Before the Flood Dragon King could reach me, though, Hei Ba's tail lashed out and caught him across the chest, sending him stumbling to the side. The Flood Dragon King snarled and twisted around to confront the vicious Abyssal Hydra, but all nine heads were already charging up golden destructive qi in their mouths.
The golden beams were unleashed in a single volley, erasing an entire section of the cavern and engulfing the Flood Dragon King in an explosion. No, I wasn't going to call them hyper beams. I wasn't reckless enough to invite a lawsuit over copyright.
Anyway, despite being grateful to Hei Ba for his intervention, I was aware that he didn't attack the Flood Dragon King to save me. He was still pretty defiant and disobedient, an arrogance borne out of being the most powerful among my spirit beasts, and because he was Earth ranked to my Mystic rank. Just when I thought I could finally command his respect…
Instead, Hei Ba was furious that the Flood Dragon King had blatantly ignored him and treated me as the biggest threat. He was offended at the perceived slight, his pride disallowing him from being belittled, inadvertently or not.
Well, it worked in my favor, so I wasn't complaining. Still, I was amazed at the incredible damage that the nine golden beams dealt. A single one possessed enough firepower to demolish a building, but nine of them? Probably sufficient to erase an entire district.
I watched the rubble and debris bury the immense bulk of the Flood Dragon King, hoping that the golden beams had killed him, but those hopes were instantly dashed when all the rock was washed away by a sudden tsunami.
The Elder Tree Revenant strode forward and planted his roots into the earth, stretching his branches out to catch the titanic tidal wave. He absorbed the vast quantities of water through his roots and leaves, using his wood element type to his advantage. Water was not very effective against wood, after all. Long Wang helped too, using his qi to manipulate the currents and redirect them away.
While my Elder Tree Revenant absorbed the water and Long Wang sent the excess waves splashing aside, my Titan Golem lumbered forward almost clumsily and threw an inferno punch that incinerated a few rocks and crashed against the Flood Dragon King. Whatever waves washed over him boiled to steam instantly the moment they came into contact with the superheated magma that made up his body, but the Flood Dragon King was highly resistant to fire element. Actually, he was also resistant to water and lightning elements as well, but for some reason he wasn't weak to ice.
Before you could ask about "fairy" element, that didn't exist. And if dragons were weak against fairies (which they weren't), I would have set Sylvie and Silvia loose on the Flood Dragon King long ago. They were doing an amazing job of wiping out the infantry and other monsters belonging to the Flood Dragon army, though.
The Flood Dragon King bellowed in rage and ducked under my Titan Golem's next Inferno punch before retaliating with an uppercut. My titanic spirit beast staggered from the blow, only to be washed away by another tidal wave. This time, even my Elder Tree Revenant was uprooted and splashed a few paces back by the ferocious currents. He raised a branch just in time to parry the Flood Dragon King's slash, and then I rocketed forward to strike him with my sword, distracting him enough for my Elder Tree Revenant to retreat.
My opponent turned on me with a snarl, and his tail lashed out. I jumped away, only to find myself staring down a hydro torrent from his jaws. I cleaved it apart, but the Flood Dragon King closed in while I was holding my ground to rend me with his claws.
Before he could reach me, Hei Ba crashed to his side and sent him careening to the rubble. The Flood Dragon King twisted around and grappled with the nine heads, roaring in fury and defiance. There was another whirlpool that sent Hei Ba spiraling away, but the Abyssal Hydra sent another volley of golden beams at the Flood Dragon King.
However, the tremendous currents were enough to throw his aim off, and only a couple of beams actually hit their mark. The Flood Dragon King growled as he caught them with his bare talons and crushed them by clenching them into clawed fists. Smoke rose from his claws, but he ignored them and turned to glare at me.
"Oh, so scary," I said sarcastically, eliciting another enraged roar from him. The Flood Dragon King started forward, but I snapped my fingers, transmitting a mental command to my Construction Crabs manning the siege towers.
As one, they spoke in a destructive howl. Ten meteoric lances streaked across the cavernous clearing, pummeling the remains of the Flood Dragon army. A Flood Dragon Behemoth disintegrated, unable to withstand a direct hit – with the firepower being amplified by 500%, even a Mystic ranked spirit beast would not survive a blow from a single siege tower.
One of the comet-like lance strikes sailed over and struck the Flood Dragon King before he realized what was happening. He could only bellow in defiance and anger before he vanished in an explosion, the inferno blossoming upward like a mushroom cloud.
Talking a direct hit from a qi beam of that magnitude…even an Earth ranked spirit beast would be severely wounded at least. As the smoke cleared, I could see his silhouette staggering through the flames, ragged and battered.
Miraculously, the Flood Dragon King was still alive. A combination of his Earth rank, as well as the natural incredible resilience of the Flood Dragon species. Even so, he was visibly severely hurt. Scales had been blasted off his flesh, revealing raw muscle and other vulnerabilities. Blood was dripping down from multiple wounds and abrasions all over his body, and he was barely standing upright. One of his paws were missing a couple of claws. His once grand leather armor was now gone, laying his injured body bare.
As if to add insult to injury, his ivory throne sedan had also been caught in the lance strike and was obliterated, leaving nothing but fragments.
My Titan Golem hammered another inferno fist into his face, throwing him off his feet and sending him veering to the side. Before he could regain his balance, my Elder Tree Revenant hammered him with a wooden branch before using phantom force and shadowy claws to rake across his already blasted open scales. Long Wang snaked in and ripped scales off with night slash. As the Flood Dragon King flailed and tried to fight him off, Hei Ba darted in to bite him in nine different places, causing him to howl in agony.
