(Nov 15)

When I turned around, what I saw was Connor pointing his spear at me.

My brows furrowed as I stared at his cold lifeless face.

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it was clear that Connor was seriously trying to kill me.

His spear spun around several times in his hand before vanishing and reappearing before my eyes.

I tilted my head out of the way, narrowly avoiding his attack.

If Connor was already attacking me, I figured it would’ve been pointless to ask him why he was doing this. From his expression, it didn’t seem like he’d respond anyways.

Obviously, I had many questions as to why this is happening, but I didn’t bother thinking about any of them since thoughts would hinder my movement and instincts.

But I still didn’t want to fight him without knowing what was going on, so I decided to retreat.

Using dragons mind, I was able to slip past him and run back the way I came.

Connor chased after me.

He was quick, but I managed to stay a few steps ahead of him and out of range from his spear.

Before I could reach the end of the cave though, a figure appeared in front of me.

I swiftly came to a halt as the figure jumped at me.

Even though I dodged out of the way, it was quicker than I expected and I felt a sharp pain tearing through my armor as it grazed my chest.

The attacker was Mika. She too was also trying to kill me, just like Connor.

I’m not sure how she managed to trick my dragon instincts and land a hit on me, so I was very cautious.

This wasn’t a good situation.

Connor who was chasing me had caught up and appeared behind me, while Mika was in front of me and blocked my path out of the cave.

Fighting an A ranker isn’t easy, not to mention 2 of them.

Somehow, I didn’t think I would lose, but I didn’t think I could’ve won against the both of them either.

The only option was to escape out of the cave.

That’d be a little tricky though considering the situation.

Connor and Mika both rushed me at the same time, not giving me a moment to think.

Connor swung his spear, covering the entire width of the cave forcing me to duck down low.

This was a mistake as Mika was waiting for me with an attack of her own.

I instinctively evaded sideways as she swung at me, yet somehow her claws made a sharp turn mid-attack and changed directions towards me immediately.

Her claws tore into the meat and bones of my shoulder causing my arm to go numb.

She immediately jumped backwards to avoid my counter punch.

What was going on? Even with my dragon instincts, I was still being hit.

She was fast, but she wasn’t unavoidably fast. So how?

When I looked into her eyes, I realized what was going on; she was also relying on her instincts.

Just like me, she had her own beastkin related instincts.

Unlike me though, she was born with it and she had many years to train her instincts and hone it while I only recently developed mine.

I was outclassed in terms of instincts.

Not only that, she even has her own version of dragon’s mind where she can also slow her perception of the world as well!

She was nowhere near this competent during our sparing match.

‘How annoying,’ I thought as I backed up against the wall of the cave. My eyes quickly darted around trying to analyse the situation.

Connor uses a long spear, so fighting close combat melee was going to quite difficult.

We were also in a cave so using AOE explosive attacks like dragon missiles will backfire heavily and might even cause the cave to collapse.

Plus, Mika would be able to rush me if I tried using long ranged attacks.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do in this situation and I didn’t get much time to think before Connor started stabbing again with his oversized toothpick he calls a spear.

My sword and his spear clashed several times causing magic and sparks to fly out.

Mika jumped at me from the ceiling so I quickly pushed away Connor’s spear and blocked Mika’s claws.

It was tough having to split my attention and focus between two very powerful enemies.

I did try using web essence as well, but Connor’s spear attacks were quick and pierced through all my web essence before they could latch onto him.

And Mika was being extra cautious of where, when, and how she was attacking since she knew how effective my web essence is.

During the sparring match, my web essence was attached to Mika which made her super easy to fight, but without the web essence, she’s a lot quicker making it harder to detect her movements and fight her.

Although it was impressive how I was holding up against the two of them, I was slowly getting pushed back.

Since it was now a life and death situation, I decided that it was only fair that I also fight with the intention to kill as well.

The blood from my shoulder wound started to heat up and slowly evaporate into the air.

My plan was to release a bunch of my poisonous blood mist within the cave, forcing them to run away or suffocate in here.

Before I could finish heating my blood though, a voice called out.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Looking over, I saw Sven, however he was being held hostage by Brandon.

With Sven being held hostage, I wouldn’t be able to release my blood mist without harming him as well.

