The air currents above the plateau were disturbed by the dragon wings, and Garros's vertical pupils locked onto the Diamond Giant as he soared at high speed under the night sky.
He was in no hurry to launch an attack on the Diamond Giant.
Looking down from high above, Garros could clearly see that his legion of subordinates was already approaching the Stone Giant Camp.
He would wait until they were a bit further away.
He would wait until the subordinate legion got closer to the Stone Giant Camp.
That would be the truly good time to start the life-and-death struggle with the Diamond Giant.
On the ground.
The Diamond Giant's crystalline shell reflected the cold moonlight as it ran with great strides, each heavy stomp carving spiderweb-like cracks into the ground.
Its thoughts were similar to Garros's.
Wait until they were further from the camp, so the battle wouldn't affect it; once there was no need to worry about its kin, it would stop and find a way to kill this Young Dragon.
Time passed in the psychological game between the two.
A few minutes later.
"It's time."
Garros narrowed his eyes slightly and thought to himself.
He decisively began to accelerate, his dragon wings tearing through the clouds as he dove down, leaving a long, comet-like trail behind him.
The Diamond Giant also stopped its pace.
It stomped heavily on the ground, and the rocks within a hundred-meter radius suddenly surged like living things, forming dozens of interlaced earthen spike cages that attacked Garros from all directions.
Garros's dragon wings sliced through these thick and hard earthen spikes, instantly closing in on the Diamond Giant.
He twisted his body, and his dragon tail struck the giant's shoulder blade like a battle-axe.
At the moment diamond fragments splattered, the giant grabbed the dragon tail with a backhand and slammed it fiercely into the ground.
The moment Garros's dragon tail was seized by the Diamond Giant, instead of struggling, he abruptly folded his wings, using the giant's pulling force to accelerate his descent.
The blade-like dragon scales on his tail rubbed against the diamond palm, sending out dazzling sparks.
Garros flipped back and took the opportunity to stab his sharp claws into the Diamond Giant's chest.
Its diamond heart was its source of power, as well as its weakness.
Flame Claw!
Surging flames condensed into substance, igniting from Garros's claws.
Augmented by a Spell-like Ability and combined with Garros's already formidable strength and sharp claws, this strike was dangerous even to the Diamond Giant.
The Diamond Giant roared and released the dragon tail, crossing its arms to block.
Garros's claw tips scraped against the arm surface with an ear-piercing screech, but only left a few shallow marks.
The giant took the opportunity to ram its knee upward, the shining knee striking heavily against the dragon's belly.
Boom! Garros was sent flying by this strike, the scales on his abdomen shattering and oozing dragon blood as hot as lava.
Without relying on speed and explosive power to maneuver, Garros was at a disadvantage in a head-on battle and was no match for the Diamond Giant; the gap in their age and Life Rank was immense.
But if he only relied on speed and explosive power...
If the Diamond Giant focused solely on defense, he had no good way either.
"That really hurts."
A fierce glint flashed in Garros's eyes, and he instinctively wanted to use his trump card to retaliate, but he held back with his strong will; now was not yet the best time.
With a shake of his body, Explosive Scales fell like raindrops.
These scales weren't scattered randomly but precisely covered the rock layer beneath the giant's feet.
Just as the Diamond Giant was about to pursue, a series of explosions suddenly came from beneath its feet.
The Explosive Scales blasted the rock layer into quicksand-like fragments, and its heavy body instantly sank half a meter.
Garros seized the opportunity, flapping his dragon wings with all his might to kick up a hurricane of debris that obscured vision, while launching another surprise attack from the side!
He took a deep breath, almost filling his lungs to capacity.
Whoosh!
Flame Dragon Breath erupted from Garros's mouth, forcing the Diamond Giant to raise its hands in defense.
But this was only a feint.
Flame Dragon Breath's effect on a lifeform like the Diamond Giant was not significant.
Garros ceased his breath and turned, his left wing braced against the ground. Using the tip as a pivot, his body spun violently, and dark red Qi flames surged from the end of his right wing to accelerate. This Dragon Wing Great Rotation tore through the air with a fierce momentum, slashing toward the Diamond Giant's waist and abdomen.
The Diamond Giant's other arm dropped.
A thick layer of diamond structure grew over the skin's surface, as if it had put on an armguard.
Clang!
The dragon wing broke through the armguard and slashed into its arm, but failed to cut it off completely.
The Diamond Giant's defensive advantage, much like Garros's speed advantage, was its greatest strength.
At the same time, the Diamond Giant's other fist punched out like a battering ram.
This heavy punch accurately hit Garros's chest. In the muffled sound of Explosive Scales shattering, the Diamond Giant's body shook as it retreated a few steps, while Garros was also sent flying by the punch.
