Unexpected Reprisal

…

Zeugen's mouth corners expand. He felt victoriously over those humans he fought. But still, he reminisces the fight he just won, "I canst not believe nor accept ze fact 'zat those humans art indeed powerful. If mein Prinz know'eth 'tis, he will be displeased."

Suddenly, a tiny spark flashes from inside his armor. Zeugen can feel the electric shock focusing exactly at his very chest. He holds his chest, his eyes enlarges and shudders.

"V-Vat ist 'tis…?!" he can't understand what hit him. He believed one hundert percent that he won. The electrical shock expands into his internal body, tasing his life supporting organs.

"Rrrrgrrrrhhh!" Zeugen drops himself into the ground while holding the immense pain that invades his body out of nowhere. He tries to remember what could've hit him and he finally realized.

"Scheisse, zat thunder boy… rrrgh…!" he yells hoarsely. "He… managed to attack me with a lightning magic? Impossible." Zeugen thought. "No… Those humans wert not aware'th of mine Level 4 magic attack. They were pummeled far away by my magic, not even close to touch me."

Zeugen tries to think while holding the intensifying pain. "But how on earth…! Did he cast magic and still able to hit me…?!" Zeugen sustains his body with one arm on the ground. He groans in pain.

"I must kill zat boy… or else… or else I will be killed!" Zeugen forces his body to move. He proceeds to where the explorer could've landed, despite the tense pain he endures.

…

Meanwhile, Marco and Sean crash landed on an open field. Their body was horribly injured with burnt thanks to the deadly Steam Wave.

"Grrrr! It hurts so bad… yeah, great… just… great…!" Marco gripes in pain. "It feels like my skins are being torn apart… it burns even after his magic dissolves. Dammit… what's worse is that my stock of healing items is out of stock. Yeah… yeah, right, just great, man…" Marco thought to himself.

"Luckily… though… if my last blow of energy to him succeeds… he will come find us." Marco grins in thinking. "If not… heheh… I pray that Scias and the others would come to our aid."

"Sean… I hope you're okay, man."

It doesn't take long for Marco to realize that his plan actually succeeded. Zeugen emerged from the woods with his right hand holding his chest harshly. His walking movements are unstable. He's holding severe pain on his body, though no blood or visible physical injuries can be found in the external parts.

"Scheissen… what hast thou done to mine body, human?" said Zeugen roughly as he closes in. Marco looked at him. He then backlashes with a grin, making the Dragonian irritated.

"Oi… Steam Dragon… do you know a quite famous quote?

…If I'm going down… you're coming with me." Marco discloses huskily.

…

…

Meanwhile, in the far eastern part of the forest…

Scias, Nina and Aily are battling the demon general, Dantalion. Even when the sun's rising above the horizon, they still endure the fight.

"Gah… hah…" Aily let out an exhausting breath. "Stand back, Aily." Nina yelled with her cane aimed at the demon. Scias, on the other hand, clashes with the demon, who countered with demonic claws. Scias managed to corner the demon general with his extremely skillful sword art.

"Interesting play, humans… for so long I've never enjoyed such fight like this. But as you see… the sun's has risen. This forest is now visible to both yours and mine eyes." The demon explained. Dantalion spreads wings widely and flies into the sky.

"…I wanted to prolong this fight until I satisfy myself because I was holding myself all this time."

"What?!" Scias retorted in surprise. "You don't know, human? Ah, you're from that other world. You should've asked those two princesses. I am far more powerful than this. This fight is uh… a child's play."

"Nina, Aily, tell me he's bluffing." Scias quickly called. "…"

"Nina, Aily!" Scias turns his gaze into the two. They also looked at Scias. "Scias… Dantalion is…"

"He's not lying… probably." Nina discloses with her eyes turned to the ground.

"Bwahahahahahahahaha! See what I meant? You might think you're winning, but you're just wasting your time. I changed my mind of devouring you humans… because I have better things to do, tee-kee-hee-heehe," said Dantalion grinning menacingly.

"Look," the demon looks up into the sky, followed by Scias and the rest. "The barrier… is shattering apart. It appears your other friends really did their job well. The mist has dissolved, too. Which means: I have no further reason to be in this undead forest."

The half skull demon, flying midair, now expands wings to fly farther into the sky. "For now, I should thank you humans, for playing as my toys. It is a boredom to be stuck in that forest. Moreover I cannot challenge those pesky dragons."

