“Hmm, I know master does not wish to stand out but with this situation I judged that it is safe to say that master will permit using some magic as long as it is not too flashy.”
Mareritter who walked to the roof’s edge started increasing his pace before he jumped to another building and then another, heading to the flock of wyverns.
Some wyvern riders noticed a lone man approaching them so one of them descended, intending to kill him. The rider was about to use a long range magic attack when suddenly the man vanished from his sight.
“Uwahh!?”
Suddenly his wyvern mount shook and flailed before it resumed flying normally.
“And here I thought people from current age has really found a way to control these animals but it seems I was wrong… Now that I see it up close it turns out that my original suspicion was true… How unpleasant.”
“Eh?”
The wyvern rider turned his head to find the man, Mareritter, was standing behind him in perfect posture despite the unevenness of a wyvern’s back.
“Excuse me, can you tell me who dominated the animal you are riding?”
“W, what? How did you…?”
Surprised, it took the rider 5 seconds of silence before he started unsheathing his weapon and swung it at Mareritter who put his foot at the rider’s wrist, effectively stopping the swing. Standing on one leg and blocking an attack with another while on top of a flying wyvern. The impossible feat made the rider open his eyes wide with jaw hanging loose in an almost comical way.
“Hm, it does not seem you know about the domination… I am sorry for taking your time. Farewell.”
Saying that the smiling Mareritter raised his foot that was on the rider’s wrist and suddenly that same foot was covered in crackling black and red electric sparks before he stomped onto the wyvern’s back. The wyvern whose back turned grayish squirmed wildly while letting out a pained cry. The grayed area continued to expand with the edge covered in the black and red electricity. The corroded area started to crack before it breaks into small pieces. Then from the expanding corrosion a spark touched the rider’s arm which also started turning gray. Mareritter simply jumped off from the dead wyvern who fell down taking its screaming rider along.
Because Erik’s mana capacity was raised before he entered the gate with Azanthys, Mareritter’s ability was also raised hence mere spark could trigger the phenomenon. Although saying that Mareritter has retained more of his past ability would be more accurate. Of course the rule that the stronger the enemy means their resistance will also be higher still applies.
Landing on another wyvern that was on higher altitude among the flock, Mareritter who kept smiling the whole time disabled the wyverns one by one in similar fashion and finally jumped off to a nearby building as the last wyvern in the flock fell.
“It seems our real enemy has started to make their move… Well, the thousand year pact has finally expired so it was just a matter of time until they start. I hope mother will tell master everything so that I just need to fill in the smaller details.”
Remembering that another flock of wyverns were approaching from the opposite direction Mareritter immediately resumed his assault.
“Ummm… is this a side effect of mana exhaustion? Am I seeing things? How can someone who don’t have any weapon take down that many wyverns by jumping onto them one by one like that? Or am I dreaming right now?”
“My eyes must be as bad as yours or if this is a dream then we must be sharing the same dream…”
Similar conversation could be heard from both the magician and the archer team who saw the whole thing.
Yusa also rubbed her eyes before reaffirming what she saw once again.
“Should I say… as expected of Erik bro’s acquaintance? I won’t be surprised anymore with any kind of absurdity if Erik bro is related…”
Yusa was not too shaken since she witnessed Mareritter killing a venem urm with a cheap knife before but the scenery she just witnessed was still beyond her common sense.
“We’re also that man’s acquaintances so that logic is kind of flawed. Just in case you didn’t know, I can’t do something like that.”
Martlea who lost all her previous tension commented to Yusa’s remark.
The still weak Liz who was held by Yusa also looked at Mareritter but her expression was that of worry. Erik should have gone to the tower with Azanthys and Mareritter. But Mareritter was instead here fighting the demon race army while Erik has not returned. Now Liz is worried about two different things. One is the fact that Erik only has one person helping him to conquer the tower which is rife with danger. The other was that it means Erik was ‘alone’ with Azanthys. These feelings piled on top of a severe mana exhaustion and her previous turmoil of having to kill her fellow demon race plunged her psyche into chaos. As a defense mechanism to prevent further mental breakdown her mind shut itself down and thus she lost consciousness.
“L, Lizzy?”
Yusa who noticed Liz’s state shouted worriedly and Martlea immediately checked on Liz.
“... Don’t worry, it seems she just fell unconscious. She’ll need the rest so just hold her like that for now. I think we will be safe anyway.”
***
“I don’t mind fighting both of you at once but it seems the woman isn’t in her best condition.”
Izarea furrowed her brows to the fact that was stated by Alurio. She did survive the return trip from demon race territory but not without any damage. Hidden by the spare armor she currently wears was the bandage covering a large cut on her lower back. Even standing should be painful for her.
