138 Chapter 138: Dragon Dance (1/2)
The dragon reared up triumphantly and roared. Swatting the two puny humans who charged at it, it prepared to finish them off. It had eliminated one of them. Soon, the other two would fall as well, and it could return to its nest to lick its wounds.
Though the three mages had dealt it terrible, terrible damage, it would only take the venerable dragon a few days to fully heal.
First, it had to eliminate the irritating humans that had trespassed into its nest and hurt it badly. The two it had just swatted away were slowly rising to their feet, stunned from the blow it had delivered to them. The Hellfire Drake had no intention of allowing them to recover, and was mercilessly generating flames along its spikes to power up its superheated flamethrower spell.
However, before it could unleash its wrath upon the two, something caused it to freeze in its tracks.
Stunned, the great dragon slowly turned around to stare disbelievingly at the sight behind it.
”Where are you going?” I asked, standing in the middle of the red, molten crater. ”Our battle's not over yet.”
*
My skin had been completely burned off, leaving nothing but blackened flesh and angry red blisters. I was completely unrecognizable. Both Troy and Kureha were staring at me with undisguised horror at my grotesque condition. Yet, despite losing most of my skin, I still had a manic grin on my face, or what passed off as a grin, anyway. I had lost most of my cheek muscles and flesh, leaving blackened bones and teeth beneath my burned face.
”If you thought I died from that, you're dead wrong,” I warned. I was still holding my two swords in my hands. In contrast to my completely smudged and charred body, they were still shiny and clean. ”What, you don't believe me? I admit, I look a little worse for the wear…oh, all right. I know I look like a corpse right now, but what do you expect? You were the one who burned me to a crisp.”
The dragon was still staring at me in disbelief. So were Troy and Kureha, whose mouths were practically hitting the ground.
”How are you still alive?” Troy blurted out. The dragon and Kureha both looked as if they had the same question.
I rolled my eyes, unable to blink because my eyelids had been incinerated. ”Come on now, don't tell me you have never seen a zombie before?”
”You're a zombie?!” Troy exclaimed.
”Don't be ridiculous!” Kureha shouted. ”How do you expect us to believe that?!”
The dragon was, incredibly enough, nodding in agreement, as if it understood every word Kureha was saying. You know…you could just attack each other instead of staring at me in disbelief. Sometimes, the logic of these people and monsters baffled me. But instead of fighting, all three continued to stare at me intently.
I stomped my foot impatiently. ”Fine! Ah, damn it! And here I was thinking I could fool you with this appearance.”
Green Dragon appeared behind me. Flowers began dancing around us, and in a flash, I transformed back into a totally normal human being, but with plenty of bloodstains, bruises, cuts and burns. It wasn't a healing spell – there was no way I could learn such advanced magic with my specialization in summoning and foray into combat magic – but more of a camouflage spell that belonged to the wood element. Otherwise I would be healing myself and my friends long ago. Unfortunately, such convenient things didn't happen, and I was stuck with the wounds I sustained over the long duel with the Hellfire Drake.
Still, it was at least much better than the charred zombie-like corpse I adopted earlier.
”How did you survive that?!” Kureha exclaimed in shocked. I glared at her, wondering if she really wanted me to die, and then sighed and shook my head.
”His tortoise soul beast is still there,” Troy pointed out. Black Tortoise raised a paw and waved weakly before grinning. He had conjured a water barrier over me at the last moment before I was swallowed by the flames.
The dragon was unamused by my prank.
Roaring, it unleashed a torrent of superheated flames in my direction. Troy and Kureha stepped back inadvertently, shielding themselves from the intense heat. Black Tortoise also made to conjure a fresh barrier of water between me and my assailant, but a mental command from me forestalled his spell. I decided to just dismiss him there and them.
Instead, I stepped forward and raised Gan Jiang before slashing the flames. Black mana billowed around me as the stream of fire seemed to stop in front of me, as if they had just hit an invisible wall. Instead, they were all blown sky-high. Troy and Kureha watched in awe, reminded of a volcano that had just erupted.
The dragon could only stare incredulously at me as I deflected the superheated flames upward. I tilted my head and smiled at it, a hint of a sneer on my lips.
”Honestly…I didn't know Gan Jiang and Mo Ye had this kind of power. If I did, I would have used them long ago, from the start of the battle. Well, it doesn't matter anyway.” Taking a deep breath, I cast my ultimate summoning spell. ”Draco!”
An enormous dragon materialized behind me. Unlike the crimson Hellfire Drake, he was entirely black. Spreading his giant bat-like wings, Draco took to the air and flew toward the stunned Hellfire Drake, slamming into it like a speeding bullet and knocking it off its feet. Draco sank his humongous claws into the smaller dragon, causing the latter to scream pitifully.
”What the…?” Troy sighed and shook his head. ”So we were all buying all that time just so you can summon your own damned dragon?”
I shrugged. ”The most powerful summoning spells take the longest. You should know that by now.”
”Yeah, I did, but I certainly did not expect you to summon a dragon!”
”Is it over?” Kureha asked, scarcely believing what she saw. There was no way the heavily injured and smaller Hellfire Drake could win against my Draco, who was at full health and larger. ”Did we win?”
”Yeah.” I scratched my head. ”Honestly, I took quite a while to summon Draco because I was casting one of his spells, and we really shouldn't be here when it goes off.”
”Huh? What did you do, Richie?!” Troy was glaring at me.
I never got to answer.