Chapter 179

Fighting Against Clouds

By the time I arrived, I realized a few things. First, I was not the first person here, as Mallory aided by the apparent earth dragon that had been tamed earlier was already here, along with a few hundred undead warriors.

While I was not opposed to using the undead warriors, as they were all higher level than any Midnight Hunter forces, it did feel sort of sleezy to use the reinforcements first, over the use of regular guild forces. Not really showing too much of a partnership, if you put all the work onto the assisting unit.

The Second thing I realized was that I had absolutely no way of directly fighting an air dragon, as that is what this creature before me was, a dragon made up of solidified air and energy. Honestly, just getting close enough to understand the composition of the strange creature was slightly disconcerting.

Woosh!

Just getting to be within a kilometer of the creature was enough to be inside its magnetic pull of energy. As I could already feel the hairs on the back of my neck beginning to stand up. This I think was partly due to my Danger Sense, and partly due to my ability to feel the strange dragon’s pull on and control over the air.

If I had to give a numerical value of power to this creature, I would have to say that this creature was one and a quarter times as strong as the earth dragon we had conquered earlier. This was good as it gave me a reference point, roughly one fourth stronger than the most powerful creature I had handled to this point. No big deal, right?

Added to that was the fact that the creature had no body. Well it had a form that was in the shape of a body, but it didn’t have anything substantial to focus on. No brightly glowing core, no skin to punch, not even open meridians of power to mess with.

Honestly, the creature before me was intense.

The best way to describe this creature would be to imagine a large storm cloud that not only looks like that random monster that only you see but is that monster that you see as well.

Mallory, true to form looks like a complete badass, as she us standing proudly on the back of the giant flying earth dragon. I pause for a moment, then realize that Gwen apparently was able to heal the wounds inflicted to the dragon before this encounter. I am sort of impressed, until I realize part of that impression comes from the fact that I missed a good chunk of time due to my double nap there. But then even after that, I realized that such a feat is still impressive. Particularly as the dragon is once again flying.

Sigh.

Seeing that Mallory is already out there, leading the troops, I realize that I too should likely try to do something as well.

Poof.

Within seconds I am floating next to Mallory. Then without even having to think about it, my weightless body gets propelled by my two sets of wings that instantly begin pushing me forward. It is almost sad how normal it feels to have wings and be able to fly quickly.

Startle.

Mallory flinches so hard, that she needs a second to regain her balance. She stomps her feet in and seems to hook her toes under a set of scales near the base of the beast’s neck. For a second, I am prepared to grab her with my handy Telekinesis, but fortunately she regains her balance all on her own.

Only after she is safe does the incident hit me as being amusing.

“Stop laughing, you little pixy,” Mallory hisses.

“What? I haven’t said a thing.” I reply back innocently, trying to stifle the smile that is forming on my lips.

“I can see it all on your face.”

With that I pause and realize I likely do have an overly expressive face. For a moment I think about pulling up my hood and covering my face, but ultimately decide against it. Instead, I decide to ask the fearless leader for her plans.

“So, you got any plans on how to deal with this?” I ask.

“One,” Mallory says with confidence.

Hearing that, I let out a breath of relief as I had absolutely nothing.

“Oh, good, what is that?”

“I’m going to send in my specialist.” Mallory answers with confidence.

I pause, trying to figure out who she means. I can see that on the dragon with her are her two bodyguards, though I doubt either of them are particularly suited towards dealing with air dragons. As they seem to be more of the slash a problem with an ax type of people, more than anything.

A quick scan in all directions shows that no particularly strong Deolar soldier is present either, leaving me to ask.

“Who?”

“You. I’m tasking you with handling this problem.” Mallory says.

“What? Talk about mismanaging resources.” I reply, then realize she might actually be serious with this. Realizing this, my sudden panic comes back, as I begin racking my brain on how to fight a fluffy cloud without true form or boundaries.

“Look, just go in, stall for time, and above all, don’t kill it.” Mallory gives an inspirational speech.

I am about to comment back, when we cross yet another line of power.

For a moment I am too distracted by Mallory to even realize that we crossed the last and final line of power. Some might call this an aura, a field of personal comfort, the stronger you are apparently the further out your aura gets projected. For this monster, it is quite a distance as we are still over a few hundred meters away from the beast, but apparently in its initial zone of attack.

“YOU DARE TO CLAIM THE SACRED LANDS!” The air dragon hisses loudly, its unfiltered voice screaming inside our heads.

It takes me a second to find the internal volume nob and turn it down. Well actually, I find the frequency that the monster is transmitting their thoughts, using Mind Magic, then slowly disturb the incoming energy until it is at a more manageable volume, within my mind.

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Mallory, unfortunately, wasn’t able to find her own volume nob and grimaced in pain as she gripped the side of her head.

