868 There yet?

Selina "Are we there ye-"

Barnock "Princess! We are CLEARLY not there yet! Could you please resist the temptation to ask every five minutes!" he says loudly.

...

Barnock nods at the now quiet and pouting girl, "Thank you, now, Mathias... Check the map and tell us whether or not we are there yet." he says, all the while completely unaware of the scowling god glaring daggers at him from the sky.

Mathias pulls out the map with the accompanying compass and checks where they are, the mountain they'd fought the Dragon on was clearly visible on the map which allowed him to tell where they actually are.

Right now, it looks as if Diablo and Adria had moved... Their location was now in a mountainous region that Harry had previously marked "DO NOT ENTER" with a red circle. Obviously, they'd have to ignore the warning, he shows the map to Quennie to see if she had any information on the area itself.

Quennie "Hm!?..." she exclaims at seeing it, getting Mathias attention.

Mathias "What is it? Is something wrong?" he quickly asks.

Quennie nods, "I... Have no idea what or where this is..." she says, causing Mathias to mentally facepalm.

Tyrael "Calm yourselves, we are approaching Diablo... I can feel it." he almost whispers as the group step out of the treeline and are greeted with a mountain range which has numerous winged shadows flying above it.

Barnock shrugs, "What gave it away? The evil looking mountain or the many Dragons overhead?"

Mathias puts the map away and glances at him, "Let's put the jokes aside from now on... I think we should face the Dragons before we fight Diablo, dealing with them and him at the same time will likely lead to our untimely deaths."

Tyrael nods, "I agree, we'll need a way to draw them out though..."

Quennie "I think I know of a way... Dragons are inherently arrogant creatures, Uncle Solaire spoke of how he'd insult their scales, lineage, or teeth to drawn them out from their hiding spots. If those ones have retained some of their intelligence, perhaps we could use that."

Barnock shrugs, "Well, unless anyone has any better ideas..." he steps forwards and claps his hands around his mouth to better project his voice, "OI! YOU MANGY SCALED, BLACK TOOTHED, CHILDREN OF SNAKES! COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME! UNLESS YOU'D RATHER FLY AWAY ON YOUR DISGUSTING LOOKING WINGS!" he roars at them, his voice somehow echoing for miles around.

...

Mathias "Maybe you shouldn't have said that so loud? I'm not sure we'd be any better fighting hundreds of Dragons at once..."

Barnock scratches the back of his head, "Ah... My bad." he apologises.

The Dragons above them begin roaring down at them, signalling that they'd definitely heard the Barbarian. Fortunately, only seven were sighted flying towards them, and the weren't as big as the Dragon they'd fought previously.

The group leapt into action, Selina teleporting midair and drawing the attention of a few that fly towards her with their mouths agape, ready to bite her in half or envelope her in flames.

Once they get into range she teleports underneath one of their heads as they prepare to bite into her, slashing her blade at its throat. Their scales aren't as developed as she'd expected, allowing her to cut a deep gash in its flesh, drawing a lot of blood and potentially dealing a lethal strike.

While Selina continues this peculiar form of aerial combat, Mathias is firing his Disintegration Beam at them... Upon impact with the beam, the Dragons scales rapidly turn grey before fading into dust, leaving the vulnerable flesh, muscles, and organs underneath exposed. Even if he didn't finish the beast off there and then, it'd make for easy picking for everyone else.

Barnock waiting until one got close, launching himself at it and planting his axe in its skull, it goes through bone and embeds itself in its brain, the Divine enchantment increasing the damage to the demonic creature and instantly killing it.

Quennie runs up to the corpse of the Dragon and attempts to revive it using her necromancy, she begins sweating heavily due to the amount of effort it takes for a large, magically resistant beast such as this, but she manages eventually...

It lifts itself from the floor, releases a roar and begins flying towards its brethren that were attacking Selina.

As to what Tyrael was doing?...

...

The Fallen-Angel of Justice is unfortunately useless against foes his sword cannot reach, and with his body's low strength, durability, and speed, he was unable to get close to a rampaging Dragon without being heavily injured or instantly killed.

After half an hour, the seven Dragons were dealt with... Six slain and one made Quennie's undead servant. Barnock releases another roar insulting the parentage of the Dragons, which draws more towards them...

They do this a few times and let the bodies accumulate on the battlefield until the Dragons wise up at their tactics... None come forth to Barnock's challenge any longer, likely due to how many had been slain here already... Another reason might be the almost fifty corpses left drying in the sun.

With no other way to draw the Dragon out to thin their numbers, the group was left with only one option... To engage the enemy on their own terms and scale the mountain.

All the while, a witch that has also been embued with Diablo's demonic energies watching from afar, ready to do her masters bidding and slay the ever-annoying intruders, as well as their pathetic angel companion.

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