"If we're going to end up fighting, can we at least move outside the town first?" I asked. "It wouldn't be fair for everyone to get caught up in it."
"Fighting?" asked the dragon, his maw curling into a smirk a bus could fit into, teeth on full display. "You think that if I wanted you to die, there would be a 'fight'. I see you possess the usual human levels of arrogance."
I thought back to the interactions I'd had with humans, but I couldn't really point at any as particularly arrogant. Craig, perhaps, but he was the exception.
Sotis I wished I could... I dunno, do so xianxia thing. Blanket the area in killing intent, whatever the heck killing intent was supposed to be. Flare out my mana? Just so way of showing off how strong I was that wouldn't involve lting the street or being overtly aggressive.
"Then humour ," I answered.
The dragon snorted, the resulting wind ripping cobblestones from the paved road and launching them at the temple, then took back off into the air. I spread my wings and followed, a tiny speck next to the monstrous mass of the dragon.
He smashed down a safe distance from the town, in an open grassy field, the plant-life around him blackening and starting to smoke.
"It's nice to see one of you things care about my creations. You even promised to protect the children. If not for your... mutilation of yourself, perhaps I could have been convinced to let you stay. You would, of course, need to be marked first."
The dragon sniggered, as if that was so sort of low-key joke.
"Look, I haven't mutilated myself," I responded, before thinking about my various resistance training escapades and realising what an enormous lie that was. "At least, not in the way you're thinking," I added, in case he had a truth sense of his own.
The dragon ceased his snigger, before shifting his head inches away from my own, leaving
staring at a wall of red scale, slling faintly of brimstone. "Then tell . Why do I share a link with you? Explain, and out of respect for your behaviour towards my pets, I'll ensure your death is painless."
"From what I rember, none of the tis you've killed
have hurt. Maybe the second one, a bit, but that was my fault. Anyway, it's a blessing from the Goddess. It doesn't make sense, so just roll with it."
"Despite the claims of the humans, the Goddess does not share her power," he laughed, not even comnting on my claims of being killed by him before. "If you're going to lie, at least co up with sothing believable. But at least I'll credit you for being entertaining."
His mouth opened wide, the telltale sign he was about to lance
with fla, so I stripped myself of my armour. Even if I was fireproof, it wasn't.
Heat absorption advanced to level 43
The tide of fla washed over , and I felt the ground lting beneath my feet, but my health bar remained full. I owed the Goddess an apology for ever complaining that skills didn't offer full protection whatever level I got them to. While it was ongoing, I pondered his reaction. The Goddess didn't share her power? But the humans had said every summoned hero got a blessing, and that in the past there were locals with blessings too.
Unfortunately, by the ti the breath finished, I'd sunk into the ground up to my ankles.
"Sheesh, lava sticks sothing awful," I muttered once the fire cut out, trying to kick the red-hot globs of molten soil off . Was lava the right word for molten soil? It hadn't been sothing that ca up in my Earth life, with its boring lack of dragons.
The dragon stared down for a few seconds, apparently taking a while to comprehend that I was unhard, before roaring and lashing out with a claw.
I dodged upward, leaping over the swipe with a flap of my wings. "What did you say about this not being a fight?" I goaded, before lancing him with my ice breath.
My previous description of the dragon's response to
surviving its fla breath as a 'roar' had been mistaken. It was, at best, rely a mild expression of annoyance. Now the dragon roared, the noise shattering the ground and raising clouds of dust. My ears bled and my vision blurred. My olfactory perception, which frankly seed far more reliable than my squishy eyeballs, warned
of another claw swipe, which I nimbly dodged.
"Are we really doing this?" I shouted, my own voice sounding strange to
with my ruptured ears. "I didn't co here to fight, but I will defend myself."
The only answer was another roar, thankfully dulled by my ear damage, followed by another lance of fla, no more effective than the first. The dragon charged , so I took to the air. He followed, attacking with claws, teeth, or simply trying to ram , but I was too small and agile. My speed was no greater than his, but he couldn't swing his claws fast enough to hit . How far I'd co from that first flight session, where I'd broken most of the bones in my body.
anwhile, unlike him, I had a long range attack that worked. I hit him with an acid breath, the corrosive cloud sticking to his scales, slowly but surely eating into them. A blast of ice to a wing cost him so mobility, rendering him slower than
and costing him any chance of catching . A burst of fire did nothing whatsoever, but it had been worth a try.
He was big. Big enough that even if he remained still and let
freeze him, it would take ages to work my way along his full length, but it was obvious I was winning. I could hit him, and he couldn't hit . I was doing damage, while he wasn't. I had plentiful mana. A battle of attrition was mine to take.
The dragon turned and fled.
Straight towards the fox-kin town.
