But even though there were electric arcs encircling its throat, when the Fire Feather Dragon fell to the ground, it did not die howling in pain, which was what Xu Sheng had expected. Instead, it shook its head viciously and climbed up as if nothing had happened. It did not howl in pain either, but started snickering savagely.
Its fangs intersected with each other and crushed the electric arc.
“Isn’t it too strong?!” Xu Sheng was dumbfounded, and his skin crawled.
When the Fire Feather Dragon charged at him again, he found himself feeling helpless. He was just about to summon his last mechanical spider to carry his physical body and run when three incredibly shrill whistles tore through the fog behind him. They turned into three sharp arcs of light that resembled a crescent moon and dug into the Fire Feather Dragon’s brain before they exploded simultaneously inside.
They were three bullets.
Their accuracy and power could be comparable to that of missiles.
The Fire Feather Dragon’s head imploded. The bullets tore through the skin and exposed the flesh. Even the white bones could be seen.
A chuckle came from the fog. Then, a young man who had a lot of gel smeared on his hair so that not a strand of hair was out of place when he combed it backwards stepped out slowly. He even had a pair of sunglasses over his eyes and wore a long trench coat, which made him stand out like a sore thumb in the battlefield.
In his hands he held two handcrafted, crystalline handguns. Carved into the bodies of the guns were profound and complicated runic symbols. After rune ink was poured into them, the light shining from them formed shapes resembling star anises while releasing a destructive presence.
“Han Xing!” Xu Sheng’s pupils shrank.
Han Xing was a freshman from the military school’s martial arts course. Just like Xu Sheng, he was one of the four students specially recruited for the fighting courses in the alliance of the five universities. He was known as the future star of the Gun Fighting Style, and it was said that he had psychokinesis. He could control more than one hundred crystal bullets at the same time and increase their speed, accuracy, and power, so the handguns would possess destructive force as terrifying as that of a cannon.
Han Xing was one of the greatest competitors for Xu Sheng within the alliance of the five universities. They were friends but also rivals, and they had stolen each other’s preys multiple times while competing against each other on the ranking boards. They fought so fiercely that they often seemed like school children and ended up suppressing each other.
When Xu Sheng saw Han Xing, he released a sigh of relief, but he also felt a little awkward. Since Han Xing saw how pathetic he looked, he would definitely mock him.
Just as he expected, Han Xing pretended to blow at the non-existing smoke from his gun barrel and put on a (what he believed to be) really elegant posture. He said with a smile, “Look what we have here, isn’t this the ace machine master? Aren’t you supposed to bring with you dozens of unmanned fighting vehicles and spider fighting vehicles wherever you go? Aren’t they supposed to surround you and make you look incredibly amazing and whatnot?
“Where’s your machine army? Why are you alone now? It’s no wonder why you were bitten by that Fire Feather Dragon!”
Xu Sheng gritted his teeth and said, “Han Xing, don’t be so smug. If it wasn’t because of the interference from the spirit energy magnetic field in Shattered Starlake which obstructs my remote machine army and reduced me to only one-third of my unmanned fighting vehicles and spider fighting vehicles, I would have reduced this Fire Feather Dragon to mince meat a long time ago!”
“That’s how fights in the wild are like. The more monsters are in an area, the thicker the spirit energy in the area is. And when the spirit energy is extremely thick, it means that there are crystal mines with a lot of crystals hidden underground. It, of course, makes the interference from the spirit energy magnetic fields even stronger!”
Han Xing grinned. “That’s why I said that machine masters face too many limitations. They just can’t be considered to be part of the fighting occupations. They should wait for the real warriors to get rid of the monsters before they come over to build bridges and roads along with new homes for us!”
“You…” Xu Sheng’s face turned red, but he had nothing to say.
“Don’t be angry. You’re injured. Sit by the side and rest. Meanwhile, you can admire how I kill this fire-breathing bastard!”
Han Xing aimed at the Fire Breathing Dragon.
The spirit energy in the air fluctuated strangely. It was as if there were two spirit flames gathering together to become vague red lines that shone from his muzzles toward the Fire Feather Dragons’ eyes.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Han Xing fired all the bullets in his handguns at the Fire Feather Dragon’s eyes.
The moment the bullets shot out, his hands trembled slightly to ensure that the trajectory would change in a very troublesome manner. It allowed the ten bullets to move in different angles as they charged at the Fire Feather Dragon’s eyes at the same time. No matter how the Fire Feather Dragon dodged, at least three bullets would pierce its eyes.
Han Xing’s smile grew brighter.
He could already imagine the Fire Feather Dragon’s eyeballs exploding. It would jump about in a rage while howling. Then, Han Xing would destroy its throat, and after that, its organs.
But the Fire Feather Dragon did not dodge.
The three crystals embedded in its forehead shone brilliantly. The creatures’ eyes sparkled with a mocking and fierce light. Suddenly, a crimson fire wall appeared in front of it. The air around it distorted, and its body became a blur.
Han Xing had been confident that he could kill it with the ten bullets, but after they passed the wall of fire, they bounced off the sturdy feathers, and even if some of them did hit the head from the right angle, they were far from the eyeballs. Aside from causing the creature to bleed a little and making the Fire Feather Dragon look even more monstrous, they did nothing else.
Besides, while the flames surrounded it, the Fire Feather Dragon’s wounds rapidly closed up.
