Chapter 274 Phantom

[Third Person POV],

"ROAR!!!!!"

When the now-solidified gigantic figure in front of everyone let out a loud roar, Ace and the others, including the mutated rats, were forced to close their eyes, and the den experienced a sudden spike in violent shaking as a small amount of dust fell from the tunnel's ceiling.

"At this rate, I wonder if the den will even be able to last," Ace muttered, holding two ignite explosives in each hand and staring at the slightly transparent figure in front of him, which he later identified as the dragon that was about to be revived.

Ace was currently unaware of the figure's level and rank because he was not close enough to it to use the primordial chronicle on it to verify its information.

That was assuming it had either of these two, but given that the quest stated they needed to defeat the phantom of the dragon before it revived in order to stop the process, Ace figured it was the figure in front of him they needed to stop, given that it did come out of the Dragonheart and was the most threatening creature in the pit.

At this point, the figure's appearance was vastly different from how it appeared at first.

It resembled a western dragon, with red scales on its body. It was also quite tall, as it appeared to be at least a dozen Andrew Dawns stacked on top of each other, and Andrew Dawn himself was a tall man. The dragon's long tail was even more impressive.

In summary, the figure in front of Ace appeared to be capable of slamming everybody here to death with a single blow.

Immediately after the dragon phantom gave a roar, Andrew Dawn was the first one to make a move.

Instead of attacking first, he brought something out of his storage ring, and Ace, being an alchemist, recognized what it was at first sight.

It was a pill bottle, but Ace had no idea what pill was inside, and because Ace was so far away from Andrew Dawn and the angle Andrew Dawn was facing him, Ace was unable to see the appearance of the pill before Andrew Dawn could take it.

Ace also noticed Andrew Damn men taking something from the pouch tied to their waist.

It was a pill container as well, but Ace was once more unable to determine what was inside.

He'd always wondered why they wore a pouch around their waist and what was inside, but he never imagined it would be pill bottles.

Ace didn't think wearing a waist pouch was strange because his teammates did it as well. Anna started it because, unlike Ace, who had a storage ring in which he could store his possessions, the others didn't have one to even put the food they eat outside, therefore they ended up employing this way.

In fact, Ace imagined that this would be a popular approach for humans in the true world who lacked storage rings.

Ace noticed that Andrew Dawn and his guys began to emanate a red mist from their bodies as their skin turned red after taking the pill.

Andrew Dawn's men were okay because their skin just went slightly red as they emitted a small bit of crimson mist, but Andrew Dawn was different. For one thing, his skin was nearly totally red at this time, and the mist emanating from his body appeared to be some kind of thick aura rather than mist, yet this wasn't the only thing.

Ace noticed that the blacking lightning arcs that were forming and receding around Andrew Dawn's body were thicker as their intensity increased by more than half.

It was evident that his lightning had grown substantially stronger, and looking at things, the cause had to be the pill he took.

Ace could think of a few pills that had similar effects from the alchemy knowledge he has in his head, but among all of them, there was one that he felt was the pill Andrew Dawn and his men took.

The berserk pill. Because the berserk pill is a rank 1 pill, it could not have an unranked variant as it is too potent to have its quality reduced.

This didn't mean that unranked species couldn't take it; they could as the pill effect was even stronger for them, and thus was the backlash that came with it after its effect wore off.

However, it was clear that Andrew Dawn and his men were going all out.

While Ace was wondering if it was the berserk pill Andrew Dawn and his men took and how they came into contact with pills, he had to shift his focus since the Dragon phantom made its first move.

With another loud roar that was a little less loud than the first one. The dragon phantom shook its body a little at the long tail and made a long swing sideways in the direction of Andrew Dawn and the rat queen as it brought an extreme blast of wind with it.

Ace's eyes couldn't capture the speed at which the tail moved, so all he saw was a flash of light and then the loud bang that preceded the tail colliding with something.

BOOM!!!

Even the mutant rats who were not touched by the tail were sent into the air by the wind as a result of the wind pressure that came with the tail. The fortunate ones were just propelled into the air to another area, while the unfortunate ones shattered into a mist of blood in mid-flight since their bodies could not endure the pressured wind.

Even among the hundreds of mutated rats flung into the wind, the one who barely managed to stay alive did not pass a dozen, but their status was still better than that of a specific mutated rat.

There was a sizable hole where Andrew Dawn and the rat queen had been earlier as a result of the dragon phantom's tail striking it, but it wasn't the hole itself that alerted Ace to their situation; rather, it was what was inside the hole.

The mutated rat queen that had battled Andrew Dawn to a halt lay still with a mutilated body, and whether it was alive or dead was uncertain.

The rat queen was readily destroyed in that manner; it felt surreal.

"I suppose I might really die this time," Ace mumbled, a droplet of sweat running down his brow.

This was not due to fear, but rather to excitement. Ace was getting pumped despite the odd situation.

He knew he'd die if he got too close to the dragon phantom, but the thought of facing such a powerful monster was alarming. Thankfully, he was still rational enough to know what to do and what not to do.

He could just abandon this quest because he hasn't done anything about it, but since he has already made up his mind to do so, he will proceed regardless of the risks involved.

It was unfortunate that he wasn't powerful enough to fight the dragon phantom, but it didn't mean he couldn't help with the quest as a whole.

For one thing, Ace noted that instead of fighting the dragon phantom, the mutated rats were still attacking the humans in the pit, which appeared a little strange.

He wasn't expecting rationality from monsters, but since their leader appears to have died as a result of the dragon phantom attacks, shouldn't the mutant rats be fighting the phantom rather than the humans?

Ace pondered this for a moment before arriving at the conclusion that was probably the cause of the mutant rats' behaviour.

At this point, it was obvious that the dragon heart was the reason the earth rats mutated to red-skinned rats, and that huge figure whose life status is currently unknown should have been the one who mutated the most and assumed the leadership position for the mutated rats, but this did not change the fact that they all benefited from the Dragonheart.

Ace reasoned that they didn't attack the dragon phantom for killing their leader because they believed their true leader had arrived, which was the dragon phantom as it was the creature that emerged out of the dragon's heart and gave them strength.

But Ace was perplexed as to why the dragon phantom continued to attack the rats.

Was it because it lacked awareness and didn't realise it was the cause of their mutation and they were on its side or was it because it didn't care and just took everyone it saw as its enemy?

In any case, it didn't change the fact that the dragon phantom was capable of killing a formidable specie akin to the eighth most powerful human in the true world.

'But it's not like there's no way of beating it,' Ace reasoned as he turned to face Andrew Dawn in the distance.

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