Lin Yixin stared at my face as she giggled. “I didn’t know you could be scared of anything. Oh well. If Little Cheat is too scared to lead the way, then I’ll do it…”

I shrugged. “Sure! This fog is too thick, and something doesn’t feel right about this map. Even my Dark Pupils don’t seem to be working anymore; I don’t see any enemy dots wherever I look. And yet, I’m absolutely certain there are mobs within 200 yards of us…”

Lin Yixin patted her Moonchaser Tiger’s fluffy head and said, “Come on, Little White. It’s our turn to lead the way since Little Cheat is too scared…”

The Moonchaser Tiger raised its head proudly and let out an affirmative cry. Then, it carried Lin Yixin forward while Kris the Ice Dragon followed in the sky.

“Let’s go…” I said to everyone else.

The 7 of us entered the fog together. Visibility was extremely poor, and we could see at most 3 meters in front of us. Even with Dark Pupils, I wasn’t able to see more than 20 yards ahead.

……

“Hiss hiss…”

Suddenly, a horrific hiss came from the front, causing a tremor across Lin Yixin’s shoulders and halted her footsteps. The next moment, a dark green–colored skull of a bone dragon emerged from the fog, clamped its sharp teeth around Lin Yixin’s arm, and dragged her deeper into the mist.

“OMG, that monster is kidnapping your girlfriend, big brother!” Beiming Xue warned.

“Motherfucker!”

Enraged, I charged forward and fired a Thousand Ice Slash straight into the mist. However, the skill failed to hit anything. When He Yi caught up to me, she reminded, “Fog is just water vapor. If you use the Ancient Divine Dragon’s Summon the Storm, the storm will chase it all away!”

“Got it!”

I spread my hand and cast Summon the Storm. The ensuing rain immediately melted the fog and revealed a landbound hydra with two heads crouching inside a bush. Its neck was at least 50 meters long, and one of them was biting Lin Yixin.

“Ugh, what a disgusting creature…”

Despite being caught like a side character in a horror movie, Lin Yixin was unperturbed enough to make a comment about the mob’s appearance. At the same time, she smacked its head with Ice Flame Slash and successfully forced it to let go. It was only now the hydra realized that the cute and gorgeous human was nowhere as tender as she looked.

The rest of us ran over and started beating the crap out of the hydra. The hydra was called “ Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra”, and it was a Level 275 mini boss. However, Its stats were average, and its Attack was so-so at best. Lin Yixin probably wouldn’t have survived the ambush without significant effort otherwise.

Despite possessing both fire and ice magic, the Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra’s magical prowess was again, so-so. It couldn’t even threaten our metal-armor players, so it took us less than five minutes to delete it from the surface of this world. When it died, it dropped a big and round Purple Crystal.

After I tossed the magic stone into my bag, I checked the time and said, "It’s 7 am inside the game right now. In a couple more minutes, the sunlight should pierce through the clouds and chase away the fog, so let’s wait until visibility gets better. We got lucky with the Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra, but I don’t want to keep testing our luck."

Lin Yixin nodded. "Okay. Let’s keep waiting then!"

And so, we stayed where we were and waited for five minutes or so. The moment we felt the sunlight on our faces, the thick fog started scattering at a prodigious rate. Soon, the plains within the canyon became much clearer than before, and we could see many Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydras roaming here and there. We paid little attention to them since they weren’t true dragons.

……

"Big brother!"

Suddenly, Beiming Xue let out a cry of pleasant surprise while pointing toward the distance. "Big brother look! There’s a Level 1 hydra over there! We’re gonna be rich!"

I followed her gaze and was delighted by what I saw. Not only was it a rare Earth Rank Boss mount, its stats were better than even the Dragonscale Beast’s.

So, I took out a Sealing Crystal and asked for permission, "Is everyone fine if I capture it? It’s an Earth Rank Boss mount, and a hydra is a type of dragon, so it fits our objective, right?"

Lin Yixin curled her lips. "If you don’t mind brainwashing yourself into believing that a hydra knight is a dragon knight, sure. Let’s also clean up the rest of the normal mobs while we’re doing this. The minibosses are worth a lot of experience."

"Yeah!"

I activated Fusion Armor and raced toward the Level 1 Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra. Then, while ignoring another Level 275 Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra that was blasting away at me, I pointed my Sealing Crystal at the capturable mount!

I failed 7 times before I finally managed to capture it. As expected, the hydra was way harder to capture than the Zephyr Ironbone Warhorse. The Zephyr Ironbone Warhorse wasn’t a dragon, so I was able to exploit the Ancient Divine Dragon’s draconic pressure to increase the success rate to almost 100%. The hydra, however, was a type of dragon even though it was of a lesser species. Therefore, my success rate was only 10% or so.

Swhoosh!

