"Gigigigigigigigi!"
Rei and Set had been racing toward the Queen, but at that sudden cry, Rei's wariness showed plainly on his face.
As far as Rei knew, the majority of ordinary Dragonias let out grating, unpleasant cries.
But those that could be called High-ranking Species produced distinct sounds—at the very least, ones that weren't painful to the ears.
That was why, the moment he heard that voice, Rei surveyed his surroundings... and his expression soured.
Because the cry he'd heard belonged to the black-scaled Dragonias.
Unlike the white, transparent, and seven-colored scaled Dragonias, he'd had very few encounters with the black-scaled variety.
The white, transparent, and seven-colored scaled Dragonias each possessed means to attack Rei in the sky—or more precisely, to attack him as he rode on the back of the flying Set.
By comparison, the black-scaled Dragonias possessed a powerful Regeneration Ability that let them recover immediately even from Rei's attacks, but that was the only ability of theirs he knew about.
Given that they hadn't attacked the flying Rei or Set during the initial battle near the Queen, it was safe to assume they had no ranged options.
"Then... before they can use that troublesome Regeneration Ability, I'll burn them to death!"
He shouted, kicked off the ground, and charged straight into the cluster of black-scaled Dragonias blocking his path.
But he didn't simply charge in—he simultaneously hurled countless fist-sized Deep Flames as suppressive fire.
The image Rei had imbued into those flames was simple: the instant they made contact, they would erupt into intense fire and consume the target.
The fist-sized Deep Flames were meant only as suppression, but with hundreds unleashed at once and the image Rei had poured into them, the attack far exceeded the bounds of mere harassment... and against an ordinary enemy, it would have been more than enough to kill.
Yet even after launching such an assault, Rei didn't believe he could wipe out all the black-scaled Dragonias.
And in fact...
"Giiiiiiiiiiiih!"
The moment the flames touched them, screams erupted from the black-scaled Dragonias—but countless black bubbles formed over the burned areas, working to heal the wounds.
In a sense, this was exactly what Rei had expected... but the behavior of some of them—particularly the ones that had taken concentrated hits from Deep Flame—was something entirely beyond his expectations.
The black-scaled Dragonias hit by concentrated bursts of multiple Deep Flames had been burned through to the midsection by the sheer intensity of the fire, sustaining wounds that split their bodies in two.
Deep Flame's effect was, at its core, to burn—but as additional Deep Flames struck areas already ravaged by fire, the result was that their bodies weren't merely cut in two. They were shattered.
If that had been all, Rei wouldn't have been so stunned.
But when black foam bubbled forth from each of the two severed sections, filling in the missing parts to reconstitute each half into a whole body, telling him not to be surprised would have been unreasonable.
"...Huh?"
Never imagining that a single black-scaled Dragonias could become two, Rei let out a dumbfounded sound.
Set, running beside him, had clearly witnessed the same sight. Rei could tell from its bearing that it was just as startled.
(Come to think of it, I remember learning that among single-celled organisms, there are some that become separate individuals when their bodies are split in two...)
He turned this over in his head, but even so, when a single-celled organism was divided, the resulting two should each be about half the size of the original.
Yet the two black-scaled Dragonias that now stood before Rei were both the same size as the original.
Even as he processed this, the distance to the group of black-scaled Dragonias was still closing.
(Anyway—focus on the fight right now.)
Despite his shock at the unexpected sight, Rei muttered the words to himself like a rein on his own mind...
"Set, forget being surprised—right now, we focus on taking them down!"
"Grr... Grrrrl!"
He called out to Set, who had likewise frozen at the sight.
And then... Rei and Set slammed into the cluster of black-scaled Dragonias simultaneously.
"Hahh!"
He bisected torsos with Death Scythe, crushed heads with the Twilight Spear, and lashed his crimson mana like a whip to blast away enemies in bulk.
What he noticed while fighting was that the black-scaled Dragonias themselves weren't actually all that strong.
More precisely, they were clearly stronger than ordinary Dragonias, and their combat ability likely surpassed even the silver-scaled Dragonias, which were specialized for battle.
But compared to the golden-scaled Dragonias, they were undeniably inferior.
In other words, they sat somewhere above the silver-scaled Dragonias but below the golden-scaled ones.
That, however, was strictly in terms of pure combat ability. Once their powerful Regeneration Ability entered the equation—the kind that let them revive as two even when bisected—the story changed entirely.
That said, the black-scaled Dragonias that had multiplied through bisection moved noticeably worse than their single-bodied originals.
Or perhaps, given a little more time, their movements might return to what they'd been before. But what mattered to Rei was the here and now.
If their movements were sluggish in this moment, there was absolutely no problem.
That was why their division and regeneration, while undeniably troublesome, remained an ability Rei could tolerate to a certain degree.
(In other words... when fighting these things, I can't just cut them apart. I need to shatter them, or burn them away so completely that regeneration is impossible. No—can fire actually kill them? I need to test it.)
Whether completely burning them would prevent regeneration.
Rei understood Deep Flame's power well enough to feel near-certain it would be sufficient—that it could burn them to death without allowing any regeneration.
But unless he actually tried it, he couldn't know for certain whether it would truly work.
Given that, the option of not testing it didn't exist for Rei.
Just as he was about to release Deep Flame...
"Tch! Set!"
He shouted sharply while still running, kicked off the ground, and forcibly changed direction.
The next instant, multiple white Breaths fired from behind the black-scaled Dragonias pierced through the space he'd just occupied.
