"As you wish, Mother."
"But let be clear upfront - I may cause you considerable pain, and I won't harbor the slightest apology for it."
Garoth chuckled deeply, his massive dragon wings abruptly spreading wide to either side, casting shadows that surged like a black tide, swallowing the light across vast surrounding areas.
He calmly retreated several steps backward, each footfall causing the hard ground to tremble slightly, clearing ample combat space for this imminent parent-child exchange.
Simultaneously.
A heart-palpitating dragon might naturally perated the air, causing the distant onlooker followers to fall silent as cicadas in winter, their legs growing weak and trembling.
"All of you, withdraw! Get away from this place!"
Following Leticia's command, those already terrified followers received pardon like amnesty, hastily scrambling backward in rapid retreat, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the two dragons whose rising auras resembled volcanoes on the verge of eruption.
"Co then, Garoth."
Leticia growled deeply, her roar generating visible shockwaves that assaulted the surrounding air.
"Let properly experience how much you've progressed over these past decades."
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Accompanying her roar, the thick iron-gray dragon scales covering her entire body, resembling fine steel armor, seed to co alive, scraping and colliding against each other, producing a teeth-grating tallic friction sound like thousands of sharp swords being simultaneously drawn.
The instant her words faded, Leticia launched a thunderous assault first.
Thud!!!
The iron dragon's imnsely powerful hind legs stomped forcefully on the hard mountain rock ground.
Trendous power erupted instantaneously, the sturdy rock layer tearing and shattering like fragile biscuits under her dragon claws, sending stone fragnts flying in all directions!
She beat her wings, her body shooting forward like a cannonball, charging directly at the red iron dragon before her.
While charging, she raised her right claw covered in thick steel scales.
Spell-like ability - Steel Dragon Claw!
Dense black light resembling liquid tal rapidly flowed and shimred across her right claw, the entire appendage emitting an extrely heavy, seemingly indestructible texture.
Facing this nacing steel claw crashing toward him like a battering ram.
Garoth raised his own claw almost simultaneously.
No evasion, no fancy maneuvers, only the most primitive, most direct frontal confrontation.
CLANG!!!!
When the two dragon claws containing imnse power violently collided, a visible shockwave abruptly expanded outward, sweeping across the surroundings.
An extrely loud tallic explosion, like two giant hamrs fiercely smashing together, detonated.
Blazing sparks scattered like fireworks from the point of claw impact.
The entire valley practically vibrated with a humming resonance.
At the mont of impact, Leticia's eyes abruptly narrowed, clearly sensing the overwhelming power transmitted from Garoth's claw that far exceeded her expectations.
The battle-experienced Leticia imdiately adapted.
She growled deeply, her powerful feet firmly planting into the ground like two steel tower foundations, supporting her massive body as she abruptly reared upright.
Using the standing posture to dissipate so impact force, she swiftly retracted her slightly numbed right claw.
Actions flowing like tides!
Leticia's pair of dragon claws instantly transford into two steel whirlwinds tearing through the air, swinging out with speed several tis faster than her previous sudden thrust.
Attacking with both claws simultaneously, a continuous chain of claw shadows.
Her massive iron claws created blurred afterimages, as if launching a storm-like barrage of multiple attacks covering Garoth's head, neck, chest, and abdon all at once.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Dense tallic impact sounds, like heavy rain beating on plantain leaves, erupted wildly again as Garoth equally without hesitation reared upright, displaying astonishing agility completely mismatching his massive, muscular build.
His claws moved like lightning, eting Leticia's claw shadows that had nearly beco a curtain of cold steel light.
For every increase in Leticia's claw strikes' ferocity and speed, Garoth's counterattacks matched with equal ferocity and speed. Between the two dragons, countless claw shadows gleaming with cold light madly crossed, collided, separated, and collided again!
Ear-piercing, sharp tallic clashing sounds continued unceasingly.
"Such incredible speed! Such precise reactions!"
Leticia inwardly marveled in astonishnt.
That Garoth's such massive and brawny, muscle-bound body could possess such agile speed and neural reactions truly exceeded her expectations.
She found herself gradually struggling to keep up with his attack rhythm.
Tactical Intellect!
Without hesitation, she activated a long-prepared spell, her gaze instantly becoming as calm and profound as an icy lake.
As if an invisible tactical model appeared within her vision.
