Attacking Dragons

"So many..."

Meng Hongchen unconsciously moved half a step closer to Xu Tianming.

Xu Tianming stood in front of her, a pair of red eyes staring intently at the approaching monsters.

"Twelve."

Xiao Hongchen reported the count in a low voice, his tone extremely tense.

Ye Guyi did not speak, the holy light on her hands condensing as her light-golden long hair fluttered backward in the foul wind surging from outside the barrier.

The swarm of Rift Realm Creations paused fifty meters away from the barrier, and that Dark Demon Tiger raised its head, letting out a hoarse roar.

Immediately following, all the Man Faced Demon Spiders raised their abdomens at once, light-purple spider silk jetting out. The Mandala Snakes wriggled their bodies, their venom shooting out like an arrow rain. The Wind Baboons spread their torn wing membranes to launch a pincer attack from the flanks, while the Dark Demon Tiger lowered its center of gravity and lunged fiercely.

At the edge of the barrier, twelve Soul Guidance Cannons turned together, the incandescent light erupting from their muzzles tearing apart the dark-purple sky.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A continuous series of roaring explosions rang out. The first wave of artillery fire accurately and unmistakably struck the three Wind Baboons rushing at the front, high-energy Soul Guidance rays piercing through the Star Crystal cores in their chests. Their crystallized bodies exploded into fragments in midair, dark-purple crystal shards falling like raindrops and landing on the barrier with a dense pattering sound.

The spider silk woven by the Man Faced Demon Spiders was burned away by the flames emitted by the Soul Guidance Cannons the moment it made contact with the outside of the protective barrier, turning into charred-black ash.

A Mandala Snake tried to circle around from the side to the rear, but the moment it jumped, the crossfire of two Soul Guidance Cannons severed its body into two sections.

The snake body, broken into two halves, crashed onto the ground. The crystallized scales were still trembling slightly, and dark-red venom gushed from the wounds, corroding one large pit after another into the ground.

The Dark Demon Tiger was the most ferocious. It took a Soul Guidance ray head-on, and the crystal armor on its shoulder shattered, but its body only paused for a moment. Then it opened its wide mouth, spewing a breath of black mist that bombarded the protective barrier.

A circle of silver ripples appeared on the barrier, but it did not undergo any changes. Following that, four Soul Guidance Cannons all aimed at it.

Boom~

The body of the Dark Demon Tiger disintegrated amidst the flames, its large tiger head slamming onto the ground. Its dark-purple Star Crystal eyes still maintained a ferocious expression, only completely going out a moment later.

From start to finish, the battle did not even take twenty breaths of time.

Outside the barrier, there was nothing left but scattered crystallized fragments all over the ground and slowly rising black smoke. The muzzles of the Soul Guidance Cannons were also slowly turning, aiming outward once more and remaining in a state of high alert.

Meng Hongchen let out a long breath, patting her own chest.

"Don't worry,"

she lifted her chin, revealing a smug smile.

"The defense set up by Grandfather is not something at the Titled Douluo level of strength, so don't even think about getting close to us."

After she finished speaking, feeling that this was still not enough, she added another sentence.

"Anyone below Titled Douluo, one comes and one dies."

Xiao Hongchen withdrew the hand resting on his short blade and glanced at her.

"Can you stop casually death-flagging things?"

"What do you mean by death-flagging? This is a fact!"

"The fact is that every time you say things like this, nothing good ever happens."

"You..."

Meng Hongchen's face puffed up in anger, and just as she was about to retort, the ground beneath their feet suddenly emitted a thud.

Boom~

In the dark-purple firmament, a crimson-gold flame shot straight into the sky, transforming into a gigantic mushroom cloud.

Even though they were very far away, dozens of miles out, that violent shockwave still rushed over, causing the crystallized dead trees outside the barrier to bend together and emit a cracking sound.

Following that, an angry roar resounded through the entire Rift Realm, and a tangible soundwave swept across the area.

Layers of ripples washed over the surface of the barrier. Meng Hongchen and Xiao Hongchen both covered their ears, and Ye Guyi also furrowed her brows as holy light circulated around her body, neutralizing that piercing buzzing sound.

The ground vibrated slightly, and small pebbles peeling off the crystallized rock face bounced a few times before dropping into a fissure in the ground.

"Grandfather and the others... are already fighting the Rift Realm Lord."

Xiao Hongchen lowered the hand covering his ear, his complexion pale. The aftermath generated by a battle of this tier was enough to make children at the Soul Grandmaster level feel short of breath.

Xu Tianming did not speak. He gazed up at the place where the flames burned, his eyes devoid of any fluctuations, but inside his heart he was constantly complaining.

My first soul ring.

Where is my first soul ring?

He looked down at the palm of his right hand, where a shrunk-down miniature sun was spinning, emitting a warm glow.

It was one thing to make a wish and drag a Rift Realm into existence, but where was my soul ring?

Xu Tianming wanted to drag the Stellaron out from his Spirit Sea and then point at its nose and curse.

The side effects were maxed out, yet the main course wasn't served up. If this wasn't a crooked merchant, what was?

He even suspected that the Stellaron had been damaged during the traversal, only caring about destruction and forgetting about the real business.

At this moment, the buzzing sound in the air abruptly changed its tune. The originally sharp and piercing background noise was suddenly muffled down, as if being pinched by an invisible giant hand.

It was overly quiet, and then, the ground shook. This tremor was not the distant explosion aftermath of before, but came from somewhere very close, very heavy, and very regular.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud...

Every vibration was clearer and closer than the last.

Xiao Hongchen's expression immediately turned very ugly. He instantly dropped prone onto the ground, pressing his right ear against the crystallized earth while splaying the five fingers of his left hand to sense the frequency of the tremors.

"Three-step shock, five-step shudder..."

He muttered to himself, lowering his voice.

"Something's coming."

"Massive size."

"Weight... should be over one hundred thousand catties."

As he spoke, he furrowed his brows, his expression extremely focused and serious, just like when he was answering a teacher's question in class.

No one responded to him. Ye Guyi and Meng Hongchen both stared ahead with wide eyes, their little faces as pale as paper.

Xu Tianming looked down at Xiao Hongchen on the ground. After a silence of two seconds, he patted the latter on the shoulder.

"Stop listening."

Xiao Hongchen raised his head, his expression extremely earnest.

"Your Highness, I'm studying the enemy's activity patterns. The distance between each of its steps..."

"We can see it."

Xu Tianming pointed ahead. Xiao Hongchen was stunned for a moment, then turned his head along with the direction of the finger. At the end of the crystallized forest outside the protective barrier, a small mountain was moving.

No.

It was not a small mountain, but a dragon.

Out of the mist inside the Rift Realm, a thirty-meter-tall giant monster walked out.

Its body should have been covered with dazzling golden dragon scales, but at this moment more than half of it had been eroded away by dark-purple Star Crystals. The Star Crystals and dragon scales grew intertwined with one another, resembling a suit of armor forcefully pieced together after breaking.

From within the gaps, gold-melting fire slowly flowed, and with every breath it took, scorching sparks sprayed out from its nostrils, burning out melting pits upon the ground as they landed.