Chapter 225 The Shielder's View

Chapter 225 The Shielder's View

It dived through the air of the chamber of cells, flapping its wings as it howled out. As it neared him, he retaliated by raising his arms, summoning a wall of azure flames of a greater heat than previously.

As he moved his arms, he guided the flames quickly, condescending them into a spiral and slamming their draconic heat directly against the flying amalgamation.

An explosion of azure embers stretched out, repelling the beast, but not before it flipped around and had its body ripple across again.

“…What now?” He mumbled.

Protruding through its scales, dozens of serpents were born from within the Masterpiece’s body, stretching out with unnatural length from all angles, with their fangs bared and lunging towards the Dragonheart.

He chose to confront the source directly rather than dancing around the jaws of the many snakes, dashing forward while flipping around to avoid each strike before reaching the Masterpiece itself.

As he readied another Dragon Strike, tucking his fist close to his side, he was caught off-guard as the giant monstrosity suddenly bulked up, reinforcing itself with unknown vigor before countering his own attack with a monstrous tail whip.

“–!”

It was a surprising amount of speed and force as the serpent tail whipped against his chest, knocking him back as his scale armor cracked.

It increased its own strength…? Is it using mana to reinforce itself? That’s impossible, right? He questioned.

That didn’t seem to be the case as he caught himself, looking towards the beast as its body bulked up considerably, though there was an unknown, bright-green substance oozing from between its scales, providing the same color through its bulging veins.

Before he knew it, the beast was in front of him once more with speed that caused the wind to ring against his ears.

Some kind of experimental power?…Is this what the Collector did to it? He deduced.

As it swiped its claws towards him, he leaned back, avoiding their titanium-like durability before countering with a supreme kick to its thigh.

“Grrrgh-!” The Masterpiece growled, though it didn’t tumble.

There was something different about it; jumping up and slamming its hands down like a berserker as it cratered the stone beneath, rippling a force through the chamber that scattered the stagnate documents.

As it charged him, he was able to meet it halfway with a dash of his own, bashing his shoulder against the tiger head in the middle, causing blood to spill from the beast’s nostrils.

“Not much of a ‘masterpiece’, are you?” Emilio said.

As the amalgamation attempted to outstretch its own neck to an abnormal length to chomp him, he guarded with his arm as the beast’s teeth failed to penetrate his sturdy scales.

They were more stalwart than steel; scales that of a dragon, worm as his unique armor as the Masterpiece attempted to bite down harder, only to shatter its own fangs.

“Roogh—!?” The monstrosity howled in pain.

“Doesn’t feel good does it?” The Dragonheart asked.

He drove his knee against its sternum, cracking the Masterpiece’s false scales, proving the superior durability of his own.

Before the three-headed monster was knocked back, spitting acidic blood out that was easily avoided, it used its serpentine tail to bite onto the Dragonheart.

“Nope.”

Before the venom-producing fangs could reach him, he snatched the tail with pinpoint reflexes, squeezing it tightly as the onyx-skinned snake hissed before—POP.

The Masterpiece roared out in agony as the head of its tail was destroyed, resulting in a spray of clotted blood.

As it tried to retaliate with a breath of fire, Emilio utilized his amplified strength, using the tail as a rope to lift the colossal monstrosity into the air before flinging it across the room.

Again, it howled and roared, thrashing about as it returned to its feet.

It didn’t matter; either way, he prepared to finish this fight in the next encounter. Desperate on time, he was impatient to move on to intercept the Collector.

As the Masterpiece roared out with intensity that shook the foundation of the chamber, it lunged through the air without any elegance, rapidly running across the room with its claws carving up the stone in its path.

Calmly, he cocked his fist back, flexing his entire body as his muscles coiled with the strength of the dragon within, building up the draconic force to such an extent it manifested itself in a subtle glow around his body.

He readied himself with a single intent: “destroy it with this blow”.

