Scarlet

Huh. Well then. This is not what I was expecting.

I stare at the massive fucking dragon that’s currently standing in the volcano while staring back at me. And after a few seconds, it begins to flap its wings and fly up into the air, following which we float on opposing sides of the crater facing each other.

Hmm. Yeah, this’ll be harder than I thought.

Tar.

“Got it,” he says without any hesitation. “Good luck.”

Then he vanishes. Because even he can be hurt by my Red Plague, and if the battle gets bad enough, then it might even spill into the void where he usually watches.

And now, with Tar gone and a massive wall of lava blocking the other competitors from interfering, I finally let a full-blown grin stretch across my face. I even let out a laugh, probably shocking more than a few of the viewers.

My blood feels like it’s boiling right now. Like it wants out.

Like it wants to eat the fucking dragon in front of me.

And what self-respecting Warden wouldn’t let their ward eat? It’s only natural after all.

So I let the Red Plague out, near instantly filling the sky with nothing but Red Plague. Just glowing red blood for as far as the eye can see. Which, for the dragon, can’t be very far.

To my surprise, the dragon – who I can see through my blood since it’s my own blood – suddenly begins to glow with a dark black light. Then black flames erupt all across its body, fighting back against the reality devouring plague with its own reality devouring hellflames.

What shocks me more than the dragon’s ability to fight back at all though, is the sight of the black flames actually competing with the Red Plague without just instantly being devoured.

A sight that proves just how much stronger this dragon’s hellfire is compared to Vorgrim or Red.

The dragon rushes through the sky full of Red Plague before raising a claw and striking me faster than I can respond, sending me flying through the sky until I crash into the ground. And when I look back at the creature, the only signs of damage on it from its strike is some small black mist rising from its body, proving its blood to be black, along with the slow deterioration on its claws that doesn’t last long. Deterioration from my Red Plague blood it cut through.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Then, just as quickly as the claws deteriorated, they regrow without the dragon even looking at them.

My grin grows even wider.

It’s about time I found something that could put up a real challenge again, even against my Red Plague.

I’m not holding back this time around.

The Red Plague I’ve already released suddenly flashes once, then twice, and finally a third time. Then it all rushes back towards me and converges into my body. But it doesn’t end there as I quickly begin growing larger and larger, using the condensed Red Plague in my body to increase my mass to match the dragon’s. And, of course, I make my clothes grow too. A benefit of them being made of Red Plague.

Something I’d realized during my void creature hunt. I can deform and reform my body in any way I want so long as it’s my body. So long as I don’t create new parts and the like.

But the skill never specified a size that I had to reform myself at.

Both the dragon and I end up reaching incredible heights in the middle of the black flame and glowing red blood covered wastelands around us, with the large pillars of lava still blocking anyone from getting near.

Then I go ahead and push things further by transforming into my quadrupedal beast form, leaving me standing at almost two dozen meters in height, with black fur streaked with crimson, glowing crimson eyes, and razor sharp claws made out of pure metallicized Red Plague.

I raise my head before howling at the sky once and lowering my head again. Meanwhile dozens upon dozens of creatures made out of my Red Plague blood albeit diseased even further with a slightly grayish tint to them appear all around me. The creatures more often than not look like malformed wolves, but with no flesh. Just blood. Although some of them are even made out of metallicized Red Plague blood.

And they’re all ranging from the size of a normal wolf to several meters in height as they all howl or growl at the dragon who is currently looking around at me and them.

Of course, I also feel the massive boost from both Blood Thirst – which I made sure to max out before arriving here through the wonderful help of the monsters on the way – and Apex Predator. And blood soon begins to rain down from the skies above the volcanic region filled with Red Plague that kills off the area around us even further.

The first time I’ve used Rain of Blood with Red Plague for a while now, since the last time I did it I had to quickly stop. Because it began to try devouring the entire world.

Which, even if it was an empty world with no one on it, wasn’t a very good idea.

This time around is different. The Rain of Blood version of the Red Plague is weaker even if it can devour a planet, so it shouldn’t break the reality around us. And the others are all far away from the lava pillar by now, with the exception of Amelia who seems to be attempting to break through it. With no luck.

And, last but certainly not least, I begin to drain the energy, power, life energy, mana, whatever I can that isn’t life force out of every being within my range. Whether that’s competitors or monsters.

I just drain it all while watching the dragon, who, to my surprise, appears to be waiting for me to finish my preparations.

How kind of it.

Looks like dragons really are arrogant in real life too. Not just in games.

“Let’s play,” I growl out loud using that odd non-speaking speaking thing that blood lycans can do while transformed.

And immediately after saying it, both me and the dragon rush towards each other, one limb raised to clash.