The Sootscale Dragonling landed with a loud thud, shaking the ground and blowing up dust. Meera used the cover of the dust to litter the area with her tiny mirrors. Next, she pulled off her level 2 chakrams. Two she kept in her hands and spun the other two around her. This thing was too strong for her to play around with her regular ones.
If all my enemies are going to be this strong moving forward, I might as well make them all into level 2 chakrams.
But she couldn't waste any Mana making more right now. She needed to conserve it, especially since she didn't know how strong dragons were. If Kalrina's analogy of humans being roaches compared to them was true, then she was in one hell of a fight. The only thing that gave her comfort was that she had killed a higher-level being than the dragonling.
"We don't need to fight," Meera said, hoping it understood what she said.
The dragonling stared at Meera with its snake-like eyes. Something about them chilled Meera to the bone. She was sweating underneath her armor, even if she did her best not to show any outward sign of terror.
"You can just go your way, and I can go mine," Meera said.
Once again, the dragonling did not respond. It just kept staring. Meera figured that it couldn't understand human speech. But still, she didn't make the first move. Hoping against hope, it was one of those situations she had heard about on the news. Once, a bunch of people came face to face with a tiger in a jungle, and the tiger simply stared at the people for a little while before it left.
As it turned out, this was not one of those situations. The dragon reared its long neck back and opened its mouth. But before it could shoot flames at her, Meera stuffed a bunch of sharp mirror shards in its mouth with Mirror Shard Barrage. The dragonling cried out in pain, shut its maw, and backed up while ducking its head.
Meera angled her Mirror Shard Barrage beam to its head, only for her mirrors to harmlessly bounce off the hard dragon scales.
No…You cannot be serious.
She used Mirror Step, teleported right next to the dragonling, and used Mirror Blast with a considerable amount of Mana.
Mirrors and light burst out of Meera. Anyone else would've been ripped to shreds, but the dragon merely grunted as it was pushed back. Thanks to her advanced vision, she saw some of the dragon's scales come loose, exposing the skin underneath. Thanks to her Mirrorstrike Vision, it glowed red, letting her know that this was a weak spot. Other weak spots were its eyes and wings, none of which held any major organs.
The dragonling roared. A shockwave erupted from its maw, and Meera prayed it didn't paralyze her. It wasn't paralysis, but it rattled Meera to the point that she wanted to dig a hole and throw dirt over herself. It was causing an irrational amount of fear. But that was not all. Meera's sharp vision became disoriented. She saw double or even triple of everything.
Meera saw the dragon rear back its head or was its leg. Not risking it, she raised a Mirror Tower Shield in front of her, only for five superheated daggers—which Meera realized too late were the dragonling's claw—to come crashing through her shield. Her armor might as well have been made of paper as they slashed her and sent her flying into the house on the other side of the street.
Meera screamed as her arm burned something fierce. She activated Vitalize. Her vision had stabilized somewhat. By chance, her arm was down, which protected her internal organs, but the dragonling nearly took her arm off. Her arm had been slashed to the bone. Her armor regrew around her arm, closing tightly around the wound, stopping the leaking blood.
Meera groaned, but Vitalize was doing its thing at full speed. She quickly pulled out a Health potion and was about to drink it but stopped.
I might need this later.
These few seconds were all the time the dragonling gave her. It turned its head to her and shot a massive column of fire from her mouth. Meera used Mirror Step and teleported behind the flame-throwing dragon.
She recalled her four chakrams, which had dropped to the ground when Meera's concentration faded due to the dragon's roar. She activated Shroud of Shadows and turned invisible as she stood in the shade of the house on the opposite end.
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I'm not making the mistake of getting close to that thing again.
Her Mirrorstrike Vision showed no other weak points. Its scales were the perfect armor, but she had other skills she had yet to try. She pointed at the dragonling and placed a Death Mark on its back.
The dragon must've noticed something was amiss, as it stopped its flames as soon as the Death Mark appeared and turned so fast that Meera's hair whipped around in the wind.
Its cold eyes studied the empty, ruined homes. A cold sweat trickled down the side of Meera's face. Thankfully, it didn't see her. As soon as its eyes moved on, she used another devastating skill in her arsenal.
Meera activated Spectral Dominion.
She called on three shadow warriors. They looked like three tall warriors made of shadow and darkness carrying long swords made of Shadowsteel. The dragon's eyes flashed back to her warriors in an instant.
