City of Sin

Book 7, 131

Attacking the Dragon Plane

With the draconians still focused on their bombardment near the portal, Richard calmly looked around to assess the situation. Hundreds of disciples were on full alert, while the same dragon he had seen before was flying in loops overhead. In a camp not far away, another dragon had just taken off.

Richard smiled at the dark green dragon in the sky, “We meet again. Tell me, did you see anything this time?”

“You again!” the dragon roared in anger, “You will not escape this time!”

He only drew the Judge out and prepared for combat, “Who said I even plan to? You, though... Please don’t run.”

The prophet’s eyes shrank at the sight of the silver sword, steam bursting out from its nostrils as it snorted. The dragon that had taken off from the camp found its way over, letting out an earth-shattering roar before it shot straight for Richard like an arrow. The new entrant was a copper dragon that was twice the size of the prophet, and despite being the same level it was clearly much stronger.

“Copperscale, run!” The prophet did not seem to share the same idea. It didn’t know just why it was so afraid, but in the blink of an eye it had fled kilometres away.

“You... COWARD!” The dragon called Copperscale was startled at first, but staring at Richard for a while longer he lost all his apprehension and continued the charge. His maw opened wide as he approached, releasing a corrosive breath that covered everything around Richard.

Copperscale’s brown breath attack reeked of rust, its corrosive potential much greater than that from the green dragon. It was the natural nemesis of anyone wearing heavy armour, but even for those without the particles would shred the body apart in seconds.

However, Richard just smirked at the sight. The breath might have been powerful, but it was mostly metal. Using Kingsteel to divert the damage, he pointed the Judge towards the copper dragon and activated its ability. In fact, he could even turn the attack around if he wanted.

A dull red glow covered Copperscale’s body the very next moment, the dragon feeling extremely uncomfortable and sensitive. Before he could even understand what happened, he froze up at the sight of Richard standing on his snout. As the dragon reared back to snap, Richard dodged under the attack and stabbed the Judge into his neck, the blade buried all the way to the hilt.

The copper dragon roared in misery, swatting everywhere like he had gone crazy before he managed to get Richard off. He couldn’t understand why his scales hadn’t even blocked a part of the attack, but thankfully his body was enormous and even the full thrust wasn’t too serious.

Richard looked down at the Judge and shook his head. He knew nearly nothing about the laws of this plane, so Judge of Destiny had only served as a couple levels’ drop in defence. However, the copper dragon clearly had abnormally tough skin and scales; even with the drop, its defence was still equivalent to the prophet’s. Even though the Judge had gone all the way in, there weren’t any aftereffects.

Still, this wasn’t too much of a cause for worry. Switching the sword to his left hand, he drew Moonlight out from behind him. Before the enemy could even process the chilling fear, he rushed straight through the breath attacks and struck at the flank. Spending a few seconds just tearing away at nearby scales, he eventually blinked onto the back and switched to reverse grips before stabbing straight down.

Pushing both blades all the way in, he twisted them within before drawing them back out and blinking a hundred metres away. Copperscale froze for a while in mid-air before howling in misery, a fountain of blood spurting out the back.

Richard finally smiled; even a legendary blade edge wasn’t accomplishing the task, but Moonlight was even sharper. It managed to do enough damage for Disintegrator to activate, grievously injuring the dragon from within. If he had to rely on just the damage from the cuts, it would take forever to kill this dragon that was a hundred metres long.

His figure flashed back in front of Copperscale, the Judge blocking an instinctive swipe of the paw while Moonlight cut into one of the dragon’s claws. Before the scream of pain could fade out, he had appeared at the chest and cut into the ribs. This time, he didn’t even dodge the pillar of blood, instead taking a deep breath just before and blowing out a line of liquid blue fire that burrowed into the wound. After flashing away, he relaxed and watched calmly as the opponent slowly fell down from the sky.

Repeated activations of Lifesbane had mangled Copperscale’s internal organs, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the final fire breath Richard had used. It was turning the dragon to ashes from within, quickly sapping it of its strength and regeneration. Crashing into the ground and rolling around a few times, the copper dragon only managed to kill a number of draconians before failing to get up.

Copperscale barely lifted his head, looking in the direction the prophetic dragon had fled. He seemed to be seething with rage as he finally understood why his ally had fled so desperately, but there was nothing to be done now. Richard himself found it a pity, but he just shrugged it off.

The greatest weakness of prophets was that they knew of the threats they faced at each turn. Most of them ended up cowards; it was difficult to possess the courage to fight destiny when that destiny was actually known. Had the green dragon worked together with Copperscale, Richard would have found it much more difficult to win. Even just a better warning to the copper dragon would have gone a long way. However, that could also attract his own ire, and in a full fight he would certainly target the weaker opponent first. Perhaps this was why the prophet had just fled.

Copperscale looked up one last time before roaring in failed resistance, the head quickly falling back to the ground. The surviving draconians were left frozen in shock. The battle was just as short as they had expected it to be, but man had duelled dragon and the latter was crushed. Someone gave a command and they launched a number of spells and arrows towards Richard, but not one of them dared to rise to the skies.

Richard didn’t even bother looking down; the draconians were so far away that their attacks could never reach him. Focusing on the base in the distance, he saw another dragon struggling into the sky as it attempted to fly away. Recalling Zangru saying that he had drained half the blood of one, he just smiled with malice, “Now, now... We can’t have you running.”

His figure flickered as he activated Mana Armament and rushed over, leaving afterimages behind as he caught up in the blink of an eye. The Judge was used once more before he blinked onto the dragon’s neck, stabbing Moonlight into the nape. Twisting the sword around, he ground all the flesh in a thirty degree angle to activate all of the secondary effects of his runes.

This dragon roared as well, struggling with all its might to remain airborne. However, its back was quickly dyed red and its wings stopped listening to it, eventually giving way and letting it crash into the ground. Already maimed before, the creature lost its life instantly.