Hoffman Ironfist paced anxiously back and forth within the castle.
Ever since he sent his guard captain to deliver the gold coins, an uneasy feeling had begun gnawing at him—a sensation that felt both absurd and irrational.
To begin with, the hell cultists had no reason to turn on the dwarves. Worshipers of Hell were not immune to the fear of death, and anyone causing trouble still had to consider whether they could survive it.
Having already antagonized the elves, making an enemy of the dwarves as well would not only unite both factions against a common foe and hasten the war's conclusion, but it would also cut off their own retreat.
From a logical standpoint, therefore, these hell cultists would not stir up trouble.
Once they received the money, they ought to flee.
To be safe, Hoffman Ironfist had dispatched his own guard captain. Even if caught in an ambush, a legendary Eldritch Knight possessed more than enough capability to escape.
Furthermore, there were so many dwarven iron guards. Even if they encountered a Gate of Hell, they surely wouldn't...
Hoffman repeatedly reassured himself. If he were still a general leading an army, he would have rejected the transaction without a second thought. In warfare, one sometimes had to trust gut instinct; after all, every surprise tactic relied on defying logic.
Yet after becoming the Hand of the King, Hoffman Ironfist had turned into a politician. Politicians could only analyze matters through logic, for what they dealt with was usually a game of competing interests. One could not simply focus on how to win a battle; one had to weigh the ramifications of victory or defeat.
And this time, Hoffman Ironfist had miscalculated.
When a dragon's roar echoed from the horizon, Hoffman hurried to the palace roof in shock, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him.
Then, a heap of severed dwarven heads, dripping with filthy blood, plummeted from the sky and stained the palace roof crimson.
Among the heads, Hoffman found his guard captain. The captain's wide-open eyes still carried indignation and dread; one could only wonder what he had endured to die with such an expression.
A legendary Eldritch Knight had fallen just like that, alongside several dozen dwarven iron guards.
A massive shadow circled in the sky above, poised to swoop down on Hoffman at any moment.
Logic, interests, strategic games—in this instant, all of it turned into a joke. Those hell cultists had truly gone mad, slaughtering the envoy Hoffman had sent with gold for no discernible reason.
Not only that, but they had severed the dwarves' heads and hurled them down as a blatant provocation. Such an act was sheer madness, senseless butchery.
A mocking roar echoed from the sky above: "Hoffman Ironfist... you might as well rename yourself Hoffman Useless! You didn't even dare show yourself before me, sending such a worthless wretch to die in your place! Hahaha! No wonder the dwarves are doomed to fall!"
Hoffman Ironfist clenched his solitary fist in fury. He could no longer afford to play it safe.
"Foolish beast, you will die by my hand!"
A surge of air swirled around Hoffman Ironfist, launching him into the sky like a falcon.
This was no ordinary Fly spell; it was Fly empowered by a monk's ki.
Before becoming the Hand of the King, Hoffman Ironfist was the dwarves' greatest warrior, the sole general capable of meeting the Ryan Empire's legions head-on.
Many years ago, he had already reached the rank of a legend, and his class was that of a monk.
A legendary monk could sprint along vertical city walls faster than ordinary men on level ground, and could even tread upon the air to leap into the sky.
With agility honed to such an extreme, an ordinary Fly spell felt no different from unrestricted flight to a legendary monk.
Transforming into a soaring raptor, Hoffman breached the cloud layer, only to find that what confronted him was no half-dragon, but a true dragon.
The beast was somewhat small, measuring five or six meters from snout to tail, with a pair of draconic wings disproportionately massive.
Yet it was undeniably a dragon, devoid of any remaining human traits.
Had this monster evolved again since their communication?
Hoffman did not dwell on the thought. Stamping against the air, he hurtled toward the young dragon like a cannonball.
The moment he drew near, two blasts of ki surged from his fists, shaping into serpents of fire.
Fangs of the Fire Snake!
A monk's intangible ki could manifest as tangible elements, inflicting damage akin to magical spells.
Hoffman's strike was blindingly swift and devoid of warning. Geronimo, in dragon form, had no chance of dodging and was bitten directly on the neck by the flaming serpents.
