It’s a Dragon.
There is a Dragon.
Above High Ground Hundreds of Meters.
Warrior Creature Tens of Meters Long.
If an ordinary person were to see it, they would immediately panic. Kail, seeing what could only be described as a walking building, quickly drew his sword and unsheathed Superior Blade. He already knew from experience that Aura Blade wouldn’t work against a dragon.
“Hey, Jerry.”
“Huh…?”
“Yuri, protect well. If this guy gets even a scratch on him, I’ll kill you first.”
“What? Suddenly, what’s…”
Ignoring the bewildered Jerry, Kail dashed forward. The characteristic he had learned from the dragons he’d faced before was their tendency to rely on their absurdly massive physical prowess.
Though Superior Blade could block their immense mass and physical force, creating distance was a bad move. Already at a disadvantage due to size, if he pulled back, the Breath attack would come.
With such logical thinking in mind, Kail charged forward, only to meet the sight of the dragon smirking arrogantly at him.
“Hahahaha! So you think I’m just some beast without intelligence.”
The dragon spoke, pointing at Kail with its disproportionately short arms compared to its massive body.
“『Return』”
In the next moment, Kail felt an overwhelming magical power binding him, forcing him back to where he had started his charge.
Only after returning to his original spot did Kail realize he had fallen victim to magic. And then, he finally understood the dragon’s true alias.
The Founder of Magic.
A Sorcerer who even mocks God.
“…That’s.”
Yuri gasped from behind, recognizing the transcendent magic she couldn’t easily replicate, even as a Master-level sorceress.
“So, where did that earlier bravado go? Aura Master.”
Watching Kail stop in his tracks due to the spell, the dragon chuckled lightly.
“Surely, you’re not frightened by such basic magic, are you?”
“…Basic? That’s?”
“Ho ho, from your reaction, it seems your woman is a sorceress. Yes—basic magic indeed.”
Magic far beyond the reach of humans. Yuri stared at the dragon in disbelief as she faced a 10-star level spell that surpassed human limits.
But the dragon didn’t stop there, continuing to boast about its own achievements.
“In human terms… a 10-star spell, perhaps? But I am a 666-star sorcerer by human standards. Such things are quite simple for me.”
Humans can never defeat a dragon.
Realizing this fact, Yuri fell into despair.
***
‘What the hell is this guy talking about?’
But Kail wasn’t broken.
No matter how strong the opponent was, it couldn’t make him flinch. After all, hadn’t he recently fought and defeated an Evil God—a being that could casually ignore dragons?
Now, just because the dragon could use magic, and its level was supposedly absurdly high, that didn’t mean he should cower and retreat.
“What? 666 stars? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Such levels don’t exist in games. Even if players cheat, they can’t surpass 100 stars, let alone 666.
Kail instinctively realized the dragon was deliberately bluffing them with exaggerated claims to intimidate them.
If one dragon was so powerful, why did they go extinct? It’s because dragons aren’t that strong.
“Well, sure, they’re strong, but… nowhere near god-tier or anything like that.”
To begin with, the whole “tier” thing was laughable. Did gods ever get called “god-tier”? No. A god is simply a god.
They prove their existence through sheer being.
If a dragon was referred to as “god-tier,” it meant they were absolutely weaker than a god. If dragons were equal to or stronger than gods, the term “dragon” would have reached a similar status to “god.”
It’s like how Messi isn’t labeled as “Ronaldo-tier.”
“Ka, Kail. You should run…”
“Yuri, calm down.”
“B-But. If we fight, we’ll all die. At this rate, even someone like you with the highest chance should escape…”
“Yuri Grace!”
Kail turned to Yuri, startled, glaring at her with growling eyes.
“Trust me. Do you really think I’d lose to some overgrown lizard?”
“…No.”
“Exactly. Instead of trembling, figure out what that thing is and how we can break through it.”
Hearing Kail’s confident words, Yuri finally snapped out of it and explained what magic the dragon had used and possible countermeasures.
