When Rei readied the Death Scythe and Twilight Spear he had drawn from his Misty Ring, the Dragonias surrounding the Queen were not about to sit idle.
Even so, the Queen's orders still held firm, and the Dragonias did not move immediately.
...Yet the Dragonias with black, white, transparent, and seven-colored scales were clearly beginning to stir.
"Screeeeeeeeech!"
As if to rein in Rei's party, the Queen's cry echoed through the surroundings.
It was a small mercy that the cry was not directed at them. Unlike before, they were spared the revolting sensation of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.
...Instead, the Dragonias that had been frozen in place began moving at once.
"Set!"
"Grrrrl!"
That brief call was all it took. Set understood what Rei needed.
He immediately turned toward the approaching Dragonias, opened his beak, and unleashed his Fire Breath.
The flames were enough to stop the Dragonias surging toward them in their tracks.
After all, they had already suffered enormous casualties when Rei first flooded this Underground Space with magic-born flames.
...So devastating, in fact, that the Queen had judged the losses unacceptable in a head-on fight, and had desperately sought a way to avoid battling Rei's party altogether.
That said, there was an undeniable gap in power between Rei's magic and Set's Fire Breath. At the very least, it could not match the output of Rei's spells.
The Dragonias near the Queen realized this quickly and prepared to act... but those few seconds were all Rei needed.
While Set unleashed his Fire Breath, Rei leapt onto his back.
Still breathing fire, Set took a few running steps. The instant he stopped, he flapped his wings and shot skyward. Vihera didn't miss the timing—she sprang up and seized Set's front legs.
They had acted with almost no words exchanged, guided only by glances and timing... and it unfolded exactly as Rei had anticipated.
To the Dragonias on the ground, it was as if flames had enveloped the area and Set had vanished in the same instant.
Of course, that impression belonged only to the Dragonias nearest Set. Those farther away could see exactly how the group had escaped into the sky.
But the maneuver was so sudden and unexpected that none could stop it.
And Rei's party wasn't finished yet.
Rising into the sky—a place where the Dragonias could do nothing—Rei called out again.
"Set, Bubble Breath!"
"Grrrrrrl!"
At the command, Set immediately loosed his Bubble Breath.
Bubble Breath was a supplementary skill in Set's arsenal. It released countless bubbles one to three centimeters across that burst on contact, transforming into a sticky liquid.
At Level 1, it was far from a powerful skill, but its adhesion to whatever it touched made it effective here.
Given the Dragonias's raw strength, the adhesive force of a Level 1 Bubble Breath was nearly meaningless.
But even so, slowing them for even an instant—perhaps less—was an undeniable advantage.
And Bubble Breath had another effect beyond ensnaring movement.
The unpleasant sensation of having the burst liquid cling to one's body.
How significant that effect actually was could only be known through trial and error.
But the effect was real...
"If we can pin them down even briefly, we can hit them just fine!"
With that shout, Rei hurled the Twilight Spear.
Riding Set's back meant this was no fully grounded throw. With unstable footing, he relied on nothing but upper-body torque and arm strength.
Even so, the spear tore a straight line through the air, carrying more than enough force to punch clean through one of the black-scaled Dragonias.
Truthfully, there was no deep reason he had targeted the black-scaled one. Ideally, he should have gone after the seven-colored scaled Dragonias—the rarest and most powerful of their kind. He knew that.
But the moment he saw them, instinct told him an attack would likely accomplish nothing. So he had thrown at a different target.
The Twilight Spear struck like a sniper's bullet, piercing the black-scaled Dragonias in a single blow.
He had assumed, based on positioning, that the black-scaled would be tougher than the golden-scaled Dragonias... but the result was somewhat... no, highly unexpected.
(The black-scaled Dragonias... could it be they're not that strong? No, but...)
Even as the question formed, he needed his weapon back. He triggered the Twilight Spear's return ability, summoning it to his hand.
"No way!?"
The exclamation came from Vihera, still clinging to Set's front legs.
"What?"
"Look at the black-scaled Dragonias you just hit."
Her surprise had already faded, replaced by calm composure.
What was wrong?
Following her cue, he looked at the black-scaled Dragonias the returning spear had pierced.
"Whoa..."
The word escaped him before he could stop it.
The wound he had carved open was filling with something black.
