Chapter 200: Chapter 200: The Blue Dragon Ion Beam Emitter
Damn it, I knew it—as the true masters of Liberl Port, how could these major conglomerates not have stationed their own soldiers in Rockseeker Camp!
That thought had barely crossed Charles’s mind when he saw the group rushing toward the battle. Though this was the adventuring company sponsored by the blue dragons, only the leader was an actual blue dragonborn. The other members were ordinary adventurers: humans, dwarves, half-elves, even a few gnomes, numbering just over twenty in all.
But compared to typical adventurers, half of them each carried a square box, roughly the size of two basketballs, fitted with blue gems as the central focus.
As they neared melee range, one of them muttered an incantation, and in the next instant, a thick Lightning Bolt shot out from the top of the box!
"Aaah—!"
That lightning bolt tore straight through several minotaurs as well as a few other advancing Mountain People. Amid anguished screams, their bodies were charred and scorched, then fell limply to the ground!
The attackers were thrown into panic, each of them wary and tense, terrified another Lightning Bolt could come their way at any moment. The assault’s momentum sputtered, while the adventurers’ squad whooped with wild laughter:
"Hahaha! This thing is fantastic!"
"Prince Blue Dragon’s got money to burn! C’mon, let these Mountain People bastards see what real magic power looks like!"
"Ready—prepare—volley fire!"
Zzzzt—!
This time, three fired at once. The intertwining Lightning Bolts formed an electrified net across the battlefield. Those Mountain People who knew the horror of these weapons immediately dove flat to the ground, evading frantically. The attackers’ advance was completely broken—and their spirits crushed under the barrage!
Amid this, the sole blue dragonborn in the squad strode forward, stepping away from his comrades, who were still shouting and whooping with excitement. He cast a voice-amplifying spell on himself, and in flawless Common, barked out briskly:
"Ion Beam Emitter—the latest high-powered, self-charging magical weapon independently designed by Blue Dragon Electric Company! Convenient to use, even for non-spellcasters—"
"Incredible power, results plain for all to see..."
"Original price: 4,800 gold pieces—a special today, only 2,999 gold pieces..."
He sounded like a professional announcer, hawking wares in the middle of the battlefield. Charles stood dumbfounded. There was no such thing in the game, that was for sure.
He could only marvel—when it comes to ingenuity, sentient beings in the real world really are limitless.
As he pondered this, the enemies ahead were pinned down by the Lightning Bolts, unable to even lift their heads. So for once, Anno found a bit of respite. She fell back a few paces, exhaled, and returned to Charles’s side. Hearing the blue dragonborn’s pitch, her expression grew complicated: "So equipping these adventurers with so many weapons—must have cost at least forty thousand gold?"
Charles did some calculations, then nodded slightly. "Knowing the blue dragons, the cost price for these weapons can’t be much less than the sale price. If they’re at all honest, the total build cost for these weapons could even go over 5000 gold apiece..."
Hearing that, Anno couldn’t help but sigh, "They really are rich..."
Charles gave her magic plate armor a slow look up and down, thinking: you really have no right to talk—your armor alone must be worth upwards of 10000 gold, right?
But then he glanced at the Illusionist’s Bracers on his left forearm.
Honestly, my own gear? Ten thousand gold wouldn’t cut it, either...
Never mind, everyone here is pay-to-win.
He chuckled to himself at that thought. At this moment, off in the distance, a leopard raced up and came to a halt at his side, then shifted into human form:
"Priest, the traps are ready!"
Charles’s eyes lit up. Without another glance at the battlefield, he quickly said to Anno, "Be careful!" and broke into a run, shouting as he went:
"Theresa, move! Lure it to where we set the traps!"
But even as the words left his lips, a blinding light erupted in the sky. He squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head, then reached out to cover Anno’s eyes as well, both of them backing away from the violent radiance.
When it finally faded, he cautiously opened his eyes, turning with tightly knit brows and utter shock on his face.
That level of light—Theresa herself couldn’t possibly cast something so powerful...
A truly high-circle spellcaster had shown up!
