Translator: AnubisTL
Including the earlier Ice Wind Art, these weren't typical quasi-spell skills for adult white dragons; they were magic spells she had learned.
Since reaching adulthood, she had dedicated herself to mastering Ice Magic, focusing on spells aligned with her elemental affinity. She now possessed seventy years of magical training.
Flame Claw!
Flames erupted from Garos's claws, piercing through the icy winds swirling around the white dragon. With lightning speed, he struck at her chest.
The white dragon raised her claws simultaneously, slashing at Garos.
In that fleeting moment of collision...
The ice armor shattered under the red-iron dragon's claw strike, splintering into fragments.
Boom! The dragon claw continued its descent, landing with a dull thud. The white dragon's chest scales cracked, the searing heat of the fire damage causing her to grimace and gasp. A charred claw mark remained on her snow-white chest scales.
Fire-type attacks dealt extra damage to white dragons.
If not for the ice armor's partial mitigation, her breastbone might have been shattered.
Almost simultaneously, the white dragon's claws struck Garos's head as intended. Garos merely tilted his head slightly, showing no signs of dizziness. Instead, the white dragon felt a sharp pain in her claws.
Garos's facial and cranial thorn spikes were extraordinarily hard and sharp.
They pierced the white dragon's claws, then snapped off, embedding themselves in her flesh.
"Such hard thorn spikes?"
The white dragon's eyes flashed with ferocity. She opened her jaws, lunged forward, and bit savagely at Garos's neck, moving with primal speed and a cunning angle—a wild, instinctive combat technique.
Garos sidestepped, causing the white dragon's bite to miss.
Instinctively, she snapped at the exposed shoulder of the red-iron dragon before her. Her fangs pierced the scales, but before she could taste blood, her mouth and tongue were lacerated by the thorn spikes. The pain jolted her like an electric shock, forcing her to release her grip.
Garos's thorn spikes were distributed similarly to those of a typical red dragon.
They appeared denser and more formidable, but not enough to warrant alarm.
However, due to his previous evolution, the hardness and sharpness of his spikes far exceeded the comprehension of other dragonkind. Moreover, they possessed rapid regeneration capabilities. Any area covered in these spikes functioned like a suit of spiked armor; striking them was akin to striking oneself.
While enduring a bite from the white dragon, Garos raised his claw, his muscles coiling like steel cables. With a brutal stomp, he shattered the white dragon's ice armor and abdominal scales, inflicting further damage.
The white dragon was hurled backward, its jaws snapping open to unleash a Frost Dragon Breath.
The condensed, almost tangible cold air carried a dense barrage of ice shards, forming a frosty trail as it shot toward Garos.
Garos didn't dodge.
He inhaled deeply, then exhaled a torrent of flaming dragon breath.
A roaring inferno, molten as lava, erupted from his maw, meeting the Frost Dragon Breath head-on.
The two breaths collided, each vying for dominance. With a hissing clash, a dense white mist billowed skyward, engulfing the battlefield in a suffocating haze.
An adult dragon's breath should have been more potent.
Yet the Frost Dragon Breath was gradually devoured by the flames, inch by inch, forcing the white dragon into retreat.
At the critical moment, she clamped her jaws shut, pulled herself higher, and felt the searing pain as the flaming dragon breath grazed her claws.
Boom!
The red-iron dragon's wings tore through the night, lunging toward the white dragon.
The two dragons locked in close combat once more.
The white dragon had a longer wingspan and sharper claws, but she lacked Garos's raw power. Her attacks glanced harmlessly off Garos's armored hide, while his strikes shattered her ice armor, leaving her vulnerable.
Yet the white dragon never stopped chanting.
After a dozen seconds, the final syllable of her incantation fell. With a powerful flap of her wings, she unleashed a dense, icy fog—thicker than the white mist, laced with crystalline dust.
Ice Fog Technique!
The dense fog instantly engulfed both her and Garos.
The world dissolved into a blinding white haze, and icy tendrils crept in from all sides, chilling Garos to the bone. His vision and senses were severely impaired.
"This white dragon knows magic."
"Her innate talent must be above average for a white dragon. Otherwise, with their limited intelligence..."
