The dragon’s roar shook the Great Cavern. It was a terrifying, draconic howl, which without serious preparation would be enough on its own to wear down your soul and leave your mind vacant. He lashed out with his claws at the same time. Screaming out loud, I swung my sword in a horizontal arc, knocking his attack off course, and I stepped in close.
“Sagitta Flammeum! ”
“Flame, protect me!”
The dragon’s Word and my Sacred Shield blessing collided and wore away at each other. With a bright flash, both were dispelled.
My entire body was full of energy as I moved. Fervent heat filled my chest.
Crystal-clear consciousness extended to every part of my body. I felt as though I had perfect control over everything down to the finest movements of my fingertips. I could anticipate and follow the enormous masses that were the dragon’s arms and legs even without looking as they assailed me from above.
I dodged his claws, pierced his scales, got behind him, cut him open. The blade of the enchanted sword Calldawn vibrated, producing a wondrously clear tone. No matter how many of the dragon’s scales I cut off, the sword remained unscratched and unblemished. It didn’t seem that even the slightest speck of blood had marred the blade. I was keeping Overeater sheathed for now, but Calldawn might have been just as sharp, perhaps even sharper.
Valacirca gave an angered roar, but he still made no attempt to avoid a close- quarters battle. He swiped at me aggressively with his claws, trying to crush me with them. Now that an army of this size had appeared with me as their standard-bearer, he must have decided that it was better to suffer a few flesh wounds to eradicate me quickly than take it easy from afar.
He committed to each decision and never hesitated. His arms, which reminded me of the trunks of enormous trees, gouged through the air with a mighty sound, swinging first left then right. My tension high, I dodged those swipes and saw my timing to draw in close again, but before I could—
“—!”
The unfamiliar Word spoken by the dragon coincided with my field of vision lurching to a horrible angle. Sludge had spurted out of the supposedly solid ground, and my right foot had sunk into the soil.
Panic struck. From my previous world’s knowledge, I recognized this as liquefaction, but I couldn’t come up with a Word to counter it on the spot. This Word hadn’t been passed down into the modern age. It was a Lost Word, forgotten since the age of the gods.
I had no way of responding. I had no idea what would even work. I couldn’t speak a Word on reflex, and I had no time to think!
“Now crush!!”
In that moment of hesitation, a palm the size of a large table, with fingers like human torsos and sword-like claws, came tearing down towards me. The strike had the dragon’s whole body weight behind it. If I took it directly, there was no way I’d be able to endure it. Even if I resisted it a little, I would be completely crushed. My leg was caught and I was in no position to instantly jump out of his range. I couldn’t escape.
His palm slammed down. Dirt was thrown into the air.
“Will?!”
“Sir Will?!”
My allies shouted. And for the first time, Valacirca gave out a clear cry of pain. He stared at his missing finger in utter disbelief. I had struck back with the blade of Calldawn, severing a single one of his fingers, and fit myself into the gap just before his palm hit the ground.
The dragon’s fingers were as wide around as a human’s torso, but that was just thin enough to sever with a single swipe of my sword, as long as I timed it right. And I’d been exchanging blows with him for long enough now to have a perfect grasp of the timing.
Although Valacirca was a battle-hardened dragon — no, because he was a battle-hardened dragon, the tempo, rhythm, and patterns of his attacks weren’t that complicated. He could crush most opponents just with his unfairly huge body and his countless Words. He had no need to add in other tricks like complicating the tempo and rhythm of his attacks or coming prepared with multiple different attack patterns.
A tiger doesn’t train in the martial arts to take down its prey. This dragon was exactly the same. Natural predators don’t bother with unnatural things like training or tricks. They have no need to. In terms of both raw physical ability and years of practice, I couldn’t compare. But if there was one thing I could exploit, this was it.
I pulled my foot out of the mud and moved straight into an attack, taking advantage of how much losing a finger had shaken him. But Valacirca was not to be underestimated. He immediately let loose a powerful binding-type Word, attempting to ensnare my legs. I was forced to hammer a Word of Negation into it and take a leap backwards.
The way he used support Words was extremely skillful. Even though he’d probably never trained in anything like martial arts, his use of Words must have made many a skilled hero suffer a very bitter defeat. He wasn’t just using straightforward attacks.
“RRRRRRRRRAAA!!”
“AAAAAAAAAAA!!”
His howl and my battle cry intertwined. Sword and claw, Word and blessing crossed each other again.
“Fiiiire!”
Countless arrows shot from the side towards the dragon’s enormous body.
Apparently, while I’d been facing the dragon from the front, Al had led a platoon around the side.
“Chaaaarge!”
Another platoon of dwarves charged at the dragon from a different direction.
“Hahaha! Yes!!”
The foul-dragon gave a roaring laugh, and his rampage grew ever more furious.
With a single swing of the dragon’s claws, a warrior in full armor was diced into pieces and flung through the air. With a single sweep of his tail, the top halves of several warriors literally disappeared. Dragons were beings close to the Words. Not even ghosts could escape their clutches.
But the dead dwarven warriors would not be cowed. They didn’t flinch, they didn’t fear. Roaring in unison, they kept moving directly forwards towards the dragon. They buried swords and axes into his legs. They pelted him with longbow arrows and crossbow bolts. His scales blocked most of them, but it was here that the wounds I’d inflicted on the dragon finally started to pay off. Bit by bit, damage started to accumulate over his body.
“There!”
Menel’s own arrows blended into the endless volley, the elementals of air applying slight corrections to his already deadly accurate aim. One after another, the arrows sunk into the wounds I’d inflicted at the exact spots the dragon was bleeding from.
The arrowheads were not shining with the radiance of mithril. They were black as sin. Then I realized. He had slathered the mithril arrowheads with the hydra venom he’d obtained in the marsh. Hydra venom was such a strong poison that a single drop of it could cause a large and vicious beast to roll onto their back convulsing. No matter how large or tough Valacirca was or how strong his miasmic nature, a poison that intense being delivered repeatedly into his wounds was going to have its consequences. If it had been Menel’s arrows alone, the dragon might have had some way of dealing with them, but right now there was also the incessant rain of arrows from the dwarves. Using the other arrows as camouflage, Menel was free to chip away at the dragon from afar.
Bit by bit, Valacirca’s movements began to dull. And as they did, Reystov, Ghelreis, and the dwarven spirit warriors daringly took their blades to him. More of the dragon’s scales were torn off. Reystov’s approach was different from mine. He didn’t try to cut directly into the scales; instead, he slid his blade into the small gap behind them and sliced them off. That is, he inserted his blade between the dragon’s scales as it was moving around. It was a feat of monumental speed and masterful technique.