Dragonai's Victory
I soon found myself staring at a foreign lifeform whose color nearly blended with the black fortress. Our eyes met.
“Bandseuk?”
“Dragonai—?!”
I clicked my tongue at the sight of the black dragon who had invaded the Lusa Empire out of sheer greed. “That bastard’s the reason I’m caught up in this mess…”
After all, the mages would never have dared fire the turrets at Dragonai, the empire’s guardian deity. Probably. Because of Bandseuk’s appearance, the automated turret system had been unable to distinguish friend from foe.
Yet as I looked at him, a grin spread across my face. “So you finally showed up…”
Both dragons burned with volcanic fury, as though they had met their mortal enemy on a single-log bridge. An unbreakable, bitter enmity existed between Dragonai and the Bandseuk bloodline.
Fwoooosh—
Before long, all eighteen turrets along the outer city wall—including the four still charging—flared with blinding light.
“These bastards again!?”
In the blink of an eye, shells rained down on Dragonai. Traveling at near-Mach speeds, the projectiles—each loaded with various spells—slammed into his body, where his reverse scales stood bristling in rage. Red scales seemed to scatter like blood from his form.
In truth, only fragments of the third barrier’s protective layer had been stripped away. From a distance, however, it looked as though cracks had split his scales and blood was pouring forth.
“Kekeke, what a perfect opportunity!”
Seeing that the four artifacts he feared had vanished and that the wounded Dragonai was bleeding profusely, Bandseuk’s eyes gleamed with opportunity. Dragons were the supreme masters of all magic; their recovery magic was unmatched. If given even a moment to heal, Dragonai would restore himself completely within minutes—though it would cost an astronomical amount of mana, enough to require months of accumulation.
Bandseuk therefore shot upward at hundreds of kilometers per hour, intending to ram Dragonai before he could recover.
Though already injured and cracked, Dragonai did not dodge. Instead, he dove even faster and slammed his own body into the black dragon with equal force.
BOOOOM—!
The collision of the two dragons produced a shockwave as if a meteor had exploded in midair. Yet fiercer than the sonic boom was the burning hatred in their eyes.
“Bandseuk!”
“Dragonai!!”
With their reverse scales raised, the two dragons unleashed their most powerful kicks and plummeted toward one of the city districts.
The soldiers who had fired the turrets finally gaped in stunned silence.
“Th-that… the dragon that was flying in—wasn’t it with the black one?!”
“Y-yeah. It was hard to see in the night sky… but that looked like the Red Dragon, didn’t it?”
“What? The empire’s guardian deity—the Red Dragon?!”
“Sh-shouldn’t we help him?!”
CRASH—!
Unfortunately, the place they landed was a residential district. Hundreds of meters of dragon bodies crushed thousands of homes, killing thousands of people in an instant.
The two dragons grappled with their forelimbs. Despite his wounds, Dragonai’s strength held the advantage. Bandseuk’s knees began to buckle.
“You little brat… when did you get this strong…?”
Bandseuk had always looked down on Dragonai. Dragonai’s father had been slain by Bandseuk’s own father, and Dragonai was only two hundred and twenty years old—little more than a child compared to Bandseuk’s eight hundred. Of course, the Red Dragon lineage was said to be far older than the Black Dragons’.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve sharpened my claws to kill your kind?”
“You think I’ll die to a whelp like you?!”
The black dragon gathered the searing heat from his heart and lungs, condensing it like phlegm inside the oil glands in his throat. Then he exhaled, mixing the flames with gas.
Dragonai opened his mouth and swallowed the fire whole.
Yet—
“Kgh! I shouldn’t have eaten that. Tastes like absolute shit.”
Having consumed the flames, Dragonai instead felt his strength drain away. Bandseuk regained the upper hand.
“Kuhuhu, you stupid brat. Didn’t know Black Dragons can infuse even our flames with killing intent, did you?”
“Damn it, that filthy fire… I need clean flames. Pure fire…”
“Die already, last survivor of the pathetic Red Dragon clan!”
Thinking that a two-element dragon was nothing special, Bandseuk drove his right hand toward the reverse scale over Dragonai’s heart, intending to rip it out in one stroke.
But with a clang, his hand only managed to crack the silver scale; it could not penetrate.
Dragonai bared his fangs and sank them into Bandseuk’s neck.
“Y-you little—!”
Bandseuk bit back, clamping down on Dragonai’s throat. Dragonai’s teeth tore deeper, cracking scales and threatening to reach flesh. Yet Bandseuk felt his own fangs growing painfully dull.
“Th-this… an incredible silver-armored hide for a two-element dragon…”
Alarmed, Bandseuk shouted a blink spell and teleported away. Dragonai followed.
Dragons rarely used magic against one another. Most spells were weaker than raw physical blows, and casting something like blink on a body as massive as a dragon’s would exhaust nearly all their mana. To a dragon, mana was like calories or fat to a human—the more they stored, the stronger they became, but once it ran out, their life itself was in danger.
Therefore, in battles between dragons, minimizing mana loss was the only way to survive.
When his opponent pulled away, Dragonai roared and expelled a massive burst of gas, then shouted “Blink!” The enormous dragon’s breath of flame hurtled toward Bandseuk.
“KRRRAAAAAAGH—!”
Bandseuk writhed in agony, ducking low to escape. Dragonai pursued, adjusting the angle of his neck and continuing to spew his terrifying breath.
“KRRAA— Stop! Damn it all!”
Bandseuk soared higher into the sky. Dragonai followed. Once more, the two colossal dragons clashed in brutal close combat.
This time, however, the extreme heat from Dragonai’s flames had already melted the outer layer of Bandseuk’s scales. Dragonai’s reverse scales deflected each of Bandseuk’s physical strikes at an angle, dispersing the impact. Bandseuk’s melted scales, now little more than ordinary hide, could not withstand the blows; the force passed straight through to his internal organs.
“KRRAAAAAAGH!!”
Bandseuk staggered like a man losing consciousness, eyelids drooping. His movements grew sluggish.
But it was not yet enough to finish him!
Dragonai seized the opening and lunged.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!
A one-sided barrage of physical strikes rained down. Finally, Dragonai sank his teeth into Bandseuk’s neck. The tough black scales shattered, blood fountained upward, and the taste of rich meat filled Dragonai’s mouth.
“Hurry! Gather every magic combat unit—now!!!”
“We have to help Dragonai!!!”
But what they found was only the severed head of a dragon, cleanly bitten off by Dragonai.