Threat Level "Dragon" (2/2)

All while this destructive force is knocking on his gates, the new warden watches from his tower, gripping the railing of his balcony anxiously. 'Can the gate even hold that thing back?'

A second later, Dakka head butts the gate once, and it crashes to the ground. 'Nope,' the warden finishes.

Sighing, he starts issuing orders to the guards while he thinks of a strategy to deal with the monster.

With that dragon's strength, it looks like winning is only possible if they manage to wear its strength out. Once it has no more mana in its body, the mana cannons will finally be able to break apart the beast's scales and kill it.

Looking over the battlefield, the warden sees the fortress and thinks about how best to use it.

The surface fortress protecting the Pit is a few miles long. It was originally built that long because each building has a teleportation circle linked to a different part of the world. This way, they can resupply more easily without depending on one place. Plus, each teleport circle also links to a different part in the prison; that way, the more dangerous prisoners can go directly to their cells without risking damage to the fortress.

Once the Pit began to gain in popularity among those in power, they amassed a lot of wealth. With this huge wealth, they built up a sprawling, mostly self-automated fortress on the surface.

Seeing that the invasive dragon has a few miles full of walls, mana cannons, and golems, the warden will lose most of its mana in this attack.

Smiling now that he thinks about it, the Pit also goes a few miles deep. If the dragon doesn't know about the Pit's depth, then most of the Vanteri Family's assets will be kept safe, and rebuilding won't be TOO much of an issue.

However, if the dragon DOES know about the underground, then it'll have many thousands of feet of granite and bedrock to dig through. Digging through that much stone will shave off even more of its energy. Even more, Dakka won't have enough mana to defeat the security measures down there by the time he gets there.

'It'll be costly, but victory is certainly within reach,' the warden thinks.

Still, the warden winces every time he sees the dragon flick its tail and knock over another tower or crush another storage house beneath its feet. Even more annoying is the sight of that the happy laughter the beast is bellowing out.

---------------------

As Dakka continues to destroy the fortress, his heart can't help but quiver in joy. What he's doing right now brings back so many fond memories of his childhood that he can't help but shed a tear.

When the young dragon was a child, he remembers getting massive toy sets with his brothers from his grandfather. They'd spend weeks building massive metropolises. They'd even get little toy figurines of humans that were enchanted to move on their own – mostly by randomly going in and out between the huge, towering buildings as if they were living normal lives - to stimulate a real city telling teeming with life.

The dragon children also had small building blocks they'd construct huge walls out of – all high enough to reach their shoulders. They'd put little toy mana cannons atop the walls that sprayed water at the children when they got too close.

…Of course, that's what the toy cannons were supposed to do. Some of Dakka's elder brothers modified the enchantments on them to make them spew fire instead.

The more creative these kids got with the "defensive enchantments" on the walls, the more legitimately dangerous they'd become. Sometimes, the children would give each other broken bones and knock each other around with their toy fortresses, but that was just part of the fun.

Once they'd finished their long construction product, the bored little boys would assume their humanoid forms, then stomp around their little cities like they were giant monsters bent on destruction.

The little "citizen" golems they made were even enchanted to run away from their stomping and make cute little screaming noises. The "human toys" came like that, so smashing them up seemed to be the intended feature.

…Well, this WAS a toy for a dragon child…

Dakka and his brothers would spend years on end, making and destroying fortress after fortress.

As a child, Dakka always looked forward to growing up and being an adult. So, he ran away from home and struck out on his own. He was the smallest among his elder brothers who'd already moved out, and they all treated him like a runt (jokingly, of course).

'Now,' Dakka looks at himself briefly and thinks with emotion, 'I'm a 4-horned dragon now. I'm as big as dad now. I'm a MAN now!'

He looks around at the city he's stomping around in and sighs heavily, 'Why do I feel so sad and happy at the same time when I recall those old memories?'

Dakka crushes another tower with his wing and holds back a lonely tear, 'Even though I'm smashing up a toy city, just like before… I'm doing it all by myself now…'

As he thinks this, his enthusiasm for mayhem wanes. 'What's the point of play wrecking when my brothers aren't here to do it with me…?'

Dakka's previously jolly mood turns sullen, and he immediately stops his wanton destruction on the fortress. 'That's, right'" he thinks, 'I'm an adult now. Real men are supposed to be reliable.'

He looks towards the central tower, where he feels the greatest mana fluctuation. 'The goddess told me to get the one called 'Haalfrin' out of his spatial barrier so he can fight me to the death. She said the power source to such a barrier is in this "warden's" tower.'

---------------------

Seeing the dragon gradually slow down its destruction and get a weary look on its face, the Warden nearly leaps for joy. He lets his officers down below know through the far speak medallions, "Keep pointing those cannons at the dragon! It's slowing down, so we've almost won!"

In reality, Dakka was still in the midst of losing his enthusiasm for the battle. Their constant attack on the beast certainly is draining him, but not THAT much.

Just when the remaining fortress defenders have their morale high, that morale crashes back down and burns to ashes once again when the beast turns its head towards the Warden's tower and opens its wings wide.

The green and brown striped beast uses its wings like giant arms and reaches all the way up to the top of the wall it's standing next to. Then, it lifts itself up and stands with its neck erect, studying the fortress for a moment.

Then, it flaps its wings a few times, lifts off the ground, and it flies towards the warden's tower. The beast flicks its tail, which causes a massive burst of energy behind it – propelling the scaled creature through the air at incredible speeds.

In his final moments before the collision, the warden looks up and prays to the god of Longevity that his tower enchantments will be enough to save him long enough for him to escape. The enchantments on this tower are many times stronger than Kalastros's tower, so you'd think this isn't a farfetched wish.

However, with one loud crash, the warden's tower topples to the ground, and the man inside is instantly pulverized.

Dakka looks down with his mana-sensitive eyes, and he feels the circulation of mana change throughout the underground. Some defensive enchantments keep firing at him, while others seem to switch off.

...All because the warden's tower was knocked down.

"Since the goddess must always be right," Dakka mutters in his own language, "then the spatial barrier trapping her sacrifice must be down now."