When the Chimera saw Liu Qian charge straight at them, their three heads immediately spewed lethal flames.
Liu Qian opened his draconic jaws wide in fury and unleashed a concentrated jet of golden Dragonfire at the goat head, the fastest of them to breathe fire!
Boom!
The two streams of high-energy flame collided violently in midair, erupting in a blinding flash and a tremendous shock wave.
The blast and glare made the Chimera instinctively squint, their movements faltering.
Hovering above and behind the Chimera, the Sphinx had been locking onto Liu Qian to unleash a devastating strike when the sudden glare and shock wave disrupted its vision.
It instinctively adjusted the angle of its charged golden-red breath of destruction, trying to bypass the blast and target that cunning golden figure.
But that instant of interference and confusion was exactly what Liu Qian wanted.
At the same moment he released his Dragonfire, his enormous body rode the shock wave to gain even more speed. He made a sharp, almost vertical turn, abandoning his charge at the Chimera to dive desperately toward the fog beneath the Sphinx's massive body.
He was gambling that the explosion and glare would draw the Sphinx's attention, leaving it no time to watch what lay below.
"Roar!!!" The Sphinx bellowed in fury at being fooled.
The explosion had indeed distracted it for an instant. By the time it locked onto the rapidly falling golden figure again, Liu Qian had already reached the space beneath its enormous belly.
From this angle, its breath of destruction could not strike him directly.
But the Sphinx was determined to kill him.
Ignoring the three Chimera below, still reeling from the blast, it opened its leonine jaws wide and unleashed a devastating torrent of golden-red molten fire, indiscriminately blasting both Liu Qian's diving path and the space occupied by the Chimera.
Rumble!!!!
The golden-red pillar of destructive fire instantly swallowed the latter half of Liu Qian's diving path, along with the Chimera that had no time to react.
"Awooo!!!"
The Chimera managed only brief, unfinished howls amid the destructive flames before they and the fire they were breathing turned into showers of charred fragments.
The Sphinx's indiscriminate attack had killed monsters on its own side.
Liu Qian did not escape entirely unscathed either.
Although the speed and angle of his dive carried most of his body beyond the core of the destructive breath, the edges of the flames and their terrifyingly hot shock wave seared across his back and the tips of his outstretched wings like a red-hot branding iron.
The surging flames overwhelmed the golden aura generated by his [Fire Wielder] talent. Agonizing burns wracked Liu Qian as the scales and flesh along his back charred and vaporized in the intense heat, releasing thick black smoke and exposing ghastly white bone.
The tremendous force of the flames drove him downward at high speed.
Just as the searing pain dulled Liu Qian's reactions, the Sphinx forced its way through the edge of the flames, heedless of the risk of being burned. With one last frenzied strike, its enormous lion's paw clawed viciously at the tip of his plummeting tail!
Crack!
A large chunk of bone and scales was brutally torn from the tip of his tail!
Golden dragon blood sprayed like a fountain!
Whoosh!
Liu Qian fell even faster. The agony nearly made him black out, but he clung to his final shred of awareness-the blue waters beyond the Smoking Sea lay diagonally below him.
Enduring the heart-rending pain, he spent his last shred of willpower and remaining magic power to adjust his falling trajectory just before plunging into the boiling, ink-black sea. Like the wreckage of a burned-out rocket, he tumbled toward the blue waters that promised survival, trailing flames and thick smoke as he crossed that invisible boundary!
Splash!!!!
An enormous plume of water shot skyward!
The Golden Dragon's massive body slammed into the relatively cool waters outside the Smoking Sea!
Cold seawater instantly engulfed his nearly shattered body, bringing a bone-deep chill and extinguishing the flames still clinging to him.
His blackened wounds stung fiercely in the salt water. His golden blood vaporized the seawater, sending up thin wisps of mist.
The monsters gathered in the air at the edge of the Smoking Sea, roaring bitterly in the direction where Liu Qian had fallen.
The enormous, kinglike Sphinx hovered at the center of the throng, casting a cold, merciless stare as though it meant to see straight through those waters.
The fleet lingered anxiously outside the Smoking Sea.
When Jelena and her sister saw that world-destroying pillar of golden-red fire in the distance, then watched the blazing dragon with a charred back struggle free of its edge and finally plunge into the sea, their hearts felt as though they had been submerged in ice water.
"Hurry! Lower the boats! All Dragon Spirit Guardians, into the water! Find our lord, whatever it takes!"
Jelena's voice was frantic.
The boats were lowered with the speed of arrows loosed from a bow. Like cold, unfeeling sharks, the Dragon Spirit Guardians leaped into the sea without hesitation and dove swiftly toward the spreading blood.
Time passed in deathly silence, every second stretching into a year.
Jelena gripped the ship's rail so tightly that her nails dug deep into the wood, her eyes fixed on the spot where Liu Qian had fallen.
Janice pressed her hands over her mouth, tears rolling silently down her face as her body trembled uncontrollably.
They had witnessed that hopelessly uneven battle. Liu Qian had fought with everything he had, using the Smoking Sea's dense fog to launch hit-and-run attacks from every direction. But the cold-blooded Sphinx had caught them off guard, willing to kill its own kind just to strike at him.
At last!
The sea churned, and several Dragon Spirit Guardians surfaced, supporting a charred, battered body covered in wounds.
Bright red blood kept seeping from the wounds on his back and legs.
It was Liu Qian.
In the final second before he lost consciousness completely after hitting the water, he had returned to human form.
They carefully lifted him onto the flagship's deck.
Janice rushed over and fell to her knees beside him. Looking at the horrifying wound on his back, the gash on his leg so deep it exposed bone, and the burns and claw marks covering his entire body, her hands trembled violently. She did not even dare touch him, afraid of worsening his pain.
With trembling hands, she tore a relatively clean piece from the lining of her petticoat and dipped it in precious fresh water. Carefully avoiding the worst wounds, she wiped the relatively intact skin of his face, trying to find a sign of life.
Her fingertips detected a pulse so faint she could barely feel it.
"He's still alive! Bring clean fresh water! Soft cloth, bandages, medicine to stop the bleeding! Every medicine we can use! Hurry!" Janice's voice shook with tears and almost frantic urgency.
Janice and Jelena scrambled to help, using
soft cloth soaked in fresh water to carefully cover and cool his burns, while pressing the best blood-stanching powder and bandages they could find tightly against the gashes on his legs and elsewhere, trying to stop the bleeding.
Ordinary wound medicine was nowhere near enough for injuries this severe. They could only pray he would hold on until they found a proper doctor.
The fleet dared not linger for even a second. With every sail raised, it headed away from the Smoking Sea at the greatest speed it could muster.
On the deck, Liu Qian lay as still as a broken doll. Every breath, so faint it seemed on the verge of stopping, kept everyone on edge.
His charred, split skin, exposed bones, and constantly bleeding wounds bore silent witness to the brutality of the battle.
Behind them, the cursed sea, roiling with eternal flames and thick fog and infested with terrifying beasts, gradually dwindled until it vanished below the horizon.
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