Chapter 310: Counterattack Begins (4) |
Karnak walked over to Diogres and asked him politely. "Would it be possible to extract draconic mana while keeping the dragon alive?"
Diogres replied with a frown of uncertainty. "As I said earlier, I’m not confident unless it’s already dead."
"I see." Nodding in acknowledgment, Karnak returned to Serati’s side and stated flatly, "He said no."
Then, without pause, he began sharpening a blade of mana again.
"Wait. That’s it?" Serati raised her voice in disbelief. "You said you’d try to spare it!"
"I did. And the person in charge said it’s not possible," Karnak replied flatly.
He had said it. This wasn’t a big deal. And truly, it wasn’t. To Karnak, it had just been a matter of asking a question, nothing more.
He said he’d try because I wanted it. He said he looks after those close to him… and this is it?
Overcome with frustration, the curse she’d kept inside nearly slipped out of her mouth. "You bas—il!"
"The forest is quite damp. I think I saw a patch of basil over there."
Dodging the slip-up with practiced speed, Serati took a deep breath to calm herself. No, it’s my fault for expecting anything. It’s not like I didn’t know what kind of person he was.
In fact, she’d asked the wrong person. The one she should have questioned wasn’t Karnak, but Diogres Kolon.
Leaving Karnak behind, she approached Diogres. "Isn’t there any way at all?"
Diogres frowned with a troubled look. "Well, it’s not really necessary, is it?"
Even Varos and the four elders of the Twilight Church looked baffled at Serati’s insistence.
"That’s not a dog or a cat…"
"It’s a dragon. And dragons aren’t exactly friendly toward humankind."
"Is there really a need to insist on sparing it?"
It looked as if Serati was alone in this endeavour. Suddenly, a voice of support came, though from an entirely unexpected person. "We must spare the dragon!"
An overly zealous voice declared it with almost religious fervor. "This is without doubt the divine will of Lady Serakal herself!"
It was Desteran, once again deep in the throes of fanaticism. "Why else would the Saintess choose to save a dragon she’s never even met? Clearly, the goddess is using her to deliver this message to us, her faithful!"
The Twilight elders, Demphis, Kalaf, and Tirafar in turn, all reacted with visible confusion.
—Saintess?
—Sir Serati?
—What church is she a saintess of?
Only Maloka scratched her skull awkwardly with her bony fingers.
—Uh, it just kind of happened. I’ll explain later.
Brushing past the bewildered crowd, Desteran stepped up to Diogres and stared him down, eyes burning. "Master Diogres, you may not understand, but this is a matter of great importance. Are you sure there’s no way?"
A scenario flashed through Diogres’s mind. If he said no, Desteran might punch him.
DIogres answered after a moment of thought. "Now that I think about it, it’s not entirely impossible."
Desteran broke into a radiant smile, exhaling a long sigh of relief. "Thank goodness!"
He didn’t even bother glancing at Karnak, Varos, or the others. It was clear that he was under the assumption, as fellow Twilight Church devotees, they’d be in total agreement.
Varos commented telepathically, clearly unimpressed.
—Things are getting weird. What should we do, young master?
It looked like if anyone contradicted the saintess, it’d turn into some big heretical scandal. Karnak shrugged.
—Let’s wait. He said it’s not entirely impossible, didn’t he?
It wasn’t as if Karnak or Varos couldn’t take Desteran down if it came to that. They’d done it before.
Karnak shrugged.
—But there’s really no reason to go that far just to kill a dragon.
Varos nodded.
—True. It’s not like we’re the ones doing the hard part anyway. That’s Diogres’s problem.
Karnak responded in kind.
—And if he really can’t figure it out, we can always fillet the thing later.
And so, the rest simply moved on with a shrug. Only Diogres, now saddled with an unexpected high-difficulty assignment, looked like his head might explode.
"Extracting draconic mana from a living specimen… I’ve never even considered that. How in the world am I supposed to do this?"
***
Diogres’s original plan had been to replicate the same technique he had prepared back on Dragon Isle. In fact, he had already constructed a mana absorption domain near the Zestrad territory and had been waiting all this time for the dragon bones to arrive.
But now, he could no longer kill the dragon. That meant starting the research all over again from scratch. Knowing it wasn’t something he could solve overnight, he asked for more time.
Karnak agreed, and the white dragon was moved to a secure location for the time being. They placed it in a vegetative state, sealed deep within a cave, and assigned the four archliches to take turns guarding it.
"If it goes wild while still alive, we’ll have a real problem," Karnak explained, before turning to Serati. "So, do you really need to go this far just to keep that dragon alive?"
Thanks to her, Diogres and the archliches now had to deal with this unexpected development.
Feeling guilty, Serati hunched her shoulders. "I didn’t mean for it to go this far…"
To be honest, she wanted to take it back. But that wasn’t possible anymore. Desteran had already latched onto the idea with his usual delusional zeal. "This must surely be the divine will of Lady Serakal! But what could this omen mean?"
So for now, they settled on a plan.
"If Diogres finds a method, great. If not, then in about three days, Serati can just pretend to have a holy vision as the saintess and tell them to go ahead and chop the dragon up."
"Ch-Chop it up…?" Serati stuttered.
"Why? That’s what it is, isn’t it?" Karnak said.
"Well… yes, but like I’ve said a hundred times. Can you at least phrase it a little nicer?"
