Chapter 301

When I got up from my cover and looked through one of the holes in the turret that Throgg had made, I saw that Throgg was already reforming her earth armor.

I grabbed my standard-issue spear and jumped the wall. As I hit the ground running at aura-empowered speeds, I could hear the keep’s commander shouting, “Get back here! Who is that soldier?”

With momentum building, I poured my aura into my throwing arm and hurled my spear at Throgg’s head, the speed and power of my throw creating a sonic boom, only to see the cheap, mass-produced spear shatter on Throgg’s uncovered hide.

Too bad I do not know, and have yet to figure out, how to keep my aura empowering something after it leaves contact with me. If I did, that mass-produced spear would have at least pierced Throgg’s hide. I have seen professional aura-capable archers shoot aura-clad arrows, so I know it is possible. When I asked them how they did it, they would just tell me it was a secret of their trade, and neither my status as a baron’s son nor promises of riches managed to loosen their lips about the secrets of such an aura technique.

But I don't need the flimsy spears when the knights dropped their enchanted lances all over the place. I run through the forest of jutting pillars, pick up two enchanted lances, one in each hand.

While I was picking up the lances, Throgg stomped her foot to send another wave of jutting pillars at me, but before they could reach me, I took advantage of the terrain and jumped onto one of the pillars she had created when she first attacked the knights.

I jumped from pillar to pillar toward Throgg, sometimes having to abandon the pillar I was stepping on early because a new pillar crashed into the one I was on.

Seeing that her attack was not working on me, I watched her rear her arm back at an angle, ready to smash it into the ground and send a deluge of projectiles at me. Wanting to avoid being showered with deadly projectiles, I timed my jump and leaped into the air. When I landed, I did so at the same angle Throgg was striking the ground, but I did so in her direction. Instead of sending my own deluge of shards and boulders at Throgg, I used earth instinctive magic to create a steep ramp directly in front of where her strike would land.

Throgg’s forearm hit the ground, earth slammed into the ramp I created, destroying it, but it had done its job. Instead of having a wave of mana-packed projectiles flying at me, the ramp took the brunt of it, sending projectiles up, sideways, and even back at Throgg, but nowhere near my direction.

I saw the confusion on Throgg’s face, but by then I was already upon her, lances raised. As I went in for the attack, I saw the very look in her eyes, focused on the lances in my hands. She was forced to stop forming her earth armor and take a swipe at me to keep me at a distance, but the good thing about our size disparity was that I was a lot faster and more agile than her, allowing me to easily slide under her swipe and thrust one of the lances into her inner arm, just before the armpit.

The earth armor that was barely formed and not even compressed yet, offered no obstacle to my thrust, allowing me to easily stab into her biceps until I felt I hit the bone. As she roared in pain, I let go of the lance that was in her to hamper her movement and moved on to her other fore arm.

But having been stung multiple times by these lances, she took drastic action to avoid me. She pushed off the ground with her remaining good arm and backstepped with her hind legs. And when she was a few steps away, she did something I did not expect from a lizard of her size and bulk.

She pirouetted on one foot. But as impressive as it was seeing her perform that move, what scared me was what followed her pirouette, which was her thick fucking tail that was brimming with mana and tearing up the ground as it dragged along, sending shards and boulders aplenty.

With no time to dig myself a hole and seeing that jumping into the air to avoid the tail would only get me caught in a shower of deadly shards and boulders, I kicked up my aura into Primal Aura and jumped back while drawing my sword.

In my backward jump, I barely cleared the tip of her tail, but I was forced to swing my sword and lance like a madman to parry, deflect, cut, and smash away the rocks sent at me.

When the dust settled, I was in a tattered state but still standing, or at least my armor was. My helmet had been blown off somewhere in the flurry to defend all my vital bits. The tabard I was wearing was half torn off my body and hanging on by a few threads, and the whole front side of my armor was either dented or scratched by the smaller rocks I could not defend against, those I left for my Primal Aura to take care of, softening the blow enough to the point that the mana packed debris did not penetrate the armor.

When the dust cleared enough for Throgg to see I was still standing, she snorted in a tone that sounded almost like respect before saying, [So the mortal still lives, if not barely. Out of respect, I will make your death a quick one.] She then pounced at me, trying to catch me with a full body slam.

Now was the time to show her that I was not to be taken lightly. I stomped the ground to loosen three thick pillars, gathered mana in my other foot, and delivered three spinning high kicks with full force. With each kick, one of the pillars shot out of the ground.

While Throgg was mid-air, the first pillar punched her right in the snout, stalling her forward momentum, the second pillar punched her right in the gut, and the third hit her in the chest. The last impact was her slamming to the ground without her legs bracing for landing.

While she was recovering, I jumped onto her snout, the lance in my hand shining with its activated enchantments and coated with my Primal Aura. I pressed the tip right between her eyes, applying enough pressure to break the skin and draw blood, but not enough to do any real damage. But from the way Throgg’s body froze, and her eyes crossed to see me, I think she got the point that I could kill her where she lay with just the shove of my arm.

We were both still for a few seconds before I silently gestured for Throgg to go back where she came from, pointing in that direction and jerking my head. I guess she would have nodded if she did not have a lance pointed at her brain, ready to give her a lobotomy. The only acknowledgment she could give me was a short, low growl, which in Dragon Tongue language was the equivalent of us humans saying “Uh-huh.”

I nodded and pulled the lance away from her while stepping off her snout, but I kept the lance pointed threateningly at her. As for whether I needed to worry about her pulling a fast one and attacking, I would say no. Speaking for most of wyrm society, when it came to one-on-one battles, they at least had a sense of honor for these things. But above all, they respected strength, especially when I showed restraint on top of my strength.

By all accounts, I had every right to kill her where she stood, and she knew it. We may be on her family’s territory, but she had already killed many of “my” people, so she knew I had no obligation to give her any quarter. And now I was even letting her go. At this point, if she attacked me after I had shown her mercy, not only would it bring shame on her, but also on her bloodline. Not to mention that I knew that Professor Sageira and Throgg were watching this whole thing play out with scrying magic from somewhere above, but Throgg did not know that.

Throgg slowly backed away from me, and when she was about five of her lengths away, she lay flat, her belly touching the ground, and began wriggling from side to side. As she did so, she quickly sank into the ground, and within a few seconds, she was submerged. I felt the tremors gradually weaken as she swam back the way she came.

Soon after that, I heard cheering from the keep, and when I turned around, I saw their gates start to open, which was my cue to get the hell out of here.