Chapter 188: The Dragon’s Ascent
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Chapter 188: The Dragon’s Ascent
Step one was blowing up the building.
Erani was the one in charge of that. We circled around the Goblins’ base, using Index to find the spot with the easiest path through to the Young Dragon’s lair, and then once we found it, we all got into position, and Erani struck.
Erani’s Explosive Firebolts tore through the logs making up the flimsy palisades. They smashed the outer wall to shrapnel, then through the room connected to it, and blew a hole straight through the next wall, then the next and the next, until instantly the Dragon was in sight. It was far off—we were making full use of Erani’s over seventy-five pace range on her Spell here—but I could just barely see the hide of the Dragon within its treasure room. A few Goblins within the base began ringing the alarm bells following the explosion, but that was fine. We had the attention of the one that mattered, and the Goblins weren’t about to risk their lives to chase after some random Humans that weren’t even here for them.
An ear-shattering roar bellowed from inside the base, and I watched through the holes in the walls as the body of the Young Dragon stomped along, turning around. Its face stuck right through the hole, enraged eyes staring straight at me and Erani.
It gave a screaming roar once again, taking to the skies. The other four adventurers—along with Ainash—were currently nowhere to be seen, so Erani and I looked like quite the easy pickings, I had to guess.
The body of the beast rose above the tall walls of the outpost and then it gave a powerful push with its wings, soaring straight for us.
And then Erani and I did the only sensible thing. We ran.
We turned and darted off into the woods behind us, leaping over fallen branches and any traps Index spotted—though, of course, this was a practiced route we were running, so we didn’t encounter anything unexpected—and the Dragon followed, hot on our trail. With a bellowing exhale, it breathed out a cone of flame, incinerating everything in its warpath behind us. But Expedite combined with our natural Stats allowed us to just barely keep ahead of the destruction.
It took about a minute and a half, but we eventually made it to our destination: a clearing that was located somewhat nearby to that original Goblin outpost. The open grass hills greeted me, and I stopped. Erani, with Distortion Strike active to easily hide herself in the midnight darkness, had already dashed off to safety, leaving me the only one remaining in the path of the Dragon. I turned to face it as it got closer and closer, breathing fiery hot destruction as it neared the ground to give me the full brunt of its attack.
And just as it got within range, I gave it the full brunt of an attack of my own.
You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, it loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and its Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1130.
You have struck Level 22 Young Dragon for 60 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 7.76.
25 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1105.
Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, and my newly-improved Gravity Well hit the beast all at the same time, each one impacting it more than the other. Honestly, I wasn’t totally sure how much effect the limited Stat drain had, but after feeling Gravity Well on myself, I had a very tough time believing that wouldn’t do at least something.
And it seemed like it did, indeed, do something. Instantly, the Dragon lost control of its wings, suddenly finding it much harder to keep itself afloat in the air or even control the direction it went. Right when that happened, I leapt out of the way to avoid the monster’s sweeping breath of flame.
You have been burned. 49 damage.
Due to Heat Resistance, damage has been reduced to 31.8.
Your Health is 538.
Not a perfect dodge, but it did the job. I’d avoided any major damage, and I turned around to watch the Dragon crash into the terrain. It sank through the air like a rock, and fell straight into the side of the hills, demolishing it and shaking the entire earth with its landing.
It was out of range of Gravity Well by now, but at this point the disorientation of the crash landing was doing the Spell’s job for me, keeping the thing from taking to the skies once again.
And now that it was on the ground, the four adventurers came out of the woods to strike. Entismo and Boy, the Swordsman and Berserker, came to face the beast’s front—though Boy was the one clearly meant to draw its attacks, while Entismo seemed to take on a more graceful approach, attempting to avoid aggression while poking in for damage any time the monster looked weak.
In the meantime, Sylvie peppered the thing with her specially-prepared arrows, keeping her location unknown through a mixture of stealth, keeping her hidden within the trees, and movement, so each arrow came from a new location.
And finally, Aliss played the role of support. She didn’t necessarily have healing or buffing Spells for her allies—it seemed the Spell path that led into Demon summoning didn’t allow for that—but she certainly had a cocktail of nasty effects for the Dragon to deal with. Fiery phoenixes flew from her staff, colliding with the monster and setting it alight. Then a barrage of lightning came down to smite it from the skies, each strike seeming to temporarily paralyze it, followed by a rain of stones that left its natural hide armor cracked and weakened.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.