The Explosive Scales on his chest were crushed, but they failed to fully absorb the kinetic energy.
A clear fist-shaped indentation was imprinted on Garros's iron-like black-and-red dragon scales, surrounded by a circle of cracks.
The Diamond Giant took large strides, pursuing Garros.
"Little lizard, you are more powerful than I imagined, but that's all!"
"If you don't want to die, hurry up and run."
It used words to provoke Garros, preventing him from actually fleeing out of fear.
"The one who should run is you."
Whoosh! Garros charged straight into the sky against the Diamond Giant's heavy pressure, circled once, and then continuously accelerated with Qi flames, turning into a lethal Crimson Star of Ill Omen as he dove toward the Diamond Giant.
The wind pressure caused sand and stones to fly on the ground, and the grass and trees to bend.
The Diamond Giant did not use its Decomposition Beam for a long-range attack on Garros; instead, it took a deep breath and spread its arms wide, its whole person looking like it had turned into a giant cross.
Dazzling light erupted from its heart, then extended to cover its entire body.
That light condensed intensely, reflecting a brilliant radiance, surrounding the Diamond Giant as if turning it into a perfectly round, indestructible diamond.
This was a defensive ultimate technique unique to Diamond Giants that other Stone Giants did not possess.
In the blink of an eye.
The Crimson Star of Ill Omen that Garros had become collided violently with the Diamond Giant's diamond body.
At the moment of collision.
A circular shockwave exploded from the point of contact, and the rock layers within a five-hundred-meter radius surged like ocean waves.
The ground beneath the giant's feet instantly collapsed into a crater, while Garros's scale armor made an overburdened cracking sound.
Crack—!
The tooth-aching sound of crystal and dragon scales shattering echoed across the battlefield.
Numerous cracks appeared on the Diamond Giant's body, while Garros's dragon scales also continued to shatter, with droplets of scalding blood splattering.
Boom!
White light and red flames roared simultaneously, surging and dispersing.
Both sides were blown back in opposite directions by the explosion.
The giant crashed into a rock wall three hundred meters away, half its body embedded in the mountain, while Garros tumbled like a broken kite and smashed into the ground, plowing a hundred-meter-long trench.
Both quickly stood up again.
The Diamond Giant had many more cracks on its body, looking like porcelain that could shatter at any moment.
But as the earth and stone beneath its feet surged and gathered, these cracks healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Garros's Explosive Scales were completely exhausted, and his hard black-and-red scale armor was covered in shattered marks.
It was the first time he had suffered such injuries in battle.
"What a hard body, it's like a mountain condensed into a single frame."
Garros's gaze swept over the Diamond Giant, thinking that if he could ram into it every day, the efficiency of his physical improvement would definitely be higher.
"My name is Abaddon."
The Diamond Giant gazed at Garros and said, "Young Dragon, you are a powerful opponent. Tell me your name, and I will carve it upon your tombstone."
Garros did not respond.
What if this giant could construct a sinister Spell using his name as a medium?
He flicked his dragon wings and felt some soreness; using the Wings of the Heavenly Comet to accelerate too many times imposed a significant burden, and his Demonic Energy was heavily consumed, with his stamina nearly dropping to the warning line.
To ensure his own safety, Garros had set a bottom line for himself.
If his consumption and injuries exceeded this bottom line, he would disengage from the battle without hesitation; he hadn't reached it yet, but he was getting close.
However.
It was also time.
"Look behind you, foolish Stone Giant."
Garros licked the blood on his arm, feeling the sensation of pain, and said calmly.
The Diamond Giant's heart skipped a beat, and it turned around.
The distant Stone Giant Camp was under attack.
Hordes of Ogres, Gnolls, Lizardfolk, and Grey-mane Werewolves were surging toward the Stone Giant Camp like a tide.
"Cunning and despicable bastard!"
The Diamond Giant flared with rage.
It had fallen for a trick.
It hadn't expected that Garros's true target was the camp.
It thought it had lured Garros away, but in reality, Garros had lured it away from its base.
Relying only on a single Granite Stone Giant in the camp and those unevenly leveled monster subordinates, they couldn't stop Garros's larger-scale subordinate legion.
Gluttony Demon Karu took the lead.
A rock lizard pounced on him, but he grabbed its throat with one hand and its tail with the other, fiercely tearing it in half.
The Bloodtooth Overseer protected the warriors in front of him, using the Overseer's Aura to augment and strengthen them.
The Giant Wolf Knight let out a long howl, charging in and out of the monster swarm.
The Lizardfolk moved stealthily, like invisible assassins providing a hidden threat.
