Among the hunters' tools, there is a special item called a "pipe," such as the Demon Pipe, the Hardened Pipe, etc. The principle behind these pipes is unknown; they seem to produce some mysterious power through sound, filled with metaphysical elements similar to the alchemy of the dragonkin. At the same time, hunters also use an item called "Hunting Pipe" to provide protection for their companions.
What is attached to Huihui's back is one such item, named the "Berserk Pipe." In simple terms, it emits a sound that stimulates dragons when Huihui attacks and dives, temporarily limiting the Celestial Wisdom dragon's terrifying mobility. However, as a trade-off, Huihui's aggression and melee attack power will significantly increase. For the hunters, this means they must not make a single mistake while engaging and fighting; they need to cause as much damage as possible, diminishing Huihui's stamina until she is exhausted from the berserking aftereffects.
"This is an extremely high-risk mission," the workshop official stated. "The Hunter's Guild provides the highest level of protective equipment for all participating hunters to avoid being killed. However, this does not mean you can withstand multiple attacks, so... everyone has only one chance to return to the battlefield." The official placed a set of heavy armor on the table. The armor plates incorporated many shards of aetherlight and dragonkin alchemy. It could absorb one lethal blow at the cost of damage to the equipment, protecting the hunter from death, but it could only prevent death.
(Equipped item: Protective Device: absorb one lethal damage, forcibly protect the hunter with a little stamina left, after which it will be damaged.)
"This means that the focus of this mission is on rhythm. We cannot be overly aggressive in our attacks, or else even if the enemy goes berserk, they will escape. But we also cannot simply avoid engagement," the swordsmanship master summarized. "It's like a waltz; the goal is to exhaust the partner's stamina without making mistakes. However, I, as an old man, won't be participating in this dance." After all, at his age, he was no longer the hunter who could exhaust even a primal dragon in such a dance.
This is also the most important reason why ancient dragons rarely seek revenge against human hunters: no matter how terrifying the hunter or how powerful the human, their brief lifespan determines that, to ancient dragons, their threat is merely a fleeting episode in life. Soon, time will deprive them of their strong physique, keen perception, and agile movements, turning them into a sorrowful existence with white hair and frail limbs. This is also the reason why the primal dragon invited him to its dance—either to be killed at that moment or to kill him at that moment—otherwise, perhaps after taking a nap, this strong hunter would become a joke, needing the strength of others to even move.
Time is the most powerful weapon for the ancient dragons. Unfortunately, this does not hold true for the vengeful black dragons and the time-sensitive Huihui. This is also why hunters must exert all their effort to deal with them. Similarly, the Celestial Return Dragon is another creature whose destructive power becomes increasingly terrifying as time passes, leading to them being relentlessly hunted and pursued by the Hunter's Guild as soon as they are observed.
Huihui shook her head. Dragons, especially ancient dragons, have excellent detoxification abilities. She did not feel the headache of a hangover, but the residual alcohol left her a bit dizzy. Moreover, after sleeping for too long, she felt her stomach grumbling. Staring blankly at the Coral Plateau for a while, she stretched her wings and glided down from the top of the plateau, igniting her dragon flames in the air to accelerate.
The Coral Plateau is famous for various shellfish and land jellyfish, as well as swinging eels and coral birds. Huihui's target for today was the swinging eel, and she decided to have eel rice for lunch. However, swinging eels are relatively rare and make for difficult hunting targets. They usually hide in burrows and will only poke their heads and slender bodies out when the surroundings are safe, swaying like a clump of water plants.
"Boom!" Huihui slowly descended onto a clearing at the top of the plateau. "Sniff sniff~" There was a hint of swinging eel scent in the air. Following the scent, Huihui took slow steps forward and extended her claws to dig forcefully at a small hole in the ground. The burrow of the swinging eel was quite deep, meaning she would need to spend some time digging out enough for a meal. As for the other side dishes, she'd have to find a way to obtain them.
"Tap~ Tap~" A dreamlike white creature leaped down gracefully, tilting its head to look at Huihui, who was crouched on the ground like a little dog, diligently digging. The creature, with a long face that resembled a mix between a horse and a dragon, displayed a very human-like expression of confusion: What was this Celestial Wisdom dragon doing? Did this exotic beast feel that after living for so long, it could witness all sorts of strange things? This could be summarized as: "Live long enough to see it all."
Why was a Celestial Wisdom dragon not soaring in the sky to catch shrimp, hunting those pterosaurs, jellyfish, or diving into pools and waterfalls for fish, yet instead squatting on the ground digging? It wasn't a triceratops!
Huihui also sensed the electric charges accumulating in the air. She turned to glance at the creature behind her, which looked like a mount. Although it appeared quite appetizing, the flickering electric arcs made Huihui temporarily abandon her desire to hunt it. Electrified creatures, no matter how tasty, are not easy to catch; this conclusion was drawn after she had been shocked by thunderbugs and struck by a hunter's lightning weapons.
