Chapter 129: Wrath of a Dragon
I clung to Fyren’s arm, struggling to find balance amidst the violent tremors that threatened to knock me off my feet. The entire cavern quaked as if in protest, large chunks of rock plummeting amid a cloud of dust, obscuring the air.
Suppressing a cough, I swiftly summoned a Wind Wall to shield us from the debris. No sooner had the air begun to clear than the pillar of light dissipated, returning the cave to its distant, blue-tinged illumination.
"Impossible!" Soltair gasped, voicing the astonishment we all felt.
A shimmering, transparent dome of ice and snow surrounded the Dragon, encompassing several of the demonkin nearest it. The shield itself had barely withstood the attack. Long, slender cracks spiderwebbed across the entire dome, warping our vision of the inside.
The leader of the cultists, who had been closest to the dragon, gawked in disbelief at the enormous crater surrounding them. Most of the cult had vanished, evaporated like dew before the morning sun, leaving only him and five others alive. They weren’t the most powerful or influential, just the fortunate ones within the dragon’s protective barrier.
"Quick, before it recovers!" Fyren shouted.
Fire surged around his sword as he charged forward, coalescing upon the tip in a concentrated point. His figure blurred, moving quicker than I could track, and he appeared before the shield. With a grunt, he buried the blade deep, his magical technique erupting moments later, blasting a hole through the ice.
Trithe followed suit, her mana coalescing into a sphere between her swords. As Fyren withdrew, revealing the gaping hole, she thrust her weapons through, then rolled clear. The dragon’s roar reverberated through the cavern as the fires detonated, filling the interior with a tempest of flame. Within seconds, the ice began to melt, losing its integrity until it finally collapsed, shattering inward in a hail of deadly shards.
Watching the shield disintegrate after withstanding seventh-circle magic emphasized the enormous advantage our party’s attributes held over the dragon. Although it had been damaged, I knew from experience that any shield capable of tanking such power wouldn’t break to anything less. Protection magic required magic to reach a certain threshold to even damage it, meaning a fourth-circle spell could survive almost any number of first and second. Trithe’s and Fyren’s attacks had been at fifth-level, at most, yet at done as much as Soltair’s.