"Whimper… whimper…"
The ram-horned ground dragon wailed under the relentless assault, then suddenly wheeled around. Ignoring the grievous wounds riddling its body and the adventurers pressing their chase, it scrambled toward the cave entrance!
"No! It's going to escape!"
Jenny cried out in alarm. Then, without hesitation, she reached for the bow she had been carrying on her back—it looked almost like an ornamental piece.
She drew a green arrow from her quiver and nocked it onto the string.
Hum! Hum! Hum!
One brilliant sphere of light after another flared to life on the various rings adorning her fingers.
"Precise Aim!" "Sharpness!" "Swift Wind!"
Buff after buff, each a different school of wizardry, poured into Jenny.
"J-Jenny is a
*Swoosh!* Jenny released the bowstring, and a streak of green light shot from the bow in a blur.
*Puuu!* The green light-arrow struck the ram-horned ground dragon squarely in the eye, spraying a massive plume of crimson and green blood.
"ROOOOAR!!!" The ground dragon whipped its head around and charged straight toward Jenny's position.
"Yes — just like that!" A flush of excitement lit up Jenny's face.
"No! Get away from there!" Jamos, by contrast, had gone deathly pale.
"ROAR!" The ram-horned ground dragon bellowed and spat a black sphere of light from its maw.
The enormous orb detonated mid-air, and black raindrops laced with flecks of flame scattered in every direction.
"Ah!" "My eyes!"
The black raindrops fell upon the mercenaries, instantly corroding several enormous wounds into their bodies. The adventurers let out a chorus of agonized wails. The encirclement immediately gaped open.
Whoosh! The ram-horned ground dragon seemed to have ignited every last spark of energy within its body, its frame swelling visibly larger. Its skin flushed a deep, angry crimson.
Its speed surged explosively, and in an instant it closed the distance to Jenny.
"Protect the young miss!" The sole remaining bodyguard charged forward with his longsword raised in his good left hand.
Crack! The ground dragon wrenched open its maw bristling with fangs. One bite, and the Knight was swallowed whole. The creature chewed relentlessly, bits of flesh and blood leaking from between its teeth.
"Ah..." Jenny's legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground in terror.
She was only a First-rank Apprentice. The arrow volley just now had only been possible because of the numerous enhancement rings on her hand. Moreover, after that last attack, her pitiful reserves of Spiritual Power had been nearly depleted — she had nothing left for another strike.
Right now, Jenny was nothing more than a helpless, fragile noble girl, sprawled on the ground, facing an unknown verdict from fate.
"Hraagh!" The ram-horned ground dragon harbored no shred of mercy. It simply opened its great jaws, the sharp fangs still dripping with flesh and blood, and lunged viciously down toward Jenny.
"Am I going to die? Father, I'm sorry..." Jenny's mouth hung half open. A single tear slid silently from her right eye.
Clang!!!
The expected agony never came. Jenny opened her eyes in bewilderment and saw a resolute figure standing before her, blocking the blow.
"Hey, hey! In every Knight's tale, whenever a princess is in trouble, a Knight always shows up. Right?"
Veylin laughed heartily and brought his longsword crashing down in a savage slash!
The enormous steel blade struck the ground dragon's massive skull, sending sparks flying. Veylin roared, his Life Energy erupting at full force. A faint, ethereal layer of luminous armor coalesced around his steel plate, shimmering like a phantom.
Roar!!!
The ground dragon stumbled back several steps and bellowed at Veylin.
"Oh boy! Now this really is a real-life version of the hero slaying the dragon!" Veylin glanced at Jenny behind him, then turned his senses inward to the dwindling reserves of Life Energy still within him. A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
Whoosh whoosh!!!
A dark shadow coiled around the ground dragon, hammering it with relentless attacks. Those outside the arena could see nothing but the clouds of dust billowing up from the center and hear the dragon's ceaseless, thunderous roars.
Under the immense pressure of the ground dragon, Veylin felt everything Lord Lin had forced him to study erupting all at once, his techniques growing ever more refined.
And just then, his body suddenly felt hollow, as if he had lost all his strength in an instant.
"The Arcane Burst has ended! The Life Essence is exhausted too!"
Veylin's heart sank. Immediately after, a black shadow like a steel whip pierced through his light armor, smashing brutally into his chest.
Crack! The armor made of fine steel immediately dented, and Veylin was sent flying backward, blood gushing continuously from the corner of his mouth.
"Oh! No!"
In the final lingering moments of his life, he seemed to see the enormous shadow of the ground dragon, and perhaps some sorrowful crying.
"Truly... a brief life! But, I have no regrets!"
A smile touched Veylin's lips, his memory freezing on the image of Jenny falling to the ground, weeping.
……
"How can my student die so pathetically?"
