A foul wind struck him as the Bat-Winged Serpent Lizard lunged out of the thick fog, its enormous jaws gaping. Crimson light surged in its throat, and a stream of dark red fire erupted.
Under cover of the flames, it abruptly folded its enormous, brown-scaled bat wings. Its massive body accelerated into a dive like a battering ram, four gleaming claws raking viciously toward the Golden Dragon's belly.
Liu Qian's draconic eyes flared wide. He beat his wings downward with all his strength, whipping up violent air currents to haul himself upward. At the same time, his barbed dragon tail whistled like a steel whip toward the serpent lizard's comparatively slender neck.
Ssshhh-!
The dark red fire grazed the Golden Dragon's flank, only to be blocked by the pale golden halo surrounding his body.
Liu Qian's swinging tail struck the serpent lizard's neck bones with perfect accuracy. Amid a dull crack of bone, its attack stopped dead. Its head flopped limply, and it tumbled into the sea, trailing the last of its flames.
Liu Qian absorbed the corpse's dragon spirit, but before he could celebrate, a piercing screech split the air overhead. A White-Feathered Cockatrice swooped down, its scarlet fleshy crest blazing like a torch.
It opened its mouth and spat a concentrated line of intensely hot fire straight at Liu Qian's eyes.
Before the fire reached him, its sharp, hooked beak was already poised to deliver a lethal peck once the flames disrupted his defense.
Liu Qian abruptly rolled his massive body sideways, narrowly dodging the incandescent white fire. Scorching air seared his scales.
His jaws gaped, unleashing a broad fan of golden dragonfire with tremendous force-not to attack directly, but to block the Cockatrice's follow-up attack.
At the same time, his hind claws struck like lightning, slamming into the diving Cockatrice's outstretched fleshy wing.
Rip! His claws tore through the tough wing membrane. The Cockatrice shrieked and lost its balance, its line of fire veering harmlessly aside.
Liu Qian showed no mercy. His enormous head swung sharply, and his gaping jaws, lined with hard, sharp teeth, clamped down on the Cockatrice's soft chest and belly.
Crunch-!
The Cockatrice gave a dying wail, coughing up bloody foam mixed with fragments of its organs as it fell like a kite with its string cut.
Crushing wind pressure descended from overhead. Another Chimera, more than ten meters long and bearing lion, goat, and serpent heads, plunged toward him. All three hideous heads spat fire at once.
As the flames wove into a net, its lion legs, as powerful as siege rams, and its scaled serpent tail tensed, ready to tear him apart at close range.
Liu Qian unleashed a sky-shaking roar and advanced instead of retreating.
He folded his wings and hurtled like a golden meteor into the sea of fire on the left.
At the instant of contact, his wings snapped open to their full span. Violent air currents scattered and swept away most of the flames. Scorching gusts battered his wing membranes, but the golden halo kept the fire outside.
His jaws opened wide, and a blast of dragonfire gleaming with destructive golden light slammed precisely into the stream of fire from the goat head!
Boom-! The two high-energy streams collided violently, scattering white light and shock waves.
Liu Qian's dragonfire was clearly stronger. It overwhelmed the opposing stream, and the remaining flames poured savagely into the goat head's gaping mouth.
The goat head shrieked in agony as the inside of its mouth instantly charred. The Chimera convulsed in pain.
Without pausing, Liu Qian thrust his enormous hind claws toward the serpent head's lower jaw on the right, moving like lightning with a shriek of torn air.
Rip! Crack!
His claws crushed the serpent head's jawbone outright, and the fireball gathering in its mouth detonated.
Boom!
Fire, flesh, and shattered bone sprayed everywhere! The serpent head was utterly destroyed!
The sole remaining lion head spat purple flames and lunged at him in terror and madness. Its enormous lion paw cut through the air, striking viciously at the base of Liu Qian's wing.
Liu Qian abruptly dropped. The lion's claws grazed his spine, sending shattered dragon scales and blood flying.
Following the movement, he lowered his head and bit hard into the breastbone beneath the lion head.
Crack! A dull sound of breaking bone rang out.
The lion head spewed a great mouthful of blood mixed with flames. Its enormous body reeled through the air and fell into the sea.
