There’s no denying that being able to fly is a very practical skill, and in the special flight passage of the ‘Black Prison Dungeon,’ an additional load-generating magic formation had been applied.
The only one who could fly unaffected in this situation was the physically robust Demon Dragon.
Similarly, the human girl Aiweier, who was hunting monsters underground, also sensed a massive surge of magical power rapidly approaching her the moment Ka Xiya burst forth.
With such mana reserves, coupled with the signature extremely fast magic utilization efficiency that only a Demon Dragon possesses, the identity of the enemy at this moment was beyond doubt.
And this situation clearly caught her off guard, because according to the intelligence provided by her superiors, there should only be one Demon Dragon stationed here today.
Aside from that, the other minor soldiers were basically a rabble to Aiweier, who was expected to inherit the title of 『Magic Hero』 from her master.
If what was coming now were some other monsters, then it wouldn’t matter.
Because Aiweier and her companions had formulated a fairly comprehensive assault and raid plan for today’s operation.
If something went wrong and enemy reinforcements arrived at the ‘Black Prison Dungeon,’ according to the defense distribution of the Demon King’s Army in the old demon castle, the high-threat enemies that could appear were nothing more than those thick-skinned cyclops trolls.
Although they were also troublesome, their goal was not to fight a hard battle, but simply to come in, create chaos, and at the same time, seize every opportunity to search for information related to the previous 『Shield Hero』.
So Aiweier would not linger in battle with the troublesome cyclops trolls.
As long as the mission to create chaos was completed, regardless of whether she found information about the Shield Hero, she would retreat at an appropriate time.
But Demon Dragons were different.
These beings, born with monstrous physiques and heaven-defying magical talents, could sway the outcome of a battle or even a campaign with the sudden appearance of just one.
Two Demon Dragons were already beyond what this small team could handle.
What they could do now was to temporarily immobilize the heavily armored Demon Dragon in front of them using the 『Transcendence • Ice Seal Art』.
But if another one came, this already fragile line would absolutely collapse immediately.
And Aiweier, who was blasting a group of demon soldiers into pieces, also sensed that the Demon Dragon about to arrive in a few seconds was exceptionally powerful.
Moreover, the surrounding temperature was rising sharply, indicating that the opponent was most likely her most hated fire-type monster.
Of course, the time left for this long black-haired human girl to think was extremely short.
From sensing the enemy to the clash of arms was only a matter of a few seconds.
Ka Xiya’s entrance also inherited Yilisi’s style, full of domineering kingly aura.
She directly used brute force to smash through the barrier of the upper floor and unleashed a lightning-fast magma claw strike at Aiweier.
Since agility was not Aiweier’s strong suit, even though she had anticipated that the enemy’s attack had locked onto her, she did not rush to dodge.
First, because she couldn’t dodge it, and second, because if she didn’t take it head-on, the claw strike with its spreading magma damage would injure her three teammates.
Earlier, in order to let her successfully freeze the Demon Dragon guarding the dungeon, her teammates had already consumed a large amount of mana in the cover operation, and each of them had sustained varying degrees of injury.
So at this point, Aiweier had no retreat left.
Generally speaking, magic casters gave people the first impression of glass cannons.
High damage, low defense, needing teammates’ support and protection to shine in battle.
However, Aiweier’s magic attribute was an ice attribute, a rare mutated branch of the water attribute, and she also possessed an excellent elementalization talent.
So for ordinary attacks, as long as she could react, she could use the freezing properties of the ice element to defend.
But today, Aiweier had met her match.
Ka Xiya was not a pure fire-type Demon Dragon either.
Her attribute was a magma attribute derived from fire mutation.
Not only did the magic she release have higher temperature, but due to the viscous nature of magma, it also caused continuous burning damage upon impact.
This point, Aiweier noticed the instant she saw the magma fall.
But after inwardly exclaiming ‘Damn’, she had no other good method and could only increase her mana output to make her turtle shell more sturdy.
This technique was called “Ice Shield.”
Its principle was to use a thick ice wall combined with the slowing effect of the outer cold air to provide dual defense against magical and physical attacks.
And this technique was indeed very durable.
For instance, the Demon Dragon in front of them, which had already been frozen into an ice sculpture, had its full-power tail whip perfectly blocked by the Ice Shield.
However, it was a bit difficult for her to gain an advantage over Ka Xiya.
Though between them, Ka Xiya only slightly surpassed Aiweier in total mana, the attribute disadvantage was too fatal.
So the Ice Shield barely blocked Ka Xiya’s initial surprise attack before it was quickly evaporated into a white high-temperature mist.
Although she successfully dodged the instantly erupted gas cloud, her teammates were not so lucky.
Because the incident was too sudden, some had their skin scalded, and some were even worse—they accidentally inhaled it.
In the entire team, only Aiweier and the healer were not too severely affected.
“Miss Lina!”
“Next, I’ll cover you while you use healing magic!”
“Once their movements are restored, we’ll immediately begin executing the retreat plan!”
In this situation, there was no need to continue fighting.
If they kept fighting, with more and more demon reinforcements arriving, the only outcome would be total annihilation.
Moreover, today’s mission, apart from not finding any information about the 『Shield Hero』, had already been exceeded.
Although she didn’t know why the red-haired Demon Dragon girl opposite had suddenly appeared in the old demon castle thousands of miles away from the border between the Empire and the demons, based on the opponent’s magic attribute and related intelligence records, Aiweier had confirmed that she was the Demon King’s daughter Ka Xiya, known as the 『Crimson Flame Demon Dragon』.
Now that such a heavyweight enemy had appeared, it meant that the chaos they had created was already quite perfect.
As for retreat, there shouldn’t be much of a problem.
After all, they had simulated and drilled it countless times; there was absolutely no possibility of error.
As long as they held out for sixty seconds to activate the teleportation array, they could leave this dungeon that the demons had operated for centuries.
However, Ka Xiya was very disdainful of Aiweier’s retreat declaration.
Did they really think this place was a vegetable market where they could come and go as they pleased?
If she let them escape, not only would she lose a lot of face, but more importantly, she would mess up the task assigned by the Demon King.
“Hmph 😤”
“Want to run? 😡”