Stronk Dog-Dragon?!

Tentatively walking into the glowing cave, I was extremely surprised by how smooth the walls were. It looked like they were carved out and molded by a very experienced artist. Still, not everything was perfect. In some of the later patches of the tunnel, I saw little melting spots, which made me think that this was made by a creature that could breathe fire, or at least use it.

Changing back into my human form, in case the thing inside was intelligent enough to recognize different species, I brought out the mix of all the swords I Memorized in Argas's Armory. Practicing some swings, I picked up my pace, realizing that this cave might take a while to explore. Contrary to my expectations, after a couple of minutes of running down the grayish-black tunnel, it expanded into a cave about the size of Andromeda's Hoard.

"Wow, this place is huge! I wonder what kind of thing could have made such a space, especially inside of a mountain. Unless they could dematerialize literal rock, then I cannot imagine how diligent this creature could be. Well, if I wanted to be secluded, especially if my life depended on it, then this might have been something I would have done, no matter how long it would have taken."

If that should be the case, then it might be as hard to capture this beast as I originally thought. Actually, in the room, there were only a couple of things that caught my eye. First, there were many symbols all along the walls. I do not know why or how they got there, but most of all, I do not care. Anyways, the second thing I saw was a big mound of dust, around the size of a large horse. This was the Wraith, so I have to be careful on how to approach this.

sneaking towards the dust pile, I sent out a small crimson spear bomb directly into the center of it. As soon as it landed, the pile of dust tornadoes out into the air, dispersing to reveal a Japanese-looking Dragon, thin as a snake, crystal horns on its dog-like head, eyes the color of jade. With six legs, dragon-like, along its long and thin body, around fifteen meters long, the creature looked extremely regal and mythical, earning the name Crystal Wraith.

The extremely interesting thing that caught my attention was the way it moved. With its legs, one would assume that it does not fly, and crawls along the ground with the speed of a race car, if not faster. However, this thing can fly and uses it minimally so it can combine its ground movements as well as aerial movements, making it faster than a rocket, maybe more.

Another thing that also caught my attention was a little indentation in the ground, which looked like it could be fitted with some sort of key, like a round ball or something like that. This must be some kind of treasure or secret that this creature was put here to protect.

Speaking of the devil, it does not seem to have that much intelligence, so it was whipping around the cave, looking extremely epic. Preparing my stance for close-range combat, I waited for an opening in the Wraith's movements. There! Raising my sword and jumping directly in front of me, I found out the pattern that the beast does. It rebounds off of the wall, seeming random to most.

But what I noticed, as with the super zombie, is it has an aura that emanates from it whenever it has any malevolent intentions toward me, although more subtly. Seeing a bright blue glow, I raised my sword and sliced down, hitting the head of the Crystal Wraith directly. Although it was moving as fast as a lightning bolt, with twists and turns about the same, it would be almost impossible to watch it with your eyes. So, I just sensed it with my danger sense mixed with my ability to see the aura.

Maybe it sounds like lazy writing, but it is what it is. Anyways, upon smacking the hit out of this dog-dragon, I felt like I was hitting metal, one that I could not cut. Other than knocking the beast across the room, which shook when I came in contact with the Wraith, it was unhurt, and my sword has a dent in it. "Guess I'm just gonna have to do this bare-handed, which is much easier than swordsmanship, for me at least."

Putting away my sword, I put up my stance and covered my hands with crimson spears, and layered my hands with all of the different spores, except the ones that I need to keep my structure standing. With my fists looking like spiky wrecking balls, I sprang towards my opposition, meeting it in the air. Grabbing its snout, I flipped over its back and did a two-handed slam right in the spin, hearing a shatter of scales.

With a yelp from the Wraith, it slammed into the ground, cracking everything around it. Angling myself towards the monster that is currently trying to get itself out of the ground, I did a small Mana burst that sent me shooting towards it, like a meteor. Looking up, the small dragon needed to get out of the hole as fast as possible, lest it gets squashed like an ant under the heel of a human, not that it knew what either of those was.

Using a large chunk of its magic, the dragon was able to increase its flight magic by a large margin, if only for a few seconds. Turns out, that is all it needed to escape its impending doom. Soaring out of the hole, it barely managed to avoid my fists, which were still layered with Mana. sinking into the ground, weapons tearing through the rock like cheese wire through clay, if I held my body at a perfect vertical angle, I would have looked like a human flagpole.