Starting the game by being teleported into a dragon's lair was one thing.
But for the dragon's lair itself to turn out to be the nostril of a giant monster?
Setting that aside, how had no one ever discovered that this mountain was actually a living creature, yet the moment he arrived, it woke up?
If this wasn't targeted harassment, Rhys refused to believe otherwise.
"You'd better run now, or it'll be too late."
After saying that to the four people who had been knocked to the ground by the earthquake, Rhys cast a flight spell and shot out of the cave at incredible speed. Hovering in mid-air, he began preparing for battle.
He could already predict that what was coming would be a brutal fight, because as far as the eye could see, mountain ranges stretching for kilometres were trembling.
"Hey, you—"
Iris tried to call out to Rhys, but he had already flown out of sight.
"No time! Get over here!"
Alexandna shouted, telling Iris to stand beside her immediately. The teleportation spell was about to activate.
After planting her staff into the ground and tearing open a magic scroll, a magic circle appeared beneath the four of them. A flash of cyan light erupted, and the four vanished.
"Oh?"
Rhys noticed the method they had used to escape and couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement.
The magic they had used wasn't a spatial spell like Apparition. Instead, it was a form of wind magic. In other words, rather than being "teleported" away, they had literally been blown away by a powerful gust of wind.
From his position in the sky, Rhys could see everything clearly. The four hadn't actually fled very far. They had only travelled a few miles before stopping and watching from what they believed to be a safe distance.
"Having an audience isn't bad. Today's opening ceremony is going to be unprecedentedly spectacular."
A smile appeared on Rhys's face.
He had already decided to go all out.
Fine droplets of rain began to fall from the sky, while the mountains below shook with increasing violence. Eventually, an unimaginably enormous dragon rose from the earth itself.
Only when the dragon stood up did Iris and the others realise that the entire mountain range of the Forest of Dragons was actually part of its body.
No one knew how many ages it had slept here. Earth and stone had covered its body, plants had taken root and grown into dense forests, and throughout all that time, it had remained asleep, until today, when several visitors had disturbed its peaceful slumber.
"I knew something felt off while walking through this forest. So that's what it was."
Rhys had sensed that something was strange from the moment he entered this place, but he had initially assumed it was simply a unique characteristic of an artificial world like the alchemical realm.
Now he realised that he had been overthinking things.
His gaze shifted to the giant dragon below, which was gradually shaking the dirt from its body.
Calling it a dragon was perhaps inaccurate. It resembled some kind of gigantic lizard more than anything else, because it lacked the wings that dragons usually possessed. Judging by the thickness of its scales, it probably couldn't fly anyway.
The rain gradually intensified, and the dragon soon noticed the abundant magical power contained within the raindrops. It raised its head and let out a long, resonant roar at Rhys.
The sound was deep and thunderous, audible more than ten kilometres away.
Rhys wasn't intimidated by the dragon's roar. Instead, he noticed something interesting.
There were countless massive wounds stretching from the dragon's neck down to its chest and abdomen. Even now, those wounds continued to leak a type of wind-element magic that Rhys found very familiar.
"So this is Rowena's handiwork. Looks like this thing was one of the species that survived her 'end of the world' scenario."
The more of these alchemical creatures he killed, the greater the damage he would inflict upon the world's core.
Rhys narrowed his eyes and continued expanding his Domain.
By now, his Domain covered the entire Forest of Dragons, and the dragon beneath him was completely enveloped within it.
The earth beneath the dragon also began to ripple faintly, like waves on water. Their Domains had already begun intertwining and clashing.
Both Rhys and the dragon remained perfectly still.
The situation abruptly entered a tense stalemate.
At that moment, a flash of triumph appeared in the dragon's eyes.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared in the sky.
Moreover, that shadow was growing larger at a visible rate.
Rhys looked up and discovered that a meteorite had appeared overhead and was hurtling directly towards him.
Rhys: ???
Rowena, didn't you make your little world a bit too comprehensive?
How did you even include meteorites? Did you really have that much spare time on your hands?
The moisture in the air began to condense rapidly, leaving countless fine cracks across the surface of the meteorite.
Rhys had considered simply using Apparition to escape and letting the dragon suffer the consequences of its own attack. However, considering the dragon's mastery over the Earth Domain, he felt that relying on a meteorite to injure it would be foolish.
"That should be enough."
Feeling the agitation in the magical energy around him, Rhys muttered to himself. He drew his wand from his robes and pointed it at the meteorite overhead.
"Reducto!"
A spell that, in the hands of ordinary young wizards, couldn't even blast apart a wall at Hogwarts, displayed terrifying power in Rhys's hands.
The ambient magical energy in the air continuously attached itself to the spell he had cast, causing its light to become increasingly dazzling. It rapidly expanded until it was more than a dozen feet long.
Yet even though the Blasting Curse had grown thousands of times larger, it still looked like nothing more than a sewing needle compared to the meteorite.
However, the instant the spell struck the meteorite, a miracle occurred.
The meteorite burst like a balloon pricked by a needle. After a thunderous explosion, it shattered into pieces. The larger fragments continued exploding again and again, transforming the meteorite, which had originally measured several kilometres in diameter, into tens of thousands of smaller fragments, creating an enormous meteor shower.
"Hey, you lizard down there, do you have any other tricks?"
Ignoring the countless meteor fragments falling behind him, Rhys instead stared at the dragon below.
"If this is all you've got, then it's not much to look at!"
As he spoke, Rhys continued suppressing the dragon's Domain while simultaneously condensing the moisture in the air into a spear of flowing water over a hundred metres long.
He intended to end this battle.
At that moment, the dragon raised its head again.
A meteorite far larger than the previous one appeared in the sky.
"A second one?"
Rhys smiled.
This time, he had no intention of destroying it.
The dragon's actions reminded him of stories unearthed by Muggle archaeologists.
"If I remember correctly, the dinosaurs on Earth went extinct because of a meteorite impact. Perhaps I can try recreating that in this little world?"
An intense curiosity suddenly arose within him.
With that thought, the water spear he had formed plunged from the sky like a shooting star, piercing into the dragon's neck under its shocked gaze.
The dragon had assumed that the powerful being in the sky would use the water spear to counter the newly arrived meteorite.
Instead, Rhys used it to attack.
The dragon's thick, durable hide, reinforced by earth-element magic, successfully blocked the spear, allowing it to penetrate only a dozen or so metres.
For a creature of the dragon's size, that wasn't even enough to break the skin.
Just as the dragon breathed a sigh of relief, it realised that the water spear had begun spinning at an astonishing speed.
Water, normally so soft and harmless, became unimaginably sharp when accelerated to such velocities, gradually slicing through the dragon's resilient flesh.
Realising the danger, the dragon attempted to redirect the earth-element magic it had been using to oppose Rhys and use it to neutralise the deadly water spear.
But at that exact moment, Rhys activated the trap he had prepared from the very beginning of the battle.
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI