Apinsig
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Chapter 249 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-06-30 11:43:02 +0000 UTCAll of the fighters were currently preparing their strongest attacks, at least those who could hit from long range. Many had a hard time concentrating as looking at the sleeping dragon made them feel more terrified than they had ever felt before.
The dragon had landed in a thick forest and currently, its upper body was showing past the tree line, while the rest was semi-hidden by the broken trees that laid upon it. It was quite obvious to see the route where the dragon landed as the trees were broken, leaving a clear trail.
The dragon hadn’t even moved from its landing spot, so tired it had been from trying not to fall into the water. But its long nap was coming to an end as hunger started to truly eat at it. However, it was going to be waking up sooner than it expected as almost everyone was ready with their attacks.
The Queen’s right-hand man was charging up his ice beam ability, Rich was empowering his bow, and the only iron oak arrow he had so he could do maximum damage. The final second rank was an independent earth mage who was currently making an empowered earth spear to cause physical damage so the Dragon’s resistance to mana wouldn't limit the damage he could do.
This buildup of power didn’t go unnoticed as the dragon's sleeping sensors started to register the danger. Dragons live in a place where they are in constant danger, even with their incredibly powerful bodies. Ninety percent of dragons don’t reach past childhood, so every dragon who did was ready for anything at any time, otherwise, they simply didn't survive. The only reason the dragon was still sleeping was because of its extreme exhaustion. But every passing moment, it started to shake off the sleep that it was in.
It was at this point that almost everything was ready for the alpha strike and at that moment, Rich truly began powering his attack. The area around him froze as it took ahold of every molecule of energy, then he looked like he exploded from how much energy he started to work with.
While all of this could be seen by people who had the ability to do so, none of that energy was projected outwards for the dragon to sense. Only a few moments later, Rich started to pull back his longbow, straining while doing so. His exertion of physical power made him steam. And if you looked at him, you could see the air distort like you were watching a fire burn.
When he reached his maximum draw, he took a single moment to aim and then he released. A sonic boom followed the snap of the released right afterward, an ice glow illuminated the surroundings, and then another sonic boom was heard when the earth spear accelerated to its maximum speed. All of this finally woke the dragon up, but a bit too late.
The ice beam shot from the tip of the Queen’s bodyguard's sword was the fastest and hit first. It was a sustained beam attack that hit the neck of the dragon. The dragon's eyes immediately opened even before the beam hit, but only a few moments later the beam had already damaged and cut through the scales of the dragon.
The dragon, however, wasn’t stupid and was able to move its head and neck, eliminating the danger almost immediately without sustaining any crippling injury. Before it could get up to find its attacker, the arrow hit just below its neck into the chest area.
It pierced the scales and buried itself almost feather-deep, causing minimal damage, at least until the arrow exploded from the contained energy, blowing a large chunk out and causing serious damage. The earth spear was the slowest to reach and when the earth mage saw what happened, he tried to guide his earth spear to the same location. However, the dragon was now fully awake and angry, and its speed was not to be underestimated. It was able to raise its body enough that the earth spear hit below the wound the arrow made.
It still caused a severe wound, breaking many scales and piercing quite deep. The dragon had gotten fully up, extending its wings when the other attacks hit. Only a few attacks made any lasting damage to the scales, most just glanced off.
For a moment, the dragon was hidden from sight as the many abilities and spells caused thick smoke and debris to hide the dragon. Everyone had already started to scatter right after they launched their attacks, but some still stumbled when they saw the dragon surge out of the smoke while roaring its defiance.
The dragon's four legs pushed its massive weight forward at an incredible speed as it looked around at the many creatures who were trying to hide behind small hills. But one was straight ahead of it, not trying to hide, and the attacks it made caused pain.
The dragon accelerated to its fastest speed, closing in on 100 mph, and quickly closing in on Rich, who hadn't expected it to be so fast. Many of the ranged attacks missed because no one had expected it to be so fast. The only reason it was able to be so fast was because it was using its wings so its legs didn’t have to support its weight while running, allowing it to push itself to ridiculous speeds.
Rich originally planned to shoot many arrows but now he only had one or two more left before the dragon reached him. He chose to power up for a more devastating attack but instead of attacking its already wounded spots, he made a shatter shot with his last attack and aimed it at one of the wings. The shot left a large part of the wing in tatters, causing the dragon to lose balance and allowing Rich to escape to the other side so the freight train of a dragon wouldn't make him into paste.
The dragon recovered quickly from its fall, charging towards the creature causing it so much pain. For a moment, the dragon was confused as the creature it was chasing looked different, but the smell was still the same so it didn't care. More and more ranged attacks started to fall on the dragon. Each wing was a lot weaker than its scales, but even then, some of the attacks made simply didn’t do anything but left scratches.
Rich had put away his longbow and taken out his previously two-handed sword, now more fitting to be his one-handed sword. He was also using a larger version of the legionaries' shield so he could use it in case of fire attacks to cover his body.
Not a moment after he had changed his weapon, he needed to dive to the left so the teeth that wanted to bite him in half wouldn’t find their target. Rich continued to nimbly dodge all the attacks the dragon tried to make, but even with its speed, it was still a large creature and compared to the dragon, Rich was just a mouse.
As this went on, more and more ranged attacks hit the dragon, damaging its wings more and more. The dragon was thoroughly annoyed, but no one had expected its next move. Everyone had thought that it would use its fire breath, and it did, just not the way expected.
It blew a stream of fire from its nostrils. Using its main fire breath took time to prepare, but blowing it out from its nostrils was a lot faster. So now, Rich had to dodge not only teeth, legs, wings, and a tail, but also dual flamethrowers from its nostrils.
The flame was incredibly hot and even from quite far away, with all abilities Rich was using, it was uncomfortably hot. This dragon and mouse chase continued for over 10 minutes before the dragon was over it. The constant pain was making it unable to think. It tried to fly up to get a moment of rest and burn this small annoyance into dust.
The dragon's wings, however, were quite damaged and while it still could lift itself up, it needed to exert itself and it still hadn't recovered from its flight here. Still, it pushed itself so it could get a bit higher up so it could burn the area around itself, but before it could, its now completely exposed wings were attacked even more fiercely.
The dragon screamed in pain when a particularly large spell hit its right wing and finally, the dragon started to fall from the sky. It was only about five stories up so its landing didn't cause it any damage, but for the first time, it stopped focusing on the annoyance in front of it and looked towards the hills from where constant attacks were launched. Now understanding that it was being hunted, it started to fight back against annoyances farther away from itself.
The next moment, a group of three mages looked in fright as the dragon looked towards them and then launched two fireballs from its nostrils that arced towards them. While the fireballs weren't the fastest, the shock caused two of the mages to not be fast enough to escape, causing them to be burned to dust by the fireballs' explosion and the resulting fire afterwards.
This signaled the second phase of the fight as the close-range fighters started to charge. Rich also didn't miss the opportunity and was able to land a decent attack into a previously wounded spot.
