The golden dragon that had been tearing across the gorge changed direction with flowing grace and attempted a steep dive. Seeing him drop like he was diving straight into bare ground, I rose without realizing it.
But in the blink of an eye, Varen shot straight up again. In the meantime, his claws were gripping a boulder nearly the size of his own body.
It seemed heavy even for Varen—his flight speed dropped compared to a moment ago—but he was still flying faster than any other dragon.
“Uh—uhhh! Dravergh, Dravergh is coming!!”
The terrified humans’ urgent screams reached my ears. When I narrowed my eyes and focused on sight, the concealment magic that had already been wavering started lurching even more violently.
In that gap, Varen arrived above the spot I’d pointed out. He circled once through the air, measuring the timing.
“Fire first! Fire everything!!”
Along with panicked shrieks, I heard the hurried sounds of them manipulating the weapons’ positions. But the crossbows couldn’t even graze a single hair on Varen.
“Damn it, we can’t shoot straight overhead! Lure him closer!”
“Aaaah! It’s too late—run!!!”
Crossbows could only fire at a slanted angle. They couldn’t shoot vertically like rockets.
I looked at Varen with a satisfied smile. I’d thought he was just doing reckless acrobatics and dodging—but he’d actually found the weakness in their weapons. What kind of dragon was smart enough to do that?
“Varen!! Now!!!”
In time with my shout, Varen dropped the boulder he’d been holding. With the centrifugal force from his wide spin added on, something the size of a house slammed down over the humans’ heads.
Boom—KRAKAKAKABOOM!!
It was an explosion on a completely different level from the crossbows detonating. A massive rock had fallen onto the sheer cliff top, and the entire area began to collapse.
Dozens who were already pinned under it died on the spot without even a chance to run. The humans who barely avoided the initial impact fell off the cliff along with the crumbling ground.
Human screams echoed through the Belzena Mountain Range as if they would tear it apart.
“Gaaah—guhk!”
“Get out!! Run!!!”
The first counterattack by dragons—who until now had only been able to avoid the army’s strikes—had succeeded.
But there was no time to celebrate. I hunched down, clapping my hands over my ears at the sudden noise.
In an instant, my vision washed pure white, and cold sweat broke out.
“Cough—help, help me....”
“Ghk, I don’t... want to die, cough... uh....”
The wails—Help me, I don’t want to die—hammered sharply into my head.
With my head bowed, I could feel death through sound alone. My whole body trembled like a leaf.
Every time I blinked, unfamiliar scenes flickered across the dry dirt in front of me—like still shots from a horror film.
A pitch-black space with not a speck of light. A stone floor soaked dark red with blood. Limp corpses strewn across it.
And my palms stained with blood.
...Huh?
"It hurts... it hurts, it hurts...."
"Kill me... please kill me...."
Thin voices that kept breaking off made my head swim.
They were scenes I’d never seen and voices I’d never heard—not in my previous world, and not in this one.
So why did it feel familiar? It was [N O V E L I G H T] something I definitely didn’t know—so why did it feel like I did?
I grabbed at my head with both hands as if I could tear it apart. Then I forced myself to focus harder on the images that flashed and vanished like lightning in front of my eyes.
Those blood-soaked hands were definitely Ceryl’s. And the corpse collapsed at my feet...
Who the hell was it? The clumps of fur scattered everywhere were clearly—
“Ceryl! Ceryl, wake up!”
Then Kallen shook my body hard, snapping me back.
I jolted upright, drenched in sweat, after seeing something enormous in the span of an instant. It felt like I’d clawed my way out of an eternal, vicious nightmare.
Panting, I forced my eyes to focus and saw a young face soaked with worry.
“Ha... Ka, Kallen... just now....”
“This place is dangerous! You have to get inside!!”
I wiped away the cold sweat pouring down. Even so, goosebumps rose along my damp palms.
When I spread both hands and looked down, of course there was no trace of blood. And yet the afterimage I’d just seen was vivid.
What had it been? The past? Or the future? Or was it a hallucination I’d created?
I couldn’t pull myself free of the afterimage for a long time, unable to gather my senses. Then this time, Varen’s voice called me.
"Ceryl!!!"
At Varen’s urgent voice, my body sprang up automatically.
I whirled around and checked the spot where he’d thrown the boulder.
