Chapter 117: Inevitable

Dragons were known as the strongest monsters along with some other species. Back then, because she had an array of summons readied up beside her, one of them was luckily a spirit that could manifest Holy and Light energies- things that the Bone Dragon was weak to.

However, in this case, what did she have? Nothing but a rather tired out mind, body, and spirit. She could never win. Before, there was a slight chance of winning. This time, however, it was completely zero.

She then wondered. Would a discrepancy occur? She was Aria Schreiner, but she was also technically not this place's Aria Schreiner. She would not be the Aria Schreiner who saves this town from the Bone Dragon's attack.

Would the 'Aria Schreiner' of this scenario end up appearing? Would there be two Arias facing each other?

With her heart racing faster and faster with each second, Aria went to take Phil's sword away from him. It was just a simple steel sword that wasn't imbues with anything. Certainly, if this was to be contested against the Bone Dragon, it would break in a second. The bone dragon did not have nay flesh, but the bones were made out extremely tough material that wouldn't be penetrated by anything less than imbued attacks. Its defense were high, its attacks were frightening, it had agility- everything.

At this rate, if the 'real' Aria Schreiner of this time did not appear, then this entire place would be wiped out. That time, when she saved the town, the Bone Dragon was still rampaging around. Only, it had lowered its guard down because of the town's clear weak fighting ability. It was toying with them in mockery.

And that stalling was the very thing that caused it to be caught just in time by Aria and her colleagues, successfully subjugating it by the end of the day.

Aria clicked her tongue as she walked up to the townspeople and told them scatter, because the Bone Dragon would definitely be able to sense where they hid in once it arrived here.

Judging from the voice, they still had a minute or two before the dragon would come.

At first, they were looking at the panicked Aria with a strange look. They couldn't believe her totally because the thing she just described was impossible. However, as Aria continued to insist her point and yield out reasonable excuses, they slowly became convinced. Not only that, once the dragon was actually near enough for them to pick up its signature sound, fear began to rise up inside their hearts with a high speed.

A Bone Dragon's roar wouldn't be able to be heard from a far away distance unless you have trained your hearing in this area or used a special technique to catch the sound. However, once it got close enough, you would hear it loud and clear.

Aria knew that it was too late at this point. In just a few seconds, the first victim would be taken away and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. It was vexing, but she was actually quite glad that a sacrifice would be made out of the townspeople that were still exposed to the dragon's vision.

She looked around and found a ladder. The Bone Dragon wasn't dumb,  but it was rather impulsive.

It attacked whatever it looked at. It was aggressive in that way.

Thus, if Aria was able to get to the high ground and attracts its vision, she would be able to turn its attacks onto her. The townspeople would have more time to escape at that point.

However, Aria was not able to manipulate her magic and couldn't enchant herself with anything. This meant that if Aria wanted to play a game of tag with this dragon, all of her power would have to come from her natural body.

She would not last long at all.

A part of her confidence was based on the fact that she knew that she collapsed inside the Tower and that this body she was currently in was not the real deal.

Aria waited as the Bone Dragon soon came to view. Its eyes were locked onto an elderly woman who was struggling to escape and even fell to the ground upon seeing the dragon's menacing presence glooming over her.

The dragon let out a satisfied roar as it pounced down and used its claws to tear the flesh of the old lady, pulling her up into the skies and ending her life. To top it off, the dragon dropped the woman's body and let it plummet down to a pulp once it hit the ground.

The scene was gruesome, and the splatter of blood that was created even spread to another person who was standing near it. That same guy lost the strength in his legs and fell down on his bottom, crawling backwards while tears streamed down his face.

He was the next target. His body was picked up by the neck. This time, the dragon spun around in the air and dove straight towards the clouds. From there, it mercilessly bit on the man's corpse. Blood poured down from his body. Once the dragon was bored, it dropped the man the same way as he did with the old lady and continued to look for the next prey.

Aria bit her lips and shouted in order to draw the dragon's attention to her.

"I'M HERE, YOU STUPID CREATURE!!" Aria shouted on top of her lungs.

The dragon turned its head towards Aria's direction and saw that a woman was standing on top of a roof. She had an unwavering look to her eyes. With amusement, the dragon lowered down from the sky and approached Aria as if she was nothing but a little bug, a form of entertainment to him.

Aria knew that her priority should not be to fight. She dropped Phil's sword in the end, making sure that her stamina would last as long as possible. She did not know what her goal was in being sent to this realm, but if she was able to stall it until perhaps the 'real' Aria came to save them, then it would be the best result.

"EVERYONE, GO AND ESCAPE WHILE I DISTRACT THIS THING!" Aria instructed. The ones that still had the conscience to pick up their pace and start running away again did so. However, the ones that couldn't continue forth all fell down to their knees as they started to harbor lifeless eyes.

There was no point in escaping anymore to them.

Aria too, felt like she couldn't draw the dragon's attention any longer than five minutes upon actually engaging in the game of tag. Aria couldn't hide, since the dragon would shatter the building in a second. She couldn't run fast enough. She had to rely on a twisted method- that was using the people who had given up as means of temporary shields.

She got behind the obstacles so that every time the dragon attacked, it would be blocked. However, even this had a limit. There were limited amounts buildings.

In the end, she stood in the middle of all the destruction around her. Some of the people had already gotten out of the town and hid in the forests nearby.

But then, as Aria thought that she had succeeded, the dragon suddenly made a strange turn and eyed the forest where the people had escaped to.

It flew away from Aria and began to haunt the forests.

"It must have smelled their scents.." Aria clenched her fists in frustration as she begin to hear horrid screams from within the forest as well. She closed her eyes shut and wanted to hide away in a place where she wouldn't witness this anymore.

After all the trouble, she ended up failing.

"..Is it really impossible after all?" Aria looked at the sky in despair. Somehow, the dragon let her off.

Usually, a Bone Dragon would never let go of it prey until it had successfully deemed its capture as a success. However, this time, the Bone Dragon actually diverted its attention and started a large scaled massacre.

As if it was meant to be. As if there was no salvation for this place anymore, and even with the changed variable that is her arrival in this stupid realm, she still wouldn't be able to prevent the doom.

Despair. Anguish.

From a distance, Aria could see the figure of Raon with a collapsed Eliza. The boy was crying hard, and desperately shaking Eliza's body in order to get her to rise up again.

Aria hurriedly approached the two. Because she was so preoccupied on lasting for the longest time possible, she hadn't paid much attention to the pair of siblings since she assumed that they would be escaping as well.

However, Eliza was already in a state where she couldn't even move the tip of her finger. With all the strength that was left in her, she mouthed words of parting towards Raon.