The dragon focused on the enemy close to it and continued to attack while also seeing many more closing in. However, whenever there was an opportunity, it launched fireball attacks towards the long-range fighters. The dragon was now feeling a lot better as it was finally starting to kill enemies further away from itself and the enemies that had arrived also lost some of their numbers from its first tail attack.

The fighting from this point onwards was brutal. Its fireball attacks were devastating which caused the long-range fighters to start constantly moving to stay alive. Two groups of long-range fighters were, however, quite safe - one being the ones who were with the earth mage and the others who were with Salazar. While Salazar couldn’t directly attack, he could still defend himself and if there were others around who were currently fighting, it was none of his business.

The close-range fight was incredibly chaotic and brutal. While everyone had designated areas, almost none were able to follow their instructions. This caused many deaths and the numbers of the more than 100 fighters started to quickly drop. The rest of the fighters quickly learned to stay away from Rich and the Queen’s right-hand man as the dragon was focusing on them the most. Both were able to deal damage even though the dragon was most focused on them, but the Queen’s right-hand man had an easier time thanks to him focusing on ice-type abilities.

The Queen’s right-hand man’s attack caused an icy mist to start covering the battlefield which made escaping the Dragon's attacks even harder. They were, however, slowing down the dragon so no one was complaining.

The dragon was taking more and more damage and slowly it was starting to slow down. It was being attacked so often that it still hadn't been able to use its breath attack which it was now trying to do at every opportunity. The fighting dragged on and then began to slow down as everyone was tired. During close to the one-hour mark since the beginning of the fight, the Queen’s right-hand man found an opportunity to launch a large attack.

This, however, caused the entire area to be covered in icy mist but luckily this mist wasn't dangerous to others. "Fuck, sorry!" was heard from inside the icy mist. The Queen’s right-hand man’s apology meant little but most accepted it as a genuine mistake on his part.

He, however, was smiling from ear to ear as he manipulated the mist so the dragon would still be able to see one person - Rich. The dragon, not wanting to waste an opportunity and already familiar with how Rich fought, executed a plan that it hoped would deal with this annoyance once and for all.

The mist was almost immediately clear when the dragon moved its entire body but it was still too late for most as a tail attack was already speeding towards them. From this one attack, seven were killed immediately, two were injured but most importantly for the dragon, it was able to deliver a direct hit against Rich.

It had done that before and once again Rich made himself as light as possible and was sent flying by the attack. The dragon, however, expected this and was already about to release its breath attack in the location where Rich was going to land.

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Rich was down to about half his energy reserves when the mist hit. When he heard the apology, he knew something was wrong. He immediately flooded his armour with as much energy as possible which boosted his defensive abilities to the max. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the mist but when he could finally see, it was too late. A moment later the mist disappeared and the tail was already too close to be dodged.

When he was sent flying, his mind started to find a way to cause the Queen’s right-hand man’s death but his mind came to a screeching halt when he saw a glint in the dragon's eye. The next moment, the dragon's mouth opened and flame started to blaze out of it. Where he would land, was in the perfect position to be burnt alive.

Quickly, he drove his sword into the earth and while he did succeed in slowing down, he lost the grip on his sword and unfortunately, he landed still too close and the dragon only had to adjust its fire breath a little.

Rich was barely able to take cover behind his shield and pump every bit of core energy into his defensive abilities to try to survive. He tried to move away but he now understood why people didn't survive dragon fire. It had mass to it and all of his strength was used just to keep the shield from slipping. This, however, would only extend his suffering. He felt like he was being cooked alive and he was. He saw his armor was already half melted and the shield was only able to survive thanks to his core energy.

After a few seconds, he also figured out why dragon's fire was so good at burning things to dust. It didn’t simply burn the physical but also the very being of the thing it was burning. It was only thanks to his soul resistance that he was able to think so clearly while being surrounded by the flame.

The dragon was incredibly mad as the stupid creature still hadn’t died so it continued to push out more and more flame, hoping that the annoying creature would finally die.

Rich, sensing the dragon's desire for his death, knew that he needed to do something. Without hesitation, he pulled out the throwing spear that he made and while protecting it with his own body, started to flood it with energy.

Rich didn’t have much of it left but he distributed it so he would have just a little bit of core energy left to protect himself while he launched his last attack. As soon as he started to throw, he needed to move the shield and unfortunately exposed himself directly to dragon fire.

Almost immediately, his armor started to disintegrate. He put as much strength into his throw as possible and basically all his energy which caused the spear to almost crackle with strength. It flew true and the flames themselves hid its flight.

The dragon didn't even understand what happened as the spear pierced its upper roof and struck its brain. The spear exploding from the energy it held and destroying itself and the brain. The dragon's fire immediately stopped and it slumped down dead.

No one immediately understood what happened and a few attacks continued to land on the dragon but as soon as people figured out what had happened, everyone's eyes landed on the person lying on the burnt earth, gasping for breath.

Rich’s right hand was burned to the bone. Many other places had no armor left, only deeply black flesh. The armor that was left was either smoking or melted. He looked like a burnt corpse, but somehow there was still life inside of it.

As soon as Rich was hit with fire, every single fighter from the United Freeholds abandoned their positions and started to rush towards their leader. The first to arrive immediately poured a healing potion into Rich's mouth and every single fighter afterwards started to use more healing potions and removing the damaged armor. They were able to keep and even stabilize Rich before the Guild healers were able to arrive and truly start to heal Rich.

The news had broken out that the dragon was dead and there was a celebration. Quickly, swarms of resource harvesters fell upon the dragon to extract every bit of wealth possible. The Queen's right-hand man was incredibly angry. His plan had backfired and now Rich had a huge stake for the resources of the dragon and he knew that Rich was going to be a huge problem in the future.

He gripped his sword and readied himself as he prepared to rush in and finish him off but before he could, he felt dread. Salazar had appeared behind him. "Clear out, the resource gatherers need space to work," he said. While gritting his teeth, the Queen's right-hand man backed off, knowing he now couldn't do anything.

Rich was in a bad state but even then, he had gathered a small amount of energy to try and defend himself from the Queen's right-hand man. With the dangers past, he finally could let himself pass out. His injuries were bad and most should have died from them but Rich was stubborn and clung to life with every ounce of willpower he had even if he didn't want to.