The exotic beast seemed to sense some deep-seated malice and took a few steps back. While it didn't understand why a Celestial Wisdom dragon would have an appetite for it, as a herbivorous ancient dragon, it certainly had no food conflict with the omnivorous, carnivorous Celestial Wisdom dragon. The latter wouldn't deliberately ignore a plethora of simple prey to attack it—in the end, as one of the smallest ancient dragon types, its meat wouldn't hold much appeal for a Celestial Wisdom dragon. Wasting energy in a futile fight wouldn't yield any recovery through food.
After digging nearly two meters deep, Huihui finally found a family of swinging eels huddled at the bottom of the pit. She pulled out a special carry bucket for her rations and stuffed the trembling, curled-up swinging eels inside. Next came the side dishes for her eel rice. She could find shellfish directly on the Coral Plateau, so that was no problem. However, she would need to put in some effort to gather certain spices and seasonings. (The Eldritch Dragon suddenly jolted awake from its sleep, sensing an extremely ominous premonition.)
"Whoosh!" An arrow sliced through the air, striking and destroying the silent "Berserk Pipe" temporarily fixed on her back. "Huh?" Huihui felt something bump against her back and turned her head to look around, finding nothing unusual. She then continued to dig for eels, as there were many coral hummingbirds on the Coral Plateau. These birds were accustomed to living off the scraps of food left by other dragons and the parasites on their bodies, so they often carelessly bumped into Huihui, searching her scales and armor for nourishing parasites to eat. Therefore, it was not uncommon for hummingbirds to collide with her.
As a result, Huihui would sometimes lie in areas where these coral hummingbirds perched, allowing them to hop around on her back. It was somewhat akin to a human going for a spa day. The coral birds would find and eat the parasites and fungi hidden in the gaps of her scales and shell, and they would peck off any old, shedding scales to take back for their nests. Nests made from the scales of ancient dragons were like… super-sized mansions in the ecology of the coral birds, effectively scaring off predators that preyed on them.
"Prepare the sleep darts, 3, 2, 1…" Several crossbows were set up, tasked with launching sleep darts and water darts to limit Huihui's mobility and drain her stamina as much as possible. "Aether cylinder ready!" Bai Feng filled the bow's chamber, while nearby, his axe-wielding companion switched to charged mode, arcs of electricity swirling around the axe blade as he charged forward and swung down.
"Clang!" The cutting edge of the axe collided with Huihui's incredibly hard wing membrane.
"Roar!" Huihui raised her right wing and flipped, sweeping back to send the axe-wielding hunter flying along with his weapon. She then prepared to take off by unleashing her azure dragon flames. However, as she sped up, a strange sound wave began to resonate, making her extremely restless. At her most irritated moment, the front suddenly lit up, and a flashing jade burst open. "Roar!"
Huihui's takeoff was a complete failure; she skidded across the ground for quite a distance before finally standing up. Her amber dragon eyes were bloodshot, and with a "Huff~ Huff~", her dragon horns and faceplate were bright red, gasping for breath as she exhaled nearly tangible crimson dragon flames. A strong, ancient dragon aura began to permeate the air, causing all the hunters' guiding insects to instantly retreat into their insect lamps, transforming into a ghostly blue light reminiscent of infernal flames. This was a life-and-death battlefield defined by the ancient dragons, making all the plateau creatures flee the area in a panic.
"Bang bang!" Several sleep darts filled with sleep grass exploded above Huihui's head. The dragon, inhaling the hypnotic smoke, shook its head vigorously, and her rationality continued to erode. One critical aspect of the hunters' plan was missing: they had never considered that a dragon would drink alcohol, let alone become intoxicated. The remnants of undigested alcohol once again clouded her mind—"Roar!~~~~~"
"Boom!" It seemed as though the sky echoed with the thunderclap in accompaniment to the roars of the gigantic dragon spreading its wings.
"Attack! Watch out and don't get hit!" Bai Feng rushed forward, sliding down on one knee to avoid the dragon wing that almost grazed his scalp. He drew his hunting bow and shot three lightning arrows at the weak point near the base of Huihui's wings. "Roar!!!!"
The electric shock further ignited Huihui's rage, while at the same time, she entered a state of instinctual combat. All the powers she could wield instinctively surged forth, such as...
"What is that?" The hunter equipped with a large shield gaped in shock at the oncoming flame lance—Blue Magic [Fire Lance].
"Bang!" The flames spread wildly over the shield and armor. Fortunately, the hunter equipped with high fire resistance gear did not get taken out instantly; however, the nearly half-inch deep molten pit on his shield painted a terrifying expression on his face. Yet, this was not the only Blue Magic Huihui had acquired through feeding.
