Neither dragons seemed to care. While I was weaving through raining boulders and debris made of both ice and stone, the two dragons unleashed vast amounts of mana that tore through rock and ice like paper, blowing a hole through the cavern.

A fierce wind blew in, stinging my cheeks with snow and cold, and for the first time in almost a week I caught sight of the outside world again. Squinting outward, I saw that it was night. Fortunately, my gla.s.ses automatically enhanced my vision, allowing me to see everything clearly through my lenses.

"!!!"

Boom!

Both Draco and the Frost Dragon tumbled out of the broken hole of the mountain, tumbling through the steep slope and rolling back to their feet in the valley. They snarled at each other, mana gathering in their jaws. Azure ice beam lanced out, only to be cleaved apart by a blast of pure blackness. The entire clearing vanished in white fog as the azure beam froze the black blast into ice, but dissipated harmlessly before it could reach Draco.

With a swipe, Draco smashed the ice and lunged at the Frost Dragon. The latter met his charge squarely, and they went down, wrestling furiously in the ice and snow, sending up huge sludges up in freezing fountains.

"Huff…"

Heaving, I pulled myself out of the collapsing cave and followed my Constellation spirit into the valley. Dwarfed by t.i.tans, I wisely sought cover whenever appropriate, avoiding getting crushed by their sheer ma.s.s and large attacks.

Overhead, Draco and the Frost Dragon struck at each other with such force that they caused avalanches of snow toppling from mountains. It was almost like a scene out of a kaiju movie. The Frost Dragon's tail whipped out, almost catching Draco by the face, but the black dragon managed to retreat a step. Snarling, he unleashed a black beam of destructive energy that seared a glowing trail across the snowy mountain, only for the Frost Dragon to retaliate with an ice beam that froze blocks of ice at Draco's feet and causing him to withdraw.

Spreading his wings, Draco soared overhead, unleas.h.i.+ng more deadly rays of darkness. The Frost Dragon responded with multiple ice beams of his own, taking off into the air to join my Constellation spirit in an aerial duel.

The two dragons danced in the skies, twisting and trading attacks in a deadly waltz. Almost as if they were moving in a slow spin, they spat out lethal beams of energies that either froze or disintegrated. Below, I was forced to duck as colossal beams lanced into the snow, freezing or destroying everything in their paths. Tucking my legs into my chest, I hurled myself over a ledge before the entire ground was turned into ice. Even with my improved ice magic, I was not immune to cold. I hardly desired to end up entombed inside a block of ice for eternity.

"Huff…"

Diving to the side, I managed to settle down beside a tree and glanced up to see how the fight was going. Draco was trading evenly with the Frost Dragon, the two of them relatively unscathed despite being embroiled in a vicious duel for some time now. They were relying on speed instead of power, cartwheeling and darting agilely through the heavens as they continued to hurl deadly spells at each other. For now, they were able to evade most attacks and spells, but they were clearly expending lots of mana.

This was bad. If it came down to a battle of attrition, I wouldn't be able to last very long. A dragon that was potentially over a millennia old? Yeah…not going to happen. If it dragged out to that point, I might as well use the nuclear option, to h.e.l.l with conserving mana and leaving myself vulnerable. I would be out of mana anyway.

"!!!"

That wasn't the worst thing. I understood at that moment while this place was known as the Den of Dragons. Swallowing, I pressed my back against the tree and glanced around nervously. All around the valley, dragons were emerging to watch the battle unfold.

There were so many of them. Most of them were Frost Dragons, just like the one combating my Draco right now. The remainder were Sapphire Dragons, which also used ice element, Ice Hydras, and even a t.i.tanic Cocytus Dragon that was undisputedly the king of this place. A crest that spread across its head like a crown, and demonic wings that could shelter an entire stadium, the colossal beast appeared to lie atop a mountain peak, watching the battle unfold, almost as if it was bored. Its mere presence was enough to turn my legs into jelly.

"Oh Jesus, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d…" I mumbled, just like the non-playable character in Aliens versus Predator 2 that was produced by Monolith and published by Sierra back in 2001. Yeah, I was that old, ha ha. Anyway, that was a great game. The graphics sucked now, but it was a cla.s.sic that I held close to my heart before it was replaced by the Dead s.p.a.ce franchise.

Fortunately, the dragons made no move. None of them stepped in to intervene in the battle. The Frost Dragons, in particular, watched the duel hungrily, as if they were waiting to pounce upon the wounded victor the moment it ended. I realized that fights between dragons were fairly common in the Den of Dragons. The dragons were ferociously territorial creatures, after all, and would fiercely guard their nests against other intruders…even if the intruders happened to be from the same species. That was why the dragons were not fazed by the scene of awesome destruction at all. They were used to it, in fact.

Now that I observed them, I noticed that many of them bore old scars, gouges across sparkling scales, clotted wounds, slashes or burns. Yeah, they definitely were no stranger to fighting. That was for sure.

Another stream of darkness surged from Draco's jaws, but the Frost Dragon flipped over in midair to avoid it before retaliating with an ice beam. Draco twisted his body, dodging the fatal beam by just a millimeter and turned around just in time to intercept a charge. The Frost Dragon crashed into Draco, and the two of them grappled somewhat clumsily in the air before they both plummeted back toward the earth. Fortuantely, Draco managed to twist in midair – directed by my telepathic instructions, and slammed the Frost Dragon's head against the ground.

