POV Vesuvius:
The dragon was falling from the sky like a large boulder, a crust of stone spreading all over his body, immobilising his joints and turning his wings into bricks.
He pushed his mana through his veins and bones, his whole body heating up like a furnace. At the same time, a magical circuit flared up in his mind.
The air around him whistled as the ground slithering with massive snakes was quickly getting closer and closer, their snake eyes glowing brightly as they waited for their feast while hissing.
Suddenly the dragon’s falling body ignited in bright white flames and the yellow stone started melting, with hot liquid dripping down.
The poison evaporated into nothingness, his mind slowly cleared up, and his vision returned to normal as all of the traces of poison quickly vanished from his body.
He had almost already crashed into the ground, his body falling with immense speed. The flames kept melting more and more of the yellow stone that was immobilising his wings.
He moved all of his muscles in wings, and finally, the last remaining stones cracked, his wings freeing themself up as he flapped them. He braced them as if they were breaks, slowing down to not crash into the ground, stopping just a few floors above the ground. He hurriedly flapped them, stabilising himself in the air, each flap causing the trees to wave.
The massive basilisks hissed and sprang from the ground like toy snakes, launching towards the dragon. They opened their mouths, their sharp, long teeth dripping with poison and magma.
The dragon was instantly enveloped by coiling snakes, all of them biting into his armour while hissing in pain as the bright flames and electricity burned their bodies. Still, they didn’t let go but kept biting him, their sharp teeth breaking like needles trying to stab into a solid wall.
Angrily, Vesuvius pushed even more mana into his magic, the flames burning around him intensifying, turning into a storm of flames.
𝒪𝓥xt.𝑶
At the same time, his crystal claws, spikes and horns crackled in lightning and exploded into a nova of electricity that passed through the poor snakes, all contorting and twitching, their burning and spasming bodies falling down towards the ground as they lost their grip.
The weird energy rose out of their dead bodies flying into the dragon and seeping in like water into a sponge.
More and more spits of petrifying poison were launched from the snakes on the ground, swarming the dragon. Most of them evaporated before reaching him, turning into toxic gases.
He already wanted in rage to unleash a massive storm and cook them all alive, but then he bit his tongue and suppressed his blind anger, ‘No, this is my future territory; if I want to make it productive, turning it into another wasteland would be highly detrimental.’
The dragon rose back into the sky, his burning body looking like a rising sun, with the bright light turning the night in the valley into a day.
He looked at his crystal claws covered with the glowing upscaled runes refracting in their crystal structure. He already wanted to grin, but then he imagined getting a mouth full of poison and kept it firmly closed.
He flapped his wings and dived again towards the ground, the wind loudly howling and dispersing the thick smoke around him.
The eyes of the basilisk glinted and flashed in yellow light. The yellow stone once again started to grow around him, only to instantly evaporate under the surging inferno around him.
He crashed like a mortar shot into a group of snakes, his heavy body crushing multiple of them with its sheer weight. The ground cracked with clouds of dust rising into the air.
All of the surrounding snakes launched towards him, their eyes glowing with their teeth fully exposed. They attacked without fear or care for their lives, like mindless monsters.
He swung his tail, hitting two snakes mid-air, their bodies bending unnaturally with their own scales digging into their bodies. They flew backwards, their bodies toppling over multiple of their kin.
A fire ignited deep within the dragon’s body, all of his muscles growing more flexible and stronger under the energy of his burning life force.
The attacking basilisk almost reached the dragon, but he swung his long claws prolonged into blades of lightning and fire. The claws sliced through their scales only with minimal resistance, splitting their heads from the rest of their bodies with their toxic blood splashing everywhere.
A basilisk hissed behind him and launched forwards at an immense speed like from a springboard.
Without even needing to see him, Vesuvius stabbed with the sharp end of his tail, impaling the basilisk right through its wide open mouth, the sharp, burning crystal spikes vanishing in its throat.
It kept wiggling with blood, magma and posing leaking out of its mouth.
The dragon pushed mana into his tail canon, a brightly glowing magma bomb forming between the two spikes stuck in the snake’s body.
Then it exploded, the gory steaming innards of the basilisk flying in all directions, showering everything in poisonous blood.
The tsunami of snakes didn’t falter with the wall of slithering bodies closing towards the dragon.
“Come here, you stupid snakes!” Vesuvius felt hazy, his vision spinning and changing colours as he inhaled the evaporated poison.
It was no secret that basilisk’s poison was extremely deadly to most living things, making even a dragon with secondary poison affinity dizzy.
The snakes almost reached him and surrounded him from all sides, opening their mouths with blobs of toxic goo already growing in. They kept slithering forwards, their eyes shining with magic even though they couldn’t penetrate through the wall of smoke.
They were already close, their muscles tensing as they prepared to launch at the dragon.
Vesuvius grinned inwardly in satisfaction with mana flowing into his horns and all of the crystals on his body.
The lightning crackled around him, and a nova of electricity erupted in all directions, passing through the basilisks, lightning flashing around them with sparks flying in all directions.
Their bodies sparkled with their bones showing up like during a roentgen. Finally, they stopped moving and fell to the ground, unmovingly with smoke coming from them.
‘Haha, like motes flying towards electric zapper.’
A large amount of the weird energy rose out of the dead bodies, drifting towards the dragon and soaking into him.
“Whatsss iss thisss?” A loud hissing voice came out of the holes in the ground, and all the remaining basilisks froze as the earth trembled, something huge moving under it. Geysers of a toxic yellow gas exploded all around the volcano, filling the surroundings with yellow vapour.
Even the dragon tensed, realising that the true boss showed up. He could already feel the vibrations getting closer and closer towards the surface.
Soon the ground exploded, and a colossal basilisk as giant as a large bridge burst to the surface. Orange-glowing magma constantly was pouring out of cracks between its scales. Its snake-like head turned around until its eyes fell upon the dragon.
In an instant, the giant basilisk froze, its yellow snake eyes flickering in the light. Its whole body started to retract back to the hole, a smell of fear and panic reeking out of it.
‘Ohh, this one looks smarter, smart enough to realise that it has almost no chance to win against me with its volcano and toxin power. It can also speak, that is interesting.’
“Stop right now, snake! This volcano is mine!” the dragon’s voice boomed across the valley, all of the trees creaking and bending.”
The dragon opened his mouth, showing his sharp teeth to the world. A bright light ignited in his throat, flooding out and passing through the clouds of smoke. The air immediately turned hotter with the smoke wildly swirling around.
The giant basilisk froze again, its long body contorting in horror as it realised there was no escape. It pressed its head against the ground, knowing it would turn into cinders the moment it tried to escape, its snake’s eyes desperately looking towards the dragon.
Vesuvius stopped, not sure what to do. Part of him just wanted to end it and burn the annoying snake, but the other part wanted to see how the situation would develop. He could already smell a profit in the air.
‘Why it grew so scared the moment that it noticed me? Has it seen a dragon before or maybe a wyrm?’ his interest even suppressed his anger, pushing it into the background.
“Hahaha, you sneaky worm? Do you think you can slither away after your kin sullied my perfect draconic body?” he sounded arrogant and confident, magic flowing into his vocal cords, giving it unnatural convincing and intimidating effects.
The basilisk was just pressing its head against the ground in sheer terror. He could feel its heart beating so loudly and fast that it looked like it would fall dead at any moment.