The image of a two-headed dragon appeared inside my sealing crystal. Its stats were around 10% to 20% higher than the Dragonscale Beast’s and Zephyr Ironbone Warhorse’s. Although it looked cooler than the Dragonscale Beast, its ridiculously long necks were kind of a turn-off.

"Which one of you wants this?" I asked Lin Yixin and He Yi.

Lin Yixin hurriedly shook her head. "Thanks but no thanks…"

He Yi also shook her head smilingly. "Same. Its appearance is a little too ahead of my time…"

I grinned. "Fine, I’ll check in with Xu Yang, High Fighting Spirits or Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun later. They should like savage-looking mounts like these."

"Haha, yeah!"

The mere imagination of the manly dudes riding this long-necked mount put an amused smile on my face.

……

I put away the Sealing Crystal and went back to grinding the mobs. Maybe it was because the miniboss was too easy, but I succumbed to Lin Yixin’s suggestion and aggroed 3 Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydras at once. The three of us—me, Lin Yixin and He Yi—would be tanking a mob each. Thanks to Murong Mingyue and Pure Love healing us, we were never really in danger of being killed.

We set our sights on a valley directly ahead of us because it was the heart of Dragon Domain. To get there though, we would have to kill all the Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydras standing in our way. I could fly there if I wanted to, but I was almost certain that it would aggro the thunder dragons flying around the valley. A lesser dragon was one thing, but a Holy Giant Dragon, even an undead one, was a completely different level of difficulty.

We fought until 4 am or so, earned a ton of experience and grinded a lot of top-tier saleworthy equipment. However, our best finding was without a doubt the 7 Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra mounts we got after sweeping nearly 30% of the map.

Pop!

After I put the Sealing Crystal into my bag, I shot Lin Yixin an amused smile and asked her, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

She pouted, "The Two-headed Ice-and-Fire Hydra’s stats are so good, but why is it so goddamn ugly…"

I smiled wider at her complaint. "Come now, you’re well aware that life rarely goes the way you wish for. Anyway, we’re close to the center of Dragon Domain now. If we find a high-rank Holy Giant Dragon or Gem Dragon mount pet egg somehow, you and Eve will get the first dibs. Okay?"

"Okay! I want a Holy Giant Dragon!"

"Yeah well, we need to find one first." I looked at the distant ruins and made a pessimistic remark. "Dragon Domain has been corrupted by evil spirits for a hundred thousand years, and the dragons living here were either tamed or turned into puppets by the undead. It would be miraculous enough if we find any living dragon at this place, to say nothing of a Holy Giant Dragon…"

"Sigh. We’ll know when we get there!"

"Indeed."

……

This part of the canyon was covered in red brambles that looked like blood. It almost looked like it had been met with an apocalypse, which… was probably what happened when Lin Na conquered Dragon Domain, actually. The dragon knight legion was slaughtered, and those who survived became the royal guards of various empires after Dragon Speaker Binglan had passed away. Even the Dragon God itself had been imprisoned and turned into a puppet of the undead. It was no wonder that Dragon Domain had never improved despite a hundred thousand years passing by.

I cautiously took point while observing the piles of dragon bones on both sides of the canyon entrance in front of us. The bones were deader than dead, but Dark Pupils revealed a giant red shadow blocking at the center of the entrance. If I wasn’t mistaken, the red shadow was most likely a boss; a gatekeeper of this entrance.

"Careful, everyone! I think there’s a boss right ahead of us!" I warned the girls before adding, "Buff yourselves with an HP card. Boss fights are about surviving until the end, not killing them as quickly as possible."

They nodded and used HP cards such as Crimson Flame Card, Pentacolor Deer Card and so on. These cards buffed not only HP, but also Attack or Defense by a bit.

……

The sunlight shining down from above cast various shadows on our person. Lin Yixin followed closely behind me and swiveled her head left and right like a radar as we slowly approached the red shadow.

"I don’t see anything, big brother. Are you sure…?" Beiming Xue asked.

"Of course I’m sure."

I gripped the Chill of the Nine Provinces tighter while declaring, "My Dark Pupils is never wrong! There’s an incredibly powerful boss just 20 meters away from us. If we can’t see it, it’s because it’s either floating in the sky or hiding underground!"

We all looked up as I finished my sentence. The sky was perfectly empty.

"It has to be underground then…" He Yi said.

I declared without hesitation. "Stay where you are. I’m going ahead to see if I can lure the boss out of its hidey hole. Be ready for anything. As I said, it’s incredibly powerful!"

"Yeah!"

I took a couple of steps forward. As it turned out, that was all I needed to do to cause the ground to start rumbling ominously. Cracks appeared across the ground, and a giant bump rose in front of us.

Bang!

The bump exploded toward the left and right to reveal a huge pair of dark golden scythes. Then, a rotten one-eyed giant climbed out of the hole. It was about 3 meters tall, and its loin was only covered by a piece of tattered cloth. It stared hatefully at us and declared, "You dare wake me from my dreams, humans? Prepare to die!"