302 Chapter 302: Two-headed Dragon

"What have you done?" Henry Porter sagged to his knees, almost mired in despair. He gazed up at the ascending two-headed dragon, almost suffocated by the crimson bloodlust that it emanated. Around him, mercenaries were choking and staggering from the sheer presence of the monster.

"Our Lord!" Liu crowed, spreading both hands as far out as he could. Tears were streaming down his face. "Finally! For us to be blessed to witness your descent into our mundane world…! Come! Sate your hunger on this blasted world! Visit your wrath upon the pitiful souls who fester and corrupt this world with their naïve ideals of peace! Drown this world in blood!"

"Blood for the Blood God!" the disciples of the Blood Slaughter Sect chorused in unison. I swear, that phrase was getting irritating by now.

The two-headed dragon glanced down upon Liu with both pairs of eyes, disdain evident in those crimson pupils. For a second, Liu held its gaze, his expression rapturous.

And then he was gone. He and all of his disciples.

"?!"

The two-headed dragon almost paid the puny humans no heed. Raising a claw, it stomped on Liu and the entire Blood Slaughter Sect, squashing them into nothingness. Their screams of shock and agony at the sudden betrayal were abruptly cut off, whisked away by the howling wind of madness and murder that swept around the hovering dragon.

A chill ran down my spine and I shuddered when a single line surfaced within my memory.

The Blood God cares not from where the blood flows, as long as it continues to flow.

It seems that even his most devout followers were not immune to his murderous whims.

"Are you kidding me?!"

"That dragon killed the people who summoned him?"

"What's going on? Infighting? A falling out?"

A murmur ran through the gathered merecenaries as they attempted to decipher what they had just witnessed. Despite the earlier shock and awe the two-headed dragon imposed upon them, they were slowly recovering and regaining their senses. As expected of the best mercenaries that the Federation had to offer.

"Don't let your guard down," Brent warned. "If that thing has no hesitation in killing the people who summoned him for no reason, then it definitely has no qualms squashing us."

As if to puncuate the mercenary captain's sentence, the two-headed dragon dragged itself out of the abyss with a roar and swung its claw at us. We quickly dove out of the way, watching in horror as its massive paw raked three gigantic gouges in the earth, creating a ravine.

"How are we supposed to fight that thing?!" one of the mercenaries shrieked as he crashed heavily into a tree.

"Use your magic!" Redfield hollered as he flung an immense fireball at the emerging dragon. "You are combat mages, aren't you? So stop whining and start fighting! We can't let that thing manifest fully in our world, or we're doomed!"

While the mercenaries struggled to put together an improvised combat plan on the spot and execute it, Porter hurried over to me, accompanied by his granddaughter.

"Richard, you seem to know the most about this 'Blood God.' Do you know its weakness? How to defeat it?"

As if I would conveniently know any such thing! Maybe in another story, the monster would happen to have some sort of weakness that we could conveniently exploit, but reality was never that easy. Most likely we would have to do this the hard way.

"Well…the stories that I have read…" I paused, taking care to emphasize that I was talking about fiction here, and not reality. "…say that the only way to defeat such a Greater Daemon is through force. Destroying his physical body in this reality will banish him back to the Warp…uh, I mean back to his original dimension."

"So how do we destroy him?" Lilith demanded impatiently. "Look at the size of that thing! How many spells do we have to cast before we can finally wear him down to banish him back to his original dimension?!"

"If you can buy me time, I'll be able to nuke him to oblivion…never mind send him back to his dimension, I'll probably destroy him." I had already begun casting the summoning spell for Draco ever since the two-headed dragon had first shown up, but I still needed some more time.

"We'll be counting on you then," Brent called out. He vaulted over the gigantic claws and landed upon it. Running along the length of the dragon's arm, he drew tremendous amounts of mana into his staff. "Bankai!"

"At least change the name, oi!" I shouted after him. He ignored me, obviously.

"Tie Quan Duan Feng!"

Ducking as the dragon swatted at him, he spun around in midair to punch the offending limb. Despite being so tiny in the greater scale of things, his attack sent the dragon staggering backward. While the two heads snarled and turned to dart toward the evading mercenary captain, presumably to swallow him whole.

"Oh no, you don't!"

Redfield launched a powerful fire spell that detonated against one of the dragon's heads and sent it snapping back. Twirling his spear, he swung it as he descended upon the other head and uneashed a similarly devastating torrent of flames that engulfed the serpentine head.

"Whoa!"

He was forced to alter his trajectory in midair and hurl himself away when the two-headed dragon swiped at him. He landed on the dragon's claw, and then sprang away before the dragon could throw him off. Landing several dozen meters away, he managed to skid to a stop before crashing into a tree or something.