The instant before Veylin's consciousness faded into a coma, time seemed to stop. Everything around him turned to black and white, and his body hung eerily suspended in mid-air.
"That's Lord Lin's voice! He's finally willing to acknowledge me as his student!" Veylin was overjoyed; even at the brink of death, this was his first thought.
Immediately, he felt the fine steel longsword in his right hand growing hot, instantly becoming scaldingly hot, as if he were gripping a piece of red-hot branding iron.
"Hummm!!!" The longsword trembled ceaselessly, and on its blade, a blood-red symbol surfaced on its own.
"Ahhhhhhhh!!!!"
Veylin felt a searing current transfer instantly from the steel sword, surging straight into the lower abdomen where his Life Essence converged.
Boom! It sounded like a water flask exploding. The Great Knight bottleneck that had plagued Veylin for so long shattered in an instant!
A torrent of Life Energy more than ten times stronger than before condensed from the sea of Life Essence in his lower abdomen, pouring into every limb and bone of Veylin's body.
"Kill!"
Veylin brought his sword down in a vertical slash! The crimson runes on the steel blade blazed with intensified light, and a beam of sword energy instantly tore through the air, arriving before the ram-horned earth dragon.
Under the solidifying effect of the black-and-white radiance, the earth dragon stood perfectly still, allowing Veylin's strike to land on its neck.
Whoosh!
A cold wind blew through, and the black-and-white hues surrounding them instantly faded away, returning the world to its full spectrum of colors.
Crack!
A thin red line instantly appeared across the earth dragon's neck.
The line grew wider and wider, eventually spreading across the entire neck as greenish-red blood flowed ceaselessly outward. The enormous head crashed directly onto the ground.
BOOM!!! After losing its head, the ram-horned earth dragon's massive body slammed into the earth like a small earthquake, sending up a huge cloud of dust.
"What happened to him?" Jenny's mind was spinning dazedly.
"He broke through! He's broken through the Great Knight bottleneck!" Jamos muttered to himself, then stepped forward to help Jenny up.
"Haha! I told you I'm a genius! How could I possibly die here?"
Having narrowly escaped death, Veylin patted his own chest and burst into hearty laughter.
Seeing him like this, Jenny instantly felt a ball of fire nearly bursting from her chest.
"You bastard!" Jenny hurled a white handkerchief at Veylin's face, leaving him there alone as she and Jamos entered the cave.
"Why is she acting like this?" Veylin stood there blankly clutching the handkerchief, a look of bewilderment still on his face.
The remaining mercenaries and adventurers silently set about cleaning up the battlefield.
They had lost quite a few people this time—many of them were friends, even family!
The battlefield was quiet, with no other creatures coming to disturb them.
The light of the sun was something extraordinarily unpleasant to creatures accustomed to the darkness, and the towns of the Dark Extreme Domain had exploited this very fact—using the radiance of Sunstones to drive away the dark creatures and carve out their development.
Jamos's initial throwing of the Sunstone had also been motivated by the consideration of clearing the area.
A dozen or so minutes later, Jenny emerged together with Jamos, her face brimming with an excited smile.
"Is this the Dragon Blood Blossom?"
Willen noticed the flower-like plant cradled in Jenny's hands.
The crimson blossom was the size of a bowl, and across each petal ran a network resembling blood vessels and meridians, giving it a strikingly peculiar appearance.
Jenny held the blossom with utmost care, as though she were cradling some priceless treasure.
"Yes! With this, my father can be saved..." Jenny finally allowed herself to relax at last.
Ever since her father had been poisoned, an enormous weight of pressure had been pressing down upon the young girl's shoulders. Now she finally felt she could breathe again.
"Thank you!" Jenny threw her arms around Willen in an emotional embrace, leaving him standing there completely stunned.
"And all of you!" Jenny turned to face the adventurers and mercenaries gathered around. "Your loyalty and diligence deserve to be rewarded! I will pay double the promised commission this time! Five times for those who fell in battle!!!"
"Thank you, noble miss!" "How kind and generous! May the Lord of Darkness bless you!"
As expected, Jenny's announcement immediately drew cheers from the entire group.
The party packed up in a hurry and set off on the journey back.
Along the way, Willen kept swinging the steel sword in his hand, seemingly hoping to discover something extraordinary about it. But unfortunately, after that single burst of power, the longsword truly appeared to have exhausted every last bit of its strength. No matter how hard Willen tried to channel it, not a trace of its anomaly could be drawn out.
"What a foolish boy! Still, only a stubborn single-minded fool like him would be suited for my Cross Sword Breathing Technique!" All of Willen's antics were witnessed from afar in Bert Town by Rayne through a transparent crystal sphere, and he could only shake his head.
Beside him, a test tube filled with red-and-green blood had been tossed aside like garbage.
"Not even a trace of a powerful bloodline! And its name even contains the character for dragon!" Rayne sighed.