Dragons descended around Tutoora.
She was mixed in among the dragons who had been watching the fight, and from the bloodlust they sent her way, it was highly likely they were of the same kind as Tutoora.
“Are you the next opponents?”
“How dare a mere human try to judge our Perfection. You must have a death wish.”
“Even if you faced the Lord, don’t think we’ll recognize you.”
As soon as I heard the way they spoke, I gave up on exchanging pleasantries.
“Haa~ Seriously. Not even a step off from what I expected.”
Then, with a deep sigh for all to hear,
“Hey, could you at least try to understand how I feel listening to such predictable lines? Hm? Realizing dragons are this stupid makes me wish this was just a play. Ryuk once said most dragons must’ve aged through their rear ends. I can finally understand why he said that, and it hurts.”
“Shut up!”
“I’ll tear you to shreds!”
Two dragons rushed in from both sides, swinging their claws.
If magic doesn’t work, they must be planning to try a physical fight.
Dodging their claws, I glanced at the tails sweeping in from the front and let out a hollow laugh.
“A melee, huh. Throwing away the advantage of magic. Is that the ‘Perfection’ you boast about?”
I swung the Holy Sword and sliced about half of the dragons’ tails.
If I severed them completely, they’d lose their balance and have to fight while falling, which might crush their fighting spirit.
That would’ve made things simple, but unfortunately, my plans didn’t include these guys losing their will to fight.
“Heal.”
“Tch, Heal.”
“Why do you chant? Why open your mouth? Why not use Incantationless Casting? I know someone who’s great at it, you know?”
“If I don’t chant, the power is weak…”
“Why not figure out how to use Incantationless Casting at full power? You call yourselves dragons? Even say the word Perfection?”
Grinding its teeth, the dragon let out a screech and lunged at me.
“Please, just shut up!”
“Why should I?”
As the dragon came flying with all its might, I aimed the Holy Sword at its head.
Maybe because it already had its tail sliced once, it twisted its neck at the last second to dodge and instead struck me with its wings, sending me flying.
Falling beneath the Heavenly Palace, I stepped on a passing Manabeast and leapt up again.
Watching the crushed hawk fall, I shouted at the dragon.
“Thanks to you, an innocent life just died! You still call yourselves perfect?”
“That’s because of you!”
“Blaming others. How typical.”
That’s a phrase often uttered by those who delude themselves as perfect.
Feigning to correct their delusions, I swung the Holy Sword.
“So typical it makes me not want to talk. Can you please shut your mouths? Talking to you is lowering my mental age.”
A dragon retreated, dodging the Holy Sword, and tried casting magic again.
Unlike Ryuk, whose magic couldn’t be cut, I sliced through the magic and kicked the dragon in the gut.
Puh-ung!
The destructive force that erupted from my young body sent the dragon flying, coughing up blood and saliva.
“You lowly human!”
In the meantime, the dragon whose tail had fully healed charged at me.
This time, it swung its tail, reinforced by a magic circle, so I asked incredulously,
“Even if you strengthen it with magic, you’re trying a trick that already failed? Can’t you even sense the difference in ability? You still call yourselves dragons?”
This time, I cut even deeper.
At the same time, all the strengthening spells wrapped around its tail were severed by the Holy Sword’s power.
“Grrk!”
Deciding its tail was useless, it swung its forepaw instead.
As razor-sharp claws came down to strike me, I thrust out the Holy Sword and withdrew my body at the last moment.
“Hoo, without the Holy Sword, you’re nothing but an ordinary warrior…!”
The dragon, driving the Holy Sword into its own hand, shouted fiercely and thrust its other forepaw at me as I floated in the air.
Mana flows within a dragon’s body, and both the summoning and recall of the Holy Sword depend on the power of mana.
In other words, by stabbing the Holy Sword into its own body, the dragon had taken it from me.
But…
“You think the only reason I can threaten you is because of the Holy Sword?”
The sad part is, this dragon is seriously misjudging my abilities.
The Holy Sword is half my soul and part of my strength, but I haven’t solved everything with it alone.
Dodging the swinging forepaw lightly, I leapt straight toward the dragon’s face.
“You slippery…!”
“Bite down, lizard.”
Clenching my fist, I slammed an uppercut into the dragon’s jaw.
“Guh!”
After the uppercut, I landed and planted a high kick in the hind leg it was using for support.
“Grraah?!”
As the dragon toppled backward, I leapt atop it and stomped hard on its neck.
Kwaang!
“Kuhek!”
“You don’t even know where I’ve been.”
I stomped on its neck.
Kwaang!
“Kulok!”
“You don’t even know what I’ve done.”
I stomped on its neck.
Kwaang!
“Ugh!”
“With what confidence do you blabber about Perfection?”
I stomped on its neck.