‘Sorry Anthony. By the time I read their minds and realized they were up to something, it was already too late,’ Sven telepathically told me.

Shit.

“Hey, what the fuck? If you want a fight, then I’ll give you one… but holding a fucking hostage? Ha. Shameless, just like the animals you are.”

I was pissed.

Like really mad.

You want to kill me? Aight, that’s understandable. Lots of people have tried to kill me. But you touch my homies? You in for a world of pain.

Quite frankly, I was almost certain that dragonification would’ve happened because of how angry I was.

I could feel the veins in my forehead bulge as I transformed into dragonoid form.

The goosebumps running along my back transformed into dragon scales, and my arms morphed into claws.

Each of my dragon’s jets appeared in their usual position and fired up, ready to blast off.

Kicking off the ground, my body rocketed forward with sword in hand.

Connor didn’t expect such a sudden attack, so he simply raised his spear to block.

My sword clashed against his spear, but with an extra boost from dragon's jet, I managed to catch him unexpected and knock him back.

Then, I used the momentum to raise my leg and kick him straight in the balls.

Critical hit!

He staggered back gasping for air after getting his previous man jewel kicked.

With Connor momentarily stunned, Mika lunged at me again.

I turned towards around and allowed her to cut into my chest.

However, before she could pull away, I clenched my abs causing her claws to temporarily get stuck inside of my stomach.

It was only for a brief moment, but it was enough for to attach my web essence onto her before she jumped away.

I grabbed my web essence, which was now attached to her, and yanked it back.

As Mika was pulled towards me again, she tried to claw my face.

But I was about to back down to some snotty nosed teenage brat.

I clenched my fist, turned up the dial on my elbow’s dragon’s jet to full power, and whoop-de-doo, I punched her square in the face.

I didn’t allow her to simply fly away though. I tugged on my web essence to pull her back towards me again before I did a little fancy twirl and then upper-cutted her straight in the air.

Her head bumped into the cave’s ceiling.

Within this small timeframe, Connor managed to recover and he thrusted his spear at me again.

Since I was still midair from my upper-cut, I couldn’t jump off anything. Instead, I used the dragon’s jet on my feet to propel myself.

I curled up into a ball and did a couple flips in the air before landing on the tip of Connor’s spear.

With swift movement, I turned to kick Connor’s chin and hopped off the spear.

“Hey! You stupid or what? We have your friend hostage! Give up!” Brandon shouted at me.

‘Don’t listen to this meat head. I read his mind, he’s quite dumb. They’re using me to make sure you don’t run away. He won’t harm me until he can guarantee your surrender. He’s obviously trying to use me to force you to give up so whatever you do, don’t surrender.’

With Sven’s confirmation, I ignored Brandon and continued battling Connor and Mika.

I grabbed my sword (which I had dropped when I kicked Connor’s micro sized balls earlier) and charged forward.

Despite dealing good hits earlier, both Connor and Mika got back up and readied themselves.

Since I was fighting two warriors at once, having one sword wasn’t enough so I summoned several nonexplosive floating dragon claws to aid me.

Because my web essence was still attached to Mika, she wasn’t as big of a threat as Connor was.

I allowed my floating dragon claws to attack Mika while I faced off against Connor.

We stared at each other, trying to predict what the other is thinking.

Just as my foot slightly shifted, Connor pounced.

He spun his spear wildly, and with the rotation momentum, he thrusted the spear forward.

I expected this and entered a stance with both hands holding my sword up to my right shoulder.

As Connor grew near, I swung my sword at the same time he thrusted his spear.

I swung for his neck while he aimed for my heart.

We were both fully prepared to put our lives on the line to land an attack.

SLASH!!!

…

My sword sliced through empty air.

It didn’t make contact with anything.

Before my sword could reach him, Connor’s body was suddenly jolted backwards into the air…

It was Elder Vindal.

He had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Connor and stopped him dead in his tracks. Elder Vindal effortlessly lifted Connor up into the air from his feet causing him to dangle upside down like a piñata.

But something wasn’t right about Vindal… he was… extremely buff.

He was still short, but his arms were so jacked that it was twice the size of his body.

His muscles were so muscular that even the muscles had muscles…

His eyes glowed with fury, and veins bulged in his arms with steam flowing out of his mouth as he spoke.

“What… are… you… doing?”