Under the blazing afternoon sun, wisps of a gentle breeze brushed past the disemboweled carcass of the roundhead dinosaur on the ground, carrying a pungent stench of blood.
After circling and observing Haoyuan for a moment, the three dromaeosaurs exchanged a knowing glance and finally began probing his defenses.
Haoyuan coiled upright. One dromaeosaur launched a frontal feint while the other two bided their time, waiting for an opening.
Haoyuan had already anticipated this. His dragon whiskers twitched slightly as he reared the front half of his body and gaped open his bloody maw, forcing back the dromaeosaur that had actually intended to strike.
A low, rumbling growl resonated from his throat, issuing a furious, threatening warning.
He remained unmoved by the feinting and harassing dromaeosaur, nor did he commit to any wide-sweeping attacks.
He gave them not a single opening.
The dromaeosaurs circled and probed for a while, growing somewhat perplexed.
The lustrous white serpent before them seemed to anticipate their every move; their usually infallible feints and harassment tactics had all proven completely ineffective.
So they halted their probing strikes and began pacing in circles around Haoyuan, looking for a flaw in his stance.
Haoyuan's dragon whiskers drifted lazily as he twisted his body, pivoting nimbly to track them.
Gradually, the dromaeosaurs stopped circling. Tilting their heads, they stood motionless as if in deep thought.
Hiss, this big white snake's defense was a little too good...
The dromaeosaurs exchanged looks, unwilling to let the stalemate drag on.
“Roar!”
The dromaeosaur in front suddenly hissed and roared at Haoyuan, feigning an attack while secretly preparing to strike in earnest.
Spreading its feathered forelimbs and raising its long tail, it swooped toward Haoyuan, jaws poised to snap.
Over three meters long and standing more than a meter tall at the shoulder, it towered slightly over Haoyuan's reared upper body, holding a distinct advantage.
At first, Haoyuan thought it was just another feint, but his dragon whiskers were exquisitely sensitive to the subtle air currents, and he instantly realized something was wrong.
At the exact same moment, the other two dromaeosaurs launched their assaults.
Surrounded on three sides, Haoyuan had no choice but to deal with the frontal attacker first.
The one in front lunged in close, raking its sharp claws toward Haoyuan's head while aiming its bite straight for his neck.
Without the slightest hesitation, Haoyuan timed the instant its head lunged forward and snapped viciously at its neck, evading the claws in the process.
Yet the creature was exceptionally cunning; it immediately checked its momentum and leaped backward.
“Jump Kill!”
A signature move of dromaeosaurs.
At such close quarters, even if his dragon whiskers detected the shift, his body wouldn't have time to react.
If Haoyuan's dragon head had lunged forward to bite its neck, the dromaeosaur's talons, concealed beneath Haoyuan's field of view, would have slammed down on his exposed neck, pinning his throat in an instant.
Then, the high-raised sickle claw would plunge deep into flesh, ending the battle in the blink of an eye.
Extremely treacherous.
Fortunately, Haoyuan had been on guard against this trick. His dragon head hadn't overcommitted; instead, he used his momentum to whip around in a grand pivot, lunging toward the two dromaeosaurs behind him.
The frontal dromaeosaur's talons caught nothing but empty air.
The two dromaeosaurs behind hadn't expected Haoyuan to counter so swiftly. Even so, they managed to leave several gashes of varying depths across his body, along with two puncture wounds gouged out by their sickle claws.
Crimson blood welled and seeped from the wounds.
The three dromaeosaurs instantly flashed greedy expressions.
Haoyuan bared his teeth in pain, which only ignited his ferocity.
He finally understood: these three dromaeosaurs had no intention of letting him go.
In that case, his original strategy of holding his ground was useless. He had to carve a bloody path out!
“Thought Evolution!”
“Strengthen trunk strength to facilitate tail sweeps!”
Ever since reaching four meters in length, Haoyuan had made a habit of hoarding a few points of energy to handle unexpected emergencies.