She decomposed and analyzed every subtle shift in the red iron dragon's body center of gravity, every surge of power transmission through shoulder blade muscles, every arc trajectory of each claw attack swing... all captured in slow-motion detail.
Through this nearly omniscient transcendent observation perspective.
She could execute blocks and counterattacks faster and more precise than relying purely on instinct.
"The Iron Dragon Mother has definitely taken up so combat profession, and seems to have additionally cultivated completely different other paths."
Garoth thought contemplatively, a glint flashing in his eyes as detection art silently activated.
[Adult Iron Dragon, Life Level: Level 17]
The detection results showed Iron Dragon Leticia's life level was identical to his own, both at level 17.
Facing a peer-level opponent who clearly cultivated multiple paths and possessed rich combat experience, Garoth shed his casual attitude, deciding to get a bit more serious.
Crackle!!!
With a deep, long inhalation.
Resplendent, dense lightning resembling liquid gold abruptly erupted from his majestic dragon form. His body instantly inflated another large circle as if blown up, his muscle dinsions explosively increasing.
Imdiately following a fierce claw strike exchange.
Garoth's thick right claw entwined with golden lightning, bursting with overwhelming power, seed to break through spatial constraints. With a montum to crush everything, it violently slamd toward Leticia's relatively weaker defended abdominal region.
Shield Parry!
Leticia reacted extrely quickly, imdiately retreating half a step while crossing her broad dragon wings before her. The wing mbrane surfaces instantly flashed with a layer of solid, thick black light, seemingly transforming into two massive tower shields, attempting to block and deflect this heavy blow.
However, the mont her claws made contact with the dragon wings.
She felt an utterly irresistible trendous force surge through her. The defensive black light concentrated on her wings shattered like fragile glass.
Shield Parry skill failed.
That suprely dense power transmitted throughout her entire body.
Leticia's massive dragon form completely uncontrollably flew backward as if launched by a catapult, staggering back repeatedly across the ground, forcibly plowing a deep trench nearly a hundred ters long before barely halting her retreat.
"Terrifying, power refined to its utmost extre, even surpassing that of an adult red dragon."
Leticia shook her slightly trembling, numb dragon wings. Just as she lifted her head to look toward Garoth's original position, she discovered that dark red figure had vanished from her field of vision!
Above!
The enhanced perception and crisis prediction from Tactical Intellect remained active. At the critical mont, relying on combat intuition, Leticia desperately rolled sideways.
Riiip!!!
A massive, high-speed rotating shadow tore through the ground where she had just stood.
Garoth, using his powerful spine as the axis and his razor-edged dragon wings as weapons, whipped up a devastating blade storm!
Leticia narrowly dodged the first attack.
But due to Garoth's terrifying attack range from his incredibly impressive wingspan, she still beca enveloped by the subsequent spreading attacks.
Hardened Body!
Dense tallic luster flowing like quicksilver instantly appeared and solidified across Leticia's body surface. This was the signature spell-like ability possessed by all iron dragons.
Yet this wasn't enough.
Simultaneously with Hardened Body activating, she growled deeply, the magical energy around her surging forth like boiling water, rapidly constructing a layer of tough, translucent magical energy mbrane over her scales.
Arcane Deflection - capable of significantly weakening received physical impacts and energy damage.
Iron dragons themselves were renowned worldwide for their impregnable defenses.
In terms of raw power, they might lag behind peer-level red dragons, but in bodily hardness and defensive capabilities, they often surpassed them.
However.
Facing Garoth's assault, Leticia's ticulously constructed dual-layer defenses were still torn apart layer by layer.
The edges of his dragon wings, like two giant blades of brute force, continuously and fiercely chopped down on her cross-blocking wings and shoulder back.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Accompanied by bursts of violently scattering sparks and ear-splitting tearing sounds, Leticia's naturally extrely hard iron dragon scales were forcibly split open and breached.
Scalding dragon blood instantly splattered from the deep wounds.
"Could it be that I'm no match for Garoth?"
Intense agony made Leticia's heart sink. She had already roughly foreseen the final outco of this battle.
But that sense of pride from being the older, more experienced party made her unwilling to concede so easily.
Moreover, in her view, what decided battle victory wasn't rely strength and defense.
Combat experience and timing mastery were equally crucial.
Not a single battle-hardened pattern could be seen anywhere on Garoth's body. This might indicate that although powerful, he lacked rich experience in true life-or-death combat.
If that were the case.
