Unknown location.
There was no point in dragging things out, so as soon as we finished the outdoor picnic, I teleported us straight to the dragon, finding it with 3rd magic. And it wasn't a problem, as his signature stood out very well among the many other souls.
We were now on a hill, in the middle of a scorched black earth covered with ash and dust. The air here was stifling and almost hot, the mountains were visible in the distance, and there was no greenery or any wildlife, except for our target, of course.
A little farther away, a dragon was lying down and apparently sleeping. And seeing it, I can't say I was impressed. It was just a dragon, a large but quite ordinary dragon, with black wings and scales, sharp fangs and claws, a long spiky tail, and one sunken eye. In terms of strength... Ddraig would have eaten him for breakfast and asked for more.
As I recall, he lost his eye in a fight with some adventurer, and later the Familias of Hera and Zeus almost completed all Three Great Quest except for this dragon. Pretty funny to hear something like that, since in the usual mythology these two were married and yet didn't really consider each other's opinions. Especially the fast as lightning old man.
- "Is that... is that... him...?" Hestia asked cautiously, hiding behind Bell, who was staring at the dragon with wide-open eyes.
- "We've heard about him from adventurers, but we didn't think we'd see him in person. He's strong," Ray marveled, and Let nodded in agreement.
- "Not impressive," Morgan said boredly.
- "Lord Hermes, are you sure we should be here?" Asfi asked worriedly.
- "Why would we?!" Hermes exclaimed enthusiastically, "We are to witness a heroic battle between humanity and a monster! This is a legendary event that you get to witness once in a lifetime, and don't you want to see it, my beautiful Asfi!!!"
- "Well... maybe..." hesitated Asfi.
- "Aaaaaa~" Tia sang out, looking at me.
- "You know me. It'll go fine," I smiled and stroked her head, then shifted my gaze to the dragon, "Well, I'm off."
- "Good luck!" Hermes waved his hand and the others followed him, a little worried about me.
- "Would you like a good luck kiss?" Morgan smirked, to which I rolled my eyes and jumped down.
-0-
Asfi didn't know what the Tiamat Familia and Romani himself were thinking, that he was completely calm about fighting against the One-Eyed Black Dragon, especially alone. Even the two strongest Familias of the time had failed to do so, that they had joined forces and still lost. And here, Romani was alone, and was not bothered by the dragon itself or its power, which she could feel even from here.
Asfi was level four, which by Orario standards was really not bad. But even so, she felt genuine fear just being in such close proximity to this dragon. And the reason was more than justified, because in case of anything, they would trivially be unable to run away and save themselves.
Her god, on the other hand, found their current situation extremely worrying. So much so that she had never seen such an excited expression on his face, not even when he had peeked at her while bathing. His eyes were burning with anticipation, as if the purpose of his existence was about to be accomplished, and Asfi had no choice but to accept it all and hope that Romani and the Tiamat Familia would succeed.
She shifted her gaze to the others present. To see their reactions to all of this.
The Goddess Hestia, Bell Kranel and the Xenos were feeling the same as Asfi herself, but here were the remaining two... The Goddess Tiamat looked at Romani with faith in her eyes, but without fear for life or injury, for some reason unknown to Asfi. Morgan le Fay, on the other hand, looked bored and even a little disappointed that the Hermes Familia captain was interested. Also, this woman was definitely of noble blood, judging by her posture and ability to hold herself.
- "Miss le Fay, if I may, is there a reason why you look so... bored?" Asfi asked, "It's as if the One-Eyed Black Dragon isn't worth your attention, and…"
- "…that I'm not worried about my husband's life, is that it?" Morgan continued for her, to which she received a nod of agreement, "My husband's power is enough to level the entire city and the kingdoms with it in a few moments. And the dragon? I would call him a pathetic parody, but not a 'dragon'."
Asfi stared at her stunned, unable to believe what she was hearing.
