Chapter 1149, Matching the Dragon Clan’s Physical Might

Translator: Silavin

 

“Ha!” Jiang Baishen erupted the instant Lu Fan’s weapon was locked down, lunging forward in a savage assault.

 

Yet Lu Fan remained calm and just repositioned his forces. With a mental command, Xiao Ye’s head snapped upward and a column of Dragon Breath roared forth from her maw.

 

It was a clear demonstration to Jiang Baishen that restraining his weapon had accomplished nothing. His Pet Dragon was every bit as formidable in him.

 

That single breath of fire wiped the confidence from Jiang Baishen’s face. He recovered swiftly, fingers weaving through another hand seal, and with a flick of his wrist, two Talismans spun into the air.

 

These were nothing like the ones he had deployed before. Forged entirely of crackling lightning, they caught the wind the moment they left his hand and swelled outward, expanding to three metres across in the span of a breath.

 

The two Talismans detonated in mid-air, erupting into twin cascades of lightning that merged into a single churning torrent, driving straight into the teeth of Xiao Ye’s Dragon Breath.

 

Two forces of annihilation collided. For a breathless moment, heavenly lightning met with the earthly fire. The shriek of flame and the crack of lightning weaving together in a deafening, bone-shaking roar.

 

One had to acknowledge that Jiang Baishen was genuinely terrifyingly strong. The Talismans he had thrown out so casually carried enough force to actually stall Xiao Ye’s Dragon Breath.

 

Yet that stalemate was brief. Xiao Ye’s Dragon Breath pressed the advantage, slowly extinguishing the lightning torrent and threatening to surge back upon Jiang Baishen himself.

 

Hovering in the air above the battlefield, Jiang Baishen watched his Talismans falter and felt a jolt of genuine surprise run through him.

 

[As expected of a Giant Dragon.] He grimly thought. Dragon Language Magic truly does reign above ordinary Elemental Power.

 

His Five Thunder Talisman had been his absolute trump card. It was a Skill that could shatter any other Skill in this world. It produced a single overwhelming force capable of breaking ten thousand Skills. The notion that anything could stand against it, let alone reverse it, had never crossed his mind.

 

And yet here it was, being ground down and extinguished by a Dragon’s raw breath.

 

[The might of the Dragon Clan is truly fearsome…] The realisation snapped him out of his astonishment. Now was not the moment to stand gaping.

 

Watching his Five Thunder Talisman buckle further under the relentless pressure of that Dragon Breath, he moved without hesitation. Four fresh Five Thunder Talismans blazed into existence, hurled into the fray one after another, fusing with the crumbling lightning cascade.

 

The injection of power was immediate and overwhelming. What had been on the verge of collapse swelled to several times its former scale in an instant, and the tide reversed. The lightning surge crashed back down upon Xiao Ye’s Dragon Breath, driving it into retreat.

 

A faint smile touched the corner of Jiang Baishen’s mouth. His Five Thunder Talisman could be stacked. This was a trait no other Skill in existence possessed.

 

If two won’t bring them down? He would simply add more.

 

Fight him, and even a Giant Dragon shall fall.

 

But that smile had not even lasted a single second before it froze solid on his face.

 

Because in the very next instant, he saw it. The Dragon Breath that had been on the verge of being turned back suddenly flared with new life, its power surging upward by several times over. His Five Thunder Talismans were swallowed whole, offering not the faintest shred of resistance.

 

The wall of raging fire and molten rock was already barrelling toward him. Jiang Baishen dared not risk a single moment of complacency. His body dissolved into a breath of wind and scattered backward, reforming a hundred metres away before the attack could claim him.

 

As his form solidified, he finally saw it clearly: Lu Fan himself had opened his mouth and released another Dragon Breath. Its raw power was not any inferior to the Pet Dragon beneath him.

 

Moreover, when a Man and his Dragon unleashed the same Skill simultaneously, some form of resonance seemed to ignite between them, doubling the force of both Skills in a single, unified eruption.

