Chapter 25: Helion Core [10]
CLANG.
Seris’s scythe caught the dragon’s claw and redirected it in one clean motion, the force of the collision sending the beast staggering backward across the chamber floor.
ROAAARRR.
It spread its wings and beat them forward. A violent gale tore through the tunnel, debris skidding across the stone, the air pressure alone strong enough to make the walls creak.
Seris’s coat billowed, her silver hair whipped sideways.
She didn’t move her feet. Her crimson eyes stayed on the dragon.
"...Is that all?"
Behind her, Legion tried to stand up. His legs made it halfway and quit.
"Damn it—" He drove a fist into the ground. "I’ve got nothing left."
Leon sat against the broken wall and watched Seris exchange another blow with the dragon, her scythe ringing against its claw, sparks scattering across the chamber.
’Vice-president’s fighting that thing alone while we sit here.’ His hand tightened slowly.
’We’re just watching. What are we even good for right now? I feel completely useless.’
FWOOOSH!
Something white shot past both of them so fast neither of them processed it until it was already gone.
"What—" Legion spun around. "Did something just—?"
Leon stared at the trail of light still fading in the air. "...You saw it too?"
The streak hit the dragon’s chest.
BOOOOM.
The impact cracked the floor where the dragon skidded backward, its claws carving trenches three meters deep before it caught itself.
Even Seris paused.
She stepped back half a step and looked at the dragon. Then at the streak of light still dissipating in the air above them.
’...What was that.’
"Nice hit, Pyrion."
Both Leon and Legion turned around.
Alden was walking toward them.
Coat torn. Blood from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. One arm hanging lower than the other. Still walking like he had somewhere to be.
The white-orange blur circled above and came down in a smooth arc, landing beside him without a sound. The light faded.
It was a wolf.
Snow-white fur. Flames dancing at the tips of its ears and the end of its tail steady and warm, casting moving orange shadows across the chamber walls. Crimson eyes that looked at Alden first.
Then it trotted over, completely unbothered by the S-Rank dragon, and nudged its head against Alden’s side.
"Rrruff." Its tail swayed.
Legion’s mouth was open. "...Since when does he have a companion beast?"
"First he was fighting like a mage and a warrior and now he’s a tamer?!" Leon looked at Alden like he was a problem that kept adding new variables. "What class even IS he—"
’Honestly...’ A short distance away, Seris looked at the wolf with an expression that had shifted from her usual composed.
’I genuinely cannot predict this person anymore.’
She filed that somewhere and said nothing.
The dragon steadied itself. Smoke leaked from its nostrils. Its remaining eye found Alden across the chamber and stayed there, and the intelligence in it had turned into something singular and focused.
Alden looked down at Pyrion.
"You remember the plan buddy?"
Pyrion’s low rumble was the only answer.
Then the wolf was gone.
BOOM!
A blazing white comet crossed the chamber in a straight line, slamming into the dragon’s chest at full speed. The beast’s body absorbed the impact and tried to respond with its enormous wing coming down fast, aimed to crush the wolf on its next pass.
"It’s going to—!" Leon started.
Pyrion wasn’t there.
The wing hit stone and cracked it in every direction.
The dragon looked around. The wolf was gone from where it had been hit, so the beast swung its head to search.
BANG!
White light dropped from directly above.
Pyrion had gone straight up, out of the wing’s arc, and came down flaming paw first onto the dragon’s damaged eye.
ROOOAAARRR!
The dragon recoiled hard, head shaking, the agony in its roar echoing off every wall.
"That dodge." Legion stood there with his jaw not quite closed. "It read the attack before it happened."
Leon looked between Pyrion darting through the air and Alden standing behind them with blood on his chin and a grin on his face.
"If you had something that strong, why didn’t you use it from the start?"
Alden didn’t answer.
His eyes were on Pyrion.
’That Prediction as it’s one of the Concept is working through it exactly as I thought.’ He tracked the wolf’s movements. Every dodge landing just before the attack reached it, every repositioning done a split second too early to be pure reaction.
’Sure that it can’t hurt an S-Rank Dragon seriously, the raw power gap between them is too large. But it doesn’t actually need to hurt it.’
The dragon swiped. Pyrion was already three meters to the left.
’It just needs to keep that thing’s attention while I—’ Alden raised his hand.
A thin thread shot from his fingertips and latched onto a scale on the dragon’s back.
He pulled it for which the thread yanked him off his feet and through the air in one clean arc. He landed on the dragon’s back in a crouch, one hand catching himself against the scales.
The dragon felt him immediately. Its body began to twist.
Wings spreading, preparing to buck him off, and then Pyrion hit again.
Flaming tail across the wounded eye, same spot as before.
The dragon’s entire attention snapped back to the wolf. It forgot about the person on its back.
"Keep it busy, Pyrion!" Alden dropped to one knee. "Just a few more seconds!"
The dragon lunged at Pyrion. Pyrion dodged and countered. The chamber shook with every exchange.
Alden pressed his palm flat against the scales.
The smoke started immediately, black and thick, pouring upward from under his hand, flowing into his palm, and this time there was no resistance. The dragon’s attention was somewhere else, it’s focus was on the wolf. The extraction had nothing fighting it.
His grin came back full and genuine.
"Now, extract!"
The smoke poured faster.