The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1182: Sand Dragons

With Dana settled in on his back and held in place by [Eternal Lightning], Karl flew out to intercept the Matriarch, while Orthos went to join Bunga’s ground troops, and Hawk vanished into the clouds.

[Don’t you think that you’ve gotten too much altitude?] Karl asked as the bird vanished from sight.

[We have a plan.] Hawk assured him.

As long as he wasn’t distracted, it should be fine.

The Matriarch roared when she saw Karl’s massive form, large even for a Mythic Rank dragon, thanks to his buffs. That was a threat that she couldn’t ignore, and when Karl moved the fight away from the infantry, the Matriarch followed.

Even if they were thousands of metres in the air, the aftermath of their battle was likely to cause wide scale destruction. It was simply inevitable during a battle between Totem Ranked Dragons.

”Drop me off here, I will ride with Orthos to deal with the ground forces. I want to know what Epic Golems do, and I won’t be able to use them from two kilometres in the air.” Dana instructed.

Karl chuckled.

{Go ahead, I will inform Orthos that you intend to ride him into battle.}

Cara laughed in Karl’s mind. Yes, let the Dana Mage ride the stuffy dragon.

It would do him good.

Dana flew down to where Orthos had circled back to collect her, as her own flight was not fast enough to get her to the battle on time.

{I will not forget this. I am not a horse. Or a Cerro.} Orthos warned Karl.

{I can have her make an oversized lance if it helps?}

The old cleric gave Karl a slight draconic smile. The children of the city would tell stories of this battle for a century if she did. But it was purely excessive to use a lance when you were riding a dragon.

Karl and the Matriarch circled each other as they ascended, looking for an opening in their enemy’s guard.

The Sand Dragon had a barrier of swirling sand around her body that should equal [Eternal Lightning] in effectiveness. Or something close to it.

That would not make this an easy fight for either side.

Sand vortexes appeared in the air all over their portion of the battlefield, and Karl countered with dozens of [Hellstorm Vortexes]

The combination turned the battlefield into an obstacle course, where both had to weave around the swirling winds to avoid having their wings shredded. It was standard for Dragons at their level, Orthos knew. But he didn’t have an opportunity to warn Karl about the most common battle tactics the Matriarch would likely employ.

Karl sent out a barrage of [Disintegration] attacks, which the Sand Dragon countered with fireballs, causing explosions of black fire to pepper the sky like anti-aircraft flak.

The two dragons crashed together, snapping and snarling as they clawed at each other before twisting free to make another pass.

Neither barrier fell in the first exchange, but Karl knew that his strength was buffed to a level much higher than what the Sand Dragon could claim. It was unlikely to go for another direct confrontation now that it knew it was physically outmatched.

But the real battle was not between the two champions.

From ten thousand metres in the air, Hawk and Cara put their plan into action.

Hawk twisted and flapped once, hard. He rocketed toward the ground at nearly six hundred kilometres an hour, and then at three thousand metres out, he flared his wings and activated [Lord of Destruction] turning himself incorporeal.

While Hawk rapidly decelerated, Cara did not.

A small black and white fur missile hurtled toward the back of an Overlord Ranked Sand Dragon, who hadn’t even noticed the incoming threat.

With [Disintegration] as a protective shell outside of [Eternal Lightning], she prepared a [Void Blast] in front of herself.

Cara hit the dragon’s back like a thirty kilo cannonball, and then [Void Blast] exploded on contact, evaporating a large portion of the beast’s body and letting Cara hurtle past him toward the ground without slowing.

[Badger Incoming!] She cheered as she realized that she was headed for a Totem Ranked Dragonkin warrior.

The wind was knocked from her as she slammed into the man’s hastily raised shield, but the satisfying sound of shattered bones let her know that her [Disintegration] barrier hadn’t been wasted.

The Dragonkin cult members began to panic as a blur of teeth and claws tore apart one of their champions, then launched itself at the unfortunate Black Dragon Cleric who happened to be closest to the dead warrior.

[Satisfying.] Hawk laughed as he rained Ghostfire meteors on the battlefield.

From Orthos’ back, Dana shook her head at the duo’s antics. She hadn’t expected any less from them when Hawk had vanished into the clouds.

The Sand Dragons had scattered to avoid the meteor bombardment, and Orthos was about to chase them with Dana on his back.

”Just let Hawk and Cara deal with the dragons. They’re both faster flyers than we are.” She suggested.

Orthos nodded and landed at the edge of the battlefield to let Dana disembark and join the ground fight.

After millennia of training Magical beasts, Orthos was an exceptional ground combatant. Most species couldn’t fly, and part of his job as an Elder of the Beast God Temple was to teach them to fight.

They might not be dragons, but four legged combat was similar for most species.

Dana focused on [Epic Golem] then frowned when she got a System Menu and not a guardian.

{Please Select form before each activation}

{Ogre King}

{Naga King}

{Naga Shaman}

{Earth Elemental Champion}

...

Each listing was a dungeon boss that she had faced in the past.

In this case, she went with the Earth Elemental Champion, a ten-metre tall Titan sized beast with incredibly high durability and damage reduction.

But more importantly, it could reshape its stone club into a massive stone blade, which gave it access to [Auto Parry].

Or, they could reshape their weapons, as [Golem Duplication] gave her two of them.

She might have just found a new favourite spell.