Book 9, Chapter 42

Battling The Five-Coloured Dragon

When Richard and party reached the portal to the Dragon Plane, Ruben started his attack. Dozens of glittering chains shot out from his fingertips and wrapped around the chromatic barrier, even more shooting into the unknown void. An indistinct howl rang out as the Five-Coloured Dragon realised what was happening and reacted violently, but Richard and the others didn’t so much as flinch.

The Nebular Chains continued to destroy the barrier of light, forcing the Five-Coloured Dragon to send more and more of her power across the portal to keep it up. The two locked in a fierce battle, which in itself was proof of her power. Even crossing entire planes, she could still keep up with another epic being.

However, the battle had begun and Richard didn’t have the time to hesitate. He quickly ran towards the portal with Nasia in tow, the latter shooting a beam of radiant gold upon him with a wave of her hand.

Strangely enough, Richard felt nothing when the Projection of Ruin was cast upon him. War King would boost him by a level and buff him in a number of ways, but this one felt like nothing. Still, he found it in himself to trust her ability and his own strength as he charged right through, crashing right into the Five-Coloured Dragon on the other side.

The first thing he saw when he entered the portal was a large fist aimed straight at his face. Ducking to avoid it by mere centimetres, he brandished his swords and engaged in battle with his opponent. His left arm was met with another heavy fist, the collision causing space itself to quiver from the impact. Even with his own enormous strength, his bones creaked as he felt like he had crashed into a mountain, leaving him knocked nearly a metre back.

In front of Richard was a rather striking woman that was almost four metres tall, prideful being the best descriptor of her face. Her amber vertical irises and the five twisted horns emerging from her long, dark hair were the only indications that she was a dragon.

On the Five-Coloured Dragon’s face was sheer shock at the fact that she couldn’t punch Richard back into the portal. She wouldn’t mind if Sharon could withstand such power, but Richard was a mere half-elf! How could a human take a punch that equalled the might of an abyssal lord?

Unfortunately, she didn’t get much time to consider this. Moonlight soundlessly stabbed towards her throat, and although she didn’t seem bothered at first she saw a phantom of a tetrahedron around the sword and immediately cried out in alarm. The dragon took a step backward in retreat, surprising Richard to the point that his following strike slowed down enough for her to regain her calm.

Richard leapt forward immediately, man and dragon slamming into each other as they fought. Tetrahedrons of various sizes formed all around in the air, each one causing a ripple of laws. One dragon that approached these shockwaves was left with its entire body exploding in a rain of blood, frightening all the others until they scattered dozens of kilometres away.

The Five-Coloured Dragon was considered a supreme deity by anyone with draconic blood. The dragons all around knew that Richard had grown powerful, but they would never expect him to be able to contend with their goddess. However, that illusion was shattered by the fight playing out before them.

It was only moments after Richard walked through the portal that Nasia quietly joined. She surveyed the situation before bounding towards the rear of the Five-Coloured Dragon, grabbing both of her blades as she stared at the dragon’s rear with clear intent, but despite the obvious humiliation the enemy didn’t have a chance to kill the impudent human. Richard continued to attack relentlessly, giving her no opportunity to disengage.

Every slash from Moonlight caused a number of the tetrahedrons to form around its blade, and the Five-Coloured Dragon was clearly fearful of their power. She continuously fired chromatic blasts to push Richard away, but he simply brushed them off with his blue flames. While the destructive fire was weaker than his opponent’s, its attributes gave it the ability to force a stalemate.

Anyone paying attention would realise that Richard was actually at a disadvantage, only forcing engagements using his tough body and superb skill with the sword. It was actually Nasia that caused the stalemate, even if she simply stood there and stared at the dragon’s butt. Although it was challenging to accomplish, Richard slowly moved the battle away from the vicinity of the portal by the time Apeiron stepped out.

In a rare display, the Empress was wielding an actual weapon for this battle, a near-divine shortsword that she kept with her just in case. She quickly sped up as she approached the Five-Coloured Dragon, blinking the last fifty metres before stabbing into the dragon’s back, but she was flicked away by the opponent’s immeasurable strength. Fortunately, Richard still kept the dragon tied up and left her unable to pursue.

With three epic beings now in the midst of battle, the space near the portal started to break apart. Richard, Apeiron, and the Five-Coloured Dragon came to a tacit agreement to fly into the skies where the impact could be mitigated, and while Nasia followed them upwards she continued to do nothing except adjusting her position to keep the dragon’s rear in view.

The Five-Coloured Dragon felt more unease from Nasia’s lecherous gaze than she did fighting the combination of two of the most skilled fighters in all of Norland, but when she finally lost her temper and was about to attack the portal rumbled once more and Ruben stepped out. The Celestial Sage was the straw that broke the camel’s back; already fighting two epic beings and effectively keeping enough energy reserved for another one because of Nasia, she had no way to take on a fourth. She let out a long roar as her body quickly expanded into her true form, a resplendent barrier protecting her as she grew.

The strength of the dragon’s aura skyrocketed with the expansion of her body, causing even Apeiron to pause a moment in wariness. Their party were already fighting without a fifth of their powers due to the location, and they knew that things would get bitter if the transformation was allowed to complete. This was a divine beast with strength pushing against the limits of this plane; her size alone was a huge problem to deal with.

Ruben’s nebular chains pierced through the chromatic barrier repeatedly, depleting its strength, but they were constantly pushed back with the barrier repaired in instants. Even as hundreds of his chains were wrapping around the expanding dragon, a few even trying to pass through the void to bypass the barrier, the dragon quickly grew to three kilometres long and continued to expand. The chains were quickly broken apart.

Apeiron rushed forth herself, her shortsword burning purple as it cut a large chunk out of the barrier. She jumped in to find that the interior was filled with a dense rainbow mist that slowed even her down, but the bigger threat came from the fact that the mist seemed to be hallucinogenic. Fortunately her laws of chaos helped her resist the curses within, but even she would be affected after enough time had passed.

The Celestial Sage tore an opening through on the other side, but it seemed a lot more strenuous for him than it was for Apeiron. He rushed into the five-coloured barrier, but started groaning shortly afterwards with his body starting to emit a black haze. He tried to disperse the mist even as his chains cut a path towards the dragon’s body. Watching her peer begin progress, Apeiron barked and waved her own shortsword. Purple energy tore open a passage that was more than ten metres long, prompting a roar of surprise from the Five-Coloured Dragon.

Not far away, Nasia finally prepared to enter the fray. Crossing her two blades, she slashed outwards to form two bright flashes of light. A giant cross that was around ten metres long crashed into the chromatic barrier and disintegrated it in moments, shocking even her own allies. Both Ruben and Apeiron paused for a moment in shock, scanning her once more to confirm that she was only level 21 and not some epic being that was stronger than even Emperor Philip himself.

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