Damn!!! What a fucking useless teammate! Hurry up and finish him off already! Why are you standing around showing off? Don't you know villains die from talking too much? Seriously, showing off just gets you struck by lightning.
Solam cursed inwardly. Damn it, I came to save the living, not the dead. If he kicks the bucket, it won't mean I didn't do my best. The Buddha saves those with a connection to him, and medicine can't cure the dead. I did all I could—he brought this on himself.
But now was really not the time to think about that. He'd better finish off this Snow Dragon before worrying about anything else. Solam gathered his focus and summoned Thor's Hammer back into his hand. As he gripped it, he felt his strength returning. (Once Thor's Hammer left its wielder's grasp, all of its enhancement effects disappeared.)
Without hesitation, he fired a Rock Spear Spell at the Snow Dragon's blinded eye. But the Snow Dragon had earned its fearsome reputation; even with one eye blind, it sensed the incoming spear and turned its head aside, dodging the spell.
Solam hadn't expected a single Rock Spear Spell to finish the Snow Dragon off, of course. If it had been like that other fool, standing around showing off and failing to react, then getting a Rock Spear Spell shoved through the wound in its eye and into its brain, that would've been ideal. But the Snow Dragon's intelligence was clearly above average. Solam wasn't disappointed, though. He was keeping his options open. As the Snow Dragon dodged the Rock Spear Spell, he fired a Lightning Bolt at the Blade Greatspear embedded in its chest.
Solam had received a first-rate education among the Orc clans. First, his grandfather had taught him, then his second uncle and Granny Garom, and later Blackhand. They were all experienced and knowledgeable people. Naturally, Solam knew from their careful instruction that a Snow Dragon's hide had high magic resistance. If his Lightning Bolt hit the Snow Dragon directly, it would probably do little damage. But the Blade Greatspear was different. It was made of metal, and metal conducted electricity. Solam refused to believe the Snow Dragon's hide could withstand an electric shock, but its insides were another matter.
In the blink of an eye, the Lightning Bolt struck the Blade Greatspear. The Snow Dragon immediately made a strange sound, like a rooster whose neck had been grabbed just as it was about to crow. Its fur stood on end, and then it stiffened in place. It had clearly been stunned by the electricity.
That was exactly the effect Solam wanted. While the Snow Dragon was too paralyzed to move, he leaped up and brought Thor's Hammer down hard on its head. The warhammer and the Snow Dragon's skull met once again with an intimate BOOM. The instant the hammer struck, another flash of lightning flared around it.
The heavy blow knocked the Snow Dragon's massive head completely to the other side. Solam had also taken the opportunity to strike the wound around its eye—the same one his first blow had caused. The heavy impact, combined with the electrical damage, left the Snow Dragon on the brink of death.
But there was a reason Snow Dragons were so terrifying. Even in that condition, the creature managed to strike back. As Solam hit it with the hammer, the Snow Dragon used the momentum of the blow to topple in the same direction, then swung its powerful tail at him. Solam hadn't even landed yet. That showed just how quick this creature was—and how vicious its last-ditch attacks could be.
Solam truly hadn't expected the creature to manage an attack like that at this point, so things got awkward. He was still in midair and had no way to dodge. Wind Agility was a lot like the lightness skills from martial arts novels, sure, but it wasn't a cloud-leaping technique that let him change direction in midair. There was no avoiding the blow. But Solam wasn't entirely helpless. He immediately held Thor's Hammer horizontally in front of his chest, while winding up the battle-axe in his other hand, ready to leave a mark on the Snow Dragon's tail. If I'm going down, you're not getting off easy either.
THUD!
The blow sent Solam flying, and his attempt to chop at the Snow Dragon's tail came to nothing. For one thing, the Snow Dragon's tail whipped around too fast. For another, it was difficult to land a hit without anything to push off against in midair. Still, it was clear that Solam had a serious streak of ferocity.
Though Thor's Hammer had blocked part of the impact, Solam felt as if his ribs were about to break. The force of the blow also seemed to have scrambled his insides.
The strike sent Solam flying more than ten meters. Fortunately, though badly hurt, he hadn't lost consciousness. As he fell, he performed several consecutive rolls to bleed off the momentum. Otherwise, hitting the ground would have knocked him out—or made him cough up three liters of blood.
Even so, Solam was in bad shape. He struggled to his feet, enduring the agonizing pain in his chest, only to immediately spit out a huge mouthful of blood and collapse to his knees, utterly weak. At least the blood seemed to help. As soon as he coughed it up, his chest felt much better. It still hurt, but the tightness had eased considerably. That meant the bleeding in his lungs had been cleared out; at least he wouldn't go into shock from lack of oxygen caused by blood building up in them.
