I watched Krath walk into the clearing, their large body leaving a trail behind them, the cut down foliage bursting into flame around them. The rock visibly glowing around where his belly touched the ground. Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed me or the unnatural number of creatures yet, though he did spend some time investigating the clearing I had made, nearly reaching either side of the square.

  And I took advantage of this, flying above them, releasing some of the creatures on top of Krath. Thor and Zeus V2 falling a dozen yards from the air and landing on Krath with a crash, though unfortunately, Krash wasn’t injured, only surprised.

  Though that wasn’t any less lethal. Zeus and Thor released a torrent of lightning, the tide of ozone irritating my Antenna. The shock making the dragon spasm, and I kept it up as long as I could, using the time to rally the rest of my forces, waiting for the lightning to abate so I wouldn’t kill my own forces.

  And when it did, I had the Anteaters crawl off of Krath, having them distract it on the ground while my Ravens and Guppy pelted it from above. But Krath didn’t take too kindly to it, releasing a wave of heat, setting the fur of my Anteaters on fire, and liquifying some rock. So I set them to retreat, using the Rain Ravens to extinguish them.

  The heat didn’t reach me or my flying minions, but the heated air jerked me around, making some of my minions panic. And Krath took advantage of them, lobbing balls of molten rock into the air, killing a good chunk of my minions.

  So I sent the Ravens and Guppy to deal with them, the two Ravens weaving around the Dragon and attacking. Dodging the slow attacks, but not dealing much damage back. The Nimbus Raven, Huginn, could seem to affect them with their water based magic. A Munnin the Storm Raven wasn’t dealing much damage either, because whenever they used lightning attacks, Krath would predict it and opened their mouth. Devouring the energy and presumably using it to refill their MP and EP, and most of my minions couldn’t get close without getting devoured by that heat wave. But Guppy's concrete spit was proving slightly effective in slowing them down, though not for long, as Krath could shake it off with slight effort.

  So I spent time testing and prodding at Krath, sending a minion to engage and see the limits of their abilities. Taking some unfortunately large losses in the process, but in the end, I got the information I wanted.

  Three times in a row, and they would cool down for ten seconds.

  I thought to myself after counting the seconds enough times to be satisfied with my accuracy. And, enacting my plan, I sent half of my remaining cannon fodder to distract Krath, the absolute minimum amount that they seemed to judge worth paying attention to.

  Krath looked towards them, releasing a heatwave as they got inside the range. Then I sent the second wave, the last of minions dying to a monstrous burst of heat. The toxic pheromone I had put on them earlier, made from my complex pheromone production, becoming aerosolised due to the heat.

  It had no visual or noxious indicators that it was even there; unfortunately, it would take a while to catch on, but it was the best I could do since I could do little with that mutation yet. And while I waited for it to clear out of the air, I then sent Thor and Zeus after him, tanking the heat wave, seeing their HP go from yellow to orange quickly, but steadying at a dangerously dark orange. My two beautiful boys creating the needed ten second delay.

  Then, from above, Huginn and Munnin dive bombed Krath. The Storm Raven taking the lead, readying to attack, but Krath anticipated this, opening their mouth to eat the energy. But instead of a healthy snack of lightning, came a torrent of water. And as I had observed, Krath was unable to absorb that element, closing their laserated mouth, their tongue half cut off. Then the Nimbus Raven released a bolt of electricity instead of their usual water magic, the two Ravens having switched skills using my Moon Silk.

  And finally, during the uncontested five seconds, I had all the Minions I could charge and tear at the dragon. Most of them only leaving surface wounds, but some got a good hit in, and Huginn the Storm Raven even got Krath's right eye. And I had Guppy try to seal Krath's mouth shut, the attempt only half working, the dragon clawing at the concrete, but their claws were short and couldn’t reach certain places. And grinding against the ground wasn’t getting the concrete like material off after it hardened.

  Then, when the time was up, my minions retreated, some of the more injured and vital ones like Thor and Zeus, I sent the Solar Scale Butterflies their way. After that was over, I heard something unexpected, but familiar.

