347 Chapter 347: Pick your Poison

Under my telepathic commands, both Green Dragon and Draco leaped to action, flanking the stunned Frost Dragon from both sides. The Frost Dragon spun from side to side, trying to catch Draco with his ice beam, but several thick vines lashed out and tied around his neck, yanking his head to the side and causing him to miss.

In response, Draco spun around and unleashed Eltanin, another two devastating black beams that drilled twin holes through the Frost Dragon's body again. Meanwhile, Green Dragon conjured a storm of razor-sharp petals that blew away the snow and sliced into the Frost Dragon's azure scales, drawing red rivulets of blood.

The Frost Dragon snarled before releasing an icy wave that froze his surroundings, almost catching both of my dragons in ice. Both of them retreated, with Green Dragon in particular conjuring a wall of ice-resistant plants (like coniferous trees) to block the ice. The wood froze before shattering, but the Frost Dragon's spell mostly dispersed before it could go any further.

I wasn't going to idly stand around and leave the fighting to my guys. Racing forward, I drew both of my swords and channeled my mana into them. Sucking in a deep breath, I yelled out a single incantation as I lunged toward the furious melee.

"Bankai!"

Ice enveloped my body for a few seconds before expanding rapidly into a pair of icy dragon wings. The ice spread across my arms and shoulders like some sort of armor, and for some reason, covered my feet while taking the shape of dragon claws. Why, I had no idea. If I looked into the mirror, I bet my hair had turned white too, but I wasn't going to bother with that. Behind me, three icy flowers floated, each divided into four diamond-shaped petals of frost. A tail made entirely out of ice stretched out behind me.

All the dragons stared at me. Even my own dragons, and the Frost Dragon that was fighting them, paused in mid-battle to stare at me.

"What?" I asked with a scowl. Not wanting to waste any time, I charged straight at the Frost Dragon and stabbed him with my swords. Ice erupted out of my strikes and entombed large segments of the Frost Dragon, but still my enemy didn't move or respond, and continued to merely stare at me. Seemed like my attacks were ineffective.

Well, that made sense. Ice attacks were not very effective against ice-type Po…I mean monsters. However, since the Frost Dragon was also dragon type, he should have a weakness to ice attacks. Its ice and dragon type canceled each other out, so now he should theoretically have normal resistance to ice rather than half resistance to it.

The stares were getting painful now. I awkwardly pulled my swords back and returned the gazes of all the dragons.

"What? Stop staring at me like that. You're making me feel uncomfortable."

"Kid," one of the dragons growled. I was completely taken by surprise. I didn't know dragons could talk. And this guy was speaking human language perfectly. "Why the hell are you ripping off Bleach? Do you think you are Hitsugaya Toushiro or something?"

"…eh?"

"Come on, brat…" Another dragon sighed in exasperation. "Don't go copy the Bankai from Bleach. Can't you be more original?"

"Besides," the Frost Dragon who I just attacked also spoke up, catching me off guard. This could guy speak our human language too?! "Parody attacks don't have any effect on us. If you don't get serious, I'm going to get offended."

"Aren't you already offended?!" another dragon snapped from elsewhere. "Otherwise you wouldn't be chasing and trying to kill an insignificant human like him?! Nobody wastes this much effort to swat a human!"

"Just end this farce already," another dragon agreed.

"You are right, I should."

The Frost Dragon swiped at me, catching me before I could flap my ice draconic wings and fly away. I almost blacked out as I was sent hurtling through the air, crashing into the ground amidst an eruption of snow. The ice wings and frost armor shattered immediately from the impact, and I found myself rolling about, completely normal.

"Ouch…"

I slowly got to my feet, dusting the snow off and shaking myself to ignore the pain. The Frost Dragon lunged at me, but Draco slammed into him, knocking him off course and sending him toppling into the snow. The two titans grappled and wrestled, leaving huge gouges and furrows in the snow that exposed patches of brown earth and dessicated grass.

Green Dragon capitalized the opportunity to make the grass bloom and turn green again. Vines and stuff burst out of the ground, ensnaring the struggling Frost Dragon after Draco wisely retreated. Another blast of ice destroyed the grass, but Draco was already unleashing his Eltanin to knock him back down.

