The crowd took steps back as the two men before them fell upon the ground, their bodies convulsing and malforming.
Evil demonic energy erupted from the priest, his skin turning red with his eyes brightly glowing in crimson red colour. Two red horns tore through the skin on the priest’s head. Evil aura spread from him, causing all of the people around him to look at him with fear.
“The priest is a demon!”
All of the soldiers pointed their weapons at the priest, who slowly stood up, his back bent in an l-shape before he straightened with a loud pop.
“Haha, now I am complete. Now I have power!” the calming white light radiating out of his staff changed, becoming crimson red.
The soldier named Pete suddenly stood up, his skin smooth and renewed with new vigour. His body was more muscular and taller. Two glowing horns poked from the sides of his head. Heat and majestic aura radiated out of him, pushing against the sprawling evil of the priest.
“The dragon god, the greatest of all gods, spoke to me! They will bring new glory upon this town, turning it into a land of prosperity and order. The old church of light is ineffective and corrupted.” he raised his hand, pointing at the priest with an unnaturally large grin plastered on his face, revealing sharp pointy teeth, “Look, they were even the demons in their ranks, and they didn’t even notice it!”
“Gaaaaa!” suddenly, a demon easily twice as tall as a regular human jumped on top of the wall, its body looking like a large, hunched human with bulking muscles and red skin. Their bald head had pointy ears and bone protrusions. Its unproportionally big mouth was wide open, showing multiple lines of sharp black teeth.
Its long arms, easily reaching towards its knees, dragged their long black claws through the ground, a pair of long meaty and pointy tails flailing behind its back.
It moved so fast that it looked like a blur to normal soldiers, its sharp claws moving towards the nearby human. They cut into the flesh, blood splurting out as they cleaved the human in half, his innards spilling out.
The demonic priest erupted in laughter, his red eyes flashing, “Hahaha!”
Pete moved, the stone wall under him cracking as he jumped towards the demon, his reptilian eyes brightly glowing in golden light. The majestic aura radiating out of him was pulsing around, turning visible, looking like a golden light.
The demon swung his long claws at the next human defender, his eyes growing in panic and his skin turning pale.
Suddenly human hand caught the demon’s claw and moved, the demon’s red arm snapping in half with an uncomfortable sound.
Pete’s second arm moved in a blur, his fingers digging into the demon’s muscular chest. The thick black blood splurted out with the demons squealing as the human arm kept digging deeper and deeper. Pete pulled back his arm, holding a pitch-black pulsing lump of meat in his palm. The demons fell to the ground unmovingly.
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon was flapping his wings, hanging high above the town, his visions still spinning and his hearing feeling distorted, ‘Was my skull cracked?’. Only now, when his anger settled down, he realised how close to death he was.
‘If it was a little bit stronger, maybe my brain would be too damaged, killing me instantly before it could regenerate. This whole thing should be a wake-up call to me.’
Vesuvius came to the conclusion that he really should enchant his bones, or at least his skull, to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
The dragon watched the show with his own eyes, confused by the event, ‘Something is wrong. Transformation into a dragonkin never looked like this. He woke almost instantly, and the whole transformation was too fast. Also, what is going on with that gold aura that never before happened.’
Vesuvius had already transformed a few people and had access to his innate knowledge, so he could easily tell that something was different.
‘Also, that change of behaviour… no, his whole personality is too big. He also defeated a demon so easily.’
The dragon could feel the link of his blood with the anomaly on the wall, but he had no idea how his blood got into the man’s mouth, making him feel even more confused.
‘Also, how the hell did that priest demonise? This whole thing feels so surreal.’
In the end, the dragon came to only two plausible explanations, ‘Everything is either an unbelievably big coincidence or someone is manipulating this whole thing.’
It didn’t take long for the dragon to think of two likely candidates, ‘Is it possible that the dragon god is manipulating it all, possibly even directly controlling that human.’
It felt very likely to him as everything perfectly fitted. After Vesuviuse’s actions, the baroness would be under his control, with the most significant remaining obstacle being the local clergy. In that case, the dragon god’s actions would effectively discredit the biggest church in the barony, the light church and promote their side in one go.
The shivers passed down the dragon’s body realising how dangerous gods can be, ‘They see the world in the bigger picture, possibly giving small pushes that can change the whole world. This time the god is on my side, but next time, some other god can do the same thing to me.’
Then there was the second suspect that caused Vesuvius to be even more fearful, his whole mind being disturbed just from thinking about it, ‘What if the system is manipulating this event to create a more interesting story?’
Suddenly hundreds of howls and squeals reverberated through the town and its surroundings, the whole demon horde going insane. Some of them rushed towards the town, jumping over the magma trench, while others ran towards the forest, quickly retreating.
Seeing that Vesuvius had no time to think more about it as he dived from the sky, a bright yellow-golden stream of magma erupted out of his mouth. The magma impacted into the middle of a group of lesser demons running towards the town. Their bodies vanished in the brightly glowing liquid.
[+310XP]
[+320XP]
[+300XP]
…
The people on the wall went into panic, stabbing with their spears against the demons scaling the walls, their tips harmlessly bouncing off the demons. The long-clawed arms were grabbing humans and pulling them down from the walls.
The loud and painfully human cries echoed all around the city.
The large demons pounded against the gate, its wooden door creaking and cracking. Vesuvius noticed it as he flapped his wings flying as fast as he could.
‘Damn, this all over again, that hoard situation from my trial.’
The large armoured dragon fell from the sky, landing in front of the gate. His large body crashed the demons pounding against the gate, their bodies turning into black and red paste. The dragon’s mouth opened, and a bright breath of magma exploded out, flying against the demons, their bodies vanishing in a yellow flash.
Dozens of red lights flashed across the muddy plain outside of the town, dozens of brightly glowing red orbs blasting across the plains straight towards the town and the dragon. The orbs loudly squealed, leaving behind trails of red lights.
They impacted all over the walls, and bright red flashed, blinding the people as the loud explosions shook the town. Segments of walls immediately collapsed, and people on them vanished in red lights.
Cries of humans filled the battlefield, together with thick clouds of dust from the collapsed walls.
At the same time, a barrage of red glowing orbs that looked like spheres made of pure red light that gradually turned brighter with a distance to its centre impacted against the dragon barricading the gate.
The explosions of red light erupted all over his body, pieces of fragments from his armour flying in all directions. Cracks spread through its black surface, yellowy and gold magma leaking out, fixing the damages.
Enraged at the demons devasting his property Vesuvius pumped mana through his body, all of it flowing into his mouth, where magical symbols quickly arranged, forming three square-shaped magic circuits in line. The magical circuits flashed brightly as the yellow light erupted from the dragon’s throat.
‘Ooo, great dragon god, give me the strength to protect my treasure! Empower my attack!’ a portion of the dragon’s mana left his body, ascending towards the sky. Vesuvius felt silly for praying just to gain buff through a miracle, but he knew that it was a regular part of priest powers that he obtained.
A golden pillar of light descended from the sky, everyone stopping their fight as the feeling of pride, majesty and greed soaked into their hearts, renewing their vigour.
The golden light enveloped the dragon, his headache subsiding and his eyes flashing in golden colour.
The yellow magma launched from his throat, the golden energy soaking into it, turning its colour into pure gold. The golden liquid looking like liquified gold, passed through the first square, immediately turning thinner and concentrating into a beam.
The glowing gold entered the second square turning brighter and thinner, before finally entering the last square, turning into a thin bright golden ray only thick as a human finger.