(Sorry, I deleted and rewrote it again and again. No matter how I wrote it, it never felt right, and I dragged it out for several days... But no matter what, I still felt I had to write it. After agonizing over it for so long, I could only force myself to continue. In the end, it still turned out rather watery. You might as well skip this chapter...)
Bang!
It was as if an angry thunderbolt had exploded!
It was only a single claw, yet everyone felt an indescribable sense of suffocation. Their bodies grew as heavy as if they had been filled with lead.
Their bodies trembled uncontrollably, as though they had encountered a natural predator. Fear from the very top of the food chain crept into their hearts.
In such an environment, they could not display their normal strength at all.
The Dragon's Might of a pureblood dragon!
This thought flashed through the captains' minds at the same time, and their expressions became terribly grim.
"Guh... How did it come so quickly?!"
Korelinus crouched slightly with her trembling body, raising her head in astonishment as she stared at the dragon claw gripping the World Gate tightly.
Normally, the first wave of monsters descending through the World Gate was usually the weakest.
Korelinus had originally thought that the strongest monsters that could appear would be swarms of Flying Insects the dragons treated as food, or perhaps mixed-blood dragonkin.
She never expected...
Crack!
Korelinus stared at the World Gate, which had been squeezed until cracks spread across it. Gritting her teeth, she said through her trembling:
"This fellow... Is it trying to force its way through?"
"Isn't it afraid the World Gate will break?!"
Bang!
Fred's heavily armored foot slammed into the ground, and the tremendous pressure and force