I put more oomph behind the spell tugging the wagons and disengage. I shift into a hawk and fly up and to the side, going on a perpendicular direction away from the tracks' soft curve.
That dread was well-placed. I had no guarantees I could survive this encounter, although I wouldn't pull any punches this time and was way stronger than before. But the cost of dying at the wrong time was too much.
I did as she asked. Barely failing. My guess was that if I added a few more happy hundred citizens, I'd succeed.
The dragon swerved and made a beeline to my position. I bellowed my challenge.
"Dragon! I'm Robin of Locksley, King of Windamere! You are a threat to my citizens! Turn around now or face defeat!"
The dragon's answer was to bellow an ear-splitting roar that washed over the whole valley for kilometers and crushed the hearts of the weak with the sheer hatred it conveyed.
I doubled up my speed, shifting to the arrow-tail swift for extra horizontal speed. I had to lead it away from the train. The dragon glowed with a green aura and doubled his speed. I also used wind magic to part the air resistance in front of my beak and push me from behind and below.
Three kilometers give or take separated me and the train when I decided to go on the offensive. I switched my wellspring to the Manastorm mode and turned. I broke left and initiated a barrel roll, shifting to the peregrine falcon form for added maneuverability. It caused the speeding behemoth to overshoot and placed me in the perfect spot to dive at his back.
This dragon was bigger and older than the red one. Smarter too. His tail flicked and crossed the path of my descent. I became incorporeal and it passed through me.
> Black dragon's blight aura heals you for 5,000 HP.
Bloody Hell! The guy used death magic. I kept on my path and landed on its back. I spared a moment to appraise the beast.
> {Elder Dragon}
>
> level 157
Divinity detected. The guy had divine energy on his body. Bloody hell indeed! The guy had a title. I landed on its back as I shifted into my hybrid form. The guy deactivated his blight aura the moment the next healing notification popped up.
His scales scratched my {Mana Strike}-imbued claws. I broke two which promptly regenerated but that was not the point. The hardness of this dragon was absurd. Flakes of keratin from the claws flew in the windstorm. The tail flicked again and I dodged. An entire third of my build was made around fighting attached to a bigger creature. I was over the dragon's hindquarters. Dashing down to its butt, I dodged a tail slap with {Drop from the Saddle} and he struck himself. The scales cracked with the force of the blow.
I also drained his lifeforce with the banshee perks. There was no significant change so far.
Reaching the base of his tail - the dragon's voice was definitely male - I tried to use {Dire Shape} on me. My werecat form grew and I felt my muscles swell and tighten up. Going incorporeal, I dove my muzzle through the scales at the base of the tail and wrapped my fangs with force constructs. I bit down, using the Force spell as a denture.
The dragon roared in pain as the tail separated from the body and vanished. I felt it in my storage. The bleeding effect lasted all of five seconds. The stump started to bubble up and grow. I paused for a few moments as I sensed through {Skin Sight} that the tail regrew at timelapse video speeds.
That was all the opening the dragon needed. He'd twisted his neck around and bit down on me. I learned one spell from him.
> {True Strike}: Supernatural precognition turns the next attack an automatic hit. Normal critical chances apply. You can only use this spell once every twenty-four hours, as the threads of time become too disturbed to be predicted again by you.
Cheater!
> Elder Black Dragon bit you. You lost 473,749 HP. Mana Shield burned 157,916 MP. (Base 824 x 4 Strength x 5 Skill x 3 Deadly Bite x 2.25 Ghostslayer II x 3 Mana Strike x 3.38 Lifebane III x 0.56 Dragon Slayer)
>
> Your left leg was severed.
>
> Your right leg was severed.
>
> You are bleeding. (...)
>
> You are stunned (...)
>
> You were forced to materialize.
He bit again.
> Elder Black Dragon bit you. You lost 3,142,611 HP. Mana Shield burned 1,047,537 MP. (Base 911 x 2 critical x 3 Death Blow x 4 Strength x 5 Skill x 3 Deadly Bite x 2.25 Ghostslayer II x 3 Mana Strike x 3.38 Lifebane III x 0.56 Dragon Slayer II)
>
> Luck Check failed. Your Critical Resistance perk did not avoid the critical hit. <---------------- You don't say! Luck is USELESS!!!
>
> Your left arm was severed.
>
> You are bleeding (...)
The loss of all appendages keeping me latched to the dragon made me fly away, spiraling down into the ground a kilometer below. My health reached zero and I started to lose MP thanks to {Pinnacle of Magic} which allowed me to shift the damage to my MP entirely.
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* Pinnacle of Magic (very rare): Your magical power is at the limit for a mortal. All MP costs are halved. No external effects can damage or drain your MP. When your HP reached zero, all damage you receive comes from your MP pool.
I also noticed the Dragon was unaffected by my Manastorm. He must have {Pinnacle of Magic} too, of course. With his level, he could very well have five Attributes maxed out. The dragon turned around. I could sense it changing directions.
