Albert watched it all unfold in slow-motion. The dragon roared, and its breath attack was unleashed upon the BSA camp. The military was shooting everything they had at it, but the breath simply obliterated anything in its path. It was made of countless sharp stones, held together by brown swirling energies that crackled like lightning.
One single attack was going to completely lay waste to the camp, and with all probability it would end up killing everyone in it.
Albert couldn’t let it happen. Mission be damned, these were good people about to die here. Already the camp had suffered losses from stary detritus and attacks, but this one move was going to delete their presence from the battlefield altogether.
There was only one option.
“Bullet Time, 100-fold. Increased realism mode. Keep realistic gravity.”
The world slowed down to a crawl. And thanks to Bullet Time level three, Albert could choose some parts of the world to be realistic even when the skill was active. Having realistic gravity meant that the effects of the curvature of spacetime were 100 times slower to act on his body than normal.
Which meant that he was 100 times lighter than normal.
Which in turn meant that, together with [Strengthening], he could reach quite far up if he jumped. Enough to intercept the attack with his own body.
Hoping that the ring of protection worked.
Albert readied his healing skill, just in case. Then he finally jumped.
He soared through the air, his jump reaching the maximum height right in the trajectory of the breath attack. It was moving rather quickly even with time slowing down a hundred times, and the swirling brown mana keeping the stones together was ominous and dangerous, radiating energy that could be felt before the attack even reached.
He suddenly realized it might be a bad idea to tank such a powerful hit. But perhaps, with Bullet Time, he could spread the impacts out so as to not overload his shield.
The first part of the attack hit him, and he could feel the shield come to life. It protected him both from the impacts and from momentum buildup, allowing him to remain stationary even as rocks and boulders hit him with incredible force. They shattered, and the wild mana holding them together was released into the air.
He shielded himself as best he could. Healing any damage that managed to slip through where the shield failed to protect him.
Albert did not wait idly for the attack to pass by though. He had plenty of explosives in his arsenal, and when he noticed that his shield was about to expire, he just dumped all of them where he was and teleported out, using the five-meter sphere of instant teleportation to reappear standing on a moving projectile of the breath itself.
The world was petrified in its state of utter chaos, condensed in a peaceful bubble only visible to Albert thanks to his skill. Only a few seconds left before the timer ran out. He was going to make the best of them.
Gravity still worked funky, and would continue to do so until Bullet Time entered the mandatory five minutes of cooldown at the end of the supercharged slowdown. A fair distance away, Albert spotted the open mouth of the dragon, still spewing out magic.
He was out of explosives, the package hovering in the air behind him, but he was not out of options. Jumping from one loose boulder to the other, keeping his balance as best he could and using teleportation when he couldn’t, he made his way towards the gigantic enemy.
Bullet time ran out right as he reached its face, and he jumped ahead just far enough that the top of the dragon’s head entered his 5-meter bubble. He teleported and appeared standing on top of the dragon.
Time was flowing normally now. The package Albert had left in the path of the beam had detonated, diverting and destabilizing the breath attack until it lost just enough cohesion that the BSA camp was only grazed by it. The shockwave traveled back through the breath and into the dragon’s mouth.
It exploded. Something, some organ inside the monster took the brunt of the backlash and blew up, sending the dragon recoiling backwards and forcing Albert to stab the monster with a long knife as not to lose his balance.
Stolen story; please report.
This was real time, and split-second decisions mattered. Albert was only glad he learned martial arts and combat strategies a couple days ago, because if he hadn’t done so, he doubted he would have had control enough over his body to not fall down.
From his vantage point at the top of the dragon’s head, there were many things he could do. He studied his enemy for a moment, but when he noticed that the military on the ground had once again resumed their attacks, he knew his time to think was over.
The BSA had spread out and were taking positions to set up artillery so that even if the dragon attacked one station, the others would still be able to shoot at it for a while longer. It was a commendable thing, but unfortunately for Albert it meant that the dragon was once again swooping down towards the ground to attack with its mouth.
It was a good moment to consider how lucky they had been this dragon had no arms and no magic other than its breath attack. Lucky, yes, but not too much so because despite all the damage the dragon sustained it was still perfectly fine and they were getting absolutely destroyed.
The BSA had lost a third of their men and weapons, and Albert was running out of options. A couple more fireballs were shot at the dragon’s face as it descended towards the camp, splitting and changing their direction as to hit it in its weak points. The dragon even ate a couple artillery shells before swallowing both the men operating the weapons and the cannons themselves.
It recovered in a matter of moments.
Albert had been forced to teleport down before the dragon’s jaw snapped shut and killed the two poor men or he would have been knocked into the air.
He drew upon his dwindling mana supply and fired some more. A lucky shot – lucky as in he had been aiming there for a while but only now managed to hit – exploded right in the dragon’s left eye.
The monster roared and thrashed in pain. It stopped for a moment, then regarded Albert with hatred. For the first time, Albert felt like there was an ominous and evil intelligence beneath all the stone the dragon was made of. It had awoken, and it was angry. If this had been a video game, he would think phase two of the bossfight was coming.
Indeed, it was almost the case. All of a sudden, all the scales detached themselves from the dragon’s body, leaving tender stone exposed, and started to orbit around its head like a crown.
“Don’t tell me—”
Then they started raining down.
The bad thing: Bullet time was still unusable for three more minutes.
The good thing: the dragon was aiming at Albert, and not at the BSA, and its aim was terrible.
It was time for the skill Dodge to shine. Albert fell into a trance state, flowing and moving in a fluid dance to avoid the incoming projectiles, sometimes resorting to a quick teleport, otherwise letting his instincts take over.
Dodge Skill level up!
There were no new things with the level 2 of Dodge, just better dodging. By now, the BSA had decided to cut their losses and retreat, what few soldiers were left unwilling to get slaughtered for no reason. At least the quest to protect them was going to get easier.
Albert also tried to attack, making use of any window he could get. Between one volley of scales and the next, the dragon had to summon scales from farther back its body, stopping its attacks for a few seconds as the scales flew to replenish its floating crown.
That’s when Albert attacked, teleporting in and firing as many fireballs as he could. Until, finally…
Battle hones your skills. Your skill: fireball has acquired a semi-random mutation.
Fireball Skill level up!
· VIII: Every 5 spellcasts, you gain the ability to summon the next fireball anywhere in a radius of 200 meters. The fireball will be empowered to up to ten times its normal destructive power.
Without a word, without even a moment of hesitation, Albert summoned five fireballs in a row and sent them flying at the dragon. The stone monster was successfully distracted, and sent scales to intercept the attack. all the while a gigantic ball of fire ten times the size of a normal fireball was summoned right in its face. It exploded, washing over the monster, cooking and cracking its tender stony flesh. The water and the ice raining down from the sky evaporated, along with all the moisture that had soaked inside the dragon’s surface.
Its sudden transformation from water into steam added to the explosion, expanding holes and cracks until entire chunks of rock, horns, scales and teeth fell to the ground and made craters in the mud.
The dragon was stunned for a split-second before it turned around and started to retreat, coiling back around the Pillar.
“I did… it?”
A long pause came from the other side, where Lloyd was staring at the now much clearer satellites images. Slowly the rain cleared, and the clouds dissipated, allowing Albert to see with his own eyes what was happening.
The reason the weather was better was that the dragon was absorbing energy from the rift and blocking supply to the Pillar. It was regenerating, the damaged body growing back at a breakneck pace.
“Albert!” Lloyd yelled in his ear, shaking him out of his daze.
“Wait! The dragon, it’s stealing energy from the pillar, right?”
“Holy shit! Yes! You need to move, quickly!”
The shield was down.