We moved back to the Dragon Empire but long trenches awaited us even before we reached the Moonlit Sea. The giant kobold was pummeling the ground, paying no heed to its surroundings. A few large-scale spells seemed to hit it from time to time, but due to its size, it cared little about the shallow wounds the explosions caused.

Upon reaching the border of the southern land, seeing the blue sea in the far, I came to notice many tiny ants or I should say, humans, elves, undead, and beastmen in the trenches. A seemingly never-ending wave of kobolds opposed them and charged in endlessly. Whether the people in the trenches hailed from one kingdom or not was none of our concern.

“What the hell is this? Do you think I could nuke them?” Audrey pointed at the army of kobolds and brushed her hair to the side.

“I don’t think so, but you’re welcome to try it,” Elena replied.

“I’ll try,” she formed a huge eight coloured ball in her hands and then threw it towards the kobolds. The ball exploded when it reached our enemies and killed a few hundred thousands of them, but for some reason, it seemed as if it didn’t amount to anything in the incoming wave.

Noticing the source of the spell, the giant kobold stopped pummeling the trench and moved towards us. Its right foot happened to land on an empty city and crush everything beneath. A large cloud of dust flew into the air and mixed with the thick, dark black smoke that came from piles of burning corpses.

“Alright, I think it’s time we join the fray, “ Elena stood up on my back and stopped meditating. Thanks to Mark of the Wild, she inherited my ability to shapeshift into a Dragon God. We could have always transformed to look like Padinyss with the help of cosmological constant, but that was different from actually turning into him.

The giant swung its arm towards me, so I flapped my wings and rose higher up in the air and when its hand almost reached me, I dived towards the ground. I felt a strong gust of wind hit my side while its giant hand passed above my head.

“I’m getting off here!” a long vine shot out of Elena’s hand and latched onto the giant’s hand and she got dragged off of my back.

“I think that we should follow her. It’s pointless to bombard this creature and if I used the eon element to try to disintegrate a body of this size, I wouldn’t be able to stop it from destroying the whole planet,” Audrey said.

“I agree,” Jake followed up while I was left thinking why was I used as a mount again. The truth was very simple, though. I was the quickest.

“I’ll get closer to it,” I replied and used wind magic to speed up even more. I reached the giant’s chest in no time where Audrey used the drip element to wound it. We entered the blood-filled wound and had to swim through its blood. It didn’t take long before we reached the insides of its body. The pores in its skins were human-sized tunnels.

We came to the surface in one of those tunnels and climbed out of the blood that started to turn hard. Lowering the sides of her lips, Audrey looked at herself in disgust. A ball of water appeared above her and washed off the blood. Jake cleaned himself as well while I moved on not minding it.

“Interesting, how come there is some light in this monster’s body?” I looked around.

“It should be because these giant cells produce a lot of heat and energy and some light as a result,” Audrey guessed.

“Well, that could be the case,” I nodded my head.

“Will Elena be fine on her own?” Cor asked before licking my side.

“Hey, I’m no lollipop, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be fine,” I replied and a moment of silence later, I added, “If anything, she’ll get to devour its brain all alone while we’ll have to share its heart. If she reaches its brain before us, then we best prepare to listen to her rants.”

Audrey ran past me and moved on in the tunnel. With each step she took, the dermis beneath her feet turned black while there was a large patch expanding beneath my feet. My devour was visibly much stronger, but Elena’s was even stronger, so I knew I had to hurry up. We barely moved a few hundred meters before we ran into a kobold which had a harpoon in its hands.

Race: White-cell Kobold

Rarity: Common (In the body of Giant Kobold)

Level: 590

Threat Level: 0

Thanks to being in Padinyss’s dragon form, my defense was very powerful and a creature whose level was beneath mine had little chance to wound me. “You three stay back, let me test this new form,” I growled as I spread my wings and lunged at it. The kobold thrust its harpoon towards my head but I moved my head to the side and bit on its handle.

