If the world blurred when he used [Lunge] before, then the world blinked this time.
It was like reading a book and having part of a paragraph taken out. He couldn’t even remember moving, he was just… there. The raindrops pouring down had barely even moved as he appeared underneath the Dragon.
It felt… peaceful, in a way that was weird to even try to describe. His body was on fire, his bones and muscles screaming at him every instant he was moving, as the [Heroic Surge] filled him with so much power he felt fit to burst.
He went to pull on the mental string to activate [Lunge] again, this time going upwards towards the Dragon, and without any of the usual effort he had to put in to activate the skill, he was thrown upwards, almost before he had even finished attempting to use [Lunge].
He heard something tear and an instant later his vision clicked back into sync, a feeling of weightlessness enveloping him as he reached the apex of his jump. His eyes flicked down to the Dragon to see a giant hole ripped into one of the Dragon’s wings.
You have [Grounded] the [Juvenile [???] Dragon]
It started to fall slowly, heavy enough that gravity pulled it down fast enough to be seen with his enhanced vision.
Another use of [Lunge] had him slamming into the ground of the town square, a giant gust of wind accompanying it as his cloak fanned out from the pressure. His hood was jostled by the impact, being pushed up onto his head by the winds.
He felt one of the cords on his belt snap and felt something brush by his feet. The long, pink tail of the [Great Mole], his [Whip of the Duke] trailing behind him. But before he could fix it, a silver glow surrounded the Dragon, and its eyes snapped open, deep blue in colour, and very angry.
As the glow around the Dragon increased, a blue glow formed over the green lightning around himself as well, and he saw the raindrops start to move towards the ground slowly again.
His mind raced, identifying the two spells the Dragon had apparently used. The fact that the Dragon was moving at almost-normal speed meant that it was probably using [Windwalk], a speed-boosting [Air] type spell. And the blue spell it had put on him was probably [Pressure of the Deep], a speed-reducing [Water] type spell.
His head ached as he identified the spells practically instantly, and he winced, shaking it off as best he could. Was this the effect of his boosted intelligence? It felt like he could remember every letter in every word in every book he had ever read, every notebook he had ever written.
SWIPE!
Whatever it was, it needed to wait.
The Dragon’s clawed paw swiped at him at a speed faster than any other monster he had ever fought… but it still felt slow. Or at the very least, slower than him.
He rolled underneath it, already back on his feet and swinging [Steelbringer] at the passing leg before his mind had even caught up to the fight. When had he drawn his sword? He couldn’t remember.
The Dragon roared at him, curling its now-useless wing back onto its body, blue light appearing in its mouth as it stared him down. He immediately started running to his right, to stop whatever it was about to do from hitting the Dungeon Hall behind him.
‘Ding! Woosh!’
Whatever his increased intelligence had done to him, it had made the bells he heard fucking loud, but he could also… see a blue line appear on the ground in front of him?
He instinctively stabbed his feet towards the ground, diving and rolling away from the line, and an instant later, a beam of Lightning shot from the Dragon’s mouth, following the blue line exactly, destroying all the houses he could see in a line in that direction.
He looked towards the Dragon and swore he could almost see a bit of confusion in his eyes at not hitting him, and something clicked in his head. If the bells were something giving him info based on his [Intelligence]... then this line was probably based on [Luck].
Another line appeared underneath his feet, and he used [Lunge] to dodge it as another beam of Lightning shot past where he had just been, obliterating the Inn he had been standing in front of.
The Dragon roared again, and Izuku could tell that it was pissed off about him not already being dead.
Another silver glow surrounded the Dragon, and it went on the offensive, suddenly a lot faster. Izuku was forced to use [Lunge] to get out of the kill box that the Dragon’s teeth and claws created, and he still received a gash across the back of his leg, the blood steaming as it exited him red hot.
He was able to dash in again and slash it across the back legs multiple times before the Dragon turned and tried to smack him, its tail sailing through the air. He dove to the ground, rolling through the mud as he slipped under the tail swipe, only to be forced to jump over it as the Dragon brought it back the other way again.
