Breath 2

+++

The reason the Breath represents the dragon’s ultimate technique:

First, even counting lifeforms possessing sufficient mana reserves to unleash it constitutes an extreme rarity.

Having expended herself, Tia clung to Tiamat while whimpering:

“Mommy… My legs are all wobbly…”

“Let’s head inside for you to rest now. You did wonderfully well, my daughter.”

“Heheh…”

Even as a dragon, Tia found herself utterly drained from a single Breath emission.

Despite her immature dragon heart, Tia’s mana capacity alone likely ranked among the continental top ten.

Testifying to the Breath’s sheer immense mana consumption as an ultimate technique.

Yet satisfying the mana requirement alone did not enable Breath usage.

Magic involved emulating natural phenomena through mana-fueled calculations and formulas – formulaic ‘paintings’ of sorts.

Even non-dragons could project fire or manipulate water through magic.

But the Breath stood apart – not an emulated phenomenon, but a pure, unadulterated mana discharge itself.

Gathering one’s entire mana reserves into the mouth before projecting it forward?

Easy to say, yet even the foremost mana control authority Archmage Undying could not achieve such advanced mastery.

Uniquely among this world’s warriors, only Doyun had successfully integrated delicate mana manipulation into actual combat applications.

Other fighters here could at best circulate mana through their cardiovascular systems by concentrating it within their hearts.

‘But if I…’

Even Enoch in his previous incarnation had found this notion inconceivable.

Yet the current Doyun utilized draconic mana breathing methods to enhance his control alongside boosted willpower from system adjustments and личный рост.

Moreover, this pseudo-species’ physiology inherently excelled at mana affinity comparable to legendary adamantite itself.

And above all, the epiphany sparked from witnessing Tia’s Breath moments ago:

‘I can definitely do it.’

Doyun trusted his instincts implicitly.

Approaching the vacant-minded Doyun and Lei, Tiamat cradling Tia inquired:

“What did you make of my daughter’s Breath?”

“…Hmm? Daddy?”

Tia peeked her head out from Tiamat’s embrace, blearily regarding Doyun with half-lidded eyes – seemingly on the verge of nodding off from sheer exhaustion.

Extending his arms welcomingly, Tia naturally transferred into Doyun’s hold.

Clutching fistfuls of his torso, she nuzzled into his embrace before quickly dozing off, clearly utterly spent.

“She performed splendidly.”

“Nurturing on such enriched life essence must have fortified her admirably.”

Tiamat smiled faintly at the tender scene of Doyun and Tia, no longer objecting to his acknowledged paternal role.

“…About that Breath, though.”

Doyun relayed his inspired insight to Tiamat.

Her eyes widening in intrigued amusement, even Lei gaped incredulously with sparkling, disbelieving eyes.

“You think you could truly pull it off?”

“Brother? For real?”

“Hmm… Perhaps.”

With a wave of Tiamat’s hand, the slumbering Tia’s body floated back into her mother’s embrace through intricate, wordless levitation magic.

“Tia would certainly swoon over her daddy’s gallantry if she witnessed it.”

“Let her sleep for now. Allow me to attempt it first.”

Doyun positioned himself in the courtyard’s epicenter where Tia had exhaled skywards.

“Haah…”

Taking a deep breath, he recaptured that previous epiphany.

‘Definitely… I could sense the mana flow…’

Gazing upwards through the newly cleared overhead skies, his draconic heart kindled within.

Winds gusted anew – whooosh – nature itself responding to the surging mana that had preceded Tia’s Breath with similar auras.

Prompting Lei’s own excited clamoring:

“O-, Ooh…! F-, For real! Just like that sensation earlier!”

His brother Doyun truly intended unleashing a Breath of his own – a Han Doyun Breath!

Imagining that thick golden pillar shooting heavenwards, Lei’s chest swelled with anticipation.

Golden mana converged into a spherical mass within Doyun’s gaping maw.

“Haaaah…!”

Woooong-

An utterly staggering mana volume.

Doyun sensed his quivering jaw, rattling skull and tensed musculature straining under the immense load – the first time even he had attempted manipulating such complex, overwhelming quantities.

He could feel the apocalyptic destructive potential, the sheer primal energy amassing within his mouth.

‘This is…!’

This constituted the true Breath…!