“I don’t need your concern but if you’re worried about me then mind if you do me a favor and just drop dead like, right now?”
“My, what a sharp tongue you got there. A lady should be prim and proper don’t you think? .”
“Nowadays you call that discrimination.”
Izarea threw a knife as she said that and after giving a glance at the guild master she brandished her sword while running to circle and get behind Alurio who casually dodged the knife by shifting his posture.
Somehow showing a reluctant face to Izarea joining the battle the guild master also responded to Izarea’s glance by fixing his stance. If the enemy was using magic then why wouldn’t he do the same? Now that Izarea is supporting him he could use some opening to concentrate and chant some attack magic. Likewise, he could attack while Izarea prepare some magic.
As Alurio turned around to cope with Izarea’s swift attacks the guild master prepared invoked a certain magic in low voice.
“Pulsem tremus en vraes rans vibrus rau urtredt rammant tes ur oscaloptas!”
A strange high frequency humming sound was heard and accompanied by the sound the guild master also dashed forward to attack Alurio.
Having just blown away Izarea who blocked Alurio’s big swing with her sword, Alurio immediately noticed the guild master due to the humming sound and proceeded to swing his battle axe onto the guild master’s lance’ shaft. Expecting the lance to be pushed down Alurio opened his eyes wide when it was his battle axe getting repelled with force instead. Judging that it is impossible to dodge with his posture broken Alurio who also thought that blocking the strangely blurred lance with earth wall will be useless opted to use earth magic to raise the ground he is standing on to move himself up and away from the thrust.
Before the raised ground under him was destroyed by the guild master’s lance Alurio didn’t bother to fix his broken posture and instead utilized it to somersault away from the lance’ reach.
“Uwaaah, that was dangerous. What did you do to your lance?”
The guild master did not answer and instead pressed forward. The guild master actually made his lance vibrate in high speed and frequency except at the handle which was made specifically to not transmit the vibration from the shaft and thus he would have no trouble holding it normally.
“Tch, what an unsociable guild master. Ah well it’s probably ur oscaloptas right? I can use it too and I think I can do it better.”
Sensing Izarea coming from behind Alurio also invoked the same spell and swung his violently shaking weapon down. With rumbling sound the ground was gouged and it shook greatly followed by cracks spreading as far as 10 meters away disrupting Izarea and the guild master’s steps.
“I never used this spell on my weapon before but this is making my hands feel numb… not gonna use it again I think.”
Surprised that Alurio moved without problem close to her who staggered when the ground shook, Izarea unsteadily swung her sword at Alurio who dodged it and kicked her in the stomach.
“Gukhh!”
“Izarea!”
Before Alurio could attack Izarea again the guild master threw his lance at him and so Alurio had to dodge, giving enough time for Izarea to recover albeit she was gritting her teeth, obviously in pain because the attack on her stomach was strong enough to also affect the wounds on her back.
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“Throwing your weapon away instead of using the opening when I kill her to land a proper hit on me… hmm hmm? Is the lady actually quite important?”
Both Izarea who slowly moved closer to the lance stabbed on the ground and the guild master who was left with only his shield looked at each other without answering Alurio’s question and then they acted simultaneously. Izarea threw her sword at Alurio before she dashed to grab the lance while the guild master charged right at Alurio without raising his shield.
Sighing before he used his axe to bring down Izarea’s sword instead of dodging. The guild master clicked his tongue since he intended to grab the sword to attack Alurio. The guild master immediately responded to Alurio’s axe swing with his shield, producing a loud clanging sound.
Izarea was about to use the chance to attack Alurio but suddenly Alurio’s dragon mount bent its body and dropped a claw at her to which she dodged by throwing her whole weight to the side and rolled away while groaning in pain from her wounded back touching the uneven ground.
Extending its other arm to Alurio who then hopped onto it, the dragon brought Alurio up close to its face.
“Aah, this is getting boring. Can I take back my words and just let the dragons attack already? I forgot that it’s my third wife’s birthday the day after tomorrow so I need to finish things here quickly. Wait…was it actually my fourth wife’s birthday?”
‘So it has come to this’, was what anyone could make out from the guild master’s expression. Even from his own point of view the earlier battle took longer than expected. Several adventurers who overheard Alurio also showed their desperate expression.
“Okay then…”
“TAKE HEED.”
Alurio stopped when he heard a loud voice reverberating from the sky and like everyone else raised his vision up to bear witness to a scenery that can be seen by almost everyone from demon race territory to the west and until Valis Republic to the east.
A silhouette is literally enveloping the sky. Because sunlight could still seep through its semi-transparent nature the surrounding was only slightly darker as if under the shadow of a tree.