As if on cue, Theresa’s distant shout followed: "I can’t break away! Priest, use your Eldritch Blast to draw it over—I’ll pin down this one, and that spellcaster too!"
...
Jump back ten minutes in time. Theresa hovered midair, face cold and severe, pouring all her spellcasting prowess into holding back the Earth Dragon’s rampage.
Ever since being purified by Charles, she’d rarely fought at full force. Usually, the foes she faced were too weak, either dying before she could go all-out or trying to flee instead of standing there to be struck.
Secondly, she wanted to save room for Charles, so he could purify their enemies with his unique abilities and reap those special rewards.
If she did unleash her full firepower and burned down their foes in three strokes, wouldn’t Charles come away empty-handed?
So she’d always held back, never really fighting with all her strength.
Tonight, though, with a challenge rating possibly higher than her own, and an enemy so tough but unable to take flight or threaten her at altitude, she could finally unleash her power!
At the start of the battle, she had cast the 5th-level spell "Dawn," manifesting a miniature sun above her head, burning the Earth Dragon below at a slow roast while flinging 1st-level guiding bolts down upon it, one after another!
To maximize efficiency, she used unaugmented guiding bolts, so as not to waste stronger spell slots on single hits. But stack enough spells with Dawn’s ongoing burn, and even the Earth Dragon began to feel pain.
It snarled and roared but, standing barely five meters tall, it could do nothing to Theresa hovering twenty meters above it!
Helpless, it bellowed and slogged on through her attacks, trying to command the surrounding earth elementals: pulling them from the ground and reforming them, sending them floating up, hoping to force Theresa down.
Vague clouds of dust and debris hung in the air.
A sandstorm?
Theresa’s brows arched, then relaxed again. She didn’t see it as a significant threat.
Please. If this were a desert—with sand everywhere to raise and shape into giant hands reaching for the sky—then, yes, she’d have to pay closer attention.
But here? They were on a mountain, surrounded by forest!
How much sand could the Earth Dragon even use?
She paid the threat no mind, darting skillfully through the sky, keeping just ahead of the Earth Dragon’s attacks. And as she’d guessed, with so little sand available, it was impossible for the beast to raise a hand enough to snatch her from the air.
All the dust did was provide slight obscuration—nothing that could harm her!
In the rear, Archdruid Ilarode chatted with Torun while taking it all in. Seeing the Earth Dragon’s predicament, even he couldn’t help but sigh.
Truly, it is battle cunning that matters most for any living creature in combat.
The Earth Dragon of old, finding itself stymied by a foe like this, would surely have burrowed deep, triggering earthquakes and devastation in hopes of bringing the foe down to fight it on the ground—never flailing at unreachable enemies like this!
Demonic pollution might have made the Earth Dragon more savage, but also more reckless, more vulnerable in a battle of equals.
That being the case, I have no choice but to act myself—to pull that mage from the sky.
With that cold thought, Ilarode’s expression hardened. Raising a hand, he began a complex series of gestures, chanting an ancient and mighty incantation: "Sunburst!"
8th-level spell—Sunburst!
A supremely powerful spell with an immense radius, it’s the magical equivalent of a solar storm. In an instant, a blazing tide of white light flooded the sky. To avoid catching the Earth Dragon in the blast, Ilarode aimed the spell at the upper air!
Terrifying rays swallowed Theresa whole and lit the battlefield, the entire small town, as if a nuclear weapon had detonated overhead. The light was so brilliant, no one could keep their eyes open!
That’s the force of an 8th-level spell. Land that on the ground, and the whole town would be wiped out in an instant!
A smile curled at Ilarode’s lips. In truth, the spell Sunburst sacrifices some range for raw killing power. Spells designed purely for area, like Earthquake or Tsunami, can level a town in a moment, though with less concentrated force.
Such spells would be overkill here. He needed only this—a single move to kill the mage aloft.
When the radiant Sunburst faded, Theresa floated there, utterly unharmed.
Ilarode’s smile froze, disbelief flooding his face.
What the...?
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