Dragon Sorcerer 2- Chapter 92 (Patreon)

Chapter 92- Game of Death

Hearing the short human say I would have to make my way into the dilapidated building the dragon way made my skin tingle. Was this a challenge? Perhaps I had been misreading things entirely.

A grin came across my face. Perhaps I should have second guessed myself and kept listening to my mentor. But, that wasn’t the dragon way. It certainly wasn’t my way. Once I’d made up my mind, there was nothing left but to do it.

I stepped forward again, but this time there was a grin on my face. The short man turned back to me after watching Lisella step into the building. Then he moved two of his fingers in a circle like gesture and all of the students stopped what they were doing. Each of them adopted a fighting stance and moved toward me in groups of two or three.

None engaged, they simply blocked any path I might take to enter the building. Well, that was except for one. It just so happened that the open path was the most natural path for a dragon. They were still seeing the world as flat, but there was far more to the world than the ground.

My legs tensed for a second as the muscles coiled tightly and then snapped out like a spring. I flew high into the air over their head. They might be blocking the paths, but the sky was still the domain of a dragon regardless of what form I might be in presently.

I laughed as I soared over their heads. A couple of weapons were thrown at me, but I knocked the only one that got close out of the air. This was too easy. Human fools should never have underestimated me. Then I felt the air around me shift.

Suddenly, it was like I was caught in a whirlwind. The air spun, and I was sent flying backward, landing now far from where I had leapt from. The short man said, “Not so easy. The dragon may be the master of the sky, but that doesn’t mean they can ignore the wind.”

I looked at him. A whirlwind of air swirled around him. I could see the magic, but once again, it wasn’t a spell. This was some innate ability related to his class. “Try harder if you want to prove you’re worthy of our master’s time.”

Hmm… so he wasn’t the teacher here. That made me more interested. These others were too weak, but he at least had some power. Of course I should simply have Identified him before and then I wouldn’t have had to worry about whether he was the man I was coming to see.

Now, I didn’t have time to worry about anything though, as a shovel came crashing down. Instinct had me roll, and I spun my legs to bring my body up, whipping them around and knocking over another attack just as the shovel hit the space where my head had been moments ago.

That blow hadn’t been pulled. It would have done critical damage if it had landed. They were taking this seriously. It was time for me to do the same. On my feet now, I could see all the students move toward me, but only three were attacking me now. A man with the shovel, a dark-skinned woman, and a light-skinned smaller man who I had knocked to the ground on my way up.

I deflected a few blows from the female human stepping around her. She was slower than me, definitely weaker than me, and from the way she winced just slightly when I would block her punches. I stepped and avoided her and then felt the shovel swing at me again.

They were working as a unit without any communication that I could detect. They were no tougher than the gnolls but worked much better together. I soon found that with all three of them attacking, it was all that I could do to avoid the more powerful blows. My shins were getting bruised as I blocked kick after kick and still I was being pushed back. This was plain wrong.

The short man called out, “Your defense is impressive for one so young, but do you wish to be a dragon or a turtle? Turtles hide in their shell. Dragon's attack.”

Fury surged within me. Not only was I having to put up with these monkeys, but now one of them was taunting me. He wanted to see a dragon. Fine, I’d show him a dragon.

Partial Shape Change

The skin on my legs rippled, and I had to take a blow that sent me stumbling, but with that I transformed my legs so that they were covered in scales. This allowed me to use a bit more of my strength without worrying about breaking a bone, but more importantly it gave my foes a shock.

The next time I blocked a kick with my leg, it caused a yelp of pain and shock from my attacker. It might not have broken his leg as I hoped, but it so knocked him off balance that I was able to step into him. My quick punch to his solar plexus had him doubled over. It really was a stupid design for humans to have such a weak spot on their exposed front, but I would take advantage of it.

As he was bent down, I could have driven my knee into his head and put him out for good, but that was human thinking. I wanted to learn to fight as a monk. That much was true. Mastery of my body had already paid off when I was in dragon form, but I was still more than just a human.

So instead, I took advantage of my strength and picked him up to use him as a weapon as I hurled him into his female teammate. That time, I heard bones crack as they both grunted in pain. Neither rose. Perhaps I had hurt them more than intended. Lisella would be upset, but I was beyond caring. I was a dragon who had been challenged.

I used the momentum to roll underneath another shovel swing and then swept the leg of my third foe as he over-extended slightly. It was something Galbrecht had taught me during one of our sparring matches. Humans have a tendency to shift their balance and stretch further than they should. It was a deficit of the two-legged body.

Before he had even hit the ground, I drove my fist into the side of his head. I was moving quickly now and there was no time to delay. Each movement was intended to cause maximum damage. I felt my shoulder almost pop out of socket with the amount of force that I delivered and a bone in my hand cracked, but so too did his head. All three of them were done.

