Chapter 83 Flesh dragon

I watched as the close fight shifted to our favor with each one of my wives that woke up. Since the combat classes were the first to fall unconscious, once Silk, Tems, and Sophia woke up, the number of deaths on the human side dwindled to almost none. The bonus stats I provided were just unfair; fast attackers had no right to hit with that much power, and powerful classes shouldn’t be able to move at the speed they did.

I thought it was going to wrap up soon, but that’s when I heard an incomprehensible screech of something that wasn’t living and saw it. A mangled pile of flesh, somewhat in the shape of a dragon, approached from the woodline, knocking trees over as it did so. It looked to be moving in slow motion, at least compared to the fighters, which made its attack all the more surprising as it sprayed out caustic acid blood from its mouth.

The attack cared little for who it struck, as thirty on our side and ten armored lizardmen went down. The men were too strong for their own good; an attack that should have killed them only melted their skin off, leaving them to die an agonizingly slow death over the next few hours. Unless an epic healer showed up who could mass heal debilitating wounds like that, which I didn’t see happen… My salve might work!

Thankfully, my wives were all clumped up on a side that wasn’t attacked, and the attack also seemed to significantly hurt the flesh dragon as well. My butthole clenched as I watched its jaw slowly erode away from its own acid blood. The monster was terrifying, and its level of grossness made many not want to attack it, even though it left itself wide open to attacks.

Finally, the nearest knight moved as he thumped down with a mace. The attack dealt damage beyond what you’d think it would do, but that seemed to be the point as the flesh struck exploded into another shower of acid blood, coating the man before he could retreat. He cried out in pain as he backed away, wrenching his helm off his head. I could see the sudden explosion caught him off guard, and he had been completely blinded by the attack.

Horses neighed as many broke rank and ran away, the few unlucky ones that stepped on the blood panicking from having their hooves burn, and some even fell over into the acid blood, burning them as well. No one knew what to do as I watched my next wife, who might be able to do something, wake up. I yelled to her. “Delilah, go get the golem!”

I hadn’t had the time to go activate the town golem as the fighting took place and kept me busy; only after my wives started waking up did I have the room to breathe, and at that point, the slow, bulky golem wouldn’t have been able to do much. The problem with the flesh dragon was that no one wanted to attack it. It moved in a way that made it disgusting, and every attack would put your life at risk from retaliation.

Leaf might have been able to kill it, but the few archers still alive were continuously firing at the thing, and the flesh was so rubbery that most arrows were just sinking into its flesh before being spit out, doing nothing. I watched her roll away as the knights ignored the beast and got back to killing the lizardmen, now with similar numbers after the boss showed up.

The boss moved in a way that no living creature would. Instead of using its legs or mouth to attack, the creature rolled in the direction of the knights, almost crushing them before they could get out of the way, and leaving behind more of the acid blood where the flesh burst under its own weight. I was close enough to smell it, and it stunk like rotting cooked flesh. I almost threw up as I moved away far enough not to smell it anymore. Somehow, the knights seemed almost unaffected by the smell, while the mercenary troops completely ignored the dragon.

The fighting almost reached a standstill, as the boss dragon rolled back and forth, making both sides disengage as it kept spraying out the caustic blood it was made out of. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably minutes, the giant golem approached with Delilah trailing behind it.

This golem was about twice the size and strength of the previous golem we made. It also functioned better; while it wasn’t on par with a human in capability, it wouldn’t fall over just walking, which made what the original did all the more impressive. The golem began to speed up as Delilah gave it commands. “Attack the bloody creature!”

The golem kept gaining more and more momentum as both sides waited for the two things to clash. The golem swung with a full force punch, connecting with the head, breaking whatever bones were holding the head up, and causing a wave of the caustic blood to explode out of the flesh dragon. Its head lulled close to the ground as it rolled forward, knocking the golem onto its back.

The fighting looked awful. Two things that couldn’t control their bodies perfectly, moving in ways you wouldn’t expect, which led to an odd visual spectacle. It was like a baby fighting a lizard who couldn’t control its body half the time. The golem had given up on punching and just began grabbing and ripping at the creature; each handful of flesh pulled away was another explosion of the liquid. The only reason the golem could still function was the thick metal it was made out of.

The acid would eventually eat through the metal, but by that time, the creature would be dead. It already looked to be on its last legs; most of the damage to the creature was self-inflicted, while the golem was quickly catching up. Blood didn’t burst anymore, but more sprayed, which was getting weaker and weaker with each clump of flesh removed.

The golem finally got a good grip on the creature's boneless head. It stood up holding it and just kept pulling and pulling until the head was wrenched from its body. The corpse wobbled for a moment before it slowly began to expand. My eyes went wide as I yelled out. “It’s going to explode! Get away! Golem, try to stop it!”

As the thing kept expanding and expanding in size, blood began to spray out in streams as it started to look like a ball. The golem jumped onto the flesh dragon, which now looked more like a collection of balloons attached to each other. Then it happened, an explosion bigger than any I had seen before, powerful enough to launch the thousand-pound golem into the air twenty feet before it fell back down.

The blood sprayed out, covering almost the entire battlefield. The few close by, or those who hadn’t been dragged away from the initial blood-breath attack, were killed immediately by the blood. My eyes rose even higher as I stopped to watch the fight, but now that the wave of blood was coming down, I realized I was still in the splash zone.

I pulled instinctively at the magic I should have been more skilled with, as a wall of dirt sprang up just in time to stop me from being coated like everyone else. Half of the wall collapsed on me as I felt some blood begin to burn my shoulder. I could tell it was just a few drops, though, and though it hurt, I needed to make sure my wives were fine. I tossed the dirt off myself as I looked at the outcome of the explosion.