The Lightning Dragon and the Ice Dragon let out an earth-shaking roar, dominating the sky as though they were its sovereigns.
Before the cyan-scaled serpent in front of me could react, the Ice Dragon unfurled its wings and descended.
I crossed my hands over my head once again as the Ice Dragon plummeted onto the cyan serpent.
Thwaaam—!!
Biting cold winds howled and a murderous snowstorm surged forth, veiling the entire area. Slowly uncovering my eyes, I lowered my hands to assess the situation.
At the heart of the icy snowstorm, where the Ice Dragon had descended head-first, a giant crystalline iceberg had formed.
Trapped within that crystalline ice mountain was the towering cyan serpent, frozen in place.
But it was still not dead. Its frozen eyes were flickering with minute movements as it tried to break free from the ice.
Without giving it an opportunity to free itself, the Lightning Dragon descended onto the ice mountain next.
Thwaaam—!!
It crashed down on the crystalline ice mountain like a destructive lightning bolt, triggering an obliterating thunderstorm explosion.
Instead of retreating back to safety, I rushed forward, charging head-on into the thunderstorm.
Residual tendrils of electricity crackled in the air all around me, and a huge tornado of swirling gray thunderclouds unleashed its fury.
The lethal cold winds of the biting snowstorm mixed with the sharp gales of the raining thunderstorm, nearly sweeping me off my feet multiple times.
However, I slightly bent my knees, took a low stance, and pressed onward while barely keeping my eyes open.
By now, my lost hand had also completely regenerated so I dismissed the luminous Silver Flames surrounding it.
Finally, soaked to the bones by the rain and disheveled by the raging winds of the storm – or two storms rather – I reached the eye of the spiraling tornado.
There, at the center, I saw it. The titanic serpent. Its shimmering cyan scales were as beautiful and impenetrable as ever.
However, it was wounded. Nero was able to hurt it!
The cyan serpent was on the ground, squirming very weakly. A deep, hideous laceration was present right on top of its head, its scales cracked, broken, and some outright missing on that spot.
Streams of crimson blood were flowing out of its wound, some mixing in with the pouring rain and some being blown away by the raging storm.
I was reluctant to admit it, but Nero was truly a battle genius. Since he knew normal attacks weren’t going to cut it, he trapped the cyan serpent in ice, freezing it. Then, he rained down the single most destructive bolt of lightning right on top of its head.
The sudden shift in the temperature from chilling coldness to immolating heat made the serpent’s scales crack. Since its affinity was toward the wind, it had no resistance to cold and heat.
Truly, genius. He used nature to his advantage and unleashed the full potential of his Gift without depending too much on it either.
A smirk graced my lips, but it quickly faded as a sudden realization hit me – the cyan serpent wasn’t dead.
And to top it all off, the streams of blood flowing from its head were slowly thinning.
Even Nero’s two consecutive attacks – both of which were more than capable enough to reduce an entire city block to a heap of rubble – failed to kill the serpent.
Just how resilient was this snake bastard?!
And the fact that the blood flow was slowing down meant only one thing. The serpent had the ability to regenerate.
“Great,” I scoffed. In the next moment, I raised my hand overhead, my open palm facing the sky. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you come back to life again. So let’s see if you regenerate after I blast your fucking head to oblivion.”
Directly above the titanic serpent’s head, a majestic lance of turbulent crimson flames manifested in the air, dangerously raising the temperature of the surroundings.
The smirk on my face widened into a grin as I brought down my hand. At the same time, the crimson lance descended onto the cyan serpent.
Kach—!!
It struck the precise spot where Nero’s attack had wounded it. The incinerating flames of the lance seared the serpent’s flesh, causing its blood to evaporate in sizzling steam.
A pained hiss escaped the serpent’s mouth as the blazing red lance continued to burn through its flesh, widening the wound on its head.
“This is going to hurt,” I sighed exasperatedly, closing my palm into a tight fist.
Thwoooom—!!
Instantaneously, the flaming lance detonated into an incendiary explosion akin to a truckload of TNT going off.
A reverberating shockwave boomed from the blooming explosion and effortlessly threw me back in the air.
And that’s all I remember.
