His gaze refocused on the Terrene Drake, which had already shaken off its dizziness. The beast turned, glaring at him with eyes now bloodshot and even more furious, silently waiting for its next charge.
In the stands, the crowd’s passion was ignited by that lightning-fast first exchange, reaching the first boiling point!
“Yes! That’s it! Charge! Bite him to death!”
“Well done, my big baby! Crush him!”
“Hahahaha! That’s the way! Blood! We want blood!”
The moment the Terrene Drake launched its charge, the frenzied roar nearly tore the dome apart.
Yet when Rune’s near-artistic, hairbreadth evasion unfolded before every eye, the deafening clamor froze for a split second—as though the entire audience had been collectively throttled.
Then—
“WOOOOH—!!!”
“Beautiful! Fucking beautiful!”
“Kid! Well done! Keep playing with it like that!”
“Badass! Mage! Just keep going! Play that beast to death!”
“Waha! Didn’t expect that! Amazing!”
An even fiercer, wilder wave of cheers and whistles crashed back like a tsunami!
Rune’s spectacular dodge didn’t just prove he wasn’t easy prey—it transformed what they’d expected to be a swift “slaughter” into a suspenseful, skillful bullfight!
This unexpected “brilliance” instantly catapulted their excitement to a new peak.
They didn’t care who won or lost. They only cared whether the spectacle was intense enough, thrilling enough!
And right now, the scene had far exceeded their expectations!
“Those damned vultures! Cold-blooded bastards!” At the entrance, Brog—sweating profusely as he desperately tried to pry the mechanism with brute force—gritted his teeth and cursed at the stands’ remorseless, blood-and-performance-thirsty roar.
“Save your breath, Brog! Cursing them won’t help. They’re just hyenas here for entertainment—don’t expect them to have a shred of humanity.” Old Barnaby’s voice cut through his rage. The old man’s gaze swept the immovable giant iron door and its complex winch; a decisive glint flashed in his eye.
“Everyone—stop! Don’t waste strength here! Brute force won’t open this ‘Dragon-Severing Gate’ anytime soon!”
He slammed his cane down hard, voice ringing with unquestionable authority: “All of you—follow me to the rear beast-cage control area right now! The backup reset mechanism for this door is back there! Only by operating it at the source can we possibly raise the damn thing! Move! Fast!”
“Barnaby old man!” Brog understood instantly—this was currently the only faster route.
Without a second’s hesitation, he dashed in front of Old Barnaby, turned his back, and bent one knee slightly: “Get on! I’ll carry you! This is quickest!”
Old Barnaby didn’t waste words. He climbed onto Brog’s broad back with practiced ease, his remaining arm locking firmly around the captain’s shoulders.
“Go!” Brog growled low. He surged forward like a charging rhinoceros, thundering toward the beast-cage area at the rear of the pit.
The other hunters fell in immediately behind him. Heavy footsteps echoed through the stone passage as they rapidly distanced themselves from the ever-rising frenzied clamor in the main arena—and from the death-dance unfolding on the sand.
As for the roar of the stands, Brog and the others’ withdrawal, even the violent pounding of his own heart and the rush of blood—Rune in the arena had completely shut them out.
His mind was like a bowstring forged to its absolute limit—tensed to breaking, every ounce of perception and calculation focused like a searchlight on the single threat before him: the giant beast growing more enraged after its first failure.
The Terrene Drake did not rush into another charge.
Its thick forelimbs shifted restlessly, each step kicking up small clouds of dust. Its heavy body swayed slightly left and right as though fine-tuning the perfect attack stance. The plated chest heaved violently; every breath blasted twin jets of hot, sand-laced white vapor from wide nostrils, briefly condensing in the dry air.
Its crocodile-like maw no longer fully closed. It hung in dangerous half-open readiness—jagged ivory fangs dripping viscous saliva, amber vertical pupils narrowed to cruel slits in which murderous light boiled, almost scorching Rune’s silhouette.
It was coiling power, searching for the perfect sprint angle to grind this slippery pest into paste.
Finally—it found the “point.”
In an instant, every dark-brown scale on the Terrene Drake’s body snapped inward, hugging the swollen muscles beneath and streamlining its silhouette into something far more lethal and hydrodynamic.
Then its seemingly clumsy hind limbs exploded with power!
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
BOOM!
Sand detonated!
Its massive body no longer lumbered—it became a low, streaking blur of earthy brown!
Faster than before. More ferocious!
Dozens of meters vanished in a heartbeat. The death-shadow carrying rank wind engulfed Rune!
Yet Rune’s evasion moved almost in perfect sync with the beast’s launch.
No extra thought—pure muscle memory born of prediction and calculation.
His body slid explosively forward and sideways in a clean, almost austere motion—brushing past the rampaging colossus so closely he could see dried mud caked in the gaps of its scales, feel the searing body heat radiating from rough hide, and sense the razor wind sliced by closing jaws!
The Terrene Drake—still at full sprint—tried to wrench its neck around. Its gaping maw swung like a living guillotine, chasing the sliding prey.
But Rune’s distance control was diabolically precise—exactly beyond the limit of the creature’s neck twist. Millimeters separated life from death!
A single clean forward roll carried him completely out of range. Without a heartbeat’s pause, his legs exploded again—he sprinted full speed toward the open center of the arena, widening the gap!
The fully committed Terrene Drake—burdened by massive inertia—could not possibly turn or brake in time.
Its heavy body continued hurtling forward. Claws carved four deep trenches in the sand. It slid a full dozen meters or more before crashing hard—“BANG!”—into the beast pit’s solid gray stone perimeter wall!
Stone chips rained down. Even its thickly armored head clearly rang from the impact. It staggered in place, shaking its skull, issuing low, furious grunts.
