Chapter 387 A Spaceship VS The Dragon

POV Vesuvius:

'To attack me and expect me not to retaliate, ridiculous.' He was a dragon, so he couldn't show weakness or benevolence against his enemies.

The bright golden and blue arcs of lightning burst around the dragon as he shot upwards like a rocket. The world around him quickly became a blur, with the sprawling desert turning into an endless yellow and white stain.

The sound distorted, and sonic booms raised clouds of dust beneath him as he crossed the speed of sound.

The planet's curve quickly showed up, and the sky gradually shifted towards darker shades of blue.

'I never tried this before, but how high can I fly?' The dragon's speed quickly grew as he rose higher and higher while piercing through the layers of clouds and shattering them in his path.

The higher he ascended, the weaker he felt as the stream of mana sucked in by his domain thinned together with the atmosphere and the oxygen.

However, his divine kingdom and highly empowered domain still supplied him with more than enough energy, making his eyes shine with zeal and the lightning dance and crackle around him.

'Hohoho, I have underestimated the potential of gaining space affinity. It would allow me to draw energy from space element that is almost omnipresent and endless.'

The bright lights in the sky flashed, and energy rays descended, heading straight against him with deadly accuracy.

The dragon closed his eyes and folded his wings into an arrow-like shape while mana and lifeforce flooded his armor and made the runes engraved in it shine. The lightning rails propelled him, turning him into a living lightning bolt.

The beams of energy struck his body with force and heat.

The plasma and energy washed over his body, but he didn't even slow down as he ascended into the sky.

The heat dissipated and vanished into his armor without causing any damage as his fire affinity directly suppressed the damage while his frost affinity cooled it down, making enormous columns of steam rise out.

'It looks like I am almost impregnable against plasma-based sci-fi guns. However, I doubt I would fare as well against some projectile-based or laser-based weapons.'

His eyes opened again as he braced his wings and slowed above the ground.

The small dots of light in the sky quickly turned into distant, vague arrow-shaped metal objects with light shining all over their hulls. They were so far they would look like tiny dots to the human eye. However, the dragon could already see them.

The desert beneath him curved and showed the round shape of the planet.

The more he thought about it, the more headache he felt, 'This entire thing brings even more dangers to the game. How would I even fare against something more tropical like dark energy, antimatter, or weird matter.'

The black and purple frost fire spun in his mouth, quickly condensing within glowing magic lenses.

The bright lights condensed and gathered beneath the ships again, and projections of light raised out of their metallic hulls.

A beam shot out of the dragon's mouth and painted the sky in flickering black, golden, and purple. His horns glistened, and his domain drove like a knife and split the thick and wide beam into multiple thinner ones, each heading towards one ship.

The thin ray drew lines across the dark blue background of the upper atmosphere and quickly turned into just small glowing dots on the dark blue canvas.

He bathed his breath as he waited, hoping his attack would work.

The next moment tremendous explosions flashed in orbit, and the flying metallic spaceships burst into thousand of shrapnel and debris that dispersed into cosmic dust.

'Phh, they are not even that impressive when compared to the large skyships of Lorenia. That shows one can achieve the same thing in diametrally different ways.'

The dragon wasn't impressed by them, but he still saw their huge advantage: ' Their production can likely be automatized so they can be mass-produced. Not like the skyships, which each need multiple high-level mages to work on them and years of work. On top of that, they can travel across the space!'

The dragon braced with his crystal wings and dived straight back down. The ground quickly approached, and the wind howled around him, burning under the warming friction.

His hearing and domain wrapped and spread through the desert far beyond the horizon, and his eyes suddenly went wide, and his mouth revealed the line of his sharp teeth.

A large metal structure radiating energy and filled with heartbeats, hidden beneath the sand in the distance, struck his senses.

'Hoh, someone is hiding underground, a lot of them to be exact. The energy radiation and the metal likely mean it is more aliens!' It was exactly what he needed!

He doubted he could accomplish anything with the five individuals he kidnapped, 'That would be like picking five people from a street and wanting them to build me a nuclear reactor.'

He flapped his wings and shot straight toward the underground structure.

POV ???:

The five armored figures stood frozen in the middle of a bare volcanic stone island. The sea of magma bubbled around them and trapped them on the island.

The tall and ruined stone pillars towered towards the sky, hidden beneath the impenetrable screen of smoke.

'This place...'

The glowing, reverse-slitted eyes observed them from within the smoke, freezing them on the spot. They were the same golden eyes of the monster that brought them in, only much smaller.

'Are these its children? Are we going to be fed to them?' All his hope was gone as his remaining kin was left to their deaths, stranded on the planet in the enemy territory while he was going to be eaten.

All he could do was stand there and wait for his upcoming fate.

'Well, our fates were sealed when they infiltrated our government without anyone noticing. At best, we could delay our deaths or enslavement for a bit longer.' he sat down on the rough and hot stone ground and looked directly into predatory eyes, 'At the very least, I will die while witnessing something new and unknown.'

At his core, he was always an academic, and now when he came to peace with his fate, he would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little content with him dying while doing what he was born for, exploring the secrets of the vast universe.

Suddenly the space rippled again, and the spinning golden wormhole opened again, bringing in clouds of sand and the oppressive feeling of death.