"A dragon is a great target to test the limits of my ability." Purin mumbles with a bloody grin.
His awakened ability is what others consider risky, a skill that grants high reward for high risk. Purin's awakened ability actually requires a condition to activate, which is visible when his body glows so faintly.
After the dragon's tail deals a heavy blow to his body, Purin knows that it is more than enough to trigger. With his hands tightly gripping on his great sword's hilt, Purin swings his sword with all his might diagonally in the air.
"Hah!"
Purin is the strongest in the party physically, so it is obvious that his swing is incredibly fast. In addition to multiple layers of enhancement magic he cast on himself, his strength exponentially increases resulting in faster swing.
In order to increase the damage output, he makes use of his awakened ability. Purin's awakened ability is the power to convert the damage he has taken into power by giving the damage the dragon has dealt back to it— a counterattack.
In addition, when the counterattack successfully lands on the target, Purin is able to restore his wounds and broken bones to a certain extent, but not completely. He calls his awakened ability Berserker. A power to charge at the enemies and sustain damages for a long run.
With the Berserker activated, the speed of the tip of the blade even reaches hypersonic speed. At that level of speed, the blade pushes and compresses the air in front of it. As a result, a sonic boom is supposed to be created.
Since Purin has done it countless times before, he has perfected the technique to manipulate the compressed air into the shape of a crescent moon, a sword wave he calls. What's more impressive is that he can actually cancel the ear-piercing loud boom, making it as silent as an arrow.
Whoosh.
The sword wave flies in the air so fast it already reaches the dragon in a matter of milliseconds despite being around the hundred meters space between them. That speed is just too much for the dragon to physically react.
It could not do anything about it and just let the sword wave hit its front left leg. The dragon does not panic...as it knows it can take it.
Ker-chk! Shatter! Cling!
"What?!"
Purin is in disbelief that his most powerful attack failed. Not only him, but the others are audibly shocked as well. After, that last attack was probably the most powerful offense they can pull off in terms of individual execution.
Even with a night vision, Purin can see that his attack was stopped by some kind of invisible barriers around the dragon. The sword wave definitely shatters the first two barriers, but it fails to break through the third layer.
Since ni damage is dealt, Purin receives no lifesteal, and his body begins to shake from the drawback of the execution of his special move.
As he is processing what he has witnessed, Misha quickly voices her deductions to the party.
"Magic! The dragon simultaneously casts two defensive magic spells which are Fortress, the first two layers, and Breachless Bastion! I don't know how a monster can use a magic spell other than wild magic!"
Her words echo through the dark hallway, fully reaching her companions' ears, which shakes their core of understanding how dangerous this dragon can be.
(((High-tier and supreme-tier magic?!)))
Fortress and Breachless Bastion are defense magic spells of high-tier and supreme-tier, respectively. Fortress is a powerful spell that creates a translucent half dome barrier around the caster, blocking magic spells up to high-tier as well as massive physical objects.
On the other hand, Breachless Bastion is a much more powerful version of the former. It creates a full dome or even spherical almost transparent barrier around the caster that can withstand even supreme-tier magic and most forms of attacks. That is the wall that Purin's attack failed to overcome.
What fears the party the most is that those high level spells are cast by a dragon, a monster that is supposed to only do wild magic.
Wild magic is a type of magic that only monsters can do as it does not require chanting or magic circles to cast. Each race of monster has their own wild magic since they have the specific parts or organs needed to cast like the infamous breath attack of the dragons.
This greater dragon they are currently facing is on the other level. Being able to do magic spells intelligent races can do, the party fears that this dragon might gain some intelligence.
A monster escaping the dungeon is unlikely as their mind has set that their ecosystem is in the dungeon. But with this particular greater dragon, there is a high chance that it may desire to wreck havoc on the surface.
With its massive mana, more than what the Great Sorceress possesses, its destruction on the surface world would be unimaginable. Although the dungeon is situated in the Roheazul Kingdom, the dragon's chaos would likely spread to the empire.
(This monster is too dangerous to let out to the surface.) Enves loudly thinks to himself. (The empire needs to know its existence.)
Zap!
A terrifying sound snaps Enves back to reality, who is stunned and out of touch for seconds. The sound is actually timed with a brief bright flash before him, which overexposes his night vision and temporarily blinds him.
Thud.
He hears that sound a second later. When he looks at the direction of that sound, he finds Purin's body laying facedown on the floor. Smoke then comes out of his body. A lightning bolt has hit him and stops his heart from beating.
"Purin!" Ingrid yells before she shoots her arrow at the dragon, which immediately breaks after making contact with the dragon's red scales.
Boom.
Enves then glances at Misha, who just unleashes one of her most powerful attacks, Dark Gale, a supreme-tier sinister magic spell. From a three-meter-wide magic circle, a vortex cannon of dark energy flies fast to the dragon. Casting that spell creates a powerful recoil and an explosive sound.
The Dark Gale reaches the dragon in no time. However, instead of getting shredded, the dragon's Breachless Bastion intecepts her magic.
"What are hell is this dragon?!" Misha shouts her frustration before turning her head to Enves. "What are you doing?! Follow the plan and do something?!"
Enves hears her words, but he does not listen. He takes quick glances between Ingrid and Purin. Seeing how awful their current situation is, Enves ultimately makes his decision.
(There's no hope in here. Someone has to report this to the empire... and that person is me!)
Enves has decided to escape the dungeon alone.