Free Web NovelChapter 8: What The...
Before he could recover, they all swarmed him from every direction.
BOOM!
Reiji exploded like a water balloon, his blood spraying across the floor. The dragons were surprised, and even the white dragon paused, staring in confusion.
The air shifted, and Reiji was now looking at those creatures devouring the remaining parts of his body.
"Did I die?"
—yes, you did.
Ding!
[Time Left: 00:27:13]
[Lives: ♡♡♡♡]
"I... died once." Reiji muttered under his breath. Just now, he had experienced a death so bizarre, even worse than when he was run over by Truck-kun. Though he wasn’t feeling any pain now, down there, when the creatures swarmed him, he felt an explosive pain for a split second before he died.
And now it was gone, poof, as if it had never existed.
Just as Reiji’s thoughts could spiral further, he started falling.
’Ahhh!! What the hell!’
"Wait... this must be the system respawning me," Reiji muttered. "But what exactly is going on? How can I beat these things?" Reiji thought as he kept falling, the wind howling in his ears.
The dragons were chained up, so they weren’t a threat to him as long as he didn’t get too close to them. It was only those creatures. His weapon passed straight through them without doing any damage. It really gave him a headache.
’So I can’t hit them... but they can hit me? What kind of bullshit is this?’
Reiji landed on the floor on one knee, looking cool for only a second. He quickly picked up his makeshift weapon and glanced around.
Those monsters had disappeared.
But before he could think, one of the creatures suddenly lunged at him from the back. It had been hiding in Reiji’s blind spot, waiting to ambush him.
Reiji felt something off, and from the corner of his eye, he saw a dried-up, corpse-like hand reaching for him.
He twisted his body and dodged the ambush, but before he could react, another one shot at him from the side. They were trying to corner him so that there wouldn’t be anywhere for him to escape.
’It seems I really underestimated these creatures,’ Reiji thought as he dodged again.
Now he was surrounded.
Two massive dragons in front and behind him, and two creatures, something like a mix between a ghoul and a ghost, on both sides.
’Where are the others?’ Reiji wondered quietly. The last time, there had been about a dozen of them. Though he was glad it was only two now, the odds were still against him.
’At any moment, these two are going to charge at me.’ He narrowed his eyes.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, both creatures charged at him at full speed.
Reiji immediately squatted.
Since they were moving horizontally with their arms stretched out, they missed and slammed straight into each other.
Seeing that his plan worked, Reiji immediately ran forward, not toward the dragons, but through the path the creatures had been blocking.
The creatures had just recovered from the collision. When they saw the human trying to escape, they grew furious and immediately chased after him.
Reiji saw this and wasn’t scared. This was exactly what he wanted.
’You’ve fallen straight into my trap.’
Reiji halted abruptly and used his momentum to turn around.
The creatures were caught off guard by his sudden movement, and the one behind crashed into the one in front.
Reiji laughed excitedly in his head.
’Haha, idiots.’
As Reiji ran forward, he stared at the massive white dragon ahead.
The dragon’s eyes turned bloodshot the moment it locked onto him. It immediately lunged forward, trying to swallow him whole.
But Reiji quickly used his makeshift weapon, using the side with the knife, to jab at the monster’s thick scales and pushed himself away, creating distance.
"Eat them, they taste way better!" Reiji shouted desperately.
*Snap!*
The dragon bit the knife clean off and swallowed it. Luckily, Reiji had already moved out of range.
Though he lost the knife, he didn’t feel too sad.
’It wasn’t doing anything anyway.’
The two creatures were still rushing toward him and were once again tricked by his movement.
But what Reiji expected didn’t happen.
The creatures passed straight through the dragon. It was as if the dragon couldn’t even see them.
Because it kept focusing only on him.
"It can’t see them..." he muttered.
A cold realization settled in his chest.
Reiji’s plan of using the dragons as his shield wasn’t going to happen. It was as if they were in separate layers of reality.
’Two different worlds... overlapping?’
Then all of a sudden, the ghost-like creature that was in front of him, which had moved further in and reached the neck of the white dragon, suddenly erupted in pale purple flames.
The monster thrashed violently on the ground. It tried to shriek, but its voice came out weak and failed, as if it was seconds from dying. Too bad it quickly rushed out of the area and dove deep into the thick fog.
Reiji stared at the scene in total shock.
Then slowly, a cruel smile spread across his lips. ’So that’s it...’
Whatever was under the dragon’s neck, or whatever caused those flames, that was his ticket to survive.
Before Reiji could come up with a full plan, the other creatures that had also witnessed this grew furious. They let out piercing shrieks.
"Ahhhh!!!!"
After a few seconds, more shrieks rang out, forming the same nightmarish chorus. Reiji felt his skin crawl.
"Shit."
They instantly surrounded him from all directions.
In the blink of an eye...
BOOM!
Reiji exploded like a water balloon once again.
He was back in the sky, falling again.
Reiji noticed something different, and to his surprise, the makeshift weapon was still with him.
A faint smile spread across his lips.
’Good... now I know what to do.’
[Time Left: 00:18:32]
[Lives: ♡♡♡]
He had noticed that the liquid was coming out from the top and bottom of the chain tied to the dragon’s neck.
Reiji tilted his body to fall towards the direction of the white dragon.
He landed on the back just a few steps away from the chain. Reiji immediately started running towards it.
The white dragon felt something on its back and began shaking its body violently from left to right. frёeωebɳovel.com
Reiji was caught off guard by the dragon’s sudden movement and immediately flew off the back. Luckily, he grabbed one of the dragon’s scales just in time.
