No one could see her while she was invisible, but one person could sense it: Choi Han. He glanced down at his feet. Black orbs of light solidified in the skeletal dragon’s bones. It was dead mana—Mary’s power. The black glow, which had previously lurked only in the bone dragon’s eye sockets, expanded to cover its entire body and converged at its heart.
Choi Han instantly understood what Mary was trying to say. You feel the same way. You and I are trying to walk the same path.
At times like these, Choi Han felt certain he wasn’t alone. How could anything scare him in this situation? He reached out a hand, and the bone dragon synchronized with his movement, as if it were an extension of his body. The swordsman and the dragon were acting as one. They surged forth in this silent, coordinated attack.
Fwoom.
With a great roar, the dragon sank its fangs into the white wyvern’s neck. Whish! The white aura was severed. Clope’s eyes went wide as the dark void consumed his vision.
“Skreee!”
Blood spurted out of the white wyvern’s neck. The bone dragon’s claws pierced through the spray, lodging a tight grip around the wyvern’s throat.
Choi Han grabbed hold of the bone dragon’s neck. “Let’s rise, Mary.”
The necromancer responded right away. Her dead mana stretched out from the dragon’s wing bones, weaving membranes like spiderwebs. Flap, flap. Even as veins resembling black threads spread through her eyes, Mary didn’t stop. She was growing rapidly, about to break through a wall. Then her hands clasped around the neck she couldn’t see. Bit by bit, the white wyvern’s throat was dyed black.
“Ugh!”
Clope yanked on the reins to regain his balance, then launched his aura at the bone dragon’s front foot. The dragon flapped its wings, flying up and out of the way. It climbed higher and higher, with Choi Han at its head and the wyvern clenched between its feet.
One of the knights atop the wall couldn’t hold back his amazement. “A dragon knight…” Upon uttering the words, his heart thudded wildly. The title carried an immense weight incomparable to that of a wyvern knight. His rapt gaze never left the sky. The tide of the battle was solely dependent on the outcome of the bone dragon’s clash with the white wyvern.
Boom! A deafening rumble made the knight’s eyes widen.
Cale watched from afar, staring with his mouth agape in stupefied wonder. One of the stony mountains had lost its peak. The bone dragon had just slammed the white wyvern into the mountain.
‹Dragons really are strong! Wyverns are as weak as a tiny tree branch! But I, the great and mighty Raon Mir, am even more amazing than that bone dragon!›
Tuning out Raon’s background chatter, Cale chuckled in disbelief. I hope they didn’t kill him. He kept a fretful watch over the mountain, hoping he didn’t hadn’t missed out on a pile of gold.
Blood seeped out of the wyvern’s mouth. It growled as it flailed about helplessly, unable to get up. That stupid bone dragon! Clope thought. The infernal creature had not only bashed his wyvern into the mountain, but now the dragon stood on his wyvern’s head, peering down at it.
“Ugh!”
Clope, on the other hand, was unharmed; he had jumped away from the wyvern the moment it was thrown and managed to land safely. And yet, he was still powerless.
Slash!
Again, his white aura was hacked to pieces. No matter how hard he tried to coil his aura around Choi Han like a serpent, he couldn’t cut his foe.
“I see your sword is a white snake. It suits you better than the wyvern.”
Clope trembled at the sound of Choi Han’s calm voice. A white serpent, not a wyvern, was the true symbol of House Seca. The qualifications to become a Guardian Knight rested with such snakelike characters.
“Y-you nameless bastard! How dare you oppose a Guardian Knight!”
Clope’s sword struck out at Choi Han once again, but Choi Han only had two words for him.
“So annoying.”
That was the end. When the void swooped in toward Clope once more, the white snake was gobbled up by the darkness. Clang! Clope’s sword clattered to the ground.
“Augh! M-my arm!”
Clope’s arm was missing below the shoulder. His black-haired foe crushed his throat in a choking grip, just as the bone dragon had done to the white wyvern. Clope couldn’t breathe. As the pain of suffocation overwhelmed even the agony of losing his arm, a cold voice reached his ears.
“Tell the wyverns to stop,” Choi Han commanded. He took the flute from Clope’s pocket and stared pointedly at him.
Choi Han had captured both the white wyvern and the Guardian Knight, keeping both of them alive. With that, he’d successfully fulfilled Cale’s order; all he had left to do was to return.
“Ghk… Ngh!”
When Choi Han heard the Guardian Knight gasping for breath, his expression changed. The Guardian Knight was shaking his head, crying like a baby all the while—perhaps because he couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly, Choi Han found himself questioning the facts. How could a white snake control a wyvern?
Auras were a reflection of their wielders. A white snake could never command a wyvern.
Choi Han turned his head. He wasted no time in leaping back onto the bone dragon. “We need to go back!” he shouted to Mary.
This wasn’t the end after all—there was more to come.
As the bone dragon rose back into the sky, Choi Han found what he was looking for. The helmeted knight, the only one allowed to confer with Clope Seca directly, was blowing a whistle no human could hear.
It’s him.
“Graaah!”
The wyvern under the bone dragon’s feet thrashed violently, its veins bulging with the effort. Where once it had been devoid of energy, it now writhed as though it had forgotten the meaning of fear or death, attempting to drag itself across the ground.
“Damn it!”
Choi Han and the bone dragon shot toward their target, but the helmeted knight was too quick. All the other wyverns charged the shield in one fell swoop.
Baaaaang! Baaaaang!
Though the wyverns’ wings, claws, and limbs were smashed to pieces, they didn’t stop. They kept scrambling to break through the shield as if they’d gone mad. Bright-red blood dripped down the protective barrier.
‹Seems like the wyverns have lost it, human! How cute!›
But Cale couldn’t hear Raon’s voice. The Guardian Knight isn’t the one controlling the wyverns? It was him in the novel. Cale realized that there were things Birth of a Hero’s first five volumes hadn’t revealed. The helmeted knight, for instance—Cale had no knowledge of the man.
That knight mounted a wyvern and made a beeline for Cale, though he had no weapon. And then…
‹Human, something’s off. I sense the power of nature on him.›
What? The power of nature? Did that mean he had an Ancient Power?
An object materialized in the helmeted knight’s hand, and Cale knew right away what it was. The knight had summoned a sword—or rather, an Ancient Power shaped like a sword. The blade grew longer and longer until it resembled a spear.
Cale’s heart pounded in his chest. That was when he heard the voice of the gluttonous priestess. “You will block it.”
The Unbreakable Shield began to shrink.
“What the…?!”
Cale could barely speak. His entire body flared hot. Though he wasn’t in pain, it was getting hard for him to breathe. The Ancient Powers clamored inside him, and the tattoos marking his body seared his skin. And all the while, the shield grew ever smaller.