Snarling, Frost Dragon unleashed a Blizzard spell that wrapped the entire place in ice, but despite the raw power of the massive attack, the clumsy way he cast it meant that he missed totally. Draco managed to evade the creeping sea of snow before it could capture and entomb him in ice. Even as he ducked, an ice beam seared through the white cloud to freeze his wing, sending him crashing down. With a growl, Draco shattered the ice on his wing, but the slight delay was more than enough for the Frost Dragon to lumber out.

Green Dragon was far from idle, however, and chose that moment to lock our enemy down with vines. Gigantic green vines lashed out and coiled around the Frost Dragon's limbs, restraining him. Tearing at the bonds, the Frost Dragon began to freeze them once more to shatter his bonds, in order to escape, but it was clear that he was becoming increasingly exhausted.

Draco then leaped forward and tore out his throat with a single vicious swipe, raking his massive claws through the supposedly armored scales and ripping them apart like wet paper. A geyser of blood spurted out and the Frost Dragon toppled to the ground, flailing involuntarily. Standing above the guy, Draco grimly unleashed his Eltanin at pointblank range, almost baking the guy. The Frost Dragon thrashed more violently, but I could see his body begin to disintegrate.

The head was the first to fall off. The neck completely disintegrated under Draco's black spell, and the head flopped off, crashing onto the snow to stare wide-eyed into the heavens. Draco didn't stop, and while he did not destroy the entire body, he was able to at least obliterate a good portion of the Frost Dragon. Even if he somehow had regenerative spells and could heal himself, he wouldn't be able to restore his body with such a tremendous amount of damage.

Throwing his head back, Draco let out a triumphant roar that resounded across the Den of Dragons.

Both Green Dragon and I glanced around to ensure the other dragons weren't going to approach. I prayed that they wouldn't. I was running low on mana at this point. It took a lot of mana to maintain two high-level Soul Beasts such as Draco and Green Dragon, and Draco had been expending my mana with his multiple Eltanins.

While I still had enough juice to mount a fight if I had to, I knew it would be too reckless of me to play along. With this many dragons, I would never win a war of attrtition.

"!!!"

As I suspected, a second Frost Dragon stepped out to issue its challenge. This time, it wasn't speaking human language – perhaps that whole scene from earlier was my delusion, hallucination or whatever. None of the dragons were speaking human language again.

Who cares about that? I had more important things to worry about. Such as running from the horde of Dragons.

"Time to go," I muttered. Good thing the swat from the currently deceased Frost Dragon had sent me flying deep into the forest, probably out of sight of all the huge dragons. I was making use of the coniferous trees for cover, keeping a low profile and staying out of their sight. As the Frost Dragon lunged at Draco, I dismissed him.

"!!!"

The Frost Dragon crashed through empty space and into the snow, landing in an undignified heap. The other dragons, upon watching the poor guy thrash about for a moment, began to make what sounded like the dragon equivalent of laughter. Snarling, the fallen Frost Dragon rose to his feet, its mana swirling dangerously around it. Snapping its head around, it fired an ice beam at my Green Dragon.

…who promptly disappeared before the ice beam could hit him.

"?!"

The Frost Dragon swiveled around furiously, searching for its prey. It knew I was the one who summoned those two dragons, and it was currently searching for me. The problem was…you know how a human couldn't find a single ant if it had scurried away somewhere? Even when we were irritated by pests such as houseflies and mosquitoes, and were determined to swat them, once they flew off somewhere in the room, it was difficult to locate them by sight. I was so small I was beyond its notice, apparently.

But the dragon, being a dragon, was persistent.

Either by sounding me out through my mana, or some other method, the Frost Dragon identified the section of the coniferous forest that I was using as cover. With a flap of its wings, it lunged forward, tearing through the trees and ripping the poor wilderness open.

"Damn it!"

I turned around and stopped for a few seconds, knowing that I couldn't leave the hundred meter boundary if I wanted to cast a spell or summon a creature. I waited for the Frost Dragon to barrel toward me, then I drew both Hei Yue and Bai Ri before meeting the Frost Dragon in combat. Right before its jaws closed around me, I leaped high up into the air, flipping myself before landing on the top of its skull. Running along the length of its neck, I hacked and slashed, slicing through its azure scales with my deadly black and white swords and sending fountains of blood spurting out.

With an inhuman screech, the Frost Dragon flailed about, trying to throw me off. I was more than happy to oblige, diving off its body to hit the ground in a roll before getting to my knees. Plunging both of my swords into the ground, I summoned Sagittarius.

Good thing I had just barely remained within the hundred meters vicinity of where I first began casting the spell, or I wouldn't be able to pull this off.

