Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

Chapter 318: Advancing and Rats

Violet’s eyes lit up at the system notification, glad to have a distraction from the troubling scenes that she had just witnessed In that dome of shattered time.

[You have defeated Temporal Horned Rhino lvl 144 exp rewarded]

[You have leveled up]

[You have leveled up]

[You have leveled up]

Violet was pleasantly surprised at advancing 3 whole levels just from that singular fight, true she felt that she was at the cusp of leveling up before the battle, still she was not expecting 3 levels from that. Not that she would complain of course.

She also took note of the several skill level up that she received, taking a moment to just observer her current status.

Saddly she was brought back to the present when she heard Luna’s voice reach out to her through their bond.

"Alright the fight is just about done with the little ones, you all done on your end?"

Violet blinked, then turned around to look back in the direction that the dragons and refugees should be and noticed the trail of large footsteps that the herd of rhinos had left as they charged towards her group after she had engaged the time rhino.

"Yeah all done here, was a fun fight! It was a time rhino! Really weird but also pretty fun! Bit of a disturbing end though. How did yours go?"

Their was a palpable pause before Luna responded stiffly. "Did you just say ’time rhino’? What does that even mean?"

"Exactly what I said, it was a giant 3 horned rhino that used time magics. Was really annoying when it would just rewind time on itself to undo some of my attacks." Violet huffed in remembered annoyance.

Again, their was a prolonged pause, during which Violet could practically feel the utter confusion coming from her companion at the concept of a rhino controlling time.

"How is that even possible!?" Luna finally stated in incomprehension.

Violet tilted her head at Luna’s words, then replied. "But you have a skill that lets you freeze time. Why couldn’t someone else be able to do something similar?"

At that their was yet another prolonged pause during which Luna seemed to realise that to be a fair argument. Violet snickered to herself over her companions reaction, transmitting her humor to Luna.

Then Violet began moving back in the direction of everyone else.

Upon arriving she bore witness to the aftermath of what seemed to be quite the intense battlefield. Almost 30 rhinos lay dead on the ground, each one almost matching Luna in size so absolutely dwarfing both the dragons and especially the refugees.

Yet other than a scattering of light wounds the entire group seems to be in high spirits over their successful battle. Violet did wonder where the subordinates of the monkey that Luna fought where and asked her about it.

"Hey Luna, how come no monkeys joined olin on the fight here?"

Luna smirked at Violet as she replied. "Well unlike some I am able to handle more than a single opponent at a time, so I dealt with them all whilst taking out the boss."

"So you denied the young ones more experience. Hmm I see, I see."

That remark caused Luna to falter slightly, then she turned and squinted at Violet in suspicion. "Umm hmm, sure thing. Your totally not jealous that I got to kill all of the monkeys are you?"

Hearing that Violet turned her head away from Luna and instead of replying spoke to the group as a whole.

"Alright everyone, no time for rest, we need to get a move on. Harvest what you can and we will be leaving in the next 5 minutes. Good job to everyone!"

"Hey! Don’t ignore me! Admit you wished to be able to fight them!" Luna complained.

Instead of answering Violet simply focused on some of the rhino corpses and went over to one of the least mutilated bodies and took an experimental bite.

"Hmm they taste quite nice. Wonder what seasonings would work best with it?"

"Hey!" Complained Luna.

Yet violet continued to ignore her as she busied herself with ’work’.

**

A few minutes later the group was ready to move on, with a slightly pouting Luna leading the way forwards as Violet shamelessly walked just behind her.

During all of this time Violet had been paying attention to the presences that even now lingered around. They were no longer as domineering as they had been when the group first arrived in the forest, yet they were still present.

Acting as a silent deterrent to try and pressure the two new beast lords from delving into their own territory.

Unsurprising really as these local beast lords had likely been competing for teritory and food for a long time. When suddenly two interlopers arrived and utterly slaughtered the two lords that chose aggression right away.

The remaining tier 4 beasts seemed more willing to adopt a wait and see approach. Not willing to engage with a clearly powerful foe unless it was needed.

Violet was happy to take advantage of that fact to allow for her group to advance deeper into the woods without being bothered.

They did end up having to move through one of the lords teritory though as it was directly in their path forwards.

It did not take long before they seemed to have passed some invisible boundary that separated this lords teritory from the rest of the forest.

This Lord turned out to be a swarm of giant rats, with the tier 4 Lord being a rat of truly massive proportions. Its body was almost 5 meters long with a spiky segmented tail extending out behind it.

Whilst that particular Lord was on the weaker side, it more than made up for that fact with the sheer number of rats under its command.

Violet and her group were swarmed by a veritable tide of giant rats. They numbered in the hundreds, most of them being in tier 2, yet quite a sizable number of them had reached tier 3.

So the younger dragons and refugees found themselves assaulted by close to a hundred tier 3 rats and several times that of tier 1 and 2 rats.

Seeing the encroaching tide of beasts Violet and Luna took a proverbial step backwards to allow the young ones to try battle it out.

The young fought valiantly.

After their experience at the fort they had begun to understand the value of working timogether. As such the 15 dragons and half a dozen combat capable former slaves worked hand in claw to defend against the wave of foes.

The rats seemed to lack any kind of magics, some had rudimentary affinities to basic elements like fire and earth. Yet they only seemed able to emit the weakest of flames or a small pebble being flung.

As such it was not their magics that posed the problem but their sheer number.

As such those in Violet’s group capable of battling at range unleashed everything that they had.

Acid rained down before the rats, when they ran into the falling acid their flesh burnt and muscles melted.

Powerful fireballs exploded in the hoard, sending charred bodies flying. Blades of wind cut through several rats all at once, only for the spells to run out of energy after cutting through half a dozen rats.

More magics were cast, from Earth, lightning, nature and more. The wide array of spells devastated the initial charge of rats, yet they were no stranger to sacrificing lives for victory.

As rats they naturally reproduced rapidly, allowing the Lord to simply win by throwing lives into the problem.

Whilst doubtlessly effective against lesser beasts and unprepared humanoids. Using wave tactics against Violet’s group.

They continued to unleash devestating attacks. Meanwhile the front liners amongst them moved to the front and braced for the inevitable collision of their two forces. Noel acting as the forfront defender.

Her stone encrusted scales rippling as she tensed her muscles in preparation.

Then the two lines collided.

Screams and roars erupted as dozens of rats died near instantly under the powerful attacks of the dragons. Even the refugees stood strong, they wielded weapons gifted to them by Violet, who in turn had... ’appropriated’ them from the dragon farm back in Sonantis.

As such those fighters amongst their number now wielded swords and shields. They clashed with the giant rats with ferocity formed from a desperate desire to survive.

Still even with the tide of beasts Violet, Luna and Andrea stayed back. They tried to not intervene too much, only making a move when one of their wards was in true danger.

Although Violet and Luna eventually told Andrea to fly up and search out the beast lord and defeat them.

Both companions had understood that this Lord would not be any kind of challenge to then, as such it would provide so little experience that it was not truly worth them killing it unless it was necessary.

As such they allowed Andrea to claim that kill.

And before long the emerald dragons had eliminated the Beast Lord. Following the death of their master, the rat swarm began to falter before entirely collapsing.

Any semblance of coordination and tactics vanished, half the rats simply fled away deeper into the forest. The other half however continued to run blindly into the line of dragons and beastkin to find their death.

A death gladly provided by the group.

Eventually the last of the rats had either died or fled, the area was littered in hundreds upon hundreds of dead rats. This time they did not linger as no one was enthusiastic about remaining on such a blood soaked battlefield.