With the shining light finally phasing out, the heroes on my back recovered from their blindness and saw the eight metallic-like spheres of divine energy slowing orbiting them. One of the females, in an oversized, puffed-up and round purple dress with a dark grey witch hat, a dark-coloured skirt and a modern-looking staff, white metal with a large yellow crystal surrounded by three, smaller blue crystals at the hilt of the white staff, quickly deployed a sturdy barrier. It comprises smaller octagons, each layered slightly below or above their neighbouring octagon, forming small gaps within the barrier, but much more sturdy due to each octagon supporting each other under pressure.
It surrounded the entire group. Once I confirmed the full deployment of the barrier, I unleashed the divine energy I'd been storing in the spheres and rained down high-energy particles at the barrier. Ear-screeching noises were produced as the particles tore through and ripped several layers of octagons from their base. I heard the heroes grunt, raising their weapons in case the barrier failed.
"This barrier can't hold out much longer!" I heard the female mage yell out. "Either we have to retreat or we can gamble and pour our mana into a strong attack, that would hopefully pierce and take down this dragon!"
"Already?! How much time do we have left?" the intelligent boy asked the mage.
"Less than a minute! The particles ripping my barrier apart are travelling faster than sound itself! At most, I would say a minute and a half!"
"Shit!" the intelligent boy cursed in reply, understanding the grave situation he and his allies were in. "Argh! No point in trying to defeat this dragon! We were lucky enough to land on it since it appeared directly in front of us, but we don't possess the strength to bring it down! Hayato! I strongly recommend retreating!"
A new voice replied to the intelligent boy's advice. The voice was masculine, with a serious tone, unlike the panicking tone of the intelligent boy. "I see. Elizabeth, do you mind releasing the magic hook from the dragon? We need it to be hooked to a nearby building instead."
"Understood," replied the mage girl. "Releasing the magic hook in ten seconds. Make sure to be prepared! We only have less than six seconds for all four of us to make our way off the dragon's back." she warned.
"Less than six seconds? Can we even do it?" replied the unintelligent, warrior of the group. I should mention he was the one who tried to pierce my scales with his steel sword, so he's not the brightest tool in the shed.
"If you shut up and prepare yourself, we'll make it out!" the mage girl answered the warrior's question. Her harsh tone made the warrior back off in fear, and he merely nodded silently in reply.
The faces of the tensed up as their short-lived moment of glory ended, and the imminent moment when they leapt off my back to a roof, quickly approached. "Three! Two! One!" the mage girl cried out. Once she said 'one' everyone started to run towards the barrier, where a small hole appeared, leading them to the roof of a nearby building. As they leapt into the air, the barrier once protecting them shattered into a fine powder and the wind blew the powder to wherever it carried it, never to be seen again.
The group landed with minor injuries despite the speed at which they travelled down the zipline made by the magic hook. With the group of heroes off my back, I could finally move more freely, and immediately, I started to fly towards Valentyn. As I did so, he began to chant another spell to fire. Instead of multiple magic circles forming in a ring around him, he conjured a singular, white magic circle—seven metres in diameter, a gargantuan magic circle. Smaller magic circles (all in white as well) started to stack on top of the original magic circle, like a waiter stacking plates, the largest plate goes on the bottom, and the smallest on the top.
These smaller magic circles weren't for show—they were most likely spells that either accelerated the projectile from the original magic circle or applied some sort of defensive mechanism to prevent the projectile from being intercepted by another magic spell.
If I were in his shoes, I would most likely want my projectile to go as fast as possible, to ensure maximum penetration power, so I could take down an immense threat, such as a dragon.
"I don't think so!" I said, speeding up even more. He was over four hundred metres away, but with my current velocity, I could reach him in under five seconds, which is plenty of time for an experienced magician such as Valentyn. "!!!"
I felt a slight feeling of unease, and I should've paid more attention to that feeling. Four seconds later. as I was about to snatch Valentyn with my mouth, both of my wings were blown off with immense force.
A large, invisible sphere of destruction narrowly missed my neck, but my wings weren't spared. I felt no pain of course, due to my current body being made up of divine energy, however, I roared "in pain" a few seconds after both of my wings were blown off to give the illusion that I was a real dragon.
I believe Valentyn intended to bait me into attacking him. making me believe that there wasn't enough time for him to finish casting, but in reality, he had already finished casting and was merely having the eight magic circles just for display to help trick me. And once I was close enough, he fired three large spheres of mana, accelerated to the point it was pretty much invisible to the naked eye and aimed it at my neck and wings. I heard the bodies of dragons were worth their weight in gold, and were incredibly valuable due to scarcity and their magical properties, so I believe that fact made Valentyn reluctant to fire one sphere through my body, which is extremely lucky for me.
Otherwise, I had to devise another plan, which I didn't want to do. I came decelerating towards Valentyn, crashing into him, and I took this chance to complete my plan. I used my front two arms to tightly grab a hold of him, as he struggled to break free of my grasp.
We plunged into the ground, blasting dust and dirt high into the air as we landed, and teleported us deep inside the Granza Forest.
To the spectators, it looked like a dragon suddenly appeared, and less than three minutes later, it suddenly disappeared when it plunged into the ground after being injured by something.
"Damn dragon!" Valentyn yelled out, preparing another magic circle.
"Wait! Wait!" I called out to him, as I returned my usual appearance.
"Blanoir?" Valentyn shouted in reply. Undoubtedly confused by my sudden appearance, he started questioning me to find out if I was a doppelganger. "Where did you come from? A dragon suddenly appeared and targeted me, so I fought it and once we plunged into the ground, you appeared!"
"Heheh... that's correct. To inform you, I was the dragon—I transformed into it for the sake of getting you out of the mess you stirred up while I was gone."
Valentyn looked at me with eyes of distrust, "I don't believe you..." he said.
"Okay, fine. I unsealed you from the First Hero's sword in a dungeon deep within the Central Narthe Range. Then, we fought a bit, and I brought you to my dungeon where you started to be my subordinate. You believe me now?"
He took a deep breath and sat down on the ground—exhausted. "Yeah, transforming into a dragon does sound like an average Blanoir thing to do... not to mention I was reminded by Hestia's dragon form when I saw your dragon appearance for the first time."
"Oh, you realised that? I based the appearance off Hestia after all."
Valentyn chuckled. "Heh-heh. Well, I have to admit, thank you for saving me from Orth's heroes."
My gaze shifted from Valentyn to the skies above us—still covered with ash and smoke from Trinas' destruction. "How did you even get yourself into this mess?" I asked, lightly punching the top of his head, "I was gone for a very short period of time you know?"