Translator: AnubisTL
Garos spread his wings, standing tall amidst the howling blizzard.
The bone-chilling wind, laced with ice crystals, lashed against his imposing and powerful dragon body, yet failed to make him flinch in the slightest.
The dragon pack's previous siege had not been entirely in vain.
Deep and shallow scars and dents were clearly etched into his outer, solid Cold Exploding Scale Armor.
Because Garos had deliberately activated his Bloodburst State during the battle to stimulate his latent potential, his Cold Exploding Scale Armor had now shattered and crumbled over large areas, almost completely peeling away.
Beneath the broken Cold Exploding Scales, there were no new, tender scales.
Instead, there was an inner layer of main scales—tougher, more resilient, and covered in countless deep, battle-scarred patterns.
However, this layer of hard base scales, which should have been a deep blackish-red, was now glowing with a scorching crimson, as if it were branding iron just removed from a furnace, making it painfully bright to behold.
Sizzle—!
The crystal-clear snowflakes vaporized instantly in the invisible heat before they could even touch the surface of his scales, vanishing without a trace.
Garos's dragon scales were clearly radiating an incredibly terrifying heat.
Yet, strangely, no waves of scorching air billowed outward from him, and the surrounding air remained undistorted by the heat. Visually, there was almost no abnormality to speak of.
Relying on sight alone, it would be extremely difficult to immediately judge the terrifying thermal energy contained within that massive draconic body.
This was a stark contrast to his juvenile stage.
Back then, when Garos's Cold Exploding Scales neared their breaking point and the heat energy accumulated within his body reached its peak, there would be a violent, visible overflow of energy that significantly impacted the surrounding environment.
But now, all the energy's turbulence was contained and restrained.
Garos extended a claw and gently stroked his solid right chest, feeling the steady pulse of the Dragon Jade within.
"The Dragon Jade's energy storage and stability have taken a qualitative leap. The temporarily absorbed and converted heat energy is no longer so prone to uncontrolled dissipation, nor does it need to be released all at once as urgently as before."
He carefully sensed the subtle changes within his body, his mind gaining clarity.
At its root, the source of all these changes was this evolution.
In the past, the Dragon Jade—which was then only a vague, nascent form—had been exceptional at absorbing energy and efficiently converting it into heat. Yet, that converted heat would slip away like water through a sieve, dissipating at an alarming rate.
Because of this, he had been forced to unleash it as a devastating dragon breath the instant the heat had finished accumulating. To do otherwise would have been a colossal waste and a severe burden on his body.
But now...
While the Dragon Jade's energy conversion efficiency might not have seen a world-shaking improvement, its ability to store and contain heat had undergone a qualitative leap.
It still couldn't permanently store all the heat, but the rate at which it dissipated had slowed by a hundredfold, if not more.
I can still use the heat to empower my dragon breath and unleash an even more devastating destruction dragon breath, just like before.
But now, I have another choice. I can temporarily retain this heat to continuously strengthen my body during combat, rather than using it solely as fuel for a single-use breath attack. I could even use a portion to empower my breath and the rest to strengthen my body.
Thump, thump, thump! Thump, thump, thump!
The heavy, war-drum-like beating of his heart continued unabated.
Garos remained in his Bloodburst State, his physical attributes drastically enhanced.
After a moment's thought, he tentatively attempted to guide and release the thermal energy absorbed and converted by the Dragon Jade.
In an instant, the pure, colossal thermal energy reacted strangely with his dragon blood, which was already boiling and churning from the Bloodburst State!
The scales all over the red-iron dragon's body trembled slightly, emitting a low, dense hum.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Wisps of dark-red flames, as dense as substance, erupted without warning from the crimson scales on his body.
These flames did not surge and spread chaotically. Instead, they flowed like living liquid, spreading rapidly along the battle-scarred patterns and the vivid blood-vein network that had become prominent in his Bloodburst State. They flowed and traced his form, as if countless scorching lines of fire were covering his entire body.
The countless lines of fire crisscrossed, weaving into a blazing net that enveloped his whole frame.
Finally, the blazing lines of fire merged perfectly with the deep-red patterns. It was as if countless lifelike, swaying, and burning Blazing Red Lotuses had bloomed magnificently across his massive, imposing, dark-red dragon body—both splendid and deadly.