  Krath saying, “An expected way for a coward to fight; Statement,” The way he spoke was more like what the Ant Queen and I did, than what the system did during the third phase. Projecting a part of ourselves out instead of something interpreting our thoughts and putting them through the divine version of Google Translate.

  Yep!

  I mentally responded, since I had no idea what I would be giving away if I did, at least he knew I would be here. Since he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of me the entire fight, for all they knew, I was 50 miles away. Hell, I could be if I wanted, but I couldn’t see through my minions' senses remotely, and I wasn’t leaving my tactics to a squirrel.

  But he was definitely doing it for more than that.

  Stalling, probably, but this was helping me to.

  I thought, looking over to my healing minions. And so I just allowed them to continue.

  “No response, Jacob Davidson, why am I not surprised.”

  They continued speaking like that for a while, getting suspicious at the amount of time they were giving me to recuperate. But I didn’t have to spend much time wondering why as their drifting eyes locked onto me, a glowing energy coming from the parts of their mouth that weren’t shut by concrete.

  The openings awkwardly angled to point at me at my not so good hiding spot, a beam of electricity and flame hurdling towards me. I had Thor block it, their body splitting the crackling energy, and I watched as their just healed HP plummeted again, calling Guppy over as fast as possible. The system blaring a warning into my ear.

  “Warning, minions' HP is dropping into the Red.”

  But I waited every last moment I could as Guppy got over, the wait feeling like an eternity, some of Thor's bones now exposed to the air. I thought of connecting a piece of Moon Silk to them, but I remembered it couldn’t transfer HP. So I painstakingly waited till Guppy dropped in front of Thor to pull the Anteater back into the Slip Away just before their HP turned to black.

  The beam finally dying down, smoke coming off Guppy's body, and I realised they were halfway towards being cooked when I saw their HP was on the cusp of turning Red.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Krath chuckles at the sight, “Hiding behind another, I see, and a hatchling too.”

  But I ignored that little taunt, saying instead, “You nearly killed Thor, you fucker! I’m going to tear you a new one so wide the Katty Freeway could go through you.”

  “You never actually try to engage with anything I say, another coward's tactic.”

  “yOu NevEr EnGagE,” I mocked them, “Oh. Shut up, you armchair psychologist!”

  “You’re just proving my point.”

  Krath says, readying up another attack, but I had another reason for engaging with him beyond my own amusement.

  I had Munnin attack from Krath's blind spot, digging straight into Krath's newly gouged out eye, reaching for the brain with shocks of electricity. Then bolting away before a heatwave could hit them, and during that, I ran away, putting my most valuable minions into Slip Away.

  Krath noticed and tried to find me, but I had Hugin and Munin distract them along with the remaining horde of my flying minions. Pressing the dragon hard enough that they were distracted, but never enough that they put their full attention into my minions. Making the situation worse for them than if they had just focused on one goal.

  But they didn’t learn that during our game of cat and mouse, as I ran away. Krath originally tried to use their abilities, like the heatwave and beam attack to clear out whatever biome I was in. But they quickly learned not to do that, because my minions would use the rest time in between to brutally maul them, and Krath could justify the risk.

  So I was able to stall them out almost the entire night, but I still couldn’t shake them. Krath didn’t seem to have any senses as good as mine, but they weren’t dull enough to let me escape. I tried to rest where I could, healing my injured Elites, but I couldn’t stay still for more than two minutes without getting found.

  Starting the cycle all over again, but by the time the sun rose, I had accomplished what I wanted. The sight of the giant Ant hill clear, even to my weak insectoid eyes. Though I took time circling it, waking up the Queen underground from her hibernation, the process taking time for a creature of her size.

  I had to be careful since I didn’t actually control the ant hive, that would take up way too many slaughts, so I just controlled their Queen. Same thing in the end, but if I was in a situation where she wasn’t awake, the colony would perceive me as a threat again. And I had kept her here since if I used Slip Away on her, the colony would instantly turn on me, so I couldn’t really move her that far.

  And so I stalled for time, me and all the minions exhausted from staying up all night, working not to die without a break. While Krath didn’t seem even the slightest bit winded.

  Come on, that can’t be it.

  I checked with appraisal.

