Dragon Slayer

"I only hope this Dragon-slaying Sword can really slay dragons!" Roland sighed.

As a type of Dragon-kin, the Earth Drake came infinitely close to true dragons. Its bloodline ranked only below wyverns, and it inherited the dragon race's formidable close-combat abilities and scorching Dragon Breath. It could easily destroy a small army.

Roland could not sit around and wait for death. He quickly led his warhorse out of the cave and threw on the saddle. As for equipping it with horse armor... he could only pray that he survived first.

Fortunately, a trained Shire Warhorse would not be intimidated by a Dragon-kin's Dragon Might. With no chance of his horse suddenly failing him in battle, perhaps that was why Roland felt he could take on the Earth Drake head-on.

"Hyah!" Roland squeezed his legs against the horse's flanks and thrust his sword forward.

"Roar!" The Earth Drake opened its huge jaws and lunged at Roland.

"Fuck!" Roland yanked the reins and pulled the horse's head around, narrowly dodging the massive maw that brushed past him.

"You beast! Take this!" Roland foolishly swung his sword backhandedly.

"Awooo!" Accompanied by a Dragon's Roar, a spray of scalding dragon blood followed the sword tip.

"It works! It can actually pierce Dragon Scale!" Roland cried out in delight.

"Awooo!" Another backhanded slash opened a gash in the dragon's leg.

Roaring in pain, the Earth Drake twisted its body violently. Its thick, steel-like tail swept in every direction, but the Shire Horse nimbly dodged the sweeping tail.

"Boom!" The enormous dragon head turned, and a thick pillar of fire swept past Roland's side.

"Damn! I almost died!" Roland said fearfully. Even through his Adamant Plate Armor, he could feel that deadly heat.

"Ha!" Roland gripped his sword with both hands and blocked fiercely. A tremendous force immediately surged through the hilt, nearly making him lose his grip on the longsword.

"Good lord! What a sword!" Roland said in shock. The Earth Drake's sweeping steel tail had struck the Dragon-slaying Sword that Roland had instinctively raised to block, and the tail had been cut cleanly in two.

"Awooo!" Enraged by this ant riding on horseback, the Earth Drake began blanketing the area with Dragon Breath. Its scorching Dragonflame ignited the dead trees around them, lighting up the surroundings. Roland finally saw the enormous creature clearly. It was at least a dozen meters long. Its door-sized head bore a gaping bloody maw filled with dagger-length Dragon Tooth. Its thick limbs were massive and powerful, while its body was covered in hard Dragon Scale...

"It really is huge!" Roland marveled at the Creator's wonders.

"Bang!" While distracted, Roland was struck by the severed tail and swept straight off his horse. The instant he hit the ground, he rolled sideways and dodged the dragon's jaws, then rolled several more times to evade the dragon claw stomping down at him. After that series of moves, Roland was delighted to discover that he had somehow slipped beneath the Earth Drake's belly.

Overjoyed, Roland thrust the sword in his hand upward, then pressed himself flat against the ground and shuffled backward. Gushing dragon blood drenched him from head to toe.

"Damn it! This is bad!" Roland's expression suddenly changed. He remembered the Earth Drake's several-ton weight. If it came crashing down on him... cold sweat immediately covered Roland's forehead.

After crawling out from beneath the dragon's belly, Roland finally confirmed his results. His luck was not bad—he had successfully opened a nearly three-meter-long wound beneath its belly. In other words, the dragon was as good as dead!

Moving away from the Earth Drake's dying struggles, Roland found his warhorse nearby. The horse stood quietly waiting for him instead of fleeing in the chaos, which made Roland very happy.

"Dragon-kin Hunter: Completed. You have successfully proven your courage and strength. Reward: Wyvern Knight ×1. Can be summoned at any time."

"Wyvern Knight!" Roland's pupils contracted. This should be the second-strongest aerial unit, right? Dragon Knights were unquestionably first. He just did not know what kind of wyvern it was. As the lowest rank among pure-blooded dragons, wyverns came in many varieties. Smaug from Hobbits, for example, was a Giant Fire Wyvern, even larger than a giant dragon. True dragons were not actually that enormous, but if the two fought, Smaug would definitely be crushed...

"Summon it!" Roland felt as if he were opening a blind box.

"My lord! Caslo reports for duty!" A young blond knight appeared before Roland. Even Roland, who had lived through the age of information explosion, could not help but praise him. He was truly handsome.

"How old are you?" Roland asked, looking at his youthful face.

"Honored sir, I am eighteen this year!" Caslo replied respectfully.

Good lord! He was even older than Roland! Before transmigrating, Roland had only been sixteen. Everyone here was his big brother!

"Oh, right. What is your level? And most importantly, where is your dragon?" Roland asked curiously.

"Honored sir, I currently possess the strength of a Great Knight. As for my dragon, he is inside the Dragon Flute!" Caslo replied respectfully.

Damn! An eighteen-year-old Great Knight. He would definitely reach the rank of Knight Commander someday, and he even had hope of reaching another level—Hero! Just as the pinnacle of a mage was a Sage, the pinnacle of a knight was a Hero!

"Summon your dragon. Let me have a look," Roland ordered.

"Yes, my lord." Caslo took out a Dragon Flute from inside his collar and played it. Soon, a green wyvern roughly fifteen meters long tore through the air.

"Hmm, a Wind-aligned Four-legged Wyvern! Not bad. At least it is not bottom-tier trash like a Two-legged Wyvern." Roland nodded in satisfaction.

As the name implied, Four-legged Wyverns were wyverns with four legs. They resembled giant dragons and possessed fairly good dragon bloodlines. They commanded simple Draconic Magic and close-combat abilities. Their breath attacks and melee abilities were slightly weaker than those of giant dragons. The way to distinguish them from giant dragons was to look at their head crests. They lacked the complicated dragon horns decorations of giant dragons, possessing only simple bony crests. Those who did not know better often mistook Four-legged Wyverns for young giant dragons... though to ordinary people, there was not much difference in destructive power.

"All right, put him away," Roland said calmly.

Although having a Wyvern Knight was something worth being proud of, Middle-earth after its magical alterations was still dangerous. Before he had a stable territory and power base, revealing too early that he had a Wyvern Knight under his command would lead to consequences that were simply too painful to imagine. The most likely result was that the major factions would hunt his Wyvern Knight and seize the Dragon Flute. Wyverns were not rare, so why were Wyvern Knights and Dragon Knights so scarce? Humans had stolen plenty of dragon eggs, yet they still could not cultivate more than a handful of Dragon Knights. The reason was the Dragon Flute! The Dragon Flute was the most important item for contracting dragons. A Dragon Knight without a Dragon Flute contract was not a true Dragon Knight at all. The Dragon Flute gave Knights space to carry their Dragon Riders, allowing them to summon their dragon mounts across space to their side. Such were the Dragon Flute's miraculous effects. As for how Dragon Flutes were made, that method had long been lost.

"You should walk for now..." Roland sighed. He realized that he was jealous. Caslo was the real knight: Adamant Dragon Armor, an Adamant Dragon Shield, a Mithril Longsword, an Adamant Dragon Lance, a Dragonbone Wood Longbow, and a warhammer made of Star Silver Iron. He was fully armed from head to toe. Roland, meanwhile, had nothing but a suit of plate armor, a sword, and a shield...

After dealing with the Earth Drake's corpse and storing all the useful materials in the One Ring's Endless Space, Roland led his horse back into the cave and lay down to sleep again. After all, under the Earth Drake's Dragon Might, no magical beast or wild animal dared come looking for trouble.