Rapid Cast- Lesser Regeneration.

I felt the soothing magic settle into me. That would fix any minor injuries. At the same time, I looked for my next target and called out, “The dragon’s scales are stronger than any turtle’s shells.”

Partial Shape Change

I triggered another change, this time to my hands and arms all the way up to and including my shoulders. I was just beginning to realize how much I had been holding back on the strength that I possessed because of my body’s limits. The extra Durability I had gained recently helped a lot, but I wanted to be able to use all that Strength. It was far more than most humans at my level had access to.

I didn’t wait for the next group to reach me. Instead, I charged at a pair of human males. They looked much more alike than others of their kind, so perhaps they were related in some way. As it was, they were both wielding weapons. One had a broom and the other a mop, but they used them more like fighting staves.

Their weapons lashed out quickly, like striking snakes. It might have forced a lesser opponent back, but I was not going to be denied. I sheared both weapons in half and just kept going. I drove my shoulder into one of the brothers forcing the air from his lungs while I spun around with a heel keep that took the other not in his head but in the side of his leg forcing his knee to bend in a direction it wasn’t supposed to.

The first brother let out an ‘oomph’ as he gasped for air, but the second once screeched like prey which had just been gutted. I didn’t wait, though. I wasn’t trying to kill them although it would be too easy to slip into that. I needed to be both the dragon I was meant to be but also learn to adapt to this human world I was living in.

I raced without stopping for the next group. I stopped even seeing them as individuals, but only as obstacles in my way. One threw a punch at me and a blast of acid erupted with the blow. My skin sizzled, but I took it. My uniform sizzled, and I felt it eating into my skin. My HP ticked down, but not enough to even be concerned. The attack couldn’t have been that strong because 50% resistance was more than enough to blunt it.

That group danced around me rather than going straight at me. The one who could launch acid attacks could only do so every few seconds, and the others seemed content to try to buy time for her. The top of my uniform was ruined, so I ripped it off, but that pale fleshing look was almost too much for me to bear. I took the extra time and extended my partial transformation.

Beautiful, glossy, blue scales soon covered my chest and met with the same scales at my shoulders and the top of my legs. I was now covered in scales from the top of my feet to the top of my shoulders. This was glorious.

When I landed the next blow and knocked the acid puncher out. I felt tempted to cast Call the Charge. It seemed appropriate to have an electrical charge since I was mostly covered in scales, but I didn’t want to spend DKP to extend the Shocking Aura ability to my transformed state. Yet, something told me that this was supposed to be a test of my abilities as a Dragon Disciple.

So, I pushed myself harder. I didn’t even have to worry about their blows now and only protected my head. One by one they fell. As I changed the last group, I called upon another draconic ability.

Dragon Fear

To their credit the feeble humans didn’t all defecate themselves, but they still all at least stumbled a bit. That opening was all that it took to land some solid blows. Most of the humans couldn’t stand up to more than one blow, although I noted the ones with black sashes seemed to be a bit stronger.

That left only the short, dark-haired man. I suppose I could have asked if he wanted to step aside, but in this moment I was more a hunting dragon than a student monk. I raced forward and lashed out.

Identify

Killian Nysoon  Transformed Dragon Disciple

Level: 14 HP: 1040/1040

I was glad I had checked. I wouldn’t need to hold back. He was far stronger than the others. I struck with my clawed fist. Rather than using a monk like strike I adapted a blend between the way I would fight as a dragon and how I would fight as a monk. It felt so naturally perfect. A notification popped up, but I ignored it.

I half expected to sheer his arm off at the elbow when his hand moved as fast as a snake to block me. But to my shock I only sheered through the canvas material of his uniform and my claws were met by blue scales which completely covered his forearm.

That was hardly the biggest shock, though. I left myself partially open and expected a kick or punch to my chest, yet couldn’t quite react quickly enough to close the opening. Instead, with his block, he sucked in a deep breath and just as my claws met his scales. He opened his mouth and brilliant light poured forth.

The concussive force of the blast knocked me backwards thirty feet and deposited me face down with the world spinning around me. I heard Lisella gasp, but she didn’t come running to heal me. Of course, there was no need. The force of the direct impact of lightning breath still moved my body, but the charge itself did nothing to me.

I popped back up. The short man’s eyes narrowed, but he adopted a fighting stance. I prepared to go at it again. Maybe I should find out if he was as immune to electricity as I was. Or perhaps I could try out one of my new breath weapons.

That was when a voice from inside the building sounded out. It was strangely commanding for a human voice. “Enough. Let him in.”