#109
Hunting the Mad Dragon (1)
Ssshhh—
An enormous mass of black magic power swept over the surroundings, forming a barrier to prevent escape.
After setting the stage to this extent, there was no way they could let the creature run away now.
And as that black energy enveloped them from every direction, only the four of them remained within the barrier.
Crack, crack—!
“Khahaha! For starters, let’s just see what works!”
Harley’s body swelled like a beast’s, white steam pouring from every inch of him.
“Hmm, as expected, directly controlling its blood seems difficult. Mad or not, a dragon is still a dragon.”
Heinz II lightly smacked his lips as he drew out his own blood and honed it into a sharp edge.
[Ho? There are traces of it absorbing another life force. Is that the cause of its madness? Still, with a dragon’s mental firewall, it should have been able to ignore that much... It must have been hibernating.]
Hans calmly analyzed it with the eyes of someone looking at a test subject, scattering an eerie aura around him.
And lastly...
[Grrrrrr—— I-Immortal King...! Immortal King——!!]
Heratos, the dragon who had remained frozen in place without the slightest movement since Hans appeared.
But at some point, the figure that had been fixed like a still image slowly began to convulse.
The red flames of madness blazing in its eyes gradually swelled, expanding as if they were about to burst.
Whoooosh—!
Then, with him at the center, the air from every direction was sucked inward, and a violent gale raged around them.
Harley glanced around at the sudden change in the air currents and immediately grasped the cause.
‘The air is just being swept up in the aftermath. ...What’s moving is the madness scattered through the atmosphere.’
The fine particles of madness spread throughout the area were being drawn into one place all at once and absorbed into the dragon at the center.
[Kiyaaaaa——!]
Heratos let out another roar filled with madness.
And the three facing him did nothing as he grew stronger and stronger with each passing moment.
Because there was no need.
‘Oh! Nice, nice. What a windfall, it’s even concentrating it on its own. Even Harley can’t do that.’
Perhaps because dragons grew by absorbing mana from their surroundings throughout their lives, unlike ordinary monsters, it was consciously gathering the nearby madness.
Why would they interfere when it was raising the quality of their reward all on its own?
[Immortal King! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you——!]
As the storm slowly died down, Heratos, the Mad Dragon who had finally gathered all the energy, glared at Hans and spat out his fury.
The red scales covering its body had deepened into an even darker blood-red, and its flesh, still writhing ceaselessly, had bulked up to its limit, revealing the violence within without the slightest filter.
‘Madness erodes the host’s reason and forcibly shaves away lifespan and life force to grant enormous power. If the subject is a dragon that lives for thousands of years, the effect goes without saying.’
On top of that, the madness condensed within its Dragon Heart through the process just now was beyond imagination.
The concentration dissolved in the nearby atmosphere had decreased noticeably from the aftermath...
‘Seeing as it isn’t recovering quickly, it must have affected a wider area than I expected.’
If the range had been narrow, madness flowing in from elsewhere would have filled the empty space in no time.
It was a phenomenon possible precisely because it was a Mad Dragon.
[Kyaaaaa——!]
Heratos, its eyes rolled back, charged at Hans like a missile.
The overwhelming magic power surrounding it assisted its movements, allowing it to move at a speed unfitting for its massive body.
[Hmm, it’s extremely excited. Is it a creature that holds a grudge against the previous Immortal King?]
Of course, there was no way such simple movements alone could catch him.
Hans, who had already moved aside and out of the attack’s trajectory, felt the atmosphere tremble in the wake of that massive weapon of flesh as he organized his thoughts.
Catching it itself would not be difficult.
After all, he was the successor of an Immortal King who had hunted countless dragons.
But if he did that...
[Yes, it would be better to take it moderately after all.]
If Hans went all out, its body would inevitably be contaminated, and if that happened, the most he could obtain would be a single undead dragon.
That was not bad in itself, but there was clearly a way to use it more efficiently.
‘To do that, I’ll need to tie its feet down first.’
As it happened, there was one fellow who would be the most helpful in the current situation.
[Entrasio.]
A single word, low and resonant, filled with black magic power.
At the same time, an enormous swamp of shadow swiftly covered the ground.
And then.
Fwoosh—!
From within the squirming darkness spread across the floor, the bones of a gigantic dragon raised themselves.
[Kwaoooo——!]
A roar brimming with the aura of death shook the space.
[Kiyaaaaa——!]
A cry stained with madness followed after it.
In one place, the gazes of Entrasio and Heratos, two fallen dragons, collided.
Two beings that had once been kin, now facing each other as enemies.
There was no need to say what came next.
[Kwooooo——!]
[Kyaaaaa——!]
Kwaaang—!
Soon, the two colossal monsters collided violently.
Perhaps it had been quite old in life, but in terms of skeletal frame, Entrasio was about thirty percent larger than Heratos.
However, with only bones remaining, it was naturally difficult for him to face Heratos, whose body had been strengthened by madness, through close combat alone.
On top of that, his greatest weapon, the aura of death, was also sealed, so all Entrasio could do was restrain the creature’s movements.
Of course, that was exactly why he had been summoned in the first place.
‘If he uses too much power, all the meat and blood will be ruined.’
It was a nutritious meal for their children. Even if they couldn’t feed them organic, shouldn’t they at least minimize the pesticides?
Hans watched the two dragons tussle back and forth and drew up his magic power.
Countless magic circles embroidered the surrounding space as they appeared, and in an instant, they wove together all sorts of mysteries.
‘Let’s leave curses out for now.’
Gravity chains, spatial fixation, shock absorption, and the like.
Every one of them was the type of magic that could minimize contamination.
An undead summon with a massive body that clung to it tenaciously, and a black magician who interfered at every turn whenever it tried to do anything.
An assassin who slipped out of its perception and delivered sharp attacks whenever it let its guard down for even a moment, and a barbarian warrior who stuck to it like a madman.
And so began a one-sided, unreasonable Mad Dragon raid by a multi-racial party.
***
Crunch!
The Mad Dragon’s enormous maw tore into the Bone Dragon’s neck.
Its jaw muscles and sharp teeth, strengthened at the cost of its life force, contained the mighty magic power supplied by its Dragon Heart...
Crack— Crunch!
And that destructive force was enough to pierce through the defensive barrier engraved into the Bone Dragon and directly reach its cervical bones.
[Kuooh——!]
Cracks slowly began to form in Entrasio’s neck bones.
The black magic power being continuously supplied was reinforcing his bones and repairing the damaged areas in real time, but if things were left as they were, there was a risk that his neck would snap completely.
‘Even if it does, it can just be attached again, so it doesn’t matter.’
That immortality was the undead’s greatest advantage.
Though Entrasio was being pushed back by the Mad Dragon because of all the restrictions placed on him, he was not a weak being.
‘But this is more troublesome than I expected.’
Dragons were already known for their strong magic resistance, and that Mad Dragon had been strengthened even further, to the point that even Hans’s black magic could not hold it for long.
‘Hunting it itself isn’t difficult. But since I can’t use that method... what a dilemma.’
The reason the Immortal Kings of the past had been able to hunt dragons so easily was because of the aura of death they wielded.
That deadly poison, fatal to living beings, would surely be effective against the Mad Dragon as well, but after placing restrictions on Entrasio, Hans could hardly use it himself.
[Hmm, let’s observe the situation a little longer for now.]
Hans, who had been leisurely looking down at the fight, slowly raised one hand.
Wooooong—
Magic poured out once more from the countless magic circles created in an instant with enormous magic power.
Dozens of black flashes pierced various parts of the Mad Dragon’s body, and lightning falling from the sky electrocuted it.
A massive explosion shook its head, and solid ten-thousand-year ice froze its joints.
At the moment the Mad Dragon’s attention was diverted by the storm of magic that pierced through even its ridiculous magic resistance as if it were nothing...
Slash—!
Heinz, who had appeared like a ghost at some point, severed its jaw muscles with a long blade of blood he had drawn out.