Most people could not immediately figure out the overall shape of the silhouette due to its size but the people to the South could make out figure of a dragon’s head, while to the west and east they could see multiple wing like shapes branching out, what could be seen to the north was a long shape that gets narrower as it stretches like that of a tail. Later on people who gathered information about this phenomenon will then create an infamous painting of a dragon based on the silhouette but that is another story.
***
--Just before the start of battle in Arx Norr--
“Give it up, human. No matter how many times you attack, those husks of second gen will never be able to even just make a scratch on my body.”
“Is that so?”
Looking at the chips and dents on the blades I am using I think I need something at the level of Azanthys and Mareritter to deal somewhat proper damage. I can use Azanthys but I don’t think I can handle two of these dragons at once. While it is clear that whenever I hit the dragon’s metallic scales the short swords I am using are losing its shape little by little, this guy was lying about me not making even a scratch.
Just like Azanthys and her abilities, this guy uses a huge amount of mana to maintain his metal transformation. Full body metallic transformation without losing flexibility and elongating metal tail. Neither is small feat so it makes sense that a huge amount of mana is necessary. This information also came from Azanthys but she judged that my attack would be able to chip at his metallic scales except that his pride will make him to immediately repair it as if nothing happened and that uses up even more mana than the transformation for same amount of area. I barely noticed that the damage caused by my countless attacks were all getting repaired in mere fragments of a second.
Now the problem will be who loses his patience or stamina first and in my case, also weapons. My arms also received quite some backlash damage from hitting the dragon’s body. While I am faster and all my attacks hit they couldn’t make much damage. In comparison, even just one of the dragon’s attack can seriously damage me and rob me of my mobility so I had to dodge them perfectly but the tail attacks are hard to predict. So far the tail attacks victim was just my armor but I don’t know how long I can keep it up. This fight has also been going on for more than half an hour.
Of course if I chose to wait until the dragon completely run out of mana then I’m sure it’s me to go down first. The thing I’m waiting is not to that extent.
*Clang*
“Whoa!”
I never counted but maybe after several hundreds of slashes the short sword in my right hand snapped right at the middle part of its blade when I slashed at the dragon’s hind leg.
I threw the remaining half at the back of the dragon’s head but it just bounced off in pieces.
“Have you not learnt that your struggle is futile, human?”
“Don’t worry, I’m quite earnest if I do say so myself. You’ll need at least three more of ‘you’ to make me consider giving up.”
I dodged a tail sweep by ducking and then I moved forward before the suddenly stopped tail came whipping down. During the time I held up the centipede carapace shield with my left hand after I switched the still usable short sword to my right hand.
Just for the sake of trying it out I did a shield bash to the dragon’s left foreleg but the backlash is severe as expected.
“What are you even doing, human?”
The dragon used the same foreleg I just hit to brush me off so this time I used my shield to block the incoming claw swing while jumping backwards to lessen the impact.
Before I was blown away I finally noticed the thing I was waiting for. Up until now the dragon’s body was completely metallic including the eyes but just now I saw that the joints on the foreleg was in its original color. The dragon has started preserving its mana.
It is basic knowledge that when you don’t want your opponent to notice your weakness then you just need to hide it. If the dragon adheres to that then I simply have to check every possible places.
The dragon chased me who just landed and used its right claw which I dodged easily but then its right wing came sweeping as the dragon used the momentum to spin. I frantically dodged the blade like metallic wing by bending my body full backwards, barely missing it, but then next came the tail whip.
“Hrghh!”
I gritted my teeth and received the tail with my shield and was once again blown away, this time while receiving the full brunt of the impact. I immediately do a barrel roll as I touched the ground but I still painfully bounced off against gravity twice.
I checked my shield as I raised myself up to find several cracks on it. My left arm was kind of numb but I can still move it without problem.
The dragon has finally doing some real attack on me so he’s starting to get impatient. This supported my suspicion so I can stop holding back too.
“Tch, so you can still stand. From a human standard you’re already a monster. I will admit your strength.”
“Took you long enough. But I can still go for more you know.”
No more fuel saving for both of us.
I dashed and reached its left flank with a speed faster than before. While making a slash as feint I looked at the joints on its foreleg but they are are metallic right now. Did it notice my line of sight before?
Clearly surprised by my speed the dragon scowled and reacted by jumping up and then it flapped its wings.
Not this pattern again… human can’t fly dammit!
There’s the ceiling so the dragon can’t fly too high and I can jump ten or twenty meters just fine but I’m vulnerable midair while it can move freely. I don’t think I can maneuver fast enough against this one even with using ice platforms.
“Hey, isn’t flying too much for fighting a human? Winning like that won’t feel good don’t you think?”