Its might already reverberated through his entire being with tremors.

He shuddered at mastering this ultimate technique firsthand.

Soon, his mouth brimmed with the fully accumulated mana charge.

The surrounding vegetation and air currents whipped into a frenzy as Lei and Tiamat lolled out their tongues dumbfounded.

“Wh-, Whoaaa…! What insane mana is…?!”

“Hoho.”

Vastly exceeding even Tia’s prior Breath.

Lei urged him eagerly:

“Brother! Quick, unleash it skywards! Hurry!”

Woooong-

Yet Doyun merely stood frozen with his maw agape, that lambent golden radiance spilling forth as he hesitated taking further action.

“Brother?”

By now, Lei too sensed something amiss.

Doyun’s eyes darted around frantically in apparent confusion.

‘Ah, how do I fire it?’

He had successfully gathered the mana, yet the release mechanism eluded him.

Quite the debacle.

“Brother? What’s wrong?”

“Ergh…”

Assessing the situation, Tiamat brandished her magic in preparation.

Even amidst her spellcasting, Doyun struggled under that increasingly uncontrollable maelstrom of energy.

‘Wh-, What should I do with this…?’

As his mana control faltered, the spherical mass within began destabilizing, its form dissipating.

“Ah, ah? Br-, Brother!”

“Get down.”

Simultaneously extending a protective barrier, Tiamat warned:

‘Oh…’

Kwaaaaaaaaaahng-!!

A devastating explosion erupted.

+++

“…!”

Awakening in the infirmary bed, Doyun immediately circulated his mana before patting his head cautiously.

‘…I’m alive.’

Thankfully, his head remained intact – some internal injuries lingered, but his physique emerged otherwise unscathed.

‘This is… the World Tree’s medical ward.’

Just before the detonation, he had sensed Tiamat’s intricate mana flows.

Evidently, her magic had shielded the people, buildings and himself.

“Awake at last, Mana Belcher?”

Turning towards that voice, he spotted Tiamat leaning against the wall while Tia hovered midair, fast asleep.

“Quite the precious sight – you regurgitating that immense mana geyser like vomit. Stifling my laughter while erecting shields proved rather taxing.”

“…Did Tia witness it too?”

“You were unconscious for two hours. Tia had fallen asleep as well by then.”

“A relief, truly.”

“Best avoid traumatizing the half-breed chick with such unsightly displays.”

Doyun nodded wordlessly, indeed disinclined to scar Tia with that disgraceful display.

Seeking counsel, he inquired of Tiamat:

“What went wrong?”

“Every process barring the actual discharge was flawless. You exhibited no issues with mana control itself – it seems your oral structure simply could not handle the expulsion phase.”

Doyun felt utterly deflated – such an anticlimactic reason, after all that.

“Still, I never expected you to implode your own skull in the attempt. A most entertaining spectacle, I must admit.”

“…”

Unable to muster any retort, Doyun remained grateful to Tiamat for protecting him – without her intervention, calamity would have ensued.

“Yet to think you nearly mastered the genuine Breath… I have now witnessed a human on the very cusp of dragonbreath in my lifetime.”

“I almost had it…”

“How about this? Instead of exhaling, you clamp your maw shut and simply chomp down on your foes…”

“Leave if you’re just going to mock me.”

“Rest, Belcher.”

“Get out.”

Doyun murmured flatly in monotone.

After the departing Tiamat closed the door, Doyun lay back to revisit those previous sensations.

‘My regression didn’t trigger again, did it?’

Gazing at his necklace, the obsidian Dragon Heart cubic gemstone twinkled luminescently – like a diminutive golem watching over him.

Regression had not activated.

Meaning either the golem judged no grave peril, or the situation proved unavoidable even through momentary resets.

‘Definitely not the latter – a few seconds’ regression could have restored my mana control.’

So it had deemed no genuine crisis after all.

‘Was Tiamat’s presence the reason?’

Or… did it mean success had been possible?

‘Hmm…’

Doyun replayed that prior sensation in his mind.

That exhilarating rush of energy – if only he could have discharged it in Breath form, such immense power lay within reach.

‘I could have done it…’

Filled with intense regret, Doyun continued revisiting that tantalizing sensation over and over.

+++

Thud thud thud, thud thud thud

A dark forest trail in the dead of night.

