Bear School Astartes

Chapter 923 - 905: Techniques for Dealing with Dragons

"Rong Buqiu, just stay with the kid nearby."

Lann said without turning his head.

Meanwhile, Rong Buqiu still couldn’t really see what it was holding in its arms, only nodding cluelessly, meowing once, and then trotting towards the corner of the palace with its little short legs.

Meanwhile, Lann himself gripped the sword hilt tightly, lowering his body, focusing intently on the strange scaleless white dragon opposite him.

Ausloes was already down on all fours like a beast.

However, his body clearly hadn’t fully transformed into a dragon; there weren’t even reverse-jointed legs, making his instinctive crouching appear rather awkward.

Still, Lann’s vigilance towards him was always at its highest.

The powers and knowledge Ausloes had mastered were things Lann could hardly imagine, even if in his current mental state, he could only use a limited amount.

But any contact, if made directly with the body, made Lann feel he might meet his end here.

His spell-casting ability was too advanced.

Lann confirmed this point once again.

But as always, in such a situation, akin to dancing with a blade on the neck, it did not make Lann overly anxious.

Whether from his own experiences or his immersive experiences in Memory Deep Dive... this feeling was almost a ’necessity’ of life.

He accepted and even enjoyed this feeling.

"Roar!"

The White Dragon Demon King howled, with no trace of human language or logic left in its voice.

After entering this beastly state, it seemed to move even more swiftly.

With a gentle push of its deformed claws on the stone-brick ground, it easily carved out several marks.

Then, with a ’whoosh’!

Its body, nearly fifteen meters long, thrust forward like a train set in motion, charging straight at Lann.

The headlong charge seemed as though it wanted to crush everything with its momentum, reminiscent of the Armored Dragon of the New Continent to Lann.

[Dragon Car], as the hunters of the New Continent named this type of charge used by monsters.

And although Ausloes’s dragon-formed body lacked the natural, wild beauty of the New Continent’s monsters.

It was slender to an almost deformed extent.

Such a body type made his [Dragon Car] almost devoid of any preparatory movement signs before execution.

Which is the last thing common hunters would want to see—a [No-Buildup Dragon Car]!

However, Lann did not belong to the category of ’ordinary hunters’.

Upon seeing Ausloes use this attack move, the Demon Hunter reacted without hesitation.

"Whoosh!"

The [Acceleration Technique] made his body disappear like a wisp of smoke, reappearing three meters to the side.

The scaleless white dragon’s sudden dragon car rushed over his original standing position!

Along the way, the white dragon’s body crushed the stone bricks, even smashing through the massive stone pillars within the palace as if shattering chocolates.

The entire palace shook under Ausloes’s steps.

But an attack that does not hit is practically nonexistent to the enemy.

Watching Ausloes crash into the palace wall after failing to stop his momentum, Lann’s originally tense expression became somewhat odd.

If the scaleless white dragon continued to stand upright like before, holding a magic staff in one hand.

Capable of both spell-casting and hammering, Lann indeed dreaded Ausloes’s thousands of years of accumulated spell-casting capabilities at the world’s pinnacle.

However, in his current form... a dragon-shaped enemy.

Honestly, even if Lann did not want to activate [Spiritual Vision] to watch him, just from muscle memory alone, he felt his proficiency with dragon-shaped enemies wasn’t low.

After Ausloes went completely berserk, from Lann’s perspective... he actually found it easier to predict the opponent’s actions.

"The dragon car missed, the next move... a tail swipe, perhaps?"

Watching the scaleless white dragon raging and thrashing its claws in anger after crashing into the wall, the Demon Hunter thought calmly.

If a common hunter faced a dragon-shaped creature missing its charge, they might think they could seize an attack opportunity during the opponent’s attempt to regain its balance.

And thus rush towards the creature’s backside.

However, dragonkin are creatures with highly developed combat habits; that menacing tail is certainly not just for show.

Lann pursued the overextended Ausloes.

Sure enough, as the Demon Hunter approached the scaleless white dragon from behind, bringing the opponent within his attack range.

The deformed white dragon, having just stopped from its momentum, tensed the muscles around its waist and tail—a coiled spring.

"Whoosh!" *2

The sound of air being ripped was crisp and sharp, like a whip crack—thin and cruel.

Using its lightweight physique to advantage, Ausloes’s tail swipe differed from that of an ordinary dragon.

It planted its limbs firmly into the ground, using its waist and abdomen strength to spin its body around!

The slippery, lengthy tail consequently whipped horizontally twice through the air.

The tail carried a faint blue glow, like some kind of filthy magic power.