Most of them were pinned beneath the massive rock, not even a trace visible. The rest had been swallowed by the blast and fallen off the cliff, and the few soldiers who survived stared up at the sky, trembling.
What had only looked like wavering afterimages now came into sharp focus.
The concealment magic had finally shattered as the mages died.
I clenched my teeth and yelled.
“Varen! Burn them all!!”
“KRAAAAAH!!!”
The golden dragon spewed lava that churned redder than ever. The humans—only a handful left—turned to ash where they stood.
After wiping out half the army in one stroke, Varen crossed the open sky with visibly more ease.
And I shook my head hard, throwing off the afterimage I’d seen earlier. I had to focus now.
The intermittent booms of explosions still told me the war was in full swing.
Varen flew back toward me again. But when crossbows positioned just below the cavern entrance targeted him at the same time, he quickly changed direction and shot up into the sky.
"Damn it. So that’s where you were hiding."
Varen complained as if irritated.
Even Dravergh—who had been rampaging across the battlefield without restraint—couldn’t attack easily, only circling around and beating his wings.
I pressed my body flat against the dirt and poked my head out of the cavern. Then I narrowed my eyes, gauging the force hiding below.
“Ceryl, what are you doing?”
Damn. I’d been so focused on the humans in the distance that only now did I realize Kallen was flattened beside me, too.
“Why did you follow me? Get out of here. Evacuate—don’t stay somewhere dangerous.”
“You’re not evacuating either. You’re staying somewhere dangerous.”
“Are you and I the same? I’m an adult, and you’re still—”
“In two months, I’ll be an adult too. Stop treating me like a kid.”
Her stubborn backtalk left me with nothing to say.
Instead of snapping at her, I just shot her a sharp look—and her round orange eyes turned triangular as she glared right back.
In the taut contest of wills, the two monsters wriggling under my clothes popped their heads out.
“Hiiing....”
“Miyaaa....”
A pure little duet rang out softly, like they were trying to stop the humans from fighting.
In the end, I clicked my tongue and backed off first. Letting out a long sigh, I lowered my gaze.
“There’s an army down there too. They’re stopping Varen from approaching.”
“Then can’t he pick up a rock and throw it like earlier?”
At her bright question, I looked at Varen with a hardened expression.
“It’s too close here. If he throws a rock, it’ll become dangerous all the way up here.”
“Ah....”
Kallen lifted her upper body slightly and looked around inside.
It was a problem that Kallen and I were at the entrance—but inside, our wounded kin were being treated.
Even if their lives weren’t in immediate danger, they were all critical patients who needed absolute rest. We couldn’t move them and evacuate them right now.
What should we do? If he breathed fire or threw rocks, the dragons here would be put at risk. If we left it alone, Varen could get poisoned.
The only small mercy was that the number hiding below was few.
“Varen, for now, let’s deal with the ones over there first. There are more than fifty humans hiding there too.”
"Where are they."
“Over there! See that tree growing out of the middle of the cliff?”
Varen stared at where I pointed.
Two dead, dry trees that had forced their way out of the cliff face were shaking hard.
"Found them. I’ll kill them all and come back."
The moment he finished speaking, the golden dragon shot off at speed.
After confirming Varen had disappeared completely from view, I checked the army below again. Roughly twenty meters away—only seven people.
How could I kill them in a safe way?
If I had a long-range attack like what Varen had done—something that could hit only the target without affecting the surroundings...
Like a gun.
“...Miya, come here.”
“Miyaang.”
Miya immediately slid down, coiling around my right arm, then lifted her head slightly near my wrist.
Her powerless peach-colored eyes and the little angled line of her mouth looked innocent as always.
But I’d seen it clearly last time—what kind of destructive power this dull-looking monster actually had.
“Here... was it around here?”
“Miy—?”
“Yeah, turn your head. Don’t look at me—look over there.”
I aimed Miya’s head at the empty wall.
And just like Varen had done, I ran my fingertips down the white snake’s body. I stopped around the middle of her long torso and started rubbing hard.
“Mmm... mmmh....”
“That’s it. Good girl. Spit! Try it—ptoo.”
“Mmh... MIYAAK!!!”
With a sharp cry, Miya’s mouth split open wide.
At the same time—bang!—a coin-sized hole blew through the wall Miya had been facing.
