“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫
A Storm of Fury ♫
Creating Ash and Dust ♫
I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫
I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫
My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫
.
Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫
The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫
The Idol will never fall ♫
She will bring Absolution! ♫”
.
“GRAWRRRRRRRRR!”
“KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Accompanied by a buffet of ear-shattering roars, white flames erupted out of my draconic mouth and engulfed the area in front of me. Having already felt the sting of my [White Flames] in our previous bout, the onnikai beast wasted no time and immediately dodged to the side and launched its counterattack.
Using the shadow cast by my flames, the onnikai beast drove its arms into them, causing large black spikes to erupt from the ground. Instead of avoiding them, I ground my tail on the ground to set it on fire, then turned the crimson fire into holy flames. Seeing as I was about the size of a larger elephant with scales harder than conventional armor covering my whole body, simply brute forcing through attacks and then healing myself would save me from doing unnecessary moves.
I still remember how the guild master would tank a few attacks to create a more advantageous situation for himself. To win battles, I should learn when to dodge and when to tank attacks. A fight is settled not by who took the most damage, but by who is standing at the end of it all.
With my tail covered in white flames, I slashed at the shadowy spikes with it like a sword. Meanwhile, I turned my head towards the onnikai with my breath attack still active, the flames chasing after the beast. The beast, realizing that its large size was becoming disadvantageous, contorted its form into something smaller and more agile. It abandoned the hands it had in the shadow, disabling the spikes attacking me, and deftly moved to avoid my flames. As it was a being of mana like Silva explained, its hand quickly regenerated from the surrounding’s mana…and mine as well.
Even with [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10], my mana was still being siphoned by the beast right now. As it seemed like the beast is the cause for the siphoning mana, my party’s plan was for me to become bait and prevent the beast from protecting its core, the onnikai inside the orb. While I was buying time by fighting this thing, my party would sneak into the ruin and fulfill the Quest.
Silva explained that, as this onnikai beast was a concentration of mana, the orb would lose a ton of its accumulated mana if this thing were to separate from its core. It could probably protect itself with some attacks and control the surrounding onnikais, but the boss onnikai wouldn’t be able to create another onnikai beast while the first was away.
That’s why my job was to stall this thing as the one with infinite regeneration under the sun. A sustain tank vs. a sustained tank. With the beast’s ability to suck the mana from my fire and from me, wasn’t it bad for me if this fight took too long? Well, yeah, but what can you do? I have to trust in Saori and the rest to finish their battle as soon as possible while I keep this thing pre-occupied.
I know I got myself into this but now that I think about it, isn’t this guy an infinitely regenerating opponent bent on killing me? Urgh, why me…
With my inner turmoil still on-going, my parallel minds immediately went to work and began casting spells — distorting the ground with earth spells, distracting the enemy with wind spells, shooting out pain with holy spells and controlling the white flames surrounding me and the area with [Pyrokinesis]. Although they weren’t a threat to me and I wasn’t targeting them, the remaining onnikai zombies were getting decimated through the collateral damage caused by my attacks. Whether the onnikai themselves survived, I didn’t think about it.
The onnikai beast, having adapted to the situation, decided its more imposing form was just a hindrance to it and began moving around by contorting its form. Its limbs would grow in numbers and turn into spider legs whenever it needed to move or jump, its torso would transform into a snake-like form to slither through my attacks, and it would conjure up shadowy spikes or hands from shadows to attack me. In a way, this beast was acting extremely similar to a slime, using its special physiology to its advantage.
“Kraaaaaaaaahhhh!”
My roar resonated with my music and a blast of loud sounds pushed the beast back even as it tried to cut me with hands shaped into mantis-like claws. The push back worked, but the damage part wasn’t as effective. For one thing, I don’t think it had eardrums. Secondly, the damage caused by the sonic vibrations was quickly healed up as it sucked in mana from the area.
Honestly, seeing it do that made me annoyed. I still remember the evolution option of becoming a mana dragon and gaining a mana body like this beast. I don’t know why I was feeling like this right now, but I felt a bit envious. “Verdammt, couldn’t my tanking ability be like this beast’s if I had chosen that option back then?” I thought, but I shook it off completely the next moment. I had no time to think about spilled milk.
The continuous shadow spike attacks repeated once again, but this time, I controlled the flames surrounding me from [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and used them as a shield against the spikes. Coating my tail and using it to get rid of this attack was viable, but I felt I would be wasting time.
