Chapter 280
Felling a Dragon (VII)
Emma breathed heavily, her muscles feeling as though they were made from lead. Strands of her golden hair, now dyed Crimson with blood, lay flattened against her forehead due to sweat, partially blocking her view. She must have been fighting for at least an hour now, usually facing at least three to four Wyverns on her own.
her surroundings by now had beco ruins of what was the mountain range, wreckage exposed everywhere around her. looking around, she saw that the others weren't in any better position. Senna was struggling mightily, facing nearly 10 Wyverns all on her own, flying speedily through the air and unleashing the barrage of weaponry upon the world.
Similarly, everyone else was off fighting their own battles and struggling just to survive. Wyverns as it turned out were far more powerful than they initially anticipated and planned for, and, as such, they were forced to improvise which wasn't necessarily the strongest suit. Nonetheless, the battle had been going on well so far, save for the occasional distraction from the main battlefield far up into the sky. Every so often, the ground battles would co to a halt as everyone would tilt their heads toward the sky and stare at the sight that left him gasping.
sowhere far up there, two creatures beyond one's normal comprehension were duking it out in a manner that left the sky constantly flashing as though with thunder. It was almost impossible to quite comprehend the extent to which the two had destroyed the world, although the crushed mountains and adows and gaping holes in the ground had done a volu to try and do so.
All the sa, however, Emma didn't have the luxury to pay much attention to what was going on in the sky as their battle here on the ground was more than dangerous enough. She abruptly swung her warhamr toward the ground and barely missed the screeching creature. The weapon landed squarely against the already destroyed earth prompting yet another explosion that sent debris flying all around her.
She didn't rest, however, imdiately swinging it back over her shoulder and managing to land it at the leg of one of the creatures behind her. The Wyvern cried out painfully, imdiately flapping its wings and ushering itself backward out of danger. At the sa ti, another one swung its claws toward Emma who barely managed to duck out of the way, retaliating swiftly by swinging the warhamr with all her might and imbuing it with a massive amount of Mana.
the strike landed squarely, prompting yet another screech from the wounded animal and causing it to flip and roll backward until it hit a nearby hedge that was once a rock that was a part of the mountain that fell and was now in ruins scattered all around them.
anwhile, so 400 feet away from her, Ethan was stalking one of the Wyverns that was fighting Krar. The young boy was careful not to make a sound lest he be discovered and imdiately crushed under the weight of the behemoths who is every single movent caused his heart to pound. Unlike Emma, Krars awakened Class wasn't all that efficient in offense and watch for more inclined toward raw and brute tanking. Because of this, Krar required an attacker on the side to supplent his lack of damage and Ethan volunteered.
Sensing an opportunity, Ethan cooled closer his daggers at the ready, already locking onto the creature's weak spot just down its elongated neck where it t with the rest of its body. Just as the creature extended its head forward and swiped with one of its claws, Ethan sees the opportunity nded forward through the shadows, His daggers extended and easily passing through the creature's skin.
The creature screeched at the top of its voice, clearly heavily wounded, and was just about to turn around and retaliate against him when the world once more quaked and shook from the battle high up in the sky. both the creature and Ethan lost their footing but the latter managed to use the warping of the shadows as though they were arm hinges to imdiately prop himself up and shadownd forward once again, but this ti striking directly into the creature's eyes with a pair of poison infused blades, blinding the creature as a consequence.
Wyvern Violently trashed imdiately, hitting eastern in the process and knocking him back so 40 feet where he landed unstably and directly on a jagged piece of rock. Pain assaulted each one of his senses as he felt his blood boil, every one of his bones crying with each attempt to draw in a new breath. he was in agony unlike any of the agonies he felt throughout his short-lived life. But just as he was about to pass out from the inordinate amount of pain, he felt a warm surge of energy swarm his body and almost instantaneously heal up all his wounds.
Gasping for breath, he managed to stand up and glance to his left where he saw Yuki staring back at him from so distance away waving with a smile. He waved back and nodded gratefully but still felt, in the back of his head, the pain that nearly drove him mad within just one mont. He then looked up into the sky where he saw brilliant flashes of light beyond the clouds and heard the distant compressed sounds of what felt like the universe being born anew.
That's really sothing else, He said in a hushed self-mocking tone, realizing that his own struggles seed so infinitesimally small when compared to the battle that was the actual decider of their fates.
"Don't look up there," Daniel's voice suddenly trailed into his ears, forcing him to look to the side where he saw a shadow-wrapped figure crouching on top of a broken boulder beneath which a Wyvern's corpse lay splattered in blood. "That battle has nothing to do with us. No matter how much you think and how much you doubt yourself, his battles are his own, and ours are ours. All the sa, our matter just as much as his."
Ethan nodded subconsciously, the new fire under his own feet, reinvigorating his battle spirit. Daniel was right; no matter how much he wanted to be part of what was happening in the sky, he would never belong there. there were plenty of battles to be had here on the ground, among mortals as it were, that the more ti he spent with his neck craned and angled toward invisible stars the more likely was it to be stabbed by soone right here, right beside him, on the very hallowed ground.
Cain hastily dodged a laser-like beam of light, engulfing himself in the coral flas and slapping his palms together as a tidal wave of Mana surged from within him, becoming a radiant fixture in the shape of a shield that did manage to deflect the secondary beam, though it imdiately cracked afterward.
Sighing and smiling bitterly, he once again energized his Mana unbelted forward into lee combat. He realized that trying to fight a dragon of all things at a range might not be the most brilliant idea he had conceived in his life, and, as such, he figured giving lee combat a shot was worth it. Though his current Class hardly afforded him the tools to fight in lee properly, It wasn't as though all his previous experiences of fighting hand-to-hand combat were entirely gone.
He swiftly crossed the distance between the two of them and landed so 40 feet away from the Dragon's massive head; he had nearly forgotten just how large the dragon actually was because he was at the range for so long. watching the behemoth up close was like staring at the summit of a mountain covered in jagged edges that he was supposed to climb barehanded. It was nerve-wracking, to say the least, but he took a deep breath and cald himself down to the best of his abilities before once again unfurling the wings made out of Mana and flipping them to gain so montum for his forward strike.
He shaped a huge pool of Mana into a 30 feet long sword made of fire and swung it toward the Dragon's head. The irony of trying to kill the Dragon, or at least wound the creature, with fire did not escape him but he had had little choice since he was most confident in displaying his complete prowess in controlling Mana whilst using the elent of fire.
After all, from the start this battle wasn't about defeating the creature-- he never stood a chance, no matter how strong he appeared to the rest of the world. He sensed it, the Dragons Mana pool was so innurably large that it was physically impossible to quantify it in human terms. A tiny fragnt of that pool was enough to fuel his casting for at least 100 years without ever taking a pause from fighting. Trying to match sothing like that with his partly strength was not even a joke, but rather an insult.
Jesus, he mumbled with strained breath. How long do I have to keep the shit up?
"For as long as I desire, no?" a heavy, ancient, even primordial voice spoke directly into Cains mind, startling him.
" huh? You can freakin' talk? Let's do that instead! I'm much better at that than this whole fighting business that we've been doing for the past how long has it been? An hour or so? So, yeah, let's talk big boy!"
I find very little amusent in the fancy talk, the dragon said, still speaking directly into Cains mind. and would much rather see how you hold up in a battle. So, entertain , tiny creature .
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