The ground tumbled as dirt and smoke filled the air. Rune spun his head left and right to find that there was an outline of a door in the wall in front of them. He pulled out his katana and trench knife.

Rena pulled out her machete and Rouna readied herself in a bare handed combat stance. Rune had placed his scythe on his back and had placed a shotgun on it too.

Then he quickly noticed that the book and the body was still there and he quickly absorbed them.

The door outline was gigantic, as if five Leviathans were supposed to fit with room to spare. It fell down in front of them and they saw a sight to behold. It was a Black Dragon.

It had eight horns that curved backward and it had white runes that permanently glowed on them. It’s eyes were red with white pupils and the pupils were in the shape of slits. In its open mouth, it held hundreds of teeth as large as a man. It also had two forked tongues on either side of its mouth licking the air.

There were four wings in its back that were much larger than a regular dragon’s. There were spikes on its back like a stegosaurus and it had a tail that ended like a flat and wide blade.

It had a body much larger than that of the rank 4 Hierarch Dragon Rune had faced before. Rune turned to look at Rouna.

“That is a Hierarch Dragon, right?”

The gargantuan dragon spoke to the three of them in their minds. His voice was brimming with confidence and narcissism that reminded Rune of Brann, the Aymren village blacksmith.

Rune glared at him and cracked his neck twice while doing the same to his knuckles. He put his trench knife in one of the sheaths that Sophia had made for him. Then he tightened his grip on his katana and pulled out an assault rifle.

The Hierarch Dragon suddenly sneezed due to all the dust particles in the air and they all ducked as a spray of acid flew overhead. They turned to see where it landed and they could see their only escape, the staircase, was now burning up and was turning into a puddle of grey liquid.

Rouna and Rena paled as they saw the sight and Rune looked back at the dragon. He readied his katana and pointed the assault rifle at the dragon.

Obviously, he didn’t want to die as most also did not want to, but he also wanted power. He had won against other Hierarch Dragons before, but they all paled in comparison to the one before him now. However, he still wanted its power and he took a step forward.

Rena, who was now shaking, was reaching out a tentative hand towards Rune and was chattering her teeth. She was scared and was trying to shake her head at him.

Rune moved out of her trembling reach and slowly walked to the dragon. The dragon looked down and scoffed. The look on its face was like someone fighting an inferior being or something of the sort as its head was that of a dragon.

It laughed through telepathy and the sound rumbled throughout their minds. It was like someone growling and coughing at the same time. He moved an arm to his mouth and pretended to cough.

Rune promptly stabbed his eye. It was a clean in and out scenario and the katana found its way into it quite easily. The dragon became acutely aware of the situation and yelled in pain.

He was yelling loudly as Rune stepped back. With his one good eye, he looked at Rune and swiped with his claws. However, he now lacked depth perception and he missed by several feet and ended up burying his claw in some rocks. His other arm was clutching his face.

Then he became surprised as he stopped moving for a moment and he stopped clutching his eye. Then he covered it once again and roared in fury.

It stepped back and Rune looked down at his blade. He had imbued it with [Dispel Magic] and was glad that he did so. It also had vibration and was coated in a thin layer of powder that would appear on the blade when it lost it. The powder was also imbued with [Dispel Magic], but also had an effect to increase pain and to weaken the opponent. The powder was inside the dragon’s eyeball at the moment and a new layer was slowly forming over the blade.

The dragon’s regeneration was a type of magic that is rare even among healing magic. It is known as [Instant Regeneration], but can only be cast as a magic and cannot heal scars or permanent features. However, it can regrow limbs and restore parts of the body that had been lost. It could even heal the psyche of a being, but the powder was far too close to the brain for it to heal its mind.

Of course, it was suffering from losing its eye and it was freaking out. What made things worse was that it couldn’t use its regeneration and the pain made it go even more insane. However, he wouldn’t grow completely insane for it was just a lot of pain that he wasn’t used to.

Rune quickly jumped on him and tried to pierce his other eye, but the dragon quickly swiped at him. The attack struck his arm and it started to smoke. He leapt away from the dragon and tugged it off and chucked far away from him where it melted into a small puddle.

The dragon was now glaring ar Rune and Rune could only think of three more ways to kill the dragon. Of course, they were all risky enough that he would likely die, but he didn’t have much of a choice now. It was kill or be killed in this situation.

Rune glared right back at the dragon and started to run at him. He started using skills like [Protection], [Physical Enhancement], and [Vajra] and jumped at the dragon. Bewildered by his actions, it accidently let loose a breath of acid that flew into the area that Rune used to occupy. It was still affected by its loss of depth perception.

It snorted in frustration as it couldn’t hit him and it decided to go with plan B. It opened its mouth and tried to eat Rune. It felt lucky as soon as he was swallowed and slid down its gullet. It seemed satisfied as all of its bodily fluids were extremely acidic and the stomach acid was the most. It was like hydrochloric acid except worse by about two hundred times.

Rena looked at the dragon in despair and it seemed like Rouna had lost hope. There was very little chance that he would come out of the dragon alive. At least, not in one piece.

That was what they thought when Rouna remembered what happened to the last dragon that swallowed him and she started to shake as it traumatized her quite a bit. Rena looked wide eyed at her and thought that she was shaking because of the terrible position they were placed in.

Suddenly, three blades erupted from its stomach and more blades came out from all over its body. Rune stepped out and moved away from the dragon. He was in his Cursed Armor form and was slightly melted.

He backed off from the dragon and all the blades broke from the dragon and it roared in agony. However, the wounds closed until they were small wounds and they didn’t close any further. The broken blades laid about the floor and some chunks even stabbed into the ground.