In five seconds.
It almost entirely drained Erani’s Mana reserves, it did entirely drain her mental stamina, and Elemental Embrace also pulled from her Health and Stamina supply on top of it all. But holy shit, it was quite the strategy. Made me really respect what it meant to be able to sit down and research every single tiny choice you made with your Class ahead of time, planning every number out in advance, taking every possible permutation into account. You got what was literally the theoretically best damage output that could be achieved using your Class at that Level.
So when she pointed her hands at the Young Dragon, I slowed in my pursuit, waiting for the hells to come to earth.
And then the barrage came.
The Firebolts blasted straight into the side of the Young Dragon, knocking it back as its scaled hide did its best to protect it from the damage that came. But it wasn’t enough. By the first second that passed, about 1300 damage had been dealt. The beast attempted to twist its body to avoid the rest of the Firebolts and continue after Entismo, but the mixture of my existing debuffs interfering with its movement and the blasts of the Firebolts keeping it from finding its footing prevented it from ignoring the attack.
By the second second, it was over 3000 damage. The Dragon clearly forgot about Entismo, leaving him to scramble off to safety, now turning its attention toward preventing itself from taking on any more damage from the unrelenting force. It roared out in pain as its massive body was pushed back, leaving massive indentations in the earth where its claws dug into the dirt in an attempt to control its movement.
By the third second, the beast had taken well over 5000 damage. It completely gave up on dodging the rest of the attack, instead turning so that its spined back—the toughest part of its hide—was facing Erani. It had surrendered to riding out the wave of pain.
The fourth second was close to 8000 damage. The Dragon flipped over from the insane power of the damage-boosted explosions, rolling up against a hill as its body was pushed around by Erani like a puppet. She was screaming now, her own shout combining with the deep roar of the Dragon—though hers was from mental exertion, where its was from fear and pain.
And with the fifth second came the pair of fully-boosted Firebolts, taking on every multiplier Erani had available to her and clearly much larger and more intense in their flames. They soared through the air, the crescendo to her song of Dragon’s screams, and blasted against its vulnerable belly in a punch I was sure the poor beast would carry with it for the rest of his hopefully short life.
17,551 damage.
The adventurers looked on in awe—as did I, honestly—as Erani, breathing heavily and sweat dripping from her forehead, collapsed to the ground. The only sound for several seconds was Ainash’s light footsteps in the grass, rushing over to check on her mother, and the roaring flame that was currently alight on the Dragon’s unmoving body. Entismo was the first to say anything, laughing.
“Ha, ha ha! Take that, oaf!” he shouted at the rolled-over monster. “I-I hath made a fool of you! My, my plan all along was to—”
It shifted, rolling back over, on its feet again and growling a deep snarl that instantly forced the Swordsman’s face slack.
“Oh dear.”
“You have disrespected me to too much of an extent, Humans!” the Dragon shouted, whipping its head around to look at us. It prepared its wings to take to the air. “If you insist on going to war, I will bring the war to your species! I will slaughter your wives, I will raze your cities, I will bring chaos to your people! You will understand the meaning of the word despair, and only then will I allow you the mercy of death.”
While it was busy making its dumbass threats, I was sprinting right up to the beast. Just as it flapped its wings, forcing itself off the ground in defiance of the heightened gravity, I jumped straight onto its leg, climbing up its hide as it continued to push itself higher into the air. Since I didn’t have Noxious Grasp active, it got no System notification that I was on it, and I suspected the pain from the fire still ablaze on its skin was so great that a simple person holding onto a leg was the least of the sensation it was feeling right now.
It soared up, higher and higher into the air, and I even let up Gravity Well to give it the illusion that it’d gotten out of my range. And to allow it to move even further into the sky.
“I know what you’re planning,” Index said.
You think it’s a shit idea?
“No, I fully support it. Probably the best move here. That said, I will warn you. You might survive this, but even if you do, it is going to hurt really, really bad.”
Well, I’ve died a few times now, so I’m pretty much used to it.
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Sure.
I looked down at the quickly-disappearing earth as we flew higher and higher into the sky. From the rapidly-dropping temperature, it seemed like the Dragon was currently trying to fly high enough to put out the fire still raging on its back. Our altitude increased more and more, until I was satisfied and ready to move to the plan.
