The words were barely out of his mouth when, in the distance, the dragonborn kobold—like a steel tower given legs—slammed a foot into the ground. From beneath its heel, cracks spiderwebbed out.
Thud!
Its knees dipped. An instant later, the earth exploded and its body blasted forward like a fired shell.
So fast!
Gauss's heart lurched. He'd killed two commander-tier monsters so far. The first had been a goblin chieftain roasted to death; the second, the basilisk bull brought down by ambush—an enemy "specialized" to begin with.
This dragonborn kobold outstripped them both for speed. It had clearly inherited a portion of a red dragon's might; its raw burst put it at the very top of its weight class. Its hulking frame ripped the air, skin popping with shock-cracks; red scales stretched into a streaking scarlet line.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gauss marked the shamans and casters behind it. No doubt they'd layered it with buffs.
Nearly two hundred meters vanished in a blink; at that pace, Fireball wouldn't just be heavily resisted—even if he forced the cast, landing it would be dubious. Too much mobility. One of Fireball's great weaknesses.
"Sir Gauss, behind me!"
Albena planted herself in front.
"Bull's Strength!" Alia called, lacing Albena with the STR branch of Enhance Ability. Serandur snapped off a string of heightened Bless. White light bloomed over the team.
In the next heartbeat, shadow welled up; Shadow wrapped Alia and Serandur and whisked them back to safer ground. Albena strode forward, armor blooming over her in a shimmer.
In the sun, blue sigils across the plates flared, radiating an unbreakable presence. Shield up, axe in her right, she became a bulwark no storm would move.
Truth be told, behind her, Gauss felt… safe. A strange feeling.
Even so, his hands didn't stop. Mana surged like a tide; power rang through his frame; beneath the loose robes, blue traceries of the activated Ironscale Bloodline crawled across his skin, up along the hard line of his jaw. Power knotted at the White Wand's tip.
The dragonborn kobold thundered in like a loaded hauler—and smashed headlong into Albena.
BOOOOM!!!
Sparks geysered from the impact. A blown ring of air kicked dust into the sky. Albena leaned into her shield; the ground under her boot shattered.
The brute force propagated into the bulwark; bright yellow light flashed across the face, and with a thunderous thud most of the momentum bled down into the earth.
Around her, a honeycombed golden ward field flared, sealing her in a crystalline shell.
Behind her, Gauss—already braced—stole the heartbeat of stalemate.
The wand flared. His gaze snapped and fixed on the dragonborn.
"Magic Missile—Sevenfold!"
Practice had pushed his simultaneous count from six to seven, and rising.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump—
Seven cerulean darts rose before him, locking into a spinning halo—like a floating array.
Whitt-whitt-whitt!
They screamed off like living comets, tails blazing, curving delicately around Albena's shield to rake the dragonborn's hide.
In Gauss's hands, the spell had shed its training wheels—more shots, heavier punch, and a touch of in-flight adjustment. Far more lethal, far more flexible.
Thud! Thud! Thud-thud-thud…!
Force detonations hammered the creature's torso. Already locked with Albena, the dragonborn had no leverage; the barrage blew it backward a dozen meters.
Gauss narrowed his eyes. As the smoke peeled away, the dragonborn was on one knee, scales split where the sevenfold volley had struck, raw meat showing through and already slick with blood. Its face showed no hint of pain. On the contrary—its eyes burned hotter, as if stoked by its own blood.
It rose. Blood hissing to vapor, the red spray ignited like fuel; a sheath of scalding steam wrapped its body.
In the blink of an eye, bleeding stopped, scabs formed, split, fresh tissue surged, and sealed. It roared—"HRAA!"—concentric waves of sound rippling the air. In front, Albena frowned—the resonance sat wrong in the gut.
But it reminded Gauss: you want to shout? I can shout too. And mine is worse.
Title: [Kobold Slayer]
Effect — True Dragonfear: When you roar at kobolds, you inflict a powerful psychic blow that reduces all their capabilities. Current Effect: −20%.
Compared to its earlier phase as [Kobold Hunter], this was a different beast. He'd never found use for it before; until this job, every kobold he'd met was a stunted runt—at best a winged grunt—hardly worth unsheathing a blade for.
Back then, the effect had been "False Draconic Presence," a −10% to strength and will to fight. It had become "true" only after his Ironscale Bloodline crested—now it dragged everything down at once. If goblins were the enemies he countered hardest, kobolds were close behind.
Gauss inhaled as the dragonborn's roar broke over him—and answered.
