A Benevolent Evil Dragon

"Identify yourself!" It was Roland that spoke first, pointing a sword my way. I turned to look at him, feeling my body tremble with anger.

They dared to come back. I gave them so many chances and they dared to come back. I feel disappointed in myself for sparing them, even if it was the safest thing to do at that time. I take a deep breath to calm myself as I get close… but then the singular knight pointed his sword at Verah.

"Another step and I take her head, monster!" He says in a clearly scared tone, though I doubt he even knows why he is scared.

Ah yes, threats, exactly what I want after my most pessimistic thoughts get proven right. I turn to look at him, the small opening in my veil letting him see only the glimmer of my eyes and not the shape of my head. At the same time I open another hole, aimed at his head. I sit still, as does he, and I can hear the sorcerers preparing their spells, while I focus on this one man. I can only be thankful that he remained still long enough for me to finish my spell.

His death is sudden. One moment he's there, staring at me, knowing instinctively that he should run, but defying those thoughts for whatever reason, then the next his head turns into a splatter as a pebble, molded into the shape of a drill, goes through his face at supersonic speeds, rendering his helmet less than useless. That was a lot of time to spend on an attack, but I am nothing if not reliant on people underestimating how quickly I can kill.

Sadly for me, a hail of spells comes down on me. causing me to tank everything aside from the light mage's magic, which I use my walls of light mana to act as mirrors, redirecting his spells into the ground, scorching it. Out of everyone here, he's the scariest by mana alone. If he ever struck me with everything he had, I'd be in danger. It seems he's at least less powerful than Jan and he's less used to killing with magic than the lady knight. I can work with that.

Suddenly, Roland's back is struck by electricity and Jan's boy seems to close in on him. I would love nothing more than to rush in and finish this fight, but Verah is still stuck in the middle of everything, so she's my first target. I use my magic to violently lift the ground, forming a wall between the attackers and her, using it to push her to the side as best I can. She at least crawls with whatever energy she has left, trying to not be in the way.

"Bastard!" Roland forsakes any sort of magic and instead tries to put his everything into a downwards strike, only for it to slide off of Fredrik's guard, earning the dual mage a cut on his cheek. "Even with a monster attacking us, you still choose to betray us!?"

"Hah… If I am right, it is that very monster that saved my siblings! It wasn't blades that cut off the Angler heads, they were torn open… Like the one there, on the grass." Nobody looked at it, but his words made it clear to everyone that he was on my side, for better or worse. And that it wasn't a team that killed the Anglers…

"I am glad I didn't missjudge you, Fredrik Glozko." I smile as I see the young trio shiver as their little realizations came one by one. I was their boogeyman. Not a group of highly trained sorcerers as they seemed to think, one singular monster. "Though I wonder if you will come to regret your sense of justice, when this land's justice will brand you a criminal. Then again, the only crimes you will be judged for are those that are discovered."

Despite knowing I should, a primal hunger in me makes me not jump into the fight, instead I go over to the dead knight, finally being able to eat a proper core. The clang of swordfighting is halted as loud, screeching metal kills the silence of the clearing. I throw the first bite to the side, then dig into the man's chest, devouring his core and at least a chunk of his heart and lung. I take in the taste, the flashes of experience, the feeling of mixed mana being channeled with the mere purpose of strengthening a strike. I knew how to do this, but I feel my mana moving a percentage of a percentage faster through my body.

When I finally raise my head, to take in the horror of my enemies, my veil collapses, a rainbow of chaos protecting me from the powerful beam of radiant energy… and then it stops. I don't know what kind of monster they expected me to be, but clearly it wasn't a dragon.

I turn to look at the old man that revealed me, glad to scorch his skin for a change, but he is already running as I feel myself being peppered by wind strikes from the siblings. I let my barrier take the damage as I fill my lungs with flame and air, using an air spell to make a tunnel for my breath. Flames shoot forward and envelop the running sorcerer, bringing him to the ground.

The massive light attack woke me up, somewhat. My head, now clear, decided that a swift death was the least I could do. I run and jump at the siblings, only to be hit by their magic at the same time, a sonic boom somehow happening from their desperation. I shake my head, feeling my ears pounding slightly, but I push through and continue rushing at them, spewing out flames..

To my bad luck, it seems that Jan's son was not actually ready for a dragon, instead sitting stunned as Roland ran past him, absolutely abandoning the siblings.

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"Shit, run!" Starts the brother, but he says it too late. I am already on him as she turns around, trying to run, only to get her neck severed by my blade. If only she hadn't leaned forward, she would have died, but now she was just paralyzed bleeding out into the dirt, slowly.

The man under me screams, but fails to gather a proper spell. Air flows strangely around him, but all he's doing is letting out his mana, not actually doing any real magic. He's at least easy to kill, with his armor mostly missing, for some reason. I bite into his chest, eating his core whole, then do the same to his sister, putting her out of her misery. With them being all but dead, I run after Roland who jumped on a horse and ran off. As I do, my eyes turn to Fredrik, giving him a pointed look in passing.

