Chapter 24. Dragon King Mountain Range

After leaving Wyvern, Mordred and Hector continued flying straight north.

Using Magic Power expulsion to assist in his movements was a completely natural talent for him, so adapting it to use in flight was not difficult.

Once Gravity Magic made him and the speeder weightless, it didn't cost him much energy to make them move.

Using Gravity Magic to create a Gravity Zone was also not expensive at all in comparison to strengthening gravity ten times or more.

It was only the Mana Burst propulsion that was costly. Because it was the most reliable and precise method of flight, but was costly, Mordred planned to use it for launch, landing and to change directions, but for long-distance travel he utilized Wind Magic shockwaves instead.

In fact, he only needed to propel them once and they would continue flying at a similar speed for a long while because the only force acting against them was wind friction. There was no gravity or physical friction slowing them down like in the case of a car.

From time to time, Mordred used the Intermediate rank spell Sonic Boom behind them, sending out a burst of air to make them accelerate once again at a low cost.

An hour later, a mountain range stretching into infinity became visible below them.

Holding on tightly, Hector commented in amazement. "How is that possible? We've already reached the Dragon King Mountain Range? We covered two weeks of journey in less than an hour?"

Mordred faintly smiled and replied, "Let's keep on going! My goal is to make a stop at the Dragon Emperor Peak!"

"Dragon Emperor Peak?"

The Dragon Emperor Peak was the biggest mountain of the Dragon King Mountain Range where the Emperor Dragon Kajakut once lived.

Mordred wanted to make a stop in that place for two reasons – the first was to practice some of his mass-scale Saint and King Magic in a remote location to learn to do them silently and the second was because he wanted to slay some dragons!

"By the way, something smells," said Mordred as he scrunched his nose.

They were kilometers above the ground. How could it smell there?

[It… It was me…] Albion slowly revealed his big head from the magic pouch as he confessed.

Gradually, Mordred's expression turned more and more dark. He finally said, "No way! You peed into the bag?!"

[So-sorry… It shook too much. I was scared!]

"No way! You peed all over my gold! All my gold and my magic bag is now going to stink!"

[...]

Albion was very smug when he learned that he got to lay on a stack of gold during travel, but now he peed all over it!

"Daamn it!!!"

Soon after, Mordred decided to make a brief stop. He gradually restored gravity and the speeder began to descend to the ground.

After landing, he created a bath using Magic, took out Albion from his bag, poured out all the gold coins and magic crystals and washed them in hot water, later putting some perfume onto them.

As for the bag, he was reluctant at first, but he still washed it. After all, just washing it in some water wouldn't remove its magic.

Thinking of his little dragon partner, it felt as if he was really raising a child.

Hector commented, "I never thought that in my late years I would get to fly through the sky… And also witness a dragon peeing itself from fright."

After this short interlude, Mordred resumed flying north on top of the speeder.

2 hours later…

A huge mountain that was much taller and broader than others, piercing into the cloud, appeared before their eyes.

"It must be the Dragon Emperor Peak!" said Hector. "When traveling with a caravan, it can take upwards of two months of journey to reach this point!"

"Mhm."

Mordred didn't fly quickly to conserve his Mana, because he wasn't much in a hurry and wasn't an experienced pilot. Even then, his average 'not quickly' speed was probably around half of Mach speed, or 600 km/h.

Flying in a straight line through the air, they could cover large distances very quickly.

Mordred thought, 'It is said that once an intruder appears in the dragons' territory, they would immediately detect it and swarm him together. For now, I'm probably too high, but If I try to land, there will be a chaotic fight…'

Thinking of this, he unbuckled the pouch on his belt and passed it to Hector. "Teacher, you keep Albion!"

Hector received the pouch. That's when he realized what Mordred was planning. He said, "If we try to go down right here, we might get swarmed by a dozen or two dozen King Dragons! They might also interfere with your Gravity Magic. Are you sure about this, Your Highness?"

"... I'm sure!"

As Mordred lowered the altitude, a few yellow-scaled dragons began to fly up to surround them.

They could not effectively fight those in the air, so he didn't slow down his descent because he had to reach the ground first.

"We have to descend faster! Hang on tight!"

With the Zero Gravity zone gone, the speeder began to fall down and forward faster and faster.

The dragons continued appearing, but they were not fast enough in their flight to stop the speeder in any way.

Close to reaching the ground, Mordred reversed gravity again and used Magic Power to slow down their descent.

Mordred and Hector leaped out of their seats.

Mordred immediately pointed both his hands up and began to carefully create two Stone Cannon bullets.

In the air, truck-sized dragons with slightly dirty yellow scales gradually loomed closer from various directions in groups of twos and threes.

First, a pair of two came fairly close, but still remained floating in the air.

The two opened their dragon mouths and a red light appeared within.

"Dragon breath!" Hector commented in warning.