Part of what fueled him was that prideful blood of the dragon that roared through his veins; in response to a physical challenge, he was forced to respond in kind, summoning everything he had from the fibers of his muscles, the marrow of his bones, and the throttle of his heart.

Standing there, ready to strike, the Masterpiece leapt towards him with saliva trailing through the air and its wings overshadowing him, but he simply thrusted his fist forward, releasing the built-up force all at once.

It all came out at once.

Cataclysmic power condensed and honed into the scale-armored knuckles of the Dragonheart shot out like a cannon, piercing and flooding forward with unreserved, pure power.

The entire room shook as dust cascaded from the roof; the air cracked and parted as the wind pressure from the strike alone pierced through the body of the monstrosity, tearing its internal organs apart and crushing its form.

From the crack of the air, the dormant layers of dust were brushed off of the grime-slick stone, brushing the corpses of the fallen experiments aside as puddles of blood rippled.

“–“

In one blow, it was finished, representing the total might of the third stage before he allowed his scale armor to crumble away.

[Level Up!]

[Level Twenty Achieved]

[New Skill(s) Acquired: Lesser Flame Consumption]

After the Dragonheart transformation came to an end, he nearly fell to a knee, though caught himself, huffing as he knew it wasn’t over yet.

As he moved onward towards the corridor the mysterious man went down, another document caught his eye that had a big, red “S” inscribed at the top.

[“Collector” | Birth name: Unknown | Criminal Rank: S | “A wicked soul, this one. He was an alchemist working in Turun, Vasmoria–but, that was only a front. By the time the guards were tipped off on his misdeeds, there were already dozens of victims found in his “laboratory”, subject to grotesque experiments. Though the death sentence was given, due to his anomalous ability, he was unable to be killed by means of blade, magic, or even hanging. We agreed the best solution was to keep him sealed in the Valley of Parmesus.”]

Reading further, he found something even more daunting–

[“–He has a tendency, no–an innate avarice for claiming everything and anything as part of his collection, hence his name. He uses living creatures as “material” for his hellish experiments. Human or beast, he does not discriminate. It is a fate worse than death to be caught by this devil wearing the skin of a man.”]

It was a horrifying read, finding the origins of the man lurking in the underground chambers, though finding the information to only create a further air of mystery around the malignant figure.

I need to find the others…before the Collector does, he thought.

–

Wandering through the grimy depths beneath the lodge in his lonesome, the blonde-haired, fully-armored bumpkin carefully ventured through dark corridors.

The layout he found himself in was a series of rooms, though the corridors were linear, forcing him down a straight line to the room before him.

“Emilio? Melisande?…Yuna? Anybody there?” Everett called out quietly, though nothing came in response.

As if wary of anything jumping out from around the corner at any moment, the country-born man held his shield in front of him, glancing around it.

Though he prided himself on his ability to jump in front of danger and take the aggression of enemies for his comrades, there was something Everett rarely admitted to others: he had a complete and utter fear of the dark and the ghosts.

“Err…anybody?” He quietly called out.

What made him so meek when moving through the rooms was what was in them: blood-stained tables, scattered bones, and every now and then, he heard glass vials knocked off shelves and scampering feet, but as he turned around to check–nothing.

“Uegh…” He shuttered.

The air was thin and chilly; breezes of sharp cold periodically brushed against him, spurring goosebumps beneath his armor.

Where he found himself currently was a room that caused him to quietly gasp: shelves were stocked with jars, filled with liquid and unknown body parts of inhuman creatures.

The shielder stopped, looking at one of the circular jars that contained a shrunken creature with six eyes and massive teeth.

“…The hell kind of voodoo is goin’ on down here?” Everett whispered.

There were drains embedded in the smooth flooring, which had sparse streams of perplexing liquid flowing down into it, though there was a red substance clearly resembling blood that stained the floor.

“This place is no good…Where are the others?” He mumbled.