The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (62 page)

“
Stuff he makes
usually is. That’s why I call him a cheat.” Dariel had
moved to shooting her shadow arrows indiscriminately. The benefit of
being surrounded to such a degree, you are guaranteed to hit no
matter where you aim. While her arrows didn’t inflict wounds,
the area they touched on a plant would soon begin to decay. Truly a
demon bow’s power.

“
You two call me a
cheat, yet I’ve only killed small fries so far..” I shook
my head, taking a lesson from Denise and began firing off Hellfire
Bolts towards any random tree, bush, or suspicious vine. With the
rapid use of spells, my mana once again was steadily falling. Unlike
when we were scaring off the tribesmen, this time a forest fire was
precisely what we wanted to do.

During all of this, I
learned an interesting combination. Hellfire, which fades on both the
physical and the spirit, spreads greatly when it comes into contact
with a spell enhanced by Soulfire. Like throwing water on a grease
fire. It didn’t have so much an effect on my aura, but the
soulfire rain and gusts were causing my bolts to run rampant through
the forest. Now that I was contributing my own spells, and pulling
off such combinations, we were quickly wiping out our area. It was
hard to determine when a lesser vine beast appeared since it would be
burnt immediately.

Dariel seemed to realize
the combination as well, because the next time a great vine beast
formed, both Denise and I launched hellfire attacks, while she
followed up with a soulfire gust. The three effects joined into one
and formed a giant cone of flames that destroyed the vine beast in
one go.

It didn’t take much
longer before we met up with Krath, who had been working his way
towards us after finishing off his own area. “I see you three
are still doing okay. Get everything taken care of?” He was
wearing the same black armor I saw him in the first time I met him,
and dual wielding black longswords that had spikes running along the
back of their blades.

I glanced back, just
noticing the widespread destruction we had been causing, walking like
flamethrowers through the island forest. What wasn’t ash was on
its way to becoming so, and for the first time in a while I could see
the coast. “Looks like it. We’re the last ones to
finish?”

“
Yeah, but we
weren’t really expecting you guys to do all that much. We just
needed another distraction.” Krath grinned to me and started
laughing. Then, turning his head, he looked towards the center of the
island. “Up to those two now.”

“
You guys aren’t
going to help her?” I asked, curious why they were letting her
fight with just Halor.

“
She wouldn’t
want us to. This is the first time we’ve fought in a while, so
let’s let her enjoy it.”

I nodded, turning my Scan
spell towards the battle to help me watch it, now vaguely able to
make out even Lilith at this distance.

Chapter
29

“
Where are the other
two? Dremor and… Belial, wasn’t it?” I asked Krath
while watching the fight intently. Though, given the distance, I
ended up recasting my Scan so that I could use Walking Vision and get
a closer look.

“
They should be
together on the northern end of the island, keeping position incase
something troubling happened.” I could hear his response even
as my vision soared closer to the battlefield. Finally, I could see
what was actually going on.

Fighting an opponent far
larger than even he, Halor had received multiple injuries early on in
the fight. Surprisingly, his role was mostly support. The tank and
damage dealer of the duo was undoubtedly Lilith, who would vanish in
front of an attack to let it strike nothing but air only to appear
next to the dragon and swing her giant sword.

By the time my vision was
able to capture the entire scene, the fighting appeared to be almost
equal. While the dragon hadn’t been able to inflict any damage
on Lilith, he was also recovering as fast as she could hurt him.
Lilith flew at eye level with the dragon, easily a mile into the air,
supported by black leathery wings that she never possessed before
when I saw her.

The dragon let out another
ungodly roar before raising one of its claws with a speed something
that size should never possess, the motion all but a blur. Even so,
by the time it reaches the space where Lilith was flying, she was
gone. At the same moment, she appeared below the dragon’s
stomach, clenching her left fist and bringing it up in a punch that
lifted the dragon several feet off the ground. Of course, she was
gone again before it could crash into her.

By now, the soulfire rain
had stopped, and the storm above was simply a leftover effect from
the spell Dariel had cast before. Rather than a magical construct, it
had become a natural even instigated by magic. Maybe it was because
of that, but the dragon never seemed to truly be hurt by Lilith’s
powerful attacks.

Once it failed to crush
her with its weight, the giant creature aimed its mouth at her,
firing a blue beam of energy.
Wasn’t its
breath weapon before green?
As I watched,
Lilith again avoided the attack of the dragon, and when the great
breath struck the sea beyond the island, it created a path of ice
that went into the distance.
Don’t tell
me it can use breath weapons of any natural element?

I was reminded of my own
Nature Magic bonuses, which gave me resistance to all elements, as
well as darkness and light. This dragon definitely had a much greater
version of that. No, if anything he either has total immunity or the
ability to absorb such effects.

“
It’s okay,
Jin. Mom won’t lose so easily..” An unexpected voice
spoke next to me, and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“
L-Levy? What are
you doing here?” Krath must have been shocked to have Lilith’s
daughter appear on the field as well.

“
I noticed that the
fighting had stopped, so I decided to come watch too.”

You’re watching
this through my eyes or something, aren’t you?

“
Yup!” Levy
let out a happy confirmation to my thoughts, and I shook my head.
You’re supposed to be the one bonded to
me. Isn’t this totally a one-sided connection?

With the dragon distracted
by Lilith, Halor appeared behind it, grabbing at its thorned tail and
pulling it back. Even for someone named the Strong, such a feat had
to be difficult, because the dragon did not allow itself to be
dragged far. When the dragon turned around to face him, it brought
back one of its claws and slashed across his chest, causing a deep
gash that sent him tumbling backwards.

