There was an umber-brown ancient forest. It reeked of age. Every sprawling tree was like a watchful guardian, a silent sentinel of the groves. Huge roots spread-eagled the ground, like the back of mythical beasts that once roamed the world in the olden days.
The foliage became thick and lush, forming an arch of fairytale-green, refusing any weak light to pass through. Only the strong were able to penetrate their dense veil and appeared as claws of lights, illuminating its dusky surrounding. Arthritic boughs, gnarled with age, dripped their bounty nuts onto the ground.
Diverse animals and monsters populate this very forest. Every day to devour, or be devoured. Each one of them practiced the phrase 'survival of the fittest to the letter. Yet, in this harsh environment, harmony was actually maintained, and no animal or monster ever wandered outside the forest.
They had no reason to. Anything they needed was provided. It was their home.
At the moment, a large part of the awe-inspiring forest was violently disfigured. The trees were either cut down or ravaged, and all the forest residents flee their cherished homes with unprecedented vigor. They did not have a destination in mind, to survive was their sole intention. They would not stop running until they achieved it, even if there was a town blocking their path...
---Several days later, deep inside the wrecked forest, stood a woman with cerulean hair who possessed a mature, well-developed figure. At the moment, there were only two triangles of fabric covering her voluptuous breasts, revealing much of her fair skin, and a tight, long skirt with a narrow opening at the left side where a rectangular bag circled her thigh could be seen, as well as a matching pair of arm-length gloves and heeled boots.
This combination resulted in the woman possessing an unmatched sex appeal. Until now, no man, young or old, was immune to her charm, and she had used it effectively for her cause. Regardless, that appeal was useless in front of her current partner. This was their first meeting, yet he brazenly showed aggressiveness to her body. A genuine pervert.
The partner opened his extensive mouth, showing countless sharp teeth capable of ripping apart steel armor like a hot knife through butter. Witnessing how proud he was, the woman expressed her unhidden disgust. 'Did he think that kind of crude thing will impress a woman? Absolutely not!' internally screaming her refusal.
The next moment, he thrust his lengthy neck toward the woman with astounding velocity, similar to an arrow unleashed from its bow, eager to have a bite on her bountiful flesh. Fortunately, the woman anticipated this improper behavior, without incantation, swiftly clad her body with lightning magic and was able to evade his advance by a hair's breadth. The mouth bit nothing but innocent air.
"...That was dangerously close..." commented the woman, while able to maintain a satisfying degree of composure.
He continued to launch the very same attack several times, blowing nearby time-honored trees in the process like mere papers, and it took all of her focus to avoid that savage repetitiveness, even with the lightning magic heightening her reflexes by several times.
Before being chased after evading his twentieth charge, the woman already constructed five magic circles at once in front of her. Each circle emitted considerable power, enough to put an end to her past challengers, and what emerged from the circle was a bluish, sizeable blade of ice, robbing away the environment from its tightly-guarded warmth.
Without hesitation, she ordered the five frozen blades to assault him.
As if had a mind of its own, the blades heed her command, launched themselves to the target in a straight trajectory, and made contact.
.....!!!
A thunderous sound echoed throughout the forest, and a freezing aura was unleashed, encasing nearby land and vegetation with solid ice.
Furthermore, towering ice crystals were now visible in the place he was before. Trapping him permanently inside the cold prison. At least, it should be the case. However, there was nothing on the ice. The target was nowhere in her line of sight...
"For mercy's sake..." disappointment was painted on her beautiful face, and she instinctively looked up. The only possible place to escape from her earlier magic.
There he was, calmly flying in the sky above while looking down on her. The sunlight illuminated his thick metallic skin, which was capable of withstanding considerable physical abuse and otherworldly phenomenon such as magic, and a pair of large, intimidating bat-like wings. Two backward curving horns lied on either side of its head, blending with spikes that lined on its back.
He was from a species that said had existed since this world was formed. A monster that was depicted as either harbinger of destruction, or preacher of the light in many bards' tales. Regardless of what role he took, it had the same immense strength to show; a dragon.
On the other hand, the brave woman on the ground was a silver-ranked adventurer sent by the Association to investigate a stampede that destroyed a nearby nameless town and took numerous lives. After arriving at the wrecked town in the morning and conversing with survivors, she immediately headed to the forest where the stampede originated.
According to the survivors, although the forest had no shortage of animals and monsters that could not be described as cute and fluffy, they never left the forest, and the townspeople also made sure not to disturb them. They even made a firm rule about this issue.
She had a few hypotheses about what caused this situation. But, when the survivor also said the animals and monsters sounded terrified when passing through the town, then, there was only one possibility. Something, dreadful enough to threaten them, had appeared.
The woman was right on the money. In the forest, she encountered this dragon, a monster who was placed at the top of the food chain and should not even be in this area. What great luck she had.
A dragon was beyond the capability of a single silver-ranked, at the bare minimum, a group consisting of five silver ranks was needed to take it down, and even with that, there was no guarantee they would succeed. That was how strong a dragon really was.
In this kind of circumstance, the right thing to do based on the adventurer's code of conduct was to ask for reinforcements. That being said, hoping to outrun a flying dragon's speed was absurd, only a handful of creatures could match it, and she had no access to them. Furthermore, even if the woman was miraculously able to do so, she would lead the dragon to the already devastated town and breed more tragedy. Therefore, to avoid such tragedy from taking place, she decided to confront and end the dragon, right here.
Was this confidence? Or desperation? She had no idea. This was the only available choice and she would execute it to the best of her ability. Only the result would give answers to these questions.
"I can do this..." whispered the woman in a tense voice, encouraging herself.
The woman raised her slender, yet toned arm upward. In a blink of an eye, a rotating magic circle appeared on top of the dragon, and she summoned a lightning pillar from it. Her magic successfully hit the floating dragon, and a violent electrical discharge spread and illuminated the sky above the forest.
Not just once, in seconds, two more lightning descended. The ability to cast powerful magic in succession was rare, even within high-ranked adventurers only a handful of people could do so and she was one of them.
She was confident the sudden and rapid lightning attack of that magnitude just now would hurt the dragon. Yet, betraying her expectation, the dragon came out unscathed, as he was protected by a dense sphere of energy.
"No wa...khhhh!!!"
Before the woman could even voice her astonishment, the dragon let out an ear-splitting roar to exhibit its domination.
The roar was loud enough to make her body, as well as the forest and earth, tremble in fear. The survivors in the town could even hear that roar. But, they could not run away, they had no will to run away, strength left their poor legs, and despair clenched their heart tightly. They believed their doom had come.
Fortunately, she was able to steel her resolve and overcome the fear embedded in her flesh, if she wanted to climb higher this much endurance and resilience was natural.
Not giving her a chance to recover, unfathomable energy gathered in the dragon's mouth, even the air around the dragon was quivering because of its pressure.
"Dear lord..." with that amount of power, the woman knew exactly what was going to happen the moment that dragon pointed its head at her, and it was not something pleasant at all.
The dragon unleashed heavy non-elemental magic in form of a flare to where the woman was standing.
A bright, flame-shaped pure magic energy was heading her way. She channeled a considerable amount of mana to immediately create a thick ice shield to block the attack. Yet, the shield was easily shattered like poorly made glass, unable to withstand the attack for even a second.
The attack touched the ground, blasting away any object in the vicinity without an ounce of mercy, and a blinding vertical explosion pierced the clouds.