"RRRAAH!"
A ring of pressure rolled from his chest. It wasn't louder, but—
The dragonborn's pupils snapped to pinpricks. As if hearing the impossible. The murderous, devouring glare cleared in an instant.
Gulp—
Its throat bobbed. The very air felt like it had thickened; the blaze in its blood guttered. Tremors ran through its limbs.
What—?
Far off, Alia—mid-chant—caught it too, trading a wide-eyed look with Shadow and Serandur. One roar, and the giant just… wilted, like a mouse under a cat's shadow. Magic? Something else?
Serandur's gaze burned; he could taste a grave solemnity in the air. Eyes shut, he almost saw a vast dragon unfurl its wings and descend—its regard not aimed at him, yet enough to tighten the heart.
Closest to the dragonborn, Albena saw the opening first. She glanced back at Gauss, not knowing how he'd done it—but she wouldn't waste a gift. Sigils on her sabatons flared; her massive frame surged forward; the twin axe rose.
Crack!
The very air tore. The edge bit deep into the beast's chest.
Ssshhhk!
Boiling blood fountained. Shocked senseless, the dragonborn couldn't slip it—the blow hurled it even farther. The spray arced, spattering the sand, hissing into steam.
It screamed, tumbled, skidded. Gauss ran in behind Albena, Alia's fox-bright clarity sharpening his thoughts. The drop in the thing's power felt like more than twenty percent. Why? A glance at the distant shamans.
Their boons must have been crushed—and that roar of its, a prelude to some "rage" state, cut off mid-charge. Tie that to a red dragon's tainted blood—he'd yanked the fuse at just the right instant and flipped the surge into backlash. Like a caster backfiring on a broken spell.
Knowing that, he had no intention of mercy.
"Albena!"
He called, and the wand burned again. This time, [Sword Soul] rode the missiles—visible bands of pale gold wound around each dart, swelling them. Seven blue-and-gold bolts floated, humming with a terrifying beauty.
He slashed the air. The enhanced missiles cracked the sound barrier and dove into the gaping wound Albena had carved. The meat there was already budding to heal—but Gauss was faster.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
In less than a breath, all seven punched home, one after another. Scales peeled; regrowing flesh shredded under shearing fields; the enchanted darts churned the iron body to pulp.
The dragonborn howled, a soul-ripping shriek.
Heightened casting. Sword Soul's psychic edge. Seven rapid impacts. Attribute buffs. Bless. Spell Proficiency. True Dragonfear. Its own broken berserk, turned against it. Albena's perfectly timed, catastrophic wound.
Gauss wore a wall of buffs; the dragonborn suffocated under a heap of debuffs. The net effect was annihilating.
Dust cleared. The hulking body was a ruin—upper and lower halves nearly parted, held together by a few charred strips of membrane. The sand around it ran dark red.
"Uhh…"
Light faded from its eyes. It cocked its head, gaze drifting to Gauss, lost. Why? The last embers in its chest might have sufficed for one suicidal lunge—but in that final moment of clarity, its will to fight guttered out. Only confusion remained.
Is that… the king?
Struggling, it stared at Gauss.
"Rr…?" It rumbled weakly, like a wounded pup, as if asking to be sure.
"RRAA!"
Gauss sighed—and roared again. True Dragonfear crashed over it; the wave broke across the fallen champion.
The king descended from the sky, gentle and kind. In its dimming vision, a holy dragon stretched across the heavens, radiant with a mother's warmth.
The last spark in the dragonborn's eyes went out. At the end, calm took it, and it laid itself down, as if willingly—dead beneath the weight of the dragon's voice.
"Dragonborn Kobold Slain ×1."
The prompt floated before him. In the end, he'd literally roared a commander to death—and unlocked a third entry on the commander list. He should have been satisfied. Instead, a small, sour note lingered. He would almost rather have seen madness in its eyes to the last, not that final, pleading surrender.
But kobolds and humans would never share a world; their hatred for mankind was in the bone. He drew a long breath, centered himself, and stepped to the corpse, gathering the great plume of soul-essence rising from it. Two commander wisps now. Like the bull's, it would demand rare reagents to shape into clay—a project for later.
"Sir Gauss, that roar—what was it?" Albena asked, eyes never leaving the panicked kobold squads.
"A bloodline gift," he said.
"Understood," she nodded thoughtfully.
They were just about to finish off the remaining kobolds when—
RUMBLE—
The ground shuddered like a waking beast. Around them, great cracks began to crawl across the earth.
~~~
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