Chapter 76 — The Strongest Creature

In that moment, though he still did not know the ice dragon's exact racial rank, Shi Jin finally understood why dragons were called the strongest of living things.

At near-equal level, this ice dragon seemed able to suppress Eleven through its terrifying physical constitution alone, without even using skills...

"Whimper, whimper, whimper."

Though Eleven had been brutally suppressed, it was not so frail as all that.

Hardening had still managed to blunt that blow; it was only a pity that Shi Yun's power had not been enough to concentrate all the hardening matter at the point of impact—otherwise it might have come through that strike unwounded.

For now, Eleven scrambled up at once; its light injuries healed instantly under its high-speed regeneration, and it fixed the ice dragon once more with a vicious glare.

Unwilling to accept it.

In its heart, Eleven was utterly unwilling to accept it.

And not just it—Shi Jin was in a foul mood now as well.

The panda king he had slaved over, working overtime and burning the midnight oil to cultivate, had just been beaten senseless by an ice dragon—no, wait, by an ice dragon phantom, without the thing even using a skill?

And yet moments ago it had held the slightest upper hand in the intimidation clash against the dragon's might...

Even a level-ten overlord-species cub could not be this monstrous!

As for whether the ice dragon might be a mythical creature—that required no thought at all; impossible. In that era, mythical creatures had long since gone into hiding.

"Eleven, under normal circumstances, it seems we can't beat it."

"We have only one throw of the dice—go all in."

"And if we still can't win, then we run. We add points for a month and come back."

Faced with this situation, Shi Xiao judged at once that normal combat tactics would no longer work.

And Eleven seemed to understand its beast tamer's intent as well; it gave a heavy nod.

"ROAR!!!!"

The next second, the ice dragon turned its head, locked its gaze onto Eleven, and gathered a terrifying frost breath in its maw!

Another basic ice-type skill!

As the strongest living creature, a dragon, the ice dragon could not possibly lack high-tier or super-tier skills. Yet merely by using low-tier and mid-tier skills, it had already brought enormous pressure to bear on Shi Jin and the others, leaving them racking their brains in agony.

Sorry, Daddy Ice Dragon. I shouldn't have laughed at you for being small earlier. That compact body is pure essence...

But still!

Swish!!!

The frost breath, condensed like a beam of icy light, pierced straight toward Eleven. Everything in its path froze solid, while Eleven dodged in a frantic scramble of rolls and runs, its goal being to close in on the ice dragon.

With its super-vision assisting it, dodging the skill was fairly easy. Soon enough, it had drawn near the ice dragon.

At that moment, the ice dragon canceled its frost breath, beat its wings, and once again swung its Ice-Splitting Claw at Eleven!

"Awooo!!!"

On the ground, Eleven glared ferociously and adorably at the ice dragon. With a "bzzz," its body rapidly expanded to eight or nine meters tall, and at the same time a more astonishing deterrence radiated from it. This transformation directly cowed the ice dragon, making its movements sluggish for a beat.

That one hesitation was the key that decided victory and defeat.

The giant Iron-Eating Beast Eleven raised high the combination technique formed by fully concentrated, stacked Hardening and a maximum-power Thunder Palm, and brought down this strike that consumed all of its stamina!

Proficient-rank Deterrence control + Proficient-rank Multiplication amplification output + Perfect-rank Hardening amplification output + Proficient-rank Thunder Palm output!

This strike was Eleven's current limit. All its power converged upon its palm, and this blow instantly became a super sure-kill that pierced through everything!

BOOM!!!!

With Shi Yan and Eleven's hearts in their throats, this time no accident occurred. The ice dragon was finally completely broken through by Eleven's attack; its entire body was directly pierced and split in two by this massive Hardening-Thunder Palm combination technique!

Truly tearing a giant dragon apart by hand!

Thud!

Having delivered this strike, Eleven instantly deflated like a leaking balloon, rapidly shrinking from its giant form down to a pendant-like state of just over ten centimeters.

Pocket-sized Eleven plopped down on its rear on the frozen ground, panting as it stared at the dissolving ice dragon phantom before it, feeling only that it was absurd.

So strong...

Dragons really are so strong...

Eleven could not help clenching its little fists. Its own efforts were still nowhere near enough. From now on, it would take the giant dragon as its benchmark!

When it could train its physique to the point of matching a giant dragon without using any skills, that would count as an initial pass!

Before Eleven had even finished making its vow, it suddenly noticed that something seemed to have appeared beneath where the ice dragon phantom had dissolved.

"You okay, Eleven?"

At that moment, Shi Cen came running over quickly, also panting. This body was still weak—his mental fortitude as a beast tamer was simply no good. The battle just now had scared him stiff with nerves; he had been terrified that Eleven would lose.

Putting something like this in the sixth stage of the ruins—did they really want anyone to clear it?

If not for Eleven's rich repertoire of skills, missing even one of them would likely have meant being brutally crushed.

"Yip." Eleven shook its head to show it was fine, then weakly pointed ahead, urging Shi Jin to go see what that was.

"Almost forgot." Shi Tan then remembered that clearing a stage seemed to come with rewards!

After tossing Eleven some recovery food, he immediately stepped forward and looked beneath the dissolving ice dragon phantom, then fell slightly silent.

On the broken icy plain, a slender ice-blue strand resembling a whisker of the ice dragon lay quietly.

"This is... an ice dragon's whisker?" Shi Jin was stunned.

He took gloves and some essential exploration tools from his backpack, gently picked up the whisker, and nothing unusual happened.

After observing it for a moment, he quietly stowed away this top-grade material.

Besides that, there was also a shell.

Inside the shell rested a gray stone bead.

Shi Jin hesitated for a moment, then recklessly reached his hand toward the shell.

However, the shell seemed like a mere phantom; it passed straight through the glove, and even through Shi Ying's hand.

The next second, the shell phantom gradually dissolved, and the stone bead fell to the ground.

Damn, what was going on?

A beat later, Shi Jin did not go pick up the stone bead; instead, he stood rooted to the spot, slightly dazed.

Because just now, at the instant his body might or might not have touched the Shell Phantom, his Skill Codex talent had given him a prompt.

After a long while, Shi Jin chose [Confirm Registration].

The five new pages the Skill Codex had gained after contracting Eleven were now completely filled.

On the tenth page of the Codex, the form of a shell-like creature appeared: [Overlord-tier: Dreamshell].

Beneath it was a block of text.

[Skill]: Phantom of Truth and Illusion

[Skill Rank]: High-tier

[Description]: A dual-attribute ability of the psychic and spatial types. It can materialize phantoms constructed in dreams or illusions, summoning or transforming into them. The quality of the materialized phantom depends on the realism of the constructed phantom, the sacrificial materials, the prerequisite skills, the user's compatibility...