It was over. The moment Henry had assumed his true form, the battle was all but over. He had enough of this charade and experiment. He had seen enough. It was time to move on.

  The Arch Knight had the same sentiment but a pessimistic view. He knew it well that he was at an end. The monster in front of him, the guise of a young man, was impossible to defeat. His attempt at offensive was all for nought. He had barely managed to make the monster bleed. He had been hopeful but that optimism was immediately crushed in the most merciless manner. The monster shed its human skin and bared its true form. It was over fifteen feet tall. It would take the combined efforts of a dozen mages to take this beast down.

  Henry bared his mouth and a raging crimson glow surged from his throat. The Arch Knight knew what was coming. He was finished… but he refused to go down without a fight. He dove out of the way at the st second. He felt the torrent of fire rushing past behind him. The heat was extreme enough to sear his back without touching him.

  “What is this guy trying to do?” Henry mused. “Is he trying to escape?”

  The Arch Knight did not spare Henry a gnce and simply bolted past him, sprinting towards a certain spot.

  Henry didn’t know the Arch Knight’s intention but he wasn’t about to just let him do whatever the hell he wanted. Henry turned his body, swinging his tail around. The Arch Knight leapt over it and kept sprinting. Henry followed the Arch Knight’s gaze and he saw a backpack. Some of its content had spilled out. They were cylindrical objects with a small string attached to one end.

  “Fres,” Henry instantly realised. He had to stop the Arch Knight but he thought of a better idea. He destroyed the fres with Jetstream Breath. Since it was just air, there was no risk of it exploding and inadvertently setting it off.

  The Arch Knight did not stop running. He raised his sword and charged his bde with his aura. Henry saw what he was going to do. He stomped the ground and the Arch Knight immediately fell face-first into the ground. Before the knight could understand what was holding him to the ground, Henry turned him into cinders with his Fire Breath.

  “Done and dusted,” Henry heaved a sigh of relief. If the soldiers’ words were to be believed, he had just killed the strongest Arch Knight. By logic, he had nothing to fear from them anymore if this was all the strongest Arch Knight was capable of. Then again, if the second or third strongest was not much less than the first, he could be overwhelmed if the Arch Knights ganged up on him together, coupled with the mages and the Syers. He still had to py it safe, or at least be extremely cautious.

  He had time but not enough for him to dally. Henry took flight and headed for the next batch of reinforcements. He flew as low as he could. There was nothing but forests and empty pins in his path. He didn’t sense any intelligent life in the vicinity, so he wasn’t afraid of being seen. When he did sense life around him, he resorted to running. He excelled in the sky but he was no runt on the ground.

  In no time at all, Henry reached the next battalion of reinforcements. Like the previous one, they were also marching through a vast pin with little to no elevation. However, there was a hillock and there was where Henry concealed himself.

  They marched in the same formation. The golem carriage that looked like a spider was in the middle, carrying the officers and the mages. Syers fnked the carriage on all sides. At the vanguard, there were three soldiers who were dressed differently than the rest. The Arch Knights, no doubt. They had an air of untouchability to them. The other soldiers remained some distance away from the three.

  Near the carriage, there was a soldier who was carrying a backpack, the same kind he saw that contained the fres. This soldier would be the one to unch the fres and thankfully, he rode close to the carriage and therefore, the Syers. It was a mistake on their part. Henry wondered if they knew just how votile their golem carriage was. Were they not afraid of being hit by fire? Or were they confident that whatever kind of opponents they were facing, they would have no access to fiery means of offence?

  Henry came to no conclusion but it didn’t matter. Everything was working in his favour. No need to look the gift horse in the mouth. He stopped in his tracks once he was close enough to the army. Any closer, he would be detected by the barrier.

  Henry went through his pn in his head one more time. He would first target the golem carriage. Next, he had to make sure the fres were out for good before moving on to the hard-hitting threats, the mages, the Syers, and the Arch Knights. The mages were top priority considering the tricks they were capable of. They would have most probably perished in the explosion and fire. If they weren’t, they had to be taken care of first. Then, it would be the Syers and the Arch Knights. Then, it would be the foot soldiers.

  “Simple as that,” Henry told himself, though he still couldn’t help but be nervous. If a fre was unched, the other battalions would be on alert and prepared. “Just take out all of their means of communication first. Okay, let’s get this done and go home.”

  Henry was already in his humanoid dragon form. Any rger and he would be exposed. Then again, he would be exposed regardless in a short while. He started off with a Firebolt to the most vulnerable part of the golem carriage, the main joints.

  “Incoming!” one of the Arch Knights shouted as soon as Henry unleashed a firebolt.

  The army went into alert but it was too te. They saw the firebolt coming but none of them were fast enough to stop it, save for the Syers. A Syer hopped into the firebolt’s path. The Syer was struck and it exploded into pieces but the golem carriage remained untouched.

