"I didn't kill him, he accidentally fell onto my knife." Aefia pointed to the flamed chimera dragon laying on the ground, motionless. In fact she didn't actually move at all while the dragon came plunging to the ground towards her. She held out the knife and pointed to the sleeping dragon, "I swear he even noticed this knife being held out. So how is it any of my fault that the so-called rare imperial dragon has collapsed?"
The queen's mother stared at Aefia as if she were her own child and was currently doing one of the child crimes that a regular teenager would 'always' do. "I don't understand it. You could have let the dragon plummet onto you. It's not like you were going to die!"
"Wait, what? So you are telling me, a massive dragon falling onto you is somehow something not to worry about?! That thing was barely showing any mercy! So of course I took a defensive aim to point my knife at it! And it's also a Phase six orange flamed chimera dragon who I was supposed to deal with!" Aefia replied back as a way to protest for what really had been done.
"Your parents really didn't teach you magic, is it?! I have always heard that Earth humans were said to be the mastermind of magic, that they can summon Satans and other sorts of, I don't know, spirits?!" Her lady shouted back.
"That's literally black magic! My parents aren't that negative minded that they would teach me black magic at a young age! And I am an Earth human, I just recently got my elemental magic, I am still learning about this very power I absorbed!"
"Then why are you holding the key?! If you really made the dragon go to sleep without magic, how it is that you can't wake it up! Wake it up now! Otherwise the real owner of the dragon will hunt all of us down!"
"I don't know how to wake up the dragon! I wasn't the one who used the magic inside the key! And you were the ones who came running into this matter, I never called any of you to come and try to help me!"
With shock in her face, she continued to speak. "That's because we thought you were in danger, or got yourself into trouble! How was I supposed to know that you were trying to silence out an imperial animal with the very key they protected." Her lady said calmly.
"Well then, explain whatever it is that you know about this orange flamed chimera dragon. That way, maybe I can find out a way or two in how to wake it up. Don't tell me you can't do that too." Aefia calmed down too.
Staying mad will also make my thinking capabilities deplete. Although, I really thought that I was using my knife. Looking at the object itself made me realize that it is the key, the sacred key. How strange, I couldn't determine what would happen next with my skills. I don't think I can access my system within the next three minutes too. So I highly doubt that there are any possibilities the dragon will wake up unless it faces another threat.
The queen's mother continued explaining about the chimera while Aefia finalized an attack plan for the chimera dragon to realize that there is threat nearby. "Helio, do you think you can strike that dragon with your dagger for a bit? I think I will have to be out of the scenario for this round."
Helio nodded and walked towards the dragon while withdrawing his dagger. With strength and speed focused onto the blade, he ran his dagger across the backbone of the chimera and took multiple steps back. The dragon sat up and scratched its back with its feet while looking at Aefia and the others with sleepy eyes.
Soon, the orange flames around its eyes grew brighter and noticed Aefia in the far distance. To itself, it could see a crimson red wave of magic covering Aefia with a slight gold glow coming from her hand. He immediately recognized what she was holding and unknown to Aefia herself, the dragon planned on taking her down that instant.
It gave out a growl and flew into the air and plunged at her again. This time, she took the advice her lady had given her and stood still while locking eyes with the dragon. But due to her defensive instincts, she withdrew the knife and stabbed through its ribs with a skid to stop herself from slipping.
"Why are you attacking the dragon?! I told you not to come into much trouble with the dragon! Otherwise, it will makes its life's mission to hunt and kill you!" Her lady called to Aefia.
"Do I have a choice? That thing will kill me even when it means now, because I have the thing it vowed to protect for life." Aefia said while dodging more attacks. "Didn't you say that the chimera dragon is actually the demon king's pet? Well that changes today! It is no one's pet!"
She hoped onto the dragons back and stabbed her fully transformed sword into the backbone of the dragon. It growled in return and stood on its hind legs and spread its wings to try and reattach the crack in its bone.
Seeing this, Aefia quickly took out her sword and slid down its back to get to safety. She spun the sword into the right position in between her fingers and kept it pointed at the still growling chimera. I still have two minutes of full strength left, I am not confident enough that I am going to make it.
"You seem to be in trouble, do you need some help?" Her lady asked while shouting at Aefia.
Asking for help from her lady and Helio will make things worse, because they too aren't powerful enough. Helio is still a rookie elemental magic user like me, so he will just be busy healing his own wounds while simultaneously receiving more.
Her lady could be powerful enough, but she has spent two hundred years studying science in her secret lab, I doubt she still remembers what type of magic she had. I highly doubt she will be able to use just any of the attacks she thinks she can place.
"No thanks! I think I can handle this chimera on my own!" Aefia shouted back in response while dodging more attacks coming from the dragon.
More of all, they don't know how to handle the weapons properly. Lucky for me, I was taught at my uncle's company, to use pistols and some assassin devices. I learned about handling knives during battles by myself, but that too was later improved to better fit my statues at the Mafia.
"You said one thing about the chimera, that is that if you stab them in the ribs, they collapse for five seconds?!" Aefia asked her lady.
"Yes. But it isn't really effective." Her lady replied with a frowning face. Aefia took a look at her lady and realized something was oddly wrong with the way she was frowning. When the though hit her, this particular type of frowning often had a very deep meaning.
"Do you...by chance...think...that there is a higher chance of death than victory?" Aefia asked with shocked face. Her lady frowned further and looked down. In the amount of time required for Aefia to think about what was happening, the dragon slammed her onto a pillar while she was observing her lady. She fell forward upon impact with the concrete, but she landed on her feet, thanks to the extra push in power coming from the system.