Deciding Farron’s tips during our spars weren’t working for me right now, I forwent with a proper magician’s battle style of keeping a distance and temporarily returned to my normal battle style. I was a dragon right now, not a mage.
Using the flames of the Symphonie as armor, I rushed into close combat with the beast. With my tail still covered in white flames, I twisted my body and slammed my blade-like tail down in an arc. [Hellblade Edge] was fully online. The onnikai sidestepped the attack, but it seemed it forgot about my scale-dust. Once my tail touched the ground, a scale-dust explosion ignited, spreading some of the white flames around with it. The beast staggered from the damage.
A chance! Exactly how he did it!
Imitating Farron’s [Storm Devastation], I swiped my tail back and twisted my body and jumped, turning my body around to slam my tail onto the onnikai once again in a quick motion. This time, my aim was true and sliced a few of its spider-like limbs off. Without wasting another second, the third slash of my imitated [Storm Devastation] continued with another twist and jump. I somersaulted and slammed my tail for the third hit like a hammer onto the ground, carving not only a large chunk of the onnikai’s body but also the ground.
Split apart — due to my experience with my past opponents, it should be my win — but the onnikai beast wasn’t exactly restricted to the concept of “dying when your Health reaches zero.” As long as it had mana, it would always come back, just like it did when I “destroyed” it in our previous fight. That was the advantage of being a mana-based creature.
The beast’s split body enlarged into an opened giant mouth with long tusks and fangs just large enough to swallow me whole. It attempted to crunch me like an oreo, but by using [Wind Blast] on my wings, I made a quick escape from its attack.
Once I gained some distance, spells began flying toward the onnikai. It shapeshifted back into a more maneuverable form and avoided them, but I didn’t let it get away from me. Like a jaguar, I pounced at the beast and used my tail once again to cut away some of its regenerated spider legs; however, I additionally used this chance to grind my teeth, setting off another scale-dust explosion.
Mangled, the onnikai beast reappeared out of the shade from a nearby tree, having probably escaped through a shadow.
“Kuruuuoooooh!”
Its mouth transformed back into that weird cone-shaped face it had when it shot that lilac exploding shot. That very same dark aura began accumulating around its body, signaling it was about to shoot out that attack once again. However, I was prepared for it this time.
Instead of letting it shoot the attack, I used [Rumbling Might], causing the very earth to shake violently like an earthquake. To add to the disruption, [Bedrock Blades] erupted from the ground. The combined power of these two spells stopped the shot’s build up and created an opening that I very gladly took advantage of.
I blasted the beast with more spells to weaken it, then used [Earthen Shackles] to wrapped it up in vines of rock, restricting it from moving despite having regenerated its limbs from my spell barrage. Then, with [Pyrokinesis], the white flames forming my armor separated from me and surrounded the beast in them, continuously dealing damage and forcing it to regenerate. Meanwhile, [Dragon Fire] was still playing and creating new flames to erupt from the ground, supporting me by dealing even more damage to the onnikai beast.
Continuously fighting the beast would prove too much, even for me. The sun might be helping my regeneration, but the constant action would drain my mental fatigue. I mean, dealing with a constantly regenerating monster is plainly no fun and just annoying. Instead of fighting it, I decided that capturing it should be far easier.
The onnikai was struggling inside its shackles and I’ve already checked with [Detection Sensor] that all the remaining zombies inside my [Dragon Fire]’s arena were defeated already. It was only the beast and me inside this area now. I’ll just keep this thing down and hope my team will deal with this situation soon.
While I was taking a breather, seeing as the situation seemed to be in control, my [Foresight] and [Danger Perception] strangely began to warn me about multiple attacks coming from many different directions. My skills were telling me I was surrounded by attacks, but my parallel minds and I were just confused. What attacks? I couldn’t see anything coming from the ground. There was nothing.
“Krikrikrikrikri! Onniiiikaaaiiii, neeeevvveeer aloooonnneee!” A creaky voice came from the beast, sending a chill down my spine when I suddenly noticed a few black veils of mist appearing around me. From thin air, the mists materialized and became thicker, before a black goo-like material was formed and turned into several cone-like heads with opened mouths.
“Onnnikkkaaaaiiiii reeeeeeveeeengeeee! Paaaiiiiiiin toooo huuumaaaanssss! Kiiilllll iinnnnteeeeerrlopeeerrrrr! Feeeeeellll! Ouuurrrr! Paaaiiiiiiiiiiin!”