He desperately climbed back onto the white dragon’s back, but the dragon kept shaking its body.
The dragon’s movement became even more frantic when it noticed the thing on its back was still there. It made Reiji almost lose his grip.
"If this continues, I won’t be able to hold on much longer."
Then that familiar piercing shriek rang out and Reiji’s expression immediately turned dark.
He immediately began to climb the dragon’s scales to the top, but the violent shaking made it very hard.
"Ahhh! Stay still." Reiji shouted in frustration, but the dragon only grew more berserk.
Red glowing eyes locked onto the dangling Reiji as the creatures let out a loud piercing cry.
They immediately swarmed him.
Reiji saw them coming and let out a tired, frustrated groan. He tried his best to climb higher, but the white dragon kept thrashing, making every movement difficult. They attacked from all sides. The ones in front acted as distractions while others struck at his sides, making him wince in pain.
Reiji couldn’t bear the pain any longer and fell to the ground. In the blink of an eye, the creatures surrounded him.
BOOM!
He exploded once again.
[Time Left: 00:12:09]
[Lives: ♡♡]
"Oh come on!" Reiji shouted as he fell from the sky for the third time. He was still holding his makeshift weapon, though the knife had been bitten off and swallowed by the white dragon earlier.
This time, a cold gleam flashed across his eyes. Fury burned in his chest.
He landed on the dragon’s back again. The beast had started to settle down slightly. Without wasting a second, Reiji rushed forward toward its neck.
He reached the chain faster than expected. Reiji’s eyes widened in surprise. A thick gold chain with intricate designs was wrapped around the dragon’s neck. In the middle, a strange black liquid oozed out, immediately turning into thick fog that blocked his vision.
Before he could think further, the dragon began shaking violently again.
Reiji tumbled but quickly grabbed onto the chain, holding on desperately as the dragon thrashed viciously.
"Not this time." Reiji muttered under his breath. With his right hand still gripping the stick, he plunged it into the hole in the chain where the black liquid was oozing out. He stirred it around and pulled the stick back.
He had expected the liquid to evaporate into gas the moment it touched the stick, just like it did when exposed to the air. But to his surprise, the black liquid coated the end of the stick and stayed there. It didn’t drip or evaporate.
A satisfied smile tugged at Reiji’s lips, his eyes gleaming with excitement. But the smile didn’t last long. The creatures instantly swarmed him again.
Reiji was confused. He didn’t know if they had some kind of tracking ability or if they could simply sense his presence. Either way, this time he wasn’t afraid.
He now had the black liquid on his weapon. The only problem was the dragon still shaking its body too violently.
Reiji gripped the chain tightly with one hand and held the coated stick ready in the other, preparing to fight.
The creatures rushed forward. Reiji swung the stick at them but they dodged it. They weren’t stupid; they knew the liquid on the stick would harm them.
So they tried the same tactic as before to make him lose his balance. Reiji saw this and grew furious.
"Not this time."
They all came at his sides. Reiji was surprised but skillfully parried their attacks. Before he could even celebrate, they suddenly grouped up and rushed at him from the front.
"Son of a bitch."
Reiji was caught off guard and stumbled backwards, reaching the white dragon’s forehead. And almost instantly the white dragon threw Reiji up.
"No no no no."
The white dragon opened its mouth wide as gravity did its work on Reiji. The creatures, seeing Reiji in the air, rushed at him in an instant.
Chomp!
Reiji was swallowed whole and the creatures were surprised about Reiji’s sudden disappearance and also scattered.
Ding!
[Time Left: 00:08:25]
[Lives: ♡]
Reiji’s eyes burned with fury and frustration as he descended from the sky. He landed on the dragon’s back, bracing himself for the violent thrashing he had come to expect.But this time, the dragon remained strangely still.
The lack of resistance surprised him for a brief moment, but Reiji quickly recovered. He couldn’t afford to dwell on it. With the black liquid still coating the stick in his hand, he sprinted toward the dragon’s neck. He leaped over the thick golden chain that was twice the size of his thighs combined.
What surprised him even more was that the dragon still didn’t thrash or shake. It remained eerily calm.
But Reiji had no time to question it. Those creatures would be coming for him any second now, and the fight ahead would likely be brutal.
He raised the stick high and brought it down hard against the dragon’s scales. To his shock again, the dragon still didn’t flinch. It didn’t roar. It simply accepted the blow. It was like it believed that Reiji couldn’t harm it or it was something else entirely that made it behave this way.
’How odd...’ Reiji thought. Still, he didn’t stop. He continued striking the same spot with the stick repeatedly. The black liquid on his weapon sizzled against the scales with every hit.
Though the stick wasn’t as tough as the dragon scales, thanks to the strange black liquid the scales were gradually breaking. Reiji could feel that if this liquid were to enter the dragon’s skin something big would happen.
But he couldn’t bet on whether it was a good thing for him or not.
[Time Left: 00:02:54]
[Lives: ♡]
Stab! Stab! Stab!
Reiji didn’t know how long he had been stabbing it but the scales were only a few hits from breaking.
[Time Left: 00:00:05]
"Ahhh...!!" Reiji roared as he raised the stick in his hand for another strike.
BOOM!
A red beam of light penetrated Reiji’s chest from the back. Reiji’s hand paused mid-swing as he stared at the hole on the left side of his chest.
’What the...’
Reiji coughed up blood as he collapsed on the back of the dragon.
Thud!