Sharp agony shot through Geronimo, sending a violent spasm through his frame.
The searing heat failed to pierce his scales, but the concussive ki imbued within struck like a sledgehammer.
Yet that was merely the appetizer. After landing the blow, the vortex of wind around Hoffman whipped into a frenzy, catapulting his speed even higher as he landed squarely atop Geronimo.
The dwarf's stout legs locked around Geronimo's horns, and his fists unleashed a tempestuous storm, hammering Geronimo's head with brutal force.
A monk's fists were faster than an elven ranger's arrows.
A competent monk could deliver six full-power punches in a second; a legendary monk could shatter a dragon's skull in that same span.
Unfortunately, Hoffman Ironfist had only half a second.
Twenty-six punches saturated with ki rained down upon Geronimo's head, shattering scales and fracturing bone, threatening to reduce the brain matter beneath to pulp.
Reeling from the catastrophic damage, the young dragon thrashed and twisted in convulsive agony while his body rapidly shrank, reverting into human form. Geronimo's sudden contraction caught Hoffman completely off guard; the legs pinning the horns slipped loose, and he was hurled away.
Geronimo's shift lasted only an instant. The moment he threw off his foe, he assumed dragon form once more.
This was Polymorph, normally employed to alter one's appearance to deceive others.
Yet Geronimo had shifted from dragon to human, cleverly utilizing the spell to slip free.
Furthermore, the wounds on Geronimo's head were knitting closed at incredible speed. The sheer potency of this self-healing made Hoffman's brows furrow in dismay.
This dragon was deeply bizarre. Though true dragons had vanished long ago, none had ever been known to possess such formidable regenerative power.
Hoffman refrained from rushing in blindly. Instead, he observed Geronimo carefully, noticing that as the wounds sealed, the dragon's bloated belly visibly diminished.
Hoffman thought to himself, *Could he have crammed his belly full of healing potions?*
Healing potions could indeed rapidly mend trauma, but Hoffman sensed something was amiss. The body built resistance to such draughts; guzzling vast quantities in a short window would only cause diminishing returns. What Hoffman did not know was that Geronimo's stomach contained no potions, but flesh and blood.
The dwarven iron guards had been reduced to severed heads; their bodies had all been swallowed whole into his gut. The Eldritch Knight had attempted to flee, but Geronimo drove him back time and again, trapping him within the hellfire until swarms of demons depleted his mana, before finally devouring him.
Nor were the dwarves the only ones consumed—Geronimo had also devoured the demons summoned from the Gate of Hell. Upon ingesting the legendary Eldritch Knight, his body underwent another metamorphosis, transforming entirely into a dragon.
Then, an even more voracious hunger had gripped him.
To a dragon, whether dwarven flesh or demonic meat, the difference was merely one of flavor, and the demons present far outnumbered the dwarves.
Geronimo had unleashed an indiscriminate massacre, devouring two balors and countless lesser demons. Even the demons likely never imagined meeting such a rabid monster; rather than breaking under enemy fire, they had scattered in terror from being eaten by their own summoner.
A portion of that flesh nourished his body, while the remainder was stored in his belly, ready to be digested for rapid recovery whenever he sustained injuries.
"Hmph, let us see how long you can keep regenerating!"
Hoffman kicked repeatedly off the air, treating the empty space like solid walls, and used the rebound to rocket toward Geronimo once more.
The monk moved through the air with greater nimbleness than a dragon, compelling Geronimo to wheel around and flee.
In terms of agile maneuvering, Geronimo was no match for Hoffman; once cornered in close combat, the monk's fists could pummel him to death.
Yet in a straight line, Geronimo's flight speed was slightly faster than Hoffman's.
Pursuing and fleeing, the distance between the two gradually widened.
Hoffman suddenly felt a scorching heat, as though the very air were burning, catching the breath in his throat.
*Fire Aura? Isn't that an ability belonging to a balor?!*
Hoffman felt an intense sense of wrongness; nothing about this dragon was normal.