†
“Arghh…”
A skull-splitting headache greeted me the very moment I regained consciousness. At the same time, jolts of organ-rending pain coursed through every fiber of my being.
I brought my hand to the back of my head and began massaging it slowly.
–”He’s awake!”
–”See, I told you he wouldn’t die.”
–”Please, Nero. I saw you panic just a few seconds ago.”
“Shut up…” I groaned as the resounding voices around me only intensified my headache.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry for a few seconds before returning to normal.
A few inches from my face, a clear pair of emerald eyes belonging to Amelia met mine. I flinched back, prompting her to do the same.
“Woah, are you okay?!” she asked. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“…I’m fine,” I replied in a hoarse voice, looking around. Anastasia and Nero stood a few steps away, both wearing worried expressions on their faces.
None of them looked in good shape.
Nero’s body was filled with black and blue bruises, and a gaping wound marred the left side of Anastasia’s midsection. Amelia also had broken a few bones.
From the looks of it, I was on the ground, my back resting against the wide trunk of a tree. I touched my head on a couple of spots and inspected my hand. There were no signs of blood.
Scanning my arms and looking down, I checked if my entire body was intact and in one piece. And surely, it was.
There were some minor scratches and burns, but it was nothing I couldn’t shrug off.
Summoning the Silver Flames, I let its soft glow cover my wounds and embraced its familiar warmth.
A flood of memories suddenly flashed in my mind, and I widened my eyes. As I tried to get up, Amelia’s hand pressed on my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” she said, pointing behind her with her thumb.
A few paces behind her, a gigantic crater was visible – a clearing in the forest that wasn’t there before.
It looked as if a meteor, big enough to shadow an entire stadium, had crashed on the surface.
The cyan serpent, or at least what remained of it, lay in the middle of the crater. Its head was missing and the rest of its body was a disgusting mess of scorched flesh and broken scales.
A relieved sigh escaped my lips.
By now, my wounds were also healed. I grabbed Amelia’s hand as she pulled me to my feet.
“Where is Kent? How is his hand?” I asked, remembering my elven best friend.
“He’s at the shore along with Quinn. The ships have returned, so they must be boarding. We waited here for you to regain consciousness,” Anastasia quickly briefed me. “You were out for a few minutes. We dragged you out of the crater but debated whether to carry you to the ships, considering you might’ve sustained internal injuries and we didn’t want to trigger or fasten the internal bleeding. After all, that explosion was… big, to say the least.”
Of course, it was.
Aside from pouring every bit of mana I had into it, the Bringer of Lost Flames was also reinforcing it since it was a fire-type spell.
Heck, it was so destructive that even its caster, me, wasn’t safe from its point-blank detonation.
Drawing a deep breath, I nodded. “I see. I am good. I broke a few ribs but now I’m fine.”
Nero nodded back. “Good job. You really killed a Divine-ranked mana beast.”
I shook my head with a chuckle. “That one right there is all you. Without you injuring it first, I couldn’t possibly have finished it off.”
“Woah,” Amelia widened her eyes at me. “Take the win, Nero. Lucas being humble is a rare sight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”
My exasperated response triggered soft chuckles from my Unit members as we began traversing the forest to return to the shore.
We received a mass message on our smart bracelets, instructing all Cadets in hiding to retreat to the shore. Instructors from the Academy were on their way.
Reading the content of that text, I couldn’t help but sigh. Everything was already over. The serpent was dead.
What were they going to do now by coming here? They should’ve arrived when I was on the verge of being devoured.
“By the way, Lucas,” Amelia, walking beside me while Nero and Anastasia paced ahead, turned to me. “Your healing flames are really cool. I mean, you regenerated your lost arm in mere moments.”
“Yeah, they are effective as long as I have mana,” I nodded. “Unfortunately, I can’t heal others with it. I tried it on an injured bird once when I was in Mount Hua… it only made it worse.”
“Understandable,” Amelia nodded. “It would’ve been way too broken otherwise. After all, anything related to regeneration or self-heal is already broken enough.”
“Yeah,” I nodded before turning to point at the serpent behind us. “That serpent also had a regenerative factor–”
Suddenly, I stopped talking and halted in my tracks. A deep frown appeared on my face. Something… was not right.