I didn’t have a defensive spell on hold and a dark aura was already surrounding the floating heads. I recalled the white flames surrounding the onnikai beast and used them to reform my armor in the little time I had before the heads opened their mouths. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. The flames didn’t make it time and I had to use my wings to defend myself.
Balls of dark energy began to bombard me. They were less in intensity compared to the onnikai beast’s, evident from the lack of urgency that my [Danger Perception] sounded the alarm with, but the attacks still stung me, penetrating [Draconic Barrier] due to being a dark element. I was caught off-guard, I didn’t even think the onnikai beast was able to give its mana to the surrounding onnikai without its core.
Honestly, how did the onnikai controlling the zombies survive in the first place? I thought I destroyed them, but they were appearing around me like flies. I also don’t know how the beast was able to give these onnikais mana to form that dark slime, but who cares right now. I needed to get out of this predicament.
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The moment my white flames began blocking some of the attacks, I activated [Dreadflare Aura] for a moment and sent the flames at the floating heads with a heat explosion, causing them to disappear. Once freed from their attacks, [Sanctified Blaze] and [White Flames] began to automatically heal me, while I materialized two [Molten Guard] to protect me.
This lava spell was similar to Tasianna’s [Frozen Shield], as it formed a shield-like construct. It couldn’t float on its own, similar to [Frozen Shield]; however, with [Pyrokinesis] and [Cryokinesis], Tasianna and I could control our respective spells and have them hover around us defensively. The only problem was that mine was only able to move slowly, as lava was a combination of fire and earth, and I couldn’t control earth as I didn’t have the associated “-kinesis” skill for it.
Focused on protecting myself, the beast freed itself from its binding and began attacking me once again with shadow spikes and its numerous growing claws. In addition, the smaller onnikais supported it by forming coneheads to shoot at me with their dark balls. The onnikai was adapting more and more the longer we fought.
While it had the ability to continuously suck mana and adapt to its body to suit a new situation, it still had the same flaw it had since day one: it lacked fighting experience.
I didn’t exactly know how high level it was, as I didn’t want to activate [Mana Eyes] to look at its profile. My brain always began hurting when I activated the skill in a mana filled area. However, I do think I have an upper hand when it comes to pure stats due to all my buffs and skills, in addition to the fighting experience I gathered until now.
The onnikai beast, on the other hand, didn’t seem very capable up until now. Sure, it was adapting and using new strategies to fight against me, seeing as it did catch me off-guard just now, but that was it. Even now, with all the abilities it was showing and with the help of the numerous onnikai in the surrounding, I wasn’t feeling very pressured.
[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]
With spells and dragon abilities, I kept the numerous floating heads at bay and adapted to any changes and moves the beast did. Whether it assumed a new form to fight me and gave the weaker onnikais more mana and new forms, I countered them and always dealt some damage to the beast.
This ping-pong match continued and continued. Time wasn’t even a thought for me at this point. The only reason why I was keeping an eye on how long this battle has lasted is due to my buffs. Until now, I had to renew my whole buff line-up twice. Something like more than an hour should have passed already.
There was also the case of my [Symphonie des Feuergottess] having switched to the next movement: adagio. In a normal musical symphony, the first movement is usually either a sonata or allegro. In simple terms, allegro and adagio are terms used to determine the tempo of the music played. Allegro means fast and bright, while adagio is a slow movement.
Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)
Flames burning as fast as flashfire, increasing the caster’s Agility by half of the base amount. All fire elemental attacks increase in strength
Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)
Flames burning slowly with powerful notes, increasing the caster’s Strength and Intelligence by half of the base amount. Mana consumption of all spells is reduced by 50%
These were their effects created through [Symphonie des Feuergottes]. I can shit-talk Shiterno as much as I wanted, but I must admit he did well to properly represent the different movements of a symphony in a spell’s effect. It worked similar to a boss’ multi-stage battles.
Allegro made me super fast and strong, increasing all my fire attacks greatly. It rewarded me for pushing myself to end a battle as soon as possible, like a blitzkrieg. Adagio on the other wants me to fight slower, increasing the damage from my attacks while also decreasing the mana costs of all my spells. It was the perfect stage for a more mage-like battle plan.
But that wasn’t the point, the point I wanted to make is that a ton of time has gone by already. And the attrition was wearying me down.
I was doing fine with my Mana as the sun was still blazing, and as I burned down the portion of the woods inside [Dragon Fire]’s arena, nothing was blocking me from absorbing solar rays. The beast hadn’t noticed my reliance on the sun yet, but it did try to attack my core once or twice. After blocking those attempts, I shielded my precious core with [Corrosive Fire]’s purple obsidian armor.
