When Sara heard the loud ferocious roars quickly approaching, her body broke out in a cold sweat. When she saw the dragons in the skies over her home, she very nearly pissed herself in terror. How in the hells was she supposed to fend of an attack from dozens of rouge dragons when none of them had ever faced off against a single dragon before?
As a child she had heard tales of the brave dragon knights of the east, bonded partners of great dragons who rode them into battle, and she had even dreamed of being one. But seeing these dragons, so wild and feral, so full of rage and malice, she doubted that anyone could have ever tame a dragon.
She could practically feel the fear and trepidation of the men and women under her command, something she herself understood well. She had signed them up for this? A slow and horrible death at the hands of wild dragons? And all because of the words of a complete stranger?
Turning towards Loki, Sara expected her to be frozen with fear, like every sensible person, confirmation of Sara's foolishness. Instead, what she found was the stranger trembling, but the look on her face made it clear that she was not shaking in fear, but with excitement.
It was so bizarre, the look of anticipation on Loki's face made Sara think they weren't even looking at the same thing.
"What do we do Loki?" Sara found herself asking, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to share in Loki's excitement, or make Loki wallow in her despair.
"There's a tyrant in there," Loki explained, "a hive queen that's holding the horde together. Take that out the rest scatter."
"Are you sure?" Sara asked, "wouldn't the others just go crazy after the tyrant is dead?"
"Not how it works," Loki said, hoping Sara wasn't right, because one united horde was a lot easier to deal with that a dozen mad wild dragons.
The plan was simple; find and take out the tyrant, and take down as many dragons as they could before that happened.
Sara watched with baited breath, as the horde made it over the village, then the mass of dragons scattered, seemingly avoiding the village as they pushed onward, and Sara knew that the dragonsbane had worked, it repelled the dragons from the village, but now they were coming directly towards them, and they looked very mad.
Sara gulped, then, all of a sudden, Loki bellowed a thundering war cry as she charged forwards on her own.
Her cry sent a shock through every militia member on the line. If those dragons got through them, they would settle here and form a nest, which would put their village and people in even more danger. Their men, women and children will be subjected to the wrath of the dragons, to be burnt alive and eaten. They would NOT allow that to happen!
"For Rondel!" Sara decreed, drawing her sword, "For our people!"
"FOR RONDEL! FOR OUR PEOPLE!" resounded her militia as they brandished their upgraded weapons, which now seemed to shimmer with power, as did their armor.
"Long-range attacks, FIRE!" She ordered as a number of people unleashed a volley of attack skills at the incoming dragons sending a dozen anima-charged attacks screaming into the sky.
The first attacks struck at the dragon vanguard, felling three of them, who Loki finished off by tossing a few seeker grenades at them.
Loki was incredibly lucky, as soon as she charged, she unlocked another skill, [War Cry], which came from her title, [True Leader], allowing her to rally her forces and increase their combat ability and morale when faced against a superior enemy. With Sara there to inspire them and Loki's skill effect to raise morale, the fear of the gathered warriors quickly turned to resolve.
Once she had gotten close enough to the oncoming horde, she deployed the gravity engine. Setting it on the ground and activating it, the gravity of the surrounding area intensified tenfold, forcing all the dragons down to the ground, where they made an easier target for more long-ranged volleys.
"Alright you lizard f@£ks," Loki sneered to the dragons who now surrounded her, "Let's do this."
Despite not being able to fly, the dragons could still move about, albeit with great difficulty. Loki, however moved with ease, even in the increased gravity. The dragons ranged in sizes with the smallest dragons being the size of a horse. One of the larger dragons tried to eat Loki whole, but she dodged and used the opportunity to deposit a number of her IEDs in its mouth, blowing the beasts head into pieces.
Observing the reactions of the remaining dragons, Loki activated the cortex disruptor to disrupt their coordination. It was pure luck that she had come up with this device beforehand, and although she wasn't completely immune to its affects, she was able to focus herself through sheer will. With the hivemind of the dragons destabilized, she was able to further disorient and discombobulate the dragons using her limited trickery and illusiory abilities, before attacking with more explosives. She dodged their attacks wherever she could, but she still was able to completely avoid damage altogether, her HP and anima were dropping like water from a leaky bucket. An expected outcome when fighting against a swarm of f@£king dragons.
