"Well... there are probably some survivors, but most of their combat power should be wiped out."
Rei murmured that as he surveyed the ground from atop Set's back, flying through the sky.
The Flame Tornado generated by the Fire Whirlwind had completely scorched the ground—eradicating one of the Dragonias outposts entirely.
That said, Dragonias lacked the intelligence to build structures, so the Fire Whirlwind had ultimately burned only the Dragonias themselves.
The red-scaled Dragonias should normally have survived even a Fire Whirlwind without issue... yet among the corpses lay many red-scaled Dragonias.
This was because Rei had embedded blade remnants inside the Fire Whirlwind. While the red-scaled Dragonias could endure the flames, they could not withstand the blade attacks.
Of course, Dragonias scales were extraordinarily tough. Even a Centaur—let alone someone of Rei, Vihera, or Set's caliber—couldn't inflict damage so easily.
Even so, the blade remnants caught in the Fire Whirlwind spun at high speed, tearing into the Dragonias one after another.
Even if a single strike struggled to deal damage, as the number of attacks climbed to ten, a hundred, a thousand, the number of blows landing on the red-scaled Dragonias rose accordingly.
And as the strikes accumulated, some found the gaps between scales... Repeated over and over, even the red-scaled Dragonias were presumably slashed apart across their entire bodies.
"Well, I couldn't kill all of them, but..."
Since the outpost hadn't been that large, he had only generated a single Fire Whirlwind.
Besides, Rei was currently fighting to locate the Dragonias headquarters, which meant he naturally had no time to waste on each outpost individually.
If he'd had more time to spare, he could have methodically crushed each outpost one by one.
But right now, dealing with the Dragonias heading toward the grove took priority... and in that sense, he simply couldn't afford to linger on a single outpost.
(I don't know how normal Dragonias increase their numbers, but losing an outpost like this should still deal a considerable blow. They probably won't be able to operate for a while just to replenish their losses. ...Though whether the commander Dragonias is alive or not would change that assessment.)
As far as he could see on the ground, there was no sign of any Dragonias with gold, silver, or copper scales anywhere.
Had they perished in the Fire Whirlwind's assault? Or had they judged that attacking Set in the sky was impossible and hidden themselves to minimize further losses?
Rei couldn't determine that either way, but one thing was certain: from his vantage point in the air, he could not spot any commander Dragonias.
That much remained unclear, but as long as he needed to find the next location—the Dragonias headquarters—he couldn't stay here forever.
For now, once he'd whittled down the enemy's numbers, he needed to find the next outpost or headquarters... or, depending on the situation, a group of Dragonias on the move.
"Set, let's move on. ...Still, where exactly is the headquarters? At this rate, it looks like we'll find plenty of outposts, but getting our hands on the headquarters itself is going to be tough."
"Grrrrl."
Set purred as if agreeing with Rei's words.
Set didn't view the Dragonias headquarters as quite the threat Rei did.
But if his beloved Rei was searching that hard for it, then naturally Set would search just as earnestly.
"Anyway, on to the next—"
"Gruu!"
Mid-sentence, Set suddenly let out a sharp cry.
What happened? Rei turned his gaze in the direction Set was looking... and there, advancing toward the outpost they had just destroyed, was a group of Dragonias.
Whether they had been heading for the destroyed outpost from the start, or had been en route elsewhere and noticed the outpost under attack before approaching—Rei couldn't tell. But with nearly three hundred Dragonias closing in, he couldn't simply leave them be.
"If that many headed for the grove, it'd definitely be dangerous."
With Vihera there, combat power wasn't an issue.
But unlike Rei, Vihera was strictly specialized in one-on-one combat. If a situation arose where a massive wave of enemies descended all at once, she'd be at a serious disadvantage.
If the grove was intact and a commander Dragonias was ordering its forces not to recklessly snap the trees, Vihera would have a fighting chance.
But Set wasn't at the settlement right now.
When Rei's group had been at the settlement in the grove, Set could have stayed behind as a last-resort fighting force.
That was precisely why Set had been able to deal with the copper-scaled Dragonias when it appeared.
But with Set here carrying Rei, if other Dragonias or a commander attacked from a different direction while Vihera was fighting in the grove, the only ones who could respond were Zai and the others.
(Zai has definitely gained considerable skill from training with Vihera, but... facing a silver-scaled Dragonias would still be too much for him.)
Given that, there was no question—he needed to thin the Dragonias numbers as much as possible right here.
"Set, we're taking down that bunch too. We can't let them reach the settlement in the grove."
"Grrrrl!"
Set let out a cry as if to say "leave it to me" in response to Rei's words.
As if it didn't matter even if the Dragonias approaching the destroyed outpost heard it.
...Of course, having annihilated this group with the Fire Whirlwind, it wouldn't be strange for the Dragonias commander to have seen the Flame Tornado and approached this outpost—in other words, to have concluded that their enemies were here.
(If that's the case... what do we do? We need to deal with the commander somehow. Or we take out the regular Dragonias all at once.)
He weighed his options... and eventually reached a decision.
"Alright. It's faster to just wipe them all out at once."
In the end, Rei chose the simplest approach.