"Roar~" Blue aether particles quickly gathered, transforming into high-speed water blades that sliced through—Blue Magic [Water Cannon]!
"Bang!" As the dual-wielding hunter was running, the defense mechanism he wore instantly expanded, turning into scattered armor plates. Even so, a deep cutting mark remained on his armor. "Master, use this!" The hunting cat quickly pulled out a healing honey and rushed over, applying the honey's fast-acting hemostatic and healing properties to the wound.
"What exactly is this skill?" The fire resistance and dragon protection gear carried by the hunters were sufficient to withstand Huihui's normal attacks and dragon flame breath. However, the trade-off was that their water and ice resistances were extremely low, meaning they had poor defenses against high-speed water slicing. "I don't know; I've never encountered a Celestial Wisdom dragon with this type of elemental power," Bai Feng said, gripping his hunting bow and drawing a new arrow from his quiver. "We must hold on until the end; otherwise... no one will survive the endless assaults of the azure dragon to return to the camp."
The pterosaurs meant to assist the hunters in retreat dared not approach this battlefield of death. Their protective gear could only allow them to survive one encounter; the second would undoubtedly lead to death. Reality was not a game, and the hunters couldn't even abandon their mission to return to the base, as all the pterosaurs had fled. The chances of making it back on foot while being pursued by the azure dragon were nearly nonexistent.
This was a one-way ticket for hunting. Even the most elite legendary hunters, who had overcome numerous trials, could feel the long-lost and dangerous aura of death surrounding them.
"This truly is an exhilarating experience~" The sword master turned dual-wielding hunter sported a smile that was hardly better than a frown. For the hunters, what could be more thrilling and honorable than surviving and completing a hunt under such a formidable monster?
This was the most honorable moment for a hunter, as well as their best method of dying. Instead of wasting away helplessly in bed, it was far better to perish alongside the most terrifying creatures in a fierce battle or to be killed after a spirited fight.
"Roar~" Huihui's eyes had turned completely crimson. The immense power amassed from consuming various monsters began to manifest under the influence of the blue magic crystal, starting with the armor on her back.
Fine white fur began to grow from the seams, and the significant energy and nutrient consumption caused her body to elongate. The membranes at the base of her wings slowly developed, while white needle-like hairs covered the tips, with arcs of electricity joyfully dancing among the strands... (Stage Three: Attribute reversal, water and electricity immunity, reduced fire and ice resistance, decreased dragon attributes.)
"Boom!" A bolt of lightning struck Huihui's body, which then dispersed through the white needle hairs, turning into a terrifying electric current that spread over a large area. "I'm... paralyzed..." The hunter wielding the spear made from a large amount of conductive materials instantly fell into paralysis. "Get away! Quick, get away!"
"I can't... I'm paralyzed..." The hunter looked in despair at the sharp wing blades, intertwined with arcs of electricity, coming straight at him. "No!"
"Thump!" The shield was sliced open by the high-voltage electric blade, and the hunter was sent flying backward, trailing a long stream of blood and collapsing on the ground, completely motionless.
"Everyone get moving! Those with melee weapons, stay away! Increase the distance, fast, fast, fast!" Bai Feng couldn't afford to pay attention to the first casualty on the field; he shouted loudly, focusing his attention on tracking the target's movements and directing his companions.
Meanwhile, on the cliff behind them, a white exotic beast watched the battle below with amusement, arcs of electricity winding around its body. "Roar~" The exotic beast raised its head; the charges interacted with the clouds as a bolt of lightning twisted down, striking the massive dragon below. It was then transformed into a diffuse electric current by the flying thunder dragon's electric needle hairs, forcing the hunters to dodge rapidly, resorting to even more exhausting sprints to evade this indiscriminate area attack.
"Whoosh!" A dragon claw swept past, leaving a bloody mark on her cheek. Bai Feng continued to draw her bow and shoot. She had already consumed all her stamina potions and was now relying on the dangerously potent stimulant, Strong Walk Potion G, to push through. Among her companions, only the one wielding a crossbow was still holding on. Of the 16 hunters, only the two of them could still move; the rest were either lying on the ground, motionless, or bloodied and being madly dragged towards safety by the Alu Cat.
"Bang!" The crossbow hunter faltered due to exhaustion, getting swept away by the dragon's tail, instantly disappearing over the edge of the plateau.
"Well, it's just you and me now..." Bai Feng pulled out her last impact container and fitted it onto her arrow. She picked up a new quiver from one of her incapacitated companions. Her opponent, too, had exhausted too much energy, emanating wisps of steam from his body. His faceplate was a deep crimson, and drool continuously dripped from the corner of his mouth...
"Roar!!!!!!!!"