Chương 56: Chapter 57: Power leveled by a dragon

The next thing I know, we're diving down towards the herd of creatures. They look like rhinoceroses with body armor plating and three horns instead of two. The horns are also much bigger. I can't be sure of the size, but they look like they're the length of my arm. The dragon pulls up from his dive and starts to shoot across the ground, vertical movement turning into horizontal from the pull of his wings.

I squeeze my legs together as hard as I can to make sure I don't fall off, and then I use Sniper Shot on one of the creatures. The arrow flies towards it just as we get close enough for me to identify it. Rhinoblade. Very rare rare elite beast, level 22. HP: 20, 726/22, 000. Very rare and rare elite. A thousand times its level. If there weren't a herd of them, I think I could take it. Then the dragon claws at two of the beasts as we go by.

I inspect one of them, and see that my fight against the dragon would not have lasted long. He just did nearly five thousand damage with a single swipe. That's more than double my HP plus my Shell. Even with my defense at 117, I don't stand a chance of surviving that attack. The dragon flaps again to slow itself down, and reaches out and chomps down on a third rhinoblade. He then brings his back claws up and rakes them down the rhinoblade, tearing huge chunks out of it.

Another flap of his wings, and he rends with his teeth, putting his paws down on the ground. The rhinoblade drops from his jaws, dead, before the others even get a chance to start the fight. I start shooting at the rhinoblades. We're in it now, and I don't think the rhinoblades will believe me if I say I'm here under duress. If they manage to kill the dragon, I'm going to have to fight the rest of them. Might as well do my best to make sure that doesn't happen, or that I can actually kill them if I have to.

I'm not in much danger up here on the dragon's back. But I still use Rapid Shot when it comes off cooldown, firing far too many arrows at the rhinoblades. The problem is those thick hides. They're like armor, and they're breaking some of my arrows. I'm going to have to get down and collect them when the battle is over, or I'm going to completely run out of arrows and arrowheads while I'm at it. The rhinoblades charge at the dragon, who swipes at them as they come near and snaps at them with its huge teeth.

Just as I'm about to ask why it doesn't breath fire on them, the dragon inhales sharply and lets out a torrent of a greenish liquid that appears to be acid. The acid hits the rhinoblades and eats away at their flesh, melting their protective armor down and doing massive damage to the rhinoblades themselves. I watch carefully, wondering if I should act more on the dragon's side. Right now, I'm kind of waffling, on my own side and against the rhinoblades but not necessarily on the side of the dragon.

He's not part of my party, so if I use Mab's Rage it will hit him as much as everyone else. I'll keep that in mind if his hit points go down to a level that I think I can take him. Or is that not going to happen? He attacked these things with gusto and almost completely without fear. Combined, they have more hit points than he does, but he doesn't seem worried. He doesn't seem bothered when they ram into him, barely even grunting as the horn digs a furrow into his scales.

He just returns their attacks, slashing them to pieces while they recover from ramming into him. I imagine it must be like running head first into a wall. Normally, things break under their charge. Normally, things buckle or move in some way. The dragon barely sways when they hit him. The weight difference is just immense. By the time I run out of arrows, the dragon's health is down to about three quarters, and there are only three more rhinoblades around us.

I debate sliding off his back and drawing my sword, but that seems like a bad idea. The dragon is moving around a lot, thrashing about and slashing wildly at everything in its way. I don't think it would discriminate, and that means it would probably hit me. Which, as I saw before, would mean instant death. So I just sit there, watching the rest of the battle. I debate throwing one of my knives, but I don't think 88 damage would matter much right now. It's okay though; the battle only lasts a few minutes more.

I should definitely be on the dragon's side. I need to convince him not to kill me. So I need to get on his good side. Okay. That helps settle that. As the dragon kills the last of the rhinoblades and starts to feast on its carcass, I cast Healing Touch on him.

"Ah," the dragon says, sighing happily.

"That feels quite good. Thank you."

"You're welcome," I say.

"My name is Caleb, by the way. What should I call you?"

"Call me Thax," the dragon says.

"That is not my name, but it is what I would like you to call me."

