Spears of ice punctured the fools who had inadvertently incurred Rune’s wrath. The person they were working for had decided that it was a good idea to send a dragon his way and now they were going to pay for it.

Rune started by casting Ice Age in the surrounding area which turned the water droplets into small pieces of hail and allowed him to cast even stronger Ice magic. He also knew that dragon’s did not like the cold much and decided to use this as an advantage.

For Rouna, he gave her a necklace to wear that prevents the cold from reaching her. It would most definitely be useful as she would be near Rune most of the mission and he was the center of the cold.

The dragons beneath them were trying to find cover or trying as fast as they could to deploy barrier magics. However, even with all the magic shields and barriers, the ice spears penetrated through and skewered the dragons one by one, like shish kebabs.

In about five minutes, only three dragons managed to survive and the other seventeen were pinned to the ground. Rune slowly approached the Nest’s surface and landed.

He saw a dragon hiding under one of the pieces of metal sticking out of the interior of the Nest and he pulled out a gun. A single shot rang out and the dragon’s heart was blown away.

The dragon with a newly formed hole flopped to the ground and died. It didn’t bleed though because Rune’s blast has cauterized the wound the moment it was created.

The other two dragons that saw this started to turn around and run into the forest. However, the moment they started to flap their wings, the sound could be heard by Rune and, without looking, he fired off his rifle. The rifle was on his shoulder and tilted in such a way that it utter destroyed one wing of a dragon and blew off the head of another.

He put another bullet in the chamber and turned around to find the dragon whose wing he destroyed was trying to run on its four limbs. He swapped the gun from his right hand to his left and used a spell that he realized he hadn’t used in a long time.

A column of blue magic was sent from his hands and it bolted out towards the dragon. It latched on and turned to ice. That ice soon became the restraints of the dragon and it found itself bound to the floor by the [Frostbite] spell.

Its left hind leg stuck to the floor and it tripped. It fell flat onto its face and turned its head around to see an evil grin. One that would usually be found on an insane serial killer’s face.

It immediately shrunk down to become a human and he begged for his life.

“Pl-please don’t kill me!! I’ll give you everything I have!! Here!!”

Lightning struck in front of Rune and a mound of treasure appeared. It was a vast fortune that the dragon had amassed over the past three centuries. It must have been deathly afraid of Rune to do so for dragons do not give their treasure out to just anyone.

Rune turned his head to look at the treasure. Then he looked back at the dragon while pointing at the pile.

“And you’re giving this to me?”

“Y-yes!! Let me live, please!!”

“Well, one person has to tell the tale, right? I just wanted information, but thanks for the extra cash. I’ll be taking that, thanks.”

“O-oi!! Wait, you just want information? I’ll tell you, but, please, give me back at least thirty percent of my treasure.”

Rune put his index finger on his chin and tapped it several times before speaking.

“Nope, I’m good.”

And he put all the treasure that was all around him into his storage. He was quite happy indeed with the money he just got from, what was basically, a hold up.

“Oh, this is like Per***a 5! Well, except the fact that I get money AND information! How fun!”

Both dragons, Rouna and the lightning dragon, looked at him with much confusion. He coughed as he stopped talking about video games and focused at the task at hand.

“Where is the Blue Irregular Dragon? Who is he? How do I make a bone chandelier out of him?”

“Wut?”

Both dragons turned to face him at the same time as he mentioned the last bit. He waved them off and spoke again.

“Just tell me who and where he is. Wait, is it a she or a he?”

“... It is a he…”

“Ok then. Where is he?”

The dragon had to think for a moment. It was actually in a lot of shock as it had been in a near death experience, had its money stolen by a random demon person, and was being confused by all the strange things that Rune was saying that made absolutely zero sense.

“Uh, um…”

Rune carefully and slowly took out his trench knife and stabbed the dragon person in the right foot.

“Grahhhh!!!!!”

Pain seared through his body, as if he was on fire, then it stopped as quickly as it had started. He looked down to look at the wound to see that there was a new hole in his foot that had become cauterized. He looked at Rune and thought, He really likes to burn things, in such a calm manner that it seemed like he had forgotten being burned for a moment. But that thought only lasted a moment before pain coursed through his entire body leaving him paralyzed in fear of being hurt more and his body becoming numb from the pain.

“Speak in proper sentences.”

Rune growled as he poured bloodlust into his words. The dragon started to move his mouth and tongue to make sentences and spoke.

“H-he is in the center of the isle!! If y-you just go down that door and the stairs, you will reach a labyrinth. He is at the center of that!!”

“Any shortcuts through the labyrinth?”

“N-no!! It keeps changing its paths so there is no shortcut!!”

“I see… Any other things worth mentioning?”

“Um, you cannot use any transportation or telepathic magics once there and many of the monsters down there are resistant to most magics.”

Rune scratched his head and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He unholstered his pistol from his belt and lazily pointed it at the dragon.

“What do you mean by “many of the monsters”? I thought there were dragons here.”

The dragon desperately tried to look for a way out to no avail and sighed. He hung his head in defeat and spoke.

“The boss doesn’t like other dragons and keeps unintelligent beings around unless he wants something from us.”

