Lu Mingfei's landing was nowhere near as graceful as Naga's.
He hit the ground like a falling cannonball, bounced once, then crashed down heavily again. His back slammed into the stone slabs, and he slid backward. Gravel rolled beneath him, scraping his back raw with burning pain. He barely managed to steady himself, digging both claws into the ground and gouging two long trenches into the stone. His knees went weak, his chest felt as though it had been pounded repeatedly with an iron hammer, and a sweet, metallic taste surged up his throat.
Then he suddenly raised his head, his pupils contracting.
Naga was gone.
This is bad. Lu Mingfei's heart sank.
The next second, Naga appeared before him. Her red robes fluttered, her emerald-gold pupils were close enough to see, and the great sword formed from her bone staff was raised high, its blade reflecting his stunned face.
But her attack did not fall.
Boom—
A massive dragon tail came crashing down from above, slamming between Lu Mingfei and Naga like a wall. The stone slabs shattered into powder, fragments sprayed out like shrapnel, and a curtain of gray dust rose up, forcibly cutting off Naga's attack path. The shockwave sent Lu Mingfei rolling backward twice more, his eardrums ringing.
It was Xia Mi. Controlling Fenrir's dragon body, she had lent a hand at the critical moment.
Lu Mingfei let out a shaken breath. If he hadn't had a teammate, he would have had to restart again.
Naga lightly beat her wings, her body drifting backward as lightly as a feather borne on the wind, putting distance between herself and that dangerous dragon tail. At the same time, several blood-red feathers fell from her wings, carving sharp arcs through the air like flying knives as they shot straight