But this time is different. This time, it's necessary to determine whether the monster is a new species. Therefore, during the battle, it's crucial to hold back a bit and give those monsters a chance to show themselves.
After all, sometimes there might be some mutated species that look the same as the original monster, but their attack methods and abilities are completely different. This can lead to adventurers who rely on past experience in battle to fall because they can't respond properly.
"The Earth Dragon's attack primarily consists of charging and flames spewing from its mouth. This is what's currently described in the illustrated guide."
Tina looked at the Earth Dragon in front of her and asked Xia Shi, who was beside her.
"Is this the same as the Earth Dragon in the illustrated guide?"
Xia Shi, who possesses dolphin genes, is much smarter. When the two of them act together, Tina usually listens to Xia Shi. Although Leticia is behind them, Leticia doesn't intend to take action this time. She's accompanying Xia Shi and Tina mainly to ensure they don't encounter any danger. Essentially, she doesn't need to intervene.
Therefore, how they act depends entirely on Xia Shi and Tina.
And they are currently facing an Earth Dragon that has spawned in front of them.
"From the current appearance, this Earth Dragon is the same as the one in the illustrated guide, but there's one thing that concerns me."
Xia Shi glanced at the Earth Dragon and then looked at the illustrated guide in her hand.
"Its limbs seem to be slightly different from the ones in the illustrated guide."
"Hmm? What's different about it?"
"There seems to be some armor on its limbs, some very hard-looking armor."
The Earth Dragon in front of them, like the Earth Dragon in the illustrated guide, has its limbs on the ground, but its limbs have an extra layer of plate armor, making its limbs look very thick.
"So, we've found a new species?"
"As of now, this is the only difference from the illustrated guide. We can try to provoke it to attack and see if there are any changes in its attack methods."
"Okay, I'll do it."
Tina said, taking a grenade from her pocket, pulling the pin, and throwing the grenade directly in front of the Earth Dragon.
The Earth Dragon lowered its head and looked suspiciously at the grenade that Tina threw in front of it, and then it was directly blasted in the face by the grenade.
Boom—
The firelight erupted, and shrapnel was blasted and splashed, directly hitting the Earth Dragon's face.
┗|｀O′|┛ Awoo~~
The pain caused the Earth Dragon to raise its head and scream. Some scales on its face were scratched open. Of course, that's nothing. What caused it pain was its eyes. One of its eyes was hit by shrapnel and was directly blinded.
The grenade that Tina threw was just an ordinary gunpowder fragmentation grenade, not a magic stone high-explosive grenade, so the lethality was average and wouldn't seriously injure the Earth Dragon, but it could 100% stimulate the opponent to attack.
After all, one of its eyes was inexplicably blinded. How could it not do anything?
The angry Earth Dragon tilted its head and looked at Tina with its one eye. Then, after a roar, it directly pounced on Tina.
Its moving limbs were like a tank charging on the ground, and the ground shook with the Earth Dragon's movements.
Tina watched the Earth Dragon charge over, directly activated her equipment, left the ground, and hovered at a height of ten meters. She held a sniper rifle in her right hand, and the floating turrets also flew out from the backpack on her back, surrounding her body. She looked at the Earth Dragon below in this battle-ready state.
"Let's test the defensive power of its limbs first."
The Earth Dragon is also very tall. After standing up, its body is fully 6 meters above the ground. Humans can run around under its belly at will. Naturally, what supports the huge body are the limbs with plate armor.
"Okay."
Tina, who received Xia Shi's request, directly raised her sniper rifle, aimed at the Earth Dragon's right forelimb, and fired a shot.
The magic beam of the sniper rifle directly pierced the plate armor of the Earth Dragon's forelimb, also penetrating its thick forelimb. The magic stone weapons created by Wang Xiaoming have always had strong penetration performance. Even a dragon's plate armor cannot resist it.
"It doesn't seem like we can see the power this way."
Xia Shi looked at the pierced forelimb, thinking that this was the same treatment as other monsters before, and there was no way to judge its strength.
"Tina, try using gunpowder weapons."
"Okay."
The dragons in the dungeon have maxed out their physical resistance. Even Aiz Wallenstein's sword cannot easily pierce the dragon's scales. Output basically relies on mages.
