“Huff, huff!” Vincent dashed through the forest as fast as he could, his face white. The thought of an invisible enemy chasing him made his hairs stand on end.

“That bastard. He’s good at running away.” Seo Jun-ho stepped quietly. He didn’t plan to attack him.

I’ve confirmed that they’re fiends, so it’s a bit of a waste to kill them right now. It would be better for Seo Jun-ho if he used them to kill the Nameless Dragon first. They’ll be the hunting dogs. Of course, he’d put them down once they served their purpose. That’s why he hadn’t shown Vincent his true strength and just scared him a bit. 

“It’ll be troublesome if he’s already scared.” As he watched the hunting dogs come together, he also started to prepare for the hunt. 

* * *

“Wow, he must’ve been feisty.” The Nameless Dragon had flown up to the clouds after fighting for a bit. Edvar looked to his brother. He wasn’t saying anything. For some reason, he was covered from head to toe in dirt and weeds, and his face had turned white. “You took care of him, right?” 

“N-no… I couldn’t…” Hearing his brother’s half-hearted answer, Edvar yelled.

“What? What do you mean?!”

“There’s something weird about him! He knew that we were fiends and hid his true strength! I used all my Demonic energy but couldn’t even sense him, let alone find him!” 

Vincent had suspected that Seo Jun-ho was hiding his true strength. But as he hadn’t experienced it himself, he was cold.

“How are you alive, then?”

“…What?”

“If he was truly hiding his strength, why did he let you go?”

“……”

Vincent wracked his brain. His brother was right. If Seo Jun-ho had the strength to kill him, he would have done so while he was separated from his brother. But he had let Vincent go and hadn’t attacked him once. 

I only got dirty because I fell while running… Vincent’s face twisted as he realized. “So I fell for his bluffs?”

“He wouldn’t have let you go so easily. Of course he’d try to take us out one by one.” He gritted his teeth and turned back to the forest. “That sly bastard! How dare he trick me. I’ll go back right this instant…”

“No, now’s not the time for that.” Edvar shook his head, looking up to the sky. “It’s actually a good thing that you came. I can’t defeat the Nameless Dragon alone.”

“…It’s that strong?”

“Not just that, it’s annoying to deal with. It’s hard to land attacks because it’s flying.” 

“Then we should try to ride it.”

“Yeah. But it’s been focused on me, so I couldn’t do it.”

“…So you want me to help?” Vincent understood immediately. 

“Attacks from the ground don’t work. We have to go for its reverse scale.” 

All dragons* had a reverse scale as a weak point. Their enormous bodies had a single scale that faced the opposite of the rest.  

(TN: Both European and Asian dragons.)

“Then what about Seo Jun-ho?”

“We’ll corner him with a pincer attack after we kill the Nameless Dragon.”

“…Alright. Then, you get the dragon’s attention when it comes down. I’ll use Shadow Movement to get on its back.”

“I’m counting on you.” As they finalized their plan, the Nameless Dragon pierced through the clouds and appeared in their field of vision. Its mouth was opened wide, revealing a concentrated black energy. When Edvar saw this, his face fell. 

“Goddammit! It was gathering its breath above the clouds!”

– “Guooohhhh!”

The beam in its maw shot at Edvar. 

“Gah!” He barely managed to dodge with Shadow Movement, but his remaining Shadow Soldiers were all destroyed. Edvar coughed up blood. 

“Hyung!”

“Don’t worry about me… Focus!” 

The long shadows on the ground formed into a spear. Edvar gripped it in his hand and got into a javelin-throwing position. 

The eye! I have to hit the eye. 

The Nameless Dragon was protecting its reverse scale with its entire body. Even if he could attack it, he wouldn’t be able to land a scratch on its natural defense. 

Wooshhh! As Edvar summoned all his Demonic energy, his eyes turned redder. He’d land this attack no matter what it took and make the Nameless Dragon come lower so that Vincent could ride on top of it. 

“Hup!” He accelerated forward on his feet. As he reached the peak of his speed, the spear left his hand. 

The spear flew straight like a comet, only to pivot off its path, hitting the Nameless Dragon in the face. 

Clang! 

“Ah!” Edvar cursed. He’d missed by an inch. But since the scales on its face were less resilient, the spear had broken skin. 

– “Guoooohhhhh!”

The Nameless Dragon lashed in pain. It wriggled like an eel on a cutting board, descending lower and lower. It fell from 500 meters in the air to 200. 

