398 Plains and the Eternal Thunder Tribe (1/2)
The aerial battle continued. The tactics the Tigermen used against the White Dragon reminded me of how a pack of wolves would surround and hunt a large water buffalo.
These Tigermen were obviously sly and experienced hunters. They used the agilest unit among them as bait that'd repeatedly fly around in front of the White Dragon. As long as the unit attracted the White Dragon's attention and dragonbreath, the others would continuously swarm it and worsen the injuries on the White Dragon's back and wings.
Whenever the White Dragon furiously tried to counterattack and do everything it could to kill its mortal enemies, these Tigermen would scatter. Their wyvern steeds were swift and capable of making sharp turns in midair. White Dragons were well known for being clumsy and stupid, and this particular one was unable to follow them. The advantage of the wyverns' smaller size proved quite useful here.
The Tigermen were patient hunters. They weren't tempted by a swift win. They slowly whittled their prey down, waiting for the White Dragon to reach the brink.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Copper Dragon Evelyn was still all smiles as she watched me. It appeared as though she didn't care about the battle in the sky in the least.
”Are you not going up to help? Isn't that a fellow dragon? It seems to be seriously injured.”
That White Dragon's wingspan was only three or four meters wide. It might not even have reached Adult Dragon status yet. More than ten bloody harpoons were impaled in its wings, and its speed was slowing down at a visible rate. The situation didn't seem all too well for this White Dragon, yet the Copper Dragon before me seemed content with simply watching.
”White Dragons are no family of mine. Perhaps you need to study more about dragons. All dragons only pay a basic amount of respect to those closely related to them. You can't casually use words like family or same species. And there's also the enmity between Color and Metal Dragons. An Adult White Dragon is no different from a wild beast. A starving White Dragon is even capable of eating its own children. As a Copper Dragon, it's already rare for me to not go and help hunt it down. If I go out to save a White Dragon and word spreads, all the other Metal Dragons will laugh at me. Besides…”
”Elite hunters from the Eternal Thunder tribe? You cat-headed cowards, stop bullying a young dragon! Come face the wrath of a true dragon!”
An angry roar interrupted Evelyn's interruption as Blue Dragon Evelyn suddenly appeared in the sky. Unlike Halent's brother and steed who had only recently reached the age of an Adult Dragon, this Blue Dragon had a length of more than twenty meters. She was already at the standard level of an Ancient Dragon.
It was impossible to identify the patterns on her scales due to her wavy body.
Rampaging thunder raged inside the single horn on her head, while each of her front claws grasped a pearl-shaped treasure. Dark clouds covered the skies as she unfurled her blue wings and soared straight for the aerial battle in the sky.
Before even getting close to her opponents, the Blue Dragon's high-level draconic might and the thunderous clouds it summoned had caused the SemiDragon wyvern steeds to panic. The Tigermen aerial knights had to shout in order to stop their wyverns from turning and running in panic.
Most mystifying was that the thunderclouds she summoned sent out a series of chain lightning, and the first electrified target was actually that White Dragon which had been ganged up upon.
”…Besides, my sister's unable to take it anymore. If I steal her prey, she'll attack me as well.”
”So this is the Blue Dragon, known for being the biggest combat maniac and the speediest of the dragons?”
Looking at the howling White Dragon falling right in her path, Blue Dragon Evelyn apparently had no intentions of saving it. She instead slammed one wing into the White Dragon, speeding up its crash into the ground.
Her wing alone was larger than the White Dragon's entire body. Her wing slam directly knocked it unconscious, causing it to freefall to the ground. Moments later, it landed with a brutal impact.
*Boom!*
How vicious. Instead of saving the White Dragon, Blue Dragon Evelyn didn't hesitate to use an AOE thunder magic attack. Although she too was a Color Dragon, she didn't think twice about attacking her White Dragon relative.
”It seems that Fifth Sister has been suffering from great stress recently… It's not strange to see her attacking a White Dragon. Until a White Dragon evolves enough to obtain intelligence, none of us will view them as our equals. White Dragons that haven't reached the Immemorial Dragon rank have the intelligence of only a wild beast. And the other residents here are capable of taming them, so White Dragons can become a threat to us. Take a look at those SemiDragon wyverns. They're probably the half-blood bastard offspring of some White Dragon. Fifth Sister really loathes dragons that don't have intelligence. She believes their similar appearances to herself are nothing more than an insult.”
However, what attracted me more than analyzing the personalities of different species of dragons was the girl herself.
”She's so beautiful~”
”What?!”
Did I say something strange? Even the silly cat was so shocked she stood up on her hind legs.
”…She has the exact same soul and memories, but her physical body influenced her to walk down a different path with a different personality. This is a miracle given by the God of Probabilities. If I could only dissect—I mean deeply research this, perhaps I can find shortcuts to make the physical body influence the soul!”
”As expected, that seems correct.”
”Yep, no mistaking it, that's Roland.”
The signs coming from around me made me feel mysteriously angered, but I was indeed interested in Evelyn's situation. She was my first ever Original Sin creation, and she had such a long time to self-evolve and perfect herself. If only I could dissect—carefully research her, I'd definitely benefit.
Unfortunately, judging from the current situation, none of these ten dragons would be easy to fool. It wouldn't be easy to have them walk onto my surgery table—I mean cooperate with my research.
”You want to dissect me? Dream on! You—you—if you dare to point your butcher's knife at Cher, we sisters will fight you to the death!”
”…I accidentally said it out loud? I don't have such a habit, do I? Oh, it was you, you damned silly cat. Evelyn, listen to me—I was only making an analogy! An analogy!”