And magic stone weapons can also be seen as magic attacks launched by mages, so it's difficult to judge.
Tina put the magic stone sniper rifle back and took out a gunpowder bullet sniper rifle and shot the Earth Dragon's forelimb again. This time, it hit the left side.
The bullet hit the Earth Dragon's forelimb and ricocheted directly.
"Is the defense so strong? This is a sniper rifle that has a killing range within three kilometers, but it ricocheted directly. The defense is a bit high."
"So, is this a defense-specialized mutated Earth Dragon?"
Xia Shi wrote down the conclusions she observed.
The Earth Dragon, which was suddenly ambushed twice, was very angry. It opened its big mouth at Tina in the sky and then directly launched a sonic attack.
679. Earth Dragon with Many Tricks
Like other dragons, Earth Dragons' breath attacks are basically flame breath. This is the common breath attack used by dragons in the dungeon.
Tina thought that the mutated Earth Dragon in front of her would probably be the same kind of surprise attack, but what she didn't expect was that the breath spewed out by the Earth Dragon was actually green flames.
"Green?"
Tina was surprised at first, but after the surprise, she quickly deployed a magic shield. The magic shield blocked in front of Tina, deflecting the green flames.
The green flames raged around Tina, spewing for a full five seconds before stopping.
With the magic shield, Tina perfectly avoided all damage. This breath attack didn't hurt her, but it made her very uncomfortable.
"Tina, are you okay?"
Xia Shi asked Tina from the ground. The green flames didn't look like anything good.
"I'm fine, but there's something wrong with this flame."
"Of course there's a problem. This flame is corrosive."
Xia Shi looked at the Earth Dragon's feet.
When the Earth Dragon was breathing, some green flames scattered on the ground, and the ground touched by the green flames instantly turned black and showed very obvious signs of corrosion.
"Corrosive Fire? Or Corrosive Breath?"
"I didn't expect to encounter such a terrifying new species so quickly."
"Yeah, if you don't have a shield, adventurers would probably die directly if they were affected by this attack."
Just like the new species of caterpillar discovered by the Loki Familia, if you attack it with a physical weapon, it will be directly corroded by the opponent's blood and then directly destroyed.
The Loki Familia suffered heavy losses when facing this new monster and had to stop the expedition and return to the upper levels.
Fortunately, what they encountered last time was a caterpillar. If they had encountered this Earth Dragon this time, I'm afraid a single breath would have directly reduced the Loki Familia's members.
Given Bert and the others' personalities, they would definitely have a few LV5s and LV6s charge straight up to use their bodies as shields against this kind of earth dragon, while the mages in the team provided the output.
Especially Bert, who had also learned the Iron Body technique from the Six Styles, making him even more ridiculously confident in his defense.
As everyone knows, actually using Iron Body to defend against an enemy's attack will get you killed!
Bert would probably be directly incinerated by a single breath attack.
This is where the importance of a magic shield comes in.
"Corrosive flames, something I've never heard of before, must record this."
Xia Shi quickly recorded the information about this mutated earth dragon in her notebook, to be included in the illustrated guide.
"Tina, be careful, keep the magic shield deployed at all times, and see if it has any other attack methods."
"Roger!"
After replying, Tina controlled the shield to expand, flying in mid-air, putting the sniper rifle away, and switching to two submachine guns, firing at the earth dragon below.
The submachine gun bullets couldn't penetrate the earth dragon's skin because the caliber was small and the penetration was weak, but as a harassment tool, it was simple and convenient.
The earth dragon was annoyed by the submachine gun bullets and once again opened its mouth, preparing to launch a breath attack at Tina, but Tina flew directly above the earth dragon, making it impossible for the earth dragon's head to find a suitable angle to attack Tina.
Unable to attack Tina with its breath, the earth dragon chose to change its attack method.
Tina wasn't flying very high; with enough force, it could even use rocks to attack Tina, but the earth dragon certainly wouldn't throw rocks. It threw something else!
The standing earth dragon lowered itself, its limbs firmly planted on the ground, and then the armor plates on its limbs suddenly bloomed, turning into inclined spikes.
"Oh, this should be a large-scale attack!"
Xia Shi immediately determined the earth dragon's attack method.
