Chapter 5-159: It’s the Thought that Counts (2/2)
My Spellflare hit it in a wild, gyrating ball of black and silver lines trailing rainbow chaos, and ripped all its Buffs apart. Writhing lightnings in multiple colors of magic, but predominated by the blazing hues of disjointed pyromancy, blew up and down it, ripping into and through it as wild magic unleashed did its thing.
The one-horned hou lung shrieked in disbelief and not a little bit of pain as it took the hit, and was paralyzed by the bubbles, arcs, creeping sizzles, and poking thorns riding it up and down from the wild magic.
That meant its armor boost, strength boost, cold protection, fire aura, and speed boost were all gone, judging by the sensations when I’d torn the Qi spells apart.
Which meant all these Coldphasing shots going into it were really going to hurt!
Guns roared, and blue-white streaks stabbed into it. At this close range, its scales weren’t going to do anything, especially against a Cold energy attack. Great black spots sprouted across its body, steel-hard scales shattered-
Endure whipped up and hit the underside of its jaw like a cannonball of exploding ice, and its muzzle was suddenly rimed in ice and half-frozen.
My Topped Shards slammed into the full length of it, punching through its magic resistance... and running right into an arseload of Health Qi, which every impact ate away with double damage, devouring it with downright terrifying speed it had not anticipated.
I didn’t look like I did any damage to it at all, but it had vented Health Qi like a sieve, and now it was a purely physical fight.
Sama ran right up its scaly length, ignoring the magic burning out over it, waaaay too quick to be human. It tried to writhe and throw her off, one eye turned on her, trying to get its head around-
“TREMBLE!” she snarled, flashing past it, past the jaws trying to clamp shut on her, and the dragon screamed as a great gout of blood blew out a rending blow passing right through its burning right eye.
Dammit, Sama, that was like tossing away a goldweight!
It heaved itself up out of the ground, lashing itself around and out like a snake. It lunged for Sir Pellier, who didn’t even flinch as he sighted right down the gaping throat coming at him, and pumped the action on the grenade launcher slung underneath Lady Florentine.
The shot was affected by the Coldphasing, too.
The explosion of cold and ice detonated violently inside the dragon’s half-frozen mouth and throat less than ten feet from Sir Pellier, who took any real damage on his Soak and let the rest of the impact blast him backwards onto the ground.
The dragon shrieked again, its jaws black and cold, and lights began to leak between its scales as it built up a breath to sweep over everyone and thaw its jaws-
Endure was in Briggs’ hands this time, and his feet were twenty feet above the ground as he came around with all his weight and mass into the side of its head.
The vented breath blew out everywhere beyond us, venting crazily into the surroundings in a wide and ineffectual swathe, because Briggs had shattered its lower jaw to pieces with that blow.
Right down on top of it came Master Fred, who was dropping in from a bit higher in the air.
“WE COME!” everyone roared out as Tremble two-toned, one on Idiot’s plunging hit, the second note as the huo lung smashed to the ground under the impact of a falling half-ton and more of mass.
The Mick came flowing in, Smior trailing crimson, light and white and pure as blood as he buried his Katana in the side of its other eye. (MY GOLDWEIGHT! Rassum, frassum...)The rippling crimson gathered about it let go just about at the same time as Master Fred’s Wrath did, silhouetting the crimson blast he unleashed in polyhued thaumacolored flames...
The huo lung shuddered, convulsing and twitching, its tree-thick body twisting and flailing as its nervous system got some mixed messages.
Briggs’ One Strike came hewing down, the force-image of a great axe around his Hammer, and with a crunch and crack, took its head right off, ending any discussions on whether it was still living.
----
The headless carcass writhed around for a while, Helix wondering loudly if it had a second brain somewhere. It took about ten minutes for it to finally stop moving... but well before then, we had the stump of its body sealed off, an Exsanguinating Tube in place, and Sama was riding it and holding onto the jars that were storing the liquid platinum getting sucked out of the thing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at at least fifty goldweight of materials right there.” Eyes almost popped among the uninformed as they looked at the remnants of the dragon. “The eyes alone were a goldweight each, as was the brain. Pity.” I glowered at certain people, who whistled and toed the ground and looked away...
“Dead and valuable is worth a few goldweight. Look at all those frozen holes in its hide we have to work around!” Sama complained right back at me, and The Mick just grinned.
“Meat in one container, blood in jars, bones collected, organs in separate containers, claws together, and that Horn alone is five goldweight!” Briggs was rubbing his hands in glee. “Sama’s got the Butcher Ranks, she’s going to be directing everything. Give me a hexagon spread on guard; Sir Pellier, Master Fred, scanning! The rest of us, start slicing and collecting! Helix... document it!”
The last had been taking pictures of everything during the fight rather than shooting... by general agreement if and when we fought the dragon. He was plenty happy to record us rendering the thing down.
“Sama,” I called out, “how much cooking do you do on that Forge of yours?”
Her smiles was all canines on display. We didn’t have to eat much, but when we did, we liked the good stuff... and Oriental dragons were rumored to be very good to eat, indeed.