My stun wore off. I shifted into a snake, the lack of three out of four limbs temporarily no longer a problem.
This thought passed through my mind: "At least I got some sweet dragon ass!"
If the dragon heard, he wasn't amused. I doubted the concept of mirth was known to him. He finished turning and dove down. He came with his mouth open. The bastard had rows of teeth that would give a shark nightmares, going all the way back to his esophagus opening.
"Stand still! This is a {Royal Geas}!" I shouted at him.
> Royal Geas is unable to affect Royalty.
Of course, he's a dragon king. How foolish of me.
The teeth came. I did what every self-respecting reptile in my situation would do. I shed a tail to survive. His tail. I lived for another minute as the dragon bit his own ass. The now self-cannibal spat the tail to the side.
The ground was surprisingly close. I aimed for a rocky outcropping and dove into the stone. I felt the impact of the massive aircraft-carrier-sized dragon landing on the surface. My size assessment might be a bit distorted. Don't quote me on that.
Using an Earth spell to propel me, I swam down the rocks, finding a place to stop and shift back to my were-jaguar form, allowing my regeneration to recover my HP that still sat at a flat round zero. Of course, the dragon wouldn't give me a respite. I felt his massive claws digging through the rock as if he was carving styrofoam with a lightsaber. I dove deeper. The dragon dug. I started to recover HP but it felt like the speed of a snail doing the moonwalker dance. {Sense Depth} told me I was two hundred meters away from the surface. One hundred and eighty. One hundred and seventy. I was diving but the surface was getting closer. The fucker was burrowing after me.
Ah, how the haughty fall. Did I think I could kill a dragon with half as many levels as me? I pumped SP into my {Tissue Regeneration} medical Skill to get my limbs back faster.
I opened my full Status and searched everything for that one forgotten perk that would help me turn the tables. I found none. My limbs were at the knees and shoulder already. My health was halfway refilled. My MP was slowly recovering. I shifted to SP every time it capped so I could double-dip the regenerating resources.
Five meters to the surface. The dragon was upon me. I became incorporeal and jumped up and out of the rocks. The mouth came. I blasted wind magic in a desperate attempt to propel me through the air. The teth closed and I was out in the air.
> Incorporeal Defense evaded Elder Black Dragon's bite.
I'm not even surprised a guy with {Ghostslayer II} can hit incorporeal targets.
Woot, thank you, defensive perk that never worked before. I blasted air on the other direction and belly-flopped on the dragon's neck, behind his skull.
He clawed his nape and I dove into his neck. Using my only working arm, I crawled down his neck. That's when he used his world-famous dragon breath.
> Elder Black Dragon's corrosive breath struck you for 15,342 HP. Mana shield burned 5,414 MP. Magic Eater fed you 51,333 MP. (base 6,000 (-900) x 2 Improved Breath Weapon x 3 Endurance x 2.25 Ghostslayer II x 3.38 Lifebane III x 0,75 Magic eater, x0,75 Affinity x 0,75 magic resistance x 0,25 corrosion resistance II)
That was per second I was exposed. The HP I lost quickly went away as the dragon somehow could fill an oil tank with his acrid vomit. Because let's be honest, what's a dragon's acid breath made of? But something weird happened. After my HP reached zero, my MP grew by thirty thousand each second. I was sated and quite full of eating magic but the Dragon's breath was regenerating my MP after all the crazy math was done.
I knew what he was doing. Somehow he was flowing the acid breath back and forth in his elongated throat. Cheater! I'm going to repeat it a thousand times.
My HP capped and my limbs regenerated. I sometimes popped my head out to breathe but I could stay for about half an hour now without breathing because of my high Endurance and the perk Yznera and Galbarar gave me.
Still thinking of what I could do to get an edge against this cheater, I decided to take a bite off of his neck flesh. From the inside where it was safe, cozy, warm, and gave me thirty thousand MP per second.
> Your {Vorpal Bite} failed. Elder Black Dragon's {Instant-kill Resistance} protected him.
>
> You ate the flesh of an Elder Black Dragon. Luck test succeeded.
>
> Monstrous Gourmet granted you the following traits:
>
> You gained the perk: Corrosion Healing (ultra-rare): 10% of all corrosion damage before reductions heal you.
>
> You gained the perk: Draconic Constitution (ultra-rare): Increase the Attribute modifiers for your HP calculation by 50%.
Zesty, stringy, rotten, acrid. That's how I'd describe his flesh. But who was I to stop eating gross things that were trying to kill me? I didn't even bother to put a contract. I knew the fucker would come back to life.
> You killed level 151 Elder Black... <--------------- Don't even bother. Here she comes.
"{Reverse Fate}!"
The Broodmother's voice rang from the firmament. The cheatest cheat of all cheaters cheated death itself.
