Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 197: Breaking Character

By the time we appeared in the sky above the city, there was already a flurry of activity below. So many dragons had returned here that they were scrambling to make room for all of the respawns. I could even see the three furious grandmasters near the center of the city, along with the dragon king, who dipped his head shamefully off to the side.

Having recovered from her mana burnout, Diane stepped off my back, transforming into her draconic state and forming wings of shadows that held her aloft. “They haven’t noticed us yet,” she said calmly. “This is the perfect time to strike.”

I nodded my head in agreement, creating a platform for Bella to stand on beside me. She did so readily, pulling out her rifle and aiming it at the city below. It seemed like even dragons had the tendency not to look up. Or, maybe they were just too used to looking down on everyone else, both figuratively and literally.

In my mind, I mapped out the most critical targets for destruction. If we were to win the war, we would need to destroy the palace, along with at least two other critical facilities. The easiest targets to identify for this were the teleportation nexus and the bank.

A quick scan of the city was enough to locate these three structures, with the palace being a large, open building designed to resemble a coiled dragon. “Ready when you are. I’ll throw Diane’s shadow bomb first, and then Bella shoots to try to cancel the barrier. As soon as she shoots, we throw out our most powerful attacks.”

Diane agreed, generating runes in the air around her with intense focus as I fired the ball at the city below. I had no doubt that there would be a shield in place, even if we couldn’t see it. After all, Drake was supported by multiple grandmasters, and I had every reason to suspect that he had ties with the dungeon cities. Buying a city blueprint from them wouldn’t be a problem at all.

Sure enough, as the ball descended, a translucent barrier rose up to form a dome above the city. This was the first sign to those dragons inside that something was wrong, their heads turning upwards just in time for the ball to crash into the barrier.

I had no idea what runes Diane had packed into this thing. The fact that she didn’t make it in her draconic form indicated that she was worried that she wouldn’t have enough mana output if she did. So, it was no surprise when the ball erupted into a massive sphere of darkness, shrieking as if filled with countless vengeful souls.

Without waiting for further instruction, Bella took a deep breath, and fired a bullet directly at the point where the ball had struck. There was a sound like grass cracking mixed within the screams of the dark bomb.

None of us knew whether or not the barrier had been successfully pierced, but that didn’t matter. I was the first to attack next, using Shadow Forge, Shadow King, and Fire King together to create a swarm of spears in the air. These spears rained down upon the same region of the barrier, shattering on contact to release explosive bursts of flame.

At the same time, Diane released her own runic spell that she had been preparing. A dark sphere appeared in front of her, releasing a viscous stream of black liquid down towards the barrier below. I couldn’t tell exactly what effect it had, but it swallowed up any of the spheres that passed through the liquid.

By the time the dark sphere from the initial bomb had dissipated, explosions were ringing out across the barrier. I clicked my tongue in annoyance that we hadn’t completely broken through it, despite the three of us working together. There were visible cracks at the initial impact point, but they were gradually starting to recover.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Dryax roared, flying up through the barrier. He endured the rain of exploding spears, glaring as he reached our altitude. “We already surrendered! There is no need to continue this fight!”

“Wasn’t it your side that started this war?” I asked calmly. “Did you think that nobody would even consider retaliating? Or, is the fight over as soon as you say it is?”

“Don’t push this too far, whelp!” Dryax sneered. “You don’t have the power to take the empire, even if we let you attack for three days and nights. Go home, before I lose my patience!”

“Isn’t it the other way around?” Diane asked sharply, earning a glare from the dragon. “Out of the grandmasters supporting this nation, you’re the only one suitable to fight defensively. One drops meteors and the other spreads poison. Both of them would only damage your own defenses more than they would hurt us.”

“Don’t think that our empire has so few defenders, half-breed runt,” Dryax said with a fierce tone. “Just because this failure of a king can fight on our level, don’t delude yourself into thinking that you are the same.”

Diane’s lips spread into an absolutely feral grin at that. “Really? We could put that to the test if you’d like. Unlike you, we’re still able to grow stronger. So, why don’t we find out? Can I beat you now, or do I have to wait another week or two before you’re just another mob we’re grinding for experience?”

On my other side, Bella held her rifle over one shoulder. “There are too few dragon players. You might be scrambling for more traits to attract more players now, but with how weak your king is, your kingdom won’t be able to grow unless you can bring those players in. Unfortunately, you’ve initiated two wars in rapid succession, so most players won’t feel comfortable joining a nation like this. Because of your greed, you’ve closed yourself off from the very strength that you’ve been looking for.”

“Neither of you have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about!” Dryax shouted, sending a series of wind blades at the three of us. While I allowed the blades to strike at me, I quickly set up defensive barriers to protect both Diane and Bella. “You insignificant races can only pray for our mercy. If we truly mustered our might against your little kingdom, it would topple within the hour.”

