15. A Dragodile?

A man shrouded in a black cloak runs down a zombie infested street in the middle of a large city. Any zombie that stands in his path is brutally slashed in half with a shining blue sword.

None of this slows the man down. Behind him are two dog like creatures running through the immense amount of gore and blood left in his trail.

The man is none other than Leon and his two summons. Alexis is of course riding on spike. They are almost at the base of the large tower in the center of the city. The only thing in their way are the incredible amount of zombies blocking the streets.

There's not a single inch between each of them. Leon Bursts forward while throwing an energy blade ahead of him to make a path. Edgar is using his poison breath to keep the path clear enough for them to move forward as well.

A few of the more evolved zombies make there way over after seeing the commotion. Unfortunately for them only death awaits. Some of them are fast, some are strong, but with Leon's arsenal of artifacts nothing can touch him.

He attacks at long range with his bow and when they get close he strikes out with his sword. Of course, he doesn't have unlimited mana so he does have to be careful. Although he doesn't have to stress too much because of the amount of cores he has absorbed has increased his mana exponentially.

Pretty soon they make it to the base of the tower. He doesn't see any entrance so he begins running around the base. On the other side there is a large double door. Leon walks up the steps and places a hand on the door.

Ggrrrrrrrrrr...

It slowly slides open revealing a pitch black interior. With the others following behind him, he slowly walks inside. The doors close shut behind them.

At first, there's nothing. No sound and no light. After a few moments of darkness, a torch hanging on the wall deeper inside roars to life with a bright blue flame.

Then another, and another, until every torch lining the walls is lit. They finally get a good look inside. It looks like some sort of dungeon or cave. The walls are made of the same black bricks as the outside. Other than that its completely empty.

Leon starts walking towards the other end of the room. Once he makes it halfway, an incredibly loud roar echoes through the tower almost making him drop to his knees, but he holds on.

GRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

After the loud roar ends, a large creature emerges from the darkness of the ceiling and drops to the ground.

"A dragon? No, it looks more like an alligator...." Leon says to himself while observing the creature.

It looks like a cross between an alligator and a dragon, except its missing its wings. There are stubs where they used to be so he thinks someone or something might have severed them.

While he was thinking this, the creature Burts forward without warning and tries to charge straight into them. Leon dodges to the side and so do the other. Leon commands Edgar to use its poison breath on it while it's recovering from its charge.

PPHHAAAAAAAAA.....

Edgar breathes out and a cloud of green smoke shoots out of his mouth and engulfs the dragon.

GRAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

The scales on its back right leg are the first to get melted by the cloud. It roars in pain shaking the entire room making dust and debris fall from the ceiling.

Leon takes this opportunity to use his bow and shoot at its eyes. He's played many video games in his time and knows exactly how to take care of enemies like this.

It takes a couple of shots but he finally strikes it directly in the eye. The arrow slides halfway in and gets stuck. When the creature tries to blink the arrow stops it and increases the pain.

GRAAAAAAAAA!!!

It lashes out in rage and strikes Edgar with its claws knocking him more than fifty feet away and then crashes into the wall.

Leon's eyes bulge at the terrifying sight. Only one hit and it killed his summon. That's insane.

Leon shakes himself out of his stupor and summons Edgar beside him once again. As expected, he's pissed. Edgar immediately charges forward without waiting for any orders.

After seeing the power of his opponent, Leon decides to use one of his trump cards. He quickly throws off his backpack and pulls out a metal gauntlet with three cores embedded into it.

Edgar is constantly running around the dragon and shooting it with poison breath. He seems to have gotten the hang of dodging it. Especially since it lost one of its eyes.

Spike is standing a bit farther away from the fight with Alexis to protect her. After returning his backpack to his back he waits for the right time and dashes forward.

As soon as he's close enough, he points his hand with the gauntlet straight at the dragon who is in a frenzy trying to kill Edgar. A small but powerful chain shoots out of the gauntlet and wraps around the dragon constricting its movements.

Using more mana he wills the chain to squeeze as tight as it can on the dragon. The dragon tries to break free but the magically enhanced chain remains strong. Edgar takes this opportunity to get up close and attack the dragon right on its face.

Edgar slashes his claws on the dragons face. Normally this wouldn't do much, but Edgar's claws have an infection debuff. Very quickly the claw marks on the dragons face bulge outward and explode. Maggots spew out of its wound like no tomorrow.

It's quite the disgusting sight.

The dragon didn't even have enough time to cry out before it slumped on the ground..... Dead.

Leon excitedly runs over to the dead Dragodile. Yes, he decided it was a more fitting name for the creature. He searches around its corpse to find any loots that dropped. Laying right under its massive head is an C rank core and a rock? Or maybe an egg?

He stashes the core for later and gently picks up the egg. It looks different from the Dragodile. The outside of the egg actually has black fur covering it. What a strange egg.

No information pops up when he picks up the egg. He decides to worry about it later and places the egg in one of the small pockets of his pack.

Time to see what this whole tower is all about.

"You okay Alexis?"

"Yeah! That was such a cool fight!" she says while riding over on spike.

"I can't believe you beat such a big lizard!" she exclaims.

"Hey, you don't have faith in your brother?!"

"Ah! Of course I do! I was just surprised is all!"

"Haha... I'm just messing with you. It was a really scary enemy that's for sure. I'm more surprised you didn't get scared and run away." Leon teased.

"I would never!" She says while pouting.

"Alright alright. Let's keep going shall we."

"We shall!"

....

Once they make it to the other side of the room they see a large green glowing crystal floating just above the ground. Leon has an idea about what this is but can't be too sure.

Reluctantly, he walks up and places a hand on the crystal. Instantly he's teleported to a new room. It's much smaller than the first and there's only a chest sitting in the middle.

Alexis and the two summons appear behind him. They walk over to the chest cautiously. It could be a trap after all.... It's not.

Leon grabs the lid and lifts the chest open. A bright light envelopes the room for a moment before vanishing.

Leon takes a look inside and is stunned from what he sees.

Sitting on the bottom of the chest is a small glass orb. He has no idea what it is but he can tell its an artifact for sure. He reaches down and grabs the orb. It feels like a glass orb but at the same time it's warm to the touch.

A blue window pops up with the details. It's called the orb of clarity. If the user looks through the orb they will be able to see things they would normally miss.

Quite vague, but could turn out to be incredibly useful.

Before moving on they decide to rest in this room for a while. Who knows, they might have to fight another boss type creature once they leave this room. It's better to be prepared.

Leon sets up his camping stove and begins cooking up a delicious meal. While hes cooking he also pulls out the C rank core from the Dragodile.

Might as well absorb this before the next fight. He holds it in his left hand and with his right he taps on the plus sign next to his intelligence.

....

Leon slowly opens his eyes. He can't remember anything. He can feel the cold stone floor under him. He sits up and looks around.

"Leon! Your awake!" Alexis screams and leaps into his arms hugging him tightly.

"Hey, it's alright. What happened exactly?" he asks with a confused expression.

"One second you were cooking and then I saw you fall over and I couldn't wake you up. I was so scared." she says with tears in her eyes.

He gently pats her head. "It's okay. I'm alright see?" Leon says while showing off his muscles and posing like a body builder.

"You jerk..." she says with a smile.

Still though, he's never passed out from absorbing a core before. He pulls up his character page to see if anything changed.