Chapter 285: A True Great Dragon
A thunderous rumble rolled through the skies and caused the very atmosphere to quake, and the volcano to tremble.
The blistering presence washed over the forces of the humans, igniting a primal terror in their hearts. A presence that seemed to hint at a foe way beyond their current means to slay.
But the human soldiers did not halt their fearless march for this, they didn’t even react like they cared, their eyes glowing with focused undaunted lights.
Leading the army of mecha was Seth; in the distance, he quickly caught signs of movement, his heart skipped, and he quickened the pace, an item appearing in his grasp as he lunged forward, hoping to get to his target faster than their demise could arrive.
He could feel the herculean presence fast approaching in the distance, against the ashen sky, a trail of crimson drawing closer as its massive wings beat against the wind.
Seth held tight to the small talisman, sensing his urgency, the battle assist system reacted instantly, jet thrusters popping from his armor, the condensed burst of flames accelerating his movements, allowing him to scale the terrain faster.
Due to the turbulent spatial and temporal distortion of the pocket dimension overlapping with reality, he wasn’t able to activate dimensional strider.
Well, it wasn’t that he couldn’t; it was that each usage would cost far more will, and due to the special circumstance of their location, he couldn’t bank on the recovery capabilities brought by the world saint title.
In the sky an enormous face peeked through the clouds, its eyes carrying a pure crimson violent glint.
A wave of ash flowing from its seething maws... Seth’s heart shook. "A great dragon..." he recognized the behemoth with a single glance.
And compared to the weaker variants they had dealt with so far this... this was definitely way beyond their capability to handle.
Seth’s eyes glowed brilliantly as he scanned the surroundings, the president’s instruction ringing in his head.
"This mission..." the president had said. "Will be the most critical, and the easiest, at the same time."
"Your job isn’t mainly about confronting the enemy as you have been doing, this time, the mission will carry more risks, and you will have to carry out a delicate penetration and installation assault, after which you will have to retreat." the president paused, letting his words sink in before continuing through the holographic transmission.
"Of course there will be obstacles that will range beyond your means, so Seth here’s what I want you to do for me..."
Seth’s eyes flashed, that was when the president had mailed a bunch of talismans to him, along with price conditions to activate each one.
Conditions that had just been met. Striding forward with long leaps, he scaled the terrain, the Mecha troops still trailing some distance behind.
Seth’s eyes glowed as he reached his destination, while the atmosphere suddenly had a rise in temperature.
Looking up one would see a widened maw cocked their way, as a wave of scalding red crept down its gaping throat.
Despite how hot the atmosphere had gotten, the humans felt their hair rise on end, chills washing down their backs.
The thing about dragon breaths was that the flames were so brutally cruel and hot.
Even Brandon with his insane flame-resistant genes didn’t dare take the breath of an ordinary flame dragon head on without his mecha or genetic armour for protection.
He feared he wouldn’t be able to resist and be carbonized by the sheer intensity of the flames.
The only reason they had been able to avoid dealing with dragon flames all this while was mostly because the reach of the breath attack was always quite narrow.
Even the great dragons they had faced suffered from the same range issue.
But these massive behemoths hundreds of feet above them surely didn’t face these limitations.
Its jaw, already parting, covered the span of a few football fields; the evolvers couldn’t even imagine going against something so huge and massive.
Their brains couldn’t even picture what its true mass might be behind the curtain of clouds shielding the rest of the dragon’s frame aside from its head.
The air twisted, and their skins blistered from the head, as the breath charged with a sinister intensity, the pulse of scalding hot crimson lights undulating with quicker ripples.
Seth dared not tarry, drawing out the talisman with an arc; he stamped it on the exact spot he judged to be an essence vein.
A convergence point of energy in this small space where a dense flow of flame essence pooled.
And that was the ingredient he needed to activate the talisman token, slicing through his palm with his fingers in an attempt to let blood flow.
But not only did a single bit of blood refuse to drop, the self-inflicted cut healed instantly. The essence generated from the gene skill Vitality Overflow was taking its job seriously.
