Museum Core Chapter 101: The Dragon of Siberia

So ... word to the wise, if your spellcheck is missing very obvious typos, you've probably whitelisted them by accident at some point in the half. Hopefully, after clearing out the "do not highlight" list, the spelling should be better going forward. 

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The moment her boots touched the ground, a System window sprang up to cover the entirety of her vision.

Greetings, Ascender!

As you are presently on the fourth Step of Ascension, you have automatically been granted access to the Kristalia System; however, you will not be able to gain power from this until/unless you choose to return here during your advance to the fifth Step and avail yourself of one of its powers.

Would you like to earmark this System for your next power increase?

(This will prevent you from accidentally selecting a different System, but can be overridden if so desired.)

Would you like to peruse the available powers for the fifth Step?

Huh … there was no way in hell she’d be branching out like that, with only seven power slots available, Jaclyn was going to select her Class’ highly synergistic abilities for every single one. There wasn’t a power in the world that could be so good that it was stronger than a class ability with all associated synergies combined.

There were doubtlessly Classes that could do very well with multiclassing, but everything the Anima Monk could do was too enmeshed, too interlinked, too focused on every Aspect strengthening the others, especially with what she knew about how things would continue going forward.

In fact, with all the information the Worldstrider tribe had provided, she’d managed to plan her build out all the way to A-Rank.

Jaclyn waved away the System window and started to look around the area. It hadn’t blocked her vision to the point where she wouldn’t have seen a threat, but it had made seeing details hard.

Not that there were many details to be seen. This entire place was a vast world of crystal, stark, white, flat. It felt unreal in a way that nothing else she’d ever seen, even without a single creature in sight, as though she had been shrunken and transported into some image of a salt crystal beneath a microscope, rather than a natural place that existed in the “real world.”

What. On. Earth?

Quite literally, what on Earth was this mess?

Henderson landed at that point, slamming into the ground much harder than she had and muttering swearwords. He had … well, Jaclyn had a far better grasp on profanity than most people, after all, as a police officer, she’d probably had more insults hurled at her than any ten normal people put together. And even so, she only recognized maybe one in two of the ones the ex-marine used.

Harjaz hit next, with barely less force, but that was the last of those that dropped like bags of bricks.

Gula caught herself with a spirit of hers, another new one, Granger had a spell that, once again, Jaclyn didn’t recognize, and Müller just landed lightly and rolled with unnatural grace before vanishing into empty air as he activated his stealth power.

“The dragon is usually in the central courtyard, it should be there at the moment, but we don’t know for certain, so keep an eye ou- …” a loud, earth-shaking roar cut her off.

Jaclyn grimaced, but declined to add “or it could be outside already.”

Instead, she announced, “You all know the plan,” and launched herself back into the sky, angling herself towards the origin of the roar. Henderson followed on her heels, for once smaller than her, as he was fully shapeshifted into a phoenix. And Granger followed suit, apparently having decided that he had enough mana to spare to use some to fly. The others just followed on the ground.

This thing might look like a dragon, but it was very much a rapid beast, its hoarding of treasure a purely instinctive action, much like how the Hunger had devoured everything it found despite only growing with age due to the constraints imposed by its world of origin. Both the archives of the Worldstrider tribe and Daedalus’ fairy had confirmed that.

But if they’d been able to negotiate with this monster, they would have been able to gain so much … each of the three friendly formerly offworlder factions had been game-changing.

And then, the dragon came into view. Despite having had the satellite images for weeks, Jaclyn had expected it to be bigger. And stronger.

The Hunger really had set the bar high, hadn’t it?

Their enemy was the size of a shipping container, not counting the wings, which were about the size of a small yacht’s sails, and a tail that added a third again to its length, and the monster was perhaps a third of the way through C-Rank. That still put it ahead of any one of them, and it was said to have stupidly powerful skills, but the entire reason they’d launched this opperation in the first place was because it had been doable.

But just because it was smaller than expected hardly classified the amber-and-brown beast “not threatening,” though the way it was striped did make it look ever so slightly off.

“Tiger’s eye,” Jaclyn realized. That was the name of that stone. Associated with … fire, strength, and protection. Those would be its spells, in addition to its powers.

Though before she could pass that information along to the others, Granger did so. Loudly. He’d have to watch it with that amplification spell before he burst someone’s eardrums …

The dragon’s wings beat, once, hurling the beast skyward with astonishing speed for a walking rock.

Jaclyn did a barrel roll to dodge, kicking at its face as it passed, only to wince as her boot bounced off its eyeball. That had felt as though she’d kicked a wall, pre-system. And she’d kicked it in the eye. She might as well have struck its heaviest armor rather than the most ubiquitous weak point across all living beings.

