The wind raged.
Slammed into the ground, I shoved aside the crushing pressure bearing down on me and managed to drag myself upright.
Blood trickled down my forehead.
What happened was dead simple.
A wind bullet had been smashed into my head.
That was it.
Just one hit — and it knocked me flat.
I'd underestimated the wind.
Invisible projectiles of air.
Who knew they could be this troublesome.
What's more, the howling gale robbed me of any freedom of movement, and because the surrounding air was in constant flux, it was nearly impossible to read the telltale signs of incoming wind bullets.
I'd been so fixated on the flashy lightning strikes that I'd failed to see the true danger of the Ptera Dragon's wind.
This wind-swept killing field belonged to the Ptera Dragon.
The wind spiraled into a vortex.
The sheer force made it impossible to even keep my eyes open.
Worse than that — breathing was a struggle.
It felt like someone had pressed a plastic bag against my face.
No matter how high my Status might be, I was still a breathing creature.
If this continued and I couldn't get a proper breath, oxygen deprivation was a foregone conclusion.
It wasn't as though I couldn't breathe at all, but whether I could fight at full capacity under these conditions was another matter entirely.
I honed my senses.
Here it comes!
A wind bullet hurtled toward me.
I dodged it by a hair's breadth.
But that was all I could manage.
I could barely avoid the projectile itself — there was no way I could fight against the gale while off-balance. The wind seized my body and swept me away.
And this time, it wasn't going to just launch me somewhere harmless like before.
"Hyahahaha!"
"Gah!?"
Waiting at the spot where the wind flung me was the Leopard Dragon.
Its claws tore into me without mercy.
I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip on the Flame Blade.
The Leopard Dragon wore an expression tinged with something like pleasure as it raked its claws. I aimed a counter-blow of the Flame Blade straight at that face.
But my body was yanked back by the wind, as if caught on a hook, and I was hurled into the air.
Then, with no gap to breathe, I plunged straight back down.
Top to bottom.
A sweeping gust of wind slammed me into the ground.
The impact was so violent I thought my entire body had shattered into pieces.
Strong.
To be this completely helpless...
The matchup was terrible in every respect, of course.
My greatest strength was close-quarters combat.
They wouldn't let me get close.
And a magical bombardment from the Flame Blade wouldn't reach anything in this wind.
With the enemy airborne, the Landmine Sword was useless too.
But more than the unfavorable matchup, the Ptera Dragon's fighting skill was on another level entirely.
I was being toyed with, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Against the Leopard Dragon alone, I probably could have won.
But whether I could beat the Ptera Dragon in a one-on-one... I seriously doubted it.
At the very least, without unleashing my trump card, I didn't see any path to victory.
"Ha! This is the end!"
The Leopard Dragon lunged at me while I lay on the ground.
...No more time for deliberation.
"Graaaaaaah!"
I roared the instant Wrath activated.
Power surged through me.
With that power, I tore the wind's constraints apart by force and rose to my feet.
The Leopard Dragon, still mid-leap, its eyes widening in surprise.
I drove the Flame Blade into its face without hesitation.
"Nguaa!?"
The Leopard Dragon twisted its body with surprising agility in midair and dodged — but not completely. Its hind leg was severed clean off at the base.
Momentum carried it tumbling across the ground, blood spraying in its wake.
I wanted to finish it off right then and there, but the Ptera Dragon had to die first!
I activated Spatial Maneuver, creating footholds in midair, and closed the distance to the Ptera Dragon hovering above.
With Wrath active, a single step was enough to break through the raging wind and press right up to the Ptera Dragon.
"Hyu! You wanna take me on in the air!? Bring it!"
The Ptera Dragon soared through the sky.
Its movements were almost elegant, yet its speed was inhuman.
It flew with enough force to leave even the wind it controlled behind.
But.
"You're kidding!?"
My speed with Wrath active was 99,999.
The speed that would have overwhelmed it without Wrath was nothing to me now.
I cloaked the Flame Blade in fire.
And swung, intending to cleave the Ptera Dragon in two.
"Tch!"
The Ptera Dragon twisted away.
Simultaneously, a burst of wind and wind bullets lashed out at me.
With Wrath active, my Defense was also maxed out.
Taking a wind bullet head-on wouldn't do much damage.
But that didn't mean I felt no impact at all.
The gust and the wind bullets knocked my aim off by just a fraction.
As a result, I failed to bisect the Ptera Dragon and only managed to tear through one of its wings.
"Gaah! You little bastard!"
The Ptera Dragon screamed.
The next instant, a bolt of lightning struck me.
For a split second I thought the Leopard Dragon had done it, but it turned out to be the Ptera Dragon's doing.
So the Ptera Dragon could use lightning magic too.
The damage was negligible.
But it did serve as a momentary blinding flash.
And for this lightning-fast dragon, even that single instant was enough.
The Ptera Dragon paid me no mind whatsoever and flew straight toward the Leopard Dragon lying on the ground.
It seized the Leopard Dragon's body in its hind legs and retreated without so much as a backward glance.
I watched them go.
I could only watch.
"Guh...!"
My vision began to dye itself crimson.
I forced it down and shut off Wrath immediately.
"Hah... Hah..."
By training the Heresy Resistance Skill, I'd managed to suppress Wrath's downside — the part where anger devoured my reason — to some degree.
But only to some degree.
The drawback of a Seven Deadly Sins Skill wasn't something you could simply offset.
Even with Heresy Resistance elevated to Heresy Nullification, I still hadn't been able to fully neutralize Wrath.
That had caught even White off guard.
The theory was that Wrath might have been deliberately set as an exception to Heresy Nullification.
The amount of time I could maintain Wrath and stay sane was extremely short.
And if Wrath consumed me again this time, there was no guarantee I'd come back.
That was why I'd needed to settle things quickly.
The reason I'd prioritized the Ptera Dragon over finishing off the Leopard Dragon was exactly that.
But in the end, I'd let both of them escape.
Should I have pushed myself and finished off the Leopard Dragon instead?
...No.
Either way, they both got away regardless.
At the end of the day, I'd succeeded in repelling them.
I'd take that satisfaction and call it enough.
Honestly, if one of those two had headed for
The fact that they hadn't done that probably came down to a certain pride those dragons possessed.
They were moving according to their own convictions, in their own way.
Thinking about it that way was depressing, but the situation was already in motion.
I'd just have to keep doing what I could.
...First things first, I suppose — time to heal this wrecked body of mine.
Leopard Dragon: "Wait, that's a thing you can do!?"
Ptera Dragon: "Ehhh..."