‘How the hell am I supposed to stab that thing?’
Firmly holding on for dear life during a turbulent and erratic flight was already enough. Every time Murakan and Quikantel tackled each other, Jin felt the impact vibrate his bones.
‘She’s treating him like a mortal enemy.’
Quikantel’s movements screamed her intention to kill Murakan. The breaths she shot were filled with murderous intent, and she kept snapping at his throat.
Fwiiit!
Quikantel’s breath skimmed past Murakan’s back. He checked his back, and there he saw Jin, dripping with cold sweat.
The battle seemed one-sided with Murakan constantly being beaten up. But Murakan wasn’t thinking of playing defensive the entire time.
[Calm down and let’s talk this out, Quikantel!]
Whooooosh~!
The sky filled with dark clouds.
The black clouds were Murakan’s spirit energy in its materialized form. Murakan flew directly into the clouds, and Quikantel let out an ear-splitting scream.
Jin felt like his eardrums were going to rip. The screech that traveled through his ears rattled his brain.
Just like how humans had a ranking system from 1-star to Genesis, dragons were also divided into different ranks. Amongst the active dragons, Quikantel had the combat skills of the highest rank.
If Jin hadn’t trained enough, he would’ve fainted just from the dragon’s shriek. 𝑖.𝑐ℴ𝑚
Jin caught his breath as darkness surrounded him.
“I have to get my mind straight. Good thing I came along, if you died to that silver dragon, I wouldn’t have heard a thing.”
[No way I’d die. No matter how strong Quikantel is, she can’t come in here. Let’s take our time thinking of something. A way to persuade that fellow.]
But Murakan was delusional.
[You think I can’t chase you in there?]
Quikantel’s wings caused a sharp thunderclap. Then, a massive body pierced through Murakan’s spirit energy like a diver through water.
[Quikantel, how did you…?]
[It seems you still haven’t realized how weak you’ve become. You call this garbage ‘energy release’? Murakan, I cannot hide my disappointment.]
[Hmm, Quikantel. Think of our past. Why not just end it here? I merely came to ask you something.]
[Thinking of our past, ripping you into millions of pieces is not enough.]
[Well, okay. I guess it can’t be helped. Come at me if you can. You were always like this. All we did was break up.]
Crack!
Quikantel bit Murakan’s wing. Sounds of breaking and snapping echoed throughout, and Jin instinctively pulled out Bradamante.
Murakan also bit Quikantel’s wing. Due to them being wrapped in spirit energy, neither of the dragons fell even though they stopped flapping their wings.
They suffered the same attack, but Murakan took more damage. Blood splattered from his wing while Quikantel’s just had a fissure across it like cracks on glass.
Jin had to swing his sword before the two dragons began to move. As soon as Murakan was bitten, the spirit energy clouds began to recede at an alarming rate.
‘It’s a tough exoskeleton that even Murakan’s teeth can’t pierce. My current blows won’t do anything.’
So, Jin targeted the fissures across Quikantel’s wings. It probably wasn’t her weak spot, but it was better than wasting an opportune chance.
Woooom!
Bradamante glowed with an aura. Within the dark environment, a shining aura illuminated its surroundings.
[What?!]
Surprisingly, Quikantel never detected a human on Murakan’s back. She only noticed at that moment that Jin was on him.
Gripping his sword, Jin launched off Murakan’s back like an arrow aimed towards the silver dragon’s wing.
A decisive strike with all his might. The sword slipped into the fissures and penetrated flesh, but Jin was not finished.
‘Blade: Unleash.’
Murakan told him not to use this skill until he achieved 5-star spiritual energy release. However, now was not the time to hold back.
If this attack did not inflict critical damage, then there was only one other option: breaking Orgal’s Pendant and summoning Luna.
Jin didn’t plan on doing that, so he at least tried to use all of his cards.
And above all, he did not lack the spirit energy to unleash Bradamante. Jin had been absorbing some from Murakan’s spirit energy release.
[Good job, kid. Now slash her wing so she can calm down!]
Jin did not hear his words.
The unleashing began, and just like the time he slaughtered the White Wolf Tribesman, time seemed to have stopped.
All around him, the spirit energy began to whirlpool into Bradamante. More and more crackling energy entered Quikantel’s wound, and the ruptures spread across her left wing.
She let out a painful cry and tried to shake off the cause, but it was too late to stop Bradamante.
Essentially, she let her guard down. Blinded by anger, she failed to notice the human on Murakan’s back, and it was the result of ignoring a peaceful resolution.
The spirit energy finished traveling through Quikantel’s wing. 𝘳.𝑐𝘰
Jin pushed his entire body weight onto the handle of the sword.
Creaaaak!