Snow exploded in geysers all around the two t.i.tans, even as I heard an ominous crack. The Frost Dragon appeared to black out for a moment, but he grabbed hold of Draco's arms with his claws before breathing his ice beam into his face.

The black dragon snarled and toppled backward, clutching at his face. Ice was freezing over his snout, entombing his entire head and snapping his jaws shut. Mana flared around Draco and he shattered the ice before unleas.h.i.+ng Eltanin into the still stunned Frost Dragon, drilling two b.l.o.o.d.y holes into the latter's body.

Flailing, the Frost Dragon's tail caught Draco in the head and sent him tumbling into the ground with earthshaking impact. I felt the tree behind me shudder involuntarily as tons of snow crashed down. Fortunately, I was able to conjure a spell to prevent myself from being buried by all this snow.

"Ryan? Where are you?" I demanded, looking around. I suddenly realized that the mercenary in red and black was missing. Did he manage to escape during the chaos?

"Yeah, I did. Sorry, buddy, but I'm getting out of here." Ryan Reynolds appeared next to me with a wave, still hovering in the air despite the falling snow. He brushed off the snow from his shoulder, except that the white stuff just fell through his intangible body, so he didn't really need to. "My job is done here, kid. I'm just here to say goodbye."

My jaw dropped. "You're leaving me?"

"Dude, what do you expect me to do? I'm a ghost. I can't devour souls like the spirit in Martial Peak, I can't possess you and help you fight like in Battle through the Heavens or Wu Dong Qian Kun. What exactly do you want me to do? I'm not your sidekick. Sorry, but this is your story. You're the main character. You've to solve this problem on your own, overcome your challenges by yourself, not always relying on Deus ex Machina or convenient plot devices or ghostly masters to haul you out of the fire."

He had a point there.

"Before I go, kid…remember. This is your story. Not mine, not anyone else. If any haters come in whining about how weak and pathetic you are or loudly shout about how they are dropping your story even no one gives a f.u.c.k about them, then…you know what to do." He took a gun from his holster and aimed it at the fourth wall. I swear, he was grinning under that mask. "I never miss. I know you're not that accurate, but hey, with the firepower you have at your disposal, you don't need a direct hit to blow those losers up."

"…right." I raised an eyebrow, but remembered that I was speaking to the master in fourth wall breaking. In spirit, anyway (now that I thought about it, that could be taken literally too).

"Adios, kid. Make sure you buy both of my movies on DVD! Oh, and before I forget…don't forget to buy Detective Pikachu too! I love being the voice actor for one of the mascot characters in that series!"

And with that, he disappeared. Hopefully not for good, unless the readers hated him and didn't want to see him again. As Ryan advised, I should keep my eyes on the comments section. It was one thing to accept criticism and value feedback, but it was another to bow down to hate, insults and inflammatory and derogatory comments.

I stared at the s.p.a.ce where he occupied for a few moments, and then dragged my attention back to the t.i.tanic battle in the valley. Draco and Frost Dragon were swiping at each other, their tails las.h.i.+ng out and sending drifts of snow flying. They backed off, their jaws glowing with mana, before they unleashed h.e.l.l upon each other. White explosions dotted the landscape, shrouding the place in ice, snow and fog, and obscuring vision.

I glanced at the other dragons. They were all too far apart, too spread out for me to nuke them in one shot. And I only had one shot at this. It was unfortunate, but there was no way for me to nuke the whole bunch of dragons together. Knowing dragons, they would be intelligent enough to identify me as the guy who nuked them, and thus pursue me. And I was pretty sure I didn't want to bring down the attention of almost a hundred dragons on me at once.

I still wanted to live.

Still, at this rate I was going to run out of mana if I didn't do anything to tip the scales in Draco's favor. Sparing the surrounding dragons a glance again, I decided to take a gamble. What happened if one of them intervened? Would the whole thing erupt into a free-for-all melee? That would be great – I could sneak away during the ensuing chaos. Would they just watch? Well, I could worry about them after I defeated the Frost Dragon, dismiss whatever Soul Beasts I had summoned, and try to sneak away. They might still identify me as the summoner, but if I didn't nuke them, they wouldn't have a reason to chase after me vengefully.

Coming to a decision, I completed my next summoning spell.

"Green Dragon!"

The enormous Celestial Guardian materialized above the coniferous trees, drawing power from the resilient and tenacious forest. With a roar, he unfurled his body and flew toward the two wrestling dragons, plants, trees and flowers blooming in his wake. In a single motion, he sent countless vines whipping forward to ensnare the Frost Dragon and immobilize him.

The Frost Dragon snarled and struggled against his new restraints, but Draco wasn't going to wait for him to break free. Lunging forward, he closed his jaws around the azure dragon's neck, drawing blood and a screech.

While the trio tangled, I glanced at the surrounding dragons again. So far so good. None of them moved to intervene even when Green Dragon joined the fray. They were still watching, looking bored or indifferent. Was a third party interrupting the battle and allying with one of the combatants a common occurrence then? But then, why weren't any of the other Frost Dragons coming to help?

Or were dragons really as individualistic as the legends made them out to be?

Nonetheless, I decided to end the battle as quickly as possible, but to my surprise, the Frost Dragon froze all of the vines and shattered them. To avoid getting frozen along with those green plants, Draco wisely backed off and retreated.

Shaking the broken, frozen pieces of vines cascading across his azure scales, the Frost Dragon glared at both of my dragons before bellowing defiantly.