12

She leaned into the physical contact. The fact that I was a dragon just seemed to confirm that she had made the right choice. I was still a little smaller then her, but she, and I were about the same height. My lanky body, and long neck made up for the gap in size so that I could still look her in the eye. It was almost as if she knew I could fly the moment she met me.

I also knew she didn't want to be a mounted beast. I didn't blame her one bit. I would never use her as a mounted beast. I stood to meet our opponents. I jumped into the air with her a moment later.

She allowed me to jump into the air first to avoid colliding. I flared my wings wide as I came to a hovering stop before the massive swarm. She joined me by my side a second later. I could see the experience she had on me just by looking at the apparent ease at which she remained in the air. I might have to learn to improve my flight by observing her, but I was in the middle of a fight at the moment.

I wanted to fight the one in charge of this two thousand strong swarm one on one. My pet roared. Pure rage at the audacity these creatures had to challenge me two thousand to two. A true fight was only meant to be had one on one. She had some surprisingly strong feelings about the matter.

I liked the reaction the swarm had. They all seemed to feel a certain amount of rage toward their own leader for not challenging me properly. I was glad I'd brought her along now. She knew a great deal more about her own kind then I did. Her presence made her the perfect translator.

The perfect mediator. I was glad because now I was face to face with a single red wyvern with black tipped scales. My own pure black appearance set me apart from the group. Physically I was smaller, but somehow my wingspan managed to be larger. Perhaps that was a sign I would eventually grow larger then the beast before me.

Unlike me his teeth weren't retractable. He snarled in the air as he looked down on what he assumed to be a smaller weaker challenger. I smirked to myself. If I was only facing one opponent then I might as well make it interesting. I restricted myself from using any magic that wasn't a natural breath attack or healing magic.

Sure he was strong, but that was exactly what was going to make this fun. I echoed his own roar with my own amplified roar. The wyverns that had assumed this would be quick all backed off at the sound of pure challenge, and borderline joy that echoed off the entire valley at once. There was no wyvern within a hundred miles that didn't know the challenge I'd made. The assumed a loud roar symbolized strength, and apparently I was right.

The space the wyverns gave me symbolized their respect for the beast with the loudest roar. I stared into the eyes of my opponent with more excitement, and joy then I could express in a single moment. For the first time in a year my mana came completely unshackled. The whole world exploded with my power. The mountains shook, and the trees were flattened or at least that was how it felt to the surrounding wyverns.

Releasing my power like this seemed to be the last shackle my core had. The rest of the impurities started purging from my body in that moment. My mana ran rampant as my body was racked with pain that made me forget I was flying for a moment. I fell a few hundred feet before regaining my wing beats. I snarled in rage.

This was the absolute worst time for such a thing to happen. The pain made my limbs want to freeze up, and convulse at the same time. Nasty sludge poured through my teeth as well as every single pour on my body at once. I must have looked like a zombie with my movements jerking, and my smell like that of a corpse. This battle I'd been looking forward to was suddenly a problem.

The only reason I hadn't been attacked already was because the power my out of control mana gave off. There was no hiding my elements with my mana unleashed the way it was. He was observing me cautiously. Fear clearly evident in his aura. That fear was already disappearing slowly.

My movements were slow, and jerky. Add on the stench, and it was pretty obvious that I wasn't doing that well at the moment. It didn't matter that he was normally a great deal weaker then me. I was in pain, and that pain made it hard to move. Staying in flight was already enough to consume a great deal of my focus.

I snorted to myself. I'd made the challenge. I wasn't going to allow them to beat me up while I was in such pain. He blasted me with powerful flames. They had whisps of darkness within them, but it made no difference.

The flames split, and went around me. Warded off by my rampant mana alone. I didn't have to do anything at all. That gave me the moment I needed to compose myself. It was my turn to unleash hell on him.

I blasted him with the same darkness imbued flame attack he'd just shot at me. I didn't imbue it with any extra power. Watching the mana of this world respond to my own with more power then I could control. The blast extended far beyond my opponent alone. Completely out of control as it rushed through the air nearly a hundred feet beyond the wyvern I was fighting.

It was good the other wyverns had backed off or they would have died since they didn't possess the darkness element their leader used to protect himself. Even though I'd used his own elements against him, the out of control nature of my mana, and the sheer superiority of my own elemental abilities allowed me to do some serious damage. I was being damaged from the inside out so there was a limit to how much more of this I could stand. I abandoned all notions of holding back. I was in too much pain to give myself such a debilitating handicap.