Or at least, attempt to jump over it.
It slammed into his torso, the mud slowing him down just enough for the Dragon to hit him, and with a BOOM, Izuku went flying, crashing into the side of a building around the Town Square.
The walls crumbled to tiny shards as he pushed himself up, the cuts on his body bleeding red hot blood. But as he got to his feet fully, he saw the cuts close up on their own.
‘That's right, even if your HP doesn’t go back up, [Endurance] helps heal the physical body faster. Or is it just a side effect of the [Bleeding] status effect being stopped quickly because of my [Endurance]? Does the distinction matter?’
As a blue line appeared underneath his feet, Izuku was forced to conclude that no, it did not. What mattered was dodging. [Lunge] came into effect and his world blinked again as he appeared above the Dragon.
“Double Strike! Shield! Lunge! Earthspike x5!”
The world skipped over his travel distance to the Dragon and Izuku slammed both [Steelbringer]s into the side of the Dragon’s body, attacking the other side with five [Earthspike]s, the usually small-ish pillars of stone coming out of the ground the width of wagons, sharper than swords.
The impact from his attack with [Steelbringer] knocked the Dragon in the direction of the [Earthspike]s, adding extra momentum to their attack, and as Izuku landed on the ground, immediately dashing away from the Dragon, it roared, it screeched, the very air around Izuku vibrating as the Dragon went wild, it’s tail and claws thrashing everywhere, clearing out the remainder of the Town ‘Square’ until it was a flat circle of empty space.
Izuku crouched as the Dragon pushed itself to its feet again, the [Earthspike]s that had stabbed into it having already been completely destroyed by the Dragon’s thrashing, and the wound had already closed up, meaning that it must have [Endurance] beyond belief.
He did notice however that the hole he had opened in its wing still hadn’t closed. Was that because the membrane for its wings was more complicated? Or was it because of the [Grounded] status effect he had inflicted on the Dragon?
He shook his head, clearing his thoughts for later. Apparently one of the downsides of having a high [Intelligence] stat was an innate urge to figure things out, maybe that was why… ‘Stop it! Think about stuff later!’
Izuku watched as the Dragon stood up on its hind legs, a beam of Lightning shooting out of its mouth, but not at him. The beam went straight up into the sky, the already grey clouds above becoming dark and angry looking, sparking with lighting.
Izuku’s eyes were drawn to the ground as glowing blue circles appeared, a second blue circle growing from the middle outward, one of them being right under his feet. He sprinted out of the circle just in time for it to ‘finish’, and a beam of lightning slammed into the ground where it was done.
After that, it became a dodging game.
Circles appeared everywhere Izuku looked, the gaps between them getting smaller and smaller as more and more circles formed. Eventually, Izuku had to risk standing in some circles for just long enough so that he could dodge into newly opened spaces nearby, but that had its own issues.
Thrown off by the sudden ease that his abilities came to him with, he mistimed one of his [Lunge]s, appearing a second before he meant to.
As the beam of blue Lightning slammed down into him, he heard a blood-curdling scream echo out around him as pain throbbed through his entire body, his skin feeling like it was being vaporised.
After the beam faded and he hit the ground, he realised that it was him who was screaming. He pushed himself to his feet shakily, almost dropping down to the floor again once as his burnt skin cracked and peeled, but was forced to push past his agony as a blue circle appeared near his feet.
“Lunge! Shield!”
The world blinked as he appeared in an actual safe zone, his [Shield] ability reapplying itself. God, what would have happened if he didn’t have it up before? Smacking himself across the face, he focused back in on the Dragon.
What-ifs weren’t worth thinking about when you were fighting.
The Dragon swiped at him again, and Izuku forced himself to dodge under the wild swing, his entire body screaming as he hit the floor, only to propel himself to his feet again so that he could jump over the swipe of the Dragon’s tail as it spun around to attack him again.
And then his foot slipped.
