After finding the dragon, the Secretary of Defense had mobilized all available satellites to track and confirm its location. This would be maintained until they managed to deploy weapons that were powerful enough to capture it. It would be a difficult job, and losing track of the dragon even once would mean finding it would be even more difficult the next time. Nevertheless, they carried on their search.
Despite making short work of the initial forces, the Americans were far from dissuaded. After all, those were but the tiniest sliver of its true military might. And many other, more powerful weapons lay in their stockpiles.
The screen portrayed the dragon lumbering through the forest towards the north, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
The head of the observation team did not know what the dragon was going to do. He asked for a cup of coffee while the others continued to stare at the screen, recording the dragon’s trajectory from time to time.
“Why doesn’t it fly? Why does it insist on running?”
A curious official raised the question and was met with silence as no one responded. Everyone else was equally as stumped.
Judging from how the dragon annihilated three Apache helicopters earlier, they had all seen how fast it could fly, but somehow it preferred running in the jungle instead of flying.
After advancing a certain distance, the dragon stopped. The observation team zoomed onto its location, thinking that they could make out its actions more clearly. The creature appeared to be standing still while chanting something.
Suddenly, an illusory doorway arose in front of it. The door seemed to be made of gray light and was embossed with numerous cryptic runes. Following its appearance, the dragon stepped into the doorway. When its body completely disappeared, the door of light rapidly shrunk and disappeared. The observation team had lost the dragon.
Whoooosh———-
The observation team stood up in alarm.
“Quick, get me a read on the immediate surroundings. Find that dragon!” the head ordered.
There was a flurry of taps as an operator rapidly typed on his keyboard. The single video which took up all of the screen split into several simultaneous streams of the surrounding environment. As a variety of images flashed by the screen, they all paid attention to any anomalies, but they found no traces of their target.
“This is crazy. Did it… did it actually teleport?”
“It…did. There’s no way we saw wrong. It literally up and disappeared right in front of our eyes.!”
“Our scanners aren’t responding. We have completely lost track of the target.”
“A dragon… What next? Will angels and demons pour out from the heavens and earth?”
“……”
The observation team was in a din. One official even took out a cross, praying silently to his god.
“Sir, this is an enhanced picture from the satellite. Please take a look.”
The operator zoomed in on the image of the portal. This was the clearest image the satellite had taken, making it barely possible to make out the runes.
“Find me every theologian, occultist, historian, and archaeologist you can. Show them copies of these ruins, and see what they can make of them. Right, pass them on to linguists as well. Maybe they can make something out of it.”
The leader of the observation team quickly gave his orders.
It was a fruitless effort, as they had not the slightest of ties to Earth. They belonged to San Soliel and San Soliel alone.
The officer swallowed his saliva, suppressing a vague sense of terror. He knew it would be difficult to find the dragon, especially since its means were completely beyond their understanding.
By teleporting alone it had exceeded Earth’s technology by an order of several magnitudes. This wasn’t even a serious theoretical possibility as yet. It was something that belonged primarily to the realm of science fiction.
To think of the sheer damage such an ability could cause. With it, one could easily transport their troops to the heart of their enemy’s territory and strike critical blows before retreating with ease. Even logistical support would become far simpler and cheaper.
Perhaps the world was about to change!
……
Louie could guess the shock of his spectators. This was the main reason why he used the teleportation spell.
Before leaving San Soliel, he had brought some of his spoils – a bunch of magic scrolls. In case he encountered something he couldn’t solve, he could also use them to solve the crisis.
There were many high-grade magic scrolls among his spoils. According to Marches, who signed a contract to become his slave, these scrolls were precious items. Even a high-ranking archmage would not be able to release different spells consecutively at their peak condition.
But the teleportation spell was not high-level magic. It was only fifth rank magic. For some small mages, they wouldn’t even be able to touch this spell, but for archmages, everyone could use it.
This spell might have been extremely terrifying on Earth, but in the magical world of San Soliel, there were too many ways to deal with it. A ‘Detect Teleportation’ or a ‘Dimensional Anchor’ spell was enough to stop it in its tracks. And reckless use of it might get the user stuck in a dimensional fault which only legendary rank mages and above could survive.
Directly transporting an army to the enemy base was not impossible, but that was not something a normal mage could use as it was the legendary magic ‘Group Teleportation’. Legendary magic was difficult to detect and stop.
This was the difference between Earth’s civilization and San Soliel’s. In the magical world, teleportation could only allow a mage to shorten the travel distance, but on Earth, it was a terrifying weapon because no one on Earth could detect it.
When Louie stepped out of the portal, he was already on top of an ocean, the largest ocean on Earth – the Pacific Ocean!
The spell required detailed coordinates for the teleportation, but Louie was not familiar with other places except China. He could not teleport directly to the Chinese cities, so he finally chose the ocean as his destination.
His next plan also required him to be on the ocean.
“After this I should go back to dragon city. I hope the residents don’t starve to death before I return……” Louie muttered.