The dragon charges at the mimic in the form of a gryphon, which he easily avoided by soaring up as he can clearly see its movements. While in midair, he channels mana in his throat and attacks the dragon with a breath attack to test its durability. As expected, it does not seem to be effective against the dragon.
The dragon flaps its wings and soars up, creating a power gust below. As it rises up, the dragon opens its mouth and attempts to bite the gryphon. In response, he flies up further, causing the dragon to miss.
He looks down and fires a highly concentrated ball of fire, but the attack just hits the dragon's snout and does not do any damage at all. He continues to fly higher until it is only less than a hundred meters from the ceiling. Since he is faster, the dragon is around half a kilometer behind.
Taking advantage of their distance, he flaps his wings hard and begins to descend at supersonic speed. His razor sharp claws are ready to strike at its target again.
However, the dragon does something that sends shivers to his spine. Upon stopping going any higher, the dragon opens its mouth and fires a beam of blue flames at him, which reminds him of his terrifying encounter with that powerful dragon.
(Blue Flames?!)
Whoosh!
The flames themselves are moving faster than the speed of sound, so all its heat is focused in a meter-wide narrow path. If that attack were to hit him, he would surely be burned alive.
In panic, he instinctively moves his body sideways barely avoiding the flames. However, the dragon is persistent and redirects the flames at him again. The blue flames keep following him around. This time, the tables have turned and he is now getting targeted.
A few seconds later, the dragon runs out of fuel and the flames come to an end. Seizing the opportunity, he shifts his direction and goes towards the hovering dragon at a high speed. The distance between them instantly shrinks and his talons ultimately reach the dragon's thorax, piercing his hooked claws through its scales and flesh.
"RRRWWAA!"
The dragon cries in pain and uses its hind legs to strike the gryphon in the abdomen, which it kicks him away. He is about to charge his claws and abruptly stops when the dragon is doing something different from what it has done so far. He is feeling that it is about to do something powerful.
In the air, the dragon slowly expands its chest while contracting its abdomen. He senses that it has been drawing out a lot of its mana from its core, the magic crystal, to its throat. A second later, the dragon fires a powerful one-foot-wide bluish-white sphere that is made of highly concentrated flames.
(!!!)
The sphere is too fast for him to react as it is traveling faster than the speed of sound. He can only move his body slightly but the beam still lands on one of his wings.
(UGH!)
The bluish-white ball easily passes through his wing, creating a hole, and travels far in the hallway. A second later, the beam ultimately hits a wall half a kilometer away and a powerful explosion follows up.
BOOM!
The explosion is large enough to create bright lights that illuminate the hallway. Shortly after, the shockwave from the explosion sways the gryphons feathery wings.
With his wing damaged, he loses his ability to fly and fall afterwards. Hitting the floor head-on will definitely hurt. He then hurriedly heals his wings to the max and flaps his wings just in time to land safely on the ground.
(That was so close! I would have died if that thing hit my body.)
Upon looking up, he sees that the dragon is descending fast and it is clearly targeting him. Due to its size, gravity alone would crush even a gryphon, but the dragon is deliberately speeding up to add momentum, making it worse for him.
(Oh, shit!)
In order to avoid that, he quickly morphs his body and transforms into a two meter long arachnid that resembles a jumping spider. That monster is actually an assassin theraphosid, a predominantly male arachnid monster that serves and protects a theraphosid queen.
Before the dragon hits the floor, he quickly moves and easily avoids getting splat.
Crash!
He is quite surprised by how fast and agile this form can be. He thinks that it is as if he was a jumping spider with all its agility scales up the same as the size.
But as an insect, he is fully aware that he is quite weak to fire. Thankfully, that powerful attack just now takes a lot of mana and has a long cooldown. Even so, the dragon can still use the flamethrower and the fireball.
Whoosh.
The dragon breathes fire left and right, but he is just easily avoiding them by rapidly jumping around. As he does, he tries shooting webs and silks to restrain the dragon. For effectiveness, he uses the spider queen's ductile and strong silk. However, the dragon can break the webs with moderate effort and fire just disintegrates them.
Suddenly, the dragon stops fire flames and begins concentrating its mana to its throat instead. He knows that it is going to do that destructive attack again, but he is ready to evade it again.
However, instead of aiming its mouth at him, the dragon lowers its head and opens its mouth to the floor between them. If the dragon cannot catch its opponent, it is planning to blow up this place.
His senses are tingling frantically, telling him that he is in great danger. Seeing how big the explosion earlier is, he knows that he cannot escape from it no matter how fast he runs. Transforming into something bigger like the gryphon takes time, so flying is futile as well.
(What the fuck?! What should I do with that shit?!)
He is fully aware that he cannot avoid it. Even if he transformed into a gargoyle, he would likely end up half-dead if he was lucky, which would give the dragon freedom to finish him effortlessly.
The dragon is about to release its attack in a second. He desperately racks his brain to its limits, accelerating his perception a dozen times faster, thinking of a way to survive.
(FUCK!!!)
Every millisecond pass slowly loses his mind. He is losing hope, yet he does want to die. He cannot just accept this kind of fate. In the face of death, something inside him awakens.