My teeth easily broke the harpoon while its tip couldn’t even penetrate my scales. The kobold let go of its weapon and was about to use a spell on me, but I created a wall of earth behind it and pushed it towards me. The kobold stumbled, leaving it no way to avoid my wide opened jaws. I had to be careful since unlike Padinyss, I couldn’t gulp down just anything, but my teeth were just as good.

I tasted the kobold’s flesh as my teeth dug deep into its upper body and ruptured its organs. The kobold fell to the ground, lifeless. It’s pretty delicious.

“Stop stuffing your heads,” Audrey’s tired voice came from behind. When I looked down, I realised Cor was tasting it as well.

We killed our way through the tunnel, but the number of monsters just kept raising.

“No good. If this keeps on we’ll be stuck in place,” I raised my voice.

“I can see that!” Audrey huffed and a moment later said, “Cover me for a bit.”

I looked at Jake to tell him, but as expected, he was already protecting her. Poor Cor was like an indestructible doll with no real attack power. He kept blocking the harpoons that threatened to hurt Audrey and killed only a few kobolds from time to time. But thanks to his class, he had a few skills that raised our defense or interrupted the kobolds.

“How you peeps doing?” Elena whispered in our minds.

“I could ask the same, we’re stuck. There are just too many of these kobolds. No wonder the other races became extinct if they had to deal with a creature like this. Although they can’t hurt us, others don’t have this great defense and infinite mana either. Hell, the mana in this area is running out, we should move,” I replied.

“I’m moving in my shadow form so I haven’t been noticed yet. Sadly, it shook me off of its arm and I fell down. I entered through an existing wound on its back next to its spine,” Elena said.

“Can’t you devour its spine? I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be able to stand afterwards.”

“Ehm- I think I reached its stomach,” she grunted.

Audrey used the eon element to kill the kobolds and then we used our shadow forms to flee. Another group of kobolds ran past us towards the way we came from.

“I know the root of our problem,” Elena said, her voice both happy and nervous.

“What did you find?”

“Fun fact, there is an island-sized mana stone in its stomach which keeps spawning these kobolds. Hell, they’re being born from mana like us, legendary creatures. But do you know what is strange? The ones here are at the level of five hundred and ninety-nine while the ones back there were at five hundred and ninety.”

“Now that you say it, the kobolds out there were at the five hundred and fiftieth level which means that the further they’re from the mana stone, the weaker they are,” I said in realisation. “Can you contact the dark scars? They should be taking care of the kobolds outside.”

“Yes. Do you have anything in mind?” she asked.

“I think they should draw the giant’s attention and lead it towards the Dragon Empire. Probably not much of it is left anyway,” Audrey chimed in.

“That’s what I had in mind as well,” I said.

“I’ll contact them and you should come here in the meantime,” Elena replied.

Without wasting our time, we all rushed through the tunnels towards Elena’s location. But as we passed a strange blue coloured barrier, the kobolds walking back and forth in the tunnel looked towards us.

What now?

“Elena, the kobolds noticed us for some reason. Any ideas?” I asked.

“Oh, you probably passed the barrier of the mana stone. There will be five more and each time your presence will be revealed. I used Padinyss’s form to charge through and then used the eon element to wipe out my surroundings. And finally, I hid again in my shadow form. But you can’t exactly do that with Audrey and Jake there,” she replied.

Fuck my life.

“Audrey, kill a few and then store their corpses. I’ve thought of something.”

“Okay.”

I lunged towards the kobolds and cut four of them into two halves with my wings. One of them managed to find a weak spot and the tip of its harpoon sank into my flesh. Cor passed me and pulled it out and thrust it into one of the kobolds’ head.

Jake held back two of them and then appeared right behind a third one. He kicked it towards Audrey, who thrust her short sword through its heart.

“I’ve got one,” she reported.

“Saw it, we need three more.”

The number of kobolds around us just kept raising, but as soon as we had four intact corpses, I threw Cor in the middle of the group. While the kobolds turned around in a momentary confusion, Audrey nuked the group and killed most of them on the spot. Cor was blown away as well, but thanks to his ridiculously high resistances, we didn’t have to worry about him. I was pretty sure that even if the giant pummeled him in the ground, he’d just ‘dive’ into the ground instead of dying like normal people.

