Genshin Impact: I Can Obtain Adventure EXP

"Suppress!"

As soon as the Adepti, including Mooncarver and Mountain Shaper, saw the Earth Dragon Azhdaha begin to go berserk, they instantly coordinated and cast a new formation on him.

This formation was icy-white in color, with the four Adepti acting as formation nodes. It unleashed an endless stream of frost to slow Azhdaha’s movements.

Working together, the four Adepti barely managed to affect the Earth Dragon slightly. His already cumbersome body became even more sluggish.

Azhdaha let out a roar of displeasure and raised his upper body, preparing to slam down with brute force.

"Immovable as Stone!"

Seeing this, Zhongli spread both hands, and an amber-colored ripple swept out from under his feet.

Everyone struck by the ripple, including Nolan, was instantly covered in a Geo shield.

Two rotating rock bands crossed atop the shield, emitting an aura of overwhelming safety just from their appearance.

Azhdaha’s forelimbs came crashing down!

RUMBLE!

The entire cavern quaked violently. Invisible seismic waves rippled out from beneath the Earth Dragon in all directions.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Each wave clashed against the Geo shields Zhongli had given them, producing resounding booms. Because Azhdaha’s seismic attacks were high-frequency and continuous, the sound of the shield’s impacts followed a rhythmic, pounding beat.

Nolan watched the waves pass over them and spread outward until they slammed against the cavern walls.

Just when he thought the walls would collapse, a golden seal array identical to the one sealing the cave entrance suddenly activated from the surface!

Azhdaha’s attacks were immensely destructive to the terrain, so the battlefield had been specially sealed with formations to prevent damage from spilling out beyond the cave.

Nolan rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Zhongli, watching Azhdaha continue to stomp out seismic waves, raised his right hand, palm up, and lightly flicked his index and middle fingers.

A massive stone spine rose from the ground far away and thrust directly toward Azhdaha’s throat.

Too slow to react, the Earth Dragon was instantly skewered and lifted upward!

His front limbs flailed instinctively, making him look like a turtle dangling midair with its shell clutched in someone’s hand.

Perhaps realizing how undignified he looked, Azhdaha furiously exerted force on his neck to try and crush the stone spine beneath him—but its hardness far surpassed his expectations.

After two failed attempts, he roared again in rage:

"Damn you, Morax!"

With a powerful slam of his forelimbs, Azhdaha finally shattered the stone spine. His enormous crimson eyes now glowed with an even more terrifying light.

Countless chunks of rock materialized in midair, all sucked into his wide-open maw.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

One, two, three... the rocks quickly grew from ordinary stones to massive boulders even larger than Azhdaha’s own head.

Molten lava-like patterns began to glow on their surface, radiating a terrifying pressure!

"This must be his Dragon’s Breath..."

Nolan gulped as he sensed the overwhelming power behind this attack. Even with his newly acquired "Wholehearted Guardian Shield", he doubted he could survive a direct hit.

The power gap was simply too great!

"No need to worry. Leave it to me," Zhongli said with his usual calm.

Without any grand gestures, massive stone spines erupted from the ground, walls, and ceiling, all converging on Azhdaha!

First, a spine from below struck his throat and jaw once more. Then a downward spike slammed into the top of his skull.

The combined assault from above and below forcibly shut his jaws.

Immediately after, spines from the left and right crashed into the Earth Dragon’s head as well!

But even so—

Azhdaha forcibly spat out a partially-formed lava sphere toward Zhongli!

Facing the incoming magma orb, Nolan felt as if a meteor were plummeting straight toward him. Even with Zhongli’s shield, he was still worried he wouldn’t survive.

Instinctively, he activated another shield—his "Wholehearted Guardian Shield"!

This shield looked exactly like Noelle’s Breastplate, a translucent rhombus. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

He compressed it and layered it inside Zhongli’s shield as a second layer.

That way, even if Zhongli’s shield shattered, he would still have a powerful defense to fall back on!

Double protection—just in case.

Zhongli, however, had no intention of taking the lava sphere head-on.

He merely gazed at it, and with a murmured invocation of his divine power—

Without him lifting a finger, the magma orb suddenly cracked midair and disintegrated into fine dust.

Tsss... Nolan inhaled sharply.

As expected of the Geo Archon... such absolute control over Geo power, to the point of effortlessly interfering with even the opponent’s constructed Geo energy?

