Sunlight fell, casting over the scarred and charred earth.
With the death of the Bloodhoof Chieftain, the morale of the other Minotaurs collapsed, as if their last bit of strength had been drained away.
However.
Minotaurs were stubborn and obstinate by nature; the vast majority of them were still resisting, swearing never to surrender.
There was more than one powerful leader in the Bloodhoof Clan; there were quite a few units on the level of Bloodtooth Hodge and the two-headed Ogre, and even powerful Shamans capable of trading blows with a White Dragon.
If they could secure the allegiance of the Bloodhoof Clan and absorb the Minotaur tribe, the scale of the Molten Iron Clan would double.
But, Garros knew well that blind expansion was not always a good thing. Iron Dragon Sorog was currently sleeping, and he himself would also enter a state of Dragon Sleep within the next year or two.
In such a situation, lacking strong and effective suppression, a Minotaur tribe of such large scale would be a hidden danger even if conquered, requiring precautions against betrayal.
Moreover, Garros didn't have much desire to conquer creatures that stubbornly resisted and defied his will; he didn't have a penchant for coddling the unruly.
Those who disobeyed, just kill them.
If he had free time to waste on subduing them, it would be better spent on improving himself.
Garros, who possessed the Bloodline of a Red Dragon, had always possessed a decisive and ruthless heart.
"For Chieftain Bahl! Blood for blood!"
A one-eyed Overseer roared, waving the flag of the Bloodhoof Clan.
A red shadow descended from the sky.
Samantha's Dragon claw pressed the Overseer's head into the ground. When she lifted it, the horns remained in her claw along with the skull, and the headless corpse swayed before collapsing.
Whoosh!
She looked around with contempt and spat out Dragon fire.
The war banner was ignited, burning into scattered fire butterflies.
Gluttony Demon Karu tore off a leader's arm and stuffed it into his mouth to chew, then backhanded and crushed another Minotaur's skull.
The Dragon-blooded Ogre's sharp claws tore through leather armor like tissue paper, intestines dangling from his fangs as he whipped his head.
A Minotaur Centurion tried to rally the remnants, but just as he raised his horn, the massive, cold figure of the White Dragon blocked the sunlight.
—She had already killed the Minotaur giant transformed by the White-Mane Shaman.
Frost breath engulfed the Centurion, freezing him into a lifelike ice sculpture, only to be smashed into a sky of ice shards by a Centaur cavalryman, pulverizing him completely.
Elvie's arrows fell like rain, precisely sniping the warlocks and Shamans.
The Molten Iron Clan began the harvest.
Only those who dropped their weapons and prostrated themselves on the ground were ignored.
After taking over the resource points of the Bloodhoof Clan, the Molten Iron Clan would need slaves to mine and do the most arduous and heavy labor; the Minotaurs were only slightly inferior to Ogres in strength but had more endurance, making them good slaves.
Garros did not participate in the harvest.
Such matters could be left to his subordinates.
Now that the Bloodhoof Clan had been utterly defeated, there was no need for Garros to intervene, and it was just as well to let the monsters of the Molten Iron Legion vent their Killing Intent through the slaughter.
It is worth mentioning that the monsters doing the killing did not include the Grizzly Bears.
According to Garros's instructions, they were hiding in a cave in Dragon Valley, guarding the sleeping Iron Dragon Sorog against any unforeseen events.
At the same time, Garros did not completely let down his guard. He stood on the ground, his eyes narrowing to thin lines, scanning the sky inch by inch.
Copper Dragon Deborah.
No, now it should be Red-Silver Dragon Deborah.
Garros hadn't forgotten that.
He was cautious and always considered the worst-case scenario.
Ever since he learned that the Red-Silver Dragon had encountered Samantha, Garros realized that he might have been targeted by Deborah again.
This little female Dragon seemed to have an obsession with him.
And her damn luck favored the Metallic Dragon; this was the second time she had stumbled upon him, and although this third time wasn't a direct encounter, she had run into Samantha.
"Where exactly are you hiding?"
