The plan was simple.

Since Soleil or her equipment couldn’t be endowed with the holy attribute, the key strike would be delivered by Matthias instead. The former’s role would be to hit the drake hard enough that it would be unable to defend itself from his sword. Once struck with a holy element attack, its recovery speed should, at the very least, be slowed enough for Soleil to completely overwhelm it.

Unlike the undead depicted in popular media back in his old world, zombies did not “die” from simply having their brains destroyed or their heads severed. Because they were reanimated by magic, they could keep moving even when they were missing their heads. The only way to destroy them was to remove the magic in their bodies. There were two popular methods to do that; one was to sever their limbs, which would allow the mana to leak out of the stumps, or to forcefully deprive them of their mana through the holy spells of clerics.

But an undead drake had such an incredible regenerative ability that the first method would not work as it was. And since the priestess couldn’t cast a spell strong enough to work on the drake—because otherwise, they wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place—then Matthias thought a combination of the two methods would work on it.

“Go on my signal, ‘kay?”

“Yeah.”

Soleil stood ahead of the group and waited. She didn’t even turn her head as she asked.

Though the final version of the plan required her to beat the drake hard before Matthias went in, she refused to do so while it couldn’t retaliate. And that was despite that part of the plan being suggested by her. Even at that point, she was more concerned about having a fair fight; a show of confidence, sure. But after watching their battle earlier, nobody could ever doubt her ability.

A minute passed. After some progress, the drake finally pushed with all of its might. With a painful snap, its horns broke off and it was finally free. Losing a horn or two did not matter to it. A new one will grow or the lost one will simply reattach itself within a few seconds. But Soleil did not intend to stay idle and watch. It was already out. It could fight. That was the only thing she needed to know.

She bent her knees and leaned forward. Her hands touched the ground along with her left knee. Then, she raised her hips higher than her head and placed power on her right foot. The mana she used to augment her body glowed brightly. It traced the veins on her foot and ran up to her calves, turning them bright red. Upon her signal, she kicked the soil hard. She instantly disappeared from her position, leaving behind a shockwave that pushed Matthias and the priestess back. A momentary whistling sound could be heard before a loud crash. Rocks fell from the ceiling and the entire room trembled.

The dragon fell to its side, roaring in pain. A large hole had been bored into its side. Soleil kept going and went straight into the opposite wall. Her attack created a series of sounds not dissimilar to an attack from field artillery.

But as in the past, the wound quickly began to heal. First, it was the bone, then the organs, and then finally the muscles and rotten scales. Within a few seconds, it was whole again. That was fine, though. All Soleil intended to do with that attack was to push it to a corner.

He thrust his hands forward and concentrated. Thinking of the spell, the incantation immediately appeared in his mind.

But unlike normal mages, he didn’t need to recite the incantation to cast it. Usually, that was when mages were most vulnerable. A mage reciting an incantation became the focus of everybody’s attention, as they could perform destructive attacks or cause disruptive effects if they finish. Perhaps owing to his god’s blessing, he only needed to recall the incantation for the spell to work. From an outsider’s perspective, however, it looked like he could instantly cast spells.

“Muddy Water.”

Although, he still needed to call out the spell’s name.

Mana streamed out of his fingertips and seemingly disappeared into thin air. But from a distance, the ground underneath the undead drake bubbled like boiling water. The area quickly expanded, and as the effect reached its legs, the monster immediately sunk into the earth.

“That’s amazing,” the priestess remarked with glittering eyes. Matthias smiled in satisfaction with her feedback. After all, it wasn’t a regular spell, but one of his originals.

Sensing the opportunity, Soleil jumped to a part of the walls where her line of attack was perpendicular to Matthias’. She briefly removed her scarf to drink four vials of holy water at once and replaced it. And that was when she began her real assault.

She was like a ball ricocheting repeatedly between slingshots in a pinball machine. Each time she launched herself off a wall, a line of rubble and dust would trail her, followed by a short mess of guts and bone after she scored a hit on the enemy. At first, her attacks were slow. But as the drake became more and more predictable with how it reacted when bound, the interval between each of her attacks shortened until each jump could be made after one deep breath.

Though it was undead, being a high-rank one allowed it to feel more than just its hate towards the living. The way it could cry out from pain proved it. It struggled to defend itself due to the quicksand under its feet. And as Soleil continued her relentless assault, its roars of frustration and anger became that of fear and desperation.

“Even the undead are scared of the “demon lord”, huh?”

Matthias smiled wryly. Perhaps, that was the secret to Soleil’s strength; she truly believed herself to be the demon lord and worked hard to become as strong as the legends.