Eventually, she ran low on explosives, only having half a dozen swarmer grenades left, and not only that, but the cortex disruptor and gravity engine would soon fail given her best estimates, so she decided to switch tactics; instead of fighting off the entire hive, she'd look for the tyrant dragon. Using typical psychology for hivemind controllers, she predicted that the tyrant dragon would be at the rear of the rush. On her way there the gravity engine and cortex disruptor both gave out, their improvised configuration coming undone. As the disoriented dragons started to realized their ability to move freely was slowly returning, a few even spread their wings to test instinctively.
"Oh no you don't." she panted, she was starting to tire, she slammed her hand to the ground, "Mass transmute: quicksand!"
This was a risky move as mass transmute was a high grade ability of her very recently acquired [Transmutation] skill and promptly consumed over half of her remaining anima to activate, but she was willing to take the gamble. The ground beneath the still downed dragons suddenly became liquid, and their greater weight employed by the fading effects of the gravity engine made them sink faster, once most of the dragons had sank in to a degree, she released the skill and the ground returned to its solid state, trapping most of the dragons for a little while longer, while an unlucky one was suffocated.
"F@£k me!" Loki yelped as she dodged a burst of dragon fire.
Before she could come up with a counter for that, another dragon opened its maw to blast her again, but that was when it was struck with a blast from a skill arrow. Turning around she saw that Sara was leading the militia into the fray of dragons for a close quarters combat.
"Crazy bitch," Loki said with an amused grin, before she decided to leave the rest of the dragons to the warriors and made her way towards the rear of the rush.
The tyrant dragon was predictably at the rear, and was expectantly the strongest dragon, a superior dragon by the look of it. It was green and black, with four large metallic horns, a long serpentine body and massive leathery wings on its back. It glared at her with murderous intent, its psychic abilities allowed it to reach into her mind in an attempt to destroy her from the inside, but her mental fortitude allowed her to resist it's attacks, which seemed to annoy it even more.
Loki tossed a few of her reinforced throwing knives at it, but the blades just bounced off its scales with a metallic clang. After dodging a blast of its dragon fire, Loki decided to check it out, so she appraised it;
[STATUS]
Name: Aarem-Marro (named beast)
Race: superior dragon (tyrant)
Age: 234
Sex: female
Karma: chaotic evil
Condition: enraged
Level: 496
HP: 84.25%
Anima: 71.62%
[SKILLS]
Apex Predator; Adamantine Skin; Cannibalism; Domination; Dragon Fire; Dragon Invulnerability; Dragon Sense; Frenzy; Greed; Heat Resistance; Hostility; Flight; Intimidation; Killer's Joy; Natural Armor; Regeneration; Survival of the Fittest; Telepathy; Tyrant's Buff;
[TITLES]
Tyrant Dragon; Spawn of the Great Devourer; Queen of the East Dragon Hive; Horror of Croyt; Beast of Dajhev; Great Destroyer; Realm Menace;
The two of them glared at each other, and Loki could sense the tyrant's hatred.
"You want a bite of me, eh, you big bitch?" Loki taunted raising her hands wide, "come have a taste then."
The enraged dragon shot its long neck at her, chomping down on the spot she had been standing.
The last Sara saw of Loki, she had just been eaten by the massive black dragon at the back.
"No!" Sara cried in panic as the monster raised its head and roared victoriously.
But her grief would soon change as the same dragon started to choke, hacking and coughing spurts of dragon fire as something had apparently clogged up its throat. As this was happening, the other dragons, were also confused, which made fighting them easier for the militia. All the while, the superior dragon was still trying to regurgitate its last meal before finally succeeding, puking up one steaming humanoid figure, covered in l digestive juices and other stomach content.
Loki was disoriented from her ordeal, she was covered in stuff she'd rather not think about and smelled worse than she'd care to imagine. She wiped her face and looked up at the dragon.
{You reek of starlight,} it snarled in her mind,
"So you can communicate," Loki said, "you're just a bitch, then?"
It growled, {I know of your kind, you should not be.}
"What do you know?" Loki demanded, "tell me!"
{You should flee, little fallen thing,} it said, mockingly, {before I decide to devour you once more. The taste of starlight is quite... addicting.}
It was clear to Loki that it didn't intend to elaborate further.
"I hope you like spicy food then," Loki said, "I left a few presents in your gullet on my way out."
She waved innocently to the dragon as, a few moments later, the sound of muffled explosions could be heard coming from inside the dragon, causing its long neck to bulge.
As if in a final act of revenge before death, the tyrant dragon screamed at Loki, which incidentally led to an upchuck of bloody guts and other ruptured chunks of innards all over her. It's skin really was tough as adamantite, while its insides were pretty much mush, its exterior was still intact.