Who had fired those white Breaths? The answer was obvious without thinking.
In this Underground Space, there was only one group capable of such a thing.
"Well, thinking about it normally, they wouldn't just have the black-scaled Dragonias fight alone. The black-scaled Dragonias are already well-suited as Tanks, so of course there'd be ones with ranged attacks behind them!"
Rei's enhanced eyesight clearly made out the figures of white-scaled Dragonias gathered behind the black-scaled ones.
The black-scaled Dragonias serving as Tanks, and the white-scaled Dragonias providing ranged support—that this combination was highly effective went without saying...
"Of course you'd come from that direction too!"
"Grrrrrrl!"
Rei shouted as he swept his crimson mana through the air in a wide arc like a whip, and Set delivered a sweeping strike with its front legs.
In that instant, both attacks struck empty space—something went flying.
What that something was required no thought for Rei to determine.
The transparent-scaled Dragonias, capable of using Optical Camouflage and possessing extraordinary jumping power.
Excluding the seven-colored scaled Dragonias, these three types worked in seamless coordination, each fulfilling its assigned role.
(If the seven-colored scaled Dragonias joins in on top of this, it'll be hopeless. Four remain... I'd prefer to deal with them sooner rather than later, but... that might be difficult.)
Even with Rei's five senses sharpened by the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, and even with Set, whose senses were inherently sharper than Rei's, neither could pinpoint where the seven-colored scaled Dragonias was currently hiding.
Whether it truly wasn't nearby, or whether it was using some method to evade their detection—Rei couldn't tell. But considering how razor-sharp his senses were under the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, he had a vague feeling it was simply somewhere they couldn't perceive at all.
Of course, his and Set's sensory acuity wasn't absolute, nor guaranteed to surpass all others.
It wasn't guaranteed—but even so, if the opponent was a seven-colored scaled Dragonias, he felt it would be strange if it couldn't grasp even that much.
"No—first things first, this side. If these ones and the seven-colored scaled Dragonias attack separately, that's actually not a bad deal for us."
That the seven-colored scaled Dragonias, with its Teleportation and sky-walking abilities, was a formidable enemy went without saying.
And since it wasn't here right now, reducing as many of the other Dragonias as possible before the remaining four stormed the battlefield was undoubtedly the best course of action.
(Besides, the golden-scaled Dragonias have barely shown themselves yet either.)
Honestly, Rei regarded the golden-scaled Dragonias as a greater threat than the black, white, and transparent-scaled varieties.
In his current state under the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor, he felt confident he could handle them no matter what... but the nagging thought that the golden-scaled Dragonias might employ some strategy entirely beyond his imagination wouldn't go away.
(No—first I need to do what needs doing.)
With that decision, Rei shouted toward Set, who was nearby—blowing apart a black-scaled Dragonias's upper body with a swing of its front legs.
"Set, I'll take the black-scaled Dragonias. You handle the white-scaled Dragonias!"
"Gruu? ...Grrrrl!"
At Rei's words, Set seemed slightly uneasy about leaving the black-scaled Dragonias unattended... but ultimately judged that Rei's abilities were more than sufficient to hold this position. It stomped on the face of an incoming black-scaled Dragonias, snapped its neck, and took flight with a powerful beat of its wings.
Its destination: the white-scaled Dragonias, exactly where Rei had directed.
Set, as always, possessed a sharp intelligence that would be unimaginable from its usual demeanor of being played with by people.
That much was obvious from how clearly it understood human speech.
That was precisely why Set fully grasped that the ranged Breath attacks from the white-scaled Dragonias were a genuine threat.
The black-scaled Dragonias were presumably stationed there to protect those white-scaled Dragonias—but for the airborne Set, the ground-bound black-scaled Dragonias were no obstacle whatsoever.
That said, the white-scaled Dragonias were fully aware that Set was coming for them, and they weren't about to let it slip past.
Half of them aimed at Rei, still fighting the black-scaled Dragonias, while the other half locked onto the flying Set and unleashed their Breaths.
...The flying Set was one thing, but the fact that they calmly fired while catching the black-scaled Dragonias engaged with Rei in the crossfire spoke volumes about their confidence in that powerful Regeneration Ability.
Naturally, the transparent-scaled Dragonias joined the assault on Rei and Set as well.
The white-scaled Dragonias, with their ability to provide supporting fire from the rear, were an exceedingly valuable asset within the Dragonias as a whole.
Given that, it was only natural for them to recognize Set as the greater threat and concentrate their attacks accordingly.
Acting on that judgment, the transparent-scaled Dragonias activated Optical Camouflage, vanished from sight, and leaped toward the flying Set in a coordinated charge.
"Gruu!"
Set evaded the attack of the transparent-scaled Dragonias—which should have been invisible under Optical Camouflage—by skillfully adjusting its wings to shift its trajectory mid-air.
But it didn't stop at merely evading. As they crossed paths, it lashed out with its front legs and sent the attacker plummeting.
"Gih!"
For the transparent-scaled Dragonias that had launched the ambush, the notion that its invisible attack could be dodged—let alone met with a counterattack—had clearly never crossed its mind.
Shrieking in pain and shock, it lost its Optical Camouflage and tumbled toward the ground.
Several more transparent-scaled Dragonias lunged at Set in the same manner... but it dodged every single one, shifting its wings, rolling its body, evading attacks mid-air while delivering devastating counterattacks... until finally, it descended and landed right in the dead center of the white-scaled Dragonias formation.