The battle in the Ancient Labyrinth City was still raging.
Bam—
The Shield Dragon, whose mountain-sized body had been decapitated and stripped of its short tail, kept ramming into Gelman without tiring.
Ordinary fatal injuries were no longer enough to kill this monstrous beast.
Only after Gelman cut a hole in the "Gold Bar" beneath its belly, which its thick hide did not cover, did a cloud of spore-filled black mist pour out and finally deprive it of its power source.
The infested Shield Dragon crashed to the ground like an airship making a hard landing, scraping out a long trail of blood.
The Parasitic Spores swept toward them like smoke after an explosion, wave after wave, quickly drawing close to Gelman.
Holding Evil Tenderfoot, Shizuku called out from behind him, "Gelman, we should fall back."
"Wait." Gelman conjured a Flamethrower and aimed it at the black mist of Parasitic Spores. "Let's see how effective fire is."
The Flamethrower spewed a tongue of flame into the mist. The spores immediately crackled like popcorn.
At the same time, they came alive, twisting in midair and changing direction. They turned into the gaping maw of a man-eating beast and lunged at Gelman.
Gelman shifted the Flamethrower's nozzle and swept the flames across the air, blocking the advance of that black, gaping maw.
Before long, Gelman had burned up all the Parasitic Spores in the air. Their remains fell as black-gray ashes, covering the ground like a thick carpet.
Gelman walked back to Shizuku. "The fire couldn't burn through the Shield Dragon's hide or the Gold Bar's shell, but it worked on the spores from the Gold Bar."
"Burning them with fire is like burning a nest of cockroaches. You just have to make sure none of them escape and crawl onto you."