It takes me longer to realize that I was able to volumize the mental speech, than it did to actually volumize it. I pause, as I realize this is a good thing, as it means magic and its workings are becoming more instinctual. My mind automatically sees a problem and begins reacting to it as it unfolds. I almost expect to earn an Instinctual Magic skill, but that might not be the best skill to have. I could only imagine all the times I might inadvertently cast a Silence spell on someone who was annoying me by constantly talking. Then having to quickly Dispel that same Silence spell before the person noticed, yeah that would get tedious.

Where was I?

Oh right, giant air dragon I have no way of fighting directly, talking to my mind and apparently disabling Mallory and her lack of mental resistance abilities.

Using my own Telepathy I reply back.

“Look, you overgrown Charmin commercial, all we did was take unclaimed lands, purify them, and make it so life could appear on them once more. If you have a problem with that, then you should have come to us well before we got to this point.” I speak to the creature, hoping that my words and Telepathy send a feedback loop, like the one that disabled the earth dragon. I do make sure to loop in Mallory to our mental feed, so she can respond as well.

“Silence! You dare to argue with the guardians of this land?” The air dragon replies back, his voice once again loud for that first word, but then my Volumizer controls kick in, and make the rest of the words spoken at an acceptable level.

“Argue nothing. An argument implies that you would at least be open to listening to what we have to say.” I say, still moving forward at the same exact pace as we had, when we first entered the true attack radius of the air dragon.

“So what would you call this, I am speaking to you now. If you submit your claims to my lands, then I will only kill you slowly for your impudence.”

“Hahaha,” the smugness that all but radiates from this dragon is enough to get my blood boiling. “That’s funny, because even if you submit right now, I will still make sure to punch you once in the nose.”

Finally, once we get this close, a plan begins to form in my mind. I might not be able to punch the beast in the nose, but there is something I can do.

“Hahaha. Foolish mortal, you think that you can even touch me? I am impervious to mortal attacks.”

Smile.

“Oh, you talk a mighty big game for someone who is effectively a giant ball of tightly compressed accelerants.” Then with that I make my move.

Poof.

***

(Mallory)

Like a lava spitting chihuahua. That was it, the best description that Mallory could now think of to describe her best friend, and the person she trusted most in this world, to do the impossible.

“A lava spitting chihuahua.” This time she spoke the words out loud to herself, as she watched what happened.

In her mind she half expected something like this to happen. Go there, get close, let Cass do her thing, then clean up the mess afterwards, as such an event would undoubtedly create a mess of some kind.

Often times Mallory joked that Cass was like a cannon of chaos, you just find a problem, point her at it, and she will somehow find a way to get rid of the problem in the oddest and most convenient way possible.

This time she had her doubts, as this was as close to an elemental that Mallory had ever seen. The fact that this elemental was in the form of a dragon only seemed to exacerbate the problem that much more. Looking at the dragon, it was clear that even Mallory’s most powerful scythe attacks would not be enough to cause any real damage to the beast as it was constantly losing body parts to the wind, only for those same body parts to reattach themselves moments later.

Mallory had her doubts about this beast, as it was clearly a monster that was designed to be resistant to most physical forms of attack.

In her mind, she tried to break down the problem. Air is apparently strong against Earth, a fact that was proven by Cass in the way she was able to take down the Earth dragon by getting it out of the air, and then moving around too quickly for the Earth dragon to respond to. However, this meant that the Air dragon had to be vulnerable to something else, right?

While Mallory was trying to think of what that something could be, she had her thoughts interrupted as the dragon sent out a devastating mental attack. An attack that apparently only bothered Mallory as Cass never missed a beat of her wings.

Then the next second, Cass even made it so all communications went through her, and was able to lower the voice of the dragon to a more manageable level, a fact that Mallory was immensely grateful for.

Unfortunately, Mallory was still trying to work through her mental fugue that she was attempting to overcome.

As the two spoke, Mallory felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise, as she noticed the warning signs, but was unable to stop them. The way Cass got quieter, the way her words were more direct and menacing.

For the air dragon, Cass likely looked like a particularly cute chihuahua that was doing little more than bearing her fangs at the near elemental creature. Teeth that were attached to a jaw that were far too small to bite deep enough to cause any real damage to the skin.

However, Mallory had seen that look. It was the same look of focus she had before she fought Arch Sky Mage Belton. That same sense of eerie calm, where it was clear she was angry, but it was a controlled rage that brimmed just below the surface.

It wasn’t until she Teleported away that her words fully registered in Mallory’s addled mind.

“Oh, you talk a mighty big game for someone who is effectively a giant ball of tightly compressed accelerants.”

Hearing the words resonate in her mind, Mallory finally had the answer to the question she had been asking herself. If Air was able to defeat the Earth handedly, then what could beat the Air.

WHOOOSH!

Mallory didn’t know if the girl had finally learned to set her body ablaze using that Qi thing she was always talking about, or if it was a new magical attack. Either way the final result was the same. One second there was a snarling pixy and a dragon made out of magically compressed air. The next there was a burning pixy that quickly dashed through different parts of the Air dragon, igniting sections in a controlled pattern that made the dragon almost look like a constellation.

