Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Misunderstanding (1)
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····· Dragon hunter?
Humans who called themselves dragon hunters weren't unheard of since ancient times.
Those praised as the strong, basking in all sorts of power and privileges.
But they were all bluster. Frauds, every one of them.
No human had ever satisfied Balmung's thirst for battle against the mighty.
Ridiculous.
They were nothing but laughable.
Forget dragons—even most couldn't handle a single decent monster.
Weaklings pretending to be strong, putting on a show.
But this human knew. He knew Balmung was a dragon.
Yet he still proclaimed himself a dragon hunter and attacked.
Unlike any human Balmung had encountered before, this one had guts, at least.
A Sword Master who can wield Aura.
It was a standard by which humans measured strength among themselves.
A swordsman who could handle Aura was certainly strong. But to Balmung, a dragon, it was just a half-baked mana waster, inefficient to the core.
Just the two of them, huh.
If he'd brought a horde of soldiers, it might have been a headache.
The commotion would have revealed Balmung's presence inevitably.
But the presences he sensed nearby were only two.
One was that self-proclaimed dragon hunter, and the other...
Dark Elf!
Swoosh. Whoosh.
The Dark Elf shot out from the shadows like an arrow.
In an instant, she closed the distance and swung her sword at his throat.
Balmung raised his hand. It morphed into a blade-like claw.
Shaaa!
Upon clash, it vanished like smoke.
An illusion.
Balmung straightened his "sword" once more.
Shaaaak!
Another illusion.
Not a mere afterimage, but one so convincing even a dragon was fooled.
If not magic, there was only one answer.
"A spirit weapon?"
A spirit weapon that implanted illusions in the foe.
The strongest weapon humans wielded in the previous gods' game.
All of them should have vanished or become useless by now...
This is getting troublesome.
A Dark Elf wielding a spirit weapon. And a Sword Master, no less.
He'd planned to handle this quietly and swiftly, but things were getting complicated.
Yet he was Balmung. The mightiest dragon who had accomplished eight feats!
Amplify.
His eighth feat, slaying the Great Whale King, had granted him the power of amplification.
Not just reading frequencies—he could expand the bandwidth of his "dragon words" as well.
【Stop.】
"······!"
The Dark Elf's movements halted under the intensified dragon word.
Her breathing, even her heartbeat.
Everything around her, including the Dark Elf, froze in place.
"My dragon words are stronger than those of other dragons. Even a Sword Master can't withstand their amplified power."
Amplified dragon words pierced through Aura.
The closer the target, the more absolute their effect.
No mere human or Dark Elf could resist.
Balmung smirked.
"Stay frozen and die like that. Feel yourself slowly fading away."
He'd love to watch them perish, but he had no time.
He needed to find and destroy the barrier stone.
That would make it easier to detect the "Epic of Detection" hidden in the palace.
With the Epic of Detection in hand, he could hunt down the other Epics scattered across the continent and grow stronger. The fastest path to godhood, without chasing feats.
But...
Whoosh!
Kying!
A sword grazed his face from behind.
The first sword he'd launched floated silently, drawing blood.
If he hadn't instinctively hardened his skin in that split second, half his face would be gone.
What?
Balmung's expression wavered for the first time.
He touched the sliced skin—blood flowed.
Impossible.
This was his absolute domain.
His amplified dragon word had commanded "stop"—everything should have obeyed.
"Do all dragons blindly trust their dragon words like this?"
How was it moving?
She laughed as if it were mere smoke and mirrors.
The dragon word had failed.
And as she moved, the dragon word's dominion unraveled.
No.
Balmung quickly realized his mistake.
It wasn't her movement that broke the dragon word.
Something entered through the wound.
The sword she'd fired while feigning stillness.
It had cut his skin.
Something had entered through the wound, neutralizing the dragon word's effect.
A virus?
Sometimes mana mutated. Dragons called it a virus.
The mana now invading his body was a virus.
One rapidly multiplying, vying for control.
"What are you?"
A human wielding viruses? Unheard of.
But he'd picked the wrong opponent.
An old-era dragon might fall to this, but Balmung was a new-era dragon, born more perfect.
He possessed innate power to counter viruses.
I tried to handle this quietly...
The Dark Elf moved again.
But he no longer fell for the repeated illusions.
"Guh!"
He seized her true form and hurled her aside.
Balmung scowled.
Dragging this out would put him at a disadvantage.
Pride stung, but without dragon words working, his human form couldn't end this quickly.
"You brought this on yourselves."
With that, Balmung's entire body began to transform.
Polymorph released; his skin turned pitch black.
Armor-like scales erupted, a tail grew.
The true form of a dragon.
But not the massive, mythical behemoth of legends.
Smaller, bipedal. Like a compressed dragon.
Nothing like a true dragon.
····· Definitely different.
The sanctuary dragons and true dragons alike had massive quadrupedal forms as their true bodies.
A bipedal dragon? More dragonkin than dragon.
"I'll crush you."
Shhht—!
He vanished.
Balmung's body blinked out like teleportation.
Faster than Arel in the forest. Speed beyond the eye.
His weaponized body targeted the throat.
Kuuuung!
Chwaaak!
But it was blocked.
By a sword, no less.
He matched my speed?
Balmung's eyes widened. Post-transformation, his speed rivaled light itself. An unblockable strike, blocked.
But he didn't panic.
Chrrrr!
Transformed, his whole body was a weapon. He unleashed hundreds of strikes, using every part. At this range, defeat was impossible.
Yet as time passed, Balmung sensed something off.
Even a graze from his attacks would be fatal, but every one was countered.
He's reading me in advance.
Impossible without foresight. Unless reading the future.
0.1 seconds. Or more.
Reading and responding to hundreds of moves.
