“Are you sure that you want to go in with us?” I asked cautiously as Nora led us through the forest. “You can’t just respawn if something goes wrong like we can. And we probably will be dying quite a few times to get through this.”
“These are my people that are in trouble. I’m not going to leave it to a group of wimps like you three that are only going in planning to die until something works.” She said in a firm tone. “Did you think that I’d be able to trust reasoning like that?”
As she said that, she continued to lead the way through the forest. Already, I could tell that we were getting closer, the smell of burning wood filling the air. “If you three can’t figure something out, I’ll just do it myself.”
Hearing that, my brows furrowed, and I let out a low sigh. I looked at the other two, who both had helpless expressions on their faces. We all knew that there were only two main strategies that we could go with to handle this. The first was to play it safe, me being in my fire dragon form protecting the other two while we slowly made our way through.
The second method was potentially faster, but it was more dangerous. We hadn’t had the chance to test my damage output as a dragon yet, so the idea only really existed as a theory. “Are we doing that, then?” I asked Diane and Bella, both of which sighed reluctantly and nodded their heads.
“Whatever you’re planning, get ready. We’re almost there.” Nora announced, and we entered a blackened clearing a kilometer wide. There were over a dozen fire spirits roaming the clearing, and a portal of swirling flames at the center.
“Bella, Diane.” I reached out, focusing on channeling my Dragon Shifter. The only aspect of the skill that I wanted immediately was the breath. Specifically, the breath from my dragon king form.
Thankfully, this was a far easier modification than when I tried to bestow consciousness onto a body made of ki. After only a few moments, I felt the energy flowing through my arms. When I stretched my hands out, golden light rushed out to cover both of the girls, reinforcing them both with the Blessing of the Dragon King.
“You’re not going dragon form?” Nora asked with a raised brow, but I shook my head.
“I am. I just had to take care of that first.” I answered. “It’d be awkward to swap back and forth during a battle.”
After saying that, I stepped forward, raising one hand up. A sphere of blue energy formed above my hand, rolling and twisting like water. As my body began to shift, growing into the blue-scaled draconic form, this water ball grew larger and larger. When I reached my full length of ten meters, the sphere was just as large as I was, and I sent it crashing towards the nearest cluster of spirits.
This was our second potential plan. If we weren’t able to fight fire with fire, we thought that we might have been able to fight it with water. Naturally, fire spirits should have had a weakness against water skills, so this form would help me close the level gap. The problem was that this form had no exceptional defenses against fire itself, as we discovered during our testing.
The orb of water crashed down onto the fire spirits, dousing their flames. Their bodies became thinner, almost completely translucent, with their cores visible in their chest. Diane leaned forward, jumping into action as she entered stealth. A moment later, the cores of all three fire spirits suddenly shattered.
At the same time, the other spirits in the clearing turned their attention towards us. Six of them began launching torrents of flames, which I met with a watery breath. Steam erupted, flooding the valley, but I could tell that my breath was being pushed back.
“You can make clones, can’t you?” Nora asked, crossing her arms as she watched the scene. “Why can’t you just make a dragon clone?”
I almost ended my breath attack at that comment, my eyes going wide. That was… a very good question. I had never tried to make my clones take on a draconic form, whether it was through Dragon Shifter or True Dragon Embodiment. However… it was still a Martial skill, so they should have been able to, right?
Without hesitation, I summoned both my Ki and Water Clones, mentally commanding them to enter the same water dragon transformation as myself. Their bodies enlarged, soon matching my own in both size and shape. As I felt my breath growing weak, they conjured torrents of projected water to intercept the fire, giving me a chance to catch my breath.
Buy me time. I commanded the clones, taking a step back and focusing. They exchanged clashes of fire and water with the spirits as Diane and Bella moved to the side to get a better shot. Meanwhile, I tilted my head up at the sky, my clawed hands digging into the ground. “Crashing waves, deep beneath the soil. Dark, twisting vortex. Endlessly rising tides of destruction. Boil, dissolve, surge forth.”
As I chanted, I focused my mind on the enchantment that I wanted to create with my Myriad Strikes-X. “Let all barriers fall. Let all foes drown in their own despair.”
Immediately, I winced, the scales on my forelegs shattering and spewing out blood. No, not blood, water. However, this would rapidly closed, thanks to the effects of my natural regeneration and Internal Recovery-X, and I felt the enchantment settle in. Thankfully, only one of the skills that I needed for this combination was magic.