All the Sorcerers continuously cast Spells, not wasting Demonic Energy on attacks but using it all to bolster the legion and strengthen the warriors, making them like a torrent that crushed the Stone Giant's vulnerable monster kin, charging toward the Granite Stone Giant and the young giants protected behind it.
"Crush them!"
"Tear these stones apart!"
"For the great Dragon Lord!"
The monsters' excited roars could be heard faintly even from a distance.
The Diamond Giant could no longer maintain its composure. Ignoring Garros, it turned and ran back toward the camp.
At this moment, it was in total disarray, exposing its greatest flaw.
Garros flapped his wings and soared into the sky, his gaze tightly locked onto the Diamond Giant.
It was still wrong.
Garros's target was it.
It had never changed from the beginning.
The giant camp? No, that was just to distract its focus and disrupt its mind. In Garros's view, as long as he killed the Diamond Giant, the remaining giants were not worth mentioning.
He knew very well who the greatest threat was.
High in the air, Garros opened his mouth, his throat churning as he squeezed out a small barrel of black oil and a Horn Ring.
Dragonkin have a separate chamber in their stomachs for storing items, but because dragons prefer to feel their treasures close to them and enjoy flaunting their wealth, they rarely use the stomach chamber for storage.
He pulled a small pouch of fairy scale powder from beneath the scales of his neck and poured it into his mouth.
Garros simultaneously bit through the black oil barrel, chewing up the tin and swallowing it along with the black oil and scale powder into his stomach that could digest energy.
In an instant.
An indescribable, wonderful sensation filled both his body and spirit.
"So... so... so good!"
Garros's spirit and body both became extremely excited. He sneezed, and two fire streams several meters long erupted from his nostrils.
The dark red Qi flames at the ends of his wing bones were like oil poured on a fire, their thickness expanding several times.
He dove toward the Diamond Giant once again, his speed achieving a Breakthrough beyond his previous limits, and he mastered it perfectly.
During the dive, Garros also put on the Horn Ring and used the Blood Burst Technique.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A roar like an engine sounded from within his chest.
His chest lit up, and the crimson light shone through the gaps in his scales, forming patterns like lava, the high temperature distorting the surrounding air.
Dragon blood circulated rapidly within his body.
All the patterns on his scales also lit up one by one.
Starting from the pumping heart, it was like an energy network covering his entire body.
The dark red Qi flames expanded again, trailing a thick stream of fire behind Garros.
Boom!
As the roars of breaking the sound barrier rang out consecutively, Garros was already closing in on the Diamond Giant, his speed faster than the propagation of sound.
The Diamond Giant's heart was with the camp, and it believed Garros's attacks posed no life-threatening danger to it.
When Garros took to the air again, it didn't care.
By the time it felt the danger and reacted, it was already too late.
The Diamond Giant looked up, and its field of vision was filled with crimson.
That wasn't fire, but the light erupting from Garros's body during his Blood Burst.
Rings of sonic boom clouds burst around him, and the dark red Qi flames at the ends of his dragon wings expanded like clouds hanging from the sky, dragging a thousand-meter-long scorch mark across the night sky, as if the heavens had been torn open with a bleeding wound.
Garros turned into the Unparalleled Star of Ill Omen and dove straight down.
The Diamond Giant's pupils contracted.
Under the terrifying wind pressure, the ground beneath its feet cracked inch by inch, and its body sank.
In the moment of crisis.
The Diamond Giant used its previous defensive ultimate technique again, its arms spreading as light surrounded its body, turning it into a perfectly round diamond.
At the moment of the second collision, time seemed to freeze.
The rock layers beneath the Diamond Giant's feet collapsed in a ring, the sound of heaven and earth rending rang out, and with the point of collision as the center, the surrounding rock layers continuously crumbled in concentric circles. Countless dust and rubble surged into the sky like a tsunami, making this part of the plateau turbid and blurry.
Whoosh!
The dust was dispersed by the strong wind kicked up by the dragon wings.
Garros stood at the bottom of the deep pit. Many of the fine scales on his dragon wings had peeled off, the silver wing bones were covered in cracks, the scale armor across his body was largely shattered, and one of the dragon horns on his head had snapped off.
This strike that surpassed his own limits had also cost Garros a price.
But he won; through careful planning and decisive execution, he achieved final victory.
The Diamond Giant lay beneath Garros, its once indestructible body now shattered and torn apart, the light gone from its eyes, and its frame no longer shining.
Crack!
Garros withdrew his dragon claw, ripping the Diamond Crystal Core from its chest.
"I will carve your name upon it and keep it as a trophy."
He looked down at the cracked, unwilling face of the giant and issued a victor's declaration.