Chương 75: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 75 - Flashbang

"The Black Dragon is coming down — take cover!" A soldier watched the Black Dragon close in and felt his liver turn to water. He threw himself down under the corpse of a fallen comrade. Old battlefield instinct. A veteran's reflex. He'd barely made it halfway under when something seized his leg with tremendous force. Gray Brother dragged him out by the ankle. The spiked club swung forward, very helpfully clearing out the man's intestines, and sent him off to report to the Conquering King, Emperor Shivi.

The battlefield was chaos. The monsters had come armed. Facing armored soldiers, they matched steel with steel, none of them stupid enough to throw themselves bare-handed into a blade. The boss had said it clearly: "A gentleman does not brawl." The Blaze Rabbits and Gnolls drove forward at the front. Behind them, the Kobolds had already moved on to the important work.

"Armor and weapons — strip it all off!"

"Oh! Damn, these humans are loaded. Look at the quality of these undergarments. Strip those too."

"Socks, off!"

"Underpants? Off, off! Don't leave a single thing!" Bolikri directed the operation with great enthusiasm, tail wagging happily as the pile of loot climbed higher. The Dragon's Nest was barely established. Supplies were everything right now, and Kobolds had a gift for finding use in what humans threw away.

"Wasteful. Absolutely wasteful!"

"These violent lunatics!" Bolikri's tail went still as he watched Grey Wolf at the corner of the battlefield, cleaver rising and falling, cutting a soldier clean in half, armor and all, in one swing. His heart lurched. Not from fear, though. From grief. That was a perfectly good suit of armor.... Weimons watched his soldiers being cut down on all sides, and fury overtook him. He yanked the longsword from his hip, raised his shield, and planted himself squarely in the Black Dragon's path.

His voice rang across the field like he was born for this moment.

"Evil, ugly, filthy Black Dragon!"

"Your enemy is me!"

"Come on! Face me — duel me!" Anna, sprawled across Su Nian's back, heard it all. Her brow creased immediately. She crawled forward a little, pouted her pink lips, and without any particular ceremony raised one small hand. A bolt of light snapped from her palm and flew straight at Weimons. CRACK! The battlefield went white. Su Nian felt it before he saw it, his vision wiped out in an instant, a solid wall of brightness.

Even he, a dragon, went blind for a full second before his sight crawled back, his eyes still aching with it. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Weimons took the full hit. He staggered around the battlefield like a man who'd lost his mind, crashing through empty air, sword swinging at nothing, shouting himself hoarse. Su Nian blinked. That was an Illumination spell? That was a flashbang. That was absolutely a flashbang. And the duration on it...

He smacked his dragon lips slowly, turning the moment over. He could already picture it. Anna, a few years from now, flicking her wrist and summoning a full blizzard from a clear sky. His treasure girl. That talent was something else entirely. Anna, meanwhile, had blinked against her own glare and gone a little still. Then she stuck out her tongue. [Oh no, I think my Illumination got brother too] [He won't be mad, will he? (? í_ì?)] She raised her eyes and sneaked a careful look at Su Nian.

"Brother... um. Sorry. Just now, I didn't mean to, ""It's fine. Anna did great, that spell was incredible." Su Nian shook his head, unbothered. The relief that washed over Anna's face was immediate. The tension she'd been holding quietly eased out of her. She'd already pushed things far enough by asking him to bring her onto a battlefield. She didn't want to add to it. She stopped using Illumination and crawled back properly onto the dragon's back.

She felt she still owed him something, so she leaned down and quietly pressed her lips against one of the scales between his shoulder blades. Then, since Illumination was off the table: Water Ball. Anna bared her small fangs, snapped her hand out, and launched tire-sized spheres of water one after another at Weimons, her voice a soft, indignant mutter under her breath.

"That's for calling my brother names!"

"Take that, you ugly thing! Hmph! ╯^╰" Weimons was still fighting the light behind his eyelids, head ringing, the world a smear of white. He squeezed his eyes shut to keep from keeling over. He barely registered what came next. THUD THUD THUD. The Water Balls hit him in a relentless stream. None of them hit hard enough to seriously hurt, but they kept coming, one after another, without end. His foot caught on something slick, and he went down hard, sprawling across the ground.

"Damn it! Fight me properly if you've got the guts!"

"What kind of cowardly tricks are these?!" He was still convinced it was the Black Dragon doing it. Still cursing. Then the light ahead of him dimmed, a shadow moved between him and the Illumination's glare, and the brightness died. His vision came back. A Black Dragon filled it. Massive. The crown of horns like a dark throne. Eyes that held nothing resembling mercy. Evil, imposing, ancient, like a demon lord pulled from the depths of a world that no longer existed.

Weimons felt the cold hit him from the inside out. His throat locked. His chest caved under an invisible weight. He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. He just shook. Su Nian raised one claw, ready to put an end to it, and then the heat slammed into him from behind. He whipped his wings up immediately, shielding Anna's position. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Three Fireball spells. Direct hits.

"Did it work?" Mema Gou Gouzi's face was bright with hope. She'd seen her chance while the Black Dragon's attention was locked on Weimons, rolled three Fireballs off in quick succession and let them fly. She'd had her doubts. But that explosion, that had to have done something. So why wasn't there a kill notification? She stared at the smoke. The hope on her face curdled into something colder. A bad feeling took root. She started backing away. The smoke thinned. A shape emerged from it, vast and unhurried.

Through the haze, two points of red light gleamed steadily, dragon eyes tracking her without rush. The pressure that radiated outward from Su Nian's body was like a physical thing. Every monster on the battlefield felt it, a wave of their boss's fury rolling through the ranks. They registered it clearly, and they turned it outward. The humans fighting them suddenly found the monsters hitting considerably harder.

Su Nian stood wreathed in the Fireball's lingering smoke, gray ash still drifting from his scales, the smell of char and heat clinging to him. He looked like something the abyss had spat out fully formed. He crossed the distance in one pounce and pinned Mema Gou Gouzi to the earth. He shook the soot from his scales. One claw pressed flat against her chest. He lowered his head until his breath washed over her face, scorching, steady, and the skin across her cheeks began to blister and bubble.

The terror in her eyes climbed past what her face could contain. I'm going to die. Everything she'd clawed her way to. Every scrap of power she'd bought with her body. All of it, gone.

"Don't, don't kill me." Her voice broke.

"I'll do anything. Whatever you want. Even if there are barbs, I'll still, " The green light along the Black Dragon's neck detonated. A column of dragon breath condensed into a tight spiral and punched forward. Mema Gou Gouzi's head ceased to exist. The sickly green fire rolled outward across the ground in every direction, and the earth beneath her crystallized where it touched. Her headless body collapsed, then slowly came apart into ash, until there was nothing left at all. ➤ Next: More Laborers