At last, Cassius turned his gaze toward Klein.
Just moments earlier, he had felt an uncomfortable sensation, as if something were prying into him. And now, he had finally found the source of that feeling.
A wizard said to have ties to the Tower of Time.
The red dragon stared at the wizard clad in blue-black robes. Lowering his massive head slightly, fire flickered within his pale golden pupils.
"What... are you doing?"
Klein's face was twisted in sheer terror. Never before had he encountered an enemy against whom the abilities he took such pride in were completely useless.
*No, I can't wait any longer. I have to get out of here!*
His former calm and composure, his certainty of victory—all of it had shattered the moment he heard that voice.
Klein raised his staff, silently chanting an incantation as he released a spell construct he had long prepared.
Accompanied by violent fluctuations in the Weave, an intricate magical circuit materialized in midair, causing the surrounding space to ripple and curl in rhythmic waves until a circular portal formed above.
*Fistandantilus's Portal.*
"Roar—!"
Yet in the very next instant, the red dragon tore through the air, lunging directly before Klein. The flames swirling around his wings obliterated the portal before it could even stabilize.
"Did I give you permission to leave?"
Cassius swiped his claws forward, aiming to seize the wizard just as he had seized the others.
Just as the red dragon's claws were about to make contact, intense spatial fluctuations erupted from Klein once more.
The spell triggered almost instantaneously, shifting Klein dozens of meters away while continuing to generate spatial ripples that threatened to tear him free from the Material Plane's tether.
It was the renowned ninth-tier spell—
*Elminster's Evasion.*
It was an improved variant of Contingency; when one of several preset conditions occurred, it automatically teleported the wizard to a designated location.
Yet the red dragon radiated a majestic dragon fear that was nearly tangible, constantly disrupting the teleportation spell's activation.
This forced Klein to divide his attention just to keep the spell structure stable.
"Roar!"
With a low growl, Cassius snapped his wings and closed the distance in a flash, opening his jaws to unleash an antimagic ray.
In a panic, Klein pulled a golden pocket watch from his robes and clicked it with gritted teeth.
*Click.*
Instantly, the wind died away. Sand and gravel froze in midair, and the rushing river came to a dead halt.
Everything before him appeared frozen, save for the red dragon, who still crept forward at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
*Time Stop.*
The principle behind this spell was not actually halting time across the entire world, but manipulating the flow of time around the caster, accelerating their actions until they took virtually no time at all.
"What a terrifying dragon..."
Klein couldn't help but wipe the sweat from his forehead and stow away the golden pocket watch.
Before an enemy of this caliber, he dared not let down his guard for a single second, much less waste this precious time. Raising his staff, he immediately began chanting an incantation.
The space around him twisted, and his figure blurred into translucency.
Klein was going to traverse an astral conduit to reach the place he considered safest—a unique plane adjacent to all the Outer Planes, the completely neutral ground for negotiation: the Outlands.
Back on the Material Plane, Cassius only saw Klein vanish into thin air before him, leaving behind lingering spatial ripples from the spell.
"Time Stop?"
"Damned wizard."
The red dragon muttered under his breath, a trace of annoyance flashing across his expression. He thoroughly disliked that feeling.
Closing his eyes, the power of Cataclysmic Dragon Eye happened to reveal to him a glimpse of the past, along with a fragment of the imminent future.
Cassius could not decipher the spatial coordinates of the spell, but that did not stop him from using Cataclysmic Dragon Eye to track his quarry.
"I'll catch you."
"A duck already served to my mouth—how could I let you fly away?"
Cassius simply used his will to warp reality, brutally tearing through space and giving chase.
This was a sorcerer's "power of 'I reckon'"—not seamless or logically rigorous like a wizard's, but blunt and effective.
...
The Astral Plane.
"Whew... What a terrifying dragon."
Beside an astral color pool, Klein breathed a sigh of relief. He marveled once more, secretly glad to have escaped the red dragon's clutches.
Yet in the very next instant, the surrounding space violently warped. A dimensional rift blazing with raging fire ripped open, and the red dragon's colossal frame surged out from within.
Cassius looked down upon him, spreading his vast wings to cast a massive shadow over the wizard.
"Irksome wizard, do you know nothing of basic manners?"
"Who... gave you permission to leave without saying goodbye?"
Klein's face drained of all color, large beads of sweat breaking out across his brow.
"No, no..."
Collapsing to the ground, he scrambled backward on all fours in sheer disarray.
The legendary time pocket watch had exhausted its uses, and none of his other tricks had any effect on this dragon.
Perhaps Klein's life was truly at its end.
Never had this wizard from the Tower of Time imagined his curtain would fall during a seemingly ordinary dragon hunt in the remote Northlands. Countless times he had peered into his own future, yet he had never foreseen such a wretched end.
Step by step, the red dragon closed in. He was in no hurry now—because he was waiting for certain entities to appear.
Just as Klein closed his eyes in despair, a juvenile voice rang out.
"Your Majesty Cassius, I hope you might show mercy."
The red dragon knew that what he was waiting for had arrived.
An unfamiliar dragon stepped out from the void, appearing behind Klein.
Gleaming gray scales clung tightly to a graceful body, smooth and devoid of jagged ridges, while its horns were merely small, nascent stubs.
Most frightening of all, based on its physical proportions and developmental state, it was still only a wyrmling, yet it possessed a gargantuan body over twenty meters long—something unimaginable for any ordinary dragon.
"As expected... a time dragon," Cassius murmured the name.
Time dragons were the mightiest of the legendary dragon breeds and the beings backing that influential faction, the Tower of Time.
These elegant dragons commanded temporal powers that could manipulate the past, present, and future, and were the only truly immortal non-divine dragons.
In the storyline of his previous life, the Tower of Time was likewise an enigmatic entity. Wandering through the river of time, they often subtly guided the course of history from the shadows.
Even the players who understood them best were merely low-ranking chronurgy wizards who could not touch the secrets of the Tower of Time's upper echelons.
"Y-You're here! Save me, please get me out of here!"
"I knew it, I knew the Tower of Time wouldn't abandon me!"
Seeing the time dragon arrive, Klein felt as though he had caught a lifeline.
He hurriedly cried out for help.
Yet the time wyrmling completely ignored the pleading human wizard. Instead, it nodded respectfully to the nearby red dragon, courteous yet neither subservient nor overbearing.
"We meet again. Or perhaps I should say..."
"A pleasure to meet you for the first time, Your Majesty Cassius."
"Talin Archimonde greets you, and brings the goodwill of the Tower of Time."
Chapter 338