A few days later:
The dragon stood on top of the golden hoard. Lines upon lines of glowing magma were spiralling around it, forming many layers of defence. His reptilian eyes were looking at the crowd of shadow monsters materialising in the distance. He stood there nervously, plans and possible scenarios running through his mind.
After failing the first time, he made multiple daily attempts to clean the second trial, slowly getting used to the horrible waves of pain that came with each failure. He no longer even cared about the shame, his mind filled only with the determination to finally pass the trial.
He tried many tactics over the last few days. He tried to target the flying monster first, but they were waiting all the way behind enemy’s lines. To attacks them, he would have to use his long-range spells like a magma ball or a magma spike. However, they lacked big enough area damage to do it fast enough as the birds were spread over a large area.
He also tried to rush over the enemy lines, but he always got entangled by tentacle balls and then jumped and killed by claw monsters.
‘I tried everything… I tried to focus on one side to eliminate it quickly, and I also tried to equally focus on all sides by circling around. These monsters have too good composition, and the gold limits my mobility. At least I levelled up once after killing thousands of these things over the last few days.’
He focused on his battle as the tide of black shadow monsters moved forward in their chaotic but somehow organised manner.
Vesuvius spread his wings and flew up into the air hovering above the golden mountain, sending landslides of gold with each flap of his massive wings sparkling with electricity.
‘I am tired of this… This time I will just fight much more defensively.’
“Graaah!” he opened his massive mouth, magma leaking out as he growled from the pent-up frustration. The loud growl triggered a massive landslide of golden coins behind him. His draconic eyes looked at the pile of gold, ‘You were my only happiness for the past few days.’
Vesuvius watched as the monsters slowly closed on his gold. He opened his mouth again, spitting even more magma on the ground around the gold, forming a small lake around it.
In the distance, the monsters kept crossing swatches of magma one by one, dozens of them burning as they made bridges out of their own bodies to allow their comrades to pass.
The monsters, especially small shadow rats, were dying in such large masses that he even turned off XP notification as he had enough of that nonstop dinging in his head.
Vesuvius opened his mouth, a magical circle glowing in orange light forming inside of it. Then magma erupted out of his throat, quickly condensing into a sphere of glowing and rotating magma. Soon the magical circle started to tremble, cracks slowly spreading through its surface. Suddenly a second identical magical circle formed right in front of the first one just as it vanished. The magma sphere moved forward but stopped when it reached the second circle and started to grow even more in concentration and size. Its radiance and heat radiating out of it growing with each moment. Finally, the second circle started to tremble, and the dragon released the spell.
The massive sphere of magma flew out, radiating immense heat and glowing like plasma launched out of some sci-fi gun. It flew across the white field littered with swatches of magma, leaving behind trails of orange flames as even the air around it ignited.
Dozens of black shadow monsters kept crawling over each other through the black wiggling bridge made out of their own bodies. They were moving with absolutely no sound even as their compatriot’s under them burned alive.
Suddenly the massive magma sphere fell between them, exploding in bright orange light and waves of heat, flames and magma.
Dozens of black bodies turned into black motes of smoke as the magma passed through them.
More and more bridges were built around the hoard, with hundreds of black monsters climbing and crossing the lava.
New magical circles started to form in the dragon’s mouth, with a new sphere of magma quickly concentrating and pulsing in orange light inside of his mouth.
The monsters had already crossed over the few trenches through the burned corpses.
Vesuvius couldn’t help but feel angry at it, ‘That is blatant cheating! Normally, they just evaporate when they die, but when crossing the lava trenches, they suddenly remain…’
The dragon aimed his head at the biggest bridge, and the new sphere of magma blasted through the air, impacting the black bridge. Dozens of black monsters evaporated into black smoke and motes as the massive fiery explosion swept through them.
However, the mass of the monsters kept moving relentlessly, with only a fourth of it destroyed, almost reaching the hoard.
Vesuvius started to feel like a passenger on a sinking ship in a middle of an ocean.
They finally entered the range of his breath, and he opened his mouth again, a thick and super hot stream of magma erupting out, hitting the ranks of the shadow monsters, burning through them like a flamethrower. The dragon kept rotating his head around the hoard, searing hot magma pouring out and burning dozens of monsters each second, but they kept moving without any break.
The flames and magma were blazing everywhere, with immense heat radiating out of it. Then black tentacles shot out of the crowd stretching over tens of meters and wrapping around the dragon. He pushed mana through his veins, and bright flames exploded out, mixing with blue tendrils of electricity. The tentacles immediately flared up in flames and turned into black motes.
‘Here it comes!’ as Vesuvsiu expected, huge claw monsters grabbed small shadow rodents from the white ground and threw them towards the gold. At the same time, blackbirds rushed forward, and more inky tentacles shot out.
Electricity crackled, and a blue spherical wave of electricity exploded out, electrifying the thrown rats and turning them into black mots while still being in the air.
Then flames flared up once again, burning all of the incoming tentacles.
Finally, electrical tendrils formed around the dragon’s horns and a massive lightning arc shot out towards the birds. Blue lightning streaked across the sky, jumping between the bodies of the shadow birds with blue electrical sparks sparkling around as they turned into black smoke.
But the rest of the monsters had already reached the hoard with Vesuvius just looking at the relentless tide of monsters with desperation, ‘I can probably take one or two sides now, but the rest will pass.’
In a last desperate effort, he opened his mouth, and orange light pulsed out of the depths of his throat before another stream of magma erupted out of his mouth towards the nearby monsters. Stream of magma passed through the black bodies turning them into black smoke and melting a nearby gold into a beautiful golden liquid.
Then three clawed monsters jumped up, crossing more than ten meters with their long jumps together with a swarm of black tentacles launched out and wrapped around the dragon. The monsters swung their long claws cutting deep into the dragon with blood leaking all over the gold.
Still, a massive grin appeared on the dragon’s face as the world around him slowly dimmed, ‘That’s it, I found a way!’
Then a golden light flashed once again.