Fortunately for the white dragon, luck was on its side. As befitting an archmage, Diogres managed to find a method within three days.
Even Karnak was surprised by how quickly it happened. "You’ve finished the research already?"
Diogres shook his head. "Not exactly. If I had to develop a completely new method of extracting draconic mana from a living specimen, it’d take months."
Karnak asked, "Then what did you find?"
"I realized I already had the answer," said Diogres.
The white dragon was currently sealed in a vegetative state. Vegetative state was the solution.
"In a way, that’s not so different from being dead, is it? So rather than create a whole new spell, I just needed to slightly modify the one I already had," explained Diogres.
It was a method typical of a mage.
Karnak was immediately intrigued. "How did you modify it?"
Diogres showed him, and Karnak nodded as he reviewed the revised spell structure. With this method, they could extract the draconic mana while the dragon remained in stasis, and then release it afterward.
"But this method is pretty risky. If the mana output is off even slightly, the dragon could die," commented Karnak.
If they extracted too much, the dragon would die. Too little, and they wouldn’t gather enough energy to break the seal. Balancing on that razor’s edge required a level of mana control akin to building a tower from hundreds of cards.
But for Diogres, it didn’t seem like much of an issue. "What kind of archmage would I be if I couldn’t manage this?"
As for what to do with the dragon afterward, they managed to figure it out as well. Come to think of it, there was no real need to take the white dragon all the way back to Dragon Land. It hadn’t yet developed higher intelligence, which meant it would likely follow its instincts. Once free, it would probably head home on its own.
Karnak nodded. "All we have to do is release it somewhere in the north, where the monsters live."
And so, the schedule was set once more. The location, of course, was the uninhabited forest near the domain Devantor. Over the course of two days, Diogres rebuilt his mana barrier in a forest clearing. The rest of the group helped by chopping trees, clearing rocks, and prepping the area.
At last, everything was ready. It was the night of the seventh day since they had captured the white dragon.
***
In the depths of the forest, shrouded in darkness on all sides, the white dragon lay chained and motionless in the center of a large clearing.
"I will now begin the ritual," Diogres declared, drawing forth his mana and beginning the incantation. "One who dwells in chaos, hovering outside the bounds of providence, shall now be touched…"
Light flared and formed a mystical array of magic circles. A staggering seventy-two layers overlapped in a complex magical barrier of immense difficulty. The four archliches couldn’t help but murmur in admiration as they watched from nearby.
"As expected of Master Diogres…"
"He was impressive even in death…"
"But he sure is impressive even in life…"
Their comments were rather odd.
What does that even mean? Impressive in death and in life?
But Diogres ignored them for now. Now was not the time for distractions. Regaining his power came first.
"Let the flawed be broken by the hand of what is right…"
The seventy-two magic circles began to spin chaotically, entwining and glowing brighter. The mana around them grew stronger as the circles swirled rapidly around the white dragon.
The final incantation was spoken. "Rise! O power of chaos bound within the dragon!"
The area trembled faintly. There was no full-blown earthquake like back on Dragon Isle, likely because of the mountainous terrain, but the forest shook, and startled birds burst into flight. At the same time, a stream of brilliant blue light surged from the white dragon and flowed into Diogres.
The light wrapped around him and seeped into every corner of his body. Some time passed, and the light finally resided.
The seal… is broken!
A look of elation spread across the face of the mage. At last, he had regained the full scope of his original magic!
Feeling the mana coursing through him, Diogres turned to the others with pride. "Thank you all. Everything went quite well, thanks to you."
His voice was confident, almost arrogant. That must have been the true face of Diogres Kolon, the Master of the Tower of Dawn.
Karnak offered a respectful nod. "Congratulations. You’ve returned as an archmage."
"There’s still a long road ahead," Diogres replied humbly.
He still had to reclaim the Tower of Dawn and repay his debts to Elezar and Dreltein.
"But this isn’t a bad start, wouldn’t you say? And the dragon’s still alive, too." He smiled as he looked between Serati and the white dragon. "Huh?"
Suddenly, his expression froze. And not just his. Karnak, Serati, Varos, Desteran, and all four archliches were momentarily dumbfounded.
"Eh?"
"What is that?"
"Oh my…"
In the center of the vast seventy-two-layered mana absorption formation, the once-mighty white dragon, nearly twenty meters long, was gone. In its place lay a small white hatchling. It was no bigger than a puppy, and its wings twitched as it lay sprawled on the ground.
The faint whimpering of the dragon suggested it had only just regained consciousness after the shock of having its mana drained.
Still dazed, Serati asked, "Does extracting draconic mana make a dragon shrink?"
Everyone present was far from ordinary. There were four ninth circle archmages, a tenth-circle archmage, and even a former Monarch of Death who had once stood on par with the gods. All of them shook their heads in unison.
"No!"
"Of course not!"
"Never heard of such a thing!"
But none of them were unfamiliar with dragon biology. In other words, this was clearly not a normal phenomenon.
"Then… why did it shrink?" Serati asked again, confused.
Everyone blinked in unison.
"Good question."
"What kind of freak phenomenon is this…?"
Only Desteran stood tall, raising his voice in fervent declaration. "Praise be to Serakal! This is clearly a miracle bestowed upon this land! I have witnessed it with my own eyes!"