While the Flügel were conducting cross-searches and seeking the Ex-Machina's creator worldwide, Ryuga's group wasn't idle either.
Under Jibril's guidance, Ryuga began experiencing this world's local customs and culture.
So—
"What kind of local customs and culture is this meow!"
Looking at the confronting Flügel and Dragonia before her, Azriel complained with all her might.
"Why are we at odds with this Dragonia again? Jibril just can't learn to give up meow!"
Before this, Jibril had challenged Dragonia multiple times, and naturally failed each time. She had thought that after finding a master she acknowledged, Jibril would settle down a bit. She didn't expect her to directly bring Ryuga here and prepare for yet another challenge.
What she called local customs and culture seemed to refer to the Flügel's hunting habits.
Seeing that Jibril had no intention of paying attention to her, Azriel had no choice but to turn back to look at Ryuga.
"Um, Jibril's master-sama, aren't you going to stop Jibril? She's challenging a Dragonia!"
"So what?"
Ryuga asked back.
"Ah?"
Azriel was stunned, completely not expecting this response.
Somewhat doubting her own ears, she repeated again.
"That's a Dragonia—a powerful being whose individual strength matches a lower-tier Old Deus. Aren't you worried meow?"
Although she had been instantly defeated by Jibril once, she still didn't think Jibril could be a match for Dragonia.
As mentioned before, Dragonia strength matched lower-tier Old Deus. Even Flügel would need at least a hundred-person squad to possibly subjugate the most ordinary Dragonia.
Now Jibril actually wanted to challenge the opponent alone. Even if she had become much stronger, she shouldn't be able to handle a lower-tier Old Deus level enemy alone, right?
Faced with this concern and doubt, Ryuga simply shook his head.
"Of course I'm not worried. With Jibril's current power, it would be strange if she lost."
"?"
Question marks popped up in Azriel's head again.
It wasn't until she remembered what Artosh had called Ryuga earlier that she slightly understood, and immediately explained anxiously.
"Ryuga-sama, you're a powerful individual from another world, so you might not know—Dragonia are very special creatures. The spirit power contained in each of their scales exceeds the limit of spirit power we Flügel can manipulate, and they have hundreds of millions of such scales."
"Perhaps for a powerful individual like you, a Dragonia's strength isn't much, but for us individual Flügel, this power is terrifyingly strong meow."
"Even an excellent Flügel like me can only shatter one or two Dragonia scales at most with a full-power Heaven's Strike. Even though Jibril has become much stronger now, she couldn't possibly break through hundreds of millions of scales' defense, let alone defeat the opponent."
"If you truly care about Jibril's safety, please definitely take action to kill this Dragonia. Otherwise, we might not be able to rescue her in time meow!"
It could be seen that Azriel was truly anxious, to the point of setting aside her inner reservations to seek Ryuga's help.
However, even after hearing so much intelligence, Ryuga still had no intention of taking action.
On the contrary, he quite leisurely asked back.
"If Dragonia truly possessed hundreds of millions of times the spirit power of Flügel, how could they possibly only match lower-tier Old Deus?"
The spirit power storage of Flügel wasn't weak—over ten times that of ordinary Campione. Multiplying this by a hundred million would be at least stellar-system-level energy.
Never mind lower-tier Old Deus—even the War God in his daily state didn't have this scale of energy reaction.
Thinking of this, Ryuga glanced at Azriel and shook his head.
No wonder Jibril said all Flügel were a bit stupid. To believe such words—they really weren't very smart.
"Eh?"
Azriel was stumped for a moment.
The claim of a hundred million times was indeed too exaggerated, so thinking about it, it was obviously impossible. But the Dragonia's seemingly invincible defense seemed to verify this claim, making it hard to doubt.
With Ryuga putting it this way, she felt the water content of this statement even more.
But still—
"Regardless, Dragonia strength is indeed formidable meow!"
"Not to mention Jibril can't even hurt their defense—even if she could, she'd be eliminated by Dragonia Language before that meow!"
She still maintained an attitude prioritizing Jibril's safety.
Regarding this, Ryuga had no objections.
However—
"I believe in Jibril."
Glancing at the distant battlefield, his attitude remained unhurried.
"Old Deus aside, if the opponent is only a dragon-snake, she won't lose."
"But—"
"[Shatter]!"
"BOOM—!"
Azriel wanted to say something more, but at this moment, accompanied by the activation of Dragonia Language's word-spirit, a earth-shaking explosion erupted on the battlefield.