“Hm, indeed… “
The dragon descended slowly after it muttered so. This one isn’t stupid but has too much pride for me to make use of like this.
Right when it touched down I also made my move and attacked from the front. This time the dragon was prepared for my speed and responded by opening its jaws wide. Don’t tell me, breath?
“Tch!”
I changed direction and jumped to the side before a silvery cloud of dust swept past me, leaving countless scars on the floor. What was that? Some sort of metal powder breath? As I was thinking this time the dragon shot its breath above me and created a wide cloud of silver colored particles which congregated into many of glass marble size. Suddenly they poured down and its literally raining bullets for me.
Left with nowhere to run I raised my shield above my head and curled to decrease any surface area for the bullet rain to hit.
This is my first time experiencing a rain with every drops capable to dig a deep hole in the ground. My already cracked shield shattered after several hits so I used the body of my short sword to protect my head in its place. It hurted like hell and some parts of my armor turned into pieces while the black snake jacket got torn here and there. It seems my body held out just fine except from some minor bleeding. Since when did my skin and flesh became stronger than learis steel alloy? Damn thanks to fantasy settings! As for why the whitish ice armor reinforcements on my back didn’t break, well… we’ll find out later.
“You’re getting quite fired up now, eh? Finally taking me seriously aren’t you?”
“... What kind of human are you? A summoned hero? Even among those hateful summoned heroes I knew there was no one strong enough to still be able to stand after taking that.”
“My, feeling cornered now?”
“Humph, don’t get conceited, human!”
The dragon lunged with both claws raised and then it launched a flurry of claw slashes with some sneaky tail stabs at me. I unsheathed the serrated sword to dual wield and inserted some counterattacks in between my parrying and dodging. From sidelines it will look very surreal, I mean a human and an Opt**us Pr**e sized dragon are exchanging blows. Even I also thought that what I’m doing is rather absurd. Strength wise it seems I’m able to match the dragon but my weapons clearly aren’t. Just how hard is this dragon’s body anyway?
I tossed the broken short sword and took out a wyvern fang dagger. I’m down to my original set of weapons now but it seems the dragon is in similar situation. I smirked when I saw my chance and moved forward before slashing at the base of the dragon’s left foreleg with my serrated sword. The dragon raised a pained howl as blood spurted out of the gashing wound.
“YOU!”
Without concern to its own body the dragon used a breath attack at me who was still close to its foreleg. Of course I jumped away to dodge it.
After the breath dissipated I saw that the blood had stopped since the wounded area is now metallic. Since there is no change to the shape of the wounded area maybe it is safe to say that rather than healed it was just like placing a bandage made of metal on the wound. I don’t think the dragon still has the leisure to completely fix a wound that deep anyway.
“You can’t pretend that my attacks aren’t working anymore now.”
An irritated growl escaped the dragon’s mouth… err, jaw as it looked at me menacingly. The dragon stopped hiding its true feelings now.
“You… I’ll make you regret ever facing up against me. Fiammre!”
Fiammre?
The dragon looked sideways so I followed its line of sight to see the other dragon who was fighting Azanthys who is in wing mode. I remember the dragon being covered in flame but now along with the flame covering, its left wing and foreleg are covered in Azanthys’ white ice instead. The white ice is her third form of ice which is far stronger and colder. She unlocked it somewhere around the twentieth floor. It shouldn’t be possible to freeze immaterial things like flame but the white ice can do just that. The mana usage is of course very high and for now she needs to be in her wing mode to use it. I gave her permission beforehand of course.
“What? Can’t you see that I’m busy here, Rogannus? I didn’t think Azanthys can use the Lhordes Glacis with a human as her master.”
I guess Fiammre and Rogannus are their names.
“Yeah, I hate to admit it but we have underestimated the human too much. Just come here, we will do that!”
“Tch, there’s no helping it then.”
The flame dragon, Fiammre, avoided Azanthys’ white ice boulder, jumped and landed next to Rogannus, the metal dragon.
“Human, let’s make this two-on-two. You use Azanthys’ weapon form.”
As Rogannus said that Fiammre turned into a greatsword shrouded in crimson flame. At first it was at size usable by human but as Rogannus reached its claws to reach it, the greatsword enlarged and now became a giant sword. Oyyy, what the heck? A flaming sword wielding metal dragon? Like, seriously?
“Master… don’t worry… victory… will be… ours…”
Azanthys released her wing mode after she landed next to me. I returned my serrated sword to its sheath and held Azanthys’ outstretched hand.
“Yeah, let’s do this, Azanthys!”
“Firmnates, nostrael ar domineum!”
After giving me her affirmation Azanthys turned into her weapon form in my hand and that signaled the continuation of our battle.