As long as she could seize a perfect opportunity to deliver one unexpected heavy blow, perhaps there was still a chance to turn the situation around!
Rapid Strikes!
After narrowly avoiding another powerful claw strike from Garoth, Leticia's speed abruptly increased another notch. Seizing that fleeting opening, she swiftly raised her gleaming sharp claws!
Magical Energy Detonation!
With a short, forceful draconic incantation, a highly unstable sphere of explosive magical energy instantly compressed and condensed within her claw palm.
Magical Energy Surge!
Even more vast magical energy surged forth from the iron dragon's body like a bursting tidal wave, madly converging into the energy sphere in her claw palm, causing its energy fluctuations to rapidly climb and violently tremble.
The air around Leticia's claw palm distorted, making her appear as if clutching an energy vortex.
"Standard warrior path, simultaneously cultivating war magic as well."
By now, Garoth completely confird the main professional directions chosen by the Iron Dragon Mother.
The warrior path needed no explanation - it was the foundation of close-quarters combat.
War magic fused the destruction of the evocation school with the defense of the abjuration school, concentrating on a special caster path focused on integrated offense and defense.
It offered fewer variations than pure evocation or abjuration paths, but its offensive and defensive spells were extrely pure and efficient, capable of rapid casting within extrely short ti, perfectly suited for high-intensity, fast-paced close-quarters combat.
Simultaneously.
Facing this dangerous brewing strike, the surging dragon qi within Garoth's body also accelerated its circulation as he swung his claws.
Boom! Boom!
Their attacks almost simultaneously struck each other's chests.
Pfft--!
The Iron Dragon Mother Leticia reacted as if heavily struck, abruptly opening her mouth to spew a large gout of scorching dragon blood. Her body flew backward like a severed kite string, crashing heavily onto the ground.
Large areas of her steel-scale chest armor were completely shattered and sunken, even able to vaguely see the outlines of broken bones beneath.
On the other side.
Having solidly taken a reinforced Magical Energy Detonation hit, that highly concentrated explosive energy detonated into a blinding magical flare upon the red iron dragon's chest!
However.
Garoth's heavy, iron-cast body rely retreated backward a dozen or so steps before steadily halting, the black light on his body slowly dispersing.
Hardened Body - this spell-like ability he also possessed.
His inherent defense combined with Hardened Body ant Garoth wasn't just not sent flying; he didn't even lose his balance or fall from the impact.
"Did I... win?"
Leticia only felt a ringing in her head, waves of intense agony accompanying each rise and fall of her chest.
Struggling to rise from the ground, she imdiately looked toward the red iron dragon's direction. Then, her expression instantly froze on her face.
Under her gaze.
The red iron dragon rely slightly lowered his head, extended his claw, and casually patted his own chest, brushing away the shattered fragnts of Frostburst Scales exploding into pieces on the surface. This revealed the underlying layer of black-red inner primary scales covered densely with crisscrossing battle-hardened patterns.
Upon those scales, only so light scorch marks and insignificant white scratches remained.
"Shall we continue?"
Garoth lifted his gaze, looking toward the battered iron dragon mother, his voice as steady as ever, as if that attack sufficient to severely injure a dragon of equal level had been rely a gentle breeze.
Silence persisted for several seconds.
Finally, Leticia slowly shook her head: "No need. Continuing to fight would be utterly aningless now."
She had no choice but to acknowledge this reality.
The iron dragons' pride - impregnable defenses. The red dragons' pride - overwhelming destructive power... These two dragon species' signature strengths were both perfectly, even exceptionally embodied within Garoth.
And other strengths that iron dragons and red dragons lacked, he seed to equally possess.
Leticia stared intently at that powerful dragon form as if containing infinite power, not displaying any frantic frustration over her own defeat.
Her massive dragon face slowly contorted its muscles, ultimately revealing a faint smile.
"My dear Garoth, your strength truly far exceeds my most optimistic expectations."
She stated: "I... am proud of you."
These words invisibly diluted the strangeness and distance brought by decades of separation, quietly drawing closer that special connection based on bloodline between them.
Clearly, Iron Dragon Leticia possessed her own extraordinary wisdom in communication and controlling situations.
"This benefit cos from the bloodline inherited from you, Mother. I too take pride in it."
Garoth responded, his words again drew sowhat closer the distance between them.
Clearly, deeply versed in draconic nature, he also understood how to communicate effectively with an iron dragon.
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