City of Sin

A Lesson In Love(2)

Watching Ensio fall, Sharon sighed with impatience, “I’ve been teaching you for so long, why can’t you beat a few dragons? There’s so many others in my collection that I haven’t even brought out!”

Trapped under the black dragon’s claws, Ensio struggled to stick his head out and yell, “You’re just bullying me! All these years, just sending dragons to bite me, how is that teaching?!”

“It taught you to survive under a dragon’s claws!” the legendary mage dismissed, but it was obvious she was just talking big. A loud snap caused the dragon to press down with more strength, making Ensio scream in pain.

At this point, Richard realised that Ensio couldn’t use even a tenth of his powers, which was why he was being beaten so easily. This was naturally the result of the few spells Sharon had cast, but those were clearly rudimentary slowing spells and the like. How was someone in the legendary realm succumbing to them?

A hum of confusion from him finally caught Sharon’s attention, “Oh, Little Richard is here! Alright, I’m letting you off; Richard, you’re up!”

“Uhh…” Richard froze up a bit, “Against these dragons?”

“What else?” Sharon retorted.

Ensio broke free of the black dragon’s claws, struggling to his feet before rushing towards the entrance of the training arena. As he passed Richard, he tapped him on the shoulder and smiled with a strange mix of pity and joy, “It’s your turn!”

As the bald youth and Blackgold left, Richard nodded and made his way towards the centre of the laboratory. Flying into the sky, he opened up some distance from the dragons and eyed them closely. Only two of these dragons were real, while the six summons included three reds and three blacks.

Sharon’s eyes sparkled with interest when he signalled that he was ready, the three red dragons charging straight towards him with a wave of her arm. The three blacks flanked around, while the two real dragons pincered him vertically to block off all paths of escape.

Richard immediately tried to open a random portal, what was considered the best way to break a siege on all ends. However, his head bumped right into the rift in space when he tried to walk into it, leaving him a little dizzy as he recoiled. Even an instant portal had lost its effectiveness? He shook his head even as the sound of a snap finally made its way over to him, indicating that Sharon had closed it off.

Unable to blink at will, he then switched to using his speed and agility. However, the moment he made a move Sharon waved her hands again, dark light flashing all over his body as he was cursed for weakness, vulnerability, and slowness. He had foreseen this and casted grade 7 counterspells instantly, but those barriers broke apart instantly and the curses struck him without so much as being weakened. The result left him taken aback even as he finally understood Ensio’s predicament; just how powerful was her magic penetration?

Sharon’s abilities were vast as the ocean; without battling her personally, there was no way for someone to know what skills she possessed. Even powerful defences were clearly just paper in front of her. Richard suddenly felt himself grow sluggish and weak, just like when he had fallen victim to Nasia’s Prisoner of War. Even worse, Mana Armament started to grow sluggish as well, the rate of transformation of energy not nearly enough to support his actions. With the dragons rushing down on him, hoping to depend on it would be a fool’s errand.

Now a little slower than the dragons, Richard decided to abandon Mana Armament entirely, relying on his swordplay and predictions in an attempt to control the battle. However, he quickly realised he had no room for error; Sharon cast a spell that broke all of the barriers he had set up, and even weakened his body until he wasn’t much better than a regular human. Even just brushing against a dragon would kill him.

“Be careful!” she chirped happily, even waving at him.

Richard’s expression turned cold as he drew a deep breath, a loud buzz emanating from his body as all of the runes in Disintegrator were activated in tandem. An imposing aura burst forth from his body as the power of laws destroyed the curses in one go, returning him to peak performance. Even as Sharon cried out in surprise and childish joy, he activated the Judge on one of the black dragons and flashed behind it.

The dragon immediately sensed something was amiss, but before it could run away one of its wings had been severed from the body, starting to float down to the ground. It only felt the piercing pain a moment later, screaming as it disappeared into a tuft of magical smoke as it returned to its home plane.

Richard made good use of Sharon’s momentary distraction, blinking behind another of the summoned blacks like a shadow while activating the Judge from afar. Moonlight pierced straight into the dragon’s nape, a fountain of blood spurting out from within. Before this dragon even disappeared, he moved on to the third and stabbed both of his swords into its back. While he didn’t use Judge of Destiny this time, which meant that Disintegrator and Lifesbane did not activate, he blew a cone of blue flames into the opened wound before retreating. The dragon’s scales started to contort and even melt in mere moments, and eventually it disappeared as well.

When Richard’s figure reappeared at his original position, only the two real dragons and three summoned reds were in the air. He was pale from the exertion that had consumed more than half of his energy, but he was starting to recover already.

Sharon’s eyes lit up like the tears of Anubis, “Not bad! My little Richard is so much stronger than that bastard Ensio. Again!”

Again? Having said that, she waved her hands to form a number of symbols in the sky. Before Richard could even process what she meant, a number of dragons shot out from the void; six blacks and one red in total. The red wasn’t an ordinary one either; this was an ancient red dragon!

Richard couldn’t help but take a deep breath at the sight, barely dodging the first set of attacks. As he minimised the curses Sharon sent towards him, the Judge was quickly pointed towards Sharon herself as its ability was activated. Seeing the red glow on her body, he shot towards her like lightning.

This was a skill he had practised many times, achieving the pinnacle of his speed and burst power. Moonlight even lit up with a blood-red glow as he activated Lifesbane to the fullest, the attack capable of hurting even someone like Tiamat.

Sharon’s golden hair stood up in awe, and she even felt a tinge of pain on her face as her instincts warned her of the danger. Seeing the fleeting moment in slow motion, Richard distinctly noticed the shock and even panic in the legendary mage’s expression as she seemed to gear up to scream in alarm. He almost instinctively held back, but knowing that this full-power attack couldn’t even harm her hair, he pressed forward.

Sharon shrieked, a rather adorable little yelp like a child who had just seen a bug in their home. However, Richard’s vision turned black as he lost all sense of sight and sound, only able to vaguely sense a small hand rising into the sky and smacking his back.

He came crashing down to the earth below, and as a burst of colour occupied his vision, all he could think of was that Ensio was lucky to just be trampled by a dragon.