She hurriedly pointed to the dragonling. "Kill," she commanded.
Her shadow warriors ran to do her bidding. The dragon flapped its wings, raising wind and dust that got in Meera's eyes, making her turn around. She rubbed her eyes furiously and willed her armor to cover her head entirely, not even leaving slits for her eyes.
Her shadow warriors dashed to the dragon. The windstorm the dragon had kicked up did little to slow them down. Meera launched her level 2 chakrams high into the air, above the raging winds, and rained down on the dragon's wings from above.
Her chakrams cut massive holes in the dragon's wings, slowing the winds. Meera turned them around again and again, reducing the dragon's bat-like wings to nothing more than tattered drapes. The dragon cried out as green blood dripped from its ripped wings.
But the dragon did not get a moment's respite to counterattack as Meera's shadow warrior attacked it with Shadowsteel. The dragon unleashed its fury on the warriors or tried to, as it tried to bite into one after another. They would dodge or duck, and the others would continue their assault.
They did their best but could not find a chink in the dragon's scales. They were just too strong to penetrate, but the shadow warrior's repeated assault seemed to be bearing fruit as several scales began to get loose. The frustrated dragon began glowing from the inside. Its grayish scales looked like glowing embers.
Meera ducked into the house and activated three layers of Mirror Tower Shields. The dragon released a sudden burst of flames in all directions, scorching the wide road and lighting many houses on fire in the vicinity. Two of her shields cracked and shattered, but the third held and saved her life.
But the main casualties were her shadow warriors, and thanks to the light from the burning homes, she was no longer invisible.
Meera gritted her teeth. Those shadow warriors were costly, but they had done their job beautifully, as several of the dragonling's scales now lay on the ground. They had given Meera many more weak spots to exploit.
She activated Shadow Coating on all four of her level 2 chakrams and launched them at the dragonling. They moved fast, and the growing dark of the night gave them enough cover that they had reached the dragon by the time it noticed.
Her first one hit it at the knee of its right hindleg, where the scales were missing, thanks to her shadow warrior. The chakram lodged itself in the dragonling's flesh, making it cry out. Then, it began spinning like a circular saw. Green blood flew everywhere.
The second and third chakrams hit the big hole that her Mirror Blast had created. The dragon let out a shrill roar that made Meera's ears hurt. It tried to fly away, but its wings were shot to shit.
Her first chakram finished its work and cut off its leg in half. The dragon toppled to the ground as it cried out pitifully. But it was not done. Its eyes met Meera's, and it shot a flame bullet that moved faster than she could see. She formed a Tower Shield, but she was too slow. It ripped through her shoulder, leaving a smoldering hole in her shoulder. She swallowed her screams. Vitalize had not finished putting her arm together and began work on healing this new injury, too.
Meera glared at the dragon and put it out of its misery by launching her last chakram in its mouth and out the other end, cutting its head in half.
She thought that was the end of it, but no, the dragonling had one last trick up its sleeve. It began glowing again as it crumpled inwards.
Verna, who had hidden herself so far, poked her head out, thinking the dragonling was dead.
Meera's eyes widened. She recalled her chakrams and teleported to Verna. Thankfully, there were many mirrors around the girl. She put her arms around the girl and jumped behind the massive pillar where Verna had taken refuge.
Meera activated three layers of Tower Shields in all directions right before the dragonling's body blew up. Flames and the dragon's scales blasted in all directions. This blast was nothing like the one from before. The earth shook so violently that it mimicked a violent earthquake. The first two layers of her shields shattered instantly. Meera created two more, and they lasted only a few seconds longer. She created two more, but these squished them in further.
The shaking slowed, and the barrage of scales stopped. The heat from the flames evaporated. Meera's last layer of shields held until the dragonling's vengeful attack finally stopped.
Meera sighed and fell to a knee. "Are you okay, Verna?"
"Y-Yes. But you're hurt," she said.
"I'll be fine in a few minutes."
"You'll be dead in a few minutes," said a woman's voice, coming from inside the house.
Meera was up in a flash with a chakram in hand.
The woman stepped out of the house and looked no better than a beggar. Her face was dirty, her hair matted to her head, with leaves stuck in it. She had a black eye, and the lower half of her face was covered in a mask.
"What do you mean?" Meera asked.
"Never kill a dragon. More always come to avenge their fallen." She pointed to the sky.
Meera turned, even though she didn't need to, but what she saw made her blood run cold.
Three dragons were coming towards them.