So yes, until they managed to break that defensive power, it didn’t matter where, or how hard, they hit it, but she’d just had to try.

Which meant they were back to plan A: keep hitting it until enough charges accumulated in their rings, use Müller to ascertain when they’d actually reached that point … good fucking luck pulling that off while it was flying.

But suddenly, the dragon banked and began to dive, not towards the others but at the courtyard.

And a split second before, its last wingbeat, it hadn’t seemed as powerful, not as fast, almost … almost as if it had just lost some of its strength. Almost as though said strength wasn’t a normal part of its powerset.

Jaclyn grinned. It burned through its energy supplies just to fly. That was … well, not a massive vulnerability, the dragon was plenty menacing on the ground as well, but that would make the chance of it fleeing practically non-existent if they exhausted it enough.

The dragon whirled around to unleash a gout of flame towards the entrance, clearly intent on keeping her ground-bound allies out before staring up expectantly at her, as though it were expecting her to just hurl herself down its gullet. Not that it would enjoy that experience, now that the blood of a hydra flowed through her veins, but there was no way in hell she’d commit to a kamikaze attack …

Besides, the dragon had just assumed its attack had worked. It hadn’t. Granger had frozen the flame the instant it had left the monster’s field of view. That Arcane Stasis power was meant to be a research tool, or so its description had claimed, but it could still be used to stop any spell he was aware of, leaving the entrance that was meant to be closed wide open, and the dragon with a comical look of surprise when Harjaz cold-cocked it in the side of the head.

It was at that point that Granger threw what appeared to be a handful of New Year’s sparklers at the dragon, which, in reality, was almost certainly several dozen tiny magic missiles.

That was the correct approach to this.

Jaclyn couldn’t properly attack while actively moving her wings, controlling them through movements of her shoulders and torso tended to foul any attempts at precision … but who the hell cared about precision when the only thing that mattered was making physical contact with the enemy?

What followed was less “skillful display of martial arts,” more “tapdancing on her enemy’s head till something happened,” but it didn’t matter what it looked like, all that counted was. That. It. Worked.

They could hit this thing as hard or as soft as they wanted; in the end, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference until that blasted shell was cracked open.

The dragon seemed more than a little confused by their change in approach btu that didn’t stop it from trying to attack them, snapping and gnashing and trying to crush them but only succeeded at reducing the crystal floor to powder, sending razor-sharp dust into the air that would have likely landed them in the hospital in short order, had this been the “before times.”

It was oh so much easier to land hits and get away when you didn’t need to fully commit to your punches, you could just do a quick little jab and duck away.

A dirty brown light flashed in the monster’s eyes as it glared at her, only for a wave of energy that made her think of an exploded toilet to flood off it in a cascade, transforming the walls and floor into the same kind of semi-precious gemstone as the dragon itself … and doing absolutely nothing to any of the people it was trying to kill, a golden halo manifesting to keep away the energy as it washed past.

The energy continued to flood the surrounding area, the attack continuing for far longer than any of the reports had indicated, but that didn’t help. Their defense was far too good, leaving the monster to waste its mana, which was perfect.

Jaclyn’s eyes had also adjusted too, and she charged in once again, lightly punching the dragon in the shoulder, leaning back to avoid a shoulder check, then turning the movement into a backflip that caused both her feet to hit and glance off her enemy as it moved further than it had previously struck in some clealry doomed attempt to catch her flat footed.

“NOW!”

Müller’s shout took her by complete surprise, but that didn’t stop her from acting accordingly.

A jump took her into the air, a shrugging motion unfurled her wings, and a beat of those flung her skywards for a brief instant before she turned in midair, diving back down, returning to earth like a homesick meteor, fist clenched, Bracelet of the Unconquerable Huntress glowing on her wrist as it warped reality to increase the mass of her hand tenfold.

The dragon ignored her, not even bothering to glance up, apparently, fully aware of the fact that she had no chance of breaking through even just the remaining strength of its shield … yet in the very instant she lashed out, the punch adding even more force to the impact, a ruby-and-tooth-enamel ring on her left middle finger flared to live, discharging hundreds of accumulated charges and dumping them into that singular strike.

When her knuckles made contact with its neck, for a brief second, she feared this would turn out the exact same way it always had, the attack absorbed by the defensive skill and completely breaking the flow of combat, putting her off-balance and leaving her open for a disastrous counterattack. But it only lasted for the briefest of moments, then the world itself seemed to crack, the sound of an entire warehouse full of glass shattering at once ringing out as the monster’s exterior turned white from all the cracks that shot through it in an instant.