However, while Mana wasn’t a problem, Stamina was. My racial unique skill [Solar Core], which enabled me to transform solar energy into Health, Mana, or Stamina, could only turn the sun rays into one of the three resources at a time, not all at once. [Insatiable Glutton] was gone and I was feeling a bit winded.
Through stuff like the adagio stage, [True Draconic Lineage], and my many mana cost reduction skills, the costs of my spells, dragon abilities, and keeping up my song active, wasn’t a problem for me. In fact, I felt so amazing that I was able to use these many attacks for the fraction of their actual mana costs. The magic slinger dream was becoming true with my skill set.
So, it’s just a bit annoying that I couldn’t exactly afford to switch from transforming solar energy into Stamina to feed me. I was still using mana like crazy, and that was becoming a detriment to my Stamina. The attrition battle was making me tired.
I eventually decided to stop putting all my focus on Mana. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, right? In the time adagio was active, I should take care of my Stamina. I wasn’t doing this battle correctly. I shouldn’t be fighting crazily, I should be taking it slowly and prioritize sustainability. This battle was a good lesson for me to learn how to fight slower, instead, of my usual rush down tactic.
After another rotation of buffing spells, the onnikai suddenly stopped moving and directed its head towards a location. It shrieked for a moment and ran off in that direction.
Is that the ruins? Ah! It has to be! You guys!
Were they fighting the onnikai boss right now and putting it in a corner, or did they reach the chambers right now? I didn’t know what they were doing right now, as we had no way to communicate. Have they been fighting the onnikai up until now or were they starting it now? I had no clue.
But what I did know was they just caused the onnikai beast to panic. Whatever they were doing, this single act was enough to relight my motivation. The fatigue inside my muscles and mind vanished without a trace. I was fired up and ready to rock!
Smirking, I watched as the beast and lower onnikai rushed desperately to the edge of the arena, slowly following them as I knew what would happen. Once there, I saw the onnikais storm at the large inferno wall roaring, as if the flames were singing along to [Dragon Fire]’s lyrics. Expectantly, the onnikai couldn’t break through the wall.
It is for one reason only.
Dragon Fire
A song created by the Idol [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the image of becoming the epitome of challenge and opposition, clad in the fiery inferno of a dragon’s lair, this song will create a stage fit for an idol dragon to fight. Through the power of song and fire, enemies must fight against the ruler of this hellfire as the spotlight is shined on this battle between fates. An arena of fire is created while this song is active, preventing every entity from exiting the arena. All enemies affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: Become the target for periodic fire attacks created by this song. Receive 10% more damage from all fire and dragon attacks and abilities. All entities affected by [Music Resonation] will receive these effects: All water spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness. All ice spells and abilities will lose 50% of their effectiveness
[Dragon Fire] didn’t have as powerful of an effect as [The Will to Fight and Survive] in my opinion; but I couldn’t say it was weak. It was powerful, as expected of a song created through my unique skill [Idol]. Honestly, it took me a while to realize that a more metal song would fit pretty well with a damage-based song. The additional effects, like making water and ice spell practically useless inside the area and creating an inescapable arena were awesome add-ons, though.
[The Will to Fight and Survive] is a great boss song to make me and my allies more powerful, but I have to admit that [Dragon Fire] was the more fitting boss battle theme. It even created a debuffing aura to weaken my enemies while creating my fire arena. I couldn’t be more proud of the song, I must say.
For this reason, the onnikai beast couldn’t escape. No matter what it tried, the flames rejected the beast and floating heads, keeping them inside. It was similar to those irritating invisible walls that game developers put inside games to annoy players.
[“I descend on Earth with Wings of Death! ♫
A Storm of Fury ♫
Creating Ash and Dust ♫
I am the Incarnation of the Sun ♫
I shine so brightly, I bring your death ♫
My lineage belongs to the God of Dragons! ♫
Scales of steel, claws of destruction ♫
The Dragon Fire will scorch the lands ♫
The Idol will never fall ♫
She will bring Absolution! ♫”]
I sang while transmitting it telepathically to the onnikai beast, literally taunting it.
[“Sorry, sorry, but you aren’t going anywhere. My party will finish your core. You will lose this fight,”] I told the onnikai. [“Until then, let’s continue dancing together, alright, partner~”]
“Kraaaaaaaahhhhhh! Freeeeeee meeeeeeeeee!”
Unfortunately, I refuse.