While there was a path that Cass seemed to follow, it was clear that she also seemed to focus on the joints of the creature, staying in those sections for a split second longer than the others, then moving on. She bounced around like a fiery pinball, bouncing into and around the beast in direct paths. The worst part was, it was hard to see where she was at any given point as she seemed to both Teleport and just randomly appear at different sections of the dragon’s body at any given time.

Black smoke.

The once pristine white dragon suddenly began to change color, going first to gray, and then finally to completely black in a matter of seconds, as the tightly compressed air within the dragon’s body began to burn and create noxious fumes.

There was an odd effect of the smoke, as it seemed that the more smoke that appeared, the more permanent the shape of the air dragon became. Going from a translucent cream color to an almost physical obsidian.

By the time she was done, the dragon looked like a monster of myth, with bright red flames highlighting the dark soot and ash of the beast’s body. Worst of all, was the fact that at the center was a giant glowing core of magma. Or at the very least what appeared to be magma.

Poof.

A smoke covered Cass appeared, flapping her wings for a second, as she stared at the monster defiantly.

There was a moment, where the air dragon seemed to bob up and down for a moment, that is when Cass just pointed her finger at the creature and shouted. “Now play dead!”

And like that, the giant Air dragon began to solidify into a dark obsidian color and fall from the sky.

Boom.

The beast landed, its large body making a clear and audible impact on the ground, proving that Cass had somehow managed to make the beast tangible.

Mallory watched on in shock as the apparently impossible had happened, Cass somehow removed an Air elemental from the sky. Honestly, even after watching the whole thing unfold right before her eyes, she was still a bit shocked as to how it all happened.

Shock.

That was the only word to describe what she saw. Yes, Mallory knew the rules that governed this world, that levels weren’t everything, and that every monster has a weakness, but to see such a small girl be able to take out gigantic beasts like this never quite grew old.

Coughing.

Mallory watched as the small pixy began coughing up deep black smoke from her lungs. It was clear that her Healing Magic was already at work expelling the harmful toxins that she had apparently inhaled while inside the burning dragon.

Looking at her, Mallory could only stare on in slack jawed amazement.

There was a moment of calm and peace, where it felt like everything would be fine. Then Cass turned her head, while beating off the ash from her clothes and stared at Mallory.

You know that moment when you mess up, but you don’t know why or how, but the look on your parents’ face tells you that you messed up. That was the feeling that Mallory had right now, a feeling that she was about to be scolded for something she had no clue about.

“What are you doing?” Cass questioned, her words going directly into not only her mind, but also into the mind of the dragon she was riding.

“What?” Mallory asked, trying to think about what she should be doing.

“Guh! Go down there and get that dragon to submit to you.” Cass began, then turning her attention slightly down she stared at the earth dragon before continuing her tirade. “Now that it is tangible, I need you to provide the death grip on it, and hold it still until it submits. Can you do that much?”

The words were harsh, likely harsher than Cass intended due to the fact that she was still coming down from her battle high, but for a moment Mallory almost felt sorry for the dragon who was mentally shaking at this point.

Balthisar, the earth dragon that Mallory had tamed was more than happy to work with her. Though it was clear from the way the dragon began to shiver at the sight of the small pixy, that Balthisar was still frightened of her, and for good reason.

“Well?”

That was all that was needed, as Balthisar did not want to be asked a third time, as he began diving down so quickly that Mallory almost felt her feet slip out from their perch.

Mallory dropped to her knees and gripped on for dear life, as Balthisar went in for a tight barrel role as he got into position to strike the still unconscious air dragon.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mallory saw the still standing form of Cass just floating there in the sky.

Only once they were well away from Cass, did Balthisar begin to slow down before impact. Then he used his mental connection to talk directly to Mallory.

“Thank you for bonding with me and protecting me from the scary one.” Balthisar said.

With that Mallory could only chuckle at the thought of a beast as powerful as Balthisar being frightened of Cass. Then she paused and realized that she had been extremely lucky all those months ago, by befriending the quirky girl who no one seemed to take seriously at the time. At first, she wanted to be friends due to her saving her life, now it seemed that trust was seemingly well placed.

“Yeah, no problem. Make sure to tell this one that he can either join me too, or I’ll send Cass back in for round two.” Mallory said.

“I’ll tell her.” Balthisar corrected, apparently noting that Mallory was wrong with identifying the true gender of the air dragon.

“Of course, thank you.” Mallory sent back.

Then next thing Mallory knew, she was again delegated to the role of clean up, as Balthisar pinned the air dragon with its massive body, making sure to have a sharp clamp on the neck of the beast, while Mallory once again tried to coax a wildly powerful beast to join her.

“What do you want?” The air dragon hissed, as it squirmed and tried to wiggle its way free of Balthisar’s massive bulk.

With that Mallory took in a deep breath, and in her best calming voice laid out the future for this air dragon, as she saw it.

“You have two options. Bond with me peacefully, or I send the pixy back in for round two…”