Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

Clearly, the half-dragon was having a bizarre fit.

Theodore looked up, his eyeballs reflecting the beast’s golden core that was akin to the sun. Scorching fire elementals surged around him, and the Gold-tier mage suddenly forgot to breathe. If it wasn’t for Mount Nissia and his own elemental protection, the brown-haired mage would have been dealt severe injuries from the boiling air.

But even that was just foreplay. The real attack was coming at the sound of another furious draconic roar—in the blink of an eye, a blinding golden flash appeared at the snowy mountain lake, consuming everything.

Along with a prickling buzzing noise, a pillar of scorching light swept across the land and drew a curve across the ground. It raised a series of detonations that warded off the freezing cold of the foot of the mountain, spreading heat that was above hundreds of degrees Celsius and razed the thickets by the lake.

As the dust settled, there were no clumps of snow or trees. All that was left were black fields of ashes.

Not a single weed was left alive within a hundred meters. Such was the power from a single dragon breath!

In the middle of the black ashes, a milky-white air bubble whirled slowly. It was starting to fade and barely kept together, but it still blocked Black’s attack perfectly.

“Lucky for me, I’ve played with many dragons.” He gulped. “I have just that tiny shred of experience against dragon breath.”

Theodore stood in the middle of the bubble, his hands holding up the two silver steel boxes that contained the dragon eggs. In front of his chest was a magic tome with black leather covers and golden runes.

Still, the brown-haired mage knew that he had really enraged it. He had thought of Black as almost human and a peaceful existence that might even lend a hand to his cause! It was a huge mistake for him to forget that a dragon ultimately was a dragon, and its worldview was different from humans…

Shaking his head regretfully, Theodore reflected that he had gotten ahead of himself. To get an unmarried female dragon to incubate dragon eggs was his dream for years, but it was also such a terrible idea and one that blurred his eyes!

But now was not the time for regrets. Theodore still had a furious dragon he needed to face.

Black was not wasting time either. Its dim-gold reptilian gaze glinted with plasma; it was further incensed when it saw that the brown-haired mage unscathed by its attack. It moved forward and out of the frozen lake, displaying its enormous body.

Now, Black’s length alone exceeded twenty meters—and there was still part of its tail submerged within the pool. Its height was closer to twenty meters, which was about twice the size it was when it existed within Illgner. Along with its threatening appearance and its bony spikes, it was nothing other than a killing machine that moves.

Aiming down at the vigilant Theodore, Black took a deep breath, and the core in its chest glowed again.

Seeing that the dragon was preparing another attack, the brown-haired mage did not hesitate in activating his magic. His magical tome sparkled, and with the support of wind elementals his silhouette vanished instantly.

Theodore’s quick reflexes also helped. In a split second, a streak of intense golden flame blew out from Black’s chest. This was not the pillar of fire before either—it was a screen of inferno that was tenths of meters wide, blanketing where Theodore once stood.

Instead, it struck the ground thunderously, blowing out a huge dent that was three-meters deep.

“Wow. I guess it really wants me dead!” The mage exclaimed as he materialized on the other side of the lake, his head numbing instantly.

It was then that he noticed alarmingly that the half-dragon had already prepared a third shot. Having no choice, he quickly raised that milky-white shield.

There was no doubt that Theodore had many ways to counter Black’s attacks. Whether it was through the Elements of Dominance or the Boundary of Refracted Light, he would not be simply dodging and blocking attacks—he was a Gold-tier mage, after all. But with the dragon eggs in his hand and his reluctance to hurt Black—not that he could anyway—he was thus forced into this difficult situation.

Meanwhile, Black, too, was not using its full-power either. Since it has improved and acquired near-human intellect, it understood that the man before him had merely misspoken. Since he was an instructor at Winter Fort Academy, its master would never permit it to kill him either.

That being said, its fury was telling it to teach him a lesson. Other instructors from the academy would naturally come to stop this fight, which in turn would make the man lose face.

–Anything’s fine as long as there’s no killing.

With that, Black unleashed its third flame attack.

In an instant, a sulfuric dry wind blew beneath the foot of the icy mountain. The pine trees standing by the lake were scorched, their bark blackened. Tens of little red lances of light followed the wind and stabbed with vicious sharpness on Theodore’s shield of light.

