Leave a comment

My body felt light. I had never felt so good, not while fighting monsters and demons, or when I was dragged out of the mountain. Every muscle in my body moved exactly the way I wanted, and my control over magic had returned, working just like I did when I fought in the frontlines.

“Woah there! That was a close one.”

I barely managed to avoid being hit by Tiamat’s tail that approached at high speed. If I got just a little bit distracted, he would punish my lack of attention with a dangerous attack like that. I created a tall wall of fire in retaliation, but Tiamat just shook his head from side to side to abate the flames.

Magic in general had little effect on dragons. That applied to both the small and low level Green Dragons, and to the one who stood atop them all, Tiamat. That was the main reason why dragon parts were such an expensive material, and weapons made with them fetched even higher prices, even outside the adventurer sphere. So I mostly used magic deliberately as a smokescreen, while using my weapons to actually attack. The halberd I brought had broken to pieces a long time ago, so now I just used lumps of rocks instead.

“Take this!”

I was fighting with a stone the size of a human head, which was a piece of the temple’s wall that broke off during our fight. The temple itself was very sturdy, but our constant fights had pushed it to its limits, crumbling down in an unsightly manner. The walls were crumbling and the columns cracked, and the floor riddled with holes.
Fighting with no weapon or armor, just using stones that lay around, was a very primitive way to fight, but in turn that just spurred my survival instincts to the limit.

“Tsk! Guess it didn’t work.”
“Don’t think such a diversion will affect me.”

I imbued my body with magic as I struck the rock against Tiamat, but he stood unfazed, a mere superficial wound on him. A regular monster would have been easily reduced to mincemeat from the impact, but Tiamat was ridiculously sturdy.

“If only I had a weapon I would be able to put up a better fight…”
“Asking for what you can’t get will get you nowhere.”

Responding to my idle complaints, Tiamat opened his jaws lined with terrifying fangs, trying to bite my body off. I kicked off the ground to get out of the way, and punched him back, but I was the only one who felt pain. We had repeated a similar pattern of attacks many times already. Even if the bones on my hands and feet broke from the impact, I would heal them instantly and continue fighting.

“Master!”
“Lapis!”

At some point, Luvias and the others had come to watch from a distant spot. Seeing their smiles I could tell they had a good session against Selene, so now it was my time as their master to go all out. I would try the new skill I had thought of during these training sessions.

“Hm?”

I jumped away, creating a large distance between me and Tiamat, and discarded my stone while relaxing my body. I began amassing magic power inside my body, just like I usually did to cast magic. Usually I would release it soon enough, shaping it into a spell, but now I kept it trapped, letting it grow bigger. Anyone who used magic knew how to do this much, and one step after that was the physical power-up Luvias and the others used, which was something I was also accustomed to. But now I keep going even further.

“Gah..!”

The magic power I kept trapped in my body constantly tried escaping and getting harder to control. If I made a mistake, I would literally burst from the inside out, but after fighting against Tiamat for so long, I had stood face to face with death and knew what my limits were. As more magic power filled my body, I forcefully restrained it while I prayed that I would obtain more power.

I had felt the gods’ favor on my side since I had been born, but for the first time in my life I was trying to make that connection stronger. I had the blessing of six gods, which were the God of Light and Justice Lumiere, God of Knowledge Widom, God of Birth and Harvest Fertila, God of Trade and Merchants Trod, God of Workers and Development Arti, and God of War Gael. The only one I had not received the blessing of was the God of Darkness and Destruction Damuel, so I offered my magic power to the other six ones.

First I tried with Lumiere’s light and holy power. I was no priest so I could not use a large scale holy spell like Freya, and it took all my focus to pray here. All I wanted was to shroud my fist with the holy power to dispel evil. It worked, and my fist began glowing so brightly it was impossible to look directly at it. I kicked off the ground again, heading back towards Tiamat, swinging my fist with all my power towards his body.

“Hmm?!”

He seemed to notice such an attack would be dangerous to take unprotected, so for the first time he raised his huge hand to block. But my fist easily swatted his hand away, imparting enough momentum to lift his entire body up from the ground.

“Wha-?!”
“Amazing!”

Karin and Ciel were surprised, but not as much as me. Seeing that it was even more powerful than I had expected was a happy miscalculation. I felt like this skill could be used even in large scale battles.

Tiamat recoiled slightly, but quickly recovered and forcefully brought his hand back down. If it landed on me I would be crushed flat, so I jumped away to try my next move.

This time I prayed to the God of Knowledge Widom while I got ready to use a lightning spell I was familiar with. I was manipulating far more magic than I usually did, so for a moment my eyes blacked out and my feet wobbled. Barely two seconds had passed with those preparations, but the spell itself traveled almost instantly towards Tiamat, piercing the wings growing out of his back.

“Ghrahh?!”

My magic dealt a lot of damage to Tiamat for the first time. He was the most powerful dragon, with the strongest defense against magic. This was probably his first time getting hurt like this with magic too. His face contorted in pain, and opened his gigantic mouth ready to unleash his breath on me. Usually it took him some time to gather power before doing that, but he was already prepared. In other words, he had prioritized speed rather than power. Meanwhile I offered a prayer to the next god, Fertila, who was known for granting the blessing that best synergized with healing and defense. When the prayer was done, a defensive barrier appeared all around me. From afar, it looked like I had been trapped inside a small marble, or like a bubble inside a stream of water.

The next instant, Tiamat unleashed his breath, creating a torrent of violent destruction heading towards me. I had no time to dodge, so I waited inside my barrier, but it began to crumble under the pressure.

(Gotta give it to Tiamat! Not even this is enough to protect me!)