Skyler looked rather grim as she looked at the road before her, she could still feel the heat coming from the melted cement and the smell of burned flesh was overwhelming.

Dragons were powerful beasts, she knew that as did all the other citizens. Their physical defense was extremely strong and their firebreath could even burn through the majority of wards without a problem, only the strongest mages in the city would stand a chance against them.

That meant that it would take a while for them to arrive, by the time they did the entire southern city would probably be ruined.

Skyler hurriedly looked around trying to find a place to hide, the calamity shelters would be a deathtrap, the roads there were probably all destroyed by the dragons who were known as murderous yet intelligent creatures.

As for the clocktower, no matter how sturdy it was, it wouldn’t survive a dragon’s breath and may even cause him to catch their eye specifically.

Thinking of other options, Skyler glanced at the rooftops, perhaps it would allow her to get a better overview of the city and allow her to make a better choice.

As she thought that she noticed a figure standing at the edge of a rooftop looking out towards the dragons. The figure had a black mask on and was wearing an exquisite cloak. His hands each had a gauntlet, one with white tints and another green.

Skyler was in a daze as she looked at the mysterious figure, normally she would think this must be some sort of noble mage who liked to dress exquisitely, but she couldn’t feel any magic waves coming from them at all.

It was at this moment that the individual took a small square box out of his cloak. He casually threw it a few feet in front of him and Skyler could immediately see the box shift, it seemed to unfold itself turning into a huge stationary cannon after just a few seconds. Blue lights lit up on the side of the cannon’s barrel and from where she was standing Skyler could just about see a blue display used to control the weapon.

‘Impossible!’

Skyler was stunned at the display since she still couldn’t feel any mana being used, this went against everything she believed.

The figure didn’t wait for her to figure out her thoughts though as he grabbed the handles of the huge cannon, he aimed it at the nearest dragon who was green in color, and fired.

“BOOOM!!!”

Even with Skyler’s hearing damaged she could still clearly hear the cannon being fired as a blue beam shot out of the cannon.

“CRASH!!!”

A huge explosion occurred as the green dragon was hit right in the side, one of its wings was lit up with blue flames as the dragon fell, screeching as it went down.

‘How domineering!’

This was all Skyler thought before she noticed something.

All of the dragons now turned towards the figure, stopping their destruction of the city. This meant, they were all heading in her direction.

“Shit!”

Skyler’s face tensed up as she made the realization, then she realized there was nothing she could do. She was too weak to do anything in a situation like this, she didn’t have any weapons, and even if she did she would be helpless against even a baby dragon. And even if she ran into a building, a dragon would be able to destroy it with a single breath.

At this point, the mysterious figure fired the cannon twice more but both times the dragons, who were now on guard, managed to dodge the shots.

Seeing how he wouldn’t be able to get another shot in before the dragons reached him, the figure left the cannon where it was and began running across rooftops heading the dragon furthest away from its group, the dragon was blue and the second largest in the group.

The blue dragon looked at the figure with its menacing gaze before opening its mouth, about to spit its icy flames.

It was then that the figure raised one of his arms and a white web came out of one of their gauntlets. The web was small but extremely dense and sturdy, unlike something a spider would make and much, much more durable. Additionally, it was aimed well, going right into the dragon’s mouth.

When the dragon tried to spit its fire, it was stopped completely by the web. Skyler could see blue and white light coming from the neck of the beats as it seemed to panic, but a moment all that ended.

The dragon’s death wasn’t explosive nor was it majestical. It was a terrifying sight seeing this mighty beast trying to survive while its innards were being destroyed.

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“And here I wanted to save that for a while.” the man spoke from behind his mask looking at his white gauntlet with a hint of sorrow.

He didn’t have the time to linger though as two more dragons approached, one blue and another red.

The man showed acrobatics unlike anything Skyler had seen before as he jumped from building to building, outrunning the breath of the two dragons, moving where they couldn’t reach.

Then, he jumped more than ten meters into the air, being propelled by a booster under his cloak midway as he landed atop of the red dragon.

He raised his green gauntlet high as a knife came out of it, then he attempted to stab down.

It seemed the individual had underestimated the hardness of the dragon’s scales though as the knife was unable to penetrate them.

During this time, Skyler hadn’t been sitting still. Even though she realized earlier there was nothing she could do, that was only for that moment, one of the biggest reasons she was a skilled strategist was her ability to take in and use new information to her advantage, changing plans on the go.