As Soleil’s attacks became more and more brutal, Matthias guessed that the time to act must be close. He turned to the priestess and nodded solemnly. She nodded anxiously in return.

She brought her hands together and murmured a silent prayer. A faint glow once again enveloped her body. At the same time, a vague sense of comfort and warmth overtook Matthias. An inexplicable power seemed to burst forth from within his chest, filling his arms and legs with renewed strength. As the process continued, the priestess’ body glowed more intensely. At the same time, Matthias’ sword also started to release light. It wasn’t as intense as Demon Culling, but there was no question of its divinity.

He brandished his sword and prepared himself. At Soleil’s signal, he would run the undead drake down as close to its body as possible. The more wounds he could inflict, the more they could suppress the target’s regeneration ability.

Confidence tightened his hands on the sword. Even though the finishing blow would be made by Soleil, there was no doubt that their victory would be due to their efforts combined.

“If only Manna could be here,” he thought regretfully.

Then, Matthias saw the illusion of many church bells above his head. They rang once like divine thunder. The entire room suddenly became bright, completely surpassing the dim, eerie glow of the ground. An ethereal illusion of a grand cathedral replaced the dark dome, and a red carpet flanked by orderly rows of pews spread from his location to the enemy.

The priestess declared the blessing endowed to him by the gods.

“Holy Order!”

Matthias choked on his saliva.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

----------------------------------------

“What the hell,” he complained internally. “She’s actually a high priestess? What are a bunch of newbie adventurers doing with a church idol?”

While it was true that the strength of a blessing depended entirely on one’s faith, only those canonized by the church as priests and above could call upon more comprehensive blessings and miracles.

Anyway, “Holy Order” was a decently high-ranking blessing that as far as Matthias knew could only be endowed by high priests and above among the clergy. It not only enchants a recipient’s weapon with the holy attribute, but it also strengthens his body slightly and protects it from certain “evils” such as zombification.

“Is something wrong? D-did the blessing fail again?!”

The look of panic on her face snapped him out of his thoughts. He immediately shook his head and reassured her, “It went fine! You did a good job.”

Well, there were always geniuses and particularly favored individuals among the masses. Perhaps she was one of them.

He decided to pay it no heed. There were much more pressing concerns at the moment.

Endowed with a mid-tier blessing, Matthias placed his focus back on the enemy. Its movements had become erratic. Desperation was palpable in its cries as it continued to resist Soleil’s attacks in vain.

Then, during a moment that seemed to be the one they were waiting for, the drake suddenly opened its mouth towards Soleil. Matthias wondered why, since Soleil had only just crashed onto the wall. She was too far to bite, and she could easily just launch herself somewhere it can’t reach. A split second later, his question was answered. The spines at the end of its tail started glowing an ominous violet. It traveled quickly up to its head, and its horns released a billowing plume of black smoke.

It released a beam of energy and noxious-looking gases straight at her!

A second after it did, Matthias immediately understood why it used that ability only at that moment of desperation. As it was spewing the beam, its scales and innards started to fall off of its body. The putrid stench of burning rotten flesh filled the entire dome. The drake, despite its strong limbs, struggled to stay erect the entire time. Inadvertently, Matthias’ spell helped it to stay standing.

Its presence declined. Using that move would quickly kill itself.

“No!” the priestess screamed. The attack razed the part of the wall where Soleil was. The rocks melted and flowed to the ground like purple lava. Dark purple smoke billowed upwards from the hole. There was a gruesome sound similar to cement being dropped and bones being snapped.

Matthias watched in horror. What happened to Soleil? He didn’t see her get out of the hole before the beam of unholy energy struck it.

After the attack ended, the undead drake’s body had been reduced to a barely-recognizable arrangement of bones and patches of flesh. All of the spines on its back had disintegrated and weren’t recovering. The other parts of its body did start recovering but at an extremely slow rate.

Perhaps that was the moment to take action? But Matthias’ mind was preoccupied with concern.

Half a minute passed and there were still no signs of Soleil. The drake had barely recovered, but it had at least collected itself well enough to stop its erratic movements. Content with what it had done, it turned its attention towards Matthias.

Previously, its eyes only held an indifferent disgust in them, like the drake was looking at insects on the ground to be crushed. But after what Soleil had done to it, those same eyes had developed a burning rage behind its rotten exterior. If Matthias hadn’t seen everything, then he would have thought that it was an entirely different monster they were facing.

Its intense hatred rooted him to the ground. An uncontrollable trembling overcame his hands, and feet. He wanted to run away. Perhaps it was a curse, which made him react excessively. It had bypassed the protection from Holy Orders and attacked his psyche.