Okay, let’s drop this motherfucker back to the ground.
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Chapter 188: The Dragon’s Ascent
Step one was blowing up the building.
Erani was the one in charge of that. We circled around the Goblins’ base, using Index to find the spot with the easiest path through to the Young Dragon’s lair, and then once we found it, we all got into position, and Erani struck.
Erani’s Explosive Firebolts tore through the logs making up the flimsy palisades. They smashed the outer wall to shrapnel, then through the room connected to it, and blew a hole straight through the next wall, then the next and the next, until instantly the Dragon was in sight. It was far off—we were making full use of Erani’s over seventy-five pace range on her Spell here—but I could just barely see the hide of the Dragon within its treasure room. A few Goblins within the base began ringing the alarm bells following the explosion, but that was fine. We had the attention of the one that mattered, and the Goblins weren’t about to risk their lives to chase after some random Humans that weren’t even here for them.
An ear-shattering roar bellowed from inside the base, and I watched through the holes in the walls as the body of the Young Dragon stomped along, turning around. Its face stuck right through the hole, enraged eyes staring straight at me and Erani.
It gave a screaming roar once again, taking to the skies. The other four adventurers—along with Ainash—were currently nowhere to be seen, so Erani and I looked like quite the easy pickings, I had to guess.
The body of the beast rose above the tall walls of the outpost and then it gave a powerful push with its wings, soaring straight for us.
And then Erani and I did the only sensible thing. We ran.
We turned and darted off into the woods behind us, leaping over fallen branches and any traps Index spotted—though, of course, this was a practiced route we were running, so we didn’t encounter anything unexpected—and the Dragon followed, hot on our trail. With a bellowing exhale, it breathed out a cone of flame, incinerating everything in its warpath behind us. But Expedite combined with our natural Stats allowed us to just barely keep ahead of the destruction.
It took about a minute and a half, but we eventually made it to our destination: a clearing that was located somewhat nearby to that original Goblin outpost. The open grass hills greeted me, and I stopped. Erani, with Distortion Strike active to easily hide herself in the midnight darkness, had already dashed off to safety, leaving me the only one remaining in the path of the Dragon. I turned to face it as it got closer and closer, breathing fiery hot destruction as it neared the ground to give me the full brunt of its attack.
And just as it got within range, I gave it the full brunt of an attack of my own.
You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, it loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and its Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1130.
You have struck Level 22 Young Dragon for 60 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 7.76.
25 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1105.
Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, and my newly-improved Gravity Well hit the beast all at the same time, each one impacting it more than the other. Honestly, I wasn’t totally sure how much effect the limited Stat drain had, but after feeling Gravity Well on myself, I had a very tough time believing that wouldn’t do at least something.
And it seemed like it did, indeed, do something. Instantly, the Dragon lost control of its wings, suddenly finding it much harder to keep itself afloat in the air or even control the direction it went. Right when that happened, I leapt out of the way to avoid the monster’s sweeping breath of flame.
You have been burned. 49 damage.
Due to Heat Resistance, damage has been reduced to 31.8.
Your Health is 538.
Not a perfect dodge, but it did the job. I’d avoided any major damage, and I turned around to watch the Dragon crash into the terrain. It sank through the air like a rock, and fell straight into the side of the hills, demolishing it and shaking the entire earth with its landing.
It was out of range of Gravity Well by now, but at this point the disorientation of the crash landing was doing the Spell’s job for me, keeping the thing from taking to the skies once again.
And now that it was on the ground, the four adventurers came out of the woods to strike. Entismo and Boy, the Swordsman and Berserker, came to face the beast’s front—though Boy was the one clearly meant to draw its attacks, while Entismo seemed to take on a more graceful approach, attempting to avoid aggression while poking in for damage any time the monster looked weak.
In the meantime, Sylvie peppered the thing with her specially-prepared arrows, keeping her location unknown through a mixture of stealth, keeping her hidden within the trees, and movement, so each arrow came from a new location.
And finally, Aliss played the role of support. She didn’t necessarily have healing or buffing Spells for her allies—it seemed the Spell path that led into Demon summoning didn’t allow for that—but she certainly had a cocktail of nasty effects for the Dragon to deal with. Fiery phoenixes flew from her staff, colliding with the monster and setting it alight. Then a barrage of lightning came down to smite it from the skies, each strike seeming to temporarily paralyze it, followed by a rain of stones that left its natural hide armor cracked and weakened.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.
