Chapter 72 – Winged Shadows Of Colossal Dreagan

“Princess, you’re here!” Nerima said as soon as she carried Darya to the surface. 

Darya took a breath through her wet, dark green strands. She felt way better than the last time she had to be underwater. This time, she didn’t even feel the shock. The heat potion had perfectly balanced the temperature. 

With the depth buffer still active, Darya looked up at the sky to see if she could sense the Dreagan beyond the clouds. She felt a faint trace of a presence, but it seemed to be well beyond her range at the edge of her depth sense. 

Something tugged at her thigh as she exhaled. Lurim poked his head out with a worried look on his face. 

He’s probably paranoid after having to save me the last time. 

Darya patted his shoulder with a smile. 

“Did you two meet the old man on this island?” Darya asked. 

Lurim nodded and pointed at the beach. 

“Yes! We just talked a while ago. He’s preparing tea for us right now!” Nerima said eagerly.

Lurim performed some quick signs at his sister and patted his forearms. Nerima nodded. “Yeah, I was about to say his arms and legs were scary.” 

“It’s unfortunate. He is some percentage Dreagan Shadow, and he’s at least as old as the last days of the Merfolk kingdom. He lost track of time living here all alone.”

Nerima gasped. “Whoa! Crazy. I thought he was maybe eighty. That Dreagan stuff is keeping him alive like an elf!” 

Darya looked at the beach with a sigh. The old man was a black shape in the distance next to a tiny dancing flame. She didn’t see him packing anything, but it seemed he carried his tea-making equipment everywhere.  

“Old man said you met Prince Volfarro already. How was he?” Nerima asked curiously. 

“Better than I hoped. I left Sarka with him, and gave him a job to do. Otherwise he’d be whining about his lost weapons all day.” 

I don’t know how long it’d take him to get to the top of the tower. He’s supposed to be a talented mage. Maybe with Sarka he’ll get there faster. 

Once he’s there, Emil would serve as her entity anchor for the island’s entire landmass. His position would serve her well with the upcoming Dreagan battle. 

“Too bad we don’t have any spare Manacers. He could’ve been useful, you know?” Nerima said. 

“I can give him this gauntlet if it turns out to be useless,” Darya said, swinging her red-scaled arm. “I can hit anything with these sticks either way.”

“I really want to see how you do it!” Nerima said excitedly. “Lurim didn’t see how you killed that worm monster either. He told me it got hit with something big!” 

“Whatever happens,” Darya gently patted her cheek. “Stay far out from the hot zone with your brother. Things I might do could be way more dangerous than the Dreagan or its Shadows.” 

Nerima nodded, quickly followed by Lurim. 

“What’s next, princess? Why did you come for us?”

Darya pointed up at the sky. “I can’t see through those clouds with the telescope.”

“Oh. Right,” Nerima tapped her lower lip. “Do you want me to try and See where it is?” 

“That could help, but I need to be able to see it through my telescope.” Darya pointed at the horizon. “I need you to take me far out that way toward the clear sky. You have to See from there, and get me an angle on the Dreagan.” 

Nerima clapped her hands. “Give me the telescope. I’ll start Seeing while I take you there. No need to waste time.” 

Darya handed her the telescope. She didn’t know how exactly Nerima was going to do it. Master Lam had done it by hopping through Emil. 

Maybe she has a different way to handle it? She seems confident, at least.  

“What about Lurim?” Nerima asked. 

“Tell him to expand the whales as far as they’re willing to go. I need a bigger circle around the island.”

Nerima quickly translated the instruction into a long set of signs. Lurim nodded once and went underwater.  

“I told him to give us one whale as well,” Nerima said as she adjusted Darya’s arm around her neck. “In case you want to get back to where you started. I’ll hang around there if you need me for anything.” 

“Good, you’re thinking ahead!” 

Nerima gave a satisfied snicker and swung her long tail. The flat end slammed the cold water with a crack. 

“Wait, I need to use the spell—”

The waves parted as she sped along like a speedboat while Darya clung to her water horse for dear life. 

[Flying Celestian]

The spell made things a lot easier. 

