345 Chapter 345: Get Out! (2/2)

”I suggest you start casting your strongest summoning spells now.”  Ryan waved his finger at me. ”Any time soon, big daddy is going to wake up and get all mad that you've been benefitting off the Thousand-year-old Essence that he has been accumulating all this time.”

”Eh? But it's not as if I absorbed it or took much of it.”

I did gather and absorb some of the mana from the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence to train my ice magic, but just as with the Holy Spring, it wasn't something I could completely devour on my own. Not unless I overloaded and killed myself with excessive mana burnout. Or freeze-in, in this case. Whatever the case, I didn't absorb more than a tiny fraction of the whole thing.

”You do realize it's a dragon we're speaking about here, right? Greedy, possessive bastards that love to hoard? You know how you kill ants or sway away flies that approach your food? It's the same thing here. You're nothing more than a bug to the dragon.”

”So he's just going to kill me because of that?” I shrugged. Oh well, that was karma for you. I had to pay for the sins of crushing and swatting annoying insects, and I understood how the dragon felt. Perfectly. I was in no position to criticize him for his perception, while taking the high and mighty ground of squashing bugs that irritated me. ”Okay, I'll just have to defend myself then.”

A slight tremor shook the place, sending a pile of frost raining down. Five days ago, I would have shivered uncontrollably from the cold, but today I merely brushed the white snow off my winter coat. I wasn't completely immune to the cold, so I appreciated having my winter gear on. What, were you expecting me to strip down to my underwear and walk around exposed, like a certain ice mage from some manga that spouted nakama power bullshit?

In any case, Ryan was right. I had best hurry and summon whatever I could before the Frost Dragon fully awakened. Already my glasses were picking up a spike in mana signatures as well as a huge increase in tetonic activity. Or what seemed like tetonic activity, but the movements were obviously coming from the dragon's sleeping chamber.

…and this looked like its pulse or heart rate. Oh, wow. It was rapidly increasing, stirred into vigorous activity as its host awoke from hibernation.

”Oh God…oh Jesus, oh God, oh God, oh God…”

I could feel a tremendous ocean of mana pressure weighing down upon me, suffocating me. More icicles rained down from the walls and ceiling as the Frost Dragon rose to all fours, his sheer weight sending tremors throughout the underground cavern. A thunderous rumble began from his chest and left his throat in a deafening growl that shattered quite a lot of ice. I had to conjure a small defensive ice spell to form a barrier between myself and the sharp shards.

And this was just the Frost Dragon waking up. He hadn't gotten furious or aggressive yet, he was just stretching and yawning, or something similar to that.

Then he appeared to turn and look in my direction. I didn't know how I knew it, especially with so many layers of frozen walls between us, as well as an entire tunnel. But I could feel his stare.

And you know what the best thing was? He wasn't looking at me. He was merely gazing in the direction of his beloved Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. Yet I could already feel the tremendous weight of his gaze. It was heavy as fuck.

There was a pause as the Frost Dragon took in what had occurred during his hibernation. He didn't even notice me – I was so insignificant that he couldn't care less that I was there. No, he was more interested in his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. The walls and ceiling continued to shake as he appeared to move closer.

There was a slight pregnant pause as the Frost Dragon probed his precious Thousand-year-old Ice Essence with his magical senses. Even though he was not physically present, he could still reach out and feel it with his sixth sense, so to speak. Just like how mages could sense each other or monsters through mana.

Then he snarled.

”…and so it begins,” Ryan remarked as he snapped his fingers.

The Frost Dragon evidently detected the slight reduction in his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. Then he shifted his focus toward me, and the mere presence…or weight of his invisible gaze was enough to crush me. It took me everything I had to not sink to my knees in the snowy ground.

”Oh, he's mad all right.” Ryan was nodding, not at all surprised. ”He's going to come for you now.”

The Frost Dragon let out an earth-shattering roar. If I had thought the growl earlier was bad, this was several times worse. The entire place exploded, ice shattering into a million pieces, piles of snow pouring down in pseudo avalanches. The sonic assault traveled through the tunnel, shattering the ice frozen along its floor, walls and ceiling, and smashed into the current chamber where I occupied, smashing even more ice and turning the whole place into a site of incredible destruction. If I hadn't conjured an ice barrier, I would have been cut apart by the sheer volume of sharp frost fragments that flew across the entire space like shrapnel.

Growling, the Frost Dragon charged through the cavern, his immense size obliterating the wall as easily as if it was made out of snow. Rock and ice toppled over in a mixed slush as the Frost Dragon bulldozed his way through, artificially enlarging the tunnel I had used a few days ago and turning it into a devastated trail of pulverized rock and frost. Within a few minutes, he burst into the chamber where his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence was. His azure eyes glared at me in hatred, and he raised a paw to swat me.

I dove out of the way, almost not making it in time as his claws raked deep furrows in the ground. Rolling across the snow, I completed my summoning spell.

”Draco!”

A gigantic black dragon manifested inside the chamber, bellowing a challenge as he confronted the Frost Dragon. Draco and the rank A dragon glowered at each other for a second before they charged and collided with earthshaking force.

Even as I tried to pull away to a safe distance, the entire space vanished in a ferocious explosion of snow and kinetic force.