In five seconds.
It almost entirely drained Erani’s Mana reserves, it did entirely drain her mental stamina, and Elemental Embrace also pulled from her Health and Stamina supply on top of it all. But holy shit, it was quite the strategy. Made me really respect what it meant to be able to sit down and research every single tiny choice you made with your Class ahead of time, planning every number out in advance, taking every possible permutation into account. You got what was literally the theoretically best damage output that could be achieved using your Class at that Level.
So when she pointed her hands at the Young Dragon, I slowed in my pursuit, waiting for the hells to come to earth.
And then the barrage came.
The Firebolts blasted straight into the side of the Young Dragon, knocking it back as its scaled hide did its best to protect it from the damage that came. But it wasn’t enough. By the first second that passed, about 1300 damage had been dealt. The beast attempted to twist its body to avoid the rest of the Firebolts and continue after Entismo, but the mixture of my existing debuffs interfering with its movement and the blasts of the Firebolts keeping it from finding its footing prevented it from ignoring the attack.
By the second second, it was over 3000 damage. The Dragon clearly forgot about Entismo, leaving him to scramble off to safety, now turning its attention toward preventing itself from taking on any more damage from the unrelenting force. It roared out in pain as its massive body was pushed back, leaving massive indentations in the earth where its claws dug into the dirt in an attempt to control its movement.
By the third second, the beast had taken well over 5000 damage. It completely gave up on dodging the rest of the attack, instead turning so that its spined back—the toughest part of its hide—was facing Erani. It had surrendered to riding out the wave of pain.
The fourth second was close to 8000 damage. The Dragon flipped over from the insane power of the damage-boosted explosions, rolling up against a hill as its body was pushed around by Erani like a puppet. She was screaming now, her own shout combining with the deep roar of the Dragon—though hers was from mental exertion, where its was from fear and pain.
And with the fifth second came the pair of fully-boosted Firebolts, taking on every multiplier Erani had available to her and clearly much larger and more intense in their flames. They soared through the air, the crescendo to her song of Dragon’s screams, and blasted against its vulnerable belly in a punch I was sure the poor beast would carry with it for the rest of his hopefully short life.
17,551 damage.
The adventurers looked on in awe—as did I, honestly—as Erani, breathing heavily and sweat dripping from her forehead, collapsed to the ground. The only sound for several seconds was Ainash’s light footsteps in the grass, rushing over to check on her mother, and the roaring flame that was currently alight on the Dragon’s unmoving body. Entismo was the first to say anything, laughing.
“Ha, ha ha! Take that, oaf!” he shouted at the rolled-over monster. “I-I hath made a fool of you! My, my plan all along was to—”
It shifted, rolling back over, on its feet again and growling a deep snarl that instantly forced the Swordsman’s face slack.
“Oh dear.”
“You have disrespected me to too much of an extent, Humans!” the Dragon shouted, whipping its head around to look at us. It prepared its wings to take to the air. “If you insist on going to war, I will bring the war to your species! I will slaughter your wives, I will raze your cities, I will bring chaos to your people! You will understand the meaning of the word despair, and only then will I allow you the mercy of death.”
While it was busy making its dumbass threats, I was sprinting right up to the beast. Just as it flapped its wings, forcing itself off the ground in defiance of the heightened gravity, I jumped straight onto its leg, climbing up its hide as it continued to push itself higher into the air. Since I didn’t have Noxious Grasp active, it got no System notification that I was on it, and I suspected the pain from the fire still ablaze on its skin was so great that a simple person holding onto a leg was the least of the sensation it was feeling right now.
It soared up, higher and higher into the air, and I even let up Gravity Well to give it the illusion that it’d gotten out of my range. And to allow it to move even further into the sky.
“I know what you’re planning,” Index said.
You think it’s a shit idea?
“No, I fully support it. Probably the best move here. That said, I will warn you. You might survive this, but even if you do, it is going to hurt really, really bad.”
Well, I’ve died a few times now, so I’m pretty much used to it.
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Sure.
I looked down at the quickly-disappearing earth as we flew higher and higher into the sky. From the rapidly-dropping temperature, it seemed like the Dragon was currently trying to fly high enough to put out the fire still raging on its back. Our altitude increased more and more, until I was satisfied and ready to move to the plan.
