Watching the terrifying figure descend like a meteor from the heavens, every member of the Crimson Mercenary Company forced themselves to cast aside, for the moment, the negative emotions of terror and despair that came with plunging into the abyss, entering combat readiness at once.
Without question, this was a dragonkin!
At the very least, it was a powerful dragonkin with True Dragon blood. They absolutely could not confront it head-on—the result would be being crushed into pieces in an instant!
Reality was not one of those role-playing games bards peddled to children, where probabilities were decided by rolling twenty-sided dice. Ordinary people without the blessings of bloodlines were born to be crushed beneath creatures like dragons. A thing weighing dozens or even hundreds of tons could flatten half a castle by its own weight alone if it happened to fall from the sky.
But fortunately, since it was dragonkin, they were professionals!
Before delving into a lair to slay a dragon, swiftly and discreetly clearing out the dragonkin servants around its nest in the most efficient way possible was a discipline worth passing down through generations.
They had lost count of how many dragons they had hunted. This was merely a Half-Dragon Gnoll with True Dragon blood.
Only... that roar from earlier, three parts more terrifying even than a True Dragon's, still left them with a faint sense that something was terribly wrong.
"Spread out first!"
At the spearman captain's shout, the Crimson Mercenary Company's seven members scattered in all directions. The female Mage Qiyan, who was still suffering discomfort from having her spellcasting interrupted, was swept into the spearman captain's arms as he retreated three steps in rapid succession.
Then came a thunderous BOOM. As the Half-Dragon Gnoll landed, the volcanic rock centered beneath him seemed to come