His balance was lost and his mind was shocked. As he hung in the air, the Dragon’s tail zoomed towards him faster than he could dodge. Even with his enhanced stats, Izuku wasn’t sure if this would hurt him enough to take him out of the fight or not, but either way, he was going to have to tank it.
Time seemed to slow down again as his already-screaming body curled in on itself, his [Shield] ability active as he moved to position the flat side of [Steelbringer] against his leg to help take some of the blow, and it was when he had resigned himself to being hit that he saw it.
The ground below the tail exploded, bright green light surging from within as a giant green creature’s mouth snapped around the tail of the Dragon, stopping it in place and causing it to roar out in pain.
Izuku hit the ground and instantly used [Lunge] to get away and recuperate. Down on one knee with his sword in the ground for support, Izuku fumbled around with his pack as he watched the Dragon and the sudden appearance of the creature.
Izuku had just grabbed out the shattered remains to the top of a [HP Potion] when the giant green creature ripped their head to the side, a giant chunk of the Dragon’s tail coming out with it. At that moment his [Ratmaster Pendant] flared up with power on his chest, and his increased [Intelligence] made the answer simple to him.
The giant green demi-rat stood on two legs, much like the Dungeon Boss Izuku had gotten him from, and stood taller than Izuku by almost triple, green lightning surrounding its giant body.
As the Dragon pulled its tail back and started charging up its breath attack, Sir Ratsudon charged it, diving into the ground and tunneling so quickly it looked like he was swimming to Izuku, who the Dragon had seemingly decided to ignore for the moment.
As Sir Ratsudon seemingly pulled the Dragon’s attention away from him, Izuku searched through his pack properly, looking for something to take the edge off the intense pain throughout his skin from the Lightning attack. He couldn’t keep fighting with this kind of distraction and plan on winning.
“Izuku!”
As he heard her voice, Izuku’s eyes immediately snapped over to where Melissa was crouching, the girl hidden behind some rubble. Izuku’s eyes widened as she held up a green Rune, pointing it towards him. “What are you doing? You need to stay away!”
Melissa just glared, shaking her head as she whispered something to herself, and Izuku saw the Rune above her palm collapse in on itself, a soft green ball of light appearing in its place. Izuku glanced back to check that Sir Ratsudon was still distracting the Dragon, and was pleased to see that he was.
When Izuku turned back to Melissa, he immediately got a face full of the green light, as Melissa chucked it at his head. He’d had a guess about what the Rune was, his Increased [Intelligence] making it easy to recall all of the Runes Melissa should be able to cast at her level and proficiency, but the warm healing glow of [Minor Regenerate] was a blessing.
His eyes closed as his skin paled from the angry, irritated red it had been since he had been struck, fading back to the soft pink of newly healed skin. With the colour faded some of the pain, enough that it was absolute torture to move anymore.
He sighed with relief, opening his eyes again as he pushed himself up to his feet, looking over towards where Melissa had been, spotting her doing her best to sneak away from the fight, having apparently done what she wanted to do.
Izuku took deep breaths as he heard the sound of the Dragon roaring in pain again, and spotted Sir Ratsudon with just his head out of the ground, his [Bite] attack having caught the underbelly of the Dragon.
Izuku held up a palm and checked his stats quickly while the Dragon was immobilised, and winced at what he saw.
HP: 995/2600 | Stamina: 2430/2860 | Mana: 1235/1820
While his [Stamina] and [Mana] were fine, his HP had taken quite the beating… had he been too sparing with his other resources? It was pure force of habit to ration out his energy pools, but right now…
Now wasn’t the time for rationing. He could tell that the Dragon was flagging. But even so, if he wanted to kill it, he needed to go all out. He let his mind run in overdrive for a minute or so as Sir Ratsudon fought, until eventually, he shook his head, taking control back from his wandering trains of thought and cementing his plan in his mind.
He took a deep breath in as he pointed his hands to the battlefield, getting himself ready to use as much [Mana] as he could.
