the barriers of dragon scales and flesh in an almost inward-looking way, and carefully examine the changes brought about by his dormant evolution.
Under this transcendent vision of insight, Garos saw clearly.
Except for the Energy Heart pulsing in the right chest.
Countless additional basal blood vessels were derived around his normally pulsing biological heart located in the left chest cavity and throughout the body.
These new veins are like sophisticated energy networks, a hundred times more complex than before evolution.
They connect the heart more closely with every muscle, every bone, and even every organ in the body.
Moreover, the changes extend far beyond the heart and vascular system.
All the organs in his body - the tough dragon lungs, the powerful liver, the stomach pouch responsible for digestion, the efficient kidneys... have undergone significant strengthening and remodeling.
Their structures have become denser, their functional efficiency has doubled, and their surfaces and interiors are also covered and entangled with a far greater number of new basal blood vessels than normal.
A strong premonition originating from blood instinct told him that even without the aid of any alchemical tools, he could independently perform Bloodburst State just by relying on this transformed body structure.
And.
The intensity and effect of this increase derived from the essence of life will surely far exceed that of the past with the help of external objects, and will continue to grow as Garos himself becomes increasingly powerful, becoming the core part of his power system.
"Try it now?"
As soon as this tempting thought arose, Garos immediately forced it down and shook his head slightly.
He clearly felt that his body was still in an extremely deficient state at this moment, which was far from the best time to study Bloodburst's new form.
What's more, compared with the changes in body structure, the unknown brought about by the new Energy Heart.
It made him even more excited.
"What kind of power does this Energy Heart have?"
Garos's consciousness is focused on the right chest.
Under the extraordinary insight of Star-Self Visage, the shape of Energy Heart is revealed in detail.
It is not a half-empty, half-solid form. It has already been completely materialized, showing a deep, hard, crystalline texture that seems to have condensed the essence of life.
To say it is the heart is actually not quite accurate.
It is more like an energy crystal core perfectly embedded in the chest.
Adaptive Evolution has strong uncertainty, and its appearance completely exceeded Garos's initial expectations.
He thought that being able to stably master Bloodburst State during this evolution was a huge success, but he didn't expect to receive such a surprise.
He thought for a few seconds and decided to give this energy core a formal name.
"Crystal core? Dragon crystal?"
"This title sounds like a cheap magic core dug out of the heads of third-rate monsters in ancient Western fantasy novels. It's too mediocre."
Red Iron Dragon was not very satisfied with this and shook his head.
After thinking for a moment, he recalled the rough outline of the structure of this thing before it evolved, and referred to the game settings in a distant memory, and finally came up with an idea.
"It's decided!"
"Just call it--[Dragon Jade]!"
The energy contained inside Dragon Jade is exceptionally pure and rich, but the specific effect it can exert is still unknown to Garos.
He originally wanted to continue to study in depth, but the strong feeling of deficiency inside his body came over him like a tide, becoming more and more intense.
The extreme weakness even made him feel dizzy, and his eyesight turned black, as if he had returned to the state of serious injury when Dragon-Hunting Order Blood War was about to die.
"Except Dragon Jade, my body is too weak and I must replenish energy immediately."
Garos converged its wings, slowly lowered its altitude, and returned to the ground of Red Maple Valley.
As soon as he landed, the strong dizziness hit him again, and the extreme weakness from the inside out made him almost want to lie down directly on the ground.
"Here, I'll give you the food I prepared in advance."
Seeing that Garos was in such a bad state, Red-Silver Dragon Deborah had no time to ask the reason, and immediately waved his dragon claws and quickly dug up a cellar.
Inside are displayed the bodies of large ferocious beasts and monsters that were completely sealed by ice.
These are high-energy blood foods that Deborah personally Hunt carefully reserved while Garos was sleeping.
But at this moment, a sudden change occurred.
Deep in his right chest, the energy crystal core just named Dragon Jade suddenly lit up without warning.
Buzz--!
A majestic light that was as substantial as substance and so rich that it could not be dissolved instantly burst out from the core of Dragon Jade.
It was so fiery and powerful that it even penetrated Garos's tough bones, thick muscles, and thick metal scales covering the whole body.
In the astonished eyes of Deborah and Fairy Dragon Vera who came over curiously.
Garos's right chest area seemed to be embedded in a miniature, rising sun out of thin air. Its bright and dazzling light reflected the surrounding area transparently.
Immediately afterwards.
A powerful, thick, but far from violent Life Energy warm current surged out from Dragon Jade!
It rushed towards Garos's limbs without hesitation, washing through every dry blood vessel and infiltrating every muscle on the verge of exhaustion!
So!
Under the gaze of Red-Silver Dragon and Fairy Dragon, whose eyes suddenly widened and filled with disbelief, Red Iron Dragon, whose muscles were withered a second ago and whose skin was clinging to his rugged bones, was like a dried specimen. Its huge body was like dead wood injected into Fountain of Life, or like a skin bag being wildly inflated by an invisible air pump. It began to expand and fill up inch by inch at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Withered muscle fibers are re-stretched and filled with strength.
The skin close to the bones is stretched open by new, elastic and strong muscles.
In just a dozen breaths of time.
Garos has recovered from his weak appearance, which looked like he was about to fall apart at any moment, to a level of strength equivalent to that of a red dragon.
Although it is still slightly inferior to his peak figure that was tempered before falling asleep.