Lilith and the others had also stepped forward now, pelting the two-headed dragon with spells and mana bullets. The mercenaries, in particular, were uleashing volleys of mana beams and projectiles at the dragon, but for all their efforts, they might as well be tossing pebbles into the ocean. The two-headed dragon reared up with a snarl, ignoring their insignificant attacks and focused on Brent, Redfield and the other officers. And Lilith.

Her Hellfire Bear was lumbering forward, but despite its large size, it was still dwarfed by the two-headed dragon that was ten times its size. Fortunately, by now Lilith was able to summon Kagutsuchi. The white whale-like dragon manifested within an inferno and released a storm of superheated plasma at the two-headed dragon, searing its crimson scales and eliciting an enraged howl.

"Richard!" Brent snapped at me breathlessly as he crashed almost clumsily on the ground, but somehow managed to land on all fours. "We'll buy you the time you need to cast that nuke spell of yours!"

"You mean the two-headed dragon isn't going to patiently and politely wait for us to finish talking and strategizing in front of it before attacking?" I asked sarcastically as I watched the others fling their elemental spells at it. For a moment Brent gaped at me.

"What the fuck are you smoking? Why the hell would it do that?"

"How would I know? You should ask the author of some isekai light novel about cheat powers, or the director of its anime adaptation. The characters literally spent almost five minutes talking about plans and strategies, deciding who gets to fight the dragon, who stays to watch (though I have no idea why the heroine even bothered, especially when she did absolutely nothing), while the dragon patiently and politely waits for them to finish."

Brent stared at me for a second, and then he shook his head.

"That's fucked up and totally unrealistic. It sounds like the typical wish fulfillment type of story where the writer gives his protagonist every overpowered ability imaginable, and didn't think things through when crafting the plot."

Unfortunately, he didn't have any more time to waste on this nonsense, because the two-headed dragon chose that moment to unleash a torrent of flames from both of its mouths and incinerate the entire section of the swamp where the mercenaries were taking cover. The professional paramilitary soldiers instantly scattered and avoided a fiery death, especially when Brent swooped in underneath both of the dragons' heads and delivered a crushing blow.

"Hurricane Fist!" he shouted as he unleashed a devastating blast of explosive energy that rammed into the two-headed dragon's chest and sent it toppling over. Above, Kagutsuchi unleashed another set of superheated flames capable of melting metal, the immense inferno roiling over the sprawled two-headed dragon and scorching its scales.

The Blood God's tail whipped forward to swat Kagutsuchi away, but the kami of fire nimbly dodged the powerful strike that leveled trees and crushed them into splinters amidst the damp marsh. Spreading out its wings, Kagutuschi vomited another gout of superheated flames that washed over one of the dragon's heads.

Snarling in pain, the head shrank back from the inferno before spitting a retaliation of its own.

"!!"

Kagutsuchi veered off to the right, avoiding the concentrated beam of fury that lanced through the swamp and left a smoldering trail in the swamp, the bog waters vaporized into boiling steam and glowing magma that hissed in what remained of the terrain.

"Draco!"

I summoned my most powerful Constellation spirit and had him slam into the two-headed dragon, knocking it over. The two titanic beasts wrestled, with the two-headed dragon pinning the much smaller dragon underneath and beginning to obliterate him. However, Draco's jaws glowed and he fired Eltanin at pointblank range, the dual beams of black mana ramming into the two-headed dragon and bodily throwing it off him.

"Everyone, please retreat. I'm very close to nuking that bastard now, and I don't want to accidentally get all of you guys caught up in the explosion."

The rank-and-file mercenary soldiers, in particular, glanced at each other, and nodded. They knew that the ones who would suffer the most if they get caught up in the pseudo nuclear explosion would be them.

"Gotcha." Brent landed somewhere nearby, his feet leaving furrows in the already fragile earth. Spinning around, he issued an order. "Retreat! Everyone, fall back! Get to the hovercrafts and prepare for emergency evacuation!"

"Yes, sir!"

As I expected, nobody hesitated to obey his command. Only an idiot would hang around and wait to get nuked. The two-headed dragon probably didn't know what was coming, so it could be excused, but the Silver Wolves mercenaries were certainly aware of my reputation as the summoner of mass destruction.

"Make sure you don't nuke yourself," Redfield told me, placing a hand on my shoulder before he joined the rest of the fleeing mercenaries.

"Yeah."

"Lilith!" Principal Porter was talking to his granddaughter, who had yet to budge. Even now, Kagutsuchi was joining Draco in distracting the two-headed dragon, the two powerful summoned beasts darting around the bigger monster like boxers in a ring, and delivering jabs and punches here and there in the forms of bites, slashes and spells. "What are you waiting for? Hurry!"