The bastard regrew from the neck down, dislodging the zero HP me. Even though my HP pool maximum jumped up by two million, it was still sitting at zero. No free healing for me, it seems. Where did the rest of his body go? Into my pocket, that was. I put a contract on the reborn bastard and dove to latch back on him.
"Game on, motherfucker!" I roared at him.
The dragon dove at me. Like Robert Downey Jr, I used repulsive blasts of air (because I wasn't that cool) to maneuver and dodge until I could latch back on the flying Exxon Valdez. Because they both carried dark ichor and were doomed to sink.
I ran up and down, dodging a tail, claws, and even the bite as he snaked his neck around to nibble at his own scales. Mobility was the key. I felt preternatural easy to dodge him. His divine energy was at the top even though I was draining him. Was the Broodmother bankrolling him? Or...
The bastard was a demigod.
And a dragon too, doh. I was double-dipping on the {Favored Enemy} bonuses.
The safest place to be when riding a dragon was between the wings. I went there and repeated my spectral force denture bite from within. A wing vanished in a poof like an illusion as the dimensional storage claimed it. Another wing was growing while I bit the other one.
Then we plummeted. Because even the cheater that would need the Brooklin Bridge to use as a stretcher couldn't fly without any wings.
"Curse you, Anomaly!" He spoke.
"Bring it on. As if I don't have enough of those already! I'm farming you, bastard. I'm going to farm you out of so many dragon parts I'm outfitting an army of goblins to take over the world!"
He roared in pain. I got to give it to him. The dragon was going out on a limb to get me killed. Who was I to deny him his wishes? Just like the Barnyard pizza guy, I shouted, "Dude! I got an arm". And a minute later, a leg.
I jumped off the dragon before he crashed. The aftershock flung me a couple hundred meters away. I smashed into a tree and broke it, taking the hit on my MP after the dregs of HP I'd regenerated vanished in a poof of splinters.
EBD roared in pain and frustration. I shifted into my jaguar form and ran. I couldn't let him regenerate all his limbs, could I? Payback time, bitch.
I bobbed under a bite and jumped on the neck. Fell the magic, hear the roar. Your left arm is loose. Then the last leg one to complete a full set. And the tail because who doesn't want to get some dragon ass.
The guy's ridiculous regeneration rate also blocked him from bleeding for too long. A second or two and it staunched. I climbed on his head and cut his horns.
"Curse you, Anomaly! Just kill me already!" He cried in frustration.
"Call your mommy here, because I'm ripping that cheater a new one. Now shut up and get rekt. C'mon, regenerate it. Daddy wants dragon wing drumsticks for dinner!"
Yeah. I wanted the other cheaters to pop out of nowhere for round two. I was so pissed, so angry. I farmed his wings again. The paw. As soon as it regrew, I cut it. Sometimes it took four bites but without mobility, he counted as a defenseless target.
He breathed acid all over me and himself. I didn't care, the next rank of Corrosion resistance only increased how many MP I regained from that.
"They won't come. I give up," The dragon said. "Kill me and end this torture. But know this, there shall be enmity between you and all of dragon-kind for eternity."
I kicked his head and roared, "And what changes if I don't kill you, cheating motherfucker!"
"Nothing. You are anathema to this world. All will perish, drained dry by you. I'm weak. I can't regrow my limbs."
I could hear fluids sloshing. We were probably in a lake of dragon blood but I couldn't tell. "So be it. You fought well, dragon. I held no ill will toward your kind, but if you come at me to murder me at each and every corner, I'll answer in kind. Farewell."
He closed his eyes. I made sure the contract was there and bit his head off.
** CHOMP **
I couldn't believe the notification that popped up as I finished him.
The body vanished and I fell in the lake of blood. I started to shape barrels out of the stone I had in storage and fill them to store the precious and not-so-scarce-now resource. I laughed maniacally as I bathed in the blood of my greatest foe.
I was the fantasy version of John D. Rockefeller. I'd struck organic black gold.
Night fell. The lake of blood was now a coagulated crater. The magic permeating the place would mutate this region forever. I shook the clots away from me and took wing, transforming into the swift because NatGeo told me it was the fastest bird for long distances.
I flew back, homing on Nenandil's location. I had two dragon bodies and enough limbs to make my own Hecatoncheires dragon golem.
I also had a headache reading my kill notification.
> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.
>
> For killing level 151 Elder Black Dragon King, you gained 243,094,609,082,645 Exp. (Base 228,010 x 3,05 EXP Boost V x 3.05 Monster Exp Boost V x 7,57 Favored Enemy Exp Boost x 7,57 Death Contract V x 10,000 Fast-Learner x 0,01 Slow Learner x 100 size x 20 rank x 10 Class rank)
That's two hundred forty-three trillion, ninety-four billion, six hundred nine million, eighty-two thousand, six hundred forty-five Experience Points.
Who's the cheater now, fam?