Diane growled, disappearing briefly. When she appeared, her body had… changed. She had grown to more than five meters in length, with a fully draconic body. One clawed hand reached out from behind Dryax, clutching at his neck. “In that case, we’d best give ourselves a little more time to prepare.”

Dryax’s scales turned black around Diane’s clawed hand, spreading around his neck as he struggled within her grasp. Wind blades shot back against her, cutting into her own scales. Until, finally, the black scales formed a complete ring around his neck, at which point she squeezed tighter. The black scales dissolved, his body going limp and falling towards the city while Diane held his head in her claws.

“That should do for now,” Diane said, returning to her normal form. “It would probably be a good idea to accept their surrender now.”

Bella and I stared at Diane blankly, and she glanced off to the side, as if embarrassed. “What? Stop looking at me like that… Hurry up, before they rescind the surrender…”

I blinked, quickly bringing up the war menu to accept their surrender. After that, I brought both of them onto my back and teleported back to Fallcry.

Once we were safely above the city, I heard Bella questioning Diane. “What was that? I thought Drake was the only one that could go fully dragon?”

Diane cleared her throat. “My skill has been ready to evolve for a while now. I just held back because I wasn’t sure if I would still be able to fight in tight spaces after evolving it. I can’t be a ninja if I can’t fight indoors, right…?”

“But, hearing that guy talking like that, I couldn’t really take it. So, I used the chance to evolve Shadow Dragon Embodiment into Shadow Dragon Transformation.”

Bella blinked, looking at Diane curiously. “Well, can you downcast it to keep your half-dragon appearance, then?”

Diane pursed her lips, hopping off of my back to land on the ground. “Let’s find out…” she muttered, focusing. Shadows wrapped around her body, causing her to rapidly expand. Soon, she was back in her full draconic form.

After a moment, she let out a huff, returning to her halfling form with a faint pout. “It looks like I can’t. If I want to use my dragon form, I need to go full dragon. Well, I suppose that I could use your Transform skill, but that would just drain me even more before the fight.”

Returning to my own normal form and dismissing the Forest Titan skill, I shook my head. “Honestly, I think this is probably for the best,” I said, earning a look of confusion from both of them. “I mean, when you were fighting in your half-dragon form, you weren’t really acting like a ninja, were you? Just like I’m a ‘muscle mage’, you took on the role of a ‘shadow mage’.”

Diane’s eyes widened at this, her face going pale at the thought of forsaking her character concept. “I need to find more ninja skills, and quickly.”

Bella rolled her eyes with a light chuckle. “Can you still use Dark Intent and Shadow Lord without transforming?”

Diane hesitated, lifting a hand. A sphere of darkness formed, turning into a dagger after a moment. “It looks like it won’t be a problem, as long as I avoid using them for big effects. And, like Drake said, that’s more in the realm of a mage than a ninja. I need to focus on single-target attacks, stealth, and traps. I’ll leave the mage side of things to my Chosen.”

“Sounds like we need to go looking for new skills for Diane now?” I asked in an amused tone, and Bella lifted her hand.

“Actually, about that. While we were at the Sanctum, I was researching famous dungeons. The Continent of Ice, the Endless Spire, and so on. There was one chapter called Archetype Dungeons, which are supposedly dungeons that test a target for a particular skillset. The ones listed in the book I found were the Warrior, Cleric, Summoner, and Assassin Archetypes. I was hoping to find one that focused on firearms, but guns must still be too new for there to be a famous dungeon for them.”

Diane’s head snapped towards Bella, stepping forward and looking up at her with wide eyes. “What type of dungeon is the Assassin Archetype? Can you tell me? Please..?”

Bella recoiled a step back, completely shocked by this new type of transformation from Diane. “I-I’ll tell you,” she said hastily. “It’s a dungeon back in the prime world. We’ll need to fly a bit, since it’s on a different continent, though.”

“All of the Archetype dungeons only let one user in at a time. As for the Assassin one, it’s special in that the user’s skills and traits are disabled inside the dungeon, and their stats are reduced to baseline. Under these circumstances, you have to go through several trials, such as evading detection, tracking a target, and killing without being detected.” The more Bella explained, the more Diane seemed to vibrate where she stood. “Each type of trial has ten levels, and you can earn rewards for completing each level based on your performance, such as increased skill experience, new skills, or potentially even new traits.”

“According to the stories in the book I read, the ultimate reward for completing all of the trials is the Unseen Blade trait, which causes you to deal more damage the less people are aware of you.”

Diane quickly turned back to look at me, giving me those same pouty eyes. “Can we go there, Drake? I really want to try out this awesome dungeon!”

Seeing the normally quiet girl doing her best to act so adorably, I let out a laugh, shaking my head. “We’ll go soon. Right now, the war has just ended. We need to make a public appearance to round things off, and there will probably be a small celebration. First thing tomorrow, though, we’ll go looking for this dungeon.”

Diane gave another pout at the fact that we couldn’t leave immediately, but quickly brightened up at my promise to go the following day. “I’ll hold you to that.”