A high-pitched scraping sound echoed, and the spirit energy began to glow. Jin slid down Quikantel’s wing and dragged the sword through it as he went, ripping the dragon’s wing apart.
The deeper he pushed his sword, the farther the spirit energy traveled. Since he was expending energy dozens of times beyond his power limit, the rate of energy consumption was inefficient.
Not even a 7-star knight could penetrate Quikantel’s wing, so there was no choice but to pour all his energy into one attack. There were bound to be some spills.
The blade finished ripping through, and Murakan caught Jin as he fell with his sword.
Cold sweat covered Jin’s body from expending so much power. However, seeing the massive wing falling into the ocean, he felt confident with his amazing feat.
A second later, Quikantel plummeted. Her other wing flapped uselessly.
‘Did I just become a dragon slayer?’
The ocean swallowed her whole—a massive splash symbolizing her death.
“Phew, urgh.”
Jin also had to deal with the aftershock, the consequence for crossing his limits.
‘Thankfully, there’s no excruciating pain like last time. Probably means my skills have increased since then.’
Still, his limbs trembled before the pain rushed in. He tried to lie down on Murakan’s back.
[Alright, now all we need to do is to pray that Quikantel can think straight.]
“What do you mean? We’re not done?”
[Dragons that control time don’t die so easily. Like that.]
Looking down onto the ocean, Jin gulped.
A dark shadow resurfaced from the water. Jin then remembered the special ability of time-controlling entities.
Rewind.
The disconnected wing and Quikantel’s body floated back into the sky. She was rewinding her time.
In fact, she wasn’t defenseless during this process. The space around her recreation was warped, and swinging a sword through it wouldn’t really hit anything.
Goosebumps ran all over Jin’s body as he watched the sight before him.
[This is the difference between inherent ability and magic. But don’t worry. The ability is pretty broken, but it takes a disgusting amount of power to use it. Also, you’ll need to act like you can keep fighting.]
Quikantel’s fully intact body now floated in front of them.
The space around her restored to its normal state, and Quikantel began to move.
Just as Murakan said, she looked very exhausted. She had short and fast breaths, and her wings seemed sluggish.
They didn’t want to immediately attack again.
[Not attacking yet? I guess you want to talk this out.]
[…What happened, Murakan? Is that human Solderet’s contractor?]
[Yeah. Is your tantrum over yet? I didn’t know you had so much rage left over from our breakup. Didn’t we end well?]
[End well? You just threw me away, one-sided. Just like what I did a while ago, last time, you never gave me a chance to speak.]
[Is this and that the same? Whenever I said that we should live our separate ways, your eyes would roll to the back of your head, and you would attack. So why should I let you speak? I didn’t cheat on you or anything. What do you want me to do about our incompatibility?!]
This was a conversation between two dragons who had lived for thousands of years.
Jin had to swallow his sigh.
‘It’s not like I ever expected dragons to be overflowing with courtesy and respect in the first place… but this is too human. Were the murderous attacks only because she wasn’t over what happened between them thousands of years ago?’
The dragons tried to sort things out, but they simply repeated the same words over and over again. Their conversation never progressed.
[Well, let’s stop this nonsense, Quikantel. I didn’t come here to fight. I came to ask you something. My ally’s life is in danger.]
[Ha! The greedy and high-headed Murakan cares about his allies. You speak lies! How many of your own species have you killed?]
As Murakan heard those last few words, his expression froze. It was a sensitive topic. Quikantel noticed her mistake and looked away.
[…Indeed, of the dragons I have killed, there was also your father’s mortal enemy. A dragon that I knew nothing about. I killed him only because you hated him, you know? Did you want to hear that?]
Murakan breathed a deep sigh and continued.
[I’m done, it was my fault for trying to ask you. I will solve this issue with another.]
[Just tell me. Damn it, just looking at you makes me emotional. I apologize for my words.]
[What about the part where you tried to kill me.]
[I had a righteous reason to do so.]
[Sure, buddy. Anyways… recently, Az Mil’s guardian dragon went missing. You know anything? Az Mil’s contractor needs them.]
[Missing? Are you talking about Lathry?]
[Oh, yeah. Lathry. I haven’t heard of the name because of the generation gap.]
Quikantel blankly stared at Murakan and blinked.
[What an interesting topic. Wind Dragon Vyuretta took them somewhere some time ago.]
Wind Dragon Vyuretta.
A dragon related to Andrei Zipfel. Jin and Murakan had a bad feeling as soon as they heard his name.
[Why, though?]
[I heard that, since the other dragons under Az Mil weren’t active, Vyuretta took Lathry instead to teach them some Draconic Magic.]
They finally knew the culprit behind Euria’s missing dragon.
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