“It’s a time-reversal spell. …A theoretical 10-star spell. I don’t know the countermeasure.”
“How do you know about something that’s only theoretical?”
“Even if we haven’t reached it, we could still predict it.”
Humans can predict events millions of light-years away using just their eyes: the explosive collision of stars, black holes formed from compressed stars, and even the unseen Big Bang.
Sorcerers are human too. Their lack of technology, talent, and the corpses of giants beneath them were the only reasons they hadn’t reached it yet. They weren’t completely lost on where to go.
“Time reversal, huh.”
Kail thought about what he could do against such an overwhelming spell. If the opponent reversed time, what could he possibly do? Nothing.
Two options. First, close the distance and strike before they reverse time. Second, find an attack route that works even when time rewinds. Third, pray they can’t spam that spell.
“Did they just slap on cheats to make sure we can’t win?”
Dragons were unbeatable. They shouldn’t be beaten. The dragon was plastered with absurd spells as if to say so. But even seemingly impossible tasks had loopholes somewhere.
They just hadn’t been found yet. In games, after dying thousands or millions of times, doesn’t the player eventually clear the stage?
Reality was no different. Kail just hadn’t figured out how to counter a time-reversal spell yet.
“Time… reversing time…”
“Aha.”
A bolt of lightning struck Kail’s mind after much thought. A discovery so monumental it changed civilization itself, though most modern people in the 21st century still didn’t fully understand it.
Remembering it, Kail whispered something into Yuri’s ear. Yuri tilted her head in confusion but cast the spell as Kail requested.
“Are you done with your little chat?”
“Thanks for waiting. What kind of confidence is that?”
“Don’t you find it amusing to watch ants desperately trying to survive by talking?”
The dragon smirked while waiting for Kail and Yuri to finish their conversation.
“I do.”
“Hmph.”
Arrogant. Kail judged the dragon before him as such. More arrogant than the Apostle of Arrogance he’d seen in the Evil God Cult.
Thinking the title of “Arrogance” should be passed on to this dragon, Kail slowly stepped forward, extending his sword toward the dragon’s head.
“Then let me tell you in advance. I’ll dodge every single one of your spells and cut off your head with this sword.”
“Ho ho, I look forward to it.”
“Here I go.”
And in that moment, the spell Yuri had been chanting for a long time completed—Kail’s body accelerated instantly.
Seeing this, the dragon cast the same spell again. 『Return』. Time rewound as per the dragon’s Draconic Language.
Using the exact same method wasn’t out of disdain for Kail—it was because the dragon had absolute confidence in its magic.
Like shooting a laser gun at a savage wielding nothing but a wooden spear, never imagining the savage might somehow find a way to deflect the laser.
But the dragon shouldn’t have been so arrogant. It shouldn’t have stopped thinking and grown complacent.
“Adabamook.”
From Kail’s mouth, now moving backward through time, came incomprehensible, reversed words. The dragon tilted its head in confusion, wondering what it was, only to be met with Kail bursting through the temporal distortion with a sudden “BAM!”
“What!?”
But the shock was brief. The dragon instantly chanted dozens, hundreds of spells, blocking Kail’s path. Each one was a Master-level 5-star spell. Against any normal Master, the sheer volume would have overwhelmed them, leaving them unable to resist.
But Kail wasn’t a normal Master.
“5-star spells?”
A sly grin spread across Kail’s face. Master-level spells—powerful enough to send ordinary people straight to the afterlife with just a graze—but they were still spells that could be cut by an Aura Blade.
Kail immediately wove Aura Blades in the air. Dozens of Aura Blades swirled around him, slicing through the spells and clearing a path straight to the dragon.
“Those spells… they’re just getting cut.”
Having sliced through countless spells and even pierced the mighty flow of time, Kail raised Superior Blade and slashed open the dragon’s abdomen.
Immediately, dragon blood gushed endlessly from the split scales of its belly.
