The night wind blew through the branches, making the leaves rustle as they rubbed against each other, while the tree shadows stretched into long, thin silhouettes on the ground.
The moonlight, filtered through the foliage, fell upon Garros's scales, forming scattered patches of light.
His hard body pushed through the bushes, his claws parting the vines as he sniffed the scent of blood in the air. After searching the surroundings for a few minutes, he stopped.
He focused his gaze.
A small section of a severed Snake Dragon tail lay quietly on the ground. The green dragon blood seeping from the break had already corroded the surrounding gravel and broken branches, forming a pool of green liquid centered on the tail. It was still bubbling and gurgling as it continued to erode the area.
"Hiding poison in its blood—how does it not poison itself to death?"
Garros pinched the severed tail and lifted it, then flapped his dragon wings to soar into the sky, heading back toward Coniferous Valley.
This time, he had come out to scout his 'neighbors'.
Garros had originally intended to scout out several intelligent clans or the locations of powerful Vicious Beasts and monsters in one go.
However, because he discovered the presence of a Cliff Snake Dragon in the Grey-mane Werewolf tribe and had a fight with it, his dragon wings were poisoned. Losing the desire to continue his investigation, he simply returned to Coniferous Valley first.
A short while later.
Garros flew over Coniferous Valley, folded his dragon wings, and landed on his usual training ground—an open space in the valley.
On the west side of the clearing, Fairy Dragon Vera was lying on a treetop, swaying back and forth in a deep sleep.
Garros's arrival didn't wake her. She first twitched her nose, then suddenly seemed to have a nightmare. Her limbs and tail thrashed about wildly, causing her to lose her balance and fall to the ground with a splat.
"Snake, snake, snake, Snake Dragon! Don't eat me, waah!"
The Fairy Dragon trembled like a quail, shouting out in fear.
She had just been dreaming—dreaming that she encountered a Snake Dragon and was caught by it, about to be cruelly devoured.
However, as she opened her eyes, she found herself still in Coniferous Valley. Before her was the powerful body of the Red-Iron Hybrid Dragon, with no sign of a Snake Dragon. Her heart relaxed slightly.
But she immediately felt some confusion.
Because she clearly smelled the scent of a Snake Dragon.
Snake Dragons liked to eat dragons, and elves were also high on their menu; they also loved eating fey creatures like pixies and flower sprites. A Fairy Dragon was both a dragon and a fey lifeform, making her a top-tier delicacy for a Snake Dragon.
It could be said that Snake Dragons were the natural enemies of Fairy Dragons.
Back in the Fairy Wilds,
the Unicorn Elder loved to use Snake Dragons to scare the Fairy Dragon, and it worked every time.
The Fairy Dragon was very sensitive to the scent of her natural enemy. Her small head turned constantly, sniffing the air, until finally her gaze fixed on Garros.
That's right, the scent of the Snake Dragon was coming from Garros.
She flapped her butterfly-like dragon wings and flew toward Garros, circling around his body.
She discovered that Garros was holding a green severed tail in his claws. On the edge of his right wing, there was a dark green patch emitting a foul stench where several fine scales had fallen off, revealing festering and oozing wing membranes.
"You encountered a Snake Dragon? And you're covered in its poisonous blood?"
The Fairy Dragon asked worriedly.
"I ran into a Cliff Snake Dragon."
Garros moved his right wing forward, carefully examining the dark green area corroded by the Snake Dragon's venom.
The sharp pain was gone, replaced by numbness; he could barely feel the existence of the palm-sized festering area.
Dragonkin had powerful Physiques and were born with a certain level of toxin resistance.
Ordinary poisons had a negligible effect on Dragonkin.
But Snake Dragon venom seemed specifically evolved for infighting and hunting other Dragonkin, capable of causing significant toxic damage even to a dragon's body.
"The Cliff Snake Dragon's melee skills aren't high, but this poisonous blood is truly troublesome."
"Unless I can defeat it with ranged methods, if I must rely on melee—even if I can cut it into eight pieces—I might still be heavily injured by the poison after being covered in too much of its blood."
Garros thought silently.
Heavy injury—Garros had experienced it once during his Hatchling stage.
At that time, he was three years old and had just realized he possessed the talent of Adaptive Evolution. Because he couldn't yet restrain the arrogance inherent in dragon nature, he excitedly flew to his maximum altitude and began his first 'Earth-Humping,' wanting to use intense methods to quickly make himself stronger.
The result was that he crashed and seriously injured himself.
It took over half a month of recovery before he gradually got better.
Furthermore, afterward, his evolution talent did not provide the satisfying feedback he expected.
This also made him realize that his evolution talent focused more on gradual accumulation over time rather than a single moment of intense impulse.
Now, he didn't have the protection of the Iron Dragon Mother.
If he were heavily injured and then encountered other dangers, the risk of death would be extremely high.
Meanwhile, the Fairy Dragon flew to Garros's wound and said anxiously, "Quickly gouge out this piece of flesh so the wound can recover faster."
Because Garros had promised he could play with her and even let the Dire Bears in the territory play games with her,
this little thing seemed to have already forgotten that she was a prisoner forced to stay by a 'Slavery Contract,' and had begun to treat Garros as a companion of her own group.
"No need."
Garros shook his head, refusing the Fairy Dragon's suggestion.
He held up the Snake Dragon's severed tail, and his dragon wing slowly extended toward it.
The edge of his wing, covered in a metallic structure and sharp as a blade, scraped across the severed tail inch by inch, letting the 'blade' be stained with poisonous blood, producing a sizzling, corrosive sound.
Occasionally, his movements were a bit too large.
Poisonous blood splashed onto Garros's wing membrane, forming dark green spots and bringing an unforgettable, searing pain, like the bite of a thousand snakes.
Seeing this scene, the Fairy Dragon's eyes immediately widened.
She hadn't heard that Cliff Snake Dragon venom could drive a dragon insane!
"What-what-what-what are you doing?!"
She circled around Garros anxiously.
On the other side, a fiery-Red Dragon shadow passed through the conifers and walked over.
It was Samantha, who had also smelled the scent of the Cliff Snake Dragon.
"Making a mountain out of a molehill."
Samantha gave Fairy Dragon Vera a superior look, tilted her chin, and said, "Little one, once you've seen more things like this, you'll get used to it. Garros just likes it this way; it's his special hobby."
Seeing the Red Dragon, the Fairy Dragon shrank her head back in fear.
Samantha had wanted to eat her at the beginning, which still made her a bit afraid now.
However, because of Garros's warning, and because the Fairy Dragon wasn't even enough to fill the gaps between her teeth, Samantha's interest in her wasn't that high and she no longer showed a desire to eat her.
Fairy Dragon Vera forced herself to calm down, trying not to appear so afraid of the Red Dragon.
Hearing Samantha's words and recalling Garros's previous soul-shaking act of humping the tree, she vaguely understood what Samantha meant.
"It seems, it seems to be like that. Garros's interests are... unique. The first time I saw him, I saw him..."
The Fairy Dragon subconsciously began to speak to the Red Young Dragon.