This was why she was currently no longer on the ground but had instead climbed up to the nearby rooftop.

She could see the red dragon had purposefully crashed into a building, throwing its attacker off of its back and into a pile of rocks.

And as this individual was trying to get up from the rubble, the blue dragon approached, its mouth wide-open.

Skyler cursed inwardly as she ran to a nearby device that had been left behind, the cannon.

From close by she had a better idea of the device. The barrel was made of some sort of metallic alloy shining in a blue luster. There was a blue control panel flying above what seemed to be some sort of steering wheel used to aim the cannon.

Without hesitation, Skyler put her hands on it, and as soon as she did a new screen popped up to her left showing a targeting system.

Even though she had no idea what most of the things she saw before her did, that didn’t matter right now. She aimed the cannon to the right, where the battle was happening, and was glad to see the weapon seemed to have an auto lock-on as the targeting system spotted the blue dragon heading for the individual. And so, without any further hesitation, she pressed the large red button on the control panel, hoping she guessed correctly.

For a moment, she was unsure. But after that, a giant surge of energy came from the cannon as a blue streak of light headed towards the blue dragon.

The individual, who was just about to use one of his trump cards to survive the dragon’s breath suddenly saw a blue ray hit the beast’s head, this didn’t only throw the head to the side, causing the flames to miss, but also knocked the beast out, causing it to fall to the ground.

Stunned by the sudden save, he looked at the cannon he left behind earlier, giving Skyler who just helped him out tremendously, a nod.

Skyler nodded back from quite the distance away as the cannon powered down, seemingly out of energy.

Skyler felt cold sweat on her forehead as she stepped away from the cannon looking at the battlefield. The red dragon had gotten out of the rubble and flew up again, joining its last brother who had been keeping a distance thus far.

This final dragon was nearly double its size and completely black in color, Skyler had a feeling it was a lot stronger than the others.

As Skyler got worried for her benefactor’s survival she suddenly felt a mass of magic waves from her left, when she looked she saw five figures flying closer.

Even though most only seemed vaguely familiar to her, there was no way she wouldn’t recognize the centermost mage. The ruler of this city, Ronald.

“We’ll take care of the black dragon, you take on the red one.”

Ronald’s voice was amplified with magic and easily reached the mysterious individual who gestured back with a thumbs up shortly before jumping atop the red dragon again, now trying to remove one of its scales.

In the meantime, the five mages were incantating a spell together, in between them a small white ball was formed and the mana coming from it increased more and more, despite this the black dragon seemed uninterested in attacking as it simply looked at its brother trying to get rid of the human on its back.

It was at this time Skyler finally dared to hope that things would turn out alright. The mysterious individual had finally managed to remove a goal and rose their green gauntlet in the air once more while the five mages finished their spell and had an insane amount of magic power stored within the small ball.

Then, they shot the spell towards a dragon.

It was just the wrong dragon.

The individual hadn’t expected his temporary allies to betray him before the threat was neutralized and was caught unprepared; as soon as the white ball hit the red dragon, Skyler knew he was done for.

Then, as she saw the direction the charred dragon and its human rider were falling towards, she realized she might be done for.

Seeing the red dragon falling right towards her, Skyler began running as far as she could without falling down five stories to the ground.

When she reached the edge of the block, she could only hope for the best.

“CRASH!!”

A heavy force impacted Skyler’s chest as she was thrown back, five stories down.

Her breathing felt heavy as she felt blood filling up her lungs. She barely managed to open her eyes and finally saw what had crashed into her. It wasn’t the dragon but the rider. His mask had cracked showing his face. Despite the new burns he looked rather handsome, that was if you ignored a fourth of his face was made out of metal with one eye being mechanical. He opened his eyes too and Skyler knew they were both in the same boat, they were both moments away from death.

‘This isn’t a bad way to die.’ Skyler thought with her eyes closed once more, ‘At least it was an exciting end.’

But before she could breathe her final breath, she felt a hand on her cheek, she opened her eyes and saw the dying man looking at her.

“You tried to save me earlier.” he said between harrowed breaths, “Let my last act be saving you.”

He looked up at the sky with both his mechanical and biological eye and spoke with a now surprisingly stable voice.

“I hereby wish to change the succession rules for my link. After my death, my link will go to the girl that is now beside me.”

After saying these words he laid down his head, letting out his final breath.