Garros found no abnormal traces in the sky and pondered in his heart.
Although there was no evidence, he felt that the Red-Silver Dragon was in all likelihood on this battlefield. Garros had originally felt she might launch a sneak attack while he was locked in a bitter battle with Bahl; if it were him, he would have done so.
However, she didn't.
This made Garros a bit suspicious, but he still believed the Red-Silver Dragon was right there.
It was simply that he had underestimated the moral bottom line of the Metallic Dragon.
Perhaps the other party felt ashamed of such things as sneak attacks.
At this moment.
A Minotaur with blood-red eyes seemed to have suffered a mental breakdown and was charging toward where the Red-Iron Dragon was.
"Blood for blood!"
The Minotaur roared, full of Killing Intent.
Garros was thinking about Red-Silver Dragon Deborah, and when the Minotaur approached, he impatiently flicked his Dragon tail casually.
Just as the Dragon tail was about to strike the Minotaur.
A flowing light suddenly ignited on the body of the ordinary-looking Minotaur, which had no special features; there were many runes vaguely circulating within it. Immediately afterward, it quickly deformed, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into a Dragon form over fifteen meters long from head to tail.
It was none other than Red-Silver Dragon Deborah.
Compared to their last meeting, she had many differences.
Her scales were dominated by a rose-red color, but there were thousands of diamond-shaped silver scales precisely arranged along her spine, wing bones, and tail vertebrae. The newly grown Silver Dragon horns spiraled upward, inscribed with some golden patterns resembling snow lotus flowers.
The proportion of her tail and wings to her torso had increased, slender and well-proportioned, giving her body an overall graceful posture. The curves of her neck, Dragon spine, and Dragon tail were all just right, and her slender neck and streamlined body formed a crescent-like arc.
After activating her Silver Dragon Hybrid Bloodline, Deborah's appearance had surged, looking elegant and beautiful in the eyes of the Dragonkin.
However.
The elegant and beautiful Red-Silver Dragon was sent flying into the sky by Garros's casual flick of his Dragon tail.
She didn't show any restraint, shouting exaggeratedly: "Ah—! It hurts! My bones are about to fall apart! Evil and rude Red-Iron Dragon, you must compensate me for my scale damage fees! Emotional distress fees! And flight posture stabilization fees!"
Garros was speechless.
He looked at the beautiful Red-Silver Dragon tumbling in the air, as if she had suffered a fatal injury, and the residual Killing Intent of the battlefield was dispersed by this familiar exaggeration.
"Deborah, put away your tricks. Appearing now, do you want to relive the outcome of the first two times and be beaten by me again until you cry and go back to your Silver Dragon nest to complain to your elders?"
"I would be happy to obtain another sum of wealth from you."
He said.
Did she think that because he had just finished the battle, he was now weak and it was a good time to wipe away the shame?
He was a little tired.
But not weak.
Garros's gaze swept over the Red-Silver Dragon's size, which was close to that of a White Dragon, and there was no fear in his eyes.
At the same time.
The Red-Silver Dragon gracefully flapped her wings and hovered in the mid-air, which was sprinkled with morning light and the scent of gunpowder. Her gorgeous scales, with a base of crimson red and dotted with silver scales, flowed with magnificent light in the sunlight.
Facing Garros's questioning, she didn't get angry; instead, a sly smile spread across her face.
"If you can answer my riddle, I won't ask for your compensation."
Immediately afterward, she slightly raised her slender neck, as if she were a poet about to recite on the stage of ruins, and spoke clearly in a deliberately heightened, cadence-filled tone, with the unique rhythmic sense of a Silver Dragon and the boasting aria of a Copper Dragon:
"It takes the unextinguished fire as its guide, and the untrodden earth as its nest; you awaken its heartbeat when you tear the earth, and I traverse the smoke just to chase its glory."
"It gnaws on the broken dreams of cowards and drinks deep of the scars of the brave; it tempers stars in desperation and buries new buds at the end of all things."
Her voice paused slightly, and she looked at Garros, asking: "Tell me, Hybrid Dragon, what is it?"