Seth clicked his tongue, his face twisting into a scowl, his blood was too dense, there was no way he was going to bleed.
And this talisman needed the blood of a human to activate, with the others trailing a few steps behind, Seth’s heart skipped a beat as the color of the sky changed.
From turbulent grey to a blinding glow of crimson, the heat in the air rose further to dangerous degrees, rocks smoldering red at the moment.
Fortunately both the Gordon 342 battle suit and the Mecha armours were built with situations like these in mind.
With the oxygen in the atmosphere going scant, the Mechanical suits pumped out their own stream of fresh breathable gas.
Meanwhile Seth didn’t need to stare at the sky to understand what was happening, the dragon had unleashed its flames.
"Fuck it!" he hissed, whipping out his spear, concentrating on his defense to make himself as vulnerable as he could get while part of his battle suits retracted from his left arm.
His spear flipped and arced, slicing off through his wrist, the severed hand falling and sizzling on making contact with the now red-hot glowing surface of the volcanic slope.
Choking on his own grunt of pain, he slammed his severed stump heavily onto the talisman, smearing the thickened flow of blood all over.
His hand still glowing while his heart hoped it was enough, he didn’t need to continue hoping for a second longer, as beneath his stump the small piece of paper burst into a resplendent glow.
A sudden force sweeping forth and kicking Seth backwards uncontrollably, as his stump quickly regrew another hand.
The one that was dispatched was slowly losing all vitality, going stiff as the heat baked it black.
A wave of blue rose from the area of the talisman, the towering beam of light piercing through the veils of fast approaching flames and the dense ashen clouds.
A new presence bled into the atmosphere, and everyone noticed, even the big guy up in the sky fueled his flame breath with more fury sensing a threatening new presence.
The reinforced wave of flames bore down on the terrain, reality itself coiling back from the field-warping embers that scorched the volcanic side.
Turning the already scorched land even more hellish, the infernal wave of flames promised to turn everything and anything to ash.
The dragon’s eyes glowed, as its breath flourished, its tail coiling in the embrace of the thick ashen clouds while its wings anchored it to the sky.
This beast vented its fury at the intruders, how dare someone desecrate the holy lands of the flame dragons.
The land that the Inferno was tasked to gatekeep! The dragon’s eyes glistened with renewed fury as it heaved more, reinforcing its stream of flaming breath.
The beast cared less for the damage it was dealing to the terrain or the young dragons lurking in the surroundings.
It didn’t care all it wanted was...
"Intruders Die!!!" An ancient draconic roar peeled through the skies as the crimson embers of its breath.
Engulfing both the land and the sea. The clouds surrounding its frame grew more tumultuous.
This was naturally a reaction to its grand might, a might well above the awakened grade.
Inevitably, its essence flow came to a halt, its flame breath extinguishing along with it, the dragon’s vertical eyelids clamped shut.
As the torrents of embers calmed down its throat, its flame core was already recharging for the next round.
Its crimson gaze observed the smoking remains of everything below.
And there was not a single doubt in its mind, those pesky intruders were dead...
Its tail swept through the clouds as its massive head retracted back into the curtain of clouds blocking out the sky.
It was ready to return to its cave located on the other side of the massive island... but just then...
"Now now, little lizards don’t run..." a soothing calm voice echoed through the entire space.
The pitch was neither loud nor bold, but the magnetic effect couldn’t be denied.
The dragon froze, its movement going stiff for a bit, his neck swinging back down bursting through the clouds.
Its eyes smoldered with fury; the intruders weren’t dead! It recognized its massive fangs grinding with a threatening infuriated growl.
And worse, the threatening feeling thickened, the dragon’s obsidian slits locked on the culprit, a newcomer... most likely the owner of that taunting voice.
The glow of the dragon’s eyes darkened...
As the newcomer let out a cheerful chuckle, "come on little lizard, come
down, let’s play." The voice sounded more of a threat.
The dragons snarled, and its wings jerked as the massive beast began its descent.