At noon, Li Fan arrived at the edge of the pit. He put on Dilu's goggles, pulled aside a corner of the light-blocking net, and climbed down the rock face to the position of Huihui's chest cavity.
Through the gaps in the air intake grille, which had absorbed a large amount of air, he saw an oval-shaped blue jade, emitting a dazzling light surrounded by a bright blue energy ring, shining like a star.
Bathed in blue light, Li Fan meticulously recorded his observations.
"The spike pillars used for fixation inside the chest cavity are very stable. Judging by the volume of the Crimson Dragon Qi Jade, the Azure Dragon Qi Jade has already condensed. The small amount of white transparent substance appearing on the surface should be the base of the newly formed crystalline wall."
After finishing his observations, Li Fan, as usual, went to the edge of the pit to ask Huihui about her feelings today.
"Ao~"
The swarm harassment from the Nergigante had not reappeared for three consecutive days. Coupled with the joy of being able to soar high in the sky soon, Huihui was in excellent condition.
"The energy contained in the nearby Dragon Crystal has strengthened again..."
After listening to Huihui's description, Li Fan felt very curious.
This was, of course, a good thing, but he couldn't understand it.
Through their investigations during this period, the team had already gained a preliminary understanding of the nature of Dragon Crystals.
The most magical aspect of Dragon Crystals was their ability to transmit life energy outwards.
This not only involved radiating outwards and nourishing monsters, but Dragon Crystals could also transmit energy to each other.
This process would continue until the life energy within a certain area was uniformly distributed, and then it would stop.
High-energy consumption behaviors like Huihui's condensation of Dragon Jade would certainly trigger a flow of energy within the area.
Some energy nodes with insufficient transmission might experience stagnation.
However, it was clearly impossible for the energy to keep increasing.
Otherwise, the Nergigante would not have cared about Huihui's absorption of energy.
In this light, the continuous strengthening of the energy contained in the Dragon Crystals for three days was somewhat difficult to understand.
"If an Elder Dragon were to die in the瘴气之谷 (Miasma Valley), a short-term overall increase in life energy could be explained..."
The more Li Fan thought about it, the stranger it became. However, considering that Huihui's Dragon Jade was about to condense, and the team would soon no longer have to struggle in the Dragon Crystal Land, he immediately felt relieved.
Returning to the camp without tents, Dilu and Yudora were preparing lunch.
After enduring the elements, the team's overall condition was somewhat disheveled.
"Roast all the accumulated raw meat and eat to your heart's content. In a few more hours, we won't have to stay here anymore," Li Fan announced.
"Uh... the raw meat is all gone. Today's lunch is Yudora's bone broth," Yudora replied helplessly, stirring the pot.
"Alright, it seems we'll have to hunt for food one more time before we leave," Li Fan said, sitting by the campfire.
"Please wait a moment, meow. It'll be ready soon," Dilu said, walking over to the pot. She opened her cloth bag and added seasonings.
A fragrance wafted from the boiling thick soup.
"A strange feeling, meow..."
Dilu, who was watching the pot with her paws propped up, suddenly moved away from the pot and squatted down to examine the pads on her paws.
After confirming there was no problem, she began to investigate the ground made of Dragon Crystals.
Li Fan, who was squatting on the ground, also felt a warmth emanating from beneath his buttocks. Yudora stopped stirring, and the three of them, two humans and one cat, immediately began to observe.
"Ska~"
With a slight cracking sound, a faint yellow light appeared in the Dragon Crystals on the surface, which were shimmering with rainbow light.
The light spread outwards in a ring, quickly encompassing the pot. Li Fan suddenly realized something.
"Run!"
"Bone broth!" Yudora exclaimed urgently.
"Forget the soup!"
After the two humans and the cat ran far away, the color of the expanding light ring changed from yellow to crimson.
The Dragon Crystals began to cave in and melt under the influence of the high internal temperature.
"The Dragon Crystals are melting... It's the King of Flame couple!" Yudora thought of a possibility.
"The Dragon Crystals seem to be melting from the inside. This should be caused by excessive energy accumulation. It can guide the energy flow... It was done by the Nergigante," Li Fan quickly deduced.
Recalling the anomaly of the surrounding life energy continuously strengthening, everything made sense.
The Nergigante had not taken any action against Huihui, but its method of attack was very unconventional, achieved through an overflow of excessive energy.
The only fortunate thing at the moment was that the hit rate of this energy overflow was generally low.
As for why it chose such a slow-acting attack method with such a long cycle, Li Fan speculated that it might be related to its current state within the cocoon.
"Splash~ Splash~..."