After barfing all over Loki, it collapsed to the ground dead.
"F@£k you, you f@£king piece of s#!t lizard bitch!" Loki yelled annoyed to be covered in more dragon sick. In her tirade she slipped on some dragon guts and fell flat on her back.
With the death of the tyrant dragon, the remaining dragons were free of it's control. Most took the opportunity to flee, while a few chose to remain and continue the fight, but they didn't live long without the tyrant's buff. Not long after, the last of the dragons either fell or fled and the militia, although suffering adequate casualties, were victorious.
Loki ignored their cries of victorious celebration as she heard a chime went off in her head;
[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE SUBJUGATED A TYRANT DRAGON HIVE! YOU HAVE GAINED 30,000PNTS FOR YOUR EFFORTS! YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED 11 ANIMA DROPS FOR YOUR SERVICE! YOU HAVE EARNED THE TITLES [TYRANT SLAYER] [TROJAN WARRIOR] [VOMIT KILLER]! YOU HAVE GAINED PROFICIENCY IN SEVERAL SKILLS! YOU HAVE LEVELED UP[X10]!]
[YOU HAVE UNLOCKED THE SKILLS [SYNTHESIS] AND [GREY SHIFT]!]
[YOU HAVE A NEW MESSAGE!]
She then opened the new message on her system;
[CONGRATULATIONS ON COMPLETING YOUR QUEST, SLAYING THE TERRIBLE DRAGON TYRANT AND DEFEATING THE DRAGON HORDE. AS PROMISED, I WILL NOW GIVE YOU FENRIS' CURRENT LOCATION. AND, AS A BONUS FOR A JOB WELL DONE, I'LL THROW IN 4 OTHER GOODIES, A GIFT FROM ME FOR SUCH AN ENTERTAINING SHOW.
MORE QUESTS WILL COME AROUND FROM TIME TO TIME WITH ADEQUATELY COMPELLING REWARDS. GOOD JOB.
-ADMIN 0]
Then another window prompt came up;
[YOU HAVE BEEN GIFTED 5 REWARDS FROM ADMIN 0!]
"I'm really starting to hate you, Admin 0," she sighed to herself, she was in desperate need of a long hot bath.
* * *
Much later, after returning to the village, and a three-hour-long bath, Loki once again had a meeting with the chief and elders.
She still hasn't been able to get the smell out of her hair, and was pretty upset about that. Now, she was dressed rather comfortably, in a loose-fitting tunic and not much else. She didn't seem to care how she looked to the people gathered before her.
"L-lady Loki," one of the elders stuttered, trying not to leer at her cleavage from the open top of her shirt.
"Yes?" Loki asked, she felt completely natural in her body, whether male or female.
"Thanks to you, not only did we defend the town, but we also drove off the dragon horde," another elder said, "we owe you a great debt."
"I'll hold you to that," Loki said stifling a yawn, "Now if you don't mind; I'd like to go to bed. Now if there isn't anything that can't wait until tomorrow?"
"Of course," Sara said, "I'll walk you back,"
Along with Sara, Tetra and Petra followed Loki on the trek back to her accommodations. A quick peak at Sara's status confirmed that she had indeed been awarded a [Dragon Slayer] title. She suspected a number of the militia members that fought with them at the vault also had been awarded that title, it'd make it easier for then to get better skills down the road.
As they got back to the room Loki was staying in, she quickly stripped off what little she wore right before the mother and her daughters,
The twins were unashamed in admiring her body, they were mesmerized by Loki's exotic beauty and couldn't help but stare as this was the first time they'd seen the female Loki naked. Her breast were just the right size; not too small and not too large, and her abs were toned, complemented by a narrow waist and shapely ass. The green markings on her body glowed softly in the dim light.
When she turned around, they all gasped at the two large ghastly scars were carved into her back by the shoulder blades. The deep gouges made it evident that more than a bit of flesh had been torn out during the event.
"Apostles above! Your back!" Sara gawked, staring at the marred skin with jagged edges emanating the same green glow as her markings, "what happened to you?"
"Huh?" Loki turned her head and saw them staring at her back. She caught sight of her back in a mirror on the wall.
"Oh yeah, guess I had a very bad day," she replied nonchalantly, before yawning, "well, big day tomorrow, goodnight,"
"Huh? B-but?" Tetra started, before her mother shook her head, understanding that it was time for them to leave.