As if existing physically, the lances did not quickly dissipate, and exploded like blooming red lotuses after a few seconds of delay. The brown-haired mage did not have time to catch his breath before noticing that his shield was being shattered by the concentrated explosions. Without hesitating, he dematerialized and quickly left the physical realm with another spell from his tome.

As the battle beneath the summit raged, the academy had rung the emergency bell as if preparing for an enemy attack. Security personnel and deans quickly led students who were playing around outside to hide within the academy.

Two Gold-tier mages had also rushed out of the institution to see what was going on—and soon found the duel between Black and Theodore.

“Hmm… Why would Theodore fight against the Count’s dragon?” Sophia, the witch teaching elemental manipulation muttered. “Weren’t they quite close too? And I even remembered him fetching some snow prawns around the Lost Sea, so how…”

“Must be Drake’s brain going haywire again. You know,” Dier, the instructor of runes who had a bright-red rune on his forehead, grunted. “That idiot has been looking for all sorts of trouble with every variety of dragon. Our teacher had to keep picking up his mess—now that he pissed Black off, let’s see who would save his butt this time.”

These instructors were students of Nostradamus too. Both of them, along with Theodore himself, were long acquaintances and shared quite the intimate relationship. This was quite evident since both were moving to stop the bizarre fight even after Dier’s sarcastic jibe.

Before they could leave, however, a deep masculine voice rang behind them.

“What on earth. Why is there fighting beneath the mountain?”

There had been no premonition for the voice. Whether it was Dier’s runes of vigilance or the elementals that Sophia surrounded herself with, none of their magic hinted at the presence of someone standing behind them.

Both turned carefully behind.

A huge black-haired man with red eyes was frowning at the booming echoes of fireballs. Noticing that both of them were not replying, he looked up and asked again, “What? You two don’t know either?”

His voice brought the pair back to consciousness, who appeared to have frozen. Unbeknownst to themselves, shadows of the four great elemental elves had appeared around the witch, while a semi-transparent shield formed with red runes had formed in front of the rune mage.

The pair had also retreated some twenty meters and was at once battle-ready. It was then that they finally reacted and realized who was it who stood in front of them.

“My Liege….”

Awkwardly canceling the elemental holograms, Sophia did not know how to react. Beside her, Dier too had the same troubled expression as he canceled his own shield of sanguine runes.

Somehow, they felt that they were seeing a gigantic prehistoric beast whenever they fix their gaze on Joshua. They felt an incredible pressure whether it was their body or mind—a foreboding sensation of impending death darting around in their minds. It was until the warrior spoke that they were released from that fear, and subconsciously prepared their defensive measures.

“Nothing.”

Joshua shook his head; he had long gotten used to others being uncomfortable by his very presence. “Who is Black fighting?” He asked crisply. “How did the fight start?”

Faking a cough, Dier went up to Joshua. “It’s the academy’s biological and transfiguration instructor, Theodore Drake,” he explained, but since he did not know much about what was happening, he was quite brief.

“That’s extraordinary. Black was quite friendly with him, so why would they fight?”

Obviously, the warrior did not understand it too. He had just come out of a teleportation circle when he sensed the battle immediately, and came rushing here before Ling and Ying knew what was happening.

Joshua knew Theodore too. The lecturer was one of those stoic middle-aged mage who seems unsociable, but was actually affectionate and did take care of his students.

Because of his own tutelage, the brown-haired mage had always studied dragons and hence assumed the responsibility of feeding and watching over Black. Theodore was especially ecstatic with this side-job too—and had never made a mistake.

—Perhaps it’s something to do with the dragon eggs, then.

Remembering the urgent letter from the academy, Joshua suddenly felt that he had found the source of this uproar.

“So troublesome.” He sighed.

It was fortunate that he was rather relaxed lately after the Illgner incident, while the mages of the Imperial City were examining the plague. The draconic issue in the far south was still continuing, but that had less to do with a warrior up north.

In short, he had the time to solve all sorts of issues in his own domain.

Suddenly, another explosion sounded from beneath the mountain. They could feel the tremors even at the half-summit, while many stones and glaciers started bouncing. Shaking his head, the warrior headed below.

Sophia and Dier wanted to follow him, but he was already gone in the blink of an eye, leaving howling winds that pinned them where they were. When they opened their eyes again, all that was left was a stretching passageway that penetrated boulders and swept through forests, leaving a track that resembled a scar.

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