"This Venom Dragon is far too strong. You're no match for it—you should run while you can."
The elf didn't know who the white-haired man suddenly standing before her was, but there was no doubt he was human.
And it wasn't that she looked down on humans—it was simply that she knew all too well the average level of human adventurers.
Though it might sound boastful, after traveling the continent for so long, she truly hadn't encountered many human adventurers whose strength could even compare to her own.
And yet, before the Venom Dragon, she herself was nothing more than prey. The man might look capable, but surely he wasn't a match for the beast either.
"Whether I'm a match for it or not, we'll only know once I fight. From what I've seen while watching from the sidelines, this thing can spit poison mist, it can fly, and its hide is a little tougher than average… but honestly, that's about it."
The elf girl's words made Yojuro, who had finally decided to intervene, reveal a faintly relieved expression.
Even in a hopeless situation, she had wanted him to escape so he wouldn't be dragged down with her. That meant she wasn't a bad person at heart—and it justified his decision to step in.
"ROOOAARRR—!"
As Yojuro thought this, the Venom Dragon in the sky seemed to understand his words. Feeling its dignity trampled, it let out an enraged roar and dove straight down at him!
It might only be a subspecies of dragon, but dragon blood flowed in its veins—how could it allow a mere human to speak so arrogantly?
"Watch out, dodge—!"
The elf girl cried out a warning as the dragon came barreling down, but halfway through her words she froze, stunned by the scene unfolding before her eyes.
The white-haired man didn't dodge. Instead, a look of battle spirit surged across his face as he drew his blade and charged head-on.
What shocked her even more was that against a dragon over fifteen meters long, swooping down in a high-speed dive, the much smaller Yojuro wasn't instantly blown away. Instead, with his long blade, he caught the brunt of its horned charge!
"CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG—!"
The dragon's massive horns clashed violently with Yojuro's blade, each strike ringing like clashing steel and sending sparks flying in all directions.
The force of the dragon's dive was overwhelming—no human could perfectly withstand such raw power. Even as Yojuro held firm, his body was driven back hundreds of meters, his boots carving two deep trenches into the barren earth below.
Even though the Venom Dragon had pushed him back hundreds of meters, the sight alone was enough to terrify the elven maiden.
That was a dragon with a body over fifteen meters long! Even if it was just a subspecies, it was still a dragon-type monster. Among beasts of its size, the Venom Dragon could easily crush its peers with brute strength alone.
And yet its dive had just been stopped head-on by a human… No, wait—was that man really human?
When she had fought the Venom Dragon herself, she had relied solely on her speed advantage to dance around it. Trading blows in close combat with a dragon—what sane person would choose that?
"Tch, what's the matter? Getting worked up just because I said a few words? But the truth is exactly as I said—you're nothing special aside from being a little bigger, with some bad breath that happens to be corrosive."
Provoked once again by Yojuro, the Venom Dragon's rage spiked to the breaking point. This human had insulted it not once, but twice. How could it possibly endure this humiliation?
With Yojuro standing right before it, the beast didn't hesitate. Its jaws gaped wide, releasing a stench it had been building up for over a century—no, not just a stench, but a torrent of toxic mist!
This time, the poison it spewed was far stronger than before, both in concentration and corrosive power.
Earlier, it had used the mist to flood the battlefield and prevent prey from escaping. But this time, the poison was unleashed in a concentrated breath attack.
And with Yojuro standing so close after blocking its horns with his blade, the Venom Dragon's toxic breath would engulf him directly. Even if he used a magic barrier like the elf had before, it would be useless.
The intensified venom would rip through such a defense in an instant, and in the next moment, his flesh—and even his bones—would be corroded into nothing.
"Pillars of Heaven, walls of iron, dragons fly, lions roar, tigers prowl, wolves run—before collapse, sever the heavens and earth!
Bakudō #81: Danku!"
The instant the Venom Dragon spread its jaws, Yojuro had already predicted its move. As the poison gushed forth, he swiftly finished chanting the incantation of the high-level spell, tracing his fingers through the air to form a transparent wall.
The purple mist surged like a flood toward him, but as it neared, it slammed against an invisible barrier. The venom, corrosive enough to melt through anything, could not pass through to reach Yojuro at all.
Though separated only by a step, the barrier stood like an unbreakable chasm, cutting him off completely from the dragon's breath.
Yojuro's spiritual pressure—his mana—was far stronger than the Venom Dragon's. And this was Bakudō #81, fully incanted. No matter how corrosive the poison, it could not shatter the seemingly fragile wall.
The Venom Dragon itself was momentarily stunned, its eyes widening with a disturbingly human look of disbelief.
Yojuro calmly slid his blade back into its sheath, crouching low as his aura sharpened. Looking directly at the beast, he said with deadly seriousness:
"Since you've already shown your trump card, it's only fair that you now witness my swordsmanship."
Mana coiled around him like a living serpent, radiating outward in a pressure that made the very air heavy.
And at that moment, the apex predator of the food chain—the Venom Dragon—felt an unfamiliar sensation stir within its chest. A primal, terrifying premonition of death.
It now knew clearly: this human before it was nothing like the weaklings it had devoured in the past. This was a genuine threat, one capable of killing it.
With no hesitation, it spread its wings wide and took to the skies, desperate to flee as far as possible from this dangerous man.
"Thinking of running now? Don't you think it's a little too late for that…"