"Yeah, goodnight," Sara said, leading her daughters out and closing the door.
Once alone again, Loki then sat on the bed. She hadn't noticed before, but now she could practically feel the scars, like two ditches across her back. A memory flashed in her mind, and she saw herself burning as she fell from the sky, her severed wings fell beside her, discarded following her banishment from... where had she fell from? What had she done?
The memory was just out of reach, she knew it had been important, and her punishment had been cruel, she also knew she hadn't suffered alone.
Frustrated from dwelling on memories that were hidden from her left her unable to sleep. She got up and went to the desk, she needed to distract herself, so she would inspect the prizes she'd won.
Anima drops were a rare form of exotic matter, crystallized anima, like having lightning in a bottle. She could think of about a dozen things she could make with the drops, but she knew that right now she needed elixir. Often called the ultimate panacea, elixir was a miracle concoction that could heal any ailment or injury, replenish anima, and even expand a user's anima capacity and efficiency, which only happened when leveling up.
It was virtually impossible to quantify a users anima, its capacity was usually graded based on the users race and level. When a skill was used, it consumed a portion of the user's anima, however, if that user gained more anima efficiency, the same skill would need relatively less anima to activate, this could be achieved by increasing proficiency in a job, skill, or by leveling up.
With the alchemical recipe in her head, Loki went to work, and once she was finished, she had 10 diamond-shaped bottles of sparkling silver liquid, leaving the last anima drop. She immediately ingested 4 of the bottles, noting how it tasted sort of fizzy and syrupy, like a carbonated drink. She could already feel the it doing it's job inside her.
Loki naturally had a high anima capacity due to her race, but her skills were all high grade, so they consumed an astonishing amount of anima quickly, while her efficiency was dirt poor due to her low level. She couldn't wait for her level to gradually rise and her problem to fix itself, so she would focus on raising her efficiency.
Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, she opened her system window, and decided to check out her other rewards;
[REWARDS]
-Coordinates to [The Black Wolf]
-Superior Dragon Material (Deconstructed)
-Skill Seed [ESP]
-Skill Seed [Dragon Fire]
-Mystery box.
[NOTICE! INVENTORY IS NOW AVAILABLE TO YOU!]
Loki eyed the selection of rewards, "Two skill seeds? Wow."
A skill seed allowed users to instantly gain new skill abilities, they were rare prizes indeed, only found in special circumstances.
Appraising them, Loki discovered that [Dragon Fire] would allow her to breathe dragon fire, while [ESP] would give her psychic abilities.
She considered consuming them and gaining their respective skills, but decided to experiment a little first. Using [Synthesis], she tried to combine both skill seeds together. She held a crystalline fruit in each hand and activated the skill, she felt the backlash as both items initially resisted the skill effect, but she pressed on and after minutes of concentrated effort both crystal fruits melted together and formed a singular mass.
[ALERT! SKILL SEED SYNTHESIS: SUCCESSFUL! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE CREATED THE SYNTHETIC SEED [PYROMANCY]! YOUR PROFICIENCY WITH [SYNTHESIS] HAS GONE UP!]
It's appraisal revealed that it was a pyrokinetic ability, creating and controlling dragon fire.Biting the new fruit, the light emanating from it flowed into Loki along with the flavor. She felt a tingling as it was absorbed into her body, and the skill was engraved onto her being. The rest of the fruit shattered into shards of light that were also absorbed into her body.
She conjured a bright green flame in her hand. She gazed at it, marveling at the possibilities. She knew that fusing skill seeds was impossible before, something must have changed.
After testing her new synthetic skill, she looked at the mystery box, the ultimate convenience item. Mystery box prizes were random, but they would always be something that was needed at the time of opening. As such, mystery boxes could only be given as special rewards by the system masters. They were the most valuable items one could get.
Loki thought about opening it, but she figured it would come in handy later on and didn't want to waste such an asset, so she stored it away in her inventory. The box vanishing into glittering mist in her hand.
Finished with all the additional gifts, Loki then tried to plot the coordinates down in her map. What she got was a timer;
[COORDINATES WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE IN: 170H:49M:27S!]
"A week, huh? So I can't awaken Fenris yet?" Loki mused, "Alright, it gives me some time to acclimate to this world."
As she laid down on the bed, she thought about the last message she got from the Admin, about how her fight with the dragon rush was an entertaining show. Didn't that mean that the Admin was watching her? Who was Admin 0 and why had they brought her here?