Sure enough, those blooming spikes suddenly sprayed out, countless spikes shooting out from the earth dragon's limbs in all directions, directly scattering in a circular range, and also attacking the air.
The area where Tina was located was also a target.
However, Tina was already prepared, the magic shield was always activated, and behind the magic shield, there were also some floating shields for secondary defense, ready to deal with the impact at any time.
The power of these spikes was unexpectedly strong, actually passing through the magic shield, but after breaking through the magic shield, they were blocked by the floating shields.
"Hmm? Strange."
"What's wrong, Tina?"
"These things broke through the magic shield, but the way they broke through wasn't by brute force piercing, but by directly penetrating."
"Penetration? So these things have the ability to break magic?"
Xia Shi immediately thought of this and immediately recorded it.
"This mutated earth dragon is not only a very big blow to warriors, but also a great weapon for mages."
For close-quarters warriors, a mouthful of corrosive breath could directly cause them to GG, shields and weapons completely useless. Correspondingly, without the protection of warriors, mages would also directly suffer. This new monster is a bit ruthless!
"Fortunately, it's an earth dragon; its movement speed isn't too fast."
If the distance is kept, mages can still use magic to bombard it.
"Roar ~ ~ ~ ~"
Just as they said the earth dragon's movement speed wasn't too fast, the earth dragon suddenly pushed off the ground with both feet, jumping directly from the spot, opening its big mouth and biting directly at Tina in the sky.
"This works too?!"
Xia Shi looked at the earth dragon jumping up in surprise and quickly told Tina to dodge.
"Tina, get out of the way quickly."
This could be hundreds of tons of weight, which isn't something a magic shield can withstand.
Tina also understood that it was unstoppable, so she directly dodged, avoiding the earth dragon's attack, and immediately increased the distance.
In movies, the 99% reason helicopters die is because they don't pull up high enough, they're asking for death. Tina knew this very well, so she pulled herself up very high, at least hundreds of meters high, to prevent the earth dragon from jumping and attacking.
The earth dragon jumped up at least thirty meters high just now. This jumping power means even airborne units would directly GG if they weren't careful!
"Is this mutated earth dragon a little too strong?"
Tina couldn't help but complain after dodging the attack.
"The armor is so high, the attack is so disgusting, and it can even jump so high, landing like a meteorite!"
Not only does it jump high, but it also smashes hard when it lands. That's hundreds of tons of weight. Even if it doesn't do anything, falling from a height of thirty meters can directly destroy everything around the landing point.
"If we were standing together and it jumped on us like that, we'd probably be wiped out."
This mutated earth dragon used its strength to prove that it also has dignity!
680. Flame Butterfly
"That's about it. That jump should be its last attack method. As for other physical attack methods, we don't need to worry because they have no threatening value."
Although the earth dragon just now spewed corrosive breath, released magic-breaking spikes, and even jumped and slammed the ground, releasing several attack modes, they were useless to Tina and Xia Shi.
Tina easily dodged all the attacks and constantly harassed the earth dragon with submachine guns, making the earth dragon constantly attack her. Unfortunately, this mutated earth dragon only had corrosive breath, magic-breaking spikes, and jumping slams. Other than these three tricks, its attack mode was no different from other earth dragons.
Although they were just three tricks, they were insignificant to Tina and her team, after all, they were flying units. For other familiars, these three tricks were very deadly.
Therefore, Xia Shi carefully recorded all of these. These are things that those familiars who venture to the 51st floor in the future need to be careful of. These earth dragons are no threat to Wang Xiaoming, but for other familiars, they can be wiped out if they're not careful.
After confirming that this earth dragon didn't have any new attack moves, the two of them let this earth dragon be freed.
Tina put away the submachine gun, took out the magic stone sniper rifle, and then shot the earth dragon in one shot. The magic beam directly penetrated the earth dragon's head, destroying its brain, and then the earth dragon fell like this. What's the use of your armor being so thick? I'll directly hit your cockpit! As long as I destroy your cockpit, no matter how powerful your machine is, it's useless.
And the earth dragon's head, although it has height, has limited defense. For the magic stone sniper rifle, it can easily penetrate it. After being shot through the head, it's useless.
