Novel Full Chapter 360: Five-Horned Lava Lizard (6)
Chapter 360: Five-Horned Lava Lizard (6)
Kyrian felt the snowflakes within his pupils rotating slowly. A faint bluish hue was beginning to emerge in the deepest parts of his pupils, no longer the icy white from before.
’What is happening to me?’
There was no time to reflect. The lizard roared again.
But this time, it did not unleash another draconic breath.
The five horns atop its head began glowing simultaneously, pulsing with an intense orange light. Each horn absorbed enormous quantities of fire Qi from the environment, compressing it within.
The air around it distorted violently. The heat was already extreme, but now it became oppressive and suffocating. The rocks surrounding the lizard began to melt, forming a pool of lava that slowly spread outward.
Kyrian let out a small sigh.
It’s preparing something big. Then he prepared himself.
A new armor of ice formed over his body, not the thick and bulky layers from his previous attempts, but something different.
Thinner, yet far more compact. Translucent layers of ice covered his skin like a second epidermis, molding themselves to every curve of his muscles.
At the same time, an absurd quantity of ice Qi plunged beneath the earth.
Silently. Swiftly.
Like a frozen serpent advancing through the volcanic depths, the Qi infiltrated the layers of rock and magma, hiding itself from the beast’s perception.
Kyrian hoped the lizard was too focused on its attack to notice.
And he was right.
Kyrian’s eyes glowed.
...
The lizard opened its mouth.
The five horns unleashed a gigantic beam of flames simultaneously. Five streams of compressed fire merged into a single ray so intense that the surrounding light dimmed by contrast.
The attack crossed the battlefield like a destructive river, vaporizing the air in its path.
Kyrian did not retreat.
He raised his arms before his body, crossing them over his chest in a position of maximum defense. The ice armor shone intensely, frozen runes pulsing with a pale blue light.
The instant the beam struck him, the Qi hidden beneath the earth exploded.
Hundreds of thick ice spikes erupted violently from the ground beneath the lizard. They did not emerge in a random formation. Every spike had been positioned with surgical precision, aiming for the gaps between the scales, the most vulnerable points of the beast’s body.
It was as though a frozen forest had been born from within the mountain, stretching toward the sky.
The spikes shot toward the beast’s body at terrifying speed.
But the lizard sensed the vibration beneath the earth.
Bestial instinct. Hundreds of years of battle refining its ability to sense danger before it manifested.
The creature jumped.
Its colossal body rose into the air with a force that defied gravity, propelled by jets of fire exploding from its scales. For a moment, the lizard hovered in the air, a flying mountain of scales and flames.
At the same instant, it unleashed flames downward, incinerating as much of Kyrian’s attack as possible.
The spikes began to evaporate. Melt. Explode.
Turning into vapor before they could reach the beast’s body.
Kyrian did not care.
That had never been the real attack.
His eyes focused completely on the lizard suspended in the air. In that moment, the creature could not change its trajectory. It was vulnerable. Exposed. Without the support of the ground to use its full strength or dodge.
Kyrian slowly raised his right hand.
All the cold around him seemed to converge into a single point.
The ice. The Qi. The intent. Everything.
The white mist surrounding him compressed itself, becoming dense. The air around his hand began to freeze, forming small crystals that shone like diamonds.
A single needle began to form before him.
Thin as a finger.
Small.
But terrifying.
An absurd quantity of ice Qi was compressed within that needle, a third of the remainder of his energy reserves concentrated into an object the size of a feather.
At the same time, an overwhelming freezing intent began emanating from it.
The lizard’s eyes widened.
Its draconic instinct screamed danger. Not the ordinary danger of battle, but the danger of something that could truly wound it. Something that could kill it.
Kyrian pointed two fingers forward.
The needle vanished.
There was no sound. No flash. Only space being pierced by something moving too fast for the eyes to follow.
The lizard roared immediately. Its experience fighting other predators in the volcanic mountain range had taught it to trust its instincts. It attempted to dodge in midair, twisting its gigantic body into a forced curve.
But its body was too large.
Too heavy.
And unlike true dragons, with wings to maneuver in the air, it could not fly.
With no choice, the creature raised one of its front claws to block. It was the most heavily armored part of its body, covered in extra-thick scales that had resisted attacks capable of destroying mountains.
The scales erupted in fire. Flames completely enveloped the limb, trying to evaporate the needle before impact.
But at that moment, Kyrian’s eyes shone intensely.
More power. More cold.
The needle intensified its blue glow. More Qi was channeled into it through Kyrian’s eyes.
The needle pierced through the fire.
Then it pierced through the scales, as though they were made of rotten wood rather than volcanic armor.
Then it pierced through the flesh.
It sank completely into the lizard’s claw, disappearing into the mass of muscle and bone.
The beast’s roar became distorted, no longer a sound of challenge, but a scream of pain.
Its body fell from the sky like a collapsing mountain, graceless and without control.
The ground exploded when it struck the earth again, opening a crater from the impact.
Then the lizard roared again.
Real pain.
Its claw began to freeze.
Not from the outside, like the ice barriers it destroyed so easily. From the inside outward. The bone first, then the muscles, then the blood, then the Qi meridians.
The ice spread through the beast’s flesh at an absurd speed, like a poison without an antidote. The cold energy advanced relentlessly, transforming everything it touched into blue crystal.
Terror appeared in the lizard’s eyes for the first time.
It was no longer merely surprise or curiosity.
It was fear.
If that thing reached the rest of its body, if the ice reached the heart, the brain, or the beast core that fueled its power, it would be fatal even for it.