While not enough to complete a visible, full-scale evolution, this energy could fine-tune his attributes, potentially playing a decisive role in crucial moments.
Evolution Path: Trunk Strength (...+ )
Energy: 5
All five points of energy poured straight into Trunk Strength.
Haoyuan immediately felt his midsection become lighter and more supple.
A temporary bodily modification from this energy didn't occur instantaneously; he likely hadn't even fully digested those five points yet.
Yet all Haoyuan needed was a slight boost in trunk power to tip the odds in his favor; he didn't pin all his hopes on the energy alone.
His previous evolutions in constriction strength had already made his midsection remarkably powerful.
Now, it was all about agility.
With everything set, Haoyuan locked onto the dromaeosaur in front, weaving the front half of his body left and right as if preparing to pounce.
The dromaeosaur clearly hadn't expected Haoyuan to take the offensive.
Yet this suited its intentions perfectly, and it quickly backed away, baiting Haoyuan into overextending his body.
The two dromaeosaurs behind him seized the opportunity.
One lunged for the middle of Haoyuan's torso, while the other attacked his tail, aiming to stretch him too thin to defend himself and inflict more bleeding wounds.
The more injuries their prey sustained, the weaker it would become.
Gradually, its combat strength would plummet, leaving it to do nothing but await death.
At this point, Haoyuan's body wasn't fully stretched out, but the distance between his front half and his elongated rear half had indeed widened.
The dromaeosaur attacking his midsection, being closer to Haoyuan's dragon head, relied primarily on its talons while coordinating with biting snaps.
Its round, bulging eyes stayed glued to Haoyuan's head, watching for any defensive maneuvers.
The dromaeosaur targeting the tail, on the other hand, felt much safer, boldly craning its neck to bite while raking with both foreclaws and talons.
Haoyuan had already rehearsed this scenario in his mind. The moment the dromaeosaur at his tail leaned in to bite, his coiled trunk, primed and ready, exploded with power.
The dromaeosaur saw only a blur before the serpent tail on the ground whipped upward, snapping right out of its field of vision.
By the time it registered what had happened, the tail had already locked firmly around its neck.
It had never anticipated such a development.
In its experience, whenever it caught larger snakes, it only had to bite their tails and hoist them up to toss them about at will.
Yet this big white snake could launch its tail like a catapult?!
What kind of insane maneuver was that?!
Alas, it was already too late. The moment the tail coiled around its throat, its fate was sealed.
A colossal constricting force clamped down instantly, and suffocating asphyxiation tore through the dromaeosaur's nerves.
It scratched frantically with its claws at the muscular coil choking its neck and twisted its head to bite whatever part of the serpentine body it could reach.
Yet no matter what it did, the serpentine coils refused to relent, tightening with ever-increasing ferocity!
Overwhelmed by the sensation of impending death, sheer terror consumed it.
It desperately tried to flee from this horrific danger!
Involuntarily, its talons kicked backward with all their might as its entire body thrashed in a frantic retreat, dragging Haoyuan's entire serpentine body backward, suspended in midair.
Yes, suspended in midair.
Using the dromaeosaur's neck as a fulcrum, Haoyuan hoisted his body and executed a devastating counterthrust!
With that exertion of force, his entire form became airborne!
When the dromaeosaur attacking the tail fell into the trap, the one attacking his midsection was startled and hurried to help its pack mate break free.
Yet almost immediately, it sensed a foul gust of wind sweeping in from behind!
Glancing back, it was greeted by the sight of an airborne flood dragon lunging straight at it, bloody maw agape and lined with jagged, gleaming fangs.
Its feathers instantly bristled in panic, and in sheer terror, it leaped into the air!
Its eagle-like talons and raised sickle claws cocked forward, ready to halt Haoyuan's offensive momentum.
Yet pulled along by the suffocating dromaeosaur, Haoyuan's airborne leap combined with his dragon head's wide arc carried him to a height far beyond the reach of those talons!
