Chapter 138 - Showing Off The Dragon Form In The Open
Arthur, surrounded by the emergency team of his mages, led by Amelia, was observing the incoming flying monsters without any worry at all.
He knew this flying monster tide would be a challenge to his mages, but it was a good challenge indeed. As for him, at any sign of risk, he would take out his scorpion, or bring the carcass back inside his ring, securing the treasure.
The flying monsters approached fast, but they didn\'t start attacking at once. The cloud that looked darker than the surroundings in this dim light of the dawn circled around the mountain peak for a couple of times, before it finally started heading towards the peak.
\'So, there is a leading monster there,\' Arthur muttered, as he felt the presence of a strong being inside this cloud of monsters.
"Archers ready!" Amelia\'s voice came to interrupt his thoughts, as she added, "Fire!"
Arthur noticed that the arrows had small pieces of the explosive ores wrapped along their wooden shafts, with fire ignited on small pieces of cloth attached on the tip of the arrow.
\'Interesting,\' he murmured to himself, as he watched the first volley of attacks fall on the cloud, finally eliminating it.
As he expected, the cloud was formed by a large group of different shapes and grades of monsters, surrounding an eagle-like monster, with colorful feathers and fanned tail like a peacock.
The eagle had a long, sharp looking beak, and its head had a crown-like collection of six horns.
It was a six horned monster! the highest he faced up till now, of course without putting the snake into consideration.
He didn\'t wait anymore, as once he identified his target, he didn\'t stop and jumped high up the air, heading straight towards that monster.
The monster opened its beak, slightly, like it was smirking at him. Another volley attacked, and amidst the chaos it caused, Arthur took out a large piece of ore, ignited it with fire, and threw it towards the monster.
It happened so fast, and the monster had limited room to maneuver from the start, so the attack fell on it, but it caused minimal damage to its feathers.
This attack seemed to agitate the monster, causing it to flap its wings more aggressively, before heading towards Arthur, wanting to kill him.
Arthur, after throwing that attack towards the monster, took out another ore, and burned it up around himself.
"Boom!"
Fire erupted fast, startling the flying monster, which didn\'t understand why a human was setting fire on himself, except for a suicidal attempt.
Before the monster changes its mind, look for another target, a very ancient, domineering aura erupted from the fire, where Arthur was. He had used the fire to channel his energy, summoning the suppressive force of dragonairs in this place.
The flying monster paused, as it glanced at the fire and Arthur inside it with greedy eyes. The fire went berserk, but it didn\'t affect it, while it started to fall towards Arthur.
"So you aren\'t planning to surrender, do you?" Arthur muttered, as he was considering summoning the dragon form here or not.
"You are the real treasure! If I can eat you, I will jump the last piece of evolution I just needed!"
A sound of a child appeared, sharply irritating his ears, coming from this monster. Arthur understood the more monsters were higher in grade, the more sane they became, the more human like they turn into.
Just as the monster approached him, Arthur started to transform, taking the form of a dragon. \'It seems I can\'t keep this as a secret anymore,\' he muttered to himself, while his body grew larger, and dark red scales started to cover his whole body.
He recalled the words Noura had spoken to him from before, he wasn\'t that special in doing so, and being not special held significance meaning to him, at least he could now fight with his full power fearing nothing.
The monster he was facing right now was higher than monsters he fought from before, and that made him believe the more he advanced the higher challenges he would face.
Just as his body was transforming, that flying monster sensed the danger and immediately all his horns started to shine at once. a huge wave of water appeared, out of nowhere, to rapidly descend upon him, putting off the fire, and interrupting his transformation.
"Do you think I will let you take that annoying form? In your dreams!" the childish crispy voice appeared again as the monster flapped its two huge wings fast, trying to help his water attack to rapidly extinguish fire.
"Good thing I had that moment of enlightenment from before," Arthur sneered, as he wasn\'t that helpless against this natural enemy of the fire.
The moment fire died off and water wrapped and soaked him, his transformation didn\'t stop, instead it went faster. Arthur noted this, as he thought his body would return to normal before trying to take the dragon form again.
"Roar!"
The dragon had appeared on these lands once more! The mighty roar of Arthur in his dragon form attracted everyone\'s attention, making them all look with great doubt towards him.
Most of them had never seen this form of him before, but he didn\'t care to explain, as he had now a battle to fight! He didn\'t intend to ever explain, as this would be only explained in one answer: many mages can transform into monsters, and I\'m one of them!
Arthur then focused on the flying six hornet monster, as he flapped his huge wings, and moved towards the sky. Other weaker monsters just screamed when he approached them, moving as fast they could from his path.
Those slower than others were hit by his body, falling from the sky like fireflies hitting fire!
"So, you managed to show your full form, your grace!" the childish voice came again, this time much clearer and less irritating to Arthur\'s ears.
"You futile attempts to stop me had failed! now prepare to be killed by me!" Arthur roared back, speaking in monsters\' tongue, as he went head straight directly hitting that monster\'s body, making it lose altitude, and fall.
Arthur didn\'t give it a chance to catch its breaths, as he directly folded his two wings, descending like a meteor, hitting that monster in the abdomen, taking it down with him to violently clash with the side of the mountain.
"Boom!"
The sound of their clash overshadowed other sounds of the mighty battle ongoing here. The clash managed to break part of the mountain, while the body of that eagle was trapped in pieces of rocks, while falling from this high towards the distant ground.
Arthur, in dragon form, flapped his two wings, stabilizing himself midair, while watching his enemy falling to the depth of the ground.
"Boom!"
Another massive violent crushing sound erupted from down there when the monster fell heavily on the base of the mountain. Crushing more parts of the mountain body with it.
Arthur kept flying in the air up there near the peak for a few moments, before he made certain that monster didn\'t move a feather of it, before he started to move away, joining the ongoing battle on the peak, helping his mages in killing these small frays.
Three and four, and even some five horned monsters were nothing in front of his dragon body! just one hit by his head, his tail, his body, or even his wings made these monsters fall.
The moment they fell, they either hit the near peak ground, mercilessly getting hacked by the pet monsters there, or they went down the mountain, hitting the ground strongly, joining their boss in its miserable fate.
The battle ended faster than everyone thought, and no other flying monsters came to harass them again. that all was thanks to the efforts of Arthur, one mage made the whole difference here!
Arthur knew his time was limited as a dragon, so he hurriedly used the remaining minutes and started a massacre at the monsters trying to ascend here. he managed to kill and injure a whole lot of them, before his dragon body started to get weak, and he headed straight to the peak as his magic ended.
The aftermath of this had come, and he was now weak, so weak after this time of transformation.
He leaned on the huge carcass edge, sitting there watching others fighting around him while heavily taking his breath. Amelia had come to him, watching him in silence for quite some time, before muttering:
"So you can take the form of dragon?"
"Just lucky encounter I had," he simply replied like that, making her understand he wouldn\'t tell her his secret, not now.
"Very lucky encounter indeed," she said, while watching his severely weakened state, as his face was very pale, "but it comes with great price nonetheless."
He just smiled at her while stuffing more meat into his mouth. He had to find a way, later on, to solve this weakening period after the transformation. It wasn\'t logical how weak he was, and he was sure the dragonairs from old times must have found a way to solve this problem.
He was sure he would find the answer either in the old records of the academy, or within the memories of that sinister dragonair master of the ancient times.
"Are you ok?" Noura came to stand beside Amelia, as she asked in a way that showed her unconcern to what was happening to him, in contrast to what her words meant!