He focused as much as he could on [Earthspike] and let out a yell as he pushed his [Mana] out of his body as fast as he could, the battlefield rumbling as spires of solid, [Mana] reinforced stone shot up out of the ground, creating a forest of stone spires. He pushed it even further, sprouting [Earthspike] ‘branches’ of stone out of the original pillars.
As his [Mana] dipped under ‘200’, Izuku pulled his hands back and dodged out of the way of a blue line on the ground as his set-up drew the attention of the Dragon. Its Lightning breath attack was able to make a few of his pillars crumble, but the rest held.
Izuku crouched, grabbing his [Ratmaster Pendant] in one hand as he pushed the order to ‘retreat’ as strongly as he could to Sir Ratsudon. He hadn’t used [Identify] on the Spirit Rat, but he knew that being so close to the Dragon would have done some serious damage to him, and he didn't want the companion to fade away and cost him, [Mana] to restore.
With Sir Ratsudon leaving the fight having done considerable damage to the Dragon, and its attention fully on him, Izuku squatted, loosening up his knees and ankles, because this was going to hurt.
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
The world moved like a picture book to him as he used [Lunge] to bounce in between and around his [Earthspike] pillars, spamming the ability as fast as he could, moving fast enough to outpace even the Dragon’s sensory abilities.
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
It roared as he flitted around it, and started slamming the remains of its tail and claws at the pillars, knocking some of them over. But that was fine with Izuku. While it was distracted, Izuku used a [Lunge] to dash right onto its head, slamming [Steelbringer] down into its eye before it could react.
“Double Strike!”
The twin swords popped the Dragon’s eye in an instant, but before the Dragon could even roar in pain, Izuku was away from it again, [Lunge] being activated constantly as he bounced between his pillars, before eventually landing on one and waiting for a moment to look for another opening.
‘There!’
“Earthspike x10!”
The Dragon’s roar of pain was accompanied by a wildly blasting Lightning beam as 10 of Izuku’s [Earthspike]s shot out of the ground and stabbed into its underbelly while it was distracted searching for him.
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
“Lunge!”
The Dragon saw him before his last Lunge and immediately tried to move its only remaining eye out of the firing line, but the eye wasn’t Izuku’s target. Using most of his remaining Mana, Izuku dispelled the [Earthspike]s in the Dragon’s underbelly and immediately used [Lunge] to go right up into the giant hole formed from the spike that hadn’t been healed yet.
“Lunge! Double Strike! Shield!”
The world went fairly dark as Izuku’s [Lunge] took him through the hole in the Dragon’s body and into its inner chest cavity, surrounded by warm guts on all sides, soft blue light the only illumination. He knew that his old shield hadn’t gone down yet but it was better to be safe than sorry.
His sword swung, even in the dark, cramped area inside the Dragon, its double following along until finally, both blades found their target. The only light of the inside of the Dragon, [Steelbringer] and its double struck true, stabbing into the glowing blue heart above him.
There was silence for a moment, as not even the Dragon’s lungs moved before suddenly everything surrounding Izuku started shaking as the Dragon collapsed to the ground, roaring loud than it had yet, its very bones shaking around him.
But with its heart destroyed, the Dragon had neither blood nor Mana flowing through its body anymore. And without either of those, it was mere moments before its roar shuddered to a stop, the body falling still.
Congratulations!
You have killed an [Abberent Juvenile Dragon]
???XP Gained.
Error - Correct XP rewards unknown.
Alternative Reward: 7 Levels Awarded
[Thank you, Izuku Midoriya. This achievement shall not be overlooked. You gave my gratitude.]
Izuku couldn’t help but smile seeing that message, too exhausted to bother registering any of the implications. He was feeling… really… sleepy, actually. And it was so warm in here…
He couldn’t fight his eyes closing, as his exhaustion caught up with him, [Heroic Surge] fading, and once his eyes were closed, he was doomed to quickly pass out, sleeping in the warm corpse of the strange Dragon he had slain.
Blissfully unaware of the sheer chaos his fight had caused.