He tried to shake Hei Ba's nine jaws off, to no avail. Blood continued to pour down in thick rivulets, rivers of red that streamed down his shuddering silhouette. Water continued to swirl violently around him, forming massive whirlpools, but Hei Ba almost casually flicked his tail, destroying a few of them and sending droplets raining down on the ravaged ground.
My Titan Golem then unleashed a torrent of lava that burned the lower half of the Flood Dragon King's body, including his legs, and causing him to fall to his knees. Unable to dislodge Hei Ba's jaws, he continued to struggle, only for Hei Ba to release him when he slithered away to avoid the molten lava. As he retreated, he left with a contemptuous whip of his tail that sent the Flood Dragon King toppling face first into the boiling rock. Long Wang kicked off his falling body to ensure he fell, and then soared away.
The Flood Dragon King snarled and shoved himself back up to all fours, his face scalded badly from the extreme heat. To counter the high temperature, he soaked the lava in another flood, obscuring his form in boiling steam. For a moment, I lost sight of him, and even the sensors in my glasses couldn't track him because of the high heat all over the place. so infrared wouldn't work.
Not that it mattered. I fired an Azure Frost arrow right into the last place I saw him, and could hear the satisfying collision of the freezing projectile against armored scales. There was a flash, and everything turned into ice, entombing the desperately fleeing Flood Dragon King.
For a second, it appeared as if he was trapped and imprisoned, but I noted the slight cracks expanding all over the massive ice block as he exerted his qi to break free. Not bothering to wait, I nodded at Hei Ba, who wasn't exactly looking for my permission. Nonetheless, I wanted to at least give off the impression that I was still in command.
With a roar, Hei Ba accumulated devastating amounts of qi around his nine heads before unleashing his nine golden beams once more. Just right when the Flood Dragon King finally broke free of the ice, the countless fragments of frost snowing all around him, the volley of destructive qi struck. He vanished in another massive explosion, and yet another segment of the cavern was blasted to oblivion.
This time, nothing struggled to get out of the tremendous pile of debris. Not taking any chances, I had my Titan Golem kick or heave the broken boulders out of the way to confirm the death of my enemy. It didn't take long before we were able to unearth him.
"Damn. That wasn't a good way to go."
Nine holes had been blasted into the Flood Dragon King's corpse, which wasn't really intact. There wasn't much of him left, his skull obliterated almost completely that only a horn and less a third of his jaw remained. His chest was missing, his shoulder and arm connected to the ravaged torso by a thread of muscle. The other arm was totally destroyed, leaving no remains aside from shards of bone and scorched flesh and scales.
His tail and legs were also in pieces, either disintegrated by the golden beams or blasted apart by the shockwaves. In any event, he was clearly dead. The poor dude wasn't coming back, and even if a necromancer showed up, he wouldn't be able to reanimate what was left of the corpse.
"Good work, guys," I said with a smile, acknowledging their efforts. Turning back to my dungeon, I watched as the Flood Dragons fell apart in dismay at the demise of their king. Long Wang, my Elder Tree Revenant and Titan Golem accompanied me as I returned to the assaulted gates, though Hei Ba chose to coil somewhere and go to sleep. That was fine. Since he was the one who did the most damage to the Flood Dragon King, I would overlook his insubordination.
Not that I could do anything to him, anyway. He was Earth ranked and I was still only Mystic ranked. It would be difficult for me to rein him into obedience, at least until I attained Earth rank myself.
"You did it!" Myria cheered as she brought down another Flood Dragon Behemoth, with the assistance of my other Tree Revenants, Pumpkin Wraiths, Guardian Golems, Xiao Huo, Xiao Huo Long and Da Hai.
"As expected of my lord," Long Wang said at my side. He dropped onto the ground and returned to his human form, seeing that there were no other powerhouses in sight. the Flood Dragon King and his three champions were dead, and all that were left were the infantry. Even the Behemoths and Siege Flood Dragons had dwindled to a couple of large beasts, who were turning to flee.
My King Crab stopped them, hammering his pincer across the face of one of them and sending it flying back. The Tree Revenants slammed their branches on it, and the Pumpkin Wraiths cut it apart with their grass-like scythes. The remaining Siege Flood Dragon tried to dig its way out, only to find its route barred by two Guardian Golems, their hands reaching out to grab hold of it. As it thrashed about, Myria jumped in and beheaded it.
Da Hai, Xiao Huo and Xiao Huo Long turned their attentions to the Flood Dragon soldiers and priests. The latter have already been seared by the lightning from the Lantern Sharks, Lantern Fishes and Little Anglers, which meant no magical support was forthcoming. The rest were being hemmed in by a fence of swords or walls of earth. They found themselves being pinned between those esoteric barriers and an approaching line of Colossal Crabs and vengeful hordes of Phantom Stumps and Ghost Pumpkins.
"Going somewhere?" Sylvie asked coldly.
"Since you're already here, you might as well stay for a bit longer!" Silvia added gleefully as she raised more walls of earth to trap the falling back Flood Dragons. She giggled. "Do you really think you can come and go as you please? If you want to leave, you need our permission first!"
"Silvia, you're sounding like a third-rate cultivation antagonist," Sylvie complained.
"What's wrong with that, big sis? What I'm saying is true, isn't it?"
I smiled at their banter and raised my gleaming Azure Dragon so that all my summoned spirit beasts could see the victorious blade. Lowering it to point at the panicking Flood Dragons, I issued one final order.
"Exterminate the Flood Dragon scum. Leave not one alive. Show no mercy to these perfidious invaders insolent enough to attack our dungeon. No pity, no remorse, no fear!"