“Uahahaha!”
Harley, who had climbed up its body in an instant, drove his own body into its jaw like a missile.
[Kraah——?]
Seizing that opening, Entrasio pulled his neck out of the Mad Dragon’s mouth and this time sank his teeth into its neck first.
The neck bones that had been riddled with cracks had already been restored.
But the same was true of the Mad Dragon, whose jaw muscles had been cut, and having its neck bitten was not a fatal wound to it either.
‘It seems it can’t use magic, probably because its intelligence has degenerated.’
However, dragons were a race that could move magic power like their own bodies through will alone.
Compared to using magic, the efficiency was far lower, but considering how much the creature’s abilities had been strengthened, that, too, was not something that could be ignored.
Boooom—!
Highly condensed magic power erupted near the neck Entrasio was biting into.
The Mad Dragon twisted its body while repeatedly detonating shockwaves, regardless of whether its own body was damaged by the aftermath.
Riiiip, shraaak—!
The flesh caught on Entrasio’s teeth was mercilessly torn apart, and blood scattered in every direction.
Thanks to that, it managed to escape from the situation of having its neck bitten, but it had suffered a fatal wound that would have killed an ordinary living creature immediately.
...Though judging by the way it was recovering in real time, it did not seem to mean much.
‘Instead, its primitive use of magic power has developed further.’
Its physical abilities, already strengthened by madness, were flooded with magic power as well, causing its strength, agility, regenerative power, and more to surge explosively as a matter of course.
A magic barrier wrapped around its body like armor, enhanced offensive power dwelling in its teeth and claws, and even shockwaves condensed in one place and detonated like bombs.
On top of that...
[Hruuuuup——]
The Mad Dragon, which had created distance with explosive agility, inhaled the surrounding air in an instant.
At the same time, an enormous amount of magic power gathered into its throat.
‘Breath...! Fast!’
The flow of destructive magic power gathering in an instant far exceeded the speed he had anticipated.
And its power went without saying.
Entrasio hurriedly prepared his own Breath, belatedly moving to counter it.
As magic power began to concentrate rapidly on both sides, the surrounding air shook violently.
And finally.
Kwaaaaang!
A massive explosion created by the collision of red light and black light swept out in every direction.
Because the dragon breaths fired from both sides gnawed away at each other’s power in the middle, it ended with only the surrounding terrain being slightly altered.
‘...That was close.’
In the midst of the violently raging storm, Hans looked at the two dragons that had clashed again and become entangled, inwardly letting out a sigh of relief.
The speed and output with which the creature completed its Breath were beyond what he had assumed.
In the end, only after Hans intervened with Entrasio and forcibly raised his power could it be fully offset.
[That fellow is certainly lively. Excessively so.]
Even as he lightly waved his hand and wrapped the Mad Dragon’s body in black chains, Hans continued to ponder.
Just as he was thinking that if there truly was no other way, he would have no choice but to simply kill it...
Unexpectedly, the solution came not from Hans, but from another party member.
***
There was a figure walking over the violently thrashing body of the Mad Dragon without making the slightest presence felt.
Slash—!
At the sharp claws of blood he swung, the dragon’s hard scales fell away and blood spattered.
But only for a moment. The opened wound rapidly repaired itself, and scales grew back in its place.
“Ptooey! As expected, the dragon blood itself is good, but the madness inside it gets in the way.”
Heinz spat out the dragon blood he had put in his mouth and grimaced.
The original owner’s will contained within the blood had already been completely crushed by madness, so the bloodsucking ritual was not being carried out properly.
Because the creature’s scales were so hard, he had to go all out just to injure it, but even after drawing blood that way, there was nothing to gain from it. It was utterly unprofitable.
It was a situation that could truly be called the worst possible matchup for a vampire.
But conversely, there was someone enjoying this very situation...
Crunch! Crack!
“Khahaha! No matter how much I eat, there’s no end to it! Meat that regenerates infinitely!”
It was Harley, who had climbed onto the Mad Dragon’s chest, torn off its scales, and was biting into its flesh.