Just a bit more… Edvar hoped, but the Nameless Dragon quickly returned to its senses. After receiving a life-threatening attack, it started to go up again. 

“Dammit, Vincent! Now!”

Edvar knew instinctively. If it went back up into the sky, it wouldn’t come down again. Vincent realized this as well.

“Help me!” He shouted. Edvar lightly stepped with his right foot. 

Boom! He picked up pieces of shadow and threw them toward the dragon and Vincent. They had a limit of 30 meters, the same as Shadow Movement.

Woosh! Wooosh! 

Vincent used his brother’s shadows to make his way to the Nameless Dragon. 

(TN: So he throws one shard 30 meters out, and uses one shadow to transport the rest 30 meters more.)

– “Guooohhhhh!”

As it sensed its enemy approaching, the Nameless Dragon tried to climb higher in the sky, but Vincent was one step ahead. 

“Ahhhhhh!” He grabbed onto the scales on the Nameless Dragon’s tail. He then yelled down to his brother. “I did it!”

“The reverse scale… It’s near the back…!” Edvar’s voice grew fainter by the second.

“Kuh!” Vincent held onto the scales with his two hands and gripped his knees around its tail. With the way the dragon’s body squirmed and moved, he felt like he would fall at any moment. 

Dammit, I’d rather ride a rollercoaster without a seatbelt. 

Realizing that a human was clinging onto its tail, the Nameless Dragon glanced at its back and started to move its body even faster. 

“Huff, huff…” As Vincent covered his mouth and clung onto its tail, he glanced down. Urp! 

He never experienced motion sickness on planes or boats, but he suddenly felt nauseous. The island he’d been standing on had become as small as an ant. All he was surrounded by was a sea of clouds. 

…I’m confident that I’ll live, but it’s still scary. He gulped and barely kept himself together as he slowly started to move. As he crawled on top of its body, he arrived at its back. 

“Found it!” His eyes sparkled as he found his target. There was a white scale that stood out among the black ones, facing the other direction. 

The reverse scale. The weak point of dragons. Vincent ripped it off without hesitation. 

– “……!”

Crackle. 

The Nameless Dragon felt a spark of electricity course through its body. 

“I did it! I ripped off the reverse scale, so…” He looked up, eyes bright. 

Woosh!

A long, black spear tore through his shoulder. 

“Guh…?”

Even a seasoned player would’ve lost their head. But Vincent was a fiend who had some immunity to pain. He quickly gripped the spear and checked the bleeding. 

Who? Is it Seo Jun-ho…? He quickly shook his head. It was impossible. Even if he’d hidden his true strength, they were 5,000 meters up in the air. No attack from the ground would be able to hit him. If it’s not Seo Jun-ho, then…

Vincent looked at the Nameless Dragon, trembling. 

– “Guoooohhhh!”

Eyes shining red, dozens of black spears had formed near its head. 

I’m fucked. Vincent turned white and jumped off its back without a second thought. 

Wooooshh!

He heard the sound of the spears behind him. Vincent summoned the last of his Demonic energy.

Shadow Return! 

The world around him spun, and he rolled onto the ground. 

“Cough! Cough!” He vomited blood, and Edvar ran over. 

“Did you do…? Wait, what’s with that injury?” Edvar dropped to the ground next to him, and Vincent gripped his arm. 

“Hyung, we… Urk, we’re fucked!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have to run—” 

Before he could finish his sentence, the Nameless Dragon ripped through the clouds. 

– “Kuroouhhhhhhhh!”

The black spears shot toward them. 

* * *

Seo Jun-ho watched the Nameless Dragon rage at the Shadow Brothers from a distance. 

“You can use textbooks to study for college exams, but not for hunting… I always say this, but it’s a famous saying.” He’d expected this to happen. “Of course it would react like that if you went for its reverse scale.”

‘If you attack the reverse scale, it’s easy to defeat a dragon.’ That’s what rookies who’d never fought a dragon thought. 

Of course, the reverse scale was the weak spot. But just because you found it didn’t mean you could easily kill the dragon. 

If you bother the area where the reverse scale is, the dragon senses danger and becomes much more vicious. 

But that wasn’t a well-known fact. Players that couldn’t take on its rage would be better off not touching the reverse scale at all.

To be honest, I don’t think I could take on a rampaging dragon in my current state. 

But it was a different story if he had ‘bait’ that would receive the brunt of its wrath. 

“Don’t die. Keep running until I kill the guy,” Seo Jun-ho muttered as he pulled back the Tempest’s bowstring.