"Sorry, Grandpa, but I'll be staying. Richard can't handle that monster on his own. Besides…I have Kagutsuchi." She smiled as she gestured toward her most powerful spirit familiar. "Once Richard launches his nuke spell, I'll just jump on and fly the hell out of here."

"Are you serious?" I complained. "What's the point of you being here? You're just going to stand to one side uselessly and watch the whole battle. It makes no difference to the plot whether you're here or not, except to add some drama when the best heroine is dying and sees you and suddenly realizes that she can't win against you in terms of capturing the main character's heart…"

"Oh, stuff it!" Lilith snapped. "Don't confuse me for some useless heroine from a badly written light novel whose purpose is solely to be the damsel in distress and await the main character's rescue for her even though she is supposed to be a quad magician capable of wielding four different elements! I mean, seriously, when her spells didn't have any effect, what did she do? Fall to her knees helplessly and wait for the monster to kill her while going off on this longwinded dialogue about how she knows her childhood friend will arrive in time to save her…instead of actually taking her own initiative to run away or evade such a slow attack that takes minutes to execute! I'm not some damsel in distress needing some self-insert protagonist to rescue!"

"I can't argue against that," I muttered. While I wouldn't hesitate to help Lilith if she was in trouble, I was confident that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. She didn't need me to baby her just like all the other flat, one-dimensional heroines whose sole purpose of existence was to be added to the protagonist's harem after he saved them, so as to assuage the male writer's masculine ego. Sometimes I found that misogynistic, and I wasn't even some social justice warrior arguing for women's rights or insisting that all modern stories should be "woke" or whatever. It was just that the characterization was so blatant that even neutrals like me were turned off by it.

While the soldiers evacuated, Lilith and I charged ahead. The blond fire mage vaulted and landed on top of Kagutsuchi, riding the kami of fire and more easily directing it to launch several fire spells in succession. As for me, I drew both Bai Ri and Hei Yue, whlle running about and blasting off several black and white spells from my two swords.

Not that it would have any effect. Taking a deep breath, I summoned the chibi version of Green Dragon to spring a storm of razor-sharp petals at the bellowing two-headed dragon. It was still too distracted by Draco raking one of its heads with claws to pay any attention to me, but I was abl to leave a series of ragged, bloody wounds upon its limbs and belly.

Its tail whipped out and I flipped myself over it to land safely on the opposite side. Twisting around, I channeled chibi White Tiger's mana into Bai Ri and unleashed a tremendous lightning bolt that seared through the two-headed dragon's legs.

"You know…I'm pretty surprised by the way you're fighting. Why aren't you just charging in recklessly and punching the dragon with your bare hands? You have Ba Qi and physical reinforcement spells, don't you?"

"Aren't you mixing me up with a flat protagonist with so-called cheat powers from a badly written light novel?!" I demanded as I ducked under one of the massive claws. Draco then barreled into the two-headed dragon, knocking it a few steps back.

The two-headed dragon roared furiously. Its next move caught all of us by surprise. Angry red waves rippled out from its body, almost as if a shockwave, and rammed into us, knocking us over and sending us sprawling on the ground. Even Draco was battered by the sudden surge of furious crimson energies, lying on the ground, stunned. Kagutsuchi was sent careening several dozen meters away, crashing into a cluster of gnarled trees and vanishing in a splash of swamp water.

Poor Lilith. She wwas going to curse and swear at getting drenched in the bog, of all waters.

While I struggled to rise to my feet, I noticed someone approaching. A familiar figure, in that lovely dress and sporting long, green hair.

"Ana!? What are you doing here?!"

"When did she…?" Lilith was spluttering as she burst out of the swamp, clutching onto Kagutsuchi to stay afloat. I glanced at her.

"You didn't notice her at all?"

"How would I?!" Lilith shrieked. "Do you think I'm some useless heroine who decided to stay behind and do nothing but watch the battle while not noticing that some random stranger popped out of nowhere and was walking through a very visibly empty battlefield because…the plot demanded it? As if I need an excuse to be displayed as even more useless than before!"

"Chill, girl. Nobody said that." But I knew why she said that. It was all because of that damned anime adaptation. Coughing, I tried to stand, still winded from the blow earlier. Unfortunately, unlike the two-headed dragon from that bad anime adaptation, my current opponent wasn't going to wait politely for me to recover or finish talking. Both of its heads swiveled to glare at me, their jaws opening as outrageous amounts of mana accumulated within them.

Then twin torrents of hellfire surged toward me before I could do anything to defend myself.