I lanced him with ice, and this ti I didn't stop. His straight flight made him an easy target, and I kept up the breath until my mana hit half, then a quarter, pausing only to inhale more air. Still the dragon kept flying, yet he was losing altitude. An entire leg had turned blue. His tail was stiff and no longer moving. One wing was coated in ice. Was I going to make it in ti?
The dragon dropped from the sky, crashing into a field below. A potato field, if I rembered my leaves correctly. The walls of the town were in sight, but he hadn't made it, thank goodness. Whether he was on his way to find reinforcents, or whether he was going to take advantage of them as at-shields, I couldn't say. I'd made a foolish error there; I'd told myself that I couldn't let the dragons know I wanted to protect the fox-kin, lest they use that against , and yet I'd given myself away imdiately. Admittedly, I didn't know he could watch
through their eyes, but even so, my behaviour had been a mistake.
And that was when I saw the figure in the field, stood in front of the dragon. A hulking great pillar of at, that was nevertheless dwarfed by the monster. Sru'taklin, the dungeon's warrior commander. And in his arms...
The dragon reached out and grabbed what the warrior was carrying, pinning it between a pair of claws before thrusting it between
and him. I looked into the face of Ancora, who wasn't looking at all panicked or fearful, or even angry, but perfectly peaceful.
"Hold still, or I will kill the child," growled the dragon.
"It's okay," said Ancora, looking straight at
with the sa peaceful expression. "I know you aren't going to let
die."
"Coward!" I shouted, as the dragon thrust at
with a claw, piercing my torso. With the width of the claw, even though it was only the tip that had run
through, the wound ran from my navel almost to my neck.
"Thank you," said Ancora as I fell from the air.
Really, I wasn't too disappointed. While a casual observer might disagree, I considered that my win. I'd had trigger respawn active, so was going to die anyway. I'd be back at full power in one hour, while the dragon almost certainly would not. My last burst of ice, followed by his heavy landing, had shattered both his tail and one rear leg. One wing looked the worse for wear, with the rear half iced up and acid eating into a wide patch of the scales that coated the mbrane. If it made it through, the dragon would likely be grounded. More acid was eating into his side. On top of that, would he suffer divine punishnt for killing , like the humans had?
I crashed into the field, my blunt damage immunity absorbing the impact, but given that I was missing the vast majority of my internal organs, it bought
only a few seconds of life at most. I watched my health bar tick down as the dragon threw the girl back at Sru'taklin, who thankfully caught her, just before my world went black.
For sacrificing yourself to save a child of the vulpes sagax, you now have a fluffy, cuddly tail of your very own.
There was, as with the last ti I'd woken up, a fuss. I stood up and stretched, looking around at the castle remains, which had now been cleaned up further, and ignored the fleeing workers. Hopefully, the next respawn point I unlocked would be sowhere isolated, so I wouldn't need to deal with spectators.
The remaining standing section of the castle wall had been demolished, yet for so reason the altar was unmoved, still standing on its pristine dais. Fine by , since I imagined removing it would disable the respawn point.
There also seed to be a few guards around it, which was a new addition.
"Katie?" asked one, looking at my butt in mild confusion. "Lord Grelingham asked that we take you straight to him, should you reappear."
Who? Oh, Ortho. It probably wasn't normal to refer to these people by their first nas.
Fair enough. There were witnesses the last ti around, and he must have heard about my respawn, neatly solving his mystery of how I got back here so fast. But I had sothing more important I needed to deal with first.
"Two seconds. I just need to check sothing."
I was back in my nighty, which was rather more filled in at the back than it had thus far been. I lifted it up, having lost any sense of modesty long ago, and sure enough, I now had a thick, fluffy tail jutting out from the base of my spine. It did a reasonable job of hiding my spinneret, which was positioned directly below it. Also, it was fluffy. That imdiately made it a hundred tis more welco than the unwanted spider bump.
It started off narrow, then gradually widened until about a tre out, where it reached about double the width of my fist, all coated in a light burgundy fur. Then it narrowed again to a point after ten centitres more, the fur darkening until the tip was almost black. It was long enough to drag along the floor, but with so effort I could raise it. I felt it could move in other directions, too, but, like my wings, it would take so practice to get it under control. With so concentration, I managed to swish it from side to side, before the temptation beca too much and I grabbed hold of it, pulled it in front of , and buried my face into my own luxurious fur.
Forget dragon breath, scales, or whatever else I had. This was my new favourite body mod. So what if it served no practical purpose whatsoever? I didn't care!
A guard coughed politely, reminding
that I was in company. With only slight embarrassnt, I swung my new tail back around behind
and gave them a nod.
"Sorry, did you want to fluff my new tail too?"
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