Chapter 161

161 Dragon hunt

He attacked before the skeletons could begin to fall, sending a blast of darkness in the back. The dragon zombie preferred to conjure them up and spit them out like a breath, but could still release them from any part of the body.

Treevor acted quickly, using earth magic to transform the piece of earth that teleported along with them into a floating platform, before all the skeletons kicked the platform to deflect the breath of darkness.

As the only one able to move in the air, Athos was naturally the first to attack. He did a somersault in the air and conjured an air platform while upside down, before kicking it and diving with his sword aimed at the dragon’s weak spot.

Athos even used lightning impulse with his body and mind, both abilities enhancing his speed. The distance between him and the dragon was just over 10 meters and Athos crossed it in a second, looking like a silver flash to everyone watching from the outside.

The dragon zombie on the other hand managed to react in time to the attack. He flexed his back muscles the moment Athos’ sword touched his back, the same movement he would make to flap his wings, making the bones of the wings almost touch and blocking Athos’ sword.

“Which?” Athos was shocked that the dragon zombie managed to block his attack that way. One of the dragon zombie’s wings was missing, but it looked like the bones inside were still in place.

Athos wasted no time and activated both of his sword’s enchantments, improving its sharpness and resistance while using a mana blade to increase his sword’s length, but nothing worked. His sword blade was only able to sink four inches into the flesh of the dragon zombie before coming to a stop.

Perhaps it was the dragon’s absurd physical strength, or perhaps Athos had flown too much mana to activate the enchantments, but cracks appeared across the sword’s surface.

Athos clucked his tongue in frustration before a shiver ran down his spine and he threw himself back on pure instinct, narrowly saving his life.

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The dragon zombie found the insect bite on its back irritating and conjured a sphere of darkness at close range.

The sphere pursued Athos, but the latter was incredibly fast thanks to the two lightning impulses, so he managed to avoid the attack.

Vanilla landed on the ground a little while later and rolled to soften the impact before jumping again on the dragon’s back. She precisely hit Athos’s sword with the flat of her axe, as if she were hammering a nail.

She even used the heavy strike skill, sending out a shock wave that pushed the blade even deeper. Vanilla wanted to hammer the sword again, but the dragon zombie managed to break the chains around her neck and tried to bite her.

Vanilla quickly reacted and tried to cut off the right side of the dragon’s head with her best skill, but the dragon simply bit down on the ax and shook its head, throwing Vanilla to the ground.

The impact was so strong that it broke several of her bones into pieces, despite the hardness of demihuman bones, but she refused to let go of her weapon.

With her only remaining arm, Vanilla thrust her ax as far as she could until the head of the ax touched the dragon’s throat and used the weapon break ability.

His ax shattered into pieces inside the dragon’s throat, turning its throat into a bloody mess. Unlike its hard bones or its powerful muscles, the throat meat was soft and would hardly resist enchanted wood.

The dragon zombie swung its neck again and threw Vanilla into the air, who this time couldn’t resist. He spat out a mouthful of blood before roaring in rage, his roar knocking down all nearby skeletons.

The racial ability of dragons roar influx, allowed dragons to charge their roars with mana and could destabilize skills or spell. The mana-charged sound would cause vibrations that would seep into the victims’ bodies and scatter the dragon’s mana, preventing the mana from exiting the core while also poisoning them with the foreign energy signature.

Against living beings, it prevented them from using abilities momentarily and caused them to lose control of whatever spell they were casting.

Against undead like the Black Skeletons, it cut off the flow of darkness that replaced all the lost parts of their bodies, leaving them helpless on the ground. Skeletons were currently unable to move or use any of their senses. Even his thoughts disappeared as there was no darkness to replace his brain.

The black chains that restrained the dragon zombie disappeared as the hive hawks fell to the ground one by one. The dragon zombie stood up in surprise at the effect of its roar. It was the first time he had roared since becoming undead and he had no idea what his body was capable of.

Like magic, dragon breath was a natural instinct for any dragon, but all other abilities would need to be discovered.

Despite your surprise. he didn’t think about it anymore as he went back to destroying the black skeletons, starting with the one that managed to hurt him.

Or at least he tried.

“I knew this plan would backfire!” Treevor screamed, hurling all of his vines at the zombie dragon’s head and preventing it from attacking Athos. Treevor was the only one able to move, as the dark amber energy coursing through the corrupted willow protected him from the effect of the roar influx.

Avatars were immune to roar influx as they had one energy body and there was no place for the dragon’s mana to infiltrate. The corrupted willow was also unaffected, as Treevor controlled it using soul rather than energy and could simply draw amber energy to clear the dragon’s mana.

The dragon zombie pulled its head in an attempt to free itself and Treevor did not resist, jumping at the same time to propel himself further, landing on the dragon zombie’s back. He grabbed Athos’s sword and yanked it out with brute force, before piercing the gaping wound with his own claw, but the dragon zombie flexed its wing bones again to block.

Unfortunately for the dragon zombie, Treevor was much stronger than Athos and his claws went through the dragon’s wings, only to be blocked by his spine. His claws were trapped between two vertebrae and no matter how hard he tried to move forward, the bones here were unnaturally hard.

‘How the hell is that a weakness??’ Treevor thought irritably, releasing his parasitic venom in a liquid form into the wound, to at least weaken it.

The dragon zombie was irritated by another creature jumping on its back and rolled over to try to get rid of the nuisance.

Treevor was unable to free himself in time and was almost crushed by the dragon, only the timely use of earth and water magic saved him. He turned the stone floor into a liquid slush and dove as he was pressed against the ground, falling into the sewers below.

Dragon zombie didn’t let him escape, releasing a breath of darkness where he felt Treevor was.

Treevor lifted the earth in a wave of black mud and sent it crashing into the dragon, blocking its breath even as it blocked its vision. The darkness was intangible, but the undead’s corrupted mana could touch it and the dragon’s spell could not destroy it immediately.

But your claws do. With a single sweep of its paw, the dragon tore through the wave of black mud and charged at Treevor.

“Try to cut it, lizard!” Treevor screamed as he shone like a second sun, all darkness around him disappearing. The black flower buds on its shoulders were absorbing the darkness around it, while its vines were curled in front of it in of body a spiral pattern, similar to the cannon of its former form.

What he needed now was raw power to break through the dragon’s defense, rather than multiple attacks.

Dragon zombie responded in kind, accumulating a large amount of world energy in its lungs. He didn’t wait for its lungs to be fully charged and moved the world energy to its throat, where a magical organ should have ignited the world energy with a spark of darkness, but nothing happened.

Vanilla had destroyed the magic organ along with much of her throat.

The world’s energy was fired without change, only to disperse into the air. The dragon zombie coughed a few times, spitting blood in its throat and Treevor took advantage of the gap to attack.

‘I have Vanilla to thank for that if it survives.’ Treevor thought, firing the cannon of darkness. Treevor even empowered the darkness with his own mana and dark amber energy, giving the laser an orange glow.

The amber darkness laser traveled in a straight line and hit the dragon zombie’s chest, who never thought to dodge the attack.

The zombie dragon was lifted dozens of meters, the scales and muscles on its chest rotting away as the black pillar ripped into its chest. The zombie dragon continued to be hurled through the air until it was outside the wall and the laser strayed too far from Treevor and began to scatter. The zombie dragon still flew for a few meters before gravity did its work and it began to fall, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Treevor dropped to his knees as soon as the darkness cannon ran out, the corrupted willow lethargic from the lack of darkness.