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I was confronting the Evil Dragon and all, but I had not a chance of victory.

As a matter of fact, I couldn’t even think of a single plan to defeat it.

“Reid, this time…this time for sure, I’ll kill youuuuu!!”

Kufar yelled at me with Ifrit’s form. If he had human form, he would probably look mad and scatter drool everywhere.

It seemed that he completely forgot that he was also aiming at Cortina.

“That’s my line. I’ll end you for sure this time!”

I released my threads as I yelled back. Of course, I was using internal strengthening too.

The Evil Dragon clearly wasn’t attacking without Kufar ordering it. While he was ranting at me, it was reading the mood and standing by. Or perhaps it was simply its nature as the summoned being.

As long as it didn’t receive a command, it couldn’t move by its own will.

As proof, even after receiving an attack, it didn’t show any signs of counterattacking. Or maybe it didn’t even register my attack as an attack.

My threads didn’t have enough attack power to penetrate its giant body, hard scales, and tough skin.

I did wonder what would’ve happened if I had Lyell’s body… but swords and threads differed fundamentally.

Compared to threads that had flexible reach and utilized it to output speed and sharpness, swords were hard objects that directly transmitted one’s muscle strength.

Unlike swords that you slashed by having a strong footing, threads would easily be repelled as long as they failed to pierce through the enemy defenses. Their strengths when dealing a blow were dimensions apart.

Having said that, an average sword would just lose out to its scales and get destroyed instead.

“So it’s still a deadlock in the end, huh? What do I do?”

I spoke in a light tone, but sweat was running down my cheeks.

The speed of my thread while strengthening myself exceeded the speed of sound. I took quite a bit of pride in its destructive power.

But even that failed to deal any pain. The lightness of my threads, unlike Lyell, had backfired on me here.

“Hihihihihi… it won’t work, Reid! Who do you think this is?!”
“I know. Better than anyone in this world in fact.”
“Annoying! Stop talking back! Colchis, just finish him already!”
“——————————!!”

The Evil Dragon’s roar reverberated once again. I grit my teeth and desperately endured to not be swallowed by its pressure.

There were few who had returned alive after facing the Evil Dragon. We were some of those few. Though we barely managed to win, we still fully learned how frightening it was.

“Reid, get the Evil Dragon to move there!”

Seeing me lose the attack initiative, Gadius pointed toward one part of the open space. There, a cedar tree stood in isolation, making it a good landmark in this grassland.

I didn’t understand the point, but I knew how important his rare instructions were.

Once Kufar designated “me” as its target, Cortina and Gadius no longer registered in its mind and instead faced me alone.

That was a very good outcome for me since I intended to lead it away.

My thread-strengthened body, coupled with its lightness, dashed like an arrow toward the tree. It was so fast that even the Evil Dragon couldn’t keep up, so I easily managed to reach the tree root.

It seemed that the Evil Dragon judged that its breath wouldn’t hit me at this speed, so it just tried to swipe me by using its tail.

The blow easily reached me as I had stopped, so I jumped up to dodge it.

But then, I saw something shining above the Evil Dragon’s head.

It was falling down from quite high up at terrific speed…

“Woooooooaaaaahahhhhhhh?!”
“W-What the?!”

Lyell was falling down with a yell which was hard to tell whether it was a war cry or a shriek.

Using gravity to his advantage, he swooped down at crazy speed on the Evil Dragon’s head and mercilessly drove his sword into it.

“Gugyaaaaaaaaaaa!”

As expected, even the Evil Dragon didn’t come out of this one without damage. The pain from the surprise attack, as well as the humiliation of being taken by surprise, had made it let out a roar filled with anger.

Lyell, meanwhile, fell down to the ground as is and didn’t move a muscle.

That was only natural. After falling from that altitude and crashing into the Evil Dragon’s cranium, it would be weirder if he came out fine.

“What in the—”
“It’s Maria’s doing. Lyell’s power alone would not be able to pierce through the Evil Dragon’s tough defenses. So instead, she teleported him into the sky and had him slash down using the falling momentum.”
“That’s just crazy!!”

The Teleport spell could certainly teleport people anywhere within the field of view aside from the places you have visited.

On the ground, that distance would be a few kilometers at most due to the land horizon, but it increased drastically if you teleported toward the sky.

But even so, actually implementing that was…

“I asked her…don’t blame…Maria.”
“Lyell, you’re alive!”
“I won’t be for much longer.”
“S-Stay with us!!”
“I’ll take Lyell back, so Reid, you focus on drawing the Evil Dragon’s attention! Gadius, I leave the guarding to you.”
“Okay!”

Lyell’s suicidal attack wasn’t for naught as the Evil Dragon’s head now had a deep wound down to its right eye. It was clear that its right eye was robbed of its vision due to that. Thus I intentionally moved toward its left side and hid Lyell in its blind spot.

Meanwhile, Cortina ran to pull Lyell away.

I looked at Kufar to see what he was doing, and he had an anguished expression and was desperately holding his head.

“I see. So controlling the Evil Dragon is beyond even you.”
“Shut up! I’ll burn down Raum once I’m done with you!”

His words made me feel that something was amiss.

Raum? Shouldn’t he hate Berith, which was the World Tree Religion headquarters, more than anything else?

I could understand him coming to defeat Lyell or me who were his archenemies after gaining overwhelming force like Evil Dragon, but Raum being next on his list felt kind of strange.

“Why Raum? Shouldn’t it be Berith?”
“Hah, that city is already done for! It should be rolled up in the trap I laid!!”

He barked back while spitting fire instead of saliva from his mouth.

Hearing his words, I realized that this chaos was still far from over.