Okay, let’s drop this motherfucker back to the ground.
Chapter 188: The Dragon's AscentStep one was blowing up the building.Erani was the one in charge of that. We circled around the Goblins' base, using Index to find the spot with the easiest path through to the Young Dragon's lair, and then once we found it, we all got into position, and Erani struck.Erani's Explosive Firebolts tore through the logs making up the flimsy palisades. They smashed the outer wall to shrapnel, then through the room connected to it, and blew a hole straight through the next wall, then the next and the next, until instantly the Dragon was in sight. It was far offwe were making full use of Erani's over seventy-five pace range on her Spell herebut I could just barely see the hide of the Dragon within its treasure room. A few Goblins within the base began ringing the alarm bells following the explosion, but that was fine. We had the attention of the one that mattered, and the Goblins weren't about to risk their lives to chase after some random Humans that weren't even here for them.An ear-shattering roar bellowed from inside the base, and I watched through the holes in the walls as the body of the Young Dragon stomped along, turning around. Its face stuck right through the hole, enraged eyes staring straight at me and Erani.It gave a screaming roar once again, taking to the skies. The other four adventurersalong with Ainashwere currently nowhere to be seen, so Erani and I looked like quite the easy pickings, I had to guess.The body of the beast rose above the tall walls of the outpost and then it gave a powerful push with its wings, soaring straight for us.And then Erani and I did the only sensible thing. We ran.We turned and darted off into the woods behind us, leaping over fallen branches and any traps Index spottedthough, of course, this was a practiced route we were running, so we didn't encounter anything unexpectedand the Dragon followed, hot on our trail. With a bellowing exhale, it breathed out a cone of flame, incinerating everything in its warpath behind us. But Expedite combined with our natural Stats allowed us to just barely keep ahead of the destruction.It took about a minute and a half, but we eventually made it to our destination: a clearing that was located somewhat nearby to that original Goblin outpost. The open grass hills greeted me, and I stopped. Erani, with Distortion Strike active to easily hide herself in the midnight darkness, had already dashed off to safety, leaving me the only one remaining in the path of the Dragon. I turned to face it as it got closer and closer, breathing fiery hot destruction as it neared the ground to give me the full brunt of its attack.And just as it got within range, I gave it the full brunt of an attack of my own.You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, it loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and its Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1130.You have struck Level 22 Young Dragon for 60 damage using Ray of Frost. You have cursed Level 22 Young Dragon with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 7.76.25 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1105.Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, and my newly-improved Gravity Well hit the beast all at the same time, each one impacting it more than the other. Honestly, I wasn't totally sure how much effect the limited Stat drain had, but after feeling Gravity Well on myself, I had a very tough time believing that wouldn't do at least something.And it seemed like it did, indeed, do something. Instantly, the Dragon lost control of its wings, suddenly finding it much harder to keep itself afloat in the air or even control the direction it went. Right when that happened, I leapt out of the way to avoid the monster's sweeping breath of flame.You have been burned. 49 damage.Due to Heat Resistance, damage has been reduced to 31.8.Your Health is 538.Not a perfect dodge, but it did the job. I'd avoided any major damage, and I turned around to watch the Dragon crash into the terrain. It sank through the air like a rock, and fell straight into the side of the hills, demolishing it and shaking the entire earth with its landing.It was out of range of Gravity Well by now, but at this point the disorientation of the crash landing was doing the Spell's job for me, keeping the thing from taking to the skies once again.And now that it was on the ground, the four adventurers came out of the woods to strike. Entismo and Boy, the Swordsman and Berserker, came to face the beast's frontthough Boy was the one clearly meant to draw its attacks, while Entismo seemed to take on a more graceful approach, attempting to avoid aggression while poking in for damage any time the monster looked weak.In the meantime, Sylvie peppered the thing with her specially-prepared arrows, keeping her location unknown through a mixture of stealth, keeping her hidden within the trees, and movement, so each arrow came from a new location.And finally, Aliss played the role of support. She didn't necessarily have healing or buffing Spells for her alliesit seemed the Spell path that led into Demon summoning didn't allow for thatbut she certainly had a cocktail of nasty effects for the Dragon to deal with. Fiery phoenixes flew from her staff, colliding with the monster and setting it alight. Then a barrage of lightning came down to smite it from the skies, each strike seeming to temporarily paralyze it, followed by a rain of stones that left its natural hide armor cracked and weakened.