Noah’s four bodies sought as much distance from the dragon as possible. Though, due to the size of the beast and the constraints of the barrier, he was only able to get so far. The four bodies perched on the larger floating rocks in four different cardinal directions around the dragon as Noah began to attempt to make observations.
‘Definitely not an isolation barrier. All collisions with the barrier are perfectly elastic, it seems. Maybe superelastic?. I shouldn't recklessly touch it.’
As Noah pondered, the dragon opened its jaws wide, and a blinding ball of pure radiance began to form between them. The dragon’s head then swiveled to one of his bodies.
Noah began to react the moment he saw the formation of dragon breath, but he was not fast enough.
For a moment, it looked as if the world within the barrier had been swallowed by the sun. Under the pure ray of absolute firepower that burst out from the dragon that expanded as it traveled and obliterated almost the entirety of the direction it was fired in, everything else around it was lit up with an unyielding radiance!
It was only because the bodies of Half-Loki were built upon trickery and escape, did the body that had been in the way narrowly dodg the direct beam.
Yet, as the beam whizzed past, the body that had narrowly dodged was bombarded with the barrage of dust and debris that had been blasted backwards alongside the beam at subsonic speeds. With the durability of a body that could barely compete with only a low circle Lord-ranked warrior, the body of Half-Loki was shot to the barrier. It was then bounced off with more momentum than it possessed at the incident collision, and rocketed to the ground like a missile.
As the world within the barrier dimmed back down with the fading of the beam, the stain on the ground was the only proof the body of Half-Loki had ever existed.
Noah had three bodies left.
‘Shit. This is why most of the planned strategy with me and Evan against the dragon revolved around preventing use of dragon breath. It's just too fucking powerful. I have a feeling that no matter what form I take, that’s an attack that will pulverize me. Isn't it practically a cheat? Now that I think about it, it looks suspiciously like a larger and more wild version of Zenith’s lasers… Anyway, I need to avoid combat until I can figure out this barrier. I'll consolidate my points first.’
The three bodies flitted from floating debris to debris at over a dozen hops per second, hoping to stay mobile enough to avoid the dragon as he thought. With the three remaining bodies traveling at maximum speed, the dragon could not fire at a random cardinal direction and hope to eliminate one of the tiny bodies anymore.
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The infuriated dragon began to flap its wings. As its colossal body began to hover in place, the ferocious gales that rushed away from the wings sent the floating debris into chaos, forming eddies of rock and vegetation. The remaining three bodies were forcefully dragged into the natural disaster, and Noah deftly pounced, smoothly dodging all masses that headed for him.
One of the bodies of Half-Loki detected a pebble-sized piece of debris within a cloud of dirt and dust rocket towards its head right at it landed on another fast-moving floating site. Quickly understanding the pebble to be unavoidable, it swiftly constructed a shield of blood and warded off the pebble, then rapidly absorbed the blood back before landing and jumping onto another rapidly moving mass of debris.
‘Okay. About this barrier, and this weird space within it. First, the fact that the darkness of the night was completely replaced with bright, source-less light, when coupled with the fact that this sanguine-enhanced nose can't smell the forest anymore, it's safe to assume that this is somewhat of a different world entirely. Especially so when these floating rocks are considered. Fuck’s up with them?‘
‘Second. When the Half-Loki body hit the barrier, it bounced off with more force. The impact felt like an explosion, rather than a wall, when the body touched the barrier. It seems collisions with the barrier are superelastic. All these things tell me almost nothing. Is this some strange, undocumented dragon magic? Possible. Almost no one has fought dragons head-to-head after all, it's not strange that there are things unknown about them. I need to find out more about this space before engaging in combat.’
‘Still, though, what a temper on this guy! He would definitely be the type to break his keyboard after losing in a video ga-fuck, flashbang!’
Noah’s inward insult towards the dragon was abruptly cut off when another dragon breath was fired, momentarily blinding all three of his bodies. Of course, the beam was unable to hit the three nimble bodies. After Noah recovered from the searing light, he continued his train of thought.
‘Each body has only been loaded with enough mana for running and dashing around, so roughly one percent of my mana each. That totals up to roughly seven percent of my total mana lost after seven bodies were obliterated. Seven percent. Hmm. Definitely not a good feeling. In a battle of so many unknown variables like this, running out of mana really would not be ideal. Though, I think I've reached a stalemate where I ought to be able to continue running for quite a while. Good. I'll continue this until I've figured out what's going on. I refuse to fight without a firm grasp of the circumstances. I'll even expend more mana if I need to, so I can keep this up for days on end. Dragon breath, even with a dragon’s amount of mana, would not be a small expense. I reckon I could turn this into a battle of attrition, then?’
Noah’s countenance solidified into one of firm resolve as he made up his mind on his approach. Reflecting this decision of his, the three bodies seemed to settle into a comfortable pattern, one which the dragon was able to identify after an agonizing half-hour.
“Enough!”
A gruff, mature voice cut through the sounds of swirling dust and colliding debris.