Where once there were twenty, now there were fifteen, and soon enough there would be even fewer. As the collections of bones flew around them, scratching at the Forest Dragons with a suicidal fervor, they would constantly get too close and open themselves up for a retaliatory strike. And, as you might expect, their attack patterns were now well-known by the survivors, though some had more issues with them than others.

Those who had suffered wounds as Pluton had blitzed those unfortunate four who now were ‘filling’ his gullet were weaker by far, though even those unscathed by Pluton’s wrath were getting tired. The constant tension and stress, along with the endless annoyance that was the chimeric flying skeletons, had worn out even the most enduring of them, and some of them were now feeling very lightheaded as their blood continued to drain from wounds that they could not find the time to close.

As hopeless as this all seemed, another force arrived to join the battle, and this force was not on Pluton’s side. Perhaps sensing the growing corruption or maybe having sensed the flagging resolve of the Forest Dragons, someone had sent a number of giant birds to aid the Arcfiran dragons. And, in a move that was both insanely risky and insanely stupid, these oversized birds of prey bore Elven archers on their backs, harnessed to their mounts by straps and ropes.

A hail of accurate archer fire saw the flying bone chimeras whittled down enough that the wounded could use their magic to either close their wounds of regenerate from the damage taken, al while their fellows and the newcomers dealt with the threat at hand. Unfortunately for the Arcfirans, the cavalry had arrived too late to stop Pluton from devouring the four fallen dragons, souls and all.

Pluton was, though, on the ground, which gave all those in the air the chance to rain fire down upon him with impunity. Arrows bounced harmlessly off his increasingly durable scales while the caustic breath of the fifteen surviving Arcfiran Dragons did an equally insignificant amount of damage. Pluton ignored the attacks and spewed out an even more massive cloud of black and purple fog that spread to encompass an even larger area before settling into the ground and raising even more undead.

These new undead never got the chance to fully form, though, as a withering torrent of arrows and dragon’s breath reduced their numbers to nothing in no time. Pluton, though, had figured that such a turn of events would happen, the rough experience of the fallen adding to his own and giving him even more insight into his current issue. Besides, the undead that he kept forming were nothing more than meat shields and bullet sponges, or rather, bone shields and arrow/ breath sponges.

More undead rose from the ground even as more arrows and breath attacks wiped them out, ad while that happened Pluton took flight once again and gained altitude. He now had the mental processing power to simultaneously cast spells while also moving rapidly and charging/ using his own breath weapon, and as such he no longer needed the element of surprise to take down multiple targets at once.

Likewise, his body had become more resilient than ever before, meaning anything less than a full-force direct hit to a weaker section of his body would be enough to do anything more than scratch the luster from his scales. He could now fight this battle as he had initially wanted to, using his sheer power to break his foes, one physical and/ or psychological level at a time. He stopped using his power to raise the dead, letting the last volley from elf and dragon alike condemn his pawns to a long dirt nap, and instead surged forward towards the gathering of elves, birds, and flying reptiles while letting fly multiple identical spells.

He wasn’t going to use anything fancy this early on, just popping out a multicast of the most generic yet unerringly accurate ranged attack spell to ever be known by the magical community. In the air around him, twenty individual clumps of three roughly fist-sized teardrop-shaped magical projectiles each formed before shooting off towards their targets.

[Magic Missile] was the generic, entry-level ranged attack spell to beat all generic entry-level ranged attack spells, functioning almost exactly the same as it did in some other realities. It was an old, but very reliable classic that could not miss and would always do at least some damage to the target, pursuing them to the ends of creation and beyond once it had locked on and would not stop its pursuit until it inevitably made contact with its mark.

It would have been a waste to use it on the dragons, so Pluton sent these spiraling attacks at the hawk riders, and even though they tried to run, the spell eventually hit home and sent exactly seventeen of the roughly forty oversized predatory birds to the ground along with their hapless riders. Of those three who were hit but survived, only one of them was in any shape to keep up the fight, while the other two quickly lost their lives as the broken bones and ruptured blood vessels and organs inside their bodies caused them to fall into unconsciousness and drop to their death.

Where once were fifty-five foes, there were now thirty-six, and Pluton was just getting started. He could wait for now and go eat the fallen birds and their riders a bit later. For now, though, he wanted to test his new power against these pests. He would take them down, either one by one or in groups at the same time. This was all for his ambition, and they would act as a means to bring his ambition into reality once again.

He was created to serve as Kain’s mount, and as of late Kain had not required him to fulfill that role. This was unacceptable, and obviously had something to do with him not being strong enough. He would use the meat, bones, and souls of these creatures to increase his own power, and through that, he would retake the position that he had lost.

He would, however, spare some of them from a trip to his stomach. After all, if there was one thing Pluton shared with his master it was a taste for good food, and he doubted that Kain had ever tasted dragon meat, let alone oversized bird meat. He had heard that there existed a chain of restaurants that now served specially prepared bird meat that had been fried in oil. Maybe the way to get into Kain’s good graces was not merely through power, but through his stomach?