He glanced at the Twilight Spear to be safe. Fortunately, no strange liquid clung to it.
(Then what sealed that wound wasn't body fluid? Or is it something generated internally when they take damage? ...It almost looks like rubber.)
It was only an impression from afar, and he couldn't be certain it was correct.
But there was no denying that was how it appeared.
"What's the plan, Rei? Enemies like that are a pain."
She spoke from experience with similar foes.
"Right. In my experience, you can either overwhelm their Regeneration Ability with a single devastating blow, or keep attacking until they can't regenerate anymore. Neither option is easy."
His understanding came from games and anime back in Japan, but past experience had proven such knowledge held up reasonably well in this world.
That said, there were exceptions where it didn't apply at all, so it was far from guaranteed.
The bigger problem was that there were several other black-scaled Dragonias. He couldn't focus on just one.
And with hundreds of other Dragonias swarming around, pouring everything into a single opponent was out of the question.
"Then I really do need wide-area annihilation magic to mow them down in groups? ...Though whether it'll even work is another question."
Most of the Dragonias clustered around the Queen were red-scaled. Flame Magic would be useless against the majority of them.
Which meant he'd need a different type of magic entirely... but choosing the right one was a genuine dilemma.
(Fire Whirlwind, then? With that, beyond just fire and heat damage, I could make the Dragonias crash into each other. And if I added metal fragments, those would deal major damage too. ...Though pulling it off would require some time to set up.)
Fire Whirlwind was Rei's signature move, but it wasn't his alone. It required the combination of his magic and Set's skill—two forces merged into one.
And to execute it, he needed to be on the ground.
While flying through the sky, Fire Whirlwind was simply not an option.
"The only stroke of luck is that the Queen herself doesn't seem to have any attack capability."
From what Rei could tell, the Queen possessed high intelligence and could birth various types of Dragonias, but showed no sign of being able to attack directly.
If she had any offensive power, they would already be under fire while flying like this.
"Rei!"
"Grrrrl!"
His thoughts shattered as Vihera, still gripping Set's legs, called his name with a sharp edge.
Before Rei could react, Set was already moving.
Wingbeats. A rapid shift from their position.
What was it?
Rei scanned the area, and what he saw was a seven-colored scaled Dragonias running through the air itself.
"Huh?"
For a moment, his mind refused to process what his eyes were telling him.
Five of them. Five seven-colored scaled Dragonias, kicking off empty air as if it were solid ground, closing in on Set.
It was exactly what Rei's own Sleipnir boots did—kicking the sky to move—and these creatures were doing it with nothing but their own feet.
"Gigigigigi!"
One of them seemed to find Rei's dumbfounded expression hilarious. It let out a grating laugh—without slowing in the slightest—and closed the distance to Set, raking its claws through the air.
"Grrrrl!"
But Set was faster.
He snapped his wings down and dove toward the ground.
The Dragonias waiting below surged forward, ready to tear into anything that descended...
"Grr!"
Just as the gap closed, Set beat his wings again and rocketed back upward.
The seven-colored scaled Dragonias, still running through the air, were caught flat-footed.
Set had dropped, then reversed sharply skyward. All five failed to match the change in direction.
The difference was stark: Set flew freely with wings, while they could only run through the air.
Rei answered Set's move instantly, hurling the Twilight Spear.
From Set's back, he had only upper-body strength to work with. A left-handed throw on an unstable platform meant the raw power was nothing to write home about.
But the will to make Set's effort count carried through the throw, and the seven-colored scaled Dragonias were still reeling from Set's bewildering shifts in direction...
"Gyah!?"
One of them shrieked as the Twilight Spear punched through its arm.
(A scream? It actually pierced? ...Why? Even the golden-scaled Dragonias could deflect it, sacrificing scales to do so.)
The question was genuine.
But there was no time to unravel it now.
If that throw had killed even one of them, he'd have a little more room to breathe. Instead, all he'd managed was a wounded arm.
If he'd aimed with his right hand, he might have taken one down... but there was no point dwelling on that now.
"Either way, these seven-colored scaled Dragonias are trouble. But while we're airborne, we can at least single them out and—"
"Grrrrl!"
Set's growl cut him off mid-sentence, and he was already moving.
The next instant... though his eyes caught nothing, Rei felt with absolute certainty that something had just torn through the space where they had been.