"...Now then, I wonder what kind of attack they'll come at me with."
Rei walked forward, clad in crimson mana, deliberately keeping his pace slow.
If he wanted to, he could move fast enough to be imperceptible to the eye. But his goal here was to lure out the seven-colored scaled Dragonias. Sprinting toward the Queen would hardly draw the right kind of attention. He needed them to see him coming—to understand that he was walking toward the Queen, and to come out to meet him.
After a few minutes of walking, he found it suspicious that there was still no sign of them.
If he reached the Queen at this point, she would undoubtedly suffer for it. From what Rei had seen, the Queen was specialized solely for birthing Dragonias and issuing commands—which meant she likely had no way to deal with him directly. If she had any trick up her sleeve, it would be Earth Spirit Magic, but magic was most effective at long to mid range. Rei did possess some close-quarters magic, but mages were fundamentally beings who specialized in magic. An adventurer might be able to adapt, but even so, fighting head-on against a vanguard-type opponent was difficult.
Moreover, since the Queen was a mass of flesh, simply moving would be a challenge for her. The moment she let Rei get close, it would already be over.
Which meant the Dragonias tasked with protecting her—especially the seven-colored scaled Dragonias, likely the strongest of their kind—needed to make their move before Rei reached the Queen. No, not before he reached her. Before she entered his attack range.
"You're not the one I was hoping would show up."
Muttering that, Rei manipulated the crimson mana enveloping his body and swung it upward.
The next instant, a transparent-scaled Dragonias that had been plummeting straight down toward him from overhead while using Optical Camouflage was swatted aside effortlessly by the crimson mana.
Dropping accurately onto Rei from above while he walked—even slowly—required tremendous skill and prediction. It was an action no ordinary, hunger-driven Dragonias could ever pull off. Yet Rei struck it down to the ground with crimson mana, as if completely disregarding the advanced technique behind its approach.
Naturally, the transparent-scaled Dragonias didn't escape unscathed. Where it had touched the crimson mana, its transparent scales were scorched and blistered, and the powerful impact of being slammed into the ground shattered most of the bones throughout its body.
Without using Death Scythe in his right hand or the Twilight Spear in his left, Rei had dispatched in a single blow a transparent-scaled Dragonias—a species that possessed top-class combat ability among all Dragonias.
He showed no concern whatsoever and simply continued walking toward the Queen.
Perhaps because he was already quite close, her form had grown considerably larger. Even so, he felt no real sense of danger—or rather, he did feel a sense of threat, but he could keep advancing without stopping. That was likely because he had already experienced standing before the Queen a short while ago.
(Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to the copper-scaled Dragonias that guided me. It was eating the sandwich so eagerly—I'd prefer it hadn't died.)
The creature had eaten the sandwich he'd given it with such obvious relish. Because of that, Rei had felt a certain degree of affinity toward it. But even so, he doubted his wish for its survival would be granted. It may have already died in the earlier battles. After all, Rei, Vihera, and Set had unilaterally annihilated enormous numbers of Dragonias with overwhelming force. It wouldn't be strange at all if the copper-scaled Dragonias that had guided him was among the dead.
His mood dipped slightly, but he still had a job to do.
"That's right!"
He shouted while spinning his body in place.
"Giih!"
A Dragonias that had suddenly teleported right next to Rei let out a shriek as it was sent flying.
Because it had teleported so close—truly at a distance where one might wonder whether they were touching—Death Scythe, swung as Rei spun, struck not with the blade but with the handle, connecting at a point right near his grip and knocking the creature away.
In that sense, the seven-colored scaled Dragonias that had teleported in was probably lucky. If it had kept even slightly more distance, it would have been Death Scythe's blade cutting through its body rather than the handle striking it.
Of course, it had been struck and sent flying by the handle of Death Scythe—a weapon weighing nearly a hundred kilograms—while Rei's physical abilities were enhanced by the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor. Naturally, the seven-colored scaled Dragonias had many of its torso bones broken, to the point where those shattered bones were even damaging its internal organs.
"Well, that's one down for now."
Muttering that, Rei sent out Deep Flame to burn the seven-colored scaled Dragonias he had knocked away.
Even if it could teleport, it would still find itself burning at its destination. There was no escaping that attack. The seven-colored scaled Dragonias writhed in agony from the pain of its shattered torso bones while simultaneously suffering the searing heat of its body being consumed by flame. Eventually, it turned to charcoal and stopped moving.
Watching the scene, Rei muttered in satisfaction.
He had just been worrying about the copper-scaled Dragonias's fate, yet no emotion whatsoever stirred in him over the death of this one. That said, living through battles was hardly unusual for Rei. Right now, doing what needed to be done took priority.
"Three left... If they all came at me at once, it'd be a real pain. I guess they either don't understand that, or they simply haven't thought that far."
Storing the seven-colored scaled Dragonias's corpse in his Misty Ring while turning the thought over, he immediately dismissed the latter possibility. As a being that stood at the apex of all Dragonias, it could certainly think that far ahead. And based on how it fought, there was no doubt the seven-colored scaled Dragonias was a highly intelligent creature. It was impossible to believe such a being would fail to recognize the advantage of fighting in numbers.
