Chapter Index





    A battle where a single mistake could lead to death, a nerve-wracking fierce fight. The first to show weakness was Leopold’s guard knight, Yug Percival.

    Having reached master level not long ago, Percival was slower than others and lacked experience fighting large monsters.

    “Huh…!?”

    Percival jumped onto a house roof to avoid Nidhogg’s claws, but tilted with a groan.

    The roof beam he stood on collapsed, causing his right foot to sink in as if being sucked down.

    In his rush to dodge the dragon’s attack, he hadn’t properly checked his footing.

    To make matters worse, when he put weight on his left foot to pull his right foot free, the left side of the roof couldn’t bear the concentrated weight and shattered. His body tilted in the opposite direction.

    “What the…!”

    Percival exclaimed in dismay.

    Getting stuck not once but twice was a truly fatal opening.

    【 Kaaaaaaa! 】

    Facing the motionless prey, the dragon thrust forward its head.

    Its ant-like muzzle opened wide, revealing a throat lined with thousands of tentacles. Its leech-like tongue writhed, exposing teeth sharp as thorns, while its dripping saliva emitted a sour stench that could melt one’s nose.

    ‘No, I’m going to be eaten…!’

    Percival’s face instantly turned pale. It was too late to dodge. He was already halfway into the dragon’s maw.

    Percival instinctively rolled backward, but the dragon’s jaws snapped shut before he could retreat to safety.

    – Crunch!

    Blood soaked the roof.

    —-

    【 Kraaaaaaah-! 】

    A roar that echoed beyond the sky, scattering clouds. Was it an expression of joy at finally devouring one of the annoying pests? The dragon raised its head high and bellowed loudly.

    Everyone heard that roar.

    “…Huh?”

    Even Percival, who had rolled across the roof with his eyes tightly shut.

    Startled by the thunderous roar, Percival raised himself up and opened his eyes.

    The wall of the house he had been on was right in front of him.

    When the intense pain had struck him, he thought he’d been caught in the dragon’s jaws, but that pain had actually come from falling from the roof and crashing onto the debris-covered ground.

    ‘Did I… dodge? How?’

    With his heart pounding as if it might burst from his ribcage, Percival looked up at the sky.

    And he immediately understood why he had survived.

    – Kwaaang!

    Right above him, a massive creature with a rocky body was punching the dragon’s head.

    “What is that…?”

    Though not comparable to the dragon’s enormity, it was still a monster well over ten meters tall.

    It had a turtle-like head with a gorilla-like robust upper body. Spike-like stalactites protruded from its back, and it had no lower body.

    Around the monster’s neck was a ring of strange blue-glowing characters, from which thin beams of light continuously shot out, striking the dragon’s body and causing explosions.

    “What are you doing just lying there! If you’ve survived, stop gawking and swing your sword!”

    Looking closer, the light beams weren’t coming from the ring on the monster’s neck, but from Perneisia standing behind the ring.

    After much deliberation and conflict, she had finally summoned a high-level earth elemental, mounted it, and was firing elemental magic while consuming lesser elementals like water.

    ‘A fairy guardian… so that monster is a high elemental? Are high elementals such enormous creatures?’

    It was a sight that validated the rumors that recent fairy guardians were comparable to hero-class knights.

    —-

    -Kwaaang!

    【 Graaaaaaaaak! 】

    A scream-like roar echoed.

    Unlike ordinary arrows that couldn’t inflict proper wounds, the mana arrows fired by consuming elementals like bullets caused intense elemental explosions, breaking through the carapace and tearing flesh.

    Dark red blood poured down like a waterfall.

    The worms forming the dragon’s body wriggled and clung together to heal the wounds, but they couldn’t do anything about the pain itself, as evidenced by the tremendous rage in its howls.

    “Close that mouth!”

    While continuously drawing her bowstring, Perneisia commanded the high elemental to counter the dragon’s attacks.

    The stone elemental’s two fists struck Nidhogg’s head in succession. The dragon’s head twisted sharply from the impact of the heavy stone fists.

