Slimes & Magic

37. Going up against a dragon

"*WHAT THE HELL!?!*" Carl shouts among the screams and shouts of the other people present. Of all things, a dragon has appeared on the battlefield. It came crawling out of where the emperor should have been, even having the same magic signature that Alex had detected being the emperor earlier.|
"***What the heck happened?***"
"[It is most likely that the emperor was actually a dragon to begin with, and was hiding this fact.]" the sage surmises.
"*Alright guys, it looks like this thing wants to fight. I think I've got the best chance at fighting this guy, so you guys try to distract as many of the guard here ok?*" Alex says to the others, pulling together all the courage they can muster.
"*...!?!...*" the others are all surprised by Alex's statement, but really they all realize that they don't stand a chance against something as powerful as a dragon.
"*Please be careful Alex.*" May says, hugging Alex's snout and giving them a kiss on the nose.
"*Beat up the bastard!*" Carl encourages Alex with a wide grin.
"*You bet!*" Alex responds and quickly rushes over to the dragon, which towers over them being at least twice as tall as Alex at full size. Black scales covering its entire body with a glint of crimson, large horns coming out the back of its head, looking overall incredibly menacing.

Alex stands to face off against the dragon, the campsite around them trampled by the dragon. The dragon looks at Alex, then turns to look at the battle waging below them. Turning back to Alex, it opens its jaws and spews out a hot stream of fire before taking off. Alex is able to dodge the extremely hot fire using their dash skill, barely jumping out of the way on time. "***Oh no you don't!***" Alex turns in to a falcon and activates super speed to fly right in front of the dragons path, cutting it off. The dragon roars in anger as they face off against Alex in the sky, firing another beam of fire. Alex once again dodges to the side, and takes out a large gemstone from their stomach, holding it in their claws. Over the past month, Alex had been collecting almost every last drop of magic that they had left over in the evenings and storing it all inside this one gem. The idea was that they would be able to access this magic in case of an extreme emergency, which this definitely classifies as one. Drawing their magic power directly from the gemstone Alex activates a supersized version of the Frozen storm skill they had come up with before. Several massive funnels of wind and ice shards formed, reaching from the ground up in to the sky, gathering the clouds and all swirling towards the dragon. The extreme winds drag in anything and everything that isn't strong enough to remain on the ground. Luckily Alex and the dragon are only halfway between the empire camp and the actual army fighting, meaning there isn't anyone of importance in the nearby area. In the middle of the storm Alex has to use their Air manipulation skill on themselves as well, in order to avoid being dragged in. Even the dragon is showing signs of struggling against the howling winds as Alex directs the funnels towards it. Unfortunately the ice shards that the storm is hurling around don't seem to be doing any real damage to the dragon, merely annoying it. Suddenly, the air around the dragon seems to shimmer, clearly heating up as all the ice is promptly melting.

Deciding that the best course of action is to try and ground the dragon, Alex has to get close enough to the dragon to actually be able to do damage without it dodging it. The intense heat that the dragon is emitting is definitely a problem in Alex's mind, it definitely won't be bearable in a drawn out fight. Releasing the now ineffective frozen storm Alex replaces it with a cooled breeze around themselves, using a bit of ice magic in combination with their air manipulation skill, basically forming a barrier of cold air around themselves. With this, Alex deems it safe enough to approach the dragon to try and land a proper attack on its wings. Of course, the dragon wouldn't just let Alex get close just like that, firing off fire breath one after another sending fireballs after Alex, twisting and turning trying to hit them. To avoid them all Alex uses a combination of superspeed and dash, to quickly get out of the way and change positions around the thrashing dragon. Their heat shield seems to be doing an effective job, though it does continually drain magic while fighting against the heat, so it won't be lasting all that long. To attack the dragon, getting close enough to slash at it with their beak and claws would put Alex in danger of getting bitten by those razor sharp teeth. Their only option was to use magic from a distance. Ice magic would clearly be pointless as it would all melt before it could do any damage. Fire magic seems equally useless against a dragon that seems to have full control over fire and heat. Earth magic looks like its the only feasible course of action. So, as Alex speeds around the dragon, whenever they stop before the dragon can turn back to them they fire off a large earth spike. Trying to hit the dragons wings enough to force it down on to the ground appears to be difficult enough of a task. Only around half of Alex's shots actually hit and injure the wings, all the other ones are either dodged by the dragon or swatter away with its legs and tail, clearly being sturdy enough. Any of the stone spikes that would hit the dragons body pretty much bounced off its hard scales, barely leaving a scratch.