"Okay Thax," I say. I pull my feet from under his scales and start to dismount. As I slide to the ground, I see that I've gained a level of climb, a new skill called Riding, and two levels of bow. My bow is at thirty now. I wonder what a difference that will make.

"You go ahead and eat. I have to collect my arrows." You have defeated Rhinoblade x12. You gain (264, 000/2) 132, 000 experience. You have gained four levels. You are now a level 26 tracker. You have 34 stat points to spend. I'm going to have to convince him not to kill me when this is over and done with. I put all thirty four points into charisma, bringing it up to 54. Maybe that will make me more persuasive. Or should I have put it in manipulation? I'll worry about that next time. I collect my arrows.

There are only about thirty usable arrows that I can recover. The rest are either broken, melted, or wedged in too well for me to get them out. I harvest a few of the horns; they've got to be useful for something. I manage to get eight of them before my bag informs me that it's full. Definitely need more manipulation. My animal harvesting goes up a level, and I notice that my alertness is up to 18 too. I'm not sure when that happened, but I like it.

Though I do think it's funny that I didn't notice my alertness increasing. Seems ironic. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"Climb back onto my back," Thrax says.

"We will proceed to another battle." I climb back up and wedge my feet back into place.

"You're incredible, Thrax," I say.

"Thank you," he replies, then leaps up into the air again.

"Your command of my language is impressive." Soon, we're flying again, back towards the mountains. We're getting higher, and I'm getting colder. I'm starting to wonder if Mab's Rage would even work up here it's so cold. Thrax flies in lazy circles around one of the mountains, slowly going higher and higher as he scans the mountain below for something. Then I see him start to just coast for a while, and I look down to see what he's looking at. All I see is snow. Except, wait. Is that movement on the snow?

What is that? As if reading my mind and deciding that I must want a closer look, Thrax turns and begins to slowly descend towards the snowy area. I keep staring at the movement. Then I get a notification, and suddenly I can see what's moving around there. Greater Yeti. Advanced Mythic monster level 27. HP: 27, 000/27, 000. Thrax moves closer still. I draw back and fire an arrow. As soon as the arrow thunks into the yeti, Thrax exhales a stream of acid all over it.

Then, as it thrashes around in pain, he slashes at it with his claws. The yeti is pretty big. It's at least twenty feet tall. Thrax grabs it by the shoulders and then rakes his back claws down its chest, his head snaking around to try to bite its head off. It takes a little bit, but he manages. And I level up again. I put all nine points into manipulation.

"Do you still have arrows to fire?" Thrax asks me. I don't bother climbing off him. It's very cold up here, and his body heat is the only thing keeping me going.

"I do," I say, my teeth chattering.

"You are cold," he says.

"My apologies. I did not consider that. I will find something more on ground level for us." Then he's in the air again, flying not towards the forest, but through the mountain range. He gets dangerously low, and I feel like I'm on a roller coaster ride as he soars what feels like inches from the ground, weaving between mountains. Sometimes, he has to pick up altitude to get between the mountains, as they seem to grow out of one another with a thickness.

But then he's soaring back down the other side, so close I can make out individual leaves on the trees. I close my eyes and try to focus on the notifications that I missed. My Observation ability has increased, giving me an extra thirty feet to inspect things. Also my awareness has gone up to 34, which means my magic resistance has risen accordingly. I've also gained another level of riding. Which makes sense. I'm riding a fucking dragon.

I try to revel in that for a few seconds, but reveling in it means opening my eyes, and that means seeing just how close Thrax is getting to everything. If a plane got this close to the ground, people would panic. There isn't even enough room for him to lower his legs without hitting the ground. We go over a waterfall, and I'm pretty sure I get hit by the spray at the bottom. Still, it's a dragon. I'm riding on dragon back. How many people can say that? How many people get to have this experience?

It might be common, but somehow I doubt that it is. I think it's super rare. I think I'm in an elite club at this point. My heart is racing, and I do my best to let myself just feel the rush, the joy of traveling so fast. It seems to be baked into human DNA somehow, that need for speed, that urge to always go more quickly. This is the fastest I've ever gone, and it is absolutely exhilarating. Soon, we're soaring across the ocean.