“What is his name?”

“Oh, y-yeah. It is Ogrush.”

“...What kind of name is that?”

“A truly terrible one.”

“Ok. You want to ask anything?”

Rune turned to Rouna who was patiently waiting her turn. She spoke as soon as he asked.

“Is the Irregular Dragon the one holding up this isle?”

“Y-yes. Now, if y-you don’t have any questions left, I s-shall take my leave.”

The dragon tried to speak in a confidant tone, but utterly failed with his stuttering. Rune sighed, rolled his eyes, and swung his arm downwards… upon the ice shackling the dragon to the ground.

“Leave. Spread my name! But only once I have killed all the Irregular Dragons!!”

“A-aye!!”

The dragon saluted and turned to run with his tail between his legs. Rune laughed as he realized that he had scared such a powerful being with ease.

“Now. Let’s take this dragon head on, shall we?”

“Indeed.”

“Oh, but first, thanks for the meal!!”

Rune clapped his hands together like how he saw people do it in anime right before they ate. However, he wasn’t planning on eating...

A large, taloned finger pushed a button that was on the wall. Above that button was a crystal that would take in the vibrations from the speaker’s voice and transmit them to the crystal it was linked with. It was much like a short ranged radio.

In a gruff and powerful, but hearty voice, the being spoke. Its maw opened and closed quickly to convey its message. In Ancient Draconic, it spoke, but it knew that, if no one could understand his fast speaking habit, he could speak in Common where all of his underlings could understand him.

They were used to him speaking quickly and not understanding it at all. That was why he had everyone learn Common as a second language.

He stopped talking in draconic. He kept trying to use that language for he was most used to it and hoped that the others would pick up on how he spoke. Sadly, that never, and will never, happen. He started to speak in Common.

“ONE OF YOU, COME DOWN HERE AT ONCE!!!! I WANT TO PLAY!!!!”

Of course, his definition of “play” was so completely different than the other dragons that, at first, they thought he was talking about hunting something for fun instead of him beating them. Once they “played” for the first time, they were scarred for life.

“ANSWER ME!!!! COME DOWN AT ONCE!!!!”

Yet again, no one answered. He was growing increasingly concerned. He had heard from the Black Irregular and the White Irregular Dragons that there was something going around killing their underlings. He was convinced that that being wouldn’t be able to come to his sky domain, but he was still fearful.

Something that could easily take out one of their kind was still a threat, even if weaker than the Irregular Dragon itself. They could cause heavy damage to themselves or destroy their entire kingdom, leaving them with nothing but the blood and corpses of their allies and a new space in their caverns where treasure used to be.

“THIS BETTER NOT BE A JOKE, YOU HEAR ME?!?!”

However, the situation was dire indeed. Not only had the one thing he had been fearing come, but his subordinates were nearly decimated. He did not only have underlings on the Isle, but most of them were stationed there while the stronger ones went out looking for villages to conquer.

The only ones actually guarding the area were Rank 2-4 Hierarch Dragons on top of the Nest. They were weak compared to his pioneers which were made up of three Rank 1 Hierarch Dragons which were also, coincidentally, his only Rank 1 Hierarch Dragons.

Sweat beaded down its forehead. The current outcome was one that the dragon feared the most. This situation was one where he had lost his underlings and was not able to make them make him parfaits or try to learn what a parfait is made of and how to make it.

“QUICK!!!! BRING ME THE BUTTON!!!!”

He pointed at a Mid Tier Vampire who had been captured after she had tried to kill one of his subordinates. This person was one of the two humanoids he had with him in the labyrinth that he had constructed.

She bowed in fear and scurried off to find the Button. The Button was a prototype made by himself to mess around with the labyrinth to his advantage. He could press the button and it would read his brain waves to figure out what he wanted to labyrinth to be.

She hurried back and presented the Button to him. It actually looked quite strange in her hands as it was made for the large Dragon who was a hundred times larger than she, but she wielded it like it was a feather on the palm of her hands.

“M-my lord.”

The dragon plucked the button from her hands. The button was a bright red color and the object it was on was a rectangle, much like a remote for a tv. The dragon had peeked through the realms to see that, on Earth, there were many red, flashy buttons that seemed important.

Both maids bowed. One had red eyes and pale skin, the Mid Tier Vampire. Her hair was a pale blonde color and quite long and her stature was smaller than the average height of human females in Arborea. She had the ability to turn into mist as well as turn into a bat, but she knew that, if she did so, the Irregular Dragon would kill her in mere moments of transformation.

The other maid had two horns, but one had been broken off when getting captured by a Hierarch Dragon. She had battle scars on her abdomen, back, and arms, but was still going strong. She was of the species known as Minotaur, but her clan, as well as several others, had went from being more bull than human to becoming more human than bull. She was much taller than the average human male in Arborea and held herself with dignity.

The Vampire race was proud and liked to rack up achievements, but not as much as the Minotaurs who thought achievements and power was everything. The maid Minotaur Girl was one of the few who was smarter than most others in her tribe, but still not the brightest among people. The Mid Tier Vampire was not as powerful as a Pure Breed Vampire, but still stronger than the Vampire Spawn.

