"Two down, eight to go…"

Ryan reached his first goal much sooner than he had expected. Now he could die feeling good about himself, right? The past him thought that, but now he wanted more. He wanted to survive as well. It was only natural since it would be a waste to die now. Regardless, he was hiding underground again, but Ryan could feel a lot of tremors after he killed the second dragon. Those beasts weren't idiots. They knew Ryan was hiding underground. Fortunately, it didn't look like any of those dragons seemed good at earth magic. Otherwise, they would have found him.

"Just in case, I guess I should hide in a hole below the corpses."

Although he wanted to check if the second dragon dropped something, Ryan couldn't risk it in that situation. Now more than ever, the dragons knew that they couldn't underestimate Ryan, so they had to be cautious. Hopefully, if they are as smart and cautious as Ryan thought they were, they will give up after another dragon dies. Besides, they had another problem…

"Just moving the earth to open a path won't be enough… I have to make a clear escape route underground. However, to do that, I will have to get rid of some of this earth, and the only way to do it is by putting to the surface… such a complicated life."

Ryan began to work as fast as he could. Although he focused on magic to dig, he also used his spear to help a little bit. At that point in time, he would use all he could get. Just in case something happens, Ryan decided to keep his mana at a decent level. After all, it would be troublesome if the dragons find him and he has no mana. In the end, what Ryan didn't want to happen, happened. Suddenly, he felt the whole area moving upward… the dragons found him, and they were using their magic to make an enormous chunk of earth levitate. Just crushing Ryan would be easy since he was inside of that, but that was a mercy they didn't want to grant him.

"Screw it," Ryan bit his lips and nocked a bone arrow. "I won't go down without a fight!"

Ryan jumped and left the hole he was in. At the same time, he saw three dragons around him… which was weird. There were eight dragons left. Still, that didn't matter. The very moment the beasts entered his field of vision, Ryan attacked.

There was no time to use Power Shot, so Ryan used Rapid Shot while aiming at the monsters' eyes. Even their eyelids had scales, so even though Ryan damaged the monsters a little bit before they could do anything, he didn't achieve his goal of blinding them. A few moments later, Ryan began to fall again, and this time, he felt shivers when he saw the monsters opening their mouths toward him. He was going to be burned to a crisp… However, in the end, their Fire Breath didn't burn anything. Suddenly, a red dragon felt something piercing the back of their neck, and the other two dragons saw Ryan right there. Although he used all his mana, Ryan avoided their attack and managed to land on the back of a red dragon.

"Too bad for you, but right now, red is my least favorite color!" Ryan said and then pierced the monster's neck with his sword as well.

Thanks to his Incomplete Reptilian Transformation, Ryan had a pretty decent strength. So, his sword and spear pierced the dragon's neck quite deeply. He didn't have much mana left to keep the skill active, but as long as he touches both weapons now and then, their effects would occur. The flame sword was causing much damage since the main element of that monster was fire, but the spear, on the other hand, was making the dragon tremble quite a bit. As if that wasn't enough, Ryan also was using Bleed's effect. So, the red dragon was losing two hundred points of health per second!

Even the dragons showed baffled expressions at the audacity of that human. Still, eventually, they recovered from the surprise and tried to attack Ryan. However, the red dragon didn't want to get hurt more than he already was. So, he moved away from the others in order to escape their breath attack. Ryan smirked when he saw that… even though they have been working together to trail Alissa, they certainly weren't allies at that moment. However, with their telepathy or something, the dragons reached an agreement not to use their breath attack. Since the red dragon couldn't hit Ryan with its arms, the monster just showed its back to the other dragons in order for them to get rid of Ryan.

"Shit…"

There was no other way. Ryan will have to grab his weapons again and then try to blind the dragons up-close. Still, he could only attack one at a time, and in the meantime, the other two will be free to attack him. However, to Ryan's surprise, the creatures stopped midway just when he grabbed his weapons and was about to pull them out. At the same time, the monsters looked toward the north. Ryan eventually understood what had happened.

Using his Flame Sword as a platform for his feet, Ryan jumped toward the head of the red dragon. The creature got caught off-guard, and when it tried to do something, it was already late. Ryan attacked and destroyed one of the dragon's eyes with his spear. Not even the scale of the eyelid stopped him.

"HHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The monster screamed from the depths of its soul, but Ryan didn't let that faze him. Even though his ears were ringing, Ryan used all his mana that he had left to summon his Incomplete Reptilian Transformation for a single second, and then he punched the remaining eye of the dragon. The scales pierced his hand, but the pain didn't stop Ryan as well. Eventually, he surpassed the monster's defense and destroyed its other eye.