After lifting his head, the duplicate Luo Shu turned it slightly, scanning his surroundings as he remained immersed in the scalding magma.
Upon confirming the group of over twenty familiars surrounding him, his eyes abruptly narrowed, and black-red lightning crackled around them.
He suddenly raised a hand to his mouth, puffing out his cheeks, took a deep breath, and swallowed Xiuhtecutli, which had enveloped him, into his belly.
Gulp, gulp!
The magma was swallowed down without any resistance.
In the next instant, he opened his mouth wide and let out a deafening roar!!
The roar unleashed a massive shockwave, with black-red lightning crackling and exploding violently.
The entire cavern began to shake and tremble at that moment!
Amid this terrifying shockwave, the skeletal giant abruptly thrust out its hands, kneeling on the ground to block the roaring impact in front of Giada.
Just then, forcing her eyes open against the hurricane-force winds generated by the roar, Giada glimpsed through the skeletal giant's fingers a colossal creature rising from the ground!
The enormous monster stood over fifty metres tall, its body entirely greyish-white, with a spine covered in sharp black barbs.
Its build was lizard-like, with an elongated torso and powerful quadrupedal limbs.
And on its back stretched a pair of massive, bat-like membranous wings spanning a hundred metres.
A dragon!!
And not just any dragon—one modelled after the Western mythical dragon!
Could the guardian's familiars also transform into dragons?
No, could this be the guardian's true form?
Before Giada could process the fact that the guardian could transform into a dragon, the greyish-white dragon stomped the ground violently, causing the earth to quake, and then twisted its body sharply!
Crackle, crackle!
Black-red lightning exploded!
In that moment, the massive barbed tail, like a divine sword capable of severing everything, swept directly toward Giada.
There was almost no need to look; the overwhelming sense of mortal danger forced Giada into action.
Realising the peril, Giada immediately ordered her familiars to block at all costs.
A roaring thunder beast charged forward to intercept, a massive dark cloud colliding with the dragon's tail.
Yet, when the two met, the cloud dissipated as if butter meeting a hot knife, instantly severed by the greyish-white divine sword.
Then, the black tornado that followed was swept apart by the sword before it could even advance.
Almost bulldozing through all resistance, the enormous tail shattered every barrier until it reached the skeletal giant's hands.
In an instant, the massive tail, sweeping with multiple afterimages, expanded infinitely in Giada's pupils.
Boom!!
Before anyone outside the grotto could react, a jade-coloured light blasted through the cavern and soared into the sky, climbing to an immeasurable height.
As the jade light descended like a meteor, Evangeline, finally registering the situation, swiftly waved her hand. She manipulated her puppets to form layer upon layer of doll walls, creating 36 buffer zones in the sky to intercept the falling meteor.
Boom.
The meteor instantly shattered twenty doll walls, only slowing slightly at the twenty-first. After smashing through all thirty-six barriers, it crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact, carving out a massive crater and sending clouds of dust billowing into the air.
Without waiting for the dust to settle, Krul flashed into the midst of the haze. With a sweep of her arm, she dispersed the dust, revealing Giada within—mangled and slowly regenerating.
Seeing Giada with her skin completely gone, leaving only raw crimson muscle, half her hair and eyes missing, Krul merely remarked flatly:
"Not dead, are you?"
"Cough! Cough!" Giada hacked, weakly cursing as she expended energy to regenerate her body. "They... caught me... off guard."
"The grotto... was too small... otherwise... I could've won..."
Compared to the Demigod-level familiar beasts, Giada's body, though strong, was still far from that tier.
Thus, in the midst of the familiar beasts' siege, the biggest liability in this battle was Giada's vulnerability.
Clearly, the guardian had seized upon this weakness and delivered a decisive blow to end the fight.
Krul had little to say to this, merely sighing as she advised:
"Alright, stop pushing yourself. Focus on healing."
After comforting Giada, Krul turned to the others who had rushed over and stated:
"Clearly, Giada has failed. It seems we need to consider an alternative plan..."
Faced with this situation, Kazuma Yagami and the others, who had witnessed the entire event, exchanged uncertain glances.
After half a minute, Yuiyui Gokadoin finally asked in a hushed voice:
"What should we do now?"
Hearing this, Kazuma Yagami replied calmly:
"Don't ask me. If you're asking me, my answer is for you to go. You fight!"
"Eh? Me fight Luo Shu?" Yuiyui Gokadoin stared blankly, stunned. "If I could beat him, would I even be standing here?"
"Well then, should I go instead?"
Kazuma Yagami said helplessly:
"Even though I'm the Spirit King's contractor and can borrow his power, that strength doesn't last. Once the time's up, I'd be even more useless than you, alright?"
"At least you can hold your own for a bit!!" Yuiyui Gokadoin retorted.
"Yeah, I can hold my own for a bit, and after that bit, my wife would be weeping at my graveside, right?"
Kazuma Yagami grumbled under his breath:
"If you're so eager to win, why don't you go yourself!"
"Can't you call for more backup?" Yuiyui Gokadoin said, exasperated. "And I believe I only asked what we should do? Not who should fight, right?"
"Isn't it time to come up with a plan?"
At that moment, Shin Natsume, who had been standing nearby, suddenly spoke:
"There's no need to devise a plan."
"What?"
Kazuma Yagami and Yuiyui Gokadoin turned to look at him in unison.
Then, Shin Natsume narrowed his eyes, concealing the anomaly of his Dragon Eye:
"The main event has arrived!"
Just as Shin Natsume's voice faded, a surprised voice rang out:
"Did I just see an unlucky meteor fall around here?"
The moment the voice sounded,
Ryōko Yakushiji shuddered, turning her head to immediately spot a figure perched atop a Tyrannosaurus rex on a nearby slope, looking down at them from above.
The face of that figure was unmistakably Luo Shu, who had arrived fashionably late!
At that moment, Luo Shu gently patted the Tyrannosaurus's neck, smiled as he looked down at the crowd below, and said:
"It seems I've missed quite a show!"