POV Vesuvius:
The dragon stood on top of a tall grey rocky mountain, overseeing the sheer green valley under him as his XP quickly rose without him needing to lift even a finger.
‘There must be a large battle going on…’
Suddenly his head sprung up as something small but fast flashed in the distance before his eyes before vanishing under the shadows of trees.
‘Again, what are you?’
“Your majesty”, a small black figure of a kobold appeared under the cliff, looking up towards the dragon, catching his attention.
“Speak, minion!”
“Your army has suffered a setback. They can’t get through enemy defences. The enemy is holed up inside a castle and refuses to surrender. The battle is turning into slow bloodshed. Casualties are piling on both sides.”
Vesuvius froze, a wind rising around his body, twisting and whirling with the black smoke.
“Who, who dared?!”
“Siege of the castle of marquis Nabudou, your highness.”
The dragon flapped his wings, his body shooting towards the sky, leaving behind a massive avalanche of stone thundering down the hill.
‘Damn, as always, a carrot is not enough. One also needs a stick.’
POV The Insane Marquis:
A large castle rose towards the sky, its multilayered walls reaching high towards the sky.
It’s even higher round, and square towers towered above a vast green plain. Large gatehouses threw their shadows over moats filled with water and blood.
Everything was dark, only slightly illuminated by a weak silvery moonlight.
Massive spheres of magma were flying through the sky, descending towards the walls like a swarm of meteors before smashing against a transparent barrier.
Blue light flashed all over the walls, and bright blue, glowing bolts launched out, descending towards the black army enveloped in the orange firelight under the castle.
Loud explosions shook the plain, growls and howls resounding all around the castle as the shockwaves passed through the land, the walls slightly shaking.
Giant wolves covered in spike and neon-red magma kept climbing up the walls, their claws scratching and digging into the stone as they rose higher and higher, leaving behind paths of molten stone.
Their eyes flashed in red light as they kept climbing up, ready to tear defenders apart.
A man in heavy armour with an extravagant violet cape stood on top of the wall. His bulky armour with massive pauldrons was covered in claw marks and scorch marks.
“Hahaha, look at this. Everything that my family built for generations is burning! Everything!”
Painful cries came from dying, and injured soldiers sewed all over the walls. The disgusting smell of burning, feces and blood was strong that it was hard to breathe.
“We can’t hold for long! We should surrender, your lordship.”
“Never I will rather die than ever surrender, and you, as my soldiers, will follow me to my death for eternal glory!”
There was no response, just gloomy eyes looking at him from every direction.
‘They are weaklings! I gave them my grace, yet now they refuse to die for me! My family took care of them for generations, and now they refuse to fight to their death!’
A wolf jumped from behind the battlements, its eyes brightly glowing as it jumped at the marquis, neon red magma dripping from its wide open mouth filled with sharp teeth.
The marquis stepped to the side, his cloak fluttering as he swung his saber, which loudly swished through the air, turning in a violet blur.
The sharp purple glowing blades passed through the wolf without any resistance splitting it in half. The split halves hit the ground, with guts spilling on the stone parapet.
“Why are you not cheering? Cheer, my soldiers, cheer! We will let our enemies suffer for our death.”
There was only silence, his soldiers looking at him, their eyes empty or filled with anger.
‘Why are they blaming me?! It is all the fault of the damn monsters attacking our walls!’
Suddenly lightning struck across the sky, revealing a massive black silhouette surrounded in smoke closing towards the castle.
“Hahaa, do you think that I am scared of you?! You can burn, but I will shed your blood, you overgrown lizard!”
He was noble. His father and also his grandfather were nobles. Being a noble was all he knew. He would rather die than cede even an inch of his territory.
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon’s heart blazed with anger, noticing the craters sewn over the camp of his minions, corpses of dead wolves mixed with players’ bodies in miscellaneous equipment pilled under the walls with few bodies in black amour.
Immediately his domain exploded out of his body, spreading in all directions with the sky igniting in neon-red cursed flames.
His two hearts were once again burning in rage, his whole body pulsing with mana.
The whole battlefield froze instantly, both sides lowering their weapons and turning their gazes toward the sky, the entire battlefield turning silent.
The only sounds were flapping his wings and the insane shouting from the walls, “Haha, you have destroyed everything my family built, but I will not let it be! Come, my avenger, come! Come to my help, my master, the baron of nether Mathusalius!”
The dragon’s eyes fell upon a man on the castle walls laughing like a maniac, holding a vial of thick black blood.
His eyes were wide open, with his whole face distorted in a terrifying grimace.
‘Mathusalius, where have I heard it before?’
The man gulped down the whole vial crushing the glass with his teeth, red blood flowing out of his mouth, mixing with the thick black blood.
A vile red mana surged through the man’s whole body, accompanied by an awful tearing sound.
A red glow radiated from the man as if he were a miniature red sun. Shadows turned alive, spilling and growing all over the castle, surrounding and devouring the corpses pilling on the ground and walls.
“Grah!” the dragon’s loud growl resounded through the whole plain, carrying one single command of retreat.𝗈𝗏𝗅xt.𝗇t
‘Ohh, my old enemy!’ the dragon widely grinned, his eyes glowing in expectation as he remembered the demons that once humiliated him by just playing with him and wanting to enslave him.
He felt no fear this time. He felt only excitement and anger calling for revenge.
‘I am no longer that weak and feeble dragon that I was then. This time I will break him! This time the scales were reversed.’
Vesuvius felt he could smash the castle out of existence and stop the summoning, but he refused as he had a grudge to be satisfied.
Ding!
// New mission:
Objective: Survive
Reward: Calculated upon completion.
//
‘Haha, survive? You are wrong again, system! I will not only survive, but I will win.’ he laughed, enjoying that he grew so powerful for his level that even the system’s guesses were so wrong, as his power as a player was unprecedented.
“Ohh, the one and greatest of the gods and dragon, the dragon God, please give me the power to enact my revenge.” but he wasn’t such a fool as to play with the enemy, he wanted to crush him, crush him fast and without too much of risk, he refused to underestimate his enemy again.
A pillar of golden light descended from the sky, smashing into the dragon, the golden energy seeping into every cell of his body.
He immediately felt stronger and more powerful, his eyes glowing in intense golden light, making it look like two miniature suns were embedded in his skull.
A wind rose up around the castle, the bright red light subsiding and revealing the marquis standing on the walls.
His skin and the skins of his surviving soldiers were black as if made of shadows and their eyes glowed in crimson red lights.
‘Possession. That is why they are always ready and happy to stir trouble, such an enviable power.’
Demons were in pure fighting power weaker when compared to dragons or reapers.
Still, Vesuvius knew they were always tricksters, using humans as their vessels to fight without the risk of permanently dying.
They were hard and resilient to kill.
“Haha, you were a marquis, but now you are just a baron!” Vesuvius looked at the small humanoid figure, his two hearts pounding loudly as he enjoyed mocking him.
“Ohh, young dragon, we meet again.” the shadowy figure slightly bowed its head in the mayhem of red colour.
Suddenly an energy erupted out of the demon, two wings or crimson red flames igniting on his back.
The whole ground and nature vailed as a demonic domain of shadows and hellfire spread in all directions only to hit the dragon’s also fiery domain.
The demon’s shadowy body twitched slightly in surprise, “How?! How could you grow in power so fast!”
The flames ignited everywhere, the neon red and crimson red flames smashing and pushing against each other, red sparks twirling and whirling everywhere.
The flames enveloped everything, the whole castle melting with the whole grasslands turning into a black-burned landscape.