More Dragon Crystals on the surface cracked and caved in. The pot at the core sank deeper and deeper. At this moment, the light color suddenly changed from red to blue.
"It seems the attack method is not just melting..." Li Fan's expression turned grim upon seeing this.
"Chi~ Chi~ Boom!"
A massive blue beam of light erupted from the sunken ground, shooting straight into the sky.
After the energy exploded, it did not dissipate but formed a blue cross in the sky, continuing to expand outwards.
"Whoosh~"
The beam of light continued to spray for several seconds before abruptly stopping, leaving only a large amount of fine blue flames drifting in the air.
Cheche and Diablos rushed over quickly.
"We're fine! Don't come any closer," Li Fan shouted to warn them.
"This is an attack from the Nergigante..." Yudora said in disbelief, gazing at the blue cross in the sky.
"Once it completes its metamorphosis, the damage it can cause will be even more exaggerated... Let's not worry about that for now. You guys get ready to evacuate. I need to go check on Huihui," Li Fan informed them.
"Wait a moment, why not wait a little longer? The signs of this energy attack were too obvious, and we could have avoided it if we had responded in time," Yudora asked curiously.
"We can't. They'll see it too," Li Fan said, pointing to the sky.
"You mean... I understand." Yudora suddenly understood. The terrifying energy could be avoided, but the impact it caused could not be erased.
The King of Flame couple, Kushala Daora, and the Nergigante would definitely come to investigate upon sensing it.
Li Fan rushed to the edge of the pit and directly pulled off the light-blocking net.
Peering down to her chest cavity, he saw that the transparent crystalline wall had already enveloped more than half of the Azure Dragon Qi Jade.
"Ah! It was so close..." Li Fan gritted his teeth.
"Ao~"
At this moment, Huihui let out a cry.
"You have the ability to escape, you can stay here... No, you haven't flown for too long, and you haven't removed the overgrown carapace," Li Fan immediately denied.
"Ao~" Huihui insisted, stating that Dragon Jade without a complete crystalline wall was more dangerous than having no Dragon Jade at all.
Li Fan hesitated, as it was by shattering the crystalline wall of the Crimson Dragon Qi Jade that he had managed to heavily injure Huihui in the past.
The energy condensed by the Azure Dragon Qi Jade was even more terrifying, and no one in the world knew what would happen after it was impacted.
"But they are already on their way." Li Fan sighed helplessly.
Huihui, who was sheltered in the pit, would inevitably be detected. Escaping with Dragon Jade that had only half a crystalline wall would be even more dangerous.
"Ao~"
Huihui indicated that he could rest assured, and that she would be fine.
"How much longer will it take?" Li Fan asked after a moment of thought.
"Ao~"
Huihui indicated that the purity of the energy was still increasing and would be completed soon.
"It's still increasing?... Then let's take a gamble," Li Fan climbed to the top of the pit, opened his backpack, and replaced all the Poké Balls on his shoulder strap with Master Balls.
"Dillu, Yudora, Blaster will take you away," Li Fan said, as Blaster, with a throne on its back, had already landed on the ground.
"What about you?" Yudora asked curiously.
"The plan has changed. I will guard Huihui with the monsters until the crystalline wall is formed," Li Fan informed them.
"I want to stay too, meow!" Dilu said resolutely.
"Kushala Daora will definitely come back. I'm not leaving," Yudora said, looking back at the sky.
"This battle came too suddenly. I wasn't prepared at all..." Li Fan had long anticipated their attitude, but since there were no combat deployments, he didn't even have a decent plan in mind.
"I'll improvise," Yudora said with great confidence. Meanwhile, Dilu had already put on her sound-dampening gloves.
"Alright, the Elder Dragons that will arrive later have a somewhat complex relationship. Don't attack rashly for now, especially the Nergigante," Li Fan said. The team immediately began to prepare for battle.
The first change was the monsters' positions. Guarding in a circle was fine for ordinary monsters, but for Elder Dragons, it was no different than marking the main target. Moreover, their extremely wide attack range did not allow the monsters to gather together.
So, Li Fan had the terrestrial monsters position themselves separately on higher ground, lying in ambush.
After removing the heat-resistant clothing from the light-blocking net and putting it on, the two humans and one cat found a hiding spot on higher ground and began to observe the situation.
Two minutes later, a nearby Brute Tigrex was the first to arrive by rolling.
Faced with the stares of a group of monsters, Brute Tigrex pondered for a moment, curled up, and rolled away.
The few Kirin that arrived later, sensing the danger of the area, began to circle and fly around the perimeter.
Before long, two overlapping orange light clusters rapidly approached in the sky.