Krath chuckled next to me,
able to see most of these events on his own, likely. “He may be
the Strong, but he’s not quite smart enough to use it. Looks
like the fight is up to the Queen now.”

Indeed, after receiving
such a wound, Halor vanished into a black light. “Will it be
alright by just herself? Didn’t Dremor said that she would need
him for this fight?”

“
Dremor’s plan
probably needed Halor until the forest was dealt with. Now, that
fellow’s healing should be slower, and Queen Lilith can stop
holding herself back.”

“
...This is still
her holding back?” I could clearly see the fight, so I thought
he must be joking. But sure enough, when Halor disappeared a cold
smile spread over Lilith’s face. Along her sword, a series of
runes began lighting up, and then it was like her sword absorbed all
light around her. Where Lilith had been before, her figure was now
distorted by a swirling darkness. “What are those weapons…”

“
Queen Lilith wields
the two treasures of Hell’s armory. The greatsword Voidshaper,
and the armor Nightmare Gauntlet.” Krath explained simply.

“
Okay..” I was
wondering what the hell that meant, but decided to leave it at that.

Sorry, I don’t
know either.

That’s right,
you’ve probably never seen Lilith fighting, have you?

Nope, but she’s
really strong, isn’t she?

While Levy and I exchanged
these silent remarks, Lilith had vanished again, creating a deep
black cut along the dragon’s neck. It seemed that when the
Voidshaper was released, it caused those kinds of wounds, and the
dragon wasn’t able to heal it as quickly.

Noticing its sudden
disadvantage, holes began opening up on the shoulders of the dragon,
vines and trees ripping apart to form two additional mouths.
That
is so cheating.
The creature lifted its head,
and all three mouths shot different breath weapons. Its right
shoulder launched a pure white light, the left launching a wave of
darkness. Finally, the main mouth shot a green beam like it had used
before against Halor.

Seeing the attacks coming
at her, Lilith simply remained hovering in the air, taking all three
breath weapons at once. Darkness and light collided, forming a
chaotic spiral that collided with her comparatively small form.
Meanwhile the green light came in from a different path, overlapping
the other two attacks.

When the dust settled and
the result could be seen, Lilith was still floating where she had
been. To defeat those attacks, she had simply raised the shield from
her gauntlet, and that had apparently been enough. After the green
light hit, she was covered in a mass of vines, but those were
immediately destroyed by a burst of hellfire.

Completely unharmed
after taking three breath weapons from the strongest dragon?
And people call me a cheat! Her level had to be nearly ten thousand
or something to have that kind of power.

Seeing the unfavorable
result of its massive attack, the dragon let out another roar, its
great wooden wings giving a downward swing that released a powerful
wind throughout the area. It was enough that it caused me to be
knocked back and wind up laying on the ground. Unfortunately, I had
no motor control while working the Walking Vision, so I just laid
there.

After the beat of its
wings, the dragon began flying upwards, seeming to be looking for an
escape. Lilith watched it impassively, before flying to action,
taking off after it. Her first strike severed the end of the dragon’s
tail, sending it crashing to the ground with a substantial impact.

Now that it wasn’t
on the ground anymore, I expected its healing ability to be
compromised, but rather it seemed to be accelerated from flying into
the storm. A bolt of lightning struck the creature, and suddenly its
tail was restored. This was the power of a nature dragon, a being
with dominion over all of nature.

But this was only a
fledgeling, whereas Lilith was a matured queen that had dominion of a
realm in her own right. Now that they were airborne, her hit and run
tactics became even more effective, swarming around the dragon like
an insect. Thanks to her insane speed, the dragon couldn’t
react fast enough to counterattack, and black cuts began appearing
all over its body as fast as the storm could heal it.

Breath weapons of fire,
ice, lightning and wind were fired off in random directions,
impacting the sea and the island and sailing into the sky. Lilith’s
battle experience became apparent as she easily avoided the multiple
assaults, taking no damage while inflicting some bit by bit.

Like had been done by the
vine beast when Denise struck it with a shadow arrow, the vines
composing the dragon’s body began to sag in the wake of the
repeated onslaught. Now and again, a few would fall to the ground,
causing the island to shudder under the impact. Still, the dragon
refused to surrender this battle, using whatever tactic it could to
get the upper hand.

The storm itself turned
into an enemy to Lilith, lightning striking down at her any time she
got close enough to land a hit on the dragon. The result both healed
the dragon and warded her off, but that only lasted for a few
moments. Afterwards, when the lightning struck she would absorb it
into the shield of her armor, and then rake her claws along the
dragon’s hide.

Four lines of hellfire
traced along those cuts and continued traveling along the beast’s
body until its rapid healing could negate the damage. So, her
gauntlet could absorb magical attacks and use them as fuel for
hellfire? That was quite a useful ability.

Once her victory seemed
assured, Lilith flew up above the body of the dragon, raising her
sword into the air. Grasping it with both hands for the first time,
twin spirals of hellfire launched up from the blade and rose far into
the sky. Likely fueling it with both her own magic and all of the
energy she had absorbed during the fight, she brought her sword down,
the fires cleanly cutting the dragon in two.

At first I expected it to
burst into flames and turn to ash, but instead as the dragon died its
body reverted to trees and vines which fell to the earth. It would
seem that Lilith had won the battle without taking any damage at all.
But really, she had used an insane amount of magic, right? If that
had turned into a war of attrition, the dragon might have been able
to win thanks to constantly absorbing the elements to replenish its
health and energy.

When the vines and trees
landed on the ground, they formed a large pile where the mountain
used to be, at about half its former size. Lilith, meanwhile, flew
straight down to where we were, her sword vanishing and black armor
reverting to the revealing outfit she typically wore.