Saori, Tasianna, Silva, you guys can do it! I believe in you guys! Until we meet up again, I will do my part.
With the music booming in the background, our fight continued.
**************************************
You have bought [Mind Protection Lv. 1] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 1] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 3200
Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Mind Protection Lv. 5] [Mental Corruption Resistance Lv. 5] [Mana Leak Resistance Lv. 10] gained Your current SP is 250
[Lifetaker (41 Kills)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]
“All buffs are up, but we lost Hestia’s buffs aside of [Sanctified Blaze]. Maybe something like thirty minutes has passed? I am not sure,” I told Tasianna and Silva as we finally reached the last floor of the ruins.
“Sister Tasianna, you should take most of the mana potions to keep yourself safe and at full power. Miss Saori and I should take one mana potion each and divide the rest of the Health potion amongst us,” Silva stated. “My offensive power is the weakest, so I will take care of healing and support. Once a path to the core is made, I will begin the rite. Igniculus will support in my stead, but I cannot support with wind magic once I begin. Please, protect me.”
Tasianna nodded and attached all the mana potions to her belt. “You may count on us, Sister Silva. Ice magic is a defensive element. As Lady Hestia’s retainer and maid, I swear I will protect you. We will free the onnikai and aid Goddess Zephira in her task!”
I had no idea how long it took us to reach the last floor. Hestia did a fantastic job by clearing and luring the zombies up to the surface, which made our way down easy. There were a few zombies that we had to fight our way through, but otherwise, we did our best to rush down the ruins as fast as we could. This was a time-based battle, after all.
I didn’t know how long it had been; was Hestia still luring the onnikai beast to a spot she deemed suitable, or was she fighting against it right now? I had no idea about the timing of everything. All I knew is that our part of the fight will begin soon.
And we had to hurry. Hestia was strong, but we had to finish this before the sun set.
Once we made sure our preparations were done, we entered the room. Unlike the previous time we visited it, the room had four imposing giant zombie wolves guarding the pedestal where our goal laid.
“H-Hooowwwww?! Whyyyyy arreeee youuuu. Heeerreeee?! Fiiiight?! Whyyyyyyy?!”
The onnikai boss seemed distressed when it saw us. Concurrently, the zombie garms assumed a combat stance and began growling, their eyes glared at me with ferocity. At that moment, strange thoughts began to enter my mind, sounding something like “HIieeeerhaaaaaZZuddaasNNNddas” or something gibberish. I felt not only some slight pain but also anger and sadness from those thoughts, but unlike last time they did it to me, I endured.
It was the right choice to buy [Mental Corruption Resistance] and [Mind Protection] like Hestia recommended in addition to leveling them up a bit through SP. I also bought and fully leveled [Mana Leak Resistance] for safety’s sake. My Mana reached zero last time due to not having this skill back then, and I really wanted to be sure that nothing would cause that again. Even if the onnikai beast was the primary cause for the mana drain, I wanted to be sure and cover all my weaknesses.
Unfortunately for me, despite having those two new mental protection skills, I still felt this desperate desire to prove myself before these four garms. I don’t know why I was feeling it and I didn’t want to feel it. It was like a terrible itch that I needed to scratch. I hated to admit it, but maybe Tasianna and Silva were right. Maybe my instincts as a wolf or as [Belzac’s Successor] were the cause for this.
In any case, we had to fight anyway. Unlike Hestia, who has embraced her draconic life with pleasure, I didn’t like being a pawn to my instincts. I hated being covered in fur, so I barely showed any skin with my outfit. I hated being bloodthirsty and a battle junkie, so I tried to be more aloof than how I was on Earth.
It’s funny how my students sometimes called me scary when I was strict with them. How would they react to how I act now? Well, I guess they would comment about the fact that I looked younger than when I was their homeroom teacher, but, well, whatever.
Concentrate, Saori. We need to fight.
With [Multi-Cast], I invoked both [Shadow Clones] and [Shadow Pack]. With a shadow clone of my cadejo form and a shadowy giant wolf, this battle party was now a six-man, including Silva’s Igniculus.
[Humanized (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Shadowstalker Cadejo, Saori Segawa]
With my two shadow wolves flanking my sides, I pulled out my two daggers and transformed into my werewolf-like form. I was thinking of assuming my cadejo form, but I wanted to test the waters first with my two daggers. Could good equipment cover the difference in stats or will my additional stats and size from my true form be more useful?
Let us put this hypothesis to the test.
For what you four did to me in our last meeting, let me reward you by giving you a personal lecture!