His aura surged upward again with this transformation.
The air around him finally began to warp and blur violently. A terrifying heatwave formed a tangible shockwave that rippled outward, instantly vaporizing all the snow in the vast area surrounding him.
The ground turned scorched and cracked, and even the air itself ignited, spontaneously erupting into a raging inferno that formed a domain of absolute destruction.
At the center of this domain, the red-iron dragon now resembled a mobile natural disaster, a harbinger of ruin.
Garos slightly clenched his claws, feeling a power far greater than the simple bloodburst state surging and roaring within his body.
It was clear that the thermal energy absorbed and converted by the Dragon Jade could indeed deepen the enhancement of the bloodburst state.
Yet, with each heavy, drum-like beat of his heart, as every second ticked by, Garos also felt an immense burden—a sensation that transported him back to the struggle and agony of the first time he had ever forced the bloodburst state to activate.
This long-forgotten sensation... he hadn't experienced it in a very long time.
As he continued his adaptive evolution, the burden of the regular Frenzy State had become incredibly low. For him, it was now like the most basic aerobic exercise, one he could sustain for a very long time.
The Bloodburst State, on the other hand, was akin to high-intensity anaerobic exercise. Though fierce, he could still maintain it for a considerable duration thanks to his formidable physique and indomitable will.
But this new state—formed by channeling thermal energy into the Bloodburst State—was something else entirely.
He felt every inch of his muscles and every bone in his body straining under a colossal burden. The tough dragon scales covering his entire body trembled violently under the onslaught of energy, even emitting faint, overburdened cracks in the finer details!
This was practically a desperate self-immolation, burning his very being to exchange for ultimate power.
This state is more dangerous than any form I've ever taken before.
Garos was acutely aware of his condition. "Burning one's life" wasn't just a figure of speech; he could truly feel the dragon blood within him boiling, roaring, and burning fiercely.
If I time this wrong, fail to end it in time, or can't defeat the enemy... this state will plunge me into an abyss of irrecoverable peril.
However—
A thought struck him, and his tension immediately eased. "I still have the second life stored in the Dragon Jade as my ultimate safeguard."
"Well then, it's fine. I can use it without reservation."
Garos reasoned that this powerful form was likely a result of his recent evolution rather than a mere coincidence. That was why it felt so perfectly attuned to him, allowing him to push even further beyond the Bloodburst State.
"To distinguish it from the regular Bloodburst State..."
"This ultimate form, which further integrates thermal energy for a desperate last stand, shall be called—the Red Lotus State. It will be my final trump card, to be used when I hold nothing back and resolve to fight to the death."
Whoosh—!
Garos took a deep breath, as if drawing the burning air into his lungs. Then, he raised his dragon head and unleashed a torrent of fire toward the empty sky.
The Destruction Dragon Breath instantly pierced and evaporated the swirling snow and dark clouds.
Garos also used this to vent the turbulent thermal energy within his body, prematurely terminating the Red Lotus State.
As the Destruction Dragon Breath ceased, the Blazing Red Lotus patterns that had coiled around his body like living creatures rapidly dimmed and extinguished. The thunderous pounding of his heart gradually steadied and weakened.
The searing crimson scales covering his entire body, like cooling iron, slowly faded back to their original deep blackish-red.
Garos's aura finally settled.
After doing all this, he looked at the Gold Dragon, Alberto.
"You seem to have woken up quite early," Garos asked. "Why didn't you join the fight when the dragon pack was besieging me? If you had joined in, they might have had a chance."
Nonsense! Pure nonsense!
Alberto had now deeply realized that he absolutely could not believe any of Garos's bullshit.
This guy simply could not be measured or reasoned with by any normal logic. Otherwise, the one who would end up getting screwed over and left with nothing but his underwear would definitely be himself.
(End of the Chapter)
---------------------------
📖 You are reading [369] Chapters behind with [86] Free Chapters available on site.
🔥 Read up to Chapter [743] now, only on ᴄɪɴᴅᴇʀᴛʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ.
📊 [17] Novels, [14.3K+] Chapters with [11.2K+] Free Chapters!, [22.9M] Words on ℂ𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕋𝕃.𝕔𝕠𝕞
---------------------------