I didn"t hesitate as I s.h.i.+fted into my dragon form, ignoring the pain that always accompanied the s.h.i.+ft. I saw the dragon lady"s eyes widen in shock and rammed into her, my horn stabbing into the taut muscles of her right forelimb. She gave a small grunt, bubbles escaping from her clenched jaws as she flexed and I felt something stab into me from behind. I turned around to see that she had a tail a little similar to mine, but hers was like a mace with ma.s.sive spikes b.u.t.ting out of it.
However stabbing me didn"t seek to be enough as she dragged her tail downwards, splitting open skin and shredding scales as she left a rather nasty wound on my back. Pain or not there was no way I would let her injure me like this, I roughly raised my head up and shook my body, dislodging her tail from my back, but tearing into her forelimb as my horn did the same thing her tail did and dug a b.l.o.o.d.y ravine into her flesh. She roared out in pain, shaking herself loose from the entanglement, only to get a face full of flames from Zareth.
At first it was just a controlled blast that pushed her backwards, but then it was a stream of flames that boiled the water round us, rapidly raising it"s temperature to boiling. She brought her wings around herself, covering it and creating a purple s.h.i.+eld that defended against the flame breath attack. Knowing Zareth won"t b able to keep it up indefinitely, I surged towards her, my body moving through the ocean at a speed that might even put most water dragons to shame.
I swam up and summersaulted in the water, my momentum spinning my ma.s.sive body rapidly as the blade on my tail sliced down with a vengeance, lightening dancing on it. (LIGHTNING BLADE) The attack smashed into her barrier and dug a bit into her wings, but she quickly spread them, stopping me from completely shredding said wings, and then she opened her jaws, and right at my unprotected body she released a breath attack of her own that was colored the red and black of blood and death.
(You Have sustained critical damaged from the Sin Dragon Avatar of Wrath! Io Reyes! Health in critical condition! All Defense reduced by 40%, attack and speed reduced by 70%)
If it says I"ve take critical damage, then I"ve taken critical damage. I felt pain, a lot of it I might add, and looking down on my chest, I could see a b.l.o.o.d.y and very garish wound. The entire section of my chest looked like someone had dragged a ma.s.sive cheese grater across it. My scales and my skin was hanging in strips and I could his my ma.s.sive draconic ribs. LDO was not an 18+ game for nothing, and while the pain wasn"t as obvious as it would have been in reality, this s.h.i.+t still hurt like a b.i.t.c.h.
Zareth sent out another blast of flames at her, she raised her wings, using it to defend against the strike, however it seemed like it was only a feint from Zareth ad his claws glowed red and shredded through her wings. It was an unexpected strike, and without her wings, movement would be a bit difficult, however she didn"t seem to be that worried as she began spinning rapidly, her wings became akin to blades as she created an underwater tornado with the power to shred me and Zareth to pieces. Zareth moved back and got under me, then using all his strength he shot out of the water, carrying my injured form as best as he could before moving back towards the Acheron. We could beat her, but she"s had more experience and training with her dragon form, and as opposed to h.e.l.l Rain, she was a more powerful and smarter fighter. Because of the injury I sustained, I couldn"t maintain my dragon form, so within Zareth"s grasp I shrunk back until I was back in my normal form.
My health was regenerating, but it was painfully slow. As opposed to the normal hundreds of HP a second, I was only getting a single HP every 3 seconds, whatever she used to hit me, it was slowing down my healing. Io was dangerous, in fact she"s probably the most dangerous opponent we"ve ever had to face since we started our journey. The water blasted upwards, spraying every which way as she came up out of the water, but right as she did so.
*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*
*Splas.h.!.+*
Qitar did not afford her any sort of breathing s.p.a.ce as the guns on the s.h.i.+p accurately sent blazing b.a.l.l.s of energy smas.h.i.+ng into her. Honestly, this was probably the only way we could match up to her, in a personal fight, I doubt Zareth and I would be able to get an upper hand. But regardless of what this seems like, it was a very ma.s.sive loss for me and the crew, so far we"ve been running rough shod against every opponent, but right now the two most powerful members of my crew just had their a.s.ses handed to them.
*Splas.h.!.+*
I held my hands to my chest as Io burst out of the ocean again, however it was quite a distance away. She had used the cover from the ocean to create some distance from us, and she was flying south without even looking back. He flight pattern was quite crooked and I could see her bleeding as ma.s.sive drops of dragon blood fell into the ocean below.
"Should we chase after the la.s.s?" Zareth"s deep voice rumble is out of his draconic mouth.
"No! At our current level of strength we can"t beat her. Quite honestly Zareth, she"s even more of a dragon than we both are, we won this battle, but against Io Reyes we were nothing more than children in her grasp. The only reason we were able to catch her off guard is because she didn"t expect that there would be two dragon avatars, if Persephone had joined the fight, then there"s a slim chance we would have won by catching her off guard, but there"s no honor in that." I said to him as I watched the red and black dragon disappear into the Horizon.
"Since when do you care about honor, especially when it"s in a fight." Zareth asked me with a surprised tone.
"Hah! I don"t. It just seemed like a really cool thing to say at the time. However we"re not done here yet, we have to make sure they wouldn"t be able to come back and attack the city." I said to him as he slowly brought me down and laid me on the s.h.i.+p.
(PURIFY has leveled up!!)
Well that was a surprise, who knew that skill was actually at work. I looked at my HP Regeneration and saw that it had went up from a single point every three seconds to a single point every second, even then it was still quite slow. Io was way to powerful, and it wasn"t her level that gave her power or her stats, but her skills, the way she used them and her battle awareness. It seems to be one of the best I"ve ever seen.
"Chew on this." Dinah said to me as she came up from under s.h.i.+p and gave me what looked a tablet of aspirin. Looking suspicious I still placed it in my mouth, and almost immediately my HP shot up by more than half and it became a whole lot easier for me to breath again. I never knew she could make something like this, but none the less it was a big help. I gave her a nod of thanks as I went to the edge of the s.h.i.+p and peeled over, Neron and his army were still there waiting.
"Thank you for all your help Neron! If you have anything to ask of me, please do, I"ll try my best to fulfill it." I said to the emperor shark.
"There"s no need for such promises, it was mine and my kin"s honor to have fought alongside you. Come find us whenever you need help, we will try our best to defend the city until your return." Not that I had any intention of coming back here, but I had to nod my head in agreement with what he had just said.
After that exchange he and his army turned around and swam back into the depths of the sea from whence they came. It might have been sudden but the strongest of relations.h.i.+ps are always formed on the battlefield, and not just a battlefield where blood is spilled and lives are taken, but life itself. Either way I had this feeling that I would be seeing these guys one day soon, the idea of a cavalry of shark riding knights seems to be dancing around my head.
I turned to Persephone and the others, before s.h.i.+fting my gaze towards the wide ocean and wondering how I was going to fully keep the city safe. That"s when an idea so weird struck me and just like that I knew what to do. I puked the trident from my back and slammed it on the deck of the Acheron like some sort of Ancient sea G.o.d as I spoke.
"ICE AGE!"