Chapter 20: Helion Core [5]
The stench hit them before they’d made it ten steps into the tunnels.
"Damn." Legion covered his nose with the back of his hand, face twisting. "This place is disgusting."
Seris didn’t look at him. "Were you expecting flowers?"
"I mean— not flowers exactly, but—"
Leon let out a quiet noise that was either agreement or mockery. Hard to tell.
Alden’s eye twitched.
’Can they not fool around for five minutes?’
He cleared his throat without slowing down. "You all remember the plan?"
"Yeah." Leon and Legion, same breath.
Seris said nothing.
Alden glanced sideways at her.
She was moving ahead at the same pace as always, crimson eyes fixed on the dark ahead, expression completely unreadable.
’Something’s different about her down here.’
He couldn’t name what. He filed it and kept moving.
ROOOAAARRR!
The roar hit the tunnel walls and came back from every direction at once. The stone around them vibrated.
Everyone stopped.
"...What the hell was that." Legion pulled out his sword.
Leon’s eyes pushed forward into the dark. "We’re getting close."
Alden activated Insight without announcing it. The world stripped down to outlines and mana signatures, the tunnel walls going transparent, and below them the orange pulse he’d been tracking from the surface resolved into something much closer.
"they’re ahead." He pointed. "Core user is past this passage."
They moved slower now. Weapons drawn. Footsteps deliberate.
The narrow tunnel opened into a massive underground chamber where three different passages met. The space was enormous.
Alden stopped.
’Something’s wrong.’
There was no sound except the water.
Then breathing could be heard from above.
"Grrrrrr..."
Every head tilted up at the same moment.
A shape detached itself from the ceiling.
It was Enormous and Black-scaled. the individual plates catching no light because they seemed to absorb it. Jagged gray spikes running from the back of its neck all the way down its spine and tail.
Two crimson eyes should have been open. Only one was. The other was a scar.
The open one found them immediately.
ROOOAAARRR!!
The roar hit the chamber like a physical force. Loose stone dust rained from the ceiling.
’Dragon,’ Alden registered. ’A dragon is down here.’
His eyes moved past it, behind the enormous body, partially hidden, a figure stood completely motionless inside a swirling sphere of golden light. The Helion Core wrapped so tight around a human silhouette that the two had become almost indistinguishable.
"Core user," Leon said.
"Maybe that dragon’s protecting them." Legion’s grip tightened on his sword. "If we want the Core, we get past that first."
The dragon dropped from the ceiling.
The stone floor cracked under the landing. The impact shook the chamber, water in the pools rippling outward in rings.
Seris stepped forward.
"I’ll handle the welcome." She was gone before the sentence finished.
A black flash crossed the chamber and then she was behind the dragon, scythe already completing an arc that had started before any of them had tracked her.
SLASH.
The cut opened across the dragon’s chest. A wound, deep enough that the sound of it was wet, scales scattering across the stone like broken plates.
The dragon staggered.
Its remaining eye burned.
"That was a huge blow on it, amazing Vice President—" Leon started.
"Hm?" Seris glanced at the dragon over her shoulder, scythe resting against her shoulder. "It didn’t die?" A short pause.
"...How embarrassing."
The dragon’s chest expanded.
"MOVE!" Seris called it without urgency.
BOOOOM!
Fire erupted from the dragon’s jaws in a solid torrent, orange-white and roaring, filling the entire width of the chamber ahead of it.
Leon was already in front of everyone.
"Guardian Wall!"
Golden mana erupted from him and expanded into a barrier. The flames crashed in and the shield held, barely. Leon’s boots scraped back across the stone, his jaw locked and his arms shaking with the effort of keeping it up.
"Ghh — it’s stronger than I expected—"
Legion was already gone.
He’d moved the moment the dragon committed to the breath attack, circling wide around its blind side, mana flooding into his legs. His speed was something else entirely, covering the distance in a handful of strides, the sword blazing with concentrated mana by the time he reached the dragon’s flank.
He kicked off the ground beneath the creature’s body and shot upward.
The dragon registered him half a second too late.
"HAAAH!" The blade carved across its throat on the way up.
SLASH.
The dragon recoiled with a roar that cracked the ceiling. Legion landed several meters back, rolled to his feet, and immediately clicked his tongue.
"...Damn." He stared at the wound. "These scales are something else."
Leon let the barrier drop, breathing harder than before. His eyes moved between Legion’s wound and the one Seris had left across the dragon’s chest.
Legion had hit hard. Really hard, the mana output behind that strike had been obvious from across the chamber.
The wound on the dragon’s neck was narrow.
Seris’s wound was meters deep.
Leon looked at her. She was standing slightly apart from the battle, scythe resting on one shoulder, watching the dragon. She hadn’t used mana.
’Just how strong is she?’
The dragon lowered its body.
"It wants more," Seris observed.
"It’s not dying fast enough," Legion said. "Our attacks barely touch the thing."
"Every creature has a weakness." Leon kept his spell up, circling slowly. "We find it and we use it."
"Agreed, but—" Legion stopped and looked around.
Leon stopped, and also looked around.
Three people in front of the dragon.
"...Where’s Alden?" Legion said.
"Did the dragon eat him?" Seris pressed two fingers to her cheek.
Leon turned toward the chamber entrance.
Alden stood exactly where he’d been standing when they entered the chamber. Hadn’t moved a centimeter. His mouth was hanging slightly open and his eyes were fixed on the dragon.
He looked like a child who had just seen something at a market that he didn’t know he needed until this exact moment.
"...What is he doing." Seris said.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING THERE?!" Leon’s composure had made its exit. "AT LEAST PRETEND TO HELP—"
"We’ve been risking our lives while you’re SIGHTSEEING?!" Legion cupped both hands around his mouth. "ALDEN!"
Alden’s eyes never left the dragon.
"...Guys." His voice came out calm. Almost quiet.
"I want it."
Leon and Legion both turned to look at him fully.
"...You want what?" Both of them at the same time.
Alden raised one finger and pointed at the dragon.
At the enormous, one-eyed, chest-wounded, furious dragon that had just taken a direct hit from Seris and was still upright.
"Help me catch that."
After moment of silence.
Leon looked at the dragon, then at Alden, then at the dragon again.
Legion did the same rotation.
"Oh." Alden’s finger was still raised. "I should probably add that I want it alive."
The two of them looked at each other.
Then:
"ARE YOU INSANE?!"