After swimming for who knows how long, a bright light gradually appeared ahead.
Haoyuan slowed down and crept forward quietly. Peering through the cover of the forest and bushes, he spotted a small clearing surrounded by the woods.
Six Triceratops were pretending to eat plants, while two Nanotyrannus and a single Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed among them.
There was no hunting, no killing, no fighting over mates—the entire scene exuded a bizarre, absurd harmony.
Haoyuan was flabbergasted.
“So many dinosaurs, and they’re all pseudo-dragons?”
“How did they all spring up overnight?”
Swallowing his saliva, he slowly crept toward the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Eight against one? The odds are in my favor!”
The pseudo-Tyrannosaurus Rex was pretending to stare at a Triceratops's rear when the ferns beside it quivered slightly. Confused, it turned its head, only for a massive white silhouette to pounce from the foliage!
Snap! He crushed its throat in one bite, then constricted and shattered its bones. Next, two swipes of his claws slammed the pseudo-Nanotyrannus to death, a headbutt sent two Triceratops flying, and a tail sweep followed by a flurry from his Kirin Arm wiped out all eight pseudo-dragons in a flash!
Time to dig in!
Terrified, the blue-feathered avian dinosaurs in the forest squawked twice before fleeing into the distance.
After a satisfying feast, Haoyuan had accumulated a vast amount of energy.
Just as he was contemplating his next evolutionary path, the ground suddenly vibrated slightly.
“What's going on?”
Haoyuan raised his head and looked around, his dragon whiskers trembling as they sensed the surroundings.
He felt dense swarms of large creatures approaching from every direction.
He hastily tried to hide.
Suddenly, a piercing screech resounded from the sky, disturbing the air currents. Accompanied by the whistle of rushing air, a massive black shadow swooped in from afar!
Haoyuan turned and bolted!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Violent air currents swept down from above, instantly snapping the surrounding giant ferns and sending a continuous flurry of cracking branches through the air.
Broken branches and shredded leaves lashed wildly at his body, filling his nostrils with the fresh scent of sap.
Haoyuan fled for his life, hurtling toward the nearby forest like a roaring high-speed train.
A massive shadow fell over him, covering most of his flood dragon body. It expanded continuously as its speed surged, closing in directly over the white flood dragon's head!
Violent air currents slammed down, sending the ambient pressure soaring and forcing the surrounding plants to snap and flatten against the ground. An agonizing wave of dread loomed right above his head!
Haoyuan felt his hair stand on end. Turning his head toward the sky, he spat a pinky-finger-thick thread of Fire Line upward.
The Fire Line fought against the violent downward airflow, pushing two meters out before finally breaking apart. It burst into a roaring blaze, riding the tempestuous air currents as it raged out of control!
The giant shadow diving from the sky slammed face-first into the surging fire. Startled, it frantically flapped its wings to pull up.
The air currents carried the flames right behind it, igniting its body in an instant.
Even more alarmed, the shadow opened its maw and spat out a misty frost, which swallowed the flames and extinguished them completely in a flash.
By the time it looked back down at the white flood dragon, Haoyuan had already plunged deep into the dense forest.
Recalling the fire from moments before, a glint flashed in the black shadow's eyes.
Spreading its broad wings, it gave a powerful flap, using the air currents to climb high into the sky and give chase from above the forest canopy.
Haoyuan fled wildly through the woods while the massive shadow pursued him relentlessly. After a brief chase, he reached a dense patch of forest.
The spacing between the trees here was ideal for his flood dragon body to maneuver.
Rustle, rustle.
Looking up, the massive black shadow perched atop the towering trees. Its limbs gripped the thick branches of two trees as it looked down at him from above, eyes glinting with fierce malice.
It was a stitched-together, intensely oppressive monster.
It possessed the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the horns of a Triceratops, the wings of a Quetzalcoatlus, the scythe-claws of a Therizinosaurus, the tail of a crocodile, and the feet of a tyrannosaur.