Garos instinctively wanted to belittle the white dragon again, but this time he caught himself.
Underestimating an opponent was a fatal mistake. Garos didn't want to underestimate her, but his ingrained contempt for white dragons sometimes slipped through.
The icy mist churned like a living thing, the White Dragon Treacy's form flickering in and out of view within its depths.
Seizing the moment Garos turned, her frost-rimed claws slashed across the red-iron dragon's back, tearing a frigid gash through his double-layered scales—though ultimately failing to reach flesh.
By the time Garos retaliated, she had already dissolved back into the mist, leaving behind only a few drifting ice crystals.
Her voice echoed from multiple directions, layered and resonant.
"Hybrid dragon, I concede that your bloodline grants you innate advantages."
"But the wisdom and skill I've honed over nearly two centuries are beyond the reach of a young dragon like you."
She spoke with cruel relish, "I will defeat you, ravage you, repeatedly humiliate you, and slowly torment you. You will pay dearly for bearing the name 'White Scale.'"
Hearing her words, Garos could almost see the gleeful smile on the white dragon's face.
He remained silent, inwardly acknowledging that facing this white dragon—a creature of higher life grade—in his standard form would indeed be troublesome and challenging.
Adult dragons possessed extraordinary resilience, and the white dragon's Ice Magic was formidable.
Though Garos had inflicted several wounds, they were all superficial. If this protracted battle continued until dawn, neither side would likely achieve victory.
After fighting this long, Garos had essentially gauged the white dragon's capabilities.
Seeing this, Garos decided there was no need to prolong the fight.
He resolved to end it swiftly.
At that moment, White Dragon Treacy, her eyes fixed on the juvenile dragon's powerful frame, stealthily approached, intending to strike his hind leg joints under the cover of the icy mist.
But just as she raised her dragon claw, before it could fall, she suddenly heard a crackling surge of electricity.
Zzzzt— Golden currents erupted from the juvenile dragon's body, dancing like a mane through the gaps between his thorn spikes and scales. The dazzling, dense energy stimulated his muscles, causing them to swell and bulge in layers. His already massive frame expanded further, becoming even more colossal and imposing.
Treacy's claw had barely touched the red-iron dragon's hind leg, not yet leaving a mark, when she saw him suddenly whirl around with impossible speed, grinning at her. Panic seized her heart. She flapped her wings, trying to vanish back into the icy mist, but her neck tightened abruptly, and her entire body plummeted downward, pinned and crushed.
The world blurred into a chaotic mosaic of colors.
Crack!
The ground trembled and split into spiderweb-like fissures as Garos rammed White Dragon Treacy deep into the frozen earth.
Ice-crystal scales shattered with each brutal impact. Garos's claw strikes, wreathed in black-red qi and golden lightning, rained down like a storm of steel.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The brittle shattering of ice armor mingled with the white dragon's muffled groans of pain, echoing relentlessly.
Treacy's struggles grew weaker with each passing moment.
Her proudly conjured ice magic shattered the instant it materialized under the dragon claw's strike. Her slender tail, attempting a counterattack, was pinned beneath Garos's claw, leaving her utterly immobilized.
Against Garos's ferocious assault, her feeble struggles and desperate counterattacks were utterly suppressed.
The once-proud white dragon now resembled a lone ship tossed about in a raging storm, on the verge of capsizing. She felt suffocated, sensed imminent death, and perceived the red-iron dragon before her as an invincible monster clad in dragon hide.
Survival instinct ultimately triumphed over pride.
As the red-iron dragon's next attack loomed, the white dragon flipped onto her back.
"I am the foolish White Scale," she rasped, her voice like crushed ice crystals. With all four claws pointing skyward, exposing her vulnerable underbelly, she continued, "Noble Red Iron Hybrid, I was wrong."
Boom! The wind pressure nearly forced her eyes shut.
Garos's claw halted a mere inch from her, the golden lightning coiling around his body gradually receding.
"No," Garos corrected, the claw-tip's airflow brushing away ice shards from Treacy's eyelids. "You are a white dragon." He slowly withdrew his claw, still crackling with residual electricity, and added, "A foolish white dragon."
(End of the Chapter)
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