{ FIVE YEARS LATER }
There was an undead dragon that roamed the dark forest at night. It had been six years since it was summoned and had yet to meet anything that could even give it a decent fight.
There were those three weird humans, one with dark skin, and two with wings on their backs. But it has been five years since it last saw them, the forest was quite vast and finding them in it was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
The dragon laid in a cave high in the mountains as it waits for the sun to set to begin its routine patrol over the forest. Its summoner had strictly commanded it to kill any intruder that dared to enter the forest and it will obediently.
The sun had set and darkness had consumed the sky. It dragged its rotten carcass to the exit and was about to begin its patrol, but there was a slight problem.
" Ey ty, bol'shaya yashcheritsa! ( Hey you oversized lizard! ) " There was that same dark skin man. " Ya zdes', chtoby ubit' tebya! ( I'm here to kill you! ) "
The dark skin man was speaking in a language it had no information of and it didn't care about it. Currently, he was an enemy and all enemies are to be burned to a crisp.
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Nikolai stood in front of the giant fire-breathing lizard. Tonight was the night they prepared five years for. Tonight was the night they slay this dragon.
For five years, they trained, prepared, strategized and made a perfect plan to kill this dragon, all they had to do was follow the plan.
Nikolai saw that the dragon was opening its maws and taking in a ridiculous amount of air. ' It's gonna use its fiery breadth. ". He immediately summoned the only thing in his arsenal that could protect him from getting charred.
He summoned a giant great shield, it has a tip at the bottom and he stabbed it to the ground. The dragon released fire from its maws the made direct contact with the giant great shield.
The giant shield was wide and tall enough to cover him, plus it was so thick it would take a while for it to lose its durability.
When the Dragon stooped its attack, Nikolai went for the offensive. " Artom! Igor! Now! "
From their hiding spot, his two children also went for the offensive. It was time for a counterattack.
They were in their monster form with their armour, which was a tad bit bigger than it was five years ago. They then engaged in aerial combat, as they released arrow after arrow towards the dragon. Its hide was too tough for the arrows to penetrate, but it was enough to get its attention.
They distracted the dragon enough for Nikolai to make a beeline towards it, he summoned the chains and whipped them at the dragon's mouth, wrapping it and closing it shut.
" GRIP! " With the curse applied, it could no longer open its mouth.
" HAH! " With a grunt, he pulled the dragon's head down to the ground. " Go for the wings! " he ordered his children and they followed.
Dragons are said to be the rulers of the sky, meaning that if they decided to go airborne, you're fucked. That is why the Volkov family had to take out the wings.
But Dragons had an impenetrable hide, no ordinary blade could cut through it. But it did not say anything about blunt damage.
As it was already decaying, some part of its hide had begun to rot leaving holes that expose its muscles and bones. Artom and Igor summoned their sledgehammer and smashed the dragon's wings obliterating it.
It tried to raise its head, but it immediately pulled back to the ground with a thud.
" Boys! Go for the head quick! "
With their sledgehammer, they went straight for the head, but the dragon was not going down with a fight.
It swung its tail swiping the two brothers from the air as they were slammed to the ground, their armours had dematerialised.
" ARTOM! IGOR! " Nikolai called for his children, but they did not answer. Dread began to fill his heart, it was at that moment he snapped.
He gripped the chain that was still wrapped in its mouth and he glared at the dragon, releasing a horrifying amount of bloodlust that made him look demonic, especially with the armour he wore.
" YOU BASTARD! " Nikolai roared with rage as he pulled the dragon towards him and slammed his fist into its skull. He summoned his hammer and slammed it.
CRACK!
A sickening crack was heard as the dragon's skull was smashed open, instantly killing it. But Nikolai was not there as he repeatedly slammed the hammer on its head over and over and over and over again.
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With his head cleared from the rage, he immediately rushed to his children and checked on them. There was a pulse and they were breathing, they were ok.
It did not take them too much time to wake up, " I'm not done yet! " Artom sprang up as he summoned his sledgehammer searching for the dragon ready to fight again, only to find that it was already defeated.