Nolan raised an eyebrow, surprised and impressed.

High in the air, the Adepti continued pouring their spiritual power into the formation, further restricting Azhdaha’s movements.

At the same time, a second formation slowly unfolded!

This one was transparent, and through the glass-like patterns, the jagged cavern walls were still clearly visible.

Nolan couldn’t identify what kind of formation it was, but he could tell it was not ordinary.

Zhongli seized the moment, using more stone spines to temporarily restrain Azhdaha again. He explained calmly:

"This is a spirit-amplifying formation. In a moment, we will take turns using it to launch attacks on Azhdaha, aiming to knock him unconscious."

Normally, for a being with a body as powerful as Azhdaha’s, it was nearly impossible to knock him out with physical force alone.

Mental attacks are generally the most effective against a foe like this!

"I see!" Nolan nodded slightly. Without the assistance of the formation, even if Zhongli managed to severely injure the Earth Dragon physically, his own mental power probably wouldn’t be enough to follow through.

Perhaps sensing the danger, Azhdaha began to struggle more violently. His long tail, which resembled a golden branch with leaves, slowly shifted to the color of the Cryo element. It began to absorb the Cryo elemental energy released by the Adepti’s formation and gathered it onto his tail.

Nolan recalled that although Azhdaha was a Geo-element Earth Dragon, he also had mastery over the Electro, Hydro, Pyro, and Cryo elements.

Only Dendro and Anemo were missing—otherwise, he would command all seven elements. Nolan couldn’t help but wonder how Azhdaha had even managed that much.

That said, it seemed there was a restriction: he couldn’t use all elements simultaneously. In that regard, he was slightly inferior to Lumine, who could freely mix and match the elements she had mastered.

The Adepti were already prepared for Azhdaha trying to absorb elemental energy from their formation to enhance his combat power.

After all, the Earth Dragon was once Zhongli’s friend, which made him a friend of theirs as well. So they were quite familiar with his methods in battle.

They knew all his tricks like the back of their hand!

So the moment Azhdaha changed form, they also altered their battle formation to release powerful flames.

Like a torrential meteor shower, the fiery assault rained down on the Cryo-infused body of the Earth Dragon.

The intense Melt reaction scorched Azhdaha so badly that he nearly started smoking!

And indeed, just like Vaporize, the Melt reaction produced steam upon activation.

Though these attacks didn’t do much physical damage to his body—after all, the Geo Earth Dragon’s defenses were absurdly strong—even taking the Adepti’s formation attacks head-on, he barely flinched.

Zhongli continued pinning down Azhdaha with stone spines while also guiding the spiritual formation in the sky to launch attacks on the Earth Dragon!

That irresistible spiritual force surged into Azhdaha’s mind, causing him to feel a sudden and violent shock in his head.

He nearly blacked out on the spot.

After all, this was a spiritual attack from the Geo Archon himself—amplified further by the formation. There was no reason it wouldn’t work on someone weaker than Zhongli.

It felt like just a few more hits would be enough to knock Azhdaha unconscious!

Nolan thought for a moment—he wasn’t doing anything useful just standing around. Might as well help Zhongli with the mental attacks to speed things up.

He summoned a translucent, tangible psychic thread high above the distant spiritual formation. It pierced through the array and slammed straight down at the Earth Dragon’s head!

BOOM!

As the thread passed through the formation, Nolan clearly felt its strength increase by about 20%—not bad at all!

The massive, semi-transparent thread struck Azhdaha’s head, delivering a double blow of physical and mental damage.

However, it clearly wasn’t as powerful as Zhongli’s attacks. The Earth Dragon only shook his head slightly before returning to normal.

But he definitely noticed Nolan.

With a snarl, Azhdaha opened his jaws and unleashed a blast of frigid breath in his direction!

This attack carried an overwhelming force that Nolan absolutely could not withstand directly.

Zhongli naturally understood and casually raised his hand—instantly, a wall of stone rose from the ground to block the incoming frost breath.

Crack!

A wave of freezing ice instantly sealed one side of the rock wall!

Nolan realized just how resilient Azhdaha was. It wouldn’t be easy to knock him out in a short time.

After thinking for a moment, he turned to Zhongli and said:

"I have the ability to stop time. If you lend me some elemental power, I should be able to pause the Earth Dragon for over a hundred seconds."

"That would give us more than enough time to knock him out!"