"Alnasl!"

The fiery arrow streaked from my black bow and slammed into the Frost Dragon with a supernova effect, engulfing the behemoth in flames. The Frost Dragon wailed in agony as it toppled backward, flopping around as the raging fire ate its body. With a determined bellow, it extinguished the flames with a blast of ice-cold mana, shrouding the entire place in fog.

Dismissing Sagittarius, I yanked both of my swords out of the ground and summoned the chibi Vermillion Phoenix. Even though this was a great opportunity to test out my newly learned ice magic, I was too practical to consider messing around. Fire was super-effective against ice-type monsters such as the Frost Dragon, and I had expended quite a bit of mana to defeat its brethren earlier. I didn't have time or energy to waste on this fella.

The Frost Dragon's tail flicked out and struck me. I managed to cross my swords and parry the blow, but the sheer size and power behind the attack sent me crashing through the trees. The wind knocked out of me, I grunted before flipping myself about and planting my feet against a tree. The trunk groaned in protest as it bent out of shape, splinters exploding beneath my feet, but at least I didn't smash through it like I did the other three or four trees before I finally got to this particular one.

Bending my knees, I propelled myself forward, flames igniting along my blades. Swinging my swords, I tossed a fiery cross at the Frost Dragon, who countered it with an ice beam. Boiling mist sizzled in a curtain between us, but the Frost Dragon uncaringly swiped through the fog, its claws raking the air above me.

If I hadn't ducked, the entire upper half of my torso would have been ripped away. Or more likely, I would be tossed aside like rag doll while having the upper half of my torso obliterated. Either way, not a pretty sight to imagine.

Huffing, I rolled against the ground before summoning Golden Kirin. Earth spikes slammed into the Frost Dragon, spearing it and jamming it in place.

"We're getting out of here!" I told my Golden Kirin, and he agreed with a growl. Leaping onto his back, I had him fly out of there. Yeah, Kirins could fly – you didn't know that? They were known as the steeds who galloped through the heavens or something.

The Frost Dragon wasn't done with us. Not yet. With a snarl, it fired a volley of ice beam at us, causing Golden Kirin to swivel around and conjure an earth barrier to deflect it. The solid wall of rock turned into ice immediately before shattering, but it served its purpose. Most of the blast had been absorbed and dispelled from it.

Breaking free of the earth spikes that had pierced its body to the ground, and spilling large amounts of blood in the process, the Frost Dragon took off with a single flap of its wings and pursued us in the air. Conjuring a storm of icicles, it fired off a tremendous barrage that literally blotted out the skies with countless projectiles.

"Ugh!"

"Gnh!"

With a grunt, Golden Kirin dove toward the ground, his hooves kicking up soil in his wake. Twisting around to face the bombardment of icicles, he conjured several layers of earth barriers, walls of solid rock that stood strong and firm against the relentless hail.

Almost. The first layer of earth walls were obliterated after ten seconds. The second layer held out for twice as long, and then the third layer was destroyed in another half a minute. Fortunately, by the time the bombardment reached the fourth layer, it was already showing signs of weakening.

Good. While it was difficult for me to slay a second dragon in succession without resorting to my nuke spells, it was also hard for it to kill me and my Soul Beasts.

"!!!"

Just when I thought that, a colossal ice beam struck me and Golden Kirin from behind. I was throw off the flailing Golden Kirin's back before he was completely frozen in a block of ice. I could see a thick layer of frost rapidly expand across my body, effects of the formidable spell, but fortunately my recent training in ice magic offered me a measure of resistance. I could slow the freeze and eventually break out of it, but I wouldn't make it in time to escape the approaching Frost Dragon that came at us from behind.

A third Frost Dragon, huh? Stabbing me in the back while I was distracted by its comrade. Well, given how I double-teamed on the first Frost Dragon with both Draco and Green Dragon, I couldn't complain.

"?!"

However, before the third Frost Dragon could reach me, it suddenly recoiled. To my shock, I saw the entire forested area around it wither and die. The plants were drying up and turning brown, the trees were shriveling and wilting, and even the Frost Dragon bellowed in agony as it raised its smoking claws.

What happened? It was almost as if it had just gotten its paws corroded by acid.

"!!!"

That was when I saw her. The solitary figure with long, green hair, in an emerald winter coat. Anastasia was standing before the third Frost Dragon, noxious fumes pouring off her hands as she cast her poison spells to maximum effect.