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Nvl--B1n.In five seconds.It almost entirely drained Erani's Mana reserves, it did entirely drain her mental stamina, and Elemental Embrace also pulled from her Health and Stamina supply on top of it all. But holy shit, it was quite the strategy. Made me really respect what it meant to be able to sit down and research every single tiny choice you made with your Class ahead of time, planning every number out in advance, taking every possible permutation into account. You got what was literally the theoretically best damage output that could be achieved using your Class at that Level.So when she pointed her hands at the Young Dragon, I slowed in my pursuit, waiting for the hells to come to earth.And then the barrage came.The Firebolts blasted straight into the side of the Young Dragon, knocking it back as its scaled hide did its best to protect it from the damage that came. But it wasn't enough. By the first second that passed, about 1300 damage had been dealt. The beast attempted to twist its body to avoid the rest of the Firebolts and continue after Entismo, but the mixture of my existing debuffs interfering with its movement and the blasts of the Firebolts keeping it from finding its footing prevented it from ignoring the attack.By the second second, it was over 3000 damage. The Dragon clearly forgot about Entismo, leaving him to scramble off to safety, now turning its attention toward preventing itself from taking on any more damage from the unrelenting force. It roared out in pain as its massive body was pushed back, leaving massive indentations in the earth where its claws dug into the dirt in an attempt to control its movement.By the third second, the beast had taken well over 5000 damage. It completely gave up on dodging the rest of the attack, instead turning so that its spined backthe toughest part of its hidewas facing Erani. It had surrendered to riding out the wave of pain.The fourth second was close to 8000 damage. The Dragon flipped over from the insane power of the damage-boosted explosions, rolling up against a hill as its body was pushed around by Erani like a puppet. She was screaming now, her own shout combining with the deep roar of the Dragonthough hers was from mental exertion, where its was from fear and pain.And with the fifth second came the pair of fully-boosted Firebolts, taking on every multiplier Erani had available to her and clearly much larger and more intense in their flames. They soared through the air, the crescendo to her song of Dragon's screams, and blasted against its vulnerable belly in a punch I was sure the poor beast would carry with it for the rest of his hopefully short life.17,551 damage.The adventurers looked on in aweas did I, honestlyas Erani, breathing heavily and sweat dripping from her forehead, collapsed to the ground. The only sound for several seconds was Ainash's light footsteps in the grass, rushing over to check on her mother, and the roaring flame that was currently alight on the Dragon's unmoving body. Entismo was the first to say anything, laughing.Ha, ha ha! Take that, oaf! he shouted at the rolled-over monster. I-I hath made a fool of you! My, my plan all along was toIt shifted, rolling back over, on its feet again and growling a deep snarl that instantly forced the Swordsman's face slack.Oh dear.You have disrespected me to too much of an extent, Humans! the Dragon shouted, whipping its head around to look at us. It prepared its wings to take to the air. If you insist on going to war, I will bring the war to your species! I will slaughter your wives, I will raze your cities, I will bring chaos to your people! You will understand the meaning of the word despair, and only then will I allow you the mercy of death.While it was busy making its dumbass threats, I was sprinting right up to the beast. Just as it flapped its wings, forcing itself off the ground in defiance of the heightened gravity, I jumped straight onto its leg, climbing up its hide as it continued to push itself higher into the air. Since I didn't have Noxious Grasp active, it got no System notification that I was on it, and I suspected the pain from the fire still ablaze on its skin was so great that a simple person holding onto a leg was the least of the sensation it was feeling right now.It soared up, higher and higher into the air, and I even let up Gravity Well to give it the illusion that it'd gotten out of my range. And to allow it to move even further into the sky.I know what you're planning, Index said.You think it's a shit idea?No, I fully support it. Probably the best move here. That said, I will warn you. You might survive this, but even if you do, it is going to hurt really, really bad.Well, I've died a few times now, so I'm pretty much used to it.Just don't say I didn't warn you.Sure.I looked down at the quickly-disappearing earth as we flew higher and higher into the sky. From the rapidly-dropping temperature, it seemed like the Dragon was currently trying to fly high enough to put out the fire still raging on its back. Our altitude increased more and more, until I was satisfied and ready to move to the plan.Okay, let's drop this motherfucker back to the ground.