'Hn.' Mordred nodded inwardly. He knew that the dragons won't come down unless necessary.

King Dragons' Inherent Magic was Gravity Magic. They are the largest and strongest of all dragons.

Although in terms of group strength they cannot match the Red Dragons who attack in hordes of hundreds, in a fight of individuals, they reign supreme.

Having huge bodies compared to other dragons, they utilize intricate Gravity Magic to make their seemingly sluggish bodies jump, fly and leap with ease.

But apart from that, like most dragons, they also have a fire breath.

As the two dragons began to prepare their fire breath, he began to inject Magic Power into his stone cannons using Mana Burst.

Crackle, crackle…

Within a second, the two spells were ready.

Boom!

With an explosion of red lightning and a bang, the two railgun projectiles shot out before the dragons released their breath.

In an instant, the skulls of the two yellow dragons were pierced.

A moment later, the two giant dragons began to crash down as if taken down by a laser.

Mordred quickly began to prepare two more stone bullets.

From another direction in the distance approached three new King Dragons.

After coming close enough, the trio also began to prepare their fire breath first in unison.

Bang!

Mordred shot out his prepared spell, sniping down two of the dragons.

Meanwhile, the third dragon continued gathering its energy as if inhaling large amounts of air.

His actions already calculated, Mordred pulled out Ascalon from behind his lower back with his right hand while stretching out his left hand and trying to disrupt the dragon.

Disturb Magic.

Unfortunately, he soon discovered that he couldn't disrupt neither the King Dragon's Gravity Magic nor its fire breath.

Soon enough, a wide jet of flames began to spread out from the King Dragon's mouth.

"Your Highness!" Hector called out.

"Tsk." Mordred clicked his tongue as he tightly covered his body in red Magic Power.

Traveling at a relatively slow speed, the flames soon fully engulfed him alone.

The fire breath continued for several seconds, before the flames faded and Mordred's figure was revealed – unharmed.

"Craaaaa!" The yellow dragon let out a roar, then began to descend to the ground.

Seeing it, Mordred temporarily ignored that dragon.

He looked toward the sky in another direction. Locating three more dragons, he began to create a single Stone Cannon.

A second later, he released it with a bang, piercing through a distant dragon's chest.

After that, he readied a Lightning Arrow, which he found easier to do while splitting his attention.

Boom!

A red arrow of lightning shot through the sky, burning out a huge wound in another dragon's torso.

In the meantime, the previous dragon landed on the ground nearby.

Mordred saw it and grinned.

Gripping his sword tighter, he rushed out from the spot, beginning to charge right at the giant yellow dragon at a high speed, relying purely on his Battle Aura.

The Dragon saw it and let out a roar. As the intruder approached him so rapidly, the dragon's yellow needle-like eyes widened.

This little bug was too quick!

When Mordred arrived in front of the dragon, the monster slammed down with its front claws. However, it seemed to be a blind and random attack done in a hurry due to Mordred's overwhelming speed.

Mordred easily avoided it, then suddenly leaped up two meters into the air and slashed out with his sword while doing a somersault in the air, decapitating the beast in one strike.

After landing, he charged another Railgun, and sniped down yet another yellow dragon.

The other dragons seemed to have realized that hovering in the air was a death sentence, so the two previously wounded dragons immediately began to descend to the ground.

Mordred chuckled and waited. After that, he plunged straight at them with a sword in hand.

Following that, he blitzed and danced around the battlefield, slaying giant drakes one after another while doing acrobatics in the air like he's Levi Ackerman in Attack of Titan...

He was scared at first, but he quickly get swept up in the moment.

During his one-sided massacre, close to 20 King Dragons were attracted to the fight from various directions.

Should it be the Red Dragon Mountain Range, it would be 500 Red Dragons instead, but King Dragons don't make large flocks and don't have an equally powerful intruder detection ability, so it was only a few groups of 2s and 3s, or 4s at most, that noticed them and came out from their caves.

The strength of a mature dragon was usually around Saint rank level when compared to a human, depending on the species. They were ranked A to S.

For King Dragons, they were S-rank monsters individually – at the peak of Saint rank. A King Ranked swordsman would need to stake his life on it to kill one, and that's only if it was a single stray dragon.

Mordred surpassed King rank, so he felt confident that he would end up just fine. Fighting twenty Sword Saints with his swordsmanship alone would be difficult… But he could fight twenty dragons!

However, after around ten King Dragons were slaughtered and the area began to be littered with giant dragon corpses and dragon blood, the remaining ones let out alarmed roars, turned their tails and flew away.

At the end of it all, Mordred felt adrenaline coursing through his veins as he watched the remaining giant drakes retreating, his body covered in dragon blood.

"Haha!…" There was a grin on his face and he wanted to laugh out loud.

He never thought that real fighting would be this fun!