"But I might as well risk it even when it means I will die sooner or later." Aefia wiped her bloody forehead with her sleeve and spit blood onto the floor. "At least by then, I would be able to have the demon king's beloved pet, orange flamed, cosmic winged, mystical beast who is an only skeleton, chimera dragon, taken away from him." The dragon growled at her while she blocked one fatal blow after another.
She jumped while stepping on the fallen pillars scattered around until she was high enough to plunge at the dragon the same way the dragon did, but instead, she broke through an unseen shield the dragon had created which caused sparks of multiple colours to appear. She fell backwards after impacting the shield and stabbed through the entire length of the backbone.
"That...was the three moons shield. One of the most powerful spell casting shield that can block more fatal blows than critical blows." Her lady stared with shock while interpreting her century old chemistry knowledge.
Upon closer inspection, Aefia had accidentally broken the shoulder bone of the dragon too, which caused the dragon's shoulder to get separated from his right arm. The arm that seemed to be cut through, was left hanging as the dragon continuously growled, causing everyone's ears to bleed.
Luckily for Aefia, she had already stuffed her ears with pieces of fabrics she had always had in stock, that allowed her to block some of the noise, but her ears still felt a sharp pain which was received by her brain too. Her head felt dizzy due to the loud noise and she lost focus of what she was currently doing.
She fell on the ground as expected, but one thing felt out of the ordinary to her. While she lost focus, she had a skill of hers actively being used, so how was it possible that she didn't feel any sort of distortion happening in her mind? She found herself the way she was five seconds ago, but only that her fingers were turning a slightly purplish tone.
She slammed onto the concrete floor with her head hurting as blood flooded the ground she was laying in. Aefia conjured the strength to stand up despite the difficulty she was facing. There was exactly a minute left until all her power was depleted, and she would be left powerless like the start. While keeping into account what had to be done, she tried to switch between a few skills of hers.
Damn! This thing is screwed! I remember fluently being able to switch in between multiple skills before, so what went wrong this time! I performed every task needed to be accomplished in order to multitask with my skills!
"It is obvious why you can't use your 'switching between multiple skills' technique currently." She heard one of the four unknown creatures speak. "Do you remember that time when you first appeared in this dimension and you found out that your skills weren't working? I thought you would have figured it out by now, maybe your knowledge isn't always co-operating with you, is it?"
"Elemental magic itself is the magic of the blood. You absorbing it should have made it clear enough to you that once you lose a relative amount of blood, a part of the magic is spilled and you lose more than enough power needed to perform a skill. Unless the blood level lost has been regained, you cannot access your skills, even when you try your hardest."
"I think I get it now. For everytime I get injured and blood is drawn, I lose a huge amount of my power that keeps me going. I currently have enough blood required to perform a single skill but the level of blood needed to perform multiple skills at once, that is not yet achieved." Aefia concluded to herself.
"The solution would then be to fight without getting injured for the amount of time required for me to regenerated the lost blood required to perform multiple tasks at once." Aefia decided to head back towards the others. If she could have more than half the battle completed, she could have Helio and the queen's mother to perform the rest of the task.
She ran towards the direction of the others while dodging the attacks coming from the fully healed chimera dragon. Not only that, it seemed to Aefia that it had actually grown in size too. It was now as tall as the ceiling of the damaged building could go.
Annoyed, the chimera dragon decisively tried to place an attack at her lady. Aefia reached in time to block the dragon for the while she needed to explain the strategy to them. The pressure instinctively increased but Aefia had the sharp edge of her sword touching the dragons's skeleton, thus, forming a crack the more it placed pressure onto it.
"You both are going to have to perform a task or two and keep this dragon distracted! I think I have a strategy in mind! But the main factor is, Helio can't get injured as much, otherwise his skills will not function. As for you, I don't know what sort of magic you have but if it is elemental, than the same rule applies to you too!" Aefia said as she sliced through the bone after a certain amount of pressure had been reached.
The black blade turned a cinder grey colour due to the debris and it suddenly turned back into a dagger. At least I have a blade at all! I should be happy about that! She took a few leaps and pounced onto the dragon's wings as she hung for her life. Ten seconds left! She swung herself onto the dragon's wing bone and ran towards the skull while maintaining balance.
"That's amazing and all but she is risking her life to do what?!" Her lady shouted as she rummaged through her space bag. Helio ran in different directions in order to distract the dragon from feeling the ticklish feeling coming from its back.
"Can you just run in a straight line?!" Aefia said when she struggled to stay upright. Despite all the consequences, she still managed to get onto the skull and stabbed a green stone stuck onto it in the shape of a square.
The flames around the dragon immediately extinguished and the wings fell around its body as it settled onto the floor. Aefia got down from the dragon's remains. Great, I have finally managed to neutralize the threat. Just in time for the the timer to end and my senses to return.
[Phew!😓 That was a tough battle.🤕]
Yes. Thank you for whatever you had done previously.
[Your welcome!😀]
Her lady looked up at Aefia and Helio after searching for a long time. "Oh, it's done?" Her lady asked. "Yes." Aefia nodded. "I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find it in time." Her lady said with a relieved tone. "And you didn't find it in time." Helio replied while laughing.
Suddenly, an arrow appeared from thin air and pierced Aefia's head from the right side. Blood instantly spewed out from her head as she collapsed onto the ground, staring into the vast galaxy.