Lady Jenny always seemed like the calm and wise in Abel’s eyes. She’s always been a tremendous help for him. Now that she was screaming like this, something just seemed awfully wrong to him.
Without giving it any thought, Abel revealed a “volcanic explosion” scroll in his hand. After activating it, he immediately threw it at where the monster was going to come out.
Carrie went past Abel on her dire wolf, “Don’t bother looking, Bennett! That scroll won’t do any harm to it! Just focus on running away!”
“You girls go first! I’ll stop it before it gets to you!”
Abel was the only melee combatant in the entire team. In a situation like this, it was his role to defend the other members from getting attacked. Technically, it’s also the role of a man to protect the women.
By now, the monster’s entire body was out of the pond. It was a giant lizard, with four very strong legs that seemed disproportionately short to the rest of its body. If the tail was included, it must’ve been at least fifteen meters in length. When it left the water, an overwhelming imposing pressure emerged from it.
When the imposing pressure swept towards Abel, Abel was able to guard against it with his own dragon-type imposing pressure. He couldn’t emit a dragon-type imposing pressure himself, but it was already locked somewhere deep inside his mind.
It was fine for Black Wind as well. It was a mount wolf, but it was also a king of the beasts. It was born to be strong. Besides, the monster was definitely not a pure-blooded dragon. It’s got the blood of the dragonkind, but it’s genetic’s were certainly not pure enough to triumph over any powerful beasts.
It was worse for the five dire wolves that were running away. After being hit by the shock wave that was released by the dragon beast’s imposing pressure, they had to slow down their movements.
“Now, explode!” Abel chanted out, and the ground in front of him was suddenly full of cracks. Lava started bursting out of those cracks. It was his volcanic explosion spell. He got it from Francisco, who was the student of Grand Duke Francisco of Jochberg City. Surely it had to be good enough to have an effect on the dragon beast.
Once the lava and magma covered around the dragon beast, it was interrupted by releasing more imposing pressure. That’s when the dire wolves recovered from their shock. When they recovered, they ran into the forest with a speed that was much faster than usual.
Now that the five elven ladies have made their escape, Abel wasn’t planning to stand alone against this dragon beast. He didn’t feel like he had much chance against it. It was screaming so loudly from that volcanic explosion spell, but no actual damage was done to it whatsoever.
Thus, he only five seconds after the five elven ladies left. After five seconds, he gave a loud shout to Black Wind.
“We’re leaving, Black Wind!”
But oh, no. That’s when the dragon beast escaped from the volcanic explosion spell. It was ready to charge towards Abel, and the chilling qi inside its mouth was ready to be fired at any moment. Black Wind was much faster, though. It managed to avoid the hit with a speed that the dragon beast had never seen before.
The dragon beast chose not to make a pursuit. The knowledge passed down from its ancestors was telling it to call it a day. In other words, its instincts were telling it that the spiritual beast that ran away was, by no stretch of the mark, something that should exist in this world.
To get rid of the fear that it got from that mount wolf just then, the dragon beast shook its head and stayed at where it was. Now that Abel and Black Wind were already done, it had no way to locate their whereabouts. Out of frustration, it slammed its tail against the nearby trees, which made them snap and fall like a candlestick. Once it did that, it went back into the pond, which made everything peaceful again.
Black Wind caught up to Carrie pretty quickly. At this point, the whole team just reassembled.
“It didn’t come to us! It’s not trying to make a chase!” Abel said with certainty. He could tell with his keen sense of a knight’s commander.
“Slow down, everyone! Make sure you don’t run into anything!”
After so many times that Abel’s had a different opinion, Carrie’s realized how right he could be at times. Abel was the type of guy who knew what he’s talking about. If he said that the dragon beast wasn’t coming, then it sure wasn’t coming.
“Hey, Lady Jenny,” Abel turned to Lady Jenny, “Just what is a dragon beast?”
It’s the first time Abel’s even heard of the name. He didn’t know what it was, yet, just by hearing its name, Carrie decided to let the entire team run without a fight.
Lady Jenny explained as she tried to slow down her dire wolf, “To put it simply, a dragon beast is a spiritual beast that has a blood of a dragon. Under normal circumstances, only lizards, snakes, beasts that are biologically similar to a dragon would inherit the lineage of a dragonkind. Once a dragon beast inherits the right parts from its ancestors, it would possess features that are only found in a dragon.”
Lady Jenny went on to elaborate, “So, the features of a dragon. They are mostly immune to low and intermediate level spells, immune to low and intermediate level elemental attacks. They are highly resilient against physical attacks, obviously. When they do attack, any physical or elemental attack would be strengthened by their innate ability.”
“Wow,” Abel said, then asked, “Does it have any weakness?”
“Um,” Lady Jenny shook her head after thinking for a bit, “Well, their weakness is how rare they are. Dragon beasts are like albinism. They are only born out of some sort of biological oddity. By the way, the dragons are very strong on having a pure lineage. They don’t want to admit that the dragon beasts exist, so the dragon beasts had no choice but to live inside the Double Moon Forest, which was far away from where the dragons inhabited.”
“You are not exactly right there, Jenny,” Lady Muriel came to join the discussion, “The dragon beast does have a weakness. As long as there is someone who can defeat it with a physical attack, it will pledge loyalty to that person for the rest of its life. That’s what I’ve heard, at least.”
Jenny nodded her head, but said in disagreement, “I think you have a point there, Muriel. But that’s a claim from the myths. Apart from the dragons, no other creature has ever defeated a dragon beast with physical attacks!”
Abel was still trying to process the information he was taught. If a dragon beast was immune to most low and intermediate spells, then most wizards, elven warriors, and druids would’ve stood no chance against it. If he wanted to actually defeat it, his only hope would be to learn advanced magic spells, and even then, being able to deal damage to it was still a bit far away from being able to defeat it.
Even Carrie was interested in the debate, “Well, if it’s a real dragon, I think it’s possible that a dragon beast would call someone it’s master.”
Lady Jenny said with certainty, “No way. The dragons don’t acknowledge dragon beasts.”
“Right, right,” Carrie suddenly looked at the sky, “Enough talking about dragon beasts. We’ll find somewhere to rest.”
“Thanks for saving my life, Bennett!” Lady Muriel said as she rode next to Abel.
Lady Marianne said as well, “Me too, Bennett. Thank you for your help.”
“Thank you for saving my life twice, Bennett,” Lady Morrie said without looking at Abel. She must’ve felt really embarrassed right now.
Abel said with a smile, “I’m just doing my job, ladies, but I do appreciate the thanks.”
“Any places we can make camp, Jenny?” Carrie turned to Lady Jenny and asked.