POV Vesuvius:
The massive sandstorm calmed down the huge, armoured dragon in the sky, staring at the annoying players standing in the middle of the desert. His eyes glowed in slight annoyance and irritation.
‘If it wasn’t for my space magic, I would get hit by that stupid pile of sand, thanks to these idiots.’
The storm intensified once more, the whole desert in the background shifting, the sand rising into the sky. The yellowy, dusty clouds raised once more, obscuring the sun in a few seconds.
‘Huh, this wasn’t the end?’ The dragon turned away from the players to face the incoming sandstorm.
The clouds spun, forming massive sandy vortexes, all moving straight towards the dragon. He felt a strong aura from them, all carrying very specific signatures, ‘Sand elementals this time. And high ranked on top of that.’
The vortexes kept spinning, all of them moving towards the dragon with a speed of a train rolling down a hill, raising clouds of dust in their tracks.
The magical circles in the sky pulsed in the bright lights as the neon-red, laser-like rays shot out, drawing lines across the sky as they pierced through the dusty clouds, heading straight towards the incoming elementals.
The rays blasted through them, coming out from the other side, harmlessly burning black trails into the dunes.
The vortexes kept spinning and continued rolling towards the dragon that was hovering high in the air, sucking all of the sand around them, they quickly grew in size together with their speed.
‘Gahhh! Of course that these circuits aren’t smart enough to aim for the cores!’ Vesuvius spread his wings, his domain exploding out, grabbing all the spells as the dragon took control over them.
His eyes brightly glowed as he pumped his mana into them, making them light up in an even brighter light than before, the lightning dancing around them.
Vesuvius focused on finding the exact positions of all of the cores, his eyes brightly glowing with mana flowing through them. The world around him changed, the colourful streams of mana flowing all around him, forming bright rainbows of light in the sky.
He noticed small points of concentrated mana within the tornadoes, his eyes brightly glowing, ‘Here they are!’
The next moment all of the circuits pulsed again, the neon-red rays of concentrated, cursed lightning shooting out, heading straight towards the tornadoes.
Sounds of shattering glass reverberated through the desert, bright explosions of pure elemental energy exploding out of the tornadoes as the rays shattered the fragile cores hidden within them.
The tornadoes collapsed, the wind grabbing the grains of sand and sucking them back into the raging sandstorm.
‘This is the problem with the elementals… they are all powerful, but they have all a gaping vulnerability, their fragile cores. Well, except for the most powerful ones, that ascended and no longer have cores and exist as pure elemental energy.’
The storm lost its power once more, the winds turning quieter one more time. Still the wind and sand kept wreaking havoc as they smashed again and again against the barrier of the wind enveloping the dragon, trying to get through it with loud bangs and scraping of the sound resonating through the desert.
The ground trembled, the dunes shifting as if something huge moved deep under it. The tremors were becoming stronger and stronger with each second that passed, the players in the distance losing their stability.
Vesuvius opened his mouth, more and more magical circuits forming in its glowing innards. The bright light radiated out, replacing the sun hidden under the layers of smoke, clouds, and sand.
A huge sphere of flames was gathering inside, growing in size and brightness, while the dragon nervously looked around, ‘Come one give me more monsters! I want more rewards and greater challenges! Is this all that this shitty dungeon can do?’
The whole ground exploded, the sands sliding into a gaping black void that opened. The players screamingly fell into the depth of the massive hole. The fissures opened throughout the whole desert, the sand all sliding down like the water down a hill.
Then a huge sandworm burst out, its widely open circular mouth filled with spinning, saw-like teeth moving to swallow the dragon whole.
The worm was giant, its height easily toppling even the tallest skyscraper ever built. Its body was covered in chitin armour coloured like sand, the whole desert sliding down towards the hole from where it burst, falling straight into the deep, black fissure.
‘Until now, I thought I was big… but what the fuck is with these stupendously huge monsters in this dungeon. Well, I guess the common objective here was always to survive, likely hiding or avoiding causing too much commotion to not attract these things, not to fight them.
The dragon leisurely flapped his wings, the gaping black mouth closing at him at an absurd speed, sonic bangs resonating through the whole collapsing landscape as the worm jumped out like a spring pressed under immense force.
Vesuvius could probably get away with his railgun technique, but that wasn’t the point of why he came here. He wanted to test his new powers.
Small, almost transparent, magic rings formed around his body, quickly spinning and rotating. His horns glowed while he poured mana into the magic circuit that looked like a spinning cube in his mind.
At the same time, the circuits floating in the sky all pulsed, unleashing their neon-red rays straight into the gaping black void of the worm’s mouth.
The space around the dragon warped and bent as he blinked, appearing further away, the long worm devouring the empty air filled with toxic vapours.
That was the main reason why Vesuvius wanted to learn the space magic so much, ‘Teleportation adds so much versatility from both tactical and strategic points of view.’
The sphere was growing in the dragon’s mouth, and then a crown, forged of golden radiance, materialised on his head, each of his horns incorporated into it like some kind of jewels.
The crown brightly shone, and large jewels, each forged of one of his elements, floated above the golden trim. Their brightly glowed, immense energy flowing through them.
‘Now eat this!’ the dragon glared at the worm as he redirected the river of mana flowing through his veins straight into his crown, its brilliance and radiance rising even more, the bright golden light flooding the whole sky.𝔬𝓋𝔩𝒩xt.𝑐𝑶𝑀