It looked strikingly like the four-legged Western dragons from his past life.
It was massive, measuring twenty-five meters long.
On top of that, it could spew icy mist from its mouth.
It felt so absurdly magical that Haoyuan even wondered if he had accidentally stumbled onto a Western fantasy movie set.
“The other monsters can only disguise themselves, but this one is stitched together and can spew icy mist. It's clearly extraordinary.”
“Could it be an evolution?”
“ROAR—!”
The pseudo-wyrm bellowed at the sky, its roar echoing across the wilderness and stirring violent waves across the forest canopy.
Haoyuan's mind jolted.
“ROAR—!”
Throughout the forest, countless roars rose and fell in response to the summons.
Rumble...
The ground trembled even more densely and violently.
Haoyuan's nerves tightened. He glanced at the gap between the trees and the pseudo-wyrm's wingspan, confirming that it couldn't fly down into the thicket, before focusing entirely on the dangers closing in from all directions.
Soon, dinosaurs—no, pseudo-dragons—appeared in his sight, led by blue-feathered avian dinosaurs.
Haoyuan's eyes widened slightly in sudden realization.
No wonder he had been chased and surrounded so abruptly. Even the blue-feathered avian dinosaurs had been replaced, turned into scouts for the monster.
“How sneaky!”
Gritting his teeth, he braced himself for battle.
One pseudo-Triceratops after another charged forward like tanks.
Utilizing the terrain, Haoyuan darted and maneuvered, knocking them down effortlessly one strike after another and piling them up in front of himself.
Disregarding the lives of their companions, the pseudo-dragons trampled over the dead bodies and continued charging toward him.
Gradually, the mountain of corpses grew taller and taller. Haoyuan was left gasping for breath, but the pseudo-dragons knew no fatigue or fear, coming in wave after wave to die, grinding down his stamina.
“I can't go on like this!”
“ROAR—!”
Another roar echoed through the wilderness from the sky.
Flocks of blue-feathered avian dinosaurs gathered above, forming a vast, dense blue cloud directly over his head.
In an instant, a torrential downpour of corrosive rain fell!
Haoyuan's pupils shrank. Not daring to delay, he opened his mouth and spewed a pinky-finger-thick thread of Fire Line six meters out. The moment it hit the blue cloud, it erupted like oil hitting an open flame, raging wildly and swallowing the flock of birds in the blink of an eye.
He kept spewing fire, burning away all the corrosive rain about to hit his body.
The remaining corrosive rain fell onto the mountain of corpses, easily dissolving the top layer of pseudo-dragons into bare bones.
Burning blue-feathered avian dinosaurs tumbled down one after another, transforming the corpse pile into a sea of fire in an instant.
The pseudo-dragons' assault ground to a halt, cowering in fear and refusing to step forward.
“They aren't afraid of dying, but they're afraid of fire?”
Haoyuan was astonished. Could fire be an agonizing, excruciating torture for them?
Swallowing a few fallen avian dinosaurs, he opened his status panel.
Evolutionary Paths: 1. Wind Grace (???) 2. Water Surge (???) 3. Thunder (???)
Status: One path can be completed.
“Wind Grace!”
Boom!
The moment the thought settled, a majestic surge of energy flooded his body. Every single cell cheered and rejoiced, greedily absorbing every drop of nourishment and becoming increasingly lustrous and full.
Streams of refreshing air were birthed, flowing, gathering, and circulating through his body in cycles. Wherever they passed, his spirit felt refreshed, and all fatigue was swept clean away.
Haoyuan felt a large portion of his spent stamina return, followed immediately by a wave of intense hunger.
The aroma of roasted meat drifted from the sea of fire.
His appetite thoroughly whetted, he grabbed the roasted monster meat and began gorging himself.
Cooked meat digested even faster, rapidly replenishing his body's nutrients.
His energy surged frantically upward.
Rate on N.U.