A lone man spurred his steed at breakneck speed, fleeing the frontlines towards his native Muspelheim.

“Hurahk, hurahk, heuk…!”

Despite nearing total collapse from sheer exhaustion, he channeled every last ounce of mana.

His skills and traits amplified that power enveloping the horse, which lolled out its tongue looking fit to faint – yet the man’s mana coerced greater speeds through sheer force.

Rider and steed fled desperately as if hunted by some nameless terror.

Yet the man soon grit his teeth bitterly.

“This goddamn…!”

He sensed them – the monsters closing in pursuit.

As a top-tier Apostle and Ranger, he scanned his surroundings without turning a hair.

Twenty of them.

‘I can’t win.’

He swiftly abandoned that prospect – while only twenty, their numbers exceeded his combat limits.

Cold sweat drenched his body, lowering his core temperature as sheer terror clenched his jaws, teeth chattering audibly.

His thoughts turned to the fresh hell he had just escaped.

‘Monsters… Monsters…!’

After the Berthe campaign, Metapolis Fortress had fortified its defenses and bolstered troop deployments.

Not just state-of-the-art defensive armaments, but their elite Apostle contingents too had vastly expanded in number.

Yet Metapolis – having withstood Berthe’s three-day siege – had just fallen to ruin overnight in a single night’s assault.

‘Those monsters…!’

Apostles, heralded as war machines blessed by the divine – even among their highest echelons capable of singlehandedly turning mid-scale conflicts like Doyun had during the Tsunami Trainers engagement.

Yet this man ranked among those vaunted top-tier Apostles, laughably within the Alliance’s strongest one hundred… had simply fled upon facing a mere twenty foes.

He now trembled helplessly, cowering before that paltry number.

‘Fuck, fuck, fucking hell…! This can’t be real!!’

Teeth clattering, he could scarcely credit this nightmarish reality unfolding.

Recalling the fresh demonic hell he had just escaped, his limbs quaked uncontrollably – those monsters overwhelming even top-tier Apostles like himself, swarming across the battlefield like some eldritch tide.

‘I have to alert command somehow! Anyhow!’

Without any opportunity to send word, the frontlines had been overwhelmed – Metapolis, among their greatest fortresses, obliterated overnight in a single night’s catastrophe.

Driven solely by that imperative to deliver this message, he spurred his steed recklessly onward with every last reserve.

Yet soon his body froze rigid in sheer horror.

Three had outflanked him from ahead.

‘Fuck!!’

Before he could even tremble, hooked appendages erupted from the foliage directly in his path.

Their speed utterly savage, yet as an agility-optimized Ranger he narrowly evaded by ducking low.

“Hurahk!”

His pounding heart felt fit to burst.

Thankfully, he had dodged one…

Splutch-

“…!”

His left arm tore clean off.

Another foe’s handiwork.

Soon after, his steed’s anguished whinny accompanied further wet, rending sounds.

Hihihiiing-!

Its legs severed, the flailing horse toppled over, pitching its rider headlong.

“Ah, ugh…”

Sprawled on the ground, the man quaked uncontrollably, utterly mana-drained and unable to even rise.

Sheer terror eroded his remaining sanity.

‘N-, No way…’

Records had undoubtedly existed about them – the most recent being the Apostle Han Doyun’s own encounter.

Yet they could not have possibly been this overwhelmingly powerful – Han Doyun had singlehandedly repelled over a dozen during their Rockenmeyer raid at barely two months into his debut.

“It can’t be this fucking different!!”

Raking the earth with his nails, he screamed hoarsely as rocks dug beneath his fingernails, agony drowned out by sheer indignation.

These fiends far outmatched any records – he believed Han Doyun must have falsified reports to exaggerate his illustrious feat.

Crick, crick. Kerrick-

“…!”

Sounds emanated from the surrounding darkness.

Countless pumpkin-like luminescent orbs materialized – seemingly innumerable pairs of eyes glowing amidst the shadows.

“Ah, ugh…”

He trembled helplessly under the demonic gazes boring into him from all sides.

And soon after:

“Hruaaaaaaaah!!”

Crunch, splutch-!

Arghsplutch-

Blood and viscera sprayed across the forest clearing.

Shortly after, the woods fell silent once more.

The miasma of war hung heavy over the frontlines.