Bury the Ark

I shoved myself up from my seat, summoned my bow, and drew the string taut.

Light gathered at the nock and resolved into a golden arrow.

"Kyaaaah!"

"An attack?!"

Screams erupted around me the instant they saw what I was doing.

"Ha-eun. Control the crowd. Anyone who tries to force their way out — just kill them."

"What?! B-but—"

"Do it."

More furious than before, I snapped the order at her. She clenched the scabbard of her sword and sprinted for the door.

With her sent to the rear, I could fight for real without worrying about her safety.

"Figures. I thought I smelled something fishy and reptilian in the air."

Shrring—

The Slayer on the dais drew his greatsword.

"So an adult was here as well?"

A smile of genuine amusement spread across his face.

"C-class Hunter Lee Se— haah… never mind."

I had no interest in facing him as a hunter.

Just die already.

"Golden Dragon Goldy."

Thwang!—

The arrow left the string at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the same instant I focused mana into my throat and pronounced a Dragon Speech like a death sentence.

The diction of a dragon had slipped out of me without meaning to. Every human who heard that Dragon Speech froze in place for a heartbeat.

Dragon Speech was power in the shape of words. And every word spoken was bound by a dragon's honor to be kept as absolute truth. They must have recognized that on instinct.

"Come forth, shadows."

Crack!—

Figures in pitch-black clothing erupted from every direction. One of them took the arrow I had loosed in the Slayer's place and scattered into nothing.

And the very next instant—

—I tore into the middle of them at an absurd speed.

And then—

KRAAAAAANG!—

The moment I clenched my fist hard, a brilliant explosion of gold light bloomed outward. Chairs, the dais, everything nearby was swallowed by the blast and vanished without a trace — along with the shadowy figures that had been standing there.

…I needed more distance from Ha-eun. Even just now, I had been forced to shrink the blast radius by a ridiculous amount.

"How amusing. The one who trespassed first is the one throwing a tantrum."

He gripped the greatsword in both hands and gathered power into his legs.

Crack!—

The floor split as he launched himself at me with everything he had—

CRUNCH!—

—and his head disappeared.

Clatter!—

The headless body and the greatsword hit the floor. While the onlookers fell into pure panic—

"U-Unnie…? D-did you actually kill him…?"

Ha-eun, still posted at the entrance on my orders, approached with trembling eyes. What filled them was pure terror — a look nothing like the way she had always looked at me.

"No."

"…What?"

"That wasn't the real body."

It had gone limp like a puppet with its strings cut. The guards I had blown away earlier were the same.

Tap—

I picked up the shard of Terra's horn that had fallen to the floor. It still held residual heat, warm against my fingers.

A horn was a vital organ for a dragon; even after being severed, it shared sensation with the main body for a while. In other words, Terra was still alive.

Crunch—

He wasn't exactly my direct thrall, but he was a dragon who followed me. He had his cute side in more ways than one, and I was fond of him. On top of that, I had appointed myself his guardian — and I couldn't even protect a single horn?

"Unnie…?"

With a colossal amount of power packed into my body, I looked deeper into the facility.

"Unnie!"

Ha-eun's shout cut through.

"…What."

"I-I want to go with you."

"No."

I was genuinely furious. I did not have the bandwidth to fight while protecting someone.

I layered Physical Enhancement onto Ha-eun and said,

"Hold this position. I don't want to kill you by accident when the attacks start flying."

"But—"

"I won't say it twice. Stay put. Call the Association if you want."

Tap—

BOOM!—

I launched myself deeper inside.

I burned through money without a shred of restraint, carving a path forward like a madwoman.

"Halt—"

Thwang!—

Wherever a gold dragon passed, brilliant gold remained — just like the half-body that had just been erased, already solidifying into gold.

Some might ask why I didn't simply blow the entire place at once instead of walking in myself. The reason was simple.

If I killed them all at once, they wouldn't even get the chance to feel terror, would they?

Besides, if the whole structure collapsed, Terra and Ha-eun could be put in danger.

"I-it's closing in on this sector at high speed!"

"Fuck! Where the hell did that monster even come from?!"

"Confirmed as a higher-order specimen of the secured dragon—"

"It's because of the Boss again?!"

The deeper I pushed into the lower levels, the clearer the voices became. Unlike the black-clad things I had been cutting down, they were calling him "Boss" outright — subordinates, then.

Crunch!—

"Huh?"

