117 Meeting A Dragon (2/2)

The creature could see, hear, and smell everything for entire kilometers ahead of it. Its senses were alert and when Althos made his first move the thing noticed. Sadly for the dragon, the god's first move wasn't to manipulate the earth. Had the god gone after the earth first the dragon might have been able to do something about it. No, Althos targeted the dragon first.

Althos was a god of a fair number of domains and subdomains. One of them was the subdomain of the air. And with that came a particularly devastating power: the power to allow creatures to fly, and in this case the more important power: he could take away another creature's ability to fly.

The way this power manifested wasn't particularly violently. Althos hadn't come here to fight after all, though he suspected that a fight might be inevitable. So when he took away the dragon's power of flight he did so gently, and the dragon began to slowly descend to rather than violently crash into the surface of the tunnel.

A few moments after the god had struck, striking with gentleness and subtlety, the black dragon found itself on the floor of the tunnel. It had quickly noticed that it was falling and had tried to stay aloft but found that its wings simply wouldn't obey it.

The beast reacted to this clearly unnatural attack with confusion, and curiosity, and descended to the ground nonviolently. That said, this uncharacteristic patience was also partially owed to the fact that the dragon didn't know who or what was responsible for its loss of control over its wings. It knew, even in its sleepy state, that without a target to vent its frustrations on it wouldn't be able to meaningfully address this anger. So it saved it up.

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I had targeted Ygaynth with my first technique. The first blow I struck was to deny the creature the power to fly. It was easy and involved me utilizing a power I had used before but never to bind a creature to the ground. Once I had targeted the gargantuan dragon with that power I figuratively sat back and watched it descend to the ground, unable to fly anymore.

Once the creature was on the ground for a few moments and had time to react I struck again. The earth at the beast's feet almost instantly dissolved, becoming a quicksand-like substance that began to pull it down. I chuckled as the dragon reacted to this, twisting its long neck and staring down at its feet.

Once more I watched the creature's face slyly shift, this time contorting in annoyance and surprise. The dragon began to struggle against the quicksand-like substance that pulled it down, and I began to move. I teleported myself from where I stood, to right in front of the dragon.

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Teleportation was a strange power for me. It granted me an almost unthinkable amount of freedom in movement. And whenever I used it my surroundings immediately changed. I was lucky that I had a far faster reaction speed than mortals did, as this allowed me to maximally utilize my abilities and come out of teleportation swinging.

I went from a place nearly two-dozen kilometers away from the dragon, to standing right in front of it. The beast had incredibly speedy reactions as well, something I learned when the beast tried to lash out at me almost the instant I appeared.

The beast reacted far faster than I had anticipated it being able too and did so by twisting its snake-like head and trying to bite me. I audibly laughed as I watched the thing's head lash out at me and close in on me. That said, its gigantic fangs were unable to reach me. When the thing was done biting at me, its jaw was snapped shut just centimeters away from my nose.

The monster's breath washed over me as its nostrils exhaled earthy smelling vapor. After lashing out at me the dragon was still. Its gigantic head was more than twice the size of my entire body. I was calm and gently placed hand on one of the thing's teeth.

The tooth I placed my hand on was tall, almost the length of my entire body. It was also a sharp, jagged fang. I chuckled and activated a power I had never used before but had access to almost my entire life. ”Status change”. I was surprised when I heard the system, in its automated voice, speak to me after activating this power.

[Alert: You are targeting a hostile creature with 'Status change'. Would you like to change the creature's status towards you, to a neutral state?] The automated version of the system asked me. I did the mental version of a nod and watched as the dragon began to emit a faint, silvery light. I was surprised when I heard the beast suck in a deep breath, and then begin to speak.

”This magic... Small one... Are you responsible for this?” The dragon asked, speaking a language that surprised me. It spoke the same language as the humans who lived in Comillas but with a strange and primal accent.

”I can't... bring myself to attack you. But I can still feel my hostility towards you. Deep, deep inside. That said, I can respect someone whose magic is strong enough to stop me from attacking. Even if it is just temporary.” The dragon whispered, its voice ancient. I could have sworn I heard a bit of anger in its voice, but it was difficult for even me to be certain.

”Who are you? What is your name, little one?” The dragon asked, curiosity audibly seeping into its voice. I smiled and ascended into the air. I floated upward until I was face to face with the reptilian, almost catlike, scarlet eyes of the dragon.

”Ygaynth... This meeting has been a long-time coming. My name is Althos. And I am a god. You and I really should converse before we do anything else.” I said to the gigantic beast, a confident smirk on my face. My remark surprised the dragon, and its eyes widened in bittersweet shock.

”So you... are the god who healed the world?” The dragon asked me, speaking curiously. It was fair for the thing to be skeptical. Instead of replying audibly, I smiled and activated one of my personal favorite abilities. All around me and around Ygaynth's head, a brilliant aura of silver light exploded into existence, bathing the two of us in iridescent light.