Considering the consistently high level of power that Ausloes possessed, if the tail imbued with such magic power struck him, the Quen Rune probably wouldn’t have any reaction.

Lann’s body would be torn in half by the corrosion of magic power and the whip of the tail.

But as the saying goes: power that doesn’t hit is as good as nonexistent.

"Ding!"

A thin layer of pale red fighting spirit light flame burst forth, and using the technique of prediction, Lann slipped away as elegantly as a paper pushed by the wind, smoothly evading the opponent’s double-turn tail sweep.

Moreover, in the gap when Ausloes stabilized its body after the tail sweep, Lann swung his Aron Dite just like that tail swipe.

With a "Screech," the pale red blade’s arc left a trailing scar of bright red blood.

Air Blade Grand Spin!

Due to a previous use of the Dragon Ascending Sword, the blade’s glow had dimmed to yellow, but now, thanks to combat qi activation breaking through the threshold, it returned to red.

Red Blade State!

"Aaah!"

The scaleless white dragon, now incapable of speech, could only let out a pained scream.

It flailed, bit, and clawed frantically... The palace’s solid architectural structure was devastated like straw under its power.

Yet its true target, the ’mortal’ who wounded it, was never touched even once.

Contrarily, this ’mortal’ still had calm, composed eyes, showing a tranquility and enjoyment amid this dangerous battle.

Lann’s mind and Mentos were both active.

They watched Ausloes’s every move, assessing its movement tendencies.

"So far, it seems it only infused dark magic power into that one tail swing, sir."

"It’s completely insane now; that dark magic power from before was probably just an instinctive reaction from its draconian body transformation."

The bio-brain and Lann’s mind briefly discussed and reached a conclusion with a reasonable possibility.

If this conclusion were correct, the threat level of Ausloes in front of Lann would greatly decrease.

There are various types of madness. Some mages, after going mad, do not lose their casting ability but become paranoid, difficult to communicate with, and excessively suspicious.

But this kind of madness, clearly not the type Ausloes had, was now operating its body on mere draconian instinct, let alone requiring higher attention and precision for casting spells.

Excluding spell-casting abilities, the physical capabilities of this scaleless white dragon weren’t top-tier compared to the dragons Lann had encountered.

The most elite were the Extinct Dragon, Molten Mountain Dragon, and Golden Lion of the New Continent.

But even amongst these powerful creatures, Lann had his ways of handling them.

The so-called ’technique,’ after all, is meant to oppress those whose basic strengths surpass yours.

"Boom boom! Bang bang!"

A series of ground-pounding sounds erupted amidst the scaleless white dragon’s frantic movements.

But under Lann’s focused observation, its muscle movements were as clear and comprehensible as an appliance manual.

With simple sideways dodges and backward steps, he could protect himself from the barrage of desperate attacks.

Its claws couldn’t even touch him.

Occasionally, the clashing sound of metal and iron accompanied by sparks erupted amidst the dust raised by its claws.

The sparks billowed into a circle form due to the shockwave of the collision.

It was Lann’s way to test whether Ausloes had truly lost its ability to freely wield magic in its current state.

By employing the Iwami Style: Climbing Carp technique, he controlled the scope of confrontation, causing a limited collision with the scaleless white dragon’s claw strikes.

The collision result was optimistic—Ausloes indeed couldn’t cast spells at will.

Within this mad draconian avatar, most of its attacks relied on pure, crude physical strength.

Meanwhile, Lann and Mentos further analyzed Ausloes’s physical movement logic through this Iwami Style specific technical collision.

Most notably, Ausloes could no longer execute that charge without any buildup when entangled with Lann.

Because in front of Lann, who’s already familiarized with Ausloes’ physical state, that sudden charge was quite recognizable.

Every time it attempted a headlong rush, Lann’s swordsmanship forced it to halt.

Drawing enemy movements, limiting their strategic options, minimizing the chances of failure... Lann excelled in these areas.

Finally, after a series of fierce assaults, the Demon Hunter identified the opportunity he sought.

Just after sidestepping an aberrant dragon head’s bite, the potency of the High Blizzard provided Lann with sensory perception akin to time freeze.

The bizarre dragon head brushed past his shoulder, slow but ferocious, while Lann’s gaze lifted upward.

He found a leverage point.

The effects of the potion briefly dissipated.

The Demon Hunter’s left arm projector aimed upward, and with a ’whoosh’!

The grapple hook launched and tightly grasped the previously spotted location.

The powerful mechanical structure hoisted the Demon Hunter’s body four or five meters high.

Meanwhile, the scaleless white dragon below still swiped its claws twice due to inertia before realizing its target was now above!