Ed Edward scratched his head. Although his body no longer itched or felt anything at all, he still acted in a human manner lest his family feel completely disconnected from him. He stared ahead at the cluster of adventurers fighting the dragon he had brought over and wondered if he should do anything about it. Seeing as his king wasn’t asking for help, it didn’t seem like he needed to interfere. In fact, if his king wanted to be diplomatic to the Dragon Slayers, a gust of wind wouldn’t have carried Ed away before Vur initiated with a breath. As such, Ed found a nearby tree and climbed to the top, sitting on a branch to get a better view. If he were still alive, he wouldn’t have taken such a dangerous position, but as an undead, what was he going to do? Die again?

From his vantage point, Ed had a clear view of the battle. The adventurers were standing in a defensive formation around the Shadow Specters, an SSS-ranked party known for their tricky methods of dealing with their opponents without directly confronting them. Although Ed couldn’t hear anything other than vague shouts, he was still an experienced adventurer himself, and he could guess what the adventurers were thinking. Vur clearly had a method of healing himself, and the Shadow Specters had a way of negating his recovery. The rest of the adventurers were buying time for them to do so.

All adventurer parties had someone who was good at drawing the enemy’s attention and surviving their attacks, the person commonly referred to as the tank. The tanks were surrounding Vur, ready to block him from all directions. The adventurers who were proficient in defensive magic had erected barriers and shields around the Shadow Specters, creating a massive dome of transparent spells over them. A defensive formation like that was more than enough to defend a town from a dragon’s attack. Although Ed had heard rumors about the king of Konigreich’s strength, he wasn’t sure if Vur could break that barrier much less defeat all the top adventurer parties by himself.

Vur stared at the barrier in front of himself. He ignored the adventurers shouting obscenities at him. Other than being annoying, they couldn’t cause him any harm. He knew he had to deal with the group of green-dressed people within the multiple layers of barriers. Since they were shouting at each other to communicate, their plans were laid bare in front of Vur. Did they think he couldn’t understand them? Even if they had another method of communication, it was quite obvious that the green-dressed people needed to be dealt with. Vur’s eyes narrowed, and he poked the barrier with his claw. There was a sparking sound, and a frown appeared on his scaly face. He swept his tail to the side, knocking one of the adventurers away without even looking.

A brown rune glowed on Vur’s front leg, and he pressed down on the ground. A massive fissure opened up, spreading from Vur’s feet beyond the barrier. The people inside the dome screamed as they plummeted, the earth having been retracted from their feet. Vur raised his leg and pressed down again, and the fissure narrowed, the dirt and stones closing back up, threatening to swallow the adventurers who had fallen inside. Panicked shouts rang out, and layers of the dome disappeared as the mages lost their concentration. The fissure fully closed, leaving no trace of the adventurers behind.

A second later, there was an explosion, and a massive hole appeared in the ground. The twenty or so adventurers rushed out, their faces and clothes dusty and brown. “I said to protect me for three minutes!” the woman in green shouted. “All of you didn’t even last a minute!”

“How were we supposed to protect you from something like that?” a man asked and scowled. His arms were charred, and his red robes were in tatters. “You should be grateful I even got you out of there. If it wasn’t for me, what would you guys have done? Suffocated and died?”

“Obviously, we have our own methods of escaping from the ground,” someone said and spat out a clump of dirt. He glanced at the woman in green. “Is your curse ready?”

“Luckily, I’m someone who under promises and over delivers. One minute was enough,” the woman said and raised her hands as if she were cupping water in her palms. A black skull flickered into existence, and she lifted her arms up. She pointed her face at the ocean-blue dragon and blew on the skull as if it were a candle. The skull dissolved into wisps of black smoke that let out grating laughs as they headed towards Vur.

Under the adventurers’ expectant gazes, Vur snatched the nearest tank and tossed him into the black smoke. The wisps curled around the man, and hideous laughter rang out as miniature skulls appeared and bit into his flesh, leaving dozens of bitemarks in the form of tattoos. The smoke faded away, leaving behind one wailing man and one stunned group of adventurers. Vur blinked and tilted his head as if he hadn’t expected his action to actually work either.

The mage wearing red, tattered robes looked at the woman from the Shadow Specters. “Curses can be blocked like that?”

The woman’s face flushed red, and she stomped her foot. “There’s nothing wrong with the curse I prepared,” she said. “It’s your faults for letting that happen!”

The mage wearing red sneered. “You can continue preparing another curse,” he said before looking around. “There’s more than one way to deal with a recovering opponent. Do more damage to it than it can recover. I’ll start!” He pointed his palms at the ocean-blue dragon and shouted, “Incinerate!”

An inferno shot out of the man’s arms. It rapidly grew in size until it was large enough to engulf Vur whole. The flames covered him before spreading throughout the vicinity. Even the area around the mage heated up, and the adventurers’ eyes widened as the sky turned red. It was almost as if the man’s spell had set the whole world on fire.

“Damn, Christian! Your firepower has gone up by a whole nother level since I last saw you!”

The mage lowered his arms, but the flames in the vicinity didn’t disappear. The only thing that was gone was the dragon. “That wasn’t me,” he said and frowned. “Doesn’t this scene look familiar to any of you?”

“Wait, isn’t this a phoenix’s world of fire ability?” a bulky man asked. His brow furrowed. “If I’m right, then—look out!”

A dragon’s tail emerged from the fire and swept across the cluster of adventurers standing near the hole in the ground. Some had quick reactions and leapt out of the way, but the slower ones didn’t even have a chance to scream as they were struck by the massive limb and sent crashing into the distance. The tail burst into flames, disappearing once more into the sea of flames as if it hadn’t existed in the first place.

Christian gulped and eyed his surroundings. “Does anyone happen to be proficient in water-type spells?”

The adventures looked at each other, but there was no response. One of them cleared their throats and pointed at a collapsed adventurer that had been struck by the tail. “She was, but someone will have to heal her first.”