The deeper Tora and Scyte ventured into Sector 12's Giant Forest, the more absurd the scenery became.
What should have been a forest filled with centuries-old towering trees now looked more like the aftermath of a cosmic war zone.
Uprooted trees lay scattered, the ground was scorched black, and most striking of all… dozens of massive meteor rocks were embedded into the earth, forming deep craters that still released trails of heat and smoke.
Tora let out a low whistle.
From beneath his blindfold, his gaze swept across the area, sensing the dense remnants of gravitational energy. "Damn… that crybaby kid is really playing with meteors now. He flattened the whole place like this."
Scyte nimbly leaped onto one of the still-warm meteor rocks.
His sharp eyes scanned the surroundings until he spotted a massive metallic mound at the edge of the largest crater.
"Oh? Tora, look over there!" Scyte called, pointing with his scythe.
Tora approached with heavy steps.
At the bottom of the crater lay the corpse of a dragon the size of a five-story building.
Most of its body was composed of machine and steel layered with combat armor, while the rest consisted of biological muscle tissue, now charred and burned.
Its body was crushed in several places, clearly from the impact of a massive blade and meteor strikes, with arrows still embedded in it.
Scyte jumped down, landing right on top of the dragon's head. He tapped its metal snout with the tip of his shoe.
"A metal lizard with high-grade military weaponry. Looks like a bio-weapon made by remnants of some runaway megacorp," Scyte analyzed, his grin widening. "And it seems Rare used this thing as a training dummy. Not bad taste."
"Tch… I wanted to kill this lizard if I found it first," Tora grumbled, annoyed at losing his warm-up. "Let's move, we'll find—"
DZZZZTTTT…
Before Tora could finish his sentence, the ground beneath them trembled faintly.
At first, it felt like a minor quake. But within seconds, it escalated into a violent tremor that caused surrounding rocks to float due to gravitational distortion.
The air suddenly grew unbearably heavy and hot.
Scyte instantly leaped away from the dragon's corpse, landing smoothly beside Tora.
The afternoon sun that had been shining down on them was suddenly swallowed by a colossal shadow.
The forest plunged into darkness.
Tora looked up, his jaw slightly open. "Yooo… that's insane."
From beyond the line of hills ahead, something as large as a mountain slowly rose.
Earth and trees cascaded off its back like mere dust.
A gigantic cyborg dragon.
Its scale was unmatched. Mechanical steel wings stretched wide, covering the sky, while the energy reactor in its chest pulsed with a blinding crimson glow.
Its eyes, each the size of a house, locked onto Tora and Scyte standing beside the corpse of its offspring.
The dragon opened its steel jaws, lined with fangs as massive as greatswords.
ROOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!
The roar wasn't just sound, it was a pure shockwave that flattened what remained of the surrounding forest.
The artificial storm sent Tora's hair and coat whipping violently, yet the massive man didn't move an inch.
The mother dragon clearly believed these two small humans had slaughtered its child.
"Wow… the mom showed up with a vengeance," Scyte said. Instead of fear, a wide grin spread across his face, revealing his teeth.
The scythe in his hand began radiating a dense killing aura.
Tora slowly lowered his twin axes from his shoulder.
He gripped the massive weapon with one hand while the other stretched his neck, producing a series of unsettling cracks.
Natural energy from the remnants of the forest began flowing into his axe, making it tremble and glow with wild intensity.
"Scyte," Tora called in a low voice, his savage grin widening.
"Yeah, Captain?"
"Rare can summon meteors. Arrow fights from long range. If the two of us, just close-combat fighters, want to bring down a flying mountain like this…" Tora's grin grew even wider. "…how many minutes do you think we need?"
Scyte lowered his stance, his eyes blazing with the madness of a cold-blooded killer. "Two minutes. The rest is just for wiping the blood off our clothes."
Without another word, the ground beneath Tora exploded as the massive man launched himself straight into the sky, charging directly toward the mountain-sized dragon with an axe ready to split the heavens!!!