If he annihilated the approaching Dragonias, there'd be no need to worry about the settlement in the grove at all.
At Rei's decision, Set purred in agreement.
As far as Set was concerned, it had absolutely no concern about the enemy's strength.
...After all, Dragonias fundamentally lacked any means of attacking a flying opponent.
Given that, Set understood that under the current circumstances, they could win one-sidedly.
"Let's test out a new spell."
Drawing Death Scythe, Rei began to chant.
'Oh flame, consume my magic power and reveal your form. Become gigantic, grow larger, grow. Devour, devour, devour. You shall reveal the aspect of destruction that is fire, and become a star of ruin.'
Devouring Rei's magic power, a massive Fireball took shape.
Rei had used similar magic before, but the spell he was casting now was, in a manner of speaking, specialized purely in destruction—exactly as the incantation stated, a star of ruin that would descend from the heavens.
The Fireball swelled steadily as it consumed his magic power.
Floating in the sky, it reached nearly ten meters in diameter... and, in a sense quite different from the sun, it bathed the surroundings in blinding light.
'Star of Ruin.'
The moment the incantation ended, the colossal star of flame plummeted toward the earth... and then, slowly, it struck the ground. In the next instant, it birthed a scorching hell upon the land.
The world that had instantly transformed into an inferno ravaged nearly everything with fire—everything except the red-scaled Dragonias.
The red-scaled Dragonias had no reason to fear the flames, but they couldn't block the shockwave unleashed by the massive fireball's impact on the ground.
Blasted backward, they suffered no small amount of damage. The unlucky ones collided with their fellow Dragonias, taking even greater damage as a result.
That devastation stretched across a radius of nearly one kilometer.
And the attack's reach didn't stop at that one-kilometer diameter.
With no barrier or similar means to contain the blast radius, the perimeter of the spell's effective area suffered significant collateral damage.
Those caught just outside the one-kilometer mark fared little better than those caught within it.
"Hmm... this is..."
"Gruu..."
Set let out a cry as if it already knew the rest of what Rei was going to say.
As far as Rei was concerned, the spell was supposed to deal damage over a wide area while a barrier prevented any harm beyond that perimeter.
Instead, the scene now spreading across the ground was somewhat different from what he had anticipated.
...That said, since Rei wielded magic through intuition, once he recognized a spell in this manner, his understanding of it became fixed.
Minor adjustments were one thing, but fundamentally reworking the spell's composition was difficult.
Rei had been watching the blazing ground from atop Set's back, but eventually he gave up with a resigned sigh.
In the middle of a city or inside a Dungeon, it would be a highly impractical spell, and enlarging the flames to that degree drained a considerable amount of magic power.
Even so, it wasn't without its uses.
Especially in an open area like this grassland, it was undeniably a very practical spell.
Provided, of course, that there were no allies nearby.
"Next time, I should try something that limits the effective range a bit more... no, in that case, Dancing Flames or Wild Dance of the Fire Spirits would be sufficient. ...If the effect is similar, there's no need to go out of my way to create such a spell."
Muttering that much, Rei set the magic aside for now and turned his attention back to the ground below.
(Where's the commander? Whether it has gold, silver, or copper scales, I don't think it'd be hard to spot. ...No, the copper-scaled Dragonias is small—there's a chance it's hiding beneath the corpses of normal Dragonias.)
With that in mind, Rei carefully scanned the area...
"Huh?"
At a wholly unexpected sight, a dumbfounded voice slipped out.
What lay at the end of Rei's gaze was a Dragonias whose scales he couldn't identify as either silver or copper... more precisely, a Dragonias with those two colors mingled together in a mottled pattern.
The creature must have decided it had been caught hiding among its comrades' corpses. Concluding that concealment was pointless now, it revealed itself.
And then... it suddenly raised its right hand toward Set—
"Gruu!"
Set beat its wings almost reflexively, veering away from its position.
A split second later, something fired from the mottled Dragonias's right hand pierced the exact spot where Set had just been.
(Blood?)
The reason Rei thought so was the scent of iron rust that hit him when whatever was fired from the mottled Dragonias streaked past nearby.
Had he or Set taken a light wound from that attack? He considered it, but there was no sign of any injury.
In other words, the Dragonias had fired blood from its hand like a water gun.
The Dragonias, which had never possessed any means of ranged attack—why on earth?
That question lingered in Rei's mind, but right now, defeating the enemy came before anything else.
Fortunately, having grasped that the ranged attack apparently couldn't be fired in rapid succession, Rei quickly called out to Set.
"Set, keep moving and don't let it pin down a target!"
While issuing the order, Rei stowed Death Scythe in his Misty Ring and drew the Twilight Spear in its place.
Until now, Dragonias had possessed no ranged capabilities, making attacks from a distance—especially while airborne—effortless.
But if the enemy now had a means of striking from range, that changed everything.
Exactly how powerful the attack was remained unknown until it actually connected.
But naturally, Rei had no intention of letting the enemy's attack land, and Set felt the same.
That was why, while weaving through the air to deny the enemy a clear shot...
"Take this!"
With that shout, Rei hurled the Twilight Spear straight at the mottled Dragonias.