The feeling of burning and rage spread out of his heart, surging through his body. As if something fell into a socket, he felt some kind of connection open up. Then a voice spoke in his head, each word sending chills through his whole body, ”Burn them, young one! Burn them!” It felt familiar to him, as if hearing the voice of someone you knew in the past but couldn’t remember exactly from where.
Vesuvius felt confused, not understanding what was going on.
Then the voice spoke again, ”Why are you so reluctant? It is the fastest way to power, and you know it.”
The dragon looked at the group of soldiers under him, horrible thoughts passing through his mind. The system made lots of precautions to discourage players from committing large-scale massacres. The most impactful of them was the massive reduction of XP obtained from killing civilian NPCs, making it unworthy for players to just go and slaughter the whole village with the problems it would cause them. The second was an exponential increase in XP’s need for levelling up, making it unworthy to fight against a large group of low-level enemies. A good example of that was the huge horde of undead that took Vesuvius so long to kill and only gained him two levels. However, Vesuvius probably found a loophole thanks to the mysterious voice that was possible due to him being a dragon, ‘With a strength of dragon I can easily fight against a large group of enemies that have a same or little smaller level than me.’
Regular players of his level would have no chance of winning against this group of soldiers, preventing them from gaining levels fast.
His gaze once again swept over the soldiers, ‘They should be all above level ten, meaning that I would get, on average more than one-hundredth XP for each. A Group of this size should be enough for at least two levels. They don’t have any enchanted equipment, so I should be able to burn them almost instantly.’
As the dragon, he lost his emotional attachment to humans long ago. When looking at them, he felt at best nothing, and at worst, he saw them as nothing more than cancer encroaching on his territory. It wasn’t indiscriminate hate. It was more akin to a human’s relationship with flies. As long as they didn’t annoy him, he wouldn’t really care about them, but if they kept flying around him, buzzing and trying to sit on his food, he would have no qualm about killing them. However, for current Vesuvius, humans were more akin to wasps. He had to control himself or get stung no matter how annoying they were.
Only one thing stopped him from unleashing inferno at the soldiers under him: ‘ They have families, so there would be lots of hate if I kill them. My reputation would go to hell. It is one thing to slaughter some mercenaries and to massacre official soldiers in the middle of a town without mercy. No need to enter that path of no return for now.’
”Are you sure about that? You could easily level up. Go and squash these mortals!”
‘Yes, I am. I will not go for some short-term profit just to cause too many problems for me!’
”Smart decision, young one. Find a ritual to contact me, and I, the fallen dragon, will give you an offer profitable for both of us!”
Ding!
// New unique quest:
Objective: Find and use the ritual to contact the fallen dragon.
Reward: ???
//
Then the connection vanished together with the voice, ‘The fallen dragon? Why do I feel like I should know who it is? The unique quest? That reeks with a profit for miles.’
He put his thoughts for later as he had some more pressing issues on his hand.
More mana poured into the dragon’s eyes, illuminating the yard with a short flash of light. Then the cold voice of the dragon spoke once again, this time louder than ever before, sending shivers through the guards’ bodies, “Mortals, I am elder wyrm Vesuvius, and this is my last warning, cease your actions and let my followers go before I turn you into cinders.”
Suddenly the dragon’s body ignited in flames that mixed with thick smoke coming out of his body, illuminating the yard like a miniature sun during the night.
“Shit! I am not getting paid enough to fight wyrms!” the dragon’s magic already filled all of the weak-minded soldiers with fear, their bodies shivering and their armour clattering.
Many soldiers sheeted their weapons and turned to run away, falling on each other as they ran like a horde of insanes.
Captain’s sword ignited in flames as he rose it high into the air, “Stop right now! You will be punished!”
“Sorry, captain, but that wyrm is scarier than you.” one of the soldiers turned back for a moment before returning to his escape.
Vesuvius watched with slight regret as the large portion of his XP literary ran away from him.
In the meantime, players quietly watched the whole ordeal as if watching some movie. Between them was the player in red, with his mouth stuffed with a rag to stop his insane shouting.
The rest of the soldiers stood firmly, refusing to retreat. They were mostly young without children and brimming with overconfidence.
“Don’t fear my brothers! It is just a monster like any other. We will defeat it and claim the glory for us!”
“Yes, rumours about wyrms are just exaggerated by weaklings and cowards!”
The dragon covered in flames and smoke sighed, ‘I have done what I could to dissuade them. I even used my magic to evoke fear in them. I gave them a choice, loud enough for the town to hear, that should at least partially preserve my reputation. Now I have to kill rest, or my threats will be a joke in the future.’
The dragon opened his mouth, and orange light erupted from the depth of his mouth. Then a bright orange stream of magma erupted out, illuminating the surroundings even more. For a few moments faces of the soldiers warped in terror and regret as the doom rained upon them.
The magma hit straight into the group of soldiers, lights flashing as they used their protective skills. The magma hit the ground with great force, burning all soldiers in the way, passing through their protections as if they were out of paper and splashing everywhere. Incredible heat surged through the yard, causing the players to sweat just from that, their eyes bulging in excitement at the show. The stream of magma moved as the dragon moved his head, sweeping through the soldiers burning even more of them and leaving long trails of lava on the ground. Everything happened so fast that the soldier didn’t even have a chance to cry.
[+110XP]
[+120XP]
[+100XP]
[+130XP]
[+90XP]
…
Notifications flooded his vision, incredible euphoria surging through his body.
Ding!
//
You are now level 16
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
//
‘Such a fast way to level up. Maybe I could go on rampage annihilating everything in my way, levelling fast…’ then he shook his head, suppressing his dangerous thoughts, ‘That is simply stupid. Before I could reach a high level, they would send someone truly dangerous after me.’