"Oh?"

Zhongli raised an eyebrow, surprised. He had known that this otherworldly visitor possessed considerable strength, but he hadn’t expected him to be capable of manipulating time itself.

That kind of power usually belongs only to the "Ruler of Time."

Still, Zhongli didn’t ask any further questions and chose to place his trust in Nolan. He nodded and said:

"Very well."

As he spoke, he placed one hand on Nolan’s shoulder. A vast current of elemental energy began to flow into him, gradually establishing a connection between the two.

In less than a second, Nolan could feel that he now had access to the elemental energy of this top-tier Archon!

The power flowed into him continuously, seemingly endless—like an infinite reservoir he could draw from at will!

Without hesitation, he summoned the Rose Witch’s Hourglass, flipping it over instantly. Grain by grain, the purple sand began to fall.

Nolan took a deep breath as he looked at Azhdaha, who was preparing to attack again. He locked onto him as the target for his time-freezing ability.

In his mind, he silently invoked: Time Stop—activate!

Elemental energy within his body began draining like a dam burst. In less than half a second, it was nearly depleted—but thankfully, Zhongli immediately increased the energy being channeled into him.

Sure enough, if not for Zhongli’s support, it would have been far too difficult to use Time Stop against such a powerful opponent.

To think it nearly drained him dry in under a second—and he even had a built-in "Battery Body"!

"Not bad. Azhdaha really is frozen," Zhongli remarked, observing the massive form of the Earth Dragon, completely motionless, like a snapshot from a Kamera.

That certainly made things easier.

"Haha, all thanks to your help. Alright, let’s knock him out fast—before we run out of your elemental energy."

Nolan wasn’t sure how much energy Zhongli had to spare, so it was best to wrap things up quickly.

If Zhongli really did run dry, they wouldn’t even have time to escape.

"Heh, don’t worry. As the Geo Archon, as long as I stand on the ground, my energy is inexhaustible."

Zhongli smiled and shook his head. At the same time, he focused his spiritual energy and launched another mental assault on Azhdaha.

This time, there was no resistance. After taking the hit, Azhdaha’s consciousness noticeably weakened.

It was clear that even his mind was frozen in time.

Forgive me, old friend... Without hesitation, Zhongli launched another psychic strike.

After several successive attacks, he could feel that Azhdaha’s consciousness was on the brink of collapse.

It was time for Nolan to finish the job.

Zhongli looked at him and gave a small nod—his cue to act.

"Got it."

Nolan nodded in return. Once again, he summoned a massive, tangible psychic thread and directed it through the Adepti’s mental amplification formation, slamming it down onto Azhdaha’s head.

Due to time being frozen, the Earth Dragon’s body didn’t move at all.

But when the system panel popped up, Nolan knew that he had successfully defeated the being whose power rivaled a top-level Archon!

[You Have Defeated A Powerful Enemy. Obtained 803,679 Adventure EXP.]

The number flashing on the panel was unlike anything he’d ever seen before—over 800,000 EXP! Just for defeating Azhdaha!

Combined with the previous 130,000 he’d earned, his total EXP was now around 930,000.

Just under 30,000 more and he’d level up again.

He was one step closer to reaching level 100!

Nolan didn’t linger on the panel. As soon as he confirmed Azhdaha had been knocked out, he ended the time-freeze effect.

Mainly because the sensation of having his energy rapidly drained and replenished was making him feel slightly nauseous.

The moment Time Stop ended, Azhdaha’s body gave a massive BOOM and collapsed to the ground like a toppling building!

A thick cloud of dust burst into the air.

"Lord?"

The Adepti in the air were visibly stunned. They hadn’t expected Azhdaha to be defeated so quickly. One of them instinctively turned to Zhongli for confirmation.

"Mhm. Azhdaha is unconscious. You may proceed."

Zhongli nodded gently, then turned to Nolan.

Without hesitation, Nolan stepped forward and instantly teleported to Azhdaha’s side, preparing to invoke his Command Spell.

Naturally, a condition like "absolute obedience" was out of the question—after all, this was the old friend of Lord Morax.

If he tried to impose something that domineering, he might end up getting a stone spine through the backside before he could even finish the command.

It was better to keep things simple—just impose restraints to calm Azhdaha’s aggression. Something like "do not destroy the world" or "do not harm humans" would be more than enough.

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(End of Chapter)

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