  Furnace Dragon: Krath Nixm

  HP: Yellow

  Lv: 105

  MP: Green

  Lv: 91

  EP: Yellow

  Lv: 120

  Poison: Yellow

  I wanted to scream at the absolute bullshit of the stats only being at yellow even with the poison, but whining never got anything done for me after I turned nine. So I did something instead, keeping the dragon at bay with every little dirty trick my mind could come up with. Exploiting his blind spot as much as possible, and when they started to get used to that trick, and even started anticipating it. I switched gears, catching them off guard and getting a small hit in.

  But I didn’t let up, I instantly switched back to attacking the other side, the whiplash in focus allowing me to keep it off balance and distract it. Krath only noticing I was finally taking a stand when a rumble from the ground started, and my minions let off for a bit, running in the opposite direction as the Queen emerged from the ground. A volcano of earth spewing out at her arrival, the ant almost an equal in size to Krath.

  But I didn’t let the Dragon get grounded; the Queen releasing a blade of grey energy at the Dragon instantly. The ants finally joining in the fight, Krath releasing a heatwave, killing a good chunk of them. I wanted to control their movement, but I couldn’t since they weren’t my minions, and the Queen wasn’t meant to be a general, so if I had her give orders, that would just confuse the ants in a situation I didn't want them to be.

  The energy blade hit Krath, with their maw only half open to absorb the energy due to surprise, having at some point last night lost the concrete muzzle. The blade cutting into the Dragon's face, the first real damage since the eye, but it still wasn’t enough.

  Krath chewed up some earth and spat it towards the Queen as a ball of magma, but an energy blade caught it mid air. The lava ball splattering into small harmless chunks when it reached the Queen.

  While the two exchanged blows, I released my Elites, getting them into as best condition as I could, leaving Guppy in the fray to fight. But taking the anteaters into the Slip Away, flying over Krath to reenact what I now considered to be my signature move.

  I waited till they had used Heatwave three times to get rid of the legion of ants swarming them, then dropped Thor and Zeus. The absurd sight bringing me a little needed joy.

  The Anteater landing with a thud, startling Krath and releasing a wave of lightning, the Dragon opening his mouth halfway through the attack to absorb it. When he did, Thor and Zeus cut it off to avoid giving Krath energy, and ran off in two separate directions so they couldn’t follow both of them.

  And when Krath decided to dedicate to one, the Queen shot an energy blade at him, keeping him away. So Krath decided to use a heatwave, damaging the Anteaters, but they were at the very edge of the radius, so it wasn’t substantial.

  And I kept this up for a while, whenever Krath decided to try and dedicate themself to taking down one thing, I would distract them with another. Keeping this cycle up for as long as I could, the stress grinding at my already thin patience, but death was quite a motivator. And so I kept checking his status, but even after ten minutes it was still the same.

  Furnace Dragon: Krath Nixm

  HP: Orange

  Lv: 105

  MP: Green

  Lv: 91

  EP: Yellow

  Lv: 120

  Poison: Yellow

  I had found a balance to keep up this pace, but he had as well, absorbing enough energy I gave in attacks to balance out his losses. But it wasn’t perfect; his lowered stats were a testament to that. I could heal as long as the sun was up, and considering it was still morning, I wasn’t worried about that, and I could rotate out my troops to keep them rested. He couldn’t, but he was an exponentially better fighter than anything I had, and could keep their reserves up with every attack that used magic.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop using magic due to it being my only source of real damage, but I was willing to extend the battle to win it. But my ADHD still didn’t like it; I constantly checked every little detail, trying to find something, anything that would allow me to not do this one single damn task over and over again!

  And one of the times, I was repeatedly checking Krath’s status, hoping to see anything drop, and noticed something weird. Their MP stat was a colour I don’t remember ever seeing, white…

  I looked up from the System display and saw Krath doing something I’d never seen before. They had their head tilted up towards the sky, ignoring the attacks pelting them. And vomited something out.

  A tide of energy they had absorbed during the whole fight, mostly fire, lightning, and that grey stuff the ants used, flowing over their body. Creating an avatar of themselves around a third bigger than the original, a wave of destruction emanating out from them.

  Yeah...