  “Oh fuck off…” Henry cursed. There was no use hiding now. Henry revealed himself. His true form instantly sent the army into a panic and confusion. They had never seen a real dragon or even a true dragon for that matter. They had no idea what to do. They simply moved into their typical positions.

  There was no time to dawdle or hesitate. Henry remained true to his pn. He fired multiple Firebolts at the golem carriage. Each of the bolts were blocked by a Syer but eventually, one single bolt escaped the Syer’s cognition. No one and nothing was perfect. And that single bolt was all it took to plunge the army into ruin and chaos.

  When the explosion ensued, Henry capitalised on the confusion. He swooped at the same time as the explosion. To be absolutely sure that no one could get the fres working, he gobbled up the fres along with their carrier, not before chewing them into pieces.

  “On to the next targets.”

  The carriage was done for and so were the fres, Mages, and most of the Syers. The Arch Knights were all that were left. Henry turned towards them. They flinched under his gre. Damien did not, which amused Henry. Looking at them now, they were undoubtedly weaker than the so-called strongest Arch Knight. These ones were no stronger than Rayne and that wasn’t considering her prime.

  Henry wasted no time with them and charred them all into cinders along with other survivors. The screams and wails were now just background noises to him. He hadn’t gotten used to them but at least it didn’t bother him as much as before. Once he was sure everyone in the army was dead, he moved on.

  Henry understood what he was doing. This could either infme the would-be war with the Argon Kingdom or it could deter them from thinking about attacking Ulrum in the future. He hoped it would be the tter. It would be foolish for the kingdom if they went for the former possibility. From what he had briefly heard from these soldiers, the tter option was likelier. Unless… the princess, Lucianna, seized this opportunity to make her cim.

  Henry moved on to the next battalion. It was much smoother than the st. He didn’t wait and see upon reaching the army. He immediately destroyed the golem carriage. In the ensuing chaos, he sughtered all the high-priority targets before dealing with the leftovers. He repeated this notion and it worked out well.

  Henry didn’t know how many humans he had killed. He didn’t want to think about it. At least not now. The sun was halfway from reaching the horizon when he had dealt with the tenth or so battalion of reinforcements. No, it was wrong to bel them all as battalions as some had more than just a thousand troops. Henry couldn’t remember what the names of the units were and it didn’t matter. Most of them had been dealt with. As for the rest, he could let the Lavans take care of them. The armies had less than half of their initial numbers. There was no way for this expedition to succeed anymore. It was only a matter of time before they realised it.

  It was time to head back.

  As Henry was about to take off, he sensed life. There was a survivor. He turned around and tried pinpointing the sign of life. He had not sensed the life sign until just now, as if someone just came back to life or… someone was hiding from him until just now… or for other reasons. No matter. He didn’t intend to leave anyone alive. The less the kingdom knew about him the better.

  Henry, in his human form, walked towards the wreckage of the golem carriage, treading over all the ashened or charred corpses that were his handiwork. Someone was under all that burning wreckage. It was a miracle. Henry lifted the wreckage with ease and he flung it all to the side.

  “Oh?” was all he could mutter before being hit by a bolt of energy. He went stumbling backwards and he almost tumbled. He caught his bearings in time.

  “Die!” shouted the individual who was trapped underneath the wreckage. A girl, barely a woman, with long wavy hair that was dyed in the colours of fmes. Going by her robes, she was a mage. She shot another bolt of energy at Henry but this time, he was prepared. The energy bolt struck him and he barely flinched.

  “No major wounds. Just a few light scratches,” Henry assessed the girl’s condition. She was unlike someone who had been in an explosion. Nothing about her suggested she had been a victim of an explosion. Henry was curious.

  “Damn you…” the mage growled. “Why have you attacked us, you damn monster!?”

  Henry could easily kill the mage and he was about to but he stopped. There was something different about this girl... drastically so. “Why? Then tell me this, why were you all going?”

  The mage didn’t respond but her eyes spoke of her realisation.

  “Now do you know why?”

  “You’re an inhabitant of Ulrum… It’s your home…”

  “Yes. There’s nothing wrong with protecting one’s home now, is there? Unlike what you and your… compatriots pnned to do.”

  “You’re a dragon…”

  “So what if I am?”

  “Dragons are extinct.”

  Henry snorted. “Evidently not. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  The mage took a few steps back. “Why am I alive?”

  “I’m curious, that’s why. You are... different. You are not human, are you? No... you are something much more.”

  The mage froze and her eyes widened.

  “Was that supposed to be a secret? Considering your reaction, it seems like you were trying very hard to hide that fact.”

  “...How do you know that?”

  “You smelled different, for one. And you seemed to have an incredible amount of Murux flowing inside of you…, even more than I do, as if you were made of Murux itself. Just what are you?”

  “...I am a Magus,” the mage answered reluctantly.