In just a few exchanges, he had killed a Three-Headed Purple-Winged Chimera, a Bat-Winged Serpent Lizard, a White-Feathered Red-Crested Cockatrice, and a Lion-Goat-Serpent Three-Headed Chimera.
Yet the monsters' roars kept coming from every direction. Liu Qian's draconic eyes narrowed as countless Chimeras, Cockatrices, Bat-Winged Serpent Lizards, Griffins, and still more monsters appeared in the clouds and fog.
They were all moving to surround Liu Qian.
Golden light flickered in Liu Qian's eyes. His vision, far surpassing that of ordinary creatures, pierced the layers of fog and instantly pinpointed every pursuer's position and movements.
He did not meet them head-on. His enormous draconic body abruptly dropped, and like a nimble fish, he plunged into the denser sea of fog below, where sulfurous steam churned!
"Cluck-cluck-cluck-!" Another Cockatrice, this one black-feathered, followed close behind with a piercing screech. It relied most heavily on sight, and its incandescent white line of fire swept futilely through the thick fog like a blind searchlight, only revealing its own position.
Liu Qian turned sharply in the fog, deftly guiding the Cockatrice's line of fire toward the goat head of a Chimera that had just emerged from the wall of fog beside him and was preparing to breathe fire.
Ssshhh! The scorching line of fire struck the goat head squarely in the neck. Though not fatal, the intense pain instantly threw its fiery breath off course, spraying the serpent head beside it. The two monstrous heads hissed furiously at each other, introducing a flicker of disorder into the formation.
Now.
Liu Qian beat his wings fiercely, stirring up violent currents of fog. Like a bolt of golden lightning, he shot diagonally through the brief opening in the Chimeras' formation.
His target was clear: the few faster Griffin Monsters flying at a relatively low altitude.
Seeing their prey approach of his own accord, the Griffin Monsters excitedly spat fans of fire and lunged toward him.
Liu Qian parted his jaws, but instead of breathing dragonfire, he unleashed a piercing, intensely provocative dragon cry.
At the same time, his enormous body executed a perilous S-shaped maneuver through the flock of Griffin Monsters.
The dragon cry drew the Griffin Monsters' full attention. They instinctively followed Liu Qian's path, breathing fire and lunging after him.
The S-shaped maneuver let Liu Qian evade most of the flames and claw strikes by the narrowest of margins, but one Griffin Monster's sharp claws still left several deep gouges in his tough back.
Liu Qian's sudden change of direction left the two Griffin Monsters pursuing him unable to stop, and they slammed violently into each other.
At the same time, their fans of fire swept over each other and another companion beside them. Feathers flew, flames splashed, and agonized roars rang out. The small squad of Griffin Monsters instantly descended into infighting and chaos.
"Roaaar-!" Sphinx's furious lion roar rang out high above. Clearly, the prey's cunning and the stupidity of the other monsters had enraged the creature.
Sphinx beat enormous eagle wings, dispersing some of the thick fog in an attempt to pinpoint Liu Qian.
The three Chimeras also regrouped and closed in again.
Liu Qian did not pause, taking advantage of the chaos the Griffin Monsters had created,
he dove again, skimming the boiling sea. The scalding spray and steam he stirred up further obscured everyone's vision.
Several Bat-Winged Serpent Lizards emerged from the fog below, directly into Liu Qian's flight path.
The serpent lizards instinctively spread their sharp claws and spat streams of dark red fire.
A sharp gleam flashed in Liu Qian's draconic eyes. At the critical instant, he abruptly pulled his body into a steep emergency climb.
Rip! Boom!
The two serpent lizards at the front could not retract their claws in time. Their sharp talons tore viciously into a Griffin Monster following close behind Liu Qian.
At the same time, their streams of dark red fire accidentally struck another serpent lizard beside them.
The Griffin Monster's agonized shrieks mingled with the serpent lizards' furious hissing, and everything below instantly dissolved into chaos.
Riding the momentum of his sudden climb, Liu Qian beat his wings, whipping up great swaths of thick fog mixed with steam. Like a golden arrow, he shot straight into the sky, targeting the three Chimeras that had just regrouped.
He had no intention of fighting them head-on. Instead, he meant to draw the trouble toward the ruler of the skies, Sphinx.
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