By then Rune had already retreated safely to the far center of the arena. Breathing lightly, eyes sharp as needles, he locked unblinkingly on the temporarily neutralized colossus.
Opportunity!
Even with Rune’s calm demeanor, his pupils contracted violently in that instant.
He wasted not even a hundredth of a second appreciating the opponent’s predicament. While continuing to sprint backward to open safe distance, his right hand flashed upward like lightning!
Palm upward, fingers loosely curled. The limited yet pure mana within him surged at unprecedented speed along the countless-times-reinforced meridians, converging wildly!
Fire element in the air was forcibly summoned and compressed. A ping-pong-ball-sized incandescent white point of light flared above his palm, rapidly becoming blinding!
This was no longer warm flame—it was a forcibly restrained micro-sun core of terrifying energy density!
Faster!
Faster still!
Rune could feel the mana flooding into the tiny spell model like a bursting dam. Maintaining that horrific temperature and stability demanded astonishing control and expenditure.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, slid down his taut cheeks, gathered at his chin, and—amid the jolts of his sprint—flicked onto the scorching sand, evaporating instantly into negligible vapor. His eyes remained locked on the giant beast that was now thrashing wildly, struggling to right itself—time!
He needed time to complete the cast, and the Terrene Drake’s flipping motion was the final countdown!
It felt like a century. It felt like an instant.
When Rune finally retreated far enough to re-establish nearly thirty meters of separation, the incandescent white orb in his palm had stabilized, radiating such terrifying heat that the surrounding air shimmered and distorted. By now, the Terrene Drake had slammed its thick tail against the ground, using the force to flip its body more than halfway over!
Now!
No shout, no wind-up pose—mid-sprint, Rune twisted his waist violently and snapped his torso around. His right arm, charged with every ounce of spirit and control, whipped forward like a javelin throw!
Whoosh—!
The incandescent white orb left his hand, slicing through the air with a faint yet piercing whistle—like a beam of condensed white death-light—flying straight toward the Terrene Drake’s still-partially-exposed, pale underbelly!
Precise! Ruthless!
BANG!!!
The incandescent orb struck dead-center on the softest, least-protected region of the Terrene Drake’s abdomen—roughly just past the end of the sternum, near the heart.
The dull impact was immediately drowned by a far more terrifying effect.
A tiny explosion.
The suddenly unleashed hellish heat source carbonized and punched straight through the tough dermal membrane at the point of contact in the instant of impact!
White smoke and the nauseating, distinctive stench of scorched flesh billowed upward!
Through the fist-sized charred hole that formed in an instant, one could glimpse pink muscle tissue flash-roasted white, shriveling, even bubbling with tiny beads of rendered fat!
“AAAANGH—!!!”
The Terrene Drake’s massive body stiffened violently—then erupted in an unprecedented, excruciatingly agonized scream!
This was no longer an intimidating roar—it was a raw, high-pitched wail of unbearable pain, shock, rage, and a trace of… sheer disbelief—overwhelming every other sound in the beast pit in an instant, making even the solid stone walls seem to tremble!
“…”
In the stands, the nonstop boiling tide of cruel anticipation—
froze as though every throat had been seized at once.
Dead silence.
Absolute, pin-drop silence.
The fanaticism, mockery, and disdain on thousands upon thousands of faces froze like ice, then shattered, leaving only pure, stunned shock.
People stood with mouths open but no sound emerging; arms raised to cheer the Terrene Drake hung frozen in midair; someone’s wineskin slipped from their fingers, liquid gurgling out unnoticed.
Every gaze was magnetically nailed to the center of the arena.
Nailed to the massive body now thrashing wildly from the deep visceral burn in its abdomen—finally completing its flip but moving clumsily, still screaming without stop.
And to the boy far away who had slowly come to a stop, chest rising and falling lightly, his thrown arm not yet fully retracted, face streaked with sweat and sand, eyes still clear and cold as a frozen pool.
A breeze blew through, lifting fine dust from the arena’s edge, sweeping across the rigid faces in the stands.
In this moment, time seemed to stand still.
Only the Terrene Drake’s pained, furious heavy breathing remained, and the still-smoking, horrifying charred wound on its abdomen—silently testifying to the devastating, paradigm-shattering power contained in that single strike.
“What… what the hell was that just now?” A man in the front row—half a piece of dried meat still in his mouth—stared blankly, the meat falling onto his leg unnoticed, muttering as if in a dream.
Beside him, an adventurer mage in a dust-covered deep-blue robe with simple water-element runes embroidered on the cuffs answered dazedly, almost reflexively: “He… he seemed to instant-cast a ‘Little Fireball’… and then that Little Fireball… punched straight through the Terrene Drake’s belly?”
The sentence landed like a stone in a still pond, sending out the first ripple.
Everyone who heard it swallowed hard in unison; the sound of throats working was unnaturally clear in the brief silence.
“Hey, Old Scar,” a young adventurer with a still-youthful face and obviously new gear tugged hard at the leather armor of the grizzled veteran beside him who carried a greatsword on his back. “Didn’t you say earlier that the Terrene Drake’s hide couldn’t even be scratched by a mid-Tier 2 ‘Sunderclaw Grizzly’? So… how the hell did a ‘Little Fireball’… burn a hole right through it?”
The veteran called “Old Scar” moved his lips. The knife scar on his face seemed to twist from sheer confusion. He stared at the still-screaming beast with its blackened, smoking abdomen and couldn’t force out a single word for a long moment.
“This… this…” he stammered, his brain nearly short-circuiting from the clash between common sense and what he had just witnessed.
“No way!”
A sharp, excited shout broke the eerie silence.
......
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