But even if he was standing quietly on the ground at this moment, the pressure naturally revealed by his huge body was enough to make the air around him stagnant.
At the same time.
As his body recovered, the Dragon Jade that shone like a small sun in his chest quickly converged and became dim.
Garos stretched his body in surprise, feeling the return of surging strength and vitality in his body, thoughtfully.
A few seconds later, he raised a front paw and gently stroked his solid chest. Feeling the Dragon Jade that had fallen silent inside, he had an astonishing guess in his heart. Immediately, he no longer hesitated and began to feast on the frozen blood food in the cellar.
Click! Click!
The giant dragon opened its huge mouth full of ferocious teeth and easily tore, chewed and swallowed the animal flesh including unmelted ice.
Although it is far less delicious than carefully cooked food, the dragon's natural taste buds do not reject this primitive blood food, which has a rough flavor. However, as a large amount of food is consumed, Garos does not feel full at all, and its newly recovered body does not continue to become stronger.
On the contrary, after all the energy is efficiently absorbed, it is concentrated crazily towards Dragon Jade in the chest, as if there is a bottomless pit-like space inside that needs to be filled.
"Not enough, far from enough. I need to return to Dragon Valley immediately."
Red Iron Dragon suddenly flapped its wings, and its huge body rushed straight into the sky covered by wind and snow.
Red-Silver Dragon and Fairy Dragon looked at each other and flapped their wings without hesitation, following closely behind.
Three dragon shadows broke through the wind and snow in the sky and soared quickly towards Dragon Valley.
"Huh?"
During the flight, Garos's eyes penetrated the heavy snow curtain and scanned the ground below. The sight in front of him made his pupils shrink slightly.
"Borderlands How did it become like this?"
As far as the eye can see, there is only a dead and vast pure white between heaven and earth.
Thousands of miles of ice, everything withered.
If he hadn't clearly remembered that he woke up from the iconic red maple forest of Red Maple Valley, he would have almost thought that he was in the distant depths of Permafrost Tundra at this moment.
Borderlands It's not that it never snows.
But this is the first time Garos has witnessed such an extremely cold scene that is so intense that it seems to completely freeze the entire world.
He temporarily suppressed the doubts in his mind and accelerated his flight.
Soon after.
The familiar outline of the valley, surrounded by towering rock walls, finally appeared in the wind and snow.
It is completely different from the apocalyptic frozen scene outside.
Dragon Valley Due to its unique terrain structure, the towering mountain walls act as natural barriers, blocking out most of the raging winds and blizzards.
Although there are sporadic snowflakes falling in the valley, the ground is covered with a layer of snow that is not too thick, and the temperature is much colder than the outside, but on the whole, it presents a peaceful scene, like the arrival of early winter, with some cold-resistant dark green vegetation still surviving tenaciously, and the lake water that has not yet completely frozen flows gurgling under the thin ice.
It seems that the situation is much better than Garos expected.
At the top of the valley, Burning Steel Fortress still stands tall.
After more than ten years of meticulous care and repair by the family members, despite the passage of time, this magnificent fortress is still as tall as ever, like a silent steel Giant, quietly bathing in the wind and snow, looking at the valley.
When the figure of Garos appeared in the sky.
In the valley below, the family members who were busy or on alert raised their heads one after another.
Countless eyes, full of awe and surprise, were all focused on Red Iron Dragon in the wind and snow.
"Ho--!"
"It's the leader! It's Master Garos!"
"King! Our king is back!"
After a brief silence, thundering cheers and roars erupted like a volcano.
Under the gaze of countless eyes, Garos circled slightly, as if inspecting the territory he had not seen for a long time. Then he folded his wings and landed calmly on the highest observation deck of the fortress.
"Molten Iron Tribe's people!"
A roar like rolling thunder sounded first.
I saw Dire Bear Chief Mobel was so excited that the whole mane was trembling. It was the first to raise its arms and shout, then without hesitation, it raised its buttocks and squatted deeply on the ground!
"Celebrate! Cheer!"
"Our King - Lord Garos! Has returned!!!"
Like a fuse being lit.
Up and down the fortress, inside and outside the valley, all the family members who saw this scene stopped what they were doing, and with the deepest awe and ecstasy, they all knelt down towards the high platform of the fortress, like waves of wheat blown by the wind!
The darkness spread all the way to the edge of the valley.
"Go down with the order and open the granary to put food in! All Molten Iron Tribe family members are preparing a grand banquet tonight to celebrate with me."
Successfully surviving the long slumber is something worthy of celebration. In addition, the extent of this evolution far exceeded expectations. Garos immediately decided to hold a banquet to announce his return to the entire tribe and revive the morale of the tribe.
After leaving the specific matters of preparing the banquet to Kin Leader.
Through Blood Kin Link, he informed all Iron Dragon and the red dragons in different places of the news of his return and the banquet, and asked them to summon other Dragonkin.
After that, Garos first went to the treasure house inside the fortress and took some high energy reserves. Then he selected a spacious and bright place in the valley and ordered his family members to continuously deliver all kinds of food.
He couldn't wait for the banquet to officially start and decided to eat in advance to fill Dragon Jade's needs.
Magic gems, precious metal ingots, fresh blood food, concentrated Black Oil... these various substances containing rich energy or nutrients were swallowed by Garos one after another.
His digestive system operates efficiently, nutrients and energy are rapidly absorbed, while waste products produced by metabolism are excreted from the body and collected by specialized relatives for other uses.