Chapter 175

Chapter 175

I kept my distance from the black dragon — not too close, not too far — ready to charge in and land a solid hit the moment it let its guard down.

But the dragon had gotten smarter. It wasn't giving me the same openings it had at the start.

We went back and forth for a long time, and I couldn't find a clean way to get at it.

I tried leaving myself open on purpose, but the dragon never took the bait.

"Fine, you want to drag this out? Let's drag it out."

I held my blade and stayed on the dragon's tail. I wasn't in a hurry anyway — I just needed to wait for the Youngest Princess to finish the purification down below.

Once the Runic Array was purified, the Shadow would lose its constant energy supply and couldn't keep producing new forces.

And with the Eldest Princess holding things together at the salt fortress, they could mount a counterattack using the steady flow of Mana Stones.

If it came down to a war of attrition, the Shadow had already lost.

That's why the Shadow had to break through the Sunsteal Runic Array before it was fully purified.

Looking back now, the Shadow's plan was actually pretty solid.

Corrupt from the inside to cripple the fortress's defenses, while the Shadow army pushed hard from outside, punching through the front line all the way to the core of the Sunsteal Runic Array.

Hit from both sides like that, the Eldest Princess wouldn't have been able to hold on.

Lucky for us, we moved fast enough to secure the energy tower before the front line collapsed.

And because they'd cut off the Shadow army from the energy tower, the Shadow could only send illusions and things like that to probe the Eldest Princess — it couldn't actually pull together enough fighting strength to take the Sunsteal Runic Array.

That's what gave us the window to purify the Runic Array now.

If I hadn't shown up by accident and brought the crystal army with me, this salt fortress would have had almost no chance of surviving this crisis.

Only a short while had passed, but as the purification progressed below, the black dragon was visibly getting anxious.

It kept trying to break away and dive toward the Runic Array below.

The problem with it was that while its cruising speed was faster than mine, my burst speed far outpaced it.

Getting past my intercepts to reach the Runic Array was nearly impossible.

After I pushed it back from yet another lunge, the dragon finally snapped.

It spread its wings and pulled away from the Runic Array, then ignored my attacks and threw itself straight at the Runic Array's barrier at full speed.

"Going all in now, are we?" I got serious.

I accelerated toward the dragon, raised my curved blade with both hands, and brought it straight down in a hard vertical slash.

The magical glow tore through the dragon's left wing, but the dragon didn't care — it slammed into the Runic Array barrier with everything it had.

There was a sharp crack, and the dragon broke through the barrier just before its wing was completely torn apart.

With one wing shredded, the dragon couldn't keep its balance in the air.

We ended up tangled together, tumbling awkwardly down into the crystal lake below.

After we hit the ground, the dragon kicked off hard and charged toward the platform without hesitation.

Then a massive downward slash appeared in front of it and forced it to stop.

I pushed back the dragon — now missing one wing and one foreleg — and took up my blade again, standing between it and the platform.

"Come on! Round two!"

The dragon was in rough shape, but honestly, I wasn't doing as well as I was letting on.

The defensive fighting below had drained a lot out of me.

That full-map awareness ability couldn't stay on anymore — I could only activate it in short bursts, just long enough to catch the dragon's muscle movements and predict what it was about to do.

Now that we were fighting on the ground, the dragon actually felt more dangerous to me than it had in the air.

With solid ground to push off from, it had way more ways to move and attack.

It had the size advantage, and its claws, teeth, and tail could come at me from every angle at any moment.

All I could do was rely on my enhanced perception and react on the fly.

Without nearly 360-degree awareness and fast reaction speed, I basically couldn't keep up with its attacks.

My combat experience was just too thin — I'd never fought a large creature like this before.

After holding on for a while, I finally got caught by a tail whip and sent flying.

I twisted in midair to dodge the dragon's snapping jaws.

I used the moment to deliberately put some distance between us.

Once I was far enough to take in all of the dragon's movements at once, the pressure dropped instantly.

So that's how it works — medium range is where this thing has the advantage.

The dragon had the high ground and could watch my every move from above.

Its size meant it could easily reach me, while I could barely touch it.

At a distance, the dragon had far fewer angles to attack from.

It was stuck with straight-on charges.

And with my quick bursts of speed, those were much easier to handle.

I dodged one of its lunges from the side, then accelerated in close.

I slipped past a swiping claw and got underneath its belly.

One clean vertical slash.

I ripped open the dragon's underside before it could jump away.

A huge gash opened up.

The dragon screamed and leaped back, then swung its tail around at high speed.

I'd already used the moment to pull back.

"So that's it."

I was starting to figure it out.

The positions that worked in my favor were far range and extremely close range.

At a distance, I could clearly read the dragon's movements and react ahead of time.

Up close, the dragon had to reposition just to hit me.

In both cases, I had the initiative.

The only range that favored the dragon was the middle ground.

Once I understood that, the pressure the dragon put on me dropped a lot.

I went back at the dragon using what I'd just worked out.

In just a few exchanges, the dragon had more than a dozen cuts of various sizes across its body.

As the fight went on, I stopped thinking about tactics. My body just moved on instinct, and that was enough.

The moment the dragon tried to close the gap and accelerate toward me, I accelerated toward it at the same time.

By the time it tried to slow down, it was too late — I'd already shot forward right in front of it.

Using our combined momentum, I swung my blade sideways and sliced off a wide patch of dragon scales.

The dragon shrieked and stumbled backward, snapping at me with its jaws.

I was already pulling my blade back and jumping away to open up the distance.

The dragon kept retreating.

I took the chance to catch my breath and get ready for the next wave.

But the dragon kept going.

I blinked. Why is it still backing up?

By the time I realized something was off, the gap between us had grown way too wide.

I snapped back to it and started moving to close in.

The dragon raised its head. A point of light appeared in its mouth.

Dragon breath?

Oh no.

I'd almost completely forgotten — it still hadn't used that.

I pushed my power to the limit and accelerated, trying to close the distance.

But it was too late.

The dragon opened its mouth toward me.

Blazing light flooded my vision.

I'm not going to make it.

I could only pour everything into defense.

And hope I could take the hit.

Then, right at that moment, a voice rang out — multiple chants layered on top of each other:

"Enlighten — Multi-cast — Force-cast — Mirror."

An oval mirror appeared in front of me.

The dragon breath hit it head-on, and not a bit of it touched me.

Every last bit was absorbed by the mirror.

The light faded. The Mana Stones around me had been heated white by the blast.

Behind where I was standing, only this one strip of crystal ground was still blue.

"Are you alright, Knight?"

The Eldest Princess's voice reached me.

Only then did I notice — the singing had stopped at some point.

Which meant...

"We're done over here!"

The Youngest Princess landed not far behind me.

"Now it's our turn to hit back!"