Buying Time End

(Early Chapter, I don't think I would upload another chapter today so enjoy. The Next chapter would mark the start of the Dragon King Festival... and also the start of MC having bad thoughts for someone. How dare a knight fall in love with his queen?)

Jaden looked at his necklace which was glowing, seeing this he let out a breath before ordering everyone to turn around and shoot towards where the battlefields was at. This necklace was linked to the one he gave Erza, so when she called, he could always come running, and it was now the time to go running to save her... although this was a moment in a