In the meantime, the battle at the Red Palace was going on, and all the workers were aiding Principal Van Dyke in killing the Blirdoth, but they were having a hard time. This was because most of them were old and didn't have the strength to keep up with the monster. Working at the Red Palace was something, but fighting was completely different. They were still alive only because of the two with the barrier powers.
Principal Van Dyke was leading the attack, and he was acting as the primary damage dealer. He was the only one with enough power to damage the beast, but he was only one person and not powerful enough to kill the beast once and for all. The situation was dire, and the people there were on their last straws.
"Have all the students left the place?" Van Dyke asked.
"It does seem so," one of the workers replied. The man had an exhausted look on his face, he wasn't by any means strong enough to battle such a terrific beast, but he gave it all to protect the students and his colleagues.
This man, named Luke Yera, was the one with the barrier generating brain crystal power, and many knew him since he worked at the Yellow Palace cafeteria. He was very liked by the students due to his cheerful personality and gentle character, and sometimes he gave some snacks to the students for free.
However, there was not an ounce of his old demeanor at this moment since he became a living shield when he was in a fight—only focusing on helping his allies.
The Blirdoth dashed, leaving behind him a trail of poisonous mist that threatened to kill anyone unlucky enough to step inside of it.
The beast had to pay close attention to Van Dyke, the Red Palace's principal, as he was the most significant threat of them all. The Blirdoth, though, was not scared by the man, given that its fur was resistant to withstand the low temperatures unleashed by him, and his strength and miasma could destroy any ice he created. However, the thaid did not expect him to be that strong, and he was having tons of problems fighting against him and the others.
Though the creature was smart, as the Heniate controlled it, and it immediately understood that Van Dyke's last attack was one-time use only, the beast could feel that the man's mana reserves were starting almost to deplete.
Principal Van Dyke, seeing the Blirdoth's dash aimed at him, propelled himself, with his incredible strength, onto its left side. With a swift motion, he avoided the creature's attack while, at the same time, swinging his sword to its side. The creature then spun on himself, stopping by burying his hind legs' claws inside the ground.
Van Dyke noticed this, but he could not perform the same inhuman feats the beast did and was helpless in front of that situation. The Blirdoth had the man under it, and with a swift motion, it swung his front paws at the man, hitting him with great force and sending him crashing against a tree that broke under the pressure of the impact.
The man did not die, as Yera protected him at the last moment. But the shield had only been enough to save the man's life; it didn't shield him from the impact against the tree, and he fell unconscious. That wasn't all; as the man landed on the ground, the Blirdoth started looking at him.
The creature had a strange look on its face; people who saw it could swear that it had a smug smile. The thaid started calmly walking toward the unconscious man, unfazed by the weak attacks the other workers were unleashing on it.
When the beast was a couple of meters from the man, ready to claw him to death, it felt a stinging pain on its back.
The beast turned, and what it saw was the figure of a red-haired woman sporting a massive grin on her face.
"Today it's a big game," the fierce Lioness was magnificent in her pose; she had her arm crossed, her sword on her left, and looked at her prey with an amused smile.
She saw what the beast was capable of, but it was clear from her confident look that she didn't think much about it; after all, who was she? She was the damn strongest mercenary of Etrium's nation and had a crazy power: she could turn into a dragon.
Once she transformed, she was unstoppable; not only were her size, strength, speed, and sensitivity to mana increased by her brain crystal power, but she was also able to breathe fire. She could also transform partially, maintaining her human appearance to a degree. To many, that didn't look like a strong power; however, the sheer increase in physical stats, coupled with the crazy amount she already had, made them worse than a thaid—a living nightmare.
All of this meant that she was versatile in ranged attacks. As much as she was in close quarters, there was virtually nothing that she could not hunt.
The fierce Lioness dashed toward the creature; she had to partially turn to fight the beast, so she transformed into her Dragonoid form. This significantly increased her strength and speed and allowed her to breathe fire, and since she was armed with a sword, she instantly became a death-dispensing machine.
The beast, sensing the impending danger, dived on its left; it was not fast enough, though, as the fierce Lioness directly chopped its legs off.
The beast screamed in pain, and blood gushed outside the wound. The woman was carefully avoiding any remnants of blood, as she had been previously briefed about the fact that these creatures contained a sort of parasite inside them.
She didn't want to take any risks, and for this reason, she avoided the blood like the plague.
In the meantime, the Heniate roared in anger while watching the fight going on and trying to find a solution to save its avatar. The creature was having difficulties making the Blirdoth walk, but its pride kept it from running away. After all, the beast killed countless humans and subjugated an entire forest; what could this human female do to it?
The Blirdoth then released its poisonous miasma, but a vast fire coming out of the Fierce Lioness's throat burned it all away, setting the creature on fire. Yera placed a protective shield in front of the others to shield them from the flames, and it was at that moment the beast remembered there were at least another ten humans alongside the fearsome female.
The fierce Lioness looked amusingly at the creature; she was already tired of this disappointing encounter. She hoped the beast could entertain her but was greatly mistaken; she was too strong.
The mercenary leader then started to channel mana in crazy amounts. It was something the others had never seen before; not even the principal was able to wield so much mana. She prepared another fire breath as she wanted to destroy the creature and all the parasites it contained and avoid them affecting someone else.
Then the fire breath came out of her mouth, but it was much bigger than the one she had made earlier, which was still burning at the creature, and it was for sure deadlier.
Every person in that garden scrammed; they were scared shitless because of the attack that increased the surrounding temperature by at least 30 degrees and incinerated the surroundings.
Something of that caliber was enough to destroy not only the garden but possibly also the shelters. Luckily, they were far enough from them to leave them unaffected.
The fire traveled incredibly fast toward the crippled beast, who could do nothing to avoid it, having its hind legs cut off and already on fire.
The attack directly hit the thaid, which roared in pain, unable to do anything to stop the flames. Then the breath started burning the Blirdoth to ash, beginning from the fur and ending to the bones. Nothing remained of the beast once the mercenary was done with it.
As soon as the fierce Lioness saw that nothing but ash remained of the Blirdoth, she stopped the attack and relaxed.
"Phew… All done," she said with a huge smile on her face. "Now it's time to head to the main battlefield."
The fierce Lioness then, not caring about the incredulous looks of the others, went on a flying car with a single jump, ascending for more than thirty meters, and then went away.
"Tom!" a worker shouted. She immediately administered first aid to the poor principal, who was still unconscious. The woman was a healer, too old to join the battlefield but too young and with a lot of life in her to simply stay home rotting.
Needless to say, her mana was almost depleted, as she had to save dozens of students from dying due to their wounds and heal her colleagues while fighting the Blirdoth.
Fortunately for everyone, she was a very skilled healer and a seasoned doctor, so she only treated the life-threatening wounds to get the best results with the amount of mana she had available.
This essentially saved Van Dyke by a hairsbreadth; if she had been a little slower or had less mana, he would have died.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