" Well, I guess I'm a bit late for that. "
" Ow, my head. " Igor groaned in pain, " Did we win? "
" Yes, we did. "
" Sorry Papa, we messed up the plan. " Igor apologized, as he hung his head in shame. " We should have been careful. " Nikolai placed his hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
" Don't worry too much about it, sometimes things don't always go according to plan. That is why one must always have a plan B. "
" But we didn't have a plan B. " Igor recalled, which Nikolai simply shrugged it off. " Well, the Dragon is dead. "
" Luckily for us, that was a young dragon. " The dragon was a little too small. Compare to adults who could grow as big as a building, this was not larger than a truck.
" Let's go and harvest whatever we can get from that oversized lizard. " Nikolai said as he walked towards the slain dragon.
" Ok. "
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[ ITEM DEVOURED ]
[ DIGESTION TIME: 1 MONTH ]
" Well Igor, your dream of becoming a fire mage will have to wait for a month. " Nikolai had to give the bad news.
" Aww man. " Igor whined, " Ever since they had decided to slay the dragon and let the mist devour it to get fire-related skills or spells, Igor had dreamed of becoming a fire mage every single day, for five years and now he had to wait for another month.
" Come on, you could with for five years what's that compared to a month? " Artom commented and he had a point.
" Well, I guess. "
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{ One month later }
[ ITEM DIGESTED ]
[ NEW PASSIVE RECEIVED: FIRE IMMUNITY ]
[ NEW MAGIC LEARNED: FIRE MAGIC ]
[ NEW SPELL LEARNED: FLIGHT ]
[ NEW SPELL LEARNED: FIRE BREATH ]
[ NEW MATERIAL RECEIVED: DRAGON HIDE ]
The one-month wait was worth it, with a new passive, new magic, two new spells and new materials, their five years of preparation were worth the effort.
FIRE IMMUNITY was explanatory, it gives the person immunity to regular fire, but stronger than that, the passive effectiveness was not a guarantee.
FIRE MAGIC, was elemental magic and allows a person to control fire, but at the moment the control was very weak.
FLIGHT spell allows one to fly at the cost of magic power, well this was going to be more beneficial to Artom and Igor as it boost their flight speed greatly.
FIRE BREATH, this was the skill Igor wanted to have for quite a long time. " Igor! I got the fire-breathing spell! you're going to be a fire mage! "
" YES! FINALLY! "
" Can I get that too Papa? " Artom petitioned for the FIRE BREATH spell.
" Well of course, why would I not give you? "
" HORRAY! "
Now for the DRAGON HIDE, he was going to use it to improve the armour. During the past five years, his blacksmith skill had got upgraded.
Once he had made his new shield, which was the one he used to block the dragon's fire breath, he got a reward from the mist. It said that he could now absorb special properties of the material and integrate it into his weapons, armour and shields.
But it requires " special " properties from materials to work. His armour was far better than it was from the past five years, he added a lot of leather to make it more comfortable to wear, the same goes for the Volkov brothers' armour.
With the dragon hide, he was going to improve the armour to make it slash-proof.
With five years to study this mist more intensely, he learned that it has many restrictions. One of those was that to get skills, passives and spells he had to devour creatures that were magic by nature.
So devouring fish to get a water-breathing skill did not work, or devouring birds to get wings did not work.
Also, the number of skills or spells or passives he could get every time the mist devours a magical creature was random. With one being the lowest and five being the most he got, which was from the dragon.
Then came the upgrade of the mist. Souls, we're used to upgrading it. With each upgrade, digestion time gets reduced, he had upgraded it only twice till now. For the next upgrade, the cost was strong emotions and a sacrifice. The strong emotions part confused him and the sacrifice part was concerning.
Anyways, as they have now slain the dragon they decided to explore the rest of the forest, which was not possible before as the Dragon was patrolling it.
It was because of this exploration that Nikolai meet someone, a girl in need. A girl that would be very important to him in the future.