Just as he began channeling ki to ward off the Fire Aura's damage, a dazzling red radiance flared from Geronimo's tail. A long whip woven of fiery magical power suddenly lashed out from his tail, cracking toward Hoffman.
What kind of absurd maneuver was this?
Hoffman had fought battles throughout his life, yet had never witnessed anything of the sort.
The whip tore through the sky, its tip shattering the sound barrier as it struck Hoffman.
Though it appeared to hit, the figure shattered like glass—it was merely an afterimage.
Hoffman tapped into his ki once more, bursting forward with terrifying speed to catch his adversary off balance. Unfortunately, the gambit failed, for immediately following the fiery whip came a Thunderwave!
The spell caused modest damage, but its knockback effect was tremendous. Hoffman was repelled by the shockwave, his attempt to close the distance thwarted again.
*This dragon is far too troublesome!*
Hoffman clearly perceived that the dragon's fighting techniques were sharpening. The beast seemed capable of sensing the flow of a monk's ki, allowing it to anticipate Hoffman's abilities and react instantly.
In that split second of distraction, the fiery whip lashed toward Hoffman once more, nearly coiling around his body.
Fortunately, the dwarf was short of stature, making evasion far easier. Yet while he dodged the whip, he failed to evade the subsequent barrage of three Eldritch Blasts.
Crimson energy erupted against Hoffman. While it caused little real harm, the violent concussive force hurled him even farther away, widening the gap between them once again.
The battle descended entirely into the opponent's rhythm. Whenever Hoffman attempted to employ monk techniques to close the distance, the dragon anticipated it.
As long as ki circulated, the creature hurled spells without the slightest care for mana conservation. Eldritch Blast and Thunderwave were used to repel him, while defensive wards such as Shield and Armor of Agathys wrapped the dragon in tight protection.
Hoffman could find no opening at all.
Despite possessing iron fists capable of shattering the beast, he could not engineer a second opportunity to strike.
While the opponent could not inflict much harm on Hoffman either, dragging the fight out spelled disaster, for the duration of Fly was limited.
Just as the thought arose, Hoffman felt his body abruptly turn heavy; the effects of the Fly spell vanished prematurely.
*Antimagic Field? Since when?!*
Hoffman realized in horror that he was enveloped within an Antimagic Field, causing his flight to vanish instantly.
He understood at once: this Antimagic Field had been deployed in midair long beforehand. The dragon had manipulated the flow of combat specifically to herd him into this magical barrier.
From the very beginning, a trap had been laid, waiting for Hoffman to walk right into the snare.
Deprived of the Fly spell, even a legendary monk could scarcely maintain his former agility, and a sudden panic seized Hoffman's heart. Driven by a surge of bravado, he had charged into the fray, only to experience genuine terror once peril loomed. When was the last time he had faced mortal danger on a battlefield?
It seemed... it was the very day his hand had been severed by a paladin of the Ryan Empire.
From that day onward, he had left the front lines, transforming from a general into a politician.
In truth, his will had been severed on that very day as well. Like a fractured bone, even after healing, it remained exceedingly fragile.
The moment his fighting spirit crumbled, the ki flowing through Hoffman's body stagnated.
Geronimo acutely perceived the change. Seizing the fleeting flaw, he opened his jaws and bit down upon Hoffman's body.
Several auto-triggering magical defenses activated, but none could hold back Geronimo's fangs.
The dragon's teeth pierced through Hoffman's flesh. Stripped of his ki's protection, a monk unable to wear heavy armor was nothing more than a slab of meat.
Hoffman tried to struggle, but the dragon's teeth seemed laced with virulent toxin, paralyzing his entire body the moment they sank into his flesh.
Talons tore Hoffman's frame apart. Blood rained down from the sky, accompanied by the silver-gray cast-iron fist, plunging together toward the earth below.
Geronimo rabidly devoured the legendary warrior's flesh and blood, sparing not a single bone.
His body grew once more, resembling a true dragon more and more closely, yet Geronimo felt an even fiercer hunger: "Not enough, still not enough! I need to eat more legends!"
Chapter 136