    The creature trembled its antennae and grabbed the elemental’s arm with its stag beetle-like horn, then lashed out with its tail like a whip, shattering the opposite shoulder.

    The stone elemental’s left arm crashed to the ground with a thunderous sound. It was like witnessing a battle between a giant and a dragon, something extremely rare even in legends.

    “Graaaah-!”

    The now one-armed stone elemental roared in anger and headbutted the dragon’s horn that was gripping its right arm.

    The carapace horn shattered, freeing the elemental’s arm. However, the dragon, seemingly unfazed by losing one horn, grabbed the stone elemental’s upper body with its two front legs and lifted it up.

    Though enormous to human eyes, the elemental was merely a slightly larger toy to the dragon, which was five times its size.

    “No way, it’s lifting that?!”

    Even Perneisia, who had been drawing her bowstring, couldn’t hide her shock at seeing the ten-meter rock mass being lifted like a teddy bear.

    The stone elemental tried to remove the dragon’s front legs with its reassembled left arm and intact right arm, but one arm was caught by the dragon’s tail and the other blocked by its tongue.

    【 Kaoooooooo! 】

    The dragon raised its body vertically, vibrating its vocal cords. Like a monkey lifting a lion cub.

    It intended to smash the elemental to the ground, shattering it along with the fairy.

    “I won’t let you!”

    At that moment, a blonde youth leaped from a three-story building roof, spinning vertically like a windmill and bringing down a greatsword shimmering with blue-silver light.

    A blade carrying the full power of one who stood before the wall of heroes. The greatsword, forged from five melted true silver swords, mercilessly cut into the dragon’s front leg.

    The blade crushed the carapace, pulverized flesh, and dug into bone. Nidhogg’s foreleg was half-severed in an instant.

    Unlike the carapace and flesh made of worm monsters, the internal skeleton was dragon bone itself, so even Demian’s full-power slash couldn’t completely sever it.

    However, cutting through half the bone was enough to loosen the grip holding the elemental.

    【 Kyaaaaaaaaaaaa! 】

    Four pairs of eyes filled with hatred and madness turned toward Demian. This was the first attack that had cut to the bone during their minutes-long fierce battle.

    The dragon instinctively released the stone elemental it had been holding and shook Demian off its arm like dust.

    As Demian lost his footing and was flung away, the dragon’s tongue extended like a tentacle toward him.

    “This much…!”

    Demian drew upon his mana to create an air platform beneath his feet, then leaped from it. The dragon’s tongue licked only empty air, missing its target.

    The enraged dragon turned its head to chase Demian, swinging its front legs and tail continuously. As if threatening to sweep the entire area if he kept dodging like a flying insect.

    Demian’s movements became increasingly desperate.

    “Have you completely forgotten about me? Is it because you have an insect brain?”

    “Groooooh!”

    With Perneisia’s taunt, the stone elemental that had fallen to the ground and been partially destroyed rose with its restored body and struck the dragon’s neck.

    “Now! Everyone attack!”

    “How dare you aim at-!”

    It wasn’t just Perneisia. Those who had been desperately dodging now poured all manner of attacks at the dragon, as if they had been waiting for this opportunity.

    Six streams of high-level magic erupted from all directions, and a massive arrow carrying a storm-like rotation was fired with intense rage.

    A rage that surpassed even the dragon’s fury, like a black sun. Millia’s rage at seeing Demian on the verge of being devoured might have impressed even evil gods.

    【 Krrrrrrr-! 】

    Sensing the seven streams of destructive power flying toward it, the dragon vibrated its throat and took a deep breath. As it had done before, it intended to reduce their power with a wall of roars.

    However,

    “I told you. Close that damn mouth-!”

    – Whooosh!

    The stone elemental’s right fist shot up vertically, striking the dragon’s jaw. The dragon’s mouth snapped shut as its head was thrown skyward.

    Immediately after, six streams of high-level magic and Millia’s arrow all struck its defenseless body simultaneously.

    Purple blood erupted like a fountain.


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