But after that hit, Solam no longer had the strength to finish off the Snow Dragon.
After delivering that powerful tail strike, the Snow Dragon also collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. The counterattack had obviously made its condition even worse. Still, a Snow Dragon was an apex predator, after all. It forced itself to stay alert, preparing to finish off its enemy. It didn't have the strength to kill Solam outright, but it still had spell-like abilities.
After lying there and panting for a while, the Snow Dragon raised its head and looked at Solam. Though he was some distance away, it still opened its jaws toward him. A ball of blue light began to gather in its mouth.
Solam cursed inwardly when he saw this. He knew it was the Snow Dragon's ultimate move—Frost Breath, a powerful blast laced with razor-sharp ice shards. Even a rock would shatter into pieces if hit head-on. The Snow Dragon could only use it once a day, but in Solam's current condition, even dodging it would be difficult. Fortunately, he still had one more trick: the spell that came with Thor's Hammer.
Whether it would work or not, Solam only hoped he could interrupt the Snow Dragon's Frost Breath. He activated the spell on Thor's Hammer. First, three Lightning Bolts shot toward the greatspear in the Snow Dragon's chest. He wasn't trying to hurt it, only to hinder its movements. Sure enough, the Snow Dragon struggled to dodge; two bolts missed, but one struck the greatspear. One hit was all he needed. The moment the final Lightning Bolt hit, the Snow Dragon's body stiffened. This was exactly what Solam had been waiting for. As soon as he saw it freeze, he activated Thor's Hammer's most powerful spell—Lightning Strike. The target, naturally, was the greatspear.
BOOM!
This Lightning Strike was more than the Snow Dragon could bear. A bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere in the sky and struck the greatspear directly. Electricity coursed wildly through the Snow Dragon and the Blade Greatspear. Then it even surged out through the Snow Dragon's wide-open mouth. Its body convulsed repeatedly as the current coursed through it, until the electricity suddenly dispersed. The Snow Dragon could no longer stay on its feet and crashed to the ground. Steam rose from every part of its body.
"Phew. Damn, it's finally dead for good, right?"
Honestly, Solam hadn't expected the Snow Dragon to be so tough. Any other monster would have died three times over from injuries like that. This thing had even managed to counterattack. Without Thor's Hammer, Solam probably would've been in serious trouble, if he hadn't died outright.
"Did that guy just die? Come to think of it, that useless idiot definitely wasn't an Orc. He must've been human. But since when have there been humans in Avalon?"
Only then did Solam think to wonder who the man was. But the most important thing now was to check whether the fool was dead. Solam cast a Rejuvenation Spell on himself first. Once he felt a little better, he rested the warhammer against his waist, slung the battle-axe over his back, and slowly walked over to the man.
When he reached him, Solam finally got a good look at the man. He was an old fellow, around sixty or seventy by the look of him, with a face full of wrinkles. His black cloak was tattered, and he looked utterly weather-beaten. It seemed he'd gone to a lot of trouble to reach Avalon. He was also wearing a suit of black armor that looked old, but the strange light that occasionally flickered across it showed that it was no ordinary armor.
It made sense. Without that armor, Solam would probably have been digging a grave for the old man by now. His spell had been interrupted, and he'd taken the Snow Dragon's Howling Sonic Wave head-on. His injuries couldn't be called minor. Still, the old man seemed to be doing all right for now. There was only a little blood at the corner of his mouth, and his breathing remained steady. He wasn't going to die just yet. Solam quickly cast a Rejuvenation Spell on him, then left the rest to fate. There was nothing more he could do. An Elemental Shaman's healing ability was very limited; if he'd been a Spirit Shaman, he might have been able to wake the old man.
Solam whistled for Frostfang to come and watch over the old man. Then he took off his coat and wrapped it around him. He didn't want the old man to survive his injuries only to freeze to death in the cold. That would be ridiculous.
As for Solam himself, he didn't mind the cold, and he was about to get to work. Wearing too many layers would only get in his way.
And what work was that? Why, butchering the Snow Dragon, of course. They said a poor man's child learned to fend for himself early. Solam wasn't exactly poor, but with the Orcs' level of production, even his relatively respectable status didn't mean he could be called wealthy. Wasting things was sure to bring down divine punishment. This was a Snow Dragon, after all—one of the three most difficult monsters to hunt in all of Avalon. Neither his grandfather nor his second uncle had ever hunted one. He'd have plenty to brag about when he got back.
This was a Snow Dragon! Ordinary Orcs rarely even got to see one.
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