Naturally, Vampires had special abilities, but Pure Breeds held all, followed by the Mid Tier, and, lastly, the Vampire Spawn. It was random what the Mid Tier Vampires received, ability wise, but they were special as they had the chance of gaining a resistance to something depending on who the parent was who was not a vampire. Vampires are just humans who have turned and Pure Breeds are the first turned who revere the ancient gods of death. Vampire Spawn are just the slaves of Pure Breeds as they have been infected and have not been born a Vampire. Mid Tier Vampires are Vampires who have Pure Breed Blood in them from either the parents or other ancestors and some traits may not manifest at all.

In the current Mid Tier Vampire’s case, she had Pure Breed blood coursing through her as her mother was one and her father was a regular human. Still, strangely enough, all Vampires have one thing in common: Immortality. Even the Vampire Spawn. And so, she traversed the world in search of adventure to find that there was another continent.

She had flown across the sea and replenished her stamina and mana with blood. Once she reached Hell’s Gate, she had to fight for her life to survive every encounter. She only barely managed to scrape through and gain enough experience to gain quite a few levels.

She had been living her life well enough and was living in a large city full of monster people. They welcomed her, at least most did, and she had a great job of going out and dealing with monsters.

Of course, that all went south when she took the job to investigate the floating isle when someone discovered it. The guild put up a request to have a party of people sent up there and to kill whatever was there if it was not friendly. That something they were sent to kill was all of the Blue Hierarch Dragons and a Blue Irregular Dragon. And that was how the entire team, other than her, was annihilated.

For the Minotaur Girl, she was part of a tribe of people who were nomads. They traveled and stopped and hunted and so on and so forth. One day, a dragon had come from the sky asking for a representative. They received her and that was that.

“Hahhhhh.”

Both maids sighed as they remembered their backstories at the same exact moment. Both were terrified of what may come if they go against the dragon and both were sad as they wanted to leave.

With a slight grunt, the dragon got up, out of his chair and stood up. He was easily taller than the Rock Elemental that the group had faced earlier and he was much more intimidating. He was one of the eleven strongest beings in the world.

There were eleven unparalleled beings in Arborea, other than the gods. One was a large serpent in the water whom only a few knew about. One was an invisible beast that flew through the air. One was a small, but mighty wolf that liked to doggy paddle in lava. One was a giant wyrm who ate and lived in the ground. One was a being who was only awake during the day and it flew with its majestic bird wings through the air. One was a being only awake at night and prowled the ground with its padded paws.

The other five were just the Irregular Dragons who controlled elements too, but were not nearly as strong as the other six beings. They were beyond anyone’s control, including the gods. They had the power to travel through dimensions and worlds and went where they pleased. Especially the wolf who played around in lava who also managed to accidentally cause many volcanic eruptions on Earth, like in Pompeii.

Still, while being one of the strongest eleven in the world, he was still afraid his spot would be taken as he was the least strong of the strongest and many were nearly as powerful as him. He was always paranoid of what was coming to kill him whenever and wherever he was.

That paranoia made him lock himself up in a labyrinth and he was the only one who was able to successfully move through the maze without guidance. For his subordinates, he used telepathy to tell them.

Just a he was going to press the button to make the maze impossible to move through, he found himself face to face with an explosion of rock and dirt. His large door blew up, right in front of his face.

There, standing in the doorway, was a very angry Rune who had to run/fly through the passage while carrying a Rouna who only pointed while closing her eyes.

Past the debris and ruin, he walked with Rouna tucked under a single arm. He walked right on up to the dragon and drew his blade. Without further adieu, he stabbed the dragon’s foot with his katana.

“Ok. So we seem to have gotten this far, but what now?”

“Mmm!”

Rouna reached upwards and tried to hop onto Rune. All she ended up doing was sliding down his clothes and making him extremely confused. He grabbed her up and held her. Her legs and arms dangled and she sighed.

“I’m going to point out which way to go. Follow my directions.”

“Sure.”

He figured that she would be able to do something of this caliber, but would have liked it if she could have walked on her own.

She closed her eyes and pointed forwards, the only way to go in the one way hall. Rune looked upwards to the large hatch that he had dropped through. Sighing, he started to run.

In the monster infested maze, it would certainly be strange if he didn’t encounter and monsters. Thus, he found three beasts of enough destructive force to down an armada with their total might.

He ripped his gun from his holster and fired thrice, only bothering to stop being on guard once he absorbed them. One bullet to the head, each. It had went in their bodies and murdered them from the inside out.

Their brains boiled and strange juices dripped from the nose, ears, and mouth. It smelled like burnt trash, foul and inedible. Of course, his thoughts were to dispose of it as soon as he could, and he did.

The first monster was a cat-like monster with the body of a bear. The second was a something like a six-legged rhinoceros for a beak for a mouth. The third and last was something that would leave a bad impression on those who saw it, a dead puppy with enough cuteness to die for, literally. That was its special skill, to kill something with a cuteness overload after activating its [Puppy Eyes].

Rune actually shot without thinking and didn’t bother to check the corpses as Rouna pointed out the next direction and he had to comply.