Bloody maw agape, deadly fangs exposed, a chilling killing intent bore down directly upon its neck!
The dromaeosaur threw up its feathered forelimbs to shield its neck, fighting for a sliver of hope!
It made no difference. To Haoyuan, biting anywhere worked just as well.
Crunch!
The colossal force of the dragon head crushed the dromaeosaur's forelimb to splinters.
“Hwooo!” The dromaeosaur shrieked in agony!
Right on its heels came the instinctive, reflexive constriction inherent to a serpent!
Just give me an anchor point with my dragon head, and I can complete a deadly constriction in an instant!
The speed of the constriction was far too rapid to react to!
The very instant after contact, the dromaeosaur was bound tightly!
A terrifying, explosive constricting force surged from the serpentine coils!
In a fraction of a second, the dromaeosaur's hollow bones were crushed to powder!
Its violent thrashing instantly withered away.
Even Haoyuan hadn't expected a three-meter-plus dromaeosaur to be so fragile!
Having eaten so many hadrosaurs, he had subconsciously formed the false impression that all dinosaurs had thick, sturdy bones.
Still, dromaeosaurs were exceedingly dangerous. Their foot claws gripped as nimbly as eagle talons, their feathered forelimbs obscured sightlines, and their cranial bite force was nothing to scoff at.
They relied heavily on feints and could leap into the air.
Haoyuan remembered that “Jump Kill” vividly.
Had he not been cautious and refrained from overcommitting his dragon head, his neck might have been pinned right now, leaving him helpless to wait for death.
After all, until he constricted an opponent, his dragon head was his only offensive weapon.
It truly made him vulnerable to being kited and worn down to death.
If only he had claws. That would drastically increase his margin for error and let him fight back in close quarters.
None of that mattered now; he had won this battle.
Of the three dromaeosaurs, one had suffered pulverized bones, while another had suffocated to death—having even served as a fulcrum before dying, hoisting his front body into a midair spin.
The sheer pressure its throat cartilage had endured was easy to imagine.
Now, only the last dromaeosaur remained—the one that had failed to grasp the situation because everything happened so fast and was still busily biting at him.
His torso had been mauled into a bloody mess.
Yet it all ended here.
The dromaeosaur tearing at the lustrous white serpent's flesh finally sensed something amiss.
Everything was far too quiet.
Since when had it gone quiet?
It didn't know. It only remembered biting down repeatedly, having inflicted a considerable amount of bleeding wounds with its claws and talons.
At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the big white snake became an easy meal for the three of them.
Yet what was with this eerie silence?
Where were its pack mates? Why wasn't there any sound?
It involuntarily halted its biting, feeling an intense, piercing gaze upon it.
Unable to resist, it turned its head to look.
A massive dragon head was watching it in utter silence.
Cold, bloodthirsty.
As if gazing down upon a trivial ant.
Then, it heard the most sonorous, earth-shattering roar of its life.
“ROAAAR!”
The resounding cry reverberated through the skies!
The dromaeosaur was stunned for a heartbeat. By the time instinct urged it to flee, it realized the serpent's tail had already wound around its legs without its notice.
There was no escape now.
“Wuu-roar!”
The dromaeosaur let out a low growl of desperate struggle!
A gentle breeze drifted across the gruesome battlefield, stirring up thick wafts of blood.
Death and solemn slaughter hung heavy in the air.
Haoyuan hurried to devour the flesh of the roundhead dinosaur, his drifting dragon whiskers constantly monitoring the surrounding air currents.
The pungent stench of blood might attract other carnivorous dinosaurs, so he remained exceptionally cautious, racing against the clock.
This injury meant he couldn't evolve toward a larger body size for now.
Impaired bodily functions would hamper his next hunt.
Therefore, he prioritized channeling his energy into Self-Healing.
Evolution Path: Self-Healing (...+ )
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