Chapter 263 - Bombs?
The dragon shifted its gaze immediately, shielding its eyes. It already anticipated that Lucy would come to it once more, but so what?
Any casual movement from it would nearly kill that human. On the other hand, no matter how hard that human struggled, the best it would do is crack a scale or two.
Who even cared?
Lucy did. She moved forward as the Azure Dragon predicted, closing the distance in three seconds and throwing herself under the dragon's jaw with both her daggers ready. She found the spot she had been looking for, a single scale that was lighter than the others, almost blue-white instead of blue-green.
She drove both daggers into the edges of the scale and pulled.
"Nghhh…" Groans left her mouth as she put her entire body into pulling. The scale was holding firm.
She refused to let it go like this. She pulled harder, even as her arms strained, and the strings on her rings cut into her fingers.
Crack.
The scale partially broke, just enough that she could see the softer flesh beneath.
"ROAAAR!" The dragon felt it and immediately snapped its head back around as its roar shook the air. Its claw came up to tear her away, forcing Lucy to let go of her two daggers and throw herself backward. The claw missed her chest by inches, and she hit the ground hard, rolling to her feet.
The dragon glared down at her with something new in its eyes.
Fine, then. If this pest wanted to be killed so badly, then it would gladly obl-
Step.
What was that. Why did it feel something on its head? Why did it-
"Hey." Lena spoke soothingly from the Azure Dragons head. "I really must apologize. I'm sorry."
Azure Dragon: ???
It was so tempted to immediately summon a tornado upon itself and rip the human to pieces. But…
But it wasn't like this human could really harm it, could it? What had she done? A few weak attacks towards its eyes that it had easily dodged?
Lena continued. "Mn, see, I was ignorant, and tricked into fighting against you. I know that isn't a proper apology, but it's my reasoning. However, I would be completely unreasonable to think that just with a few words, I can make up for my offense against you."
The Azure Dragon was listening intently. It… didn't really know what she was on about. Wasn't she an enemy? She was turning traitor? Well, it wasn't unhappy about that. It was just…
It felt her moving up there, doing who knows what. It had the strong urge to just throw her off, but her words…
It wanted to listen to what she had to say.
"Therefore…" Lena explained. "I was thinking I could earn your forgiveness. We can start with that girl down there. She deserves to die for stabbing you, doesn't she? I can take care of her. And the thing is, what you really gotta know about her is…"
Lena looked down at what she had set up.
On top of the dragon's head, on top of the skull, Lucy had broken a scale. The head was a weak point, and breaking a scale added an excellent spot for a blast.
Yes, a blast.
Lucy smiled down at the explosive device she had just set up on top of the dragon.
"The truth is," Lena smiled. "Is that it's her fault this happened."
Lena instantly teleported away back onto the ground.
?
The Azure Dragon was baffled, but-
BOOM!
The explosion ripped across the Azure Dragon's skull in a burst of fire and force. Smoke billowed outward as the dragon's head snapped forward from the impact. For a moment it simply hung there, suspended, and then… blood started to copiously pour out.
It poured from the top of its head in a thick stream, moving down down between its eyes, running along the curve of its snout, then dripping from its jaw in heavy drops that splattered against the dirt.
The scales across the crown of its skull were gone. A raw mess of torn flesh and shattered scale fragments sat exposed, and the blood kept coming, matting the dragon's mane and staining the scales a deep dark red.
"ROAAR!" The Azure Dragon let out a pained scream. An agonized one.
It was not just aggressive like before, now carrying suffering. The clouds churned and darkened. Lightning struck the ground in three places at once, leaving scorched craters in the dirt. The wind picked up, howling across the plain, and the mist that had been trailing from the dragon's body thickened into a dense fog that rolled outward in all directions.
Lucy stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the wound. She hadn't remotely expected that.
When Lena started moving, teleporting onto the dragon, she merely thought that she might as well act like a distraction while Lena was doing whatever. She never expected Lena to…
What was this, even? She barely had words. That was more than she had dared to hope for. A gap that size, bleeding that freely, meant the scales there were gone and would not be coming back. That was a clear weak point.
Her eyes darted to Lena, who gave her a smile. "Good luck!" With that, she began to consecutively teleport away, directly leaving the battle up to Lucy.
"You-"
Lucy didn't have time to finish the thought. The Azure Dragon's head snapped toward her with a speed that had not been there before, with furious eyes. They burned with a focused, absolute rage that locked onto her and her alone.
The dragon lunged.
Lucy threw herself sideways. The dragon's jaws closed on the space she had occupied and kept going, the beast's momentum carrying it forward as it twisted midair to track her. No longer was it holding back for any reason.
It wanted to kill this damn human.
She threw a star behind her and pulled, yanking herself further left. The dragon's tail came around and she had to pull again, changing direction mid-flight, the strings on her rings screaming as she forced her body through a turn sharp enough to wrench her shoulders. The tail passed close enough to tear a strip from her sleeve.
She landed and ran at an angle, forcing it to turn with her. The dragon's head tracked her movement and its chest expanded. Mist poured from its mouth in a jet as a pressurized stream of poison rushed towards her.
Lucy could only close her eyes, stop her breathing, and pull on two forgotten strings. The two daggers left behind on the reverse scale, launching herself into the air. The mist passed beneath her and she felt the cold of it. She threw another star at an angle which hit the dragon's side, and thus she pulled, to redirect herself toward the dragon's flank.
The dragon's tail quickly snapped at impossible speeds towards her, making her eyes widen. No! She wasn't familiar with eastern dragons, and now she had no time to dodge. She crossed her arms in front of her face and let the impact take her.
The blow sent her tumbling through the air, her HP dropping by over half in a single hit. Through the pain, she took out a potion mid-air and started chugging even as her vision blurred.
However, she barely had time to drink as she snapped her vision back into focus just in time to see the dragon's tail coming down from above. She threw a star at the ground, embedding it into the dirt, and pulled herself down hard, as she immediately rolled to the side, just in time to avoid the tail that hit the ground behind her with a crack that split the earth.
She immediately hopped up, even as her body was screaming at her now. Her arms ached from the constant pulling, her shoulders felt like they were grinding in their sockets, and her HP was low enough that another direct hit would end her.
She felt so alive.
This was it! This was the rush she wanted! The adrenaline of combat!
"DRAGON!" She screamed out, her gaze directly on its eyes.
The Azure Dragon rushed. She smirked. "I WILL KILL YOU!"
Though the dragon came to her, the wound on its head was still flowing, still dripping into its eyes, and every time it blinked, every time it shook its head to clear the blood, there was a fraction of a second where it could not see her.
She had been watching for that. She had been counting on it.
Lucy waited until the last possible moment, watching the blood run down into its left eye, watching the eyelid flicker, and then she moved directly towards it.
She dove under the snapping jaws even as she felt death rush above her, and came up directly beneath the dragon's throat.
The two daggers she had left embedded there earlier were still in place. She grabbed one by the hilt and pulled herself up, using it as an anchor. Her other hand went to her blades, picking one and dipping it in her bag…