Chapter 38: The Dragon Approaches — Part 2
The shadow blocked the sun.
I stood in the central square, surrounded by overlapping buff zones, and watched Brightness Dragon Lord descend from the eastern sky like judgment made physical. Forty meters of scaled fire, wings that seemed to swallow the morning light, eyes that burned with an intelligence older than human civilization.
[BEING SCAN ACTIVE]
[TARGET: BRIGHTNESS DRAGON LORD]
[LEVEL: 58]
[TYPE: TRUE DRAGON — PYROKINETIC VARIANT]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: CATASTROPHIC]
[AWL: 180/240]
The scan drained my reserves, but the data was essential. Level 58 — more than three times my own level, with abilities that made my monument buffs look like children's toys. The only advantage I had was positioning: standing in the overlap zone of all four active monuments, their combined effects layering protection I couldn't achieve any other way.
The Dragon's first action was a reconnaissance pass.
A gout of flame erupted from his jaws, sweeping across Marlstone's outer fields in a scorching arc. The heat wave rolled toward the town center like a physical force, and I braced myself as it hit.
[MONUMENT BUFF: +5 DEF (WATCHTOWER)]
[MONUMENT BUFF: +5 DEF (GATEHOUSE)]
[MONUMENT BUFF: +10 DEF (GARRISON HALL)]
[COMBINED DEFENSIVE RESISTANCE: +20 DEF]
[DAMAGE MITIGATED: 73%]
The fire washed over me and the militia stationed in the central zone. My clothes singed, heat pressing against my skin like a physical weight, but the combined buffs held. Around me, soldiers staggered but didn't fall — their armor glowing red but their flesh intact.
Outside the buff radius, wooden structures ignited instantly. Market stalls at the perimeter burst into flame. Fences, sheds, anything outside the monument coverage burned like dry kindling.
Brightness Dragon Lord circled overhead, his massive head tracking the damage pattern. When he spoke, the words came in a rumbling bass that seemed to vibrate through the earth itself.
"It's the structures."
The draconic tongue was intelligible to me — another gift of transmigration, or perhaps something the system translated automatically. His eyes fixed on the monuments, the magical signatures he'd been tracking since the mountains.
"Destroy the structures," the Dragon rumbled, "and the vermin are naked."
He was right. He'd identified my strategy faster than I'd expected, recognizing that the monument network was the only thing standing between his fire and my death.
The Dragon dove toward the gatehouse.
I ran.
Not away from the danger — toward it. The gatehouse was three hundred meters from my current position, and I needed to be within its radius when I triggered the collapse. The trap wouldn't work if the Dragon was hovering overhead; it needed him grounded, committed, vulnerable to the physical mass of thousands of tons of falling stone.
Militia scattered as I sprinted through the burning streets. Hild's voice called from somewhere behind me, but I couldn't stop to respond. The Dragon was descending, his target the oldest and most magically saturated structure in Marlstone.
Exactly where I needed him.
The western gate erupted with activity as the evacuation convoys cleared the town. I caught a glimpse of the refugees as I ran — families clustered on wagons, children crying, elderly clutching possessions they couldn't bring themselves to leave behind.
"Run toward them. Protect them. Be the hero they need."
The instinct pulled at me, human and genuine and completely useless. The children would be safe if they reached the forest. The Dragon wasn't interested in refugees — he was interested in the monuments that had invaded his territorial awareness.
I kept running toward the gatehouse.
[DISTANCE TO GATEHOUSE: 150 METERS]
[DRAGON LORD APPROACH VECTOR: CONFIRMED]
[TIME TO IMPACT: 47 SECONDS]
The ground shook as Brightness Dragon Lord landed on the gatehouse roof. His claws dug into the transmuted stone — the same stone Torvald had noticed, the same magical resonance Evileye had detected — and his weight compressed the structure's supports.
Fifty meters away now. Close enough to feel the gatehouse's DEF buff activating around me, layering additional protection onto the combined effects I was already carrying.
The Dragon looked down through the gatehouse's central arch and saw me approaching.
"Bold," he rumbled. "Or foolish. The structures protect you, but you run toward the structure I'm about to destroy."
"That's the plan."
I skidded to a stop twenty meters from the gatehouse entrance, positioning myself at the edge of the collapse radius. Any closer and I'd be buried alongside the Dragon. Any further and the buff coverage would be too thin to protect me from the shockwave.
Brightness Dragon Lord tilted his massive head, studying me with ancient eyes that had watched civilizations rise and fall.
"You built these things. I can taste your essence in the magic." His jaws opened, fire building in his throat. "I will enjoy watching you die without them."
He breathed fire directly down through the gatehouse structure, the conflagration erupting through the building like a pillar of destruction.
I activated Nation Synthesis.
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