And then, with a muted “boom,” millions of tiny fragments exploded off the dragon and sprayed across the courtyard, followed almost instantly by the far louder bark of a heavy antimateriel rifle as all the energy Müller had poured into his weapon while stealthed discharged at once.

When the dragon’s right eye exploded into yellow goop that oddly reminded Jaclyn of dishwashing detergent, the only one surprised was the beast itself.

But even as it roared in pain and reared up, the back feet of a massive ankylosaurus slammed into its face from the side as Henderson launched his first full-strength attack of the entire fight.

They’d finally figured out a proper set of martial arts for him to draw from. Several Sumo moves could be adapted, and there was a Russian martial art called Sambo that also worked nicely, but surprisingly enough, they’d also found use in Capoeira.

Brazilian dance fighting didn’t seem like it should work, but with a little adjustment, things worked out amazingly. All he had to do was start an acrobatic, sweeping attack would turn into a powerful, momentum-based, strike that he could only pull off as a human, then transform into something far larger and kick his enemy in the face as a multi-ton bear-dino hybrid.

Less “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” more “jump like a grasshopper, stomp like an elephant,” but it was ridiculously effective.

Of course, the dragon didn’t like that one bit and tried to crush him, only for the former marine to shrink back down to his human form, easily evading the strike.

… only for the follow-up attack to slam into his leg with enough force to make it bend the other way, making him collapse to the ground with a shout of pain.

Thankfully, instead of crushing him, the dragon’s jaws opened wide and unleashed a stream of flame hot enough to make the ground begin to melt. Fire. At an Anima Monk with a phoenix bond. Yeah, that was going to be about as effective as trying to drown a fish.

But now Jaclyn didn’t just stand by and watch, instead taking this as her chance to land another punch on the dragon’s side, shattering the smooth armor plate with a single, mass-enhanced, punch that drenched her arm with more weird liquid, though this had a consistency more like that of jelly, leaving her looking as though she’d spilled trifle all over herself.

This was a weird creature, truly.

The dragon’s head snapped back around, leaving Henderson to pull himself out of a shallow lake of lava. His leg had fixed itself at some point during the attack, thankfully, but that had also consumed his one and only use of his phoenix healing for the day, meaning that if he took lethal damage, it’d stick.

But unfortunately, now she was in the line of fire, literally, and unlike Granger and Henderson, she was neither immune, nor had a counter. In fact, as a hydra, she was very much vulnerable to that damn thing.

Her wings hurled her out of the path of the flames, but apparently, that clued the blasted dragon in on the fact that she was actually afraid of its breath attack. And that seemed to awaken some kind of predatory instinct, as it promptly hurled itself after her, fresh strength pouring into its limbs while its exterior shimmered with ethereal light that briefly made her fear the shell was coming back up, but she soon realized it was instead some kind of reinforcement magic.

Bollocks.

Jaclyn zipped about the place like a damn sparrow trying to flee a hawk, gnashing fangs and gouts of flame coming far too close for comfort on several occasions.

She hissed in pain as her left trouser leg caught fire, scorching the skin beneath. She’d gotten so used to being able to heal things such as that, small injuries like the countless bruises and scrapes she’d picked up in the fight thus far, which had long-since vanished … somehow, the burn hurt even more than usual.

But it wasn’t just her that the dragon was going after.

No, the dragon was pulling out all the stops, activating its final power, burning mana like there was no tomorrow. Because, quite frankly, there quite probably wouldn’t be.

Every crystal surface in the spire suddenly became an avenue of attack, flames and crystal spears and transmutation energy that still couldn’t do anything burst from everywhere, a deadly gamut of attacks that had her already reaching for a healing potion … and then it cut off, which coincided with the dragon dropping back down to the ground, utterly spent. Magically, that was.

Jaclyn eyed it as the monster seemed to be getting ready to launch itself at Granger, but decided to fly higher for a couple more seconds before turning into another dive, pouring the last dregs of magic straight into her bracelet, causing her to hammer into the base of the monster’s skull like a meteor.

Apparently, the dragon had been pouring at least some magic into its shell the entire time, because this time, she found herself managing to crash straight through, embedded in its head all the way up to her elbow. For a brief moment, it seemed as though the monster was perfectly capable of going on even with her arm in its brain, or at least where the brain would have been on a normal creature … and then it crumpled beneath her.

“Fuck,” Jaclyn muttered, grabbing a healing potion with her left hand as she withdrew her right arm from the monster, trying to flick off the goop off. It turned out to be rather sticky, so she decided to shelve that until she had the mana to “waste” on a cleaning spell.

She instead downed the potion and started to look around, making sure that the others were fine. They were.

Jaclyn began to grin.

So this is what it feels like to win properly.