Blood still leaked from its wounds from the blades, but the eye wound had cauterized from the acidic tears it created. It touched the wounds and yelped as they cauterized as well.

He glared at Rune even more and breathed his true breath of Acid. He aimed it at the ceiling and the black fog of death fell down around them. Rune grabbed hold of the other two and teleported to Sophia.

“Ahh!!”

“What happened!!??”

Rena and Rouna screamed in surprise as they found themselves in the Warehouse in the Manticore city. Sophia and the rest of the group were startled when they found the three of them around them.

“Get ready for a powerful Black Dragon!! Get the weapons and the ready yourselves.”

Ogyi was near him and tapped on his armor. Rune quickly turned to him with a anger as he hadn’t killed Hyprion and Ogyi stepped back in fear.

“Ha-have you found my father? He had an obsidian tail to replace the one he lost…”

I messed up!!! Uh, what do I tell him? That I killed his father and that there is no body to bury??

Rune sighed and put his hand on Ogyi.

“That dragon he turned your father into a monster and killed him. I want to get revenge for you.”

He started bawling, but nodded as he understood that they had a good chance at getting revenge.

“So! I think that the-”

He was cut off by a loud rumbling and the ground shook. Everybody except Rune and Rouna fell down and became sprawled on the floor. Rune ran out of the building as they were on the first floor and pulled out his hovering platform.

He rose off the ground and Rouna flew up with her wings. As they looked, they saw the capital building, crushed and turned into rubble. A dragon, proud and mighty, stodd over the rubble and it roared as it blew a cloud of blackness into the air.

Rune had to do something, quickly, or else he and everyone else would die. Quickly, Rune flew with his platform and threw his shield at the breath coming from its mouth. Then Rune quickly cast [Dispel Magic] dozens of times before he was able to stop the black smoke.

The shield flew in front of the dragon and the black acid was absorbed in the shield and reflected back as purple flames. It flew inside the dragon’s mouth and it gagged. Rune jumped off of his platform and reached out.

He grabbed the shield out of the air and held it downwards as he went with the fire into the gullet once again. As he did so, he activated all his skills once again.

During the first time, it smelled terrible and the walls of the esophagus was slimy and warm. He took out some knives imbued with auto repair and dispel magic. Then he shoved them into the slimy walls and he could feel a vibration before he heard a roar from above.

He had put in about twenty knives in the throat before he had reached the stomach. After every knife, he slid faster to the stomach acid that awaited him below. This was due to all the acidic blood pouring from the internal wounds.

Rune finally landed inside the stomach again. Before, he had been met with nothing but acid that started to melt him even with his active skills, but now there were stones and bones floating in the murky fluid. He had used the shield as a landing platform and it immediately blew out flames the second it touched the acid.

The shield absorbed a large amount of stomach acid, put the pool of it did not decrease. Instead, the shield started to melt and, when it did, it exploded in a blaze of heat and flames as Rune jumped into a floating chunk of rock.

He took out his assault rifle and looked through the enchantments he could give it. The enchantments were just his magic and the no elemental attribute magic like sharp.

However, he felt like he would be able to do something more about it. He carefully added dispel magic, then started pumping in three spells to see if they would work. One was his [Enchant All] to enchant the bullets that passed through its muzzle, the second was [Eldritch Blast] to send out beams of focused energy at an enemy, and the last item was [Unholy Smite] to make the bullets become able to crush foes underneath an attack of darkness and heavy gravity.

Then he tried something he only did twice before, but failed to do both times. This magic was now level 3 and he had nothing else to turn to. He used [Create Cursed Weapon] with the assault rifle as the catalyst.

Due to the weapon being completely understood by Rune and what it does, the skill was a complete success. The reason being that the other two times he had only used weapons which he had not created and it seemed that, for this to work, he needed to have made the weapon himself.

The weapon grew more powerful and its enchantments became stronger than before. Rune felt like resonated with the weapon as soon as he cast it and it was like an extension of his body. It cast off a dangerous aura that was similar to Rune’s when he was angry at those who attacked him.

A sense of malicious bloodlust could be felt by the weapon to all except Rune and those who he knew on a personal level, friends and family. This weapon was almost as powerful as the legendary weapons of old.

He plucked out a cartridge of light bullets from his storage and placed it inside the gun. He turned off the safety, as a gun should always have, and pointed it at the stomach walls. The fleshy insides were a dark pinkish color and was leaking some mucus that, when it touched something, burned objects.

He fired the gun and a beam of light and darkness shot out of the muzzle. It flew straight and pierced through the dragon’s innards, muscles, fat, and even its scales.

He fired off fourteen more shots before he reloaded and he saw that the fifteen holes were much larger than regular bullet holes. They were like the size of dinner plates or even large platters. He could see outside the dragon and he even heard it crying in pain.

The stomach acid was leaking from the holes and blood streamed in from all the wounds. The murky liquid below him was now a dark red color.

He reloaded and fired off fifteen more shots towards the esophagus and the dragon’s cry could be heard no more. The esophagus was in ruins and chunks of meat were floating about the blood that was also draining.

The stone piece he was on floated towards a hole slowly and it fell out of the beast. Rune hopped off of it to see the dragon lying in the rubble as he was broken. His vocal cords mangled and his brain in tatters. His heart was not beating and the life in his eyes had vanished completely.

Rune surveyed the damage and he saw the rebel kids around the dragon and looking at Rune. Quickly, he looked about and saw that he had shot eight houses and there were large holes in the sand around them.

He wiped his forehead that didn’t have any sweat. He thought that he may have shot the children and that would not have been good for his reputation.