Human brains couldn't compute that.
Even dragons could only predict dozens ahead with supercomputation, but this human was doing ten times that.
All in less than a second.
Boom! Kurrrung!
And that wasn't all that annoyed him.
Dozens of swords bursting from the human's rear space, cloaked in Aura, relentlessly harassed Balmung.
As time dragged, it was he being overwhelmed, not the human.
This wasn't a clash of the strong.
He felt toyed with.
You damn rat...!
*
I could see it. The dragon's movements.
Dozens, hundreds of possibilities.
Seizing the most certain path and countering.
My brain domain unlocked, super-senses enhanced.
But even so, tracking Balmung 100% was impossible.
[A.I 'Balmung's computation functions hacked.]
[Assisting Master's physical functions based on computed results.]
Zero's nanomachines, sent through the wound.
They hacked Balmung's computation, peeking inside.
Predicting and countering in real-time.
Balmung's moves were "determined" by data.
Based on input data, he acted.
Read that, and countering wasn't hard.
Of course, reading meant nothing without the skill to respond.
I'd have failed without surpassing that wall.
It's all so clear.
Brain overload tingled, but now Balmung's moves were laid bare.
Super-senses sifted Zero's data in an instant.
We traded blows by a hair's breadth.
Balmung still had no clue why his attacks were read.
Two ways to escape: compute faster than Zero processes info.
Or fight unconsciously—but impossible for an A.I.
I focused solely on the fight. I infused my swords with Aura; Zero remotely controlled them, targeting gaps.
Not 1v1—Balmung fought 1vMany.
Fun.
So this was the thrill.
Of battling the strong.
Never fought this intensely before.
Even using multiple moves simultaneously, in a kill-or-be-killed brawl, deploying everything was natural.
Focus, and the world shrank to me and Balmung.
Scenery faded.
"You rat!"
His attacks failing, Balmung raged.
I immersed deeper.
Soon, even Balmung vanished from awareness.
I lost myself in the fight.
*
Arel watched speechless.
No opening to intervene.
She wanted to help, but no chance.
Moving to aid might just hinder.
That's a dragon...
Balmung. His "dragon word" paralyzed her utterly. Far beyond the true dragon's dragon fear.
Even her heart stopped.
But Reinhardt moved, and it all lifted.
Dragon word gone; now he pressed the dragon.
Their exchange was otherworldly, even to her. Reinhardt read every move perfectly.
The slow defeats the fast.
Incomprehensible.
Reinhardt was slower, plainly.
Yet his slowness caught the faster Balmung.
Balmung, far quicker, couldn't best the slow.
Beyond common sense.
And manipulating Aura-infused swords remotely.
Seeing it firsthand felt like an insurmountable wall.
The slow defeats the fast...
Arel was drawn in.
His moves stirred an odd exhilaration.
Her overwhelming potential grew just from witnessing this high-level clash.
Like locks in her mind unlocking.
Unlike contracting with Galatin.
"Fine, I'll kill you all!"
Mana particles gathered at Balmung's mouth.
Dragon Breath.
The dragons' ultimate, erasing areas wholesale!
Level the palace and flee.
He knew prolonging favored him not.
Balmung spat the hastily amassed mana orb.
Kuuaaaa!
*
Eternal Palace crumbled. In a massive explosion.
Dragon Breath erased all it touched—a dragon's authority.
But Balmung couldn't think.
It exploded... already?
The Breath detonated. Scorched his body, blew off his face.
Self-destruction.
The intruding virus triggered it before launch.
But an explosion to raze the palace.
Everything nearby should've vanished.
Yet right after, Balmung saw.
That's... the Northern Dragon?
Northern Dragon. The one with ten feats emerged, shielding from the blast.
Its absolute armor.
Balmung, who'd heard tales, recognized the "Dragon Armor" instantly.
So that guy was the Northern Dragon?
Why was the Northern Dragon here?
Here to hunt kin?
Balmung realized too late.
Fooled.
Using the Epic of Detection as bait, that mad dragon had gathered his kind.
Not for Epics—for dragons, to grow strong.
No wonder the faint dragon scent; not illusion, a real dragon!
Toying with him sans true form? Had to be the Northern Dragon.
One of the previous era's legends: ten feats, closest to "god."
Ignored in seals, but otherwise might've been the twelfth god.
Won't let you have your way!
Balmung amplified his thoughts.
Even in defeat, he wouldn't let it go as planned.
Alert nearby dragons: "Northern Dragon here."
That he'd summoned dragons for a hunt.
But dying, he couldn't send long messages.
Just a few words, as signals.
In a flash, amplified thoughts broadcast—but his mind didn't last.
Thud!
Balmung's body, a limp doll sans soul, slumped to the ground.
*
Through the ruined palace, Arel and the 4th Prince were visible.
Dragon Armor had blocked Balmung's Breath.
But no time to save the 4th Prince too.
It protected me and Arel; he was too far.
Gaph.
Surprisingly, the Demon King Gaph shielded the 4th Prince.
The flesh lump that detached from me pre-blast moved to protect him.
Come to think: the 4th Prince's mother bore Northern Demon King blood.
Thus, the 4th Prince was Gaph's descendant.
Gaph acted to guard his kin.
"Leon! Where are you, Leon!"
Knights in tow, someone rushed from afar.
The 4th Prince's consort.
Spotting me amid debris, she unleashed.
"R-Reinhardt, Your Highness? Did you destroy the palace? Did you hurt Leon?"
"No, Mother."
The 4th Prince—Leon—rose, cradling the fallen ice bird.
"Ah! Leon. Are you alright?"
"Yes. Ancestor protected me."
"What? Ancestor?"
Leon pointed at me.
End of Misunderstanding (1)