Dantalion flies farther while keeping his sights onto the three humans, "Also one more thing. Those blasts of magic to the far west were no little play. They're possibly Level 4 magic attack… possibly caused by that dragon. Better go to your friends for I truly wasn't lying about the existence of 'two dragons' in this forest, better quick, or else they'll die. gyahahahahahahahahaha!"

Dantalion flies past the dissolving barrier and then casts a big magic circle and teleports into the unknown.

"That demon… tsk!" Scias gashes out. "Let's go to those two. We might still be able to catch up with them!"

The twins looked grim, but they nod to Scias. With that, they headed to the west, where Marco and Sean were most likely battling against the dragon.

…

…

Zeugen kisses the ground as he falls. The electric shock still maintains in his body, specifically, his heart. It's just a few meters between him and the lightning elementalist, Marco. Soon, he can breaths a slight relief that the electric shock thinned out. Zeugen lifts his head and looked at the explorer.

"Art thou… freeing me?" Zeugen asked hoarsely. "The heck's with wanting to let you go, dammit. I'm… out of mana energy."

"Oh. Foolish old me." Zeugen mutters. He then thoughts about the human's intention, what was that again, he wondered. That's right, it was Marco's intention to defeat him out of anger, using methods unthinkable by the Dragonian, making him an impossible foe for Zeugen to defeat.

But if he thinks about it again, why don't the human forces all he had at him until the point that his opponent dies? Zeugen might be dumb, but when there's something bothering him, he wanted to know so badly.

"Thou want to defeat me, yet zee surrendered to your depletion of mana energy."

"Heh… you Dragonians were a mess in my eyes. You guys killed many of my friends, my dad, my mom… I had a terrible hate to you guys. I wanted to decimate you all," said Marco clearly. It sounds scary to Zeugen himself.

"…But I had a promise to hold. I mustn't die."

"Naïve."

"Say what you want. I can still kill you here with my last ounce of life energy."

"Then do it."

"I won't."

Zeugen can't understand the human. He stated clearly he wants to destroy Dragonians, but he refused to do it now because of a promise to partake. "What kind of promise 'tis human hath made until he refused to give up his life on killing a collapsed opponent?" Zeugen wonders.

"I won't kill you. It's because…" Marco's eyes suddenly rolls to the other side, "I still have HIM!"

Zeugen was surprised. His heart throbs as he spots the Holy Elementalist stands firm with five Holy Spears floating above him. "Good thing you disabled that retarded dragon, Marco…" he said hardly.

"T-Those spears… if they hit me, then it is most likely I won't survive! In this state, I couldn't dodge them all… grrrr!"

Beforehand, Marco hatched a quick but risky planning to defeat Zeugen. When knowing the dragon's casting a Level 4 magic, he quickly decided that he must be able to knock him out cold first before slaying him. As the Steam Wave blasts away, Marco managed to jolt Zeugen a new magic he was developing back in Areda.

It allows him to create an electrocution from a very far distance. Luckily, his magic landed right on Zeugen's skin instead of his armor, allowing him to make a much deadlier damage.

His intention was solid clear: to drag Zeugen into killing him, while silently tells Sean through Contact spell to destroy Zeugen once and for all.

"I gotta say, Marco… you're a hellishly crazy assed explorer!" after his last word, the spears dispatched right into the unfortunate Dragonian.

"SCHEISSEN!" Zeugen shrieks, knowing that he will die.

…But an unexpected turns of events rose. Marco was shocked and so does Sean. They suddenly feel an extreme change of temperature on the ground within seconds. Their breaths can be seen by eyes, their body shivers. The temperature has dropped down below zero.

The spears that were launched in high speed got deflected by a risen shield of frozen crystals around Zeugen. "I-Ice… elementalist…?!" said Sean in the distance.

Marco tried to get up. The sudden change in temperature does pack a painful experience to his skin surface. But he doesn't want to die frozen. He shifts his sights onto the crystals of ice, as if the season turned into winter in sudden. Slowly shifting his eyes upwards into the top of the ice shield, his jaw drops.

A man with the same horns as Zeugen appeared and stood firm looking down on him from the top. "Another… Dragonian…?!"

Sean kneels down. He realizes that neither he nor Marco could defeat Zeugen. Another Dragonian comes to aid him, he thought. Obviously, there's no other way they can beat him.

The Ice Dragon, Taizun Icema emerges!