We left the kobolds behind in our shadow forms while Cor just ran after us on foot.

“What the hell are you doing? Hide quickly!” I shouted in his mind.

“Bullshit! I’ll draw their attention, you just come after me,” he replied.

Well, on a second thought, that works as well. With Cor averting the kobolds’ attention, we passed one barrier after another yet the kobolds thought that it was only him. Of course, he had to watch out for his head, but these kobolds weren’t very skilled when it came to using weapons.

As we passed the fifth barrier, both I and Audrey killed most of the kobolds present and then used necromancy to revive the four corpses we brought along. While they fought each other, we quickly left them behind and reached Elena.

“That was quick,” she praised us.

“Nice job, Cor,” I laughed.

“And what do you plan to do now?” he asked while his shady form seemed to flicker for a moment of excitement.

“Since it worked once… why don’t we throw you in again?” Elena offered.

“Sounds like a plan!” Cor returned to his true form and covered his body in his shell. Audrey went ahead and bombarded the kobolds and the mana crystal from afar, though the latter just absorbed her spells.

“I guess we’ll have to use our hands,” Elena said as she too went back to her humanoid form.

When a path to the mana stone opened, the four of us charged at it, while Audrey covered us from behind. We were midway when we noticed a shortage of spells and when I turned around, I realised she was being attacked by more and more kobolds. With the help of devouring and continuous movements and barrage of spells, she could hold them back, but she couldn’t help us.

“Jake, you go back!” I said.

“Alright~” he used blink and reappeared next to Audrey. “Cover our friends, I’ll cover you,” he said and then started killing of the kobolds. With her help from above and Elena and my devour combined, we easily got through the ranks of the kobolds and reached the mana stone.

I used my full strength to strike it yet nothing happened to it. “Jake, can you blink again? Try hitting the top!”

“I’ll try, but you’ll have to cover me or I won’t be able to get out of there for a while…” he replied.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I didn’t just send you in, but we’re here now.”

He blinked onto the top of the mana stone and thrust his uchigatanas into it. A long crack appeared on the mana stone and the speed at which the kobolds were being born slowed down considerably.

I struck the mana stone once again while Cor and Elena held back the kobolds. The crack turned even wider and with my third strike, it finally split into two halves. About thirty patches of swirling mana that was about to turn into kobolds disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Now all that’s left is to kill the big one and clean up the trash!” Elena jumped in happiness and started slaughtering the kobolds.

“I wonder about that. I’m afraid there is something else and who knows what’s the situation outside?”

“Well, I can find out,” she replied.

“Guys, how is the situation out there?”

“Not really good, Master. Although we drew the giant kobold’s attention, the little ones still keep coming out of the hole and I’m pretty sure that the united army won’t hold out for long. Should we check out the pit in place of the Moonlit Sea?” Sareg answered her.

“No, if the giant goes back to fight, the people in the trench will die in no time and then destruction will spread. We’ll hurry up and take down this thing,” Elena commanded them and then turned into her shadow form. Understanding her point, we followed her example. Although the kobolds’ levels decreased to five hundred and fifty, they were still a chore to kill thanks to their large numbers.

But this time, not even Audrey and Jake had to fear their harpoons since their elemental shield, physical resistance, and Cor’s shell was more than enough to resist the kobolds. The five of us charged through the tunnels and moved towards the giant’s brain. If this keeps going we’ll reach the six hundredth level.

“No, this monster is one level short for that, we can’t steal the necessary concepts to get to that level from it,” Elena answered my thoughts.

“True.”

“Get used to it, if we bond I’ll hear you all the time~”

“I don’t mind,” I laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” Jake looked back and forth between the two of us.

“They can’t hear us right now.”

“Oh, makes sense.”

“Nothing,” I smiled at him and crushed the head of a kobold who stood in my way in the meantime.

It took about five minutes to reach the kobold’s brain. The five of us jumped at it and grabbed parts of it. It probably didn’t feel good since the giant’s head started to shake.

With the combined power of our devouring abilities, the giant’s brain rotted in no time. As the monster probably died, we felt our bodies raise into the air.

I guess it’s going down right now.