Each time my foot landed, the entire Heavenly Palace shook with the impact.
The shock cracked the ground and made it tremble as if an earthquake had struck.
If I stomped any harder, I could break the dragon’s neck, but I held back.
After all, killing them isn’t my goal.
“Grrrr! You lowly human!”
Thud!
At that moment, my foot, which was about to stomp the dragon’s neck again, struck the ground instead.
The dragon’s body was suddenly enveloped in light, transforming into a robust adult man.
The only difference from a real human was the reptilian sharpness in his pupils.
Even in human form, he rubbed his neck as if it still stung, then rushed at me, swinging his fist.
I dodged the lightning-fast punch and retorted,
“Why are you fighting me in the lowly form of a human? Is that your idea of Perfection?”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Is that all you can say? ‘Shut up’? You’ve lived longer than me, yet your vocabulary is like that of a ten-year-old.”
“Kraaa!”
He’s more hot-blooded than I expected.
I don’t even know his name, and frankly, I doubt I need to. But I have a baseless hunch he’s even worse than the other dragons.
While I played along and stalled for time, the dragon that had fallen coughing blood regained his senses and prepared to use Breath.
“Take this!”
Kwaang!
A torrent of Breath came rushing toward me.
The hot-blooded dragon I had been brawling with quickly retreated, flashing a victorious grin.
I considered summoning the Holy Sword, but after transforming into human form, the hot-blooded dragon had set up a Mana Barrier, preventing me from doing so.
“You’re at least using your head.”
As it stands, I don’t have the sword to cut through Breath.
“So you wanted to prove that the ‘Perfect’ dragons can become stronger by working together?”
With deliberate mockery, I charged straight at the Breath.
Just before collision, I ducked into a sliding dodge, then leapt up to the face of the dragon who’d unleashed the Breath.
“?!”
The dragon’s face twisted in shock.
Of course it did.
To them, my movements must’ve seemed like a flash, happening in the blink of an eye.
To be clear, I hadn’t used the Holy Sword, nor any divine blessings or prayers.
To fight a Demon King, this level of movement is just the basic requirement.
Otherwise, you’d be dead in an instant.
“So what if you work together? If you can’t even figure out how to deal with me?”
Puh-ung!
I smashed my fist into the face of the dragon firing Breath.
As soon as I touched ground, I leapt up, grabbed the falling dragon’s face, and slammed it into the ground.
“Gwaaaah!”
The dragon in human form charged at me, eyes rolled back in fury.
Their persistence is admirable, but watching them lose their minds because their so-called Perfection is being denied only made me more convinced they were hopeless.
Brushing aside the less-organized, weaker punch than before, I stabbed at the neck of the charging dragon.
Even transformed, a dragon’s exoskeleton is so tough that even a vital strike usually doesn’t do much.
But my stab was sharper than they expected.
“Kegh!”
As the dragon staggered backward clutching his neck, I kicked his shin, snapping the bone and spinning his body 180 degrees in the air.
I grabbed his other leg and smashed it, breaking the bone.
After making both legs unusable, I threw him to the ground.
“Cough! Cough, kuhak.”
Leaving the dying dragons behind, I turned again toward the Heavenly Palace, waving my hand.
The Mana Barrier blocking the Holy Sword’s summoning must have faded, because the dazzling blade tore through space into my grip.
“Those two aren’t perfect. What kind of dragon can’t handle a single human? Isn’t that your logic?”
“…”
“So what now? Those dragons—do you execute them as traitors for being imperfect? Or… put them in the training room? If magic doesn’t work, you try a brawl, and if even Breath fails, then an imperfect dragon must die. Isn’t that right?”
“Damn it, who am I even talking to? Why is no one answering? Are you dragons or mutes, huh?”
With their silence, I felt myself losing my composure.
It was as if they were testing my patience.
Fine, let’s see this through to the end.
“Fine. Since you refuse to admit it, let me declare this. You can become perfect.”
At that moment, the mood among the dragons shifted.
‘…What is he talking about?’
“It’s simple. You are not perfect yet. You are not True Dragons. But you still have a chance to become Perfect dragons.”
An ordinary human who’d just beaten them to a pulp was now saying he’d make them perfect dragons.
Instinctively, dragons are drawn to follow those with greater power than themselves, so my words caught their attention.
“The method is simple.”
I stretched both arms wide.
A posture of relaxed vigilance, almost embracing.
Like the depiction of a deity in the sacred texts of a holy nation: ‘I shall lead you.’
“You simply do to yourselves what you already do to young dragons.”
“What does that…”
“Get beaten up to build endurance. Take on ultimate magic to build resistance.”
…
As the atmosphere chilled, I smiled brightly.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you die so easily.”
Of course, I never said you wouldn’t die at all.