"Stay." was all I spoke as I rushed past.

I felt more in tune with myself during the run, feeling the air flow past me slightly better. Much like I did underwater and up in flight, I used a simple spell to cancel out my air drag, an invisible barrier acting as a windbreaker appearing in front of me. I roar, startling the horse but causing it to run faster instead of stopping altogether or dropping its rider. Still, I am close, I almost bite the animal, only to get kicked in the head, making me tumble.

Behold, the dragon that kills sorcerers but gets beaten by a panicked horse. I take a moment to catch my breath, then I form my flight spell and run forward, spreading my wings to go over the treeline. Enough cat and mouse, I quickly fly over him, then tuck my wings in and dive into his horse, crushing it to death. It takes me a moment to recover, but it seems the adrenaline pumping through him was enough to make him ignore whatever damage he took from flying off his horse, the man already running off.

When I recover I run at him, tanking the few pebbles he sends flying my way and the grass that tries to grapple me without success. It's all for nothing as I knock him down with a rock to the back of the knee, making him crawl unsuccessfully away backwards, his eyes fixated to my own.

"Wh-why…" He almost whispers, tears in his eyes. "I didn't have a choice! I was ordered to pursue you! I was ordered to find the witch and bring her to the Count! It's not me… The Count! He's the one after you! Please!" He pleads and pleads but I feel only disgust, so I step on his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He tries to hit me but that just earns him severed tendons and acid from my tail blades.

"I am disgusted that you showed yourself in front of me, as an enemy, again. But I'm not killing you just because some bored nobleman decided to play with fire using your hands. You wounded two Freefolk that had nothing to do with you." I see the way he tries to focus on my words, tries to crawl like a worm through any little hole I may have left open through my speech…

"... The barbarians…?" I almost stomp on his chest, but he quickly corrects himself. "We thought they were you! Glozko said a winged barb- uh- Freefolk was the one to rob him! And the guard captain in Zielenec told us he found Freefolk feathers at the slaughter of the traffickers! We thought they were you!" I narrow my eyes, but I don't think he even has the extra bandwidth to lie.

Sadly, that matches… A winged Freefolk is far more likely to be here than a dragon, after all. I frown realizing that I was, in fact, the reason they got hurt… But then again, I remember that it doesn't actually matter that they had an explanation, They were going to kill them even after realizing they weren't who they were looking for. Hell, they likely would have killed them just for being freely wandering Freefolk…

"Congratulations. You won yourself a few seconds. I hope you feel proud as you die. As Fredrik clearly proved, you don't have any excuse." He tries to protest, but his open mouth is invaded by fire.

I stop and watch him choke on the flame, eyes glossing over as he dies. I am just about to tear open his chest, but instead I see an arrow strike the ground. Instantly I activate my shroud and I focus on my senses, only to hear the trampling of horses. A lot of horses. A mounted archer in light armor comes out, together with a large dog that barks and growls at me. I hear others approaching, the sound of horns, another arrow, this one hitting my scales…

I need to run. The hunt is here. I dealt with Roland, I now need to run off before I am caught fighting a large battle. For all my bravado, I already used up a bunch of mana just to tank those hits from the light mage and to rush Roland down, another group, maybe twice this size? I could lose. And unlike a nobleman, my first loss will also be my last.

And so, I take flight, breaking line of sight and making my way back. I don't see Fredrik where I left him and my thought instantly runs to betrayal, but I find him tending to a very weak Verah instead, the woman herself simply having her eye on him. The young man gets up when he sees me, but before he can say anything I stop him.

"A whole hunting party of nobles is hunting me down. They didn't see a dragon, just a darkness standing over a corpse, then running off and vanishing. Pick up the head and walk… that way." I point with my tails towards where I killed the acid bear, hoping he won't get lost in a straight line. "I do not care what story you use, so long as you do not mention me. Feel free to consider whatever debt you feel you have to me paid and over with."

"Wait, but how about Lady Edith? She may be wounded! Also the winged man…" I stare at the thing in his hands, a paste of sorts… or a potion? Well, clearly something expensive that he just used on Verah.

"I will handle them. If you have medicine on you, I would be grateful for it, but I need you to stop the hunting party. If they follow us, we'll all be dead. Of course, I will make sure to take a majority of them down with me." He startles at my words, but then looks around and nods. He passes over the medicine, then picks up the head and almost runs off when I stop him. "One more thing, to not have them be suspicious at you."

He looks confused for a moment, but then I reinforce my claws with mana, making deep cuts into his armor, but strangely enough not actually going through all the way. Enchanted, very much so. Jan may not have been insanely rich, but he had his gear. He seemed disheartened, but then nodded, running off. I turned to Verah, seeing her worried expression.

"I apologize… for putting you into the position of needing to save our lives again…" She looks like she wants to crawl into the earth. I sigh, ignoring her, and activate my magic before picking her up and flying off towards our camp, hoping I will not be too late.