 

With that, the two streams of Dragon Breath had merged into one, and the resulting power was a leap so vast it made his additional Five Thunder Talismans seem to be completely useless.

 

Before, the contest between Dragon Breath and the Five Thunder Talisman had been closed. The Dragon Breath held the edge. After Lu Fan released his own Dragon Breath, the entire balance shattered beyond recovery. No number of extra Talismans could bridge that chasm now.

 

That unified Dragon Breath did not merely force Jiang Baishen back. It also shattered the Talisman that had been restraining Lu Fan’s Refined Undefiled.

 

As the Talisman disintegrated, a single character flickered across Lu Fan’s vision. It was a word from the Ancient Dragon Country’s script, the character for ‘兵’ (weapon).

 

That Talisman was purpose-built to restrain equipment. Which meant that if he continued to fight with Refined Ashless in hand, that Talisman would keep activating.

 

Under ordinary circumstances, Lu Fan’s Giant Dragon Bloodline granted him absolute Resistance to all Negative Status Effects and Crowd Control. Any Skill aimed at him could be ignored. But a Skill aimed at his weapon was a different matter entirely. That was a genuine blind spot his opponent had found.

 

If the weakness exists to be exploited, the answer is simple, remove it from the equation entirely.

 

Lu Fan kept Refined Undefiled, then launched himself from Xiao Ye’s back. A single rotation in mid-air, and his body expanded. Flesh and scales surging outward until he stood in the full, towering form of the Golden Dragon King.

 

Wings spread wide, and he drove himself toward Jiang Baishen in a diving strike. At that velocity, his wings carved through the air and left twin white contrails in his wake. Sonic booms cracking in his wake like cannon fire. The force bearing down on Jiang Baishen was simply staggering.

 

Jiang Baishen’s expression shifted through several emotions in rapid succession. His hands were already moving, painting two more Talismans into existence.

 

But these were not aimed at Lu Fan. They were meant for himself.

 

He slapped both against his own body, and the golden light radiating from him blazed so intensely it was as though a second Sun had been born. Lu Fan could feel it with absolute clarity, under the Enhancement of those two Talismans, Jiang Baishen’s Attributes had reached a truly terrifying summit, to the point where they could actually contend with a Giant Dragon.

 

Even so, Lu Fan felt nothing resembling fear.

 

Because in his transformed state as the Golden Dragon King, he was the most physically indestructible being in this world.

 

Whatever heights Jiang Baishen’s Attribute had climbed to, Lu Fan was confident he could crush him in sheer grit and Defence.

 

He was upon Jiang Baishen in an instant. A Dragon Claw came sweeping down.

 

Rather than evade, Jiang Baishen met it head-on. He drew in a sharp breath, then drove his fist forward in a direct, uncompromising counter against the Dragon Claw.

 

*Boom!*

 

The impact resonated like a thunderclap. Jiang Baishen was blasted backward, sent tumbling a full kilometre before he managed to stop himself. His face was one of utter disbelief.

 

And Lu Fan, for his part, felt no small measure of surprise himself. He had won that exchange decisively and sent Jiang Baishen flying with ease. However, his opponent had come to a stable halt in mid-air, completely uninjured.

 

With both his Talismans and his own Enhancement Skills layered upon him, Jiang Baishen’s physical constitution had reached a terrifying tier. He could not trade blows with Lu Fan in his Golden Dragon King Form. This was a level that had left the boundaries of Human cognition. The being hovering across from him was no longer something that could meaningfully be called ‘Human’.

 

Lu Fan looked down at his own Dragon Claw. Then, from somewhere deep in his chest, a spark of genuine excitement kindled to life.

 

“Interesting…”A low, quiet laugh escaped him, and he surged toward Jiang Baishen once more, driving the engagement into close-quarters combat.

 

Jiang Baishen, however, had taken the full measure of Lu Fan’s physical power in that single exchange and had no intention of inviting a second head-on collision. His body blazed like a Sun, and beyond the sheer resilience his form now possessed, every one of his Attributes had multiplied several times over, transforming his Skill Output into something completely different from before.