(If I had to guess, it's a matter of pride? They're beings that stand at the apex of all Dragonias, with only five in existence. Maybe they simply can't stand the idea of acting as a group. ...That works out in my favor, though.)
Given that the seven-colored scaled Dragonias could teleport, a single one was manageable. But if multiple individuals teleported in succession to create confusion, Rei would undoubtedly be thrown into disarray. In that situation, he would struggle to determine which Dragonias to attack.
...Of course, Rei was more than capable of sensing a seven-colored scaled Dragonias the moment it teleported in. Given that, he could manage somehow even if they kept teleporting. At least, he hoped so.
A single one was one thing, but if multiple ones teleported in simultaneously, he would need to deal with all of them. And if they added subtle time delays between teleports, or arrived all at once... if they kept repeating such tactics, it was only natural that Rei would struggle to cope.
"Anyway, there are three left. Even if all three come at me at once, I should be able to handle it."
Half talking himself into it, Rei set off once again toward the Queen. But his pace, just as before, was quite slow.
This was another action meant to lure out the seven-colored scaled Dragonias. But having already used that method once, whether the same tactic would work again was uncertain. Then again, with no other options available, it couldn't be helped.
No—there was also a simpler approach. He could launch an attack on the Queen from here.
Even if the seven-colored scaled Dragonias was wary of Rei and wouldn't act, or rather, couldn't act, the story would change the moment their Queen came under attack. They would have no choice but to stop him.
The reason Rei wasn't doing that was simple: if he did, it was highly likely that not only the seven-colored scaled Dragonias but also the Queen, who was currently biding her time, would react and join the fight.
He had no idea what kind of attack the flesh-mass Queen could unleash, or whether she could even attack at all. Well, that sound like nails scratching a chalkboard that she could emit was arguably enough of an attack in the sense that it prevented concentration in battle. But even so, in terms of direct offensive power, there was nothing aside from attacks using the Earth Spirit.
He couldn't imagine the Dragonias would tolerate Rei approaching such a Queen. If these were humans instead of Dragonias, it wouldn't be strange for them to think, "How dare you approach our Queen." But since the opponents were not humans but Dragonias, Rei had no way of knowing what decision they would make. As far as he knew, the way Dragonias thought was completely different from his own.
...Of course, considering that the copper-scaled Dragonias that had guided him to the Queen had been delighted to eat a sandwich, it probably wasn't the case that their entire way of thinking was completely alien.
"Anyway, if they don't come out soon, I can't exactly fight them even if I want to. ...Though in the sense of stalling for time until Vihera arrives, it's not really a bad thing."
Under the current circumstances, what Vihera was looking forward to the most was, naturally enough, not the fight against the golden-scaled Dragonias—but the fight against the seven-colored scaled Dragonias. Rei could understand that perfectly.
She was certainly looking forward to fighting the golden-scaled Dragonias as well. But faced with the strongest opponent, expecting Vihera not to get fired up would have been unreasonable.
That was why Rei thought that while a further decrease in the number of seven-colored scaled Dragonias would be welcome for him personally, keeping Vihera in mind, it would be better to wait a little longer.
(In that case, maybe Set and I shouldn't kill all of the transparent-scaled Dragonias either.)
The transparent-scaled Dragonias, with its Optical Camouflage and extraordinary jumping power, was without a doubt an opponent Vihera would very much want to fight. Rei understood that, which was why the thought crossed his mind. But even so, the reality remained that if they came at him, he had no choice but to counterattack.
"...Huh."
As he walked, seeing one of the seven-colored scaled Dragonias appear in his line of sight, Rei let out an impressed-sounding voice.
Rather than teleporting right next to him to launch a surprise attack, it had appeared at a reasonable distance away. Seeing that, it was obvious it intended to fight head-on and fairly, rather than ambushing him.
(The first one pursued me relentlessly wherever I went after we fought. The second one tried to ambush me. And the third one boldly shows itself in front of me. Now, what's going on here? Do all five seven-colored scaled Dragonias have different personalities, or is this simply the result of learning?)
The second one had suddenly teleported right next to him and tried to attack, only to be easily struck down with a counterattack. Perhaps it had learned that ambushes were ineffective and had decided to fight openly and fairly.
But at the same time, the question remained: would fighting head-on accomplish anything against an opponent that couldn't be beaten even with a surprise attack? If so, this was likely a difference in personality after all.
Thinking about it normally, it was hard to believe that a creature with an ecology similar to ants or bees—like the Dragonias—would possess individual personalities. But from Rei's perspective, the seven-colored scaled Dragonias stood at the apex of all Dragonias. Given that, it wouldn't be strange for each of them to possess an ego with individual differences.
And above all, since a personality that would openly challenge him to a frontal fight meant an opponent that was easy for Rei to deal with, there was no reason he wouldn't be pleased.