Lifting my head high, I released a watery breath into the sky, causing dark clouds to gather above. Rain began to fall, harder and harder, sizzling as it struck the bodies of the fire spirits, though they seemed to be unfazed by the rain. “Drake… please tell me you did something more impressive than a normal Thunderstrike enchantment!” Diane called out, appearing from stealth after assassinating another spirit.
I nodded my head, closing my eyes. There were three skills that I combined for this enchantment. The first, as Diane said, was the Thunderstrike skill. This skill, fused from Create Water and Spark Shot, allowed me to create a storm cloud.
As the water fell, Bella looked at the ground, seeming to notice that the water was rising faster than normal. This was because of the second skill that I integrated into this enchantment, Instant Fortification-X, which among other things, allowed me to control and proliferate water. With these two skills combined, I was able to create a flood effect.
However, such a flood by itself was little more than an inconvenience to the fire spirits. Of course, it would weaken them to wade through water, but they’d still be stronger than us individually.
Which is where the third skill in this enchantment came into play. Waves began to churn within the flooded clearing, rising up to form a wall of water on all sides. The third skill that I integrated in this enchantment was Water Intent-X, the purpose of which was to change the attribute of the water generated with this enchantment to my projected water.
Normally, it took a great deal of focus to enlarge the amount of energy I could project and control, so this enchantment provided me with a fitting shortcut to cover that. Its name, suitably enough, was Martial Storm.
Even with this, I couldn’t simply crush the fire spirits. Wave after wave crashed into them, but it only managed to dampen their flames. Thankfully, I had an excellent assassin on my side to finish the job. Diane dove into the water, transforming into her own half-dragon form, and sped through without the slightly problem.
Since she was swimming through my projected water, I was acutely aware of her position even when she went into stealth. This let me ensure that I didn’t accidentally crash a large wave down on her by mistake.
With this combination, we were able to sweep through the few spirits outside the dungeon, after which I dismissed the flood. Bella looked at me like a wet cat, her hair sticking to her face. “Next time… a warning, please.” She muttered dryly as Diane walked over, casting Clean on her to help her dry off.
“Can you do that in the dungeon?” Diane asked simply, turning to look up at me.
I gave a nod, my voice low and rumbling. “I made the enchantment for the dungeon. Theoretically, the longer I let it build, the more water I’ll have at my disposal. However, I don’t know if there is a limit, or if going too far will cause excessive strain on my mind.”
Diane furrowed her brow, but nodded her head. “If something like that starts to happen, cut it off. This is a powerful ability, but if you received a mental injury because of it, it could cause us to wipe without knowing what happened.”
I could definitely agree with that. I had learned on that boat ride to Evergreen a while back that powerful enchantments like this usually have their own price, even if that’s not just a mana burden. That was why I only did this after I entered my water dragon form, hoping that the form’s affinity with water would lessen the blow.
With that said, we began walking towards the dungeon. Thankfully, the portal was large enough that my draconic form could squeeze through, allowing me to see what was on the other side.
Beyond the portal, the sky was ablaze, veins of plasma crackling in clouds of fire. The ground was blackened ash, charred rocks rising up like jutting spikes in irregular patterns. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of fire spirits roamed the cracked landscape.
Without hesitation, I surrounded us with Ghost Zone, preventing the spirits from spotting us as I looked at the sky.
“Can you make clouds here…?” Bella asked, voicing my own suspicions.
“Maybe…? This dungeon is probably supposed to be modeled after a fire elemental plane or something. Water skills would be weakened, and there wouldn’t be any natural water to draw from. I should still be able to use my enchantment, though it will take longer to start building up.” As I said this, Diane furrowed her brows, but signalled for me to begin.
I sent a watery breath into the sky, which quickly evaporated into steam. However, I continued, sending more and more breaths. Over time, the steam began to condense, forming small clouds beneath the flaming sky. Granted, at that point, my throat was starting to get sore.
As for the fire spirits, they were looking in our general direction, some moving closer in confusion, but unable to see us under the cover of my Ghost Zone. Once the clouds managed to finally condense enough to produce rain that didn’t evaporate before hitting the ground, it was time to get started. Of course, I was already starting to feel a dull pressure in the back of my head, but it was nothing compared to when we were on that boat.
Though, if I was right about this form making the enchantment easier to use, I probably would have blacked out by this point, had I tried to do it in my normal form. Thankfully, my evolution came in a timely manner, so I was able to take advantage of it for this dungeon. I could only hope that the enchantment would be enough to help us get through this without fatalities, even though I had left our respawn anchor back near the village.