Sensing the destructive power sweeping in storm-like winds, Azriel's face paled as she immediately looked toward the explosion's center.
If she hadn't sensed wrong, Jibril hadn't had time to escape and was directly hit by the Dragonia Language's word-spirit!
Dragonia Language was one of the regular powers Dragonia frequently used. Its main effect was commanding through words—it was said to be remnants of world-creation power, called the omnipotent language, the creative language. It was the royal language that could command all things in the world to submit unconditionally.
Although its power wasn't as great as [Roar], which could only be used by sacrificing a Dragonia's life and was sufficient for deicide, with Dragonia Language's power, even a casual sentence was enough to instantly kill Flügel.
No matter how amazing Jibril was, being directly hit by Dragonia Language would definitely be more ominous than fortunate.
"Jibril—"
Just as Azriel was about to rush in regardless to search for Jibril:
"Don't come over, Azriel-senpai. This is my battle!"
A familiar voice rang out from within the smoke and dust.
"If you could learn even one-tenth of Master's trust in me, you wouldn't be so surprised and show such an inexperienced appearance. But is this requirement too difficult for an idiot like you?"
Then, Jibril's completely unharmed figure appeared.
Around her body, silver runic letters were manifesting.
[Steel's Protection]—for her, who possessed god-level defensive power, ordinary Dragonia Language wasn't sufficient to break her defense.
Sensing the special aura emanating from Jibril, both the white Dragonia and Azriel were stunned on the spot.
They had never seen a Flügel who could withstand Dragonia Language before.
And what was even more surprising was—
"The aura of a divine core?"
They sensed power similar to Old Deus from Jibril.
"That's right! This is the blessing Master rewarded me with!"
Jibril proudly raised her head, then looked at the Dragonia before her with sharp eyes.
"Since you've endured one of my attacks, big lizard, as a return gift, you should endure one of mine, right?"
Before saying this, she had already raised a silver spear of light, aiming at the Dragonia before her, with no possibility of refusal.
"You are a dragon—no, you were originally a dragon! So take my certain-victory Dragon Slayer Sword!"
The steel hero god's innate restraint against dragon-snakes, based on divine cores of deities like Michael, Siegfried, and Saint George, constructed the strongest special attack effect.
Silver light flashed, and before the Dragonia itself had any feeling, its tail was severed.
With a "thud," it fell to the ground.
"To actually be able to break through dragon scale defense, even severing the supposedly indestructible dragon bone?"
Seeing the battle result, Azriel stared wide-eyed, hardly believing what she had witnessed.
That was dragon bone that even gathering a hundred Flügel couldn't destroy!
After being shocked, she suddenly thought of something.
"Jibril! Be careful!"
A Dragonia's strongest attack wasn't Dragonia Language, but the Roar released by sacrificing their life, converting their entire existence into dragon breath to obtain power sufficient for deicide.
If the Dragonia before them desperately used Roar, even god-level defense might not remain completely unharmed.
Azriel spoke to warn Jibril, but didn't expect Jibril to immediately ask back.
"The enemy is already dead—be careful of what?"
"?"
Azriel immediately looked at the white dragon, only then noticing that this Dragonia's flesh was dispersing into light particles, leaving only the hard-to-damage dragon bones as remains.
Having led teams to subjugate several Dragonia before, she understood this was the sign of a Dragonia's death.
"Why did it die so easily this time?"
Azriel showed a confused expression.
Just severing its tail shouldn't count as a fatal wound, right?
"I don't understand either."
Jibril also tilted her head, not quite comprehending.
She hadn't even gotten serious yet.
Hearing her say this, Azriel secretly ran behind Jibril and hugged her.
"Never mind all that—anyway, Jibril won meow! Jibril became the first Flügel to solo subjugate a Dragonia meow! Come let your sister hug and encourage you!"
Unable to think of an answer, she simply gave up thinking and focused on cuddling with Jibril.
"Back! Back! Back!"
Faced with the clingy Azriel, Jibril slapped her away and hid behind Ryuga, asking curiously.
"Master, do you know what happened? It felt like that Dragonia just now died like suicide—I didn't even get to do anything!"
As the dragon-slaying culprit, having already cut off the opponent's tail, she still said the opponent committed suicide and she didn't do anything.
If this were modern society, this kid would definitely be antisocial.
Even Azriel felt Jibril's words were too much, completely disregarding the Dragonia's dignity.
Fortunately, Ryuga nearby could completely understand Jibril's meaning.
He nodded, confirming Jibril's speculation.
"That's right. In a certain sense, it indeed died by suicide."
To be continued…