A white light snapped him out of his delirium. He faintly heard the murmurs of prayer behind him. Matthias was familiar with the blessing being endowed to him. “Lionheart” made the recipient immune to fear. But while it did so, it could not stop his uncertainty.

“Go!” he heard someone scream. In his tense state, his body couldn’t help but react according to what he needed to do, and his brain didn’t even register who had yelled. He ran towards the drake.

He realized that it was the priestess who urged him forward. But it was too late. He was already at full sprint at that time. Regardless of what happened to Soleil, he had to take the chance.

But then, he saw something dangling on the ceiling. The white light from a high priestess’ blessings and the brightly-glowing lava was enough to illuminate the entirety of the dome. And through the smoke, he saw Soleil.

She was smiling in approval, watching him run.

The sight of her being alive gave him strength. He put power into his legs and ran even faster. He might not be able to reach Soleil’s blinding speed, but he was still a hero (to-be). He quickly narrowed the distance between him and the drake.

Soleil dropped from the ceiling silently. Her falling speed was significantly slower than the speed she could achieve by kicking off the walls. But with the help of gravity, she was still able to arrive at the side of the drake’s head before Matthias did.

As it raised its forearms to intercept him, Soleil dropped right next to its eyes.

“Nice weather,” she said.

Her body twisted to the side in midair. Despite her downward momentum, her spinning kick still delivered so much upward force to the drake’s chin that it managed to lift its torso slightly. The air trembled from the impact, and Matthias heard the disconcerting sound of bones breaking. Its chest, still in the process of its slow recovery, was just a few steps away, exposed by Soleil’s brutal blow.

In desperation, the drake tried to drop its forearm to him. It stopped mere inches away from its body by a barrier of light.

It did not give up. Next, its tail tried to pass through its own shoulder blades to impale him with its sharp tip. He braced himself while running so he could try to deflect the attack with his sword. But it was also stopped before it reached him. An arrow whistled from out of nowhere and hit the tail right where the last segment connected to the next and destroyed the connection.

It couldn’t move its other limbs, and its head was still being carried upwards from Soleil’s kick. Being familiar with death, it knew clearly that it was going to experience it again. And at that point, there was nothing it could do. All it could do was roar… or rather, cry out in fear.

Matthias’ sword passed through the middle of its chest, creating a deep three-meter-long gash before it hit the drake’s bone and broke. Instead of an end to the wound, the broken tip remained lodged in the chest and continued to scorch the surrounding flesh with its holy property. The drake screamed in pain. It could no longer recover fast enough to negate the damage. And since the holy energy was being injected from the inside, it couldn’t close the wound to stop it.

Then, it froze. A chill that penetrated its bones gripped its mind. It knew that something was underneath him—something even scarier than his current predicament. But amidst the crippling fear, its fight or flight response had completely vacated its instincts. The only thing it could do was tear itself between the two, and ultimately freeze up.

Soleil landed gracefully despite falling a few tens of meters. Her lips twisted into a vicious smile as she drew her right leg back to its limits, scarring the ground, and bent her left. Red light streamed vigorously through her veins. With a heave, she put power into her left knee and launched her right leg into a high sweeping kick.

It was the final blow. So, she thought she better end it with a bang.

“Demon Lord Kick!”

“What a stupid name!”

Her right foot collided with the undead drake’s ribcage so hard that the air, blood, and guts on the other side of its body were blown away as well. The boot on her right leg and the thigh-highs she wore exploded from the impact. At the moment of contact, the red energy from her leg instantly concentrated at the point where her foot met the bone. From there, the destruction followed.

The red energy flowed from her foot to the dragon’s bones like a flash. Unable to withstand the violent energy she delivered, the bones, harder than steel, shattered like glass. The damage quickly spread throughout the drake’s skeleton, always behind the red mana she had dumped into its body. Eventually, it covered every inch of its body, and it broke spectacularly into a rain of red and ivory.

Matthias threw his sword down. Any weapon that broke once would break again soon. As he saw the undead disintegrate, an overwhelming sense of relief washed over his joints. The only reason why he could remain standing was that the priestess’ blessing was still active, keeping his muscles tense and ready.

From the distance, he saw Manna run over to him with a mix of worry and relief on her face. The priestess also stumbled towards him slowly.

Soleil walked up with a smile. She raised her hand with the palm facing towards him. Weakly, he met her hand with his.

They had won.

----------------------------------------

"It's not a stupid name, by the way. I think it's a cool name."

"Well, you thought wrong."