Chapter 160

Seeing that Vasileios had managed to deal with the Gun Libellula’s, Draco felt somewhat satisfied with the outcome.

Curious about how the others were faring, he sent out a pulse of energy through the area to observe them.

To his surprise, they were all doing quite well and holding their own against the monsters.

‘Seems like I still subconsciously underestimate them. Perhaps I should increase the difficulty soon,’ Draco thought but quickly dismissed the idea.

Although they were performing well now, they hadn’t yet experienced the true terror of the tree labyrinth—the sheer number of monsters.

‘At this rate, a week should be enough for them to adjust before I turn up the intensity,’ Draco considered.

Once he was confident that his familia could handle the 19th through 23rd floors, he planned to either hunt the Goliath or a green dragon for his own level-up.

He wasn’t in a rush, as he was already at the threshold for levelling up; it was better to focus on increasing the level of his familia to boost their survivability.

“Uhm, Draco nii, a little help!” Vasileios yelled from below, where Draco was lazily perched on a tree in the distance.

While Draco had been lost in his thoughts, Vasileios had been ambushed by several Lizardmen and was currently overwhelmed.

Draco glanced at Vasileios but chose to ignore him.

He had sensed the approaching Lizardmen when he sent out his earlier pulse but decided not to inform Vasileios, judging that the number of Lizardmen wasn’t too much for him to handle alone.

Vasileios could normally manage the monsters just fine, but he wasn’t used to being flanked.

Typically, he had another familia member covering his back while he focused on frontal attacks with his shield.

Left to fend for himself, he had to keep track of everything by himself.

‘Hmm, what’s that?’ Draco thought, his senses picking up something with traces of fire elemental energy above him.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ he wondered.

With that, he sprouted his draconic wings and flew upwards.

‘Where is he going? Why isn’t he helping me?’ Vasileios wondered as he brandished his short sword, taking down another Lizardman.

As Draco flew closer to the source, he discovered a rather cute bird-like creature, around a meter in size.

The creature seemed to subtly glow like a sunset, its feathers a wild mix of orange, red, and gold, flickering like flames.

Its beady eyes sparkled with mischief, and its short, curved beak resembled a slice of ivory.

The talons were curved and sharp.

When Draco reached a certain distance from it, the bird immediately became wary, engulfing itself in flames, ready to attack.

This was a monster known as the fire bird, a very rare bird-type monster that spawned on the 19th floor, specializing in long-range fire attacks.

Fwoosh!

The fire bird released a stream of fire as soon as Draco entered its range, but he simply conjured a stream of water to counter it.

The two attacks met in the air, creating a burst of steam.

‘Oh, it’s stronger than I thought,’ Draco observed, gradually increasing the potency of his attack while closing the distance.

There were easier ways to quickly end the battle, but Draco chose to stick with the current method because it was amusing.

Watching over his familia all day as they struggled below was a rather boring task, after all.

It didn’t take long for Draco to overwhelm the fire bird, dousing its body in water until its feathers shrunk from being soaked.

The fire bird struggled to reignite its flames, finding it harder to fly while wet, but Draco suppressed it with water until it completely ran out of magic energy.

Without energy, the fire bird followed its instincts, flying to attack Draco with its claws and beak.

However, melee combat wasn’t its forte, and it soon found itself captured in Draco’s claw.

Flapping its wings and flailing, the fire bird chirped, but no matter what it did, it couldn’t escape.

Eventually, it ran out of stamina and became docile, its chest heaving as it struggled to breathe, eyes reflecting its readiness to accept death.

‘Finally given up, huh?’ Draco thought. Initially, he was going to ignore the fire bird, but then he wondered if it was possible to tame it.

He sensed a minuscule amount of fire elemental energy from it, leading him to consider that his passive skill, blessed by the elements, might affect it.

Having captured the bird, Draco returned to his previous position, settling comfortably on a tree branch.

Now fully settled, he began experimenting with the fire bird.

First, he created a small ball of flame with his elemental energy on his finger, observing if the fire bird would react.

Interestingly, the fire bird attacked the flame with its beak, the only movable part of its body held by Draco.

Other than poking at the flame with its beak, it showed no other reaction.

Next, he tried the water element, which caused the fire bird to instinctively retreat.

There was no reaction to the wind and earth elements.

Draco pondered for a moment and decided to try something different.

He channeled a mix of fire and wind elemental energy into his hand, creating a swirling ball of fire that moved in a hypnotic spiral.

Mixing his current elements had become easy after his transformation.

The fire bird's eyes widened, fixated on the mesmerizing display.

Slowly, Draco brought the elemental mixture closer to the bird.

To his surprise, the creature didn’t flinch or try to attack.

Instead, it stretched its neck forward, almost eagerly, as if drawn to the energy. 'Interesting,' Draco thought, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He allowed a small amount of the elemental mixture to touch the fire bird's beak.

The effect was immediate; the fire bird attempted to spread its wings, which Draco allowed, still holding its talons firmly to prevent escape.

The bird's body ignited, its flames trying to match the motion of his own.

Draco was intrigued by its reaction, wondering why it responded this way. Meanwhile, below, Vasileios grunted as he deflected another Lizardman’s sword with his shield.

His arms were growing weary from the constant onslaught, but he refused to yield.

The young boy had already taken down several of the scaly beasts, their drop items scattered across the forest floor around him, but more kept coming.

“Draco nii!” he called out again, hoping his brother would finally come to his aid.

But Draco remained perched in the treetops, seemingly oblivious to Vasileios' plight.

Gritting his teeth, Vasileios steeled himself.

If Draco wasn’t going to help, he’d have to find a way out of this on his own.

He couldn't rely on others forever.

With renewed determination, Vasileios changed tactics.

Instead of staying on the defensive, he charged forward, bashing his shield into the nearest Lizardman.