Just as Genichi broke out in a cold sweat at the black wyrmling's ghostlike speed and braced himself for the next attack, the corner of his eye caught the sight of the horrific wound he'd blasted open earlier with Gospel: a huge gash where scales had exploded away and flesh had been mangled into a bloody mess.
Then his pupils snapped tight.
The wound… was gone?
No. Not gone. Healed.
In the handful of seconds since his first hit, the ambush, the razor-thin dodge, the scramble to widen the distance… in barely a dozen breaths, the wound that had been deep enough to show bone and had been pouring blood had already closed completely.
Only that patch of scales looked a shade paler than the rest, like freshly grown plating. The injury itself had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.
"Recovery like that?"
Genichi's mind jolted hard.
This wasn't "recovery" anymore. This was freakish regeneration.
A wound that severe, restored in ten-plus seconds? How was he supposed to fight that? Unless he could kill it in a single blow, wouldn't he just get ground down and exhausted until the black dragon tore him apart?
Was this the "special ability" from its mutation?
Hyper-speed regeneration?
To confirm it and, more importantly, to deny the wyrmling any breathing room for another blitz, Genichi forced the shock down and raised a finger again.
"Gospel!"
The third Gospel shockwave screamed out, striking true just as the black wyrmling steadied itself and prepared to launch again.
This time it hit the shoulder blade.
"Boom!"
"Aooorgh!!"
The same explosion. The same shower of shattered scales. The same shredded flesh. The same miserable, piercing howl.
The black dragon was mauled again by the dragon-slaying special-effect spell. Its massive body swayed in midair, dark-gold slit pupils churning with pain and rage.
And then what happened next completely confirmed Genichi's fear and sank his heart straight to the bottom.
The fresh shoulder wound, just as deep and just as brutal, began to writhe and knit shut at a visible pace.
Beneath the broken scales, tender new flesh surged into being, knitting and overlapping. Bleeding stopped. Skin sealed. And then…
A pale, newly budding layer of scales spread over it.
The entire process took only a few breaths.
By the time Genichi started to gather power for another Gospel, the wound had already healed more than halfway, leaving only faint, shallow marks.
"Damn it."
Genichi's face twisted into something ugly.
This was un-winnable.
It had strength close to LV.3. That ghostlike burst speed. Dragonfire breath that could erase you if you misstepped. And now a regeneration that made it nearly impossible to kill.
A disgusting combination.
Unless he could detonate something far beyond its regenerative limit and erase it outright in a single instant, any damage he dealt would be repaired in moments.
And while his Gospel spell hit hard, plus the anti-dragon boost from Dragon Eater, it clearly wasn't enough to completely obliterate the thing on the spot.
If they kept trading like this, the first one to run out of mana and stamina wouldn't be the dragon.
It would be him.
The moment his mana dried up, or the moment he showed a crack, that speed and that power would tear him to pieces.
He had to change tactics.
Either find a true one-shot, or retreat immediately.
As Genichi weighed the options at breakneck speed, even considering calling Lunoire to intervene or simply pulling out—
Not far from their battle chamber, at the passage leading down from the Eleventh Floor, an all-female adventurer squad stepped onto the Twelfth Floor.
This team carried a different air entirely: high-end gear, controlled breathing, and that calm heaviness that only comes from surviving countless fights. There weren't many of them, but every member radiated veteran steadiness.
At the front was a tall elf woman with long green hair, a staff in hand—none other than Loki Familia's vice-captain, one of the "Nine Valkyries," Riveria Ljos Alf.
At her side were "Sword Princess" Ais Wallenstein, the Amazon twins Tiona Hiryute and Tione Hiryute, and the elven mage Lefiya Viridis.
This was a temporary party, thrown together to earn some extra cash in the Mid-Levels during a lull between familia expeditions.
Even a powerhouse like Loki Familia could find its finances stretched thin, and its members occasionally took side runs in lower-tier zones to pick up pocket money.
"There's fighting up ahead," Tiona said, cocking her head. She was lively by nature, and her senses were sharp. "And I think I heard a wyrmling roar? Whoa! A wyrmling!"
The moment she said "wyrmling," Tiona's eyes lit up.
A wyrmling, as an LV.2 elite monster, was rare, and its materials sold for a small fortune. For a familia under financial strain, that kind of haul mattered.
"Dragon?"
The word hit someone in the party like a switch.
Walking slightly ahead, Ais Wallenstein's golden eyes, usually carrying a faint blankness, turned razor-sharp the instant she heard it.
A violent will to fight, and something heavier—an obsession carved deep into her—burst out of her small frame like a blade leaving its sheath.
She didn't hesitate. She didn't even look back at her teammates. She slammed her foot into the ground.
"Whoosh—!"
A streak of gold shot forward like an arrow loosed at point-blank range, vanishing from where she'd been and sprinting toward the sound of battle at a terrifying speed.
Only a fading golden afterimage remained, along with the dust she kicked up.
"Ais! Wait!" Riveria called, startled by how extreme the reaction was.
But Ais was already past the corner ahead, her figure swallowed by the tunnel, ignoring Riveria completely.
Riveria's brows drew together, and she let out a quiet, resigned sigh.
She knew Ais's fixation on dragons wasn't normal. It came from her childhood and that extreme hunger to grow stronger. The second anything "dragon" related appeared, Ais could slip into this reckless, single-minded state.
"That battle idiot," Tione muttered, even as she sped up.
"No choice," Riveria decided at once. Her staff trembled lightly as she spoke in a steady voice. "We follow. Stay alert. Be ready to support Ais at any time."
"Got it!" Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya answered in unison.
The temporary squad—Loki Familia's top female combat power concentrated into a single team—changed course and moved after Ais at speed.
As Riveria advanced, she released a detection spell and watched for additional threats, unease growing in her chest.
Judging by the noise, this fight was far more violent than a normal wyrmling encounter.
Who, exactly, was battling a wyrmling down here?
They didn't know that what waited ahead wasn't an ordinary dragonling, but a black mutated wyrmling with hyper-speed regeneration.
And a mysterious young man—Genichi—whose stats were absurd, whose technique was still rough, and whose secrets ran deeper than the dungeon's dark.
(End of Chapter)
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