The surrounding monsters scattered and began to flee, trying their best to escape the range of the two orange lights.
Amidst the heatwave, Teostra and Lunastra appeared in sight.
They hovered in the air, scanning the ground.
Then they landed in the large sunken pit formed by the energy eruption.
The two dragons did not know Huihui was here, and they were clearly heading for the Nergigante.
After searching for a while, Lunastra found no valuable information, so she leaped to the top of the sunken pit.
A dragon-elemental sense, which was slightly familiar, surged within her.
The overflow of life energy in the Dragon Crystal Land greatly interfered with the Elder Dragons' senses, but as long as they were close enough, they could still detect it.
Lunastra followed the sense up the slope, and a triangular area formed by stacked columnar crystal walls came into view.
Seeing Huihui, with her head exposed above ground and her blue light flashing, Lunastra blinked and was stunned.
"Ao~"
Lunastra indicated that she had made a great discovery and asked him to come up and see.
"Ao..." Teostra grumbled, saying what great discovery could there be besides the Nergigante.
Upon seeing Huihui, Teostra was also stunned.
"Ao~ Ao~ Ao~..."
The two Elder Dragons engaged in frequent communication.
"Lunastra said Huihui is on the Old Continent, and she's usually in very high places. Why is she on the surface... buried underground? Teostra said he doesn't know either." Li Fan, who was watching closely, provided the translation.
"In that case, the other party hasn't shown any clear hostility," Yudora felt that the situation was developing in a positive direction.
"Ao~" Teostra's roar changed, carrying a hint of ferocity.
"Ao!" Lunastra suddenly became furious, her roar completely overpowering his.
"Li Fan, please translate quickly, meow," Dilu said anxiously, seeing the situation take a sharp turn.
"Teostra said that Huihui once assisted a group of very perverted monsters and severely injured his good brother, so Huihui must be eliminated today. Lunastra said... How dare you mention your useless brother? If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be in such a sorry state." Li Fan attempted to understand for a moment and provided the translation.
"Teostra's good brother, could it be... Kushala Daora?" Yudora speculated.
"The 'useless brother' should be it..." Li Fan realized that the wind that disrupted Lunastra's mood was not present, and Kushala Daora was highly disliked by Lunastra.
After acknowledging this, he opened his handheld device and checked Huihui's status.
Although it did not show the progress of the crystalline wall formation, it would display new characteristics after completion.
"How is it?" Yudora asked expectantly.
"It's not displayed, so we'll have to wait."
"Then what about us?" Yudora asked, her right hand already touching the hilt of her Great Sword, the Azure Wind God.
"If Nergigante arrives first, I might be able to stall it. If it's them, then we can only fight." As soon as Li Fan finished speaking, a gale erupted in the sky, stirring up a large amount of Dragon Crystal fragments.
Kushala Daora, with its large and small horns on its head and its body covered in cracks, appeared and landed.
"It's Kushala Daora... There are so many cracks on its carapace," Yudora said with some surprise.
"It must have been done by Nergigante," Li Fan thought that even if Kushala Daora was weak, it wouldn't be so severely injured by a non-Elder Dragon.
Moreover, he himself had participated in this, so he knew where these wounds came from.
"Ao~" Lunastra let out an displeased roar and turned her head away.
Teostra flicked its mane, scattering a cloud of orange dust that drifted towards Huihui.
Kushala Daora, guided by the shining dust, quickly locked onto Huihui's location.
However, before its front claws could land, it suddenly retracted them.
"Ao~"
Kushala Daora let out a low growl, putting the Teostra couple on alert.
"There are monsters, many of them..." Li Fan did not expect Kushala Daora to sense the hidden monsters as soon as it approached.
A strong white airflow swept in, entering the gaps of every crystal pillar.
Soon, purple ghost fire dust began to drift with the airflow.
The first one to be exposed, Diablos, leaped up and roared at the three Elder Dragons.
"Calm down, Diablos... Ah, it's actually retreating?" Li Fan wanted to urge Diablos to calm down, but he did not expect the three Elder Dragons to retreat several steps, each taking a position to form a circle, adopting a very cautious fighting stance.
"It's on the other side, meow!" Dilu shouted, looking through her binoculars.
Only then did Li Fan realize that it was not Diablos's deterrence that had taken effect, but that a monster had arrived on the other side of the stacked columnar crystal rock wall area.
"Ao! Whoosh~"
Amidst the strong wind, Nergigante landed on the ground.
Huihui looked at the Teostra couple and Kushala Daora in front of her.
Then she turned her neck to look at the Nergigante behind her and decisively closed her eyes.
Zhao Lala reminds you: Remember to collect after reading.