In just half a minute, a thin layer of skin grew over the three wounds Han Xing had created in the beginning. Granulation tissue intersected with each other on the skin, and it looked as if it was about to recover.
“Impossible. My bullets were created and carved by experts. They have the purest crystals embedded in them and possess explosive spirit energy. When I use my powers to activate them, I can break the heads of normal Nightmarish Beasts. How could this creature’s Hot Torrent interfere with my bullet trajectory?”
At that moment, Han Xing’s expression changed. A few strands of hair curled up from his neat, slicked-back hair. “And its recovery abilities are a little ridiculous! Don’t Fire Feather Dragons only have three inborn talents? I know that they’re Fire Breath, Hot Current, and Flame Dance. I’ve never heard about them having fast recovery abilities too!”
“Good luck, future star of the Gun Fighting Style. Let this supporter see just how mighty you fighters are!” Xu Sheng took the chance to take a stab at him.
Han Xing gritted his teeth. He moved his hands quickly, and in an instant, they left eighteen afterimages. With these dazzling movements, he brought out eight guns from his trenchcoat, and as if he was the eight-armed Nezha, he delivered a bullet storm.
The Fire Feather Dragon continued spitting flames and created multiple flame shields in front of itself. It used the difference in temperature around it to create rolling heat waves, and at the same time, he used the light from the fires to interfere with Han Xing’s vision. In the meantime, it walked in a “Z” formation and drew closer to Han Xing.
“What a smart creature…”
Han Xing no longer looked as relaxed and elegant as he did a moment ago. He noticed that his firepower was not enough to suppress the Fire Feather Dragon. He could only watch as it drew closer to him.
But he could not give up on shooting, because if he ran away right now, the Fire Feather Dragon would definitely jump up at him from behind.
Crack.
Suddenly, an ominous sound came from his guns.
The cartridges had jammed.
The spirit energy in the Other World could easily cause obstructions to the electron shells in the atoms of matter, causing slight changes would occur at the level of particles. This affected the performance of machines, and the failure rate of guns became much higher than on Earth.
Superbrains, unmanned fighting vehicles, intelligent fighting vehicles and other sophisticated equipment with chips in them were most easily affected, and they often failed.
Han Xing’s guns might have a simpler structure, but when a superhuman and Nightmarish Beast’s vitality magnetic field crashed viciously into each other, spirit energy would inevitably crash against each other like raging waves, and hence, the cartridges jammed.
Even though Han Xing had five other guns being fired, the jamming of a cartridge disrupted his attack rhythm.
The Fire Feather Dragon seized the fleeting opening and spat out a magma ball at Han Xing. It would envelope his whole body.
Han Xing gritted his teeth. He retreated while continuing to fire his handguns.
The magma ball, which looked like a fireball, exploded in midair. Its attack range instantly grew by five times, and it continued chasing after him relentlessly.
Han Xing’s face went pale with shock. It was too late for him to dodge.
When the Fire Feather Dragon’s Fire Breath was about to give him a “warm bath”, something suddenly grabbed him from the back, and that strange force dragged him away by half a meter, which allowed him to escape from the magma by a hair’s breadth.
Han Xing was still shocked. When he turned his head around, he found that Xu Sheng had used his extendable mechanical arm to drag him back.
Their gazes met, and they saw the fear in each other’s eyes.
“Can we contact the powerful fighters nearby? This creature is even fiercer than Lightning Dragons. It’s a true king of Nightmarish Beasts. We can’t handle it.” Han Xing gulped, and he felt as if he had just swallowed chili sauce.
“Sure.” Xu Sheng nodded and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Help! Somebody, help us!”
Han Xing broke out in cold sweat. “What are you doing?”
“You asked me to contact the powerful fighters nearby,” Xu Sheng said. “Since the morning, the interference from the spirit energy magnetic fields has been becoming worse, and the wireless internist as well as tactical data links have been crippled. If you want to communicate with anyone at all, you need to shout.”
“…”
Before Han Xing could make a sarcastic quip about it, the Fire Feather Dragon arrived in front of them. It curled up its huge body, and like a flaming top, it started spinning rapidly.
As it spun about, dozens of sharp and burning feathers shot out everywhere like rain.
Not only did it make Xu Sheng and Han Xing flee for their lives, the feathers also stuck to the ground, which turned them into sinister needles. If either of the men were careless and stepped on them, the needles would go straight through their soles to the tops of their feet.
“Looks like there aren’t any powerful fighters in the area. We’ll just have to protect each other while we escape!”
Xu Sheng’s legs were mechanical prosthetics, and wheels as well as crawlers were embedded in them. He did not have to worry about the flaming feathers stuck on the ground. He summoned his last spider fighting vehicle from the fog and used an extendable mechanical arm to scoop up Han Xing.
Just when the two of them were about to run, the Fire Feather Dragon noticed their intentions, and it spat out three Fire Breaths in succession, which reduced the high-speed, mobile spider fighting vehicle Xu Sheng intended to protect them into scraps.
Han Xing and Xu Sheng’s skins crawled, and they nearly sank into despair.
However, after it spat out the flames, a hoarse bark of laughter came from nearby. “Who told you that there aren’t any powerful fighters around?”
Shao Jianqing walked over slowly with her two swords that resembled the propellers of a helicopter.
Two pairs of intense, wild eyes appeared in the fog behind her.
They belonged to Wu Wu and her Ghost Leopard.
The four specially recruited students of the fighting courses in the alliance of the five universities had gathered together!