Nerima swam to the destination in one go. Darya hadn’t thought a mermaid’s endurance to be so high. The whale that was following them got left behind. 

Nerima also kept her eyes shut, brimming with mana, while keeping her Seeing activated. Eventually, they got to a cloudless patch of ocean that Darya wanted.

Nerima already had a direction. She swung around in an arc and came to a stop with the telescope poised. Mumbling something under her breath, she opened one eye and scanned the clouds above the first island. 

“There, I found it!” She said triumphantly as she froze the telescope angle with both hands. “Quick, I’ll keep it like this. Take a look!” 

Darya let go of her and floated around awkwardly until she could get her eye behind the lens. She saw the glistening black sphere contrasted against the blue sky. 

“Great job! Nerima. Remind me to kiss you later!” Darya said, placing her hands where Nerima was holding the telescope. Nerima giggled and let go, swimming circles around Darya to celebrate. 

Darya observed the Dreagan while they waited for the Beluga to catch up. Nerima swam back to guide it to the destination. 

[Inspect]

Creature: Colossal Black Dreagan

Kind: Magical

Level: 583

HP: 43,701/43,701

MP: 45,315/45,315

SP: 6,547/6,547

Now that’s a fat one. Could be bigger than the last one I fought. Can’t even remember.

“Everything ready!” Nerima announced as the whale began its spiral holding pattern. 

“Alright,” Darya let out a breath. “Here we go, then. Stay safe.”

[Vainfall: Terminate]

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

It was the longest distance she had ever zoomed across. 

One.

She had to count the first second only halfway through. The abrupt halt came much later. She was unsure if it was a full second, but she counted it off anyway. 

Two. 

The Dreagan was definitely larger than the one she fought before. She was at least five hundred feet away just to fit it within her field of view. 

Darya hung the telescope with a leather strap meant to hold it. She clenched her right hand to pour mana into the gauntlet and grabbed a stick with her empty left hand.

Three. Let’s see how long it takes this one to detect me. 

There were no entities around it that she could use. The next part relied heavily on her flight spell, but it wasn’t fast enough to work as an attack. 

Half. 

The monochrome world faded, returning the vibrant blue color to the backdrop behind the dark sphere. The glistening tar-like surface rippled in various places. 

She had already seen this exact sequence before. It would either produce Shadows or charge itself for a denial attack similar to a mana pulse. She was ready for both. 

The thing it did was a third thing that she couldn’t have thought of. It started rotating slowly on its axis. Darya watched as the space around it stretched and warped like a bedsheet. 

Uh oh. Can it bend space-time now? 

That would’ve been a crazy thing for a Dreagan to be capable of. She hadn’t seen something like that even in the admin commands list. These distortions had to be visual artifacts caused by concentrated mana. They grew as the Dreagan kept rotating.

It was dragging things in rather than pulsing everything out. Darya let herself float along the mana well like an ant in a sink. 

Closer is better for me, but getting captured like this would’ve ruined any mage’s day. This is basically impossible to break free from.

She gathered everything she could for the three hundred or so feet that she was dragged along. This Dreagn’s surface was far more intricate than the last one she fought. It had faint red metallic lines mixed in with the tar dancing in the same ripples. 

The Shadows emerged from the poles. Unlike the last one, these emerged fast. Breaking free from their tar prison with ease. Each one that burst out had wings. Master Lam had told her about these flying Shadows earlier, but it was uncanny to see them unfurl like oversized moths.

She was about a hundred feet away when the first Shadow noticed her. It didn’t look like a creature. It was a human with wings. It had a wingspan of at least twenty feet, a single wing larger than its body. 

It stared at her with two glowing yellow eyes. Darya felt that gaze in her heart. It wasn’t the familiar sense of danger. She was already prepared for that. This was something else that she didn’t have a plan for. She couldn’t even come up with the right word, but being stared at by this Shadow felt good. 

The Shadow flapped its wings and came closer, easily overcoming the pull of the mana swirl. It was as comfortable in the sky as Nerima was in the water. There was only one type of entity that matched this description in Vainfall.

“Wait…” Darya muttered, squinting at the flying figure. She had to look past the tar-black body for it to make sense.

Is that an Angel?