Some gut feeling told her that Morgan wasn't exaggerating, or arrogant, or lying. And it was for this reason that Asfi simply could not imagine the scale of the power Morgan spoke of, for only the gods had such power, and then only a few.
But remembering the ancient texts Asfi had read in her life, no god had ever had such immense power. Never. And Romani was human. Strong, but human. And his body simply couldn't handle such volumes. So Asfi began to strongly question whether he was really a human, a disguised god using Arcanum, or something else.
The next moment there was a loud dragon roar, which raised a strong wind and made her cover her ears and hands from the dust flying into her eyes. After a second, Asfi looked down and saw that the One-Eyed Black Dragon was now looking at Romani, who had his hands in his pockets.
Its shadow loomed eerily over both Romani and the others. Its monstrously huge claws, fang-filled maw, and black scales seemed to absorb the light itself, and its wide-open leathery wings made it seem even larger than it really was.
Asfi held her breath and swallowed her saliva, worried for the safety of herself and the others. And for good reason, for the dragon opened its maw and spewed a fiery inferno. The flames tore at Romani and then covered him completely, hiding him from view and spreading further, right to their group.
Asfi tried to do something to protect herself and the others, but as the fire nearly caught up with them, threatening to engulf and burn them to the ground, a magical barrier appeared before her eyes.
- "Weak even for a parody," she heard Morgan's voice, and turning to look in her direction, she saw an outstretched hand, which led her to conclude that it was the woman who had put up the barrier.
The others, not just Asfi, except Morgan, the god Hermes and the goddess Tiamat, were also frightened, but when they saw the barrier, they gave the woman a grateful look, which was quickly replaced by fear for Romani's life.
- "What's wrong with Romani?! Someone can see him?!" exclaimed the goddess Hestia.
- "No! We have to do something!" added siren.
- "Why are you so calm, Ms. le Fay!" Asfi couldn't stand it, "This is your husband, and you're going to let him die so easily!"
- "Oh, really?" Ignoring the excitement, Morgan smirked, "Why don't you take a closer look?"
A moment later, when the dragon had already ceased its attack, a breeze out of nowhere dispelled the remnants of the flames, revealing a completely unharmed Romani with a golden magic circle with a six-pointed star burning in front of him.
- "Well, it could have been worse. I guess it would pass for an Anti-Army. Rank A somewhere, but without any special effects. Kind of sad..." Romani said thoughtfully, mentioning terms unknown to Asfi. However, the fact that he defended himself against such a powerful and devastating attack without even breaking a sweat made her rethink her idea of his power and its limits. And it wasn't just Asfi...
- "H-how..." the goddess Hestia muttered disbelievingly.
- "This is amazing..." Bell added.
- "Magnificent! This is truly a hero whose strength should be extolled in legends! Absolute dominance over the monster and complete control of the situation! It's so exciting, isn't it, Asfi!" Asfi's god exclaimed completely enthusiastically.
Just under its breath, the dragon didn't stop and lunged at Romani, opening its jaws wide and displaying its claws. Even so, every attempt to strike his enemy was met with a magic circle that completely negated any damage and kept the monster away from the captain of the Tiamat Familia.
Romani himself studied the dragon with an interested gaze, simply standing still and ignoring the intensity of the monster's blows and fury that increased with each passing second.
And watching as the One-Eyed Black Dragon, one of the Three Great Quests, dubbed the World Calamity and defeated the two most powerful Familias of its time, could do nothing to the only human in front of him, Asfi couldn't help but feel disbelief, incomprehension, dissonance between reality and common sense, as well as embarrassment and even pity for this monster.
This whole surreal picture of what was happening forcibly made Asfi wonder if she had lost her mind, or, if her mind was under someone else's control, locked into an extremely realistic illusion.
And now, she, like the others, had only to watch the monster's futile attempts to at least injure the one and only person who showed not the slightest bit of respect for his opponent while their vision of reality changed with every passing second...
-0-
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