It's huge and it's blue and it's beautiful, and I briefly debate sliding off the dragon and diving in. If I can survive the fall, maybe I can swim back to shore. But my armor will weigh me down, and so will my bag. It only reduces weight by ninety percent. With everything in there, it still weighs about fifty pounds. Besides, I don't think I could survive the fall. At the speed we're going, it would be like hitting concrete.

And I don't think I could survive hitting concrete, even if we are close enough to the water that I can see the crests of the individual waves. I want to ask Thrax where we're going, but he seems to know where he wants to be, and is flapping his wings frequently, pumping the air behind us like he's trying to gain speed. Anything I try to say will be lost to the wind. The answer becomes clear a few minutes later. An island comes into view. A volcanic island. With an active volcano, from what I can tell.

There's smoke coming out of it. I think that means it's active. The air definitely gets warmer as we get close to it. We start to pick up altitude without even trying, and I have another moment of enjoying the flight. Then I see something at the edge of the volcano. Something glowing red with heat. Unsure of what it is, I nock an arrow into my bow and wait for Thrax to take us closer. Soon, the something resolves into a roughly bipedal form. I don't have much of a frame of reference, but it looks big.

And it looks like it's made of molten rock. We're still not close enough for me to identify it, which suggests that it's bigger than it looks. I wonder if it's bigger than the yeti. We get closer, and it resolves even more. I see that it's just the first in a line of creatures coming out of the volcano. Is the volcano their spawn point? How the hell do you kill a volcano? I don't know, but it certainly looks like that's what's spawning them.

I don't know how fast they move, but they seem to be climbing out of the caldera after being spawned. Finally, we get close enough. Lava Lord. Legendary rare elite monster, level 20. HP: 100, 000/100, 000. Thrax flaps to hover in place and looks back at me.

"What do you think?" he asks.

"I think you're insane if you want to fight those things," I say.

"It'll take forever to kill even one of them."

"Untrue," Thrax says.

"One just needs to know the right magics."

"And you know the right magics?" He nods.

"I am considering us of one mind in this battle. A group with the common purpose. Allies. Would you agree?" Is he asking me to join his party?

"Yes," I say.

"I agree." I feel a tingle pass through my body. I'm pretty sure Thrax and I just partied up. Suddenly, a cold wind picks up. I know this trick. This is Mab's Rage. Are we within range? Thrax flies closer to the lava lord, and I see that the storm starts to tear it apart. I cast my version of the spell, immediately get two notifications, and elicit a surprised grunt from Thrax.

"That will help us," he says. I don't know how much damage his version of the spell does. Mine only does 38 a second. Though I notice that's not the number that comes off the lava lord. 76 comes up every second. So it's taking double damage from the spell. That makes sense. An ice spell against a fire creature. I file away that information for later. Apparently, affinities do matter. What were my notifications? Spellcraft has increased and Mab's Rage has leveled up. Nice.

Mab's Rage now lasts for ninety seconds instead of sixty. That's half again as much damage. That means my damage accounts for almost seven thousand damage. So seven percent of the kill, if I do nothing else. I'm not going to shoot any arrows at this thing. There's no way the arrow survives, and my supply is getting low. But I'm also not getting close enough to use my sword.

For one thing, Thrax isn't landing, just flapping his wings and maintaining a respectful distance while his spell chips away at the lava lord's health. I don't know if he's planning on just continuing with spells or if he'll eventually get up close and personal, but it seems like he's avoiding getting within range of the lava lord's arms. I get it. The lava lord doesn't have a ranged attack. As long as Thrax remains flying and at a great enough distance, the lava lord can't attack us.

It's a cheaty way to fight, but it works. It's a way to kill this thing without any real danger to us. And soon there will be at least one more of them in the range of the spell. Thrax begins casting another spell, one that I've seen before. Ice Spear, I think it's called. Vincent had it, and used it to pretty great effect back in the tutorial. It's not that mana intensive, and it does decent damage.