I casually smashed through a shoddily built barricade, seized the nearest guard by the throat, and slammed him into the floor. Then I applied pressure with mana.

CRUNCH!—

In an instant, the guard lost any shape that could still be called human. Behind him, a woman's eyes went wide.

As the blood that had spattered across me solidified into gold and flaked away—

"W-wait! This has nothing to do with me—"

Thwang!—

The headless woman's body toppled backward.

"How dare you open your mouth in front of me."

I had a dragon's instincts too, of course. I had simply never bothered to act on them until now. As if some insignificant creature had any right to speak first in my presence.

Hmm—

The horn shard in my pocket began to radiate a warm heat. That meant I was drawing close to its owner — to Terra. The direction the shard pointed was a massive door behind the barricade, decorated with a ridiculous amount of flair.

"Does he think he's an actual Demon King or something."

I shifted both arms into a dragon's and seized the door roughly. A heavy steel slab that looked thick enough to stop a missile—

CRASH!—

—was ripped clean out of the wall the moment my hands touched it, torn free in a scream of metal.

"H-hiiik…!"

What appeared inside was a crowd of awakened guards, more of those things the Slayer had called shadows — and doctors and nurses.

Before I could even process the situation—

"Stop her!"

—they charged me first. I flicked my gaze across the force and took stock: seventeen guards who looked to be at least B-class, and twenty-seven shadows. With every approach path mapped in a single glance, I dove into them.

Leading with my dragon arms, I raked through their lines.

Crack!—

Thud—

Shunk!—

"Ghk—"

Bodies were carved apart in an instant and hit the floor. One lost a hand. Another lost a shoulder.

"Hup!"

I drew a deep breath, fixed my eyes on them—

FWOOOOSH!—

—and unleashed a breath.

"Aaaagh, AAAAAAGH!!!"

"Kyaaaah!!"

Screams rose with the stench of burning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flesh. I scowled and thrust my right hand forward.

CRRRUNCH!—

Everything that existed in that space — sound and stench included — collapsed into a single point and vanished, as if nothing had ever been there at all.

I turned my eyes to where the doctors and nurses were huddled.

"Please, please spare us…"

"Hic…"

"W-we were only—"

Thud!—

"…"

In that instant, a pitch-black greatsword punched through a doctor's chest and came flying at me.

Tap—

I caught the greatsword bare-handed.

Thud, thud—

From behind me. From both sides. Even from the doorway I had come through — shadows wearing the Slayer's form packed the room until it was full. So the greatsword wasn't an artifact after all. Could a cloning technique even be an artifact?

Shrring—

Dozens of Slayer shadows, at minimum. It was so absurd I couldn't even be surprised.

"Hey."

"Y-yes?!"

I glanced sidelong at the remaining doctors and nurses, who were shaking with terror.

"If you don't want to die, get out on your own. If you get caught in this, I'm not responsible."

Hundreds — thousands — of magic circles rose in a chaotic swirl. A small snap of my fingers set them off one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after another, and they flared to life in sequence.

Papapapapak!—

In the next breath, white lines flooded the area in a tangled storm and swept through the shadows.

"From the next attack on, I won't be accounting for your presence. Move."

At that, the humans scrambled over each other through the open doorway and fled.

Slither—

Shff—

While they ran, the Slayer's shadows that the lines had scattered re-coalesced, reforming into dozens of figures once more.

So that was why Terra had been taken down so easily. Each one looked A-class at the least, and a few of the higher-skill shadows could have been S-class. With dozens of those coming at once, even a lower-tier dragon like Terra might have been hard-pressed. Still, the fact that they had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠subdued him this quietly was a little surprising.

Crack—

Anyway. The humans were gone. If this section collapsed, Ha-eun should still be fine.

"Come at me."

I dumped nearly every last won in my account and, still in human form, dragged up my true power. Golden aura bloomed behind my back. My claws and horns grew longer under its influence, and the surrounding environment itself began to reshape into something optimized for me.

Looking at it, I almost felt as if I were staring at my lair from the previous world.

"I'll bury you with this place."

The moment I flicked my hand lightly—

KRAAAAAANG!—

—a colossal dragon's claw mark was carved into the wall.

And at the same time — though I didn't know it then — on the surface, the convulsions of my energy were detected, and a national extinction scenario was triggered. The atmosphere was so severe that a National-Level hunter was urgently dispatched toward this place.