34 Chapter 34

A grey soil in a large circle around the tower was littered with ash and burned or crushed bodies of zombies and skeletons. A disgusting odour of rot and burned flesh was everywhere.

In the midst of all of that stood the black dragon surrounded by smoke. He was quiet without making any sound; his hard volcanic armour was cracked all over its surface. His muscles were aching as death energy surged through his body, waging war against life energy. After the long battle against the undead horde, his mana dropped to a minimum, and his wings were extremely painful after a long time of continuous flapping. His only saving grace was that he levelled up during a long fight, recovering a portion of his MP and HP.

'At least I can finally enact my plan.'

Vesuvius looked at the burned ground under him and dug his claws into it, easily digging out a large chunk of it. He threw the dugout soil behind him.

'This is too slow...' Vesuvius realised that it wasn't the most optimal way to dig as he remembered how animals dug out their burrows. He angled his claws and started to scratch towards the dry soil in front of him, letting the dugout soil fly behind him. He was clawing the dirt without any break, a small pile of soil quickly growing behind. If anyone had seen him, they would have recognised it as a style that dogs used when digging out holes in backyards. However, he was much faster as he had much sharper and bigger claws that easily removed large amounts of dirt with each of their moves.

He kept digging, dirt flying behind him as the tunnel grew before him. The dragon's tail moved and swept away the pile of dirt that was accumulating behind him.

Seeing that he could easily dig in the soil around the tower, the dragon opened his mouth to grin. However, he immediately regretted it as dirt flew straight into his open mouth.

'Shit, I really need to stop grinning like an idiot... This is the second time that I got a mouth full of some shit.' he quickly spat out the dirt and magma out of his mouth.

The dragon still felt happy, 'If I can't break the tower itself, I will tunnel under it, disrupting its foundation and causing it to fall. I can't wait to see how the boss will react after his tower collapses.'

A few hours later:

? Piles of grey dirt were piled up before an entrance into the dark tunnel. Fumes of dark smoke kept coming out of the tunnel and spreading through the grey plain. Then there was also a big and deep trench dug out on the western side of the tower.

The dragon, covered in grey soil, crawled out of the wide tunnel.

The whole half of the tower was under tunnelled with a network of tunnels that were arranged in a web-like pattern, each tunnel curving around the thick soil pillars.

The dragon coughed up lava and dirt flying out of his mouth.

'This should be enough.' The dragon took a last look at his work and opened his mouth. A stream of bright intense flames erupted out, entering the tunnel network through the entrance. The temperature inside of the tunnel kept rising quickly, and then it happened.

The dirt pillars broke down from the intense temperature that disrupted their structure with loud noise as the whole western side of the tower sunk. The tower started to tilt to the west, and the dragon quickly flapped his wings, getting out of its way. There was a massive trench on the western side of the tower, so there was no material to stop the tower from further tilting.

The tower kept tilting more and more until it finally reached a threshold, and the whole tower lost balance and fell to the west like a piece of domino. An incredible loud noise of something heavy hitting the ground echoed through the whole plains, and huge clouds of grey dust rose up, covering the whole tower wreckage.

Vesuvius was looking at the tower's destruction with a huge grin plastered on his draconicface.

However, his smile vanished after a few moments, 'No XP? That means that the boss is still alive.'

After a while, the dust clouds settled down, revealing the tower. The base structure of the tower was intact, lying on the ground. The magical horns on the roof of the tower were cracked and broken as they were made from a softer magic conductive material. There were no signs of the boss.

'At least he should be much easier to defeat without the support of the magical formation on top of his tower.'

Something moved on the dragon's left side. The dragon reflexively jumped forwards using his powerful hind legs.

Just a moment later, a bolt of purple energy hit his former location and exploded, releasing a small shockwave.

The figure of the boss, covered in his dark robes that were now tattered, stood on a small dirt mound. His staff was missing the upper half as the boss leaned on the remaining bottom half, using it to support himself. The purple mist kept slowly leaking out of his body, like blood.

'He definitely took considerable damage.'

The dragon rose to the sky, opened his mouth, and released a stream of magma at the boss. A flickering purple transparent barrier rose up in front of the boss. The stream of magma hit the barrier, sliding off its surface. However, the stream didn't stop as more and more magma kept pouring out of the dragon's mouth and hitting the barrier.

Suddenly a sound akin to a breaking of glass sounded, and the barrier broke apart, its surface turning into hundreds of shards that slowly dispersed into the air.

The magma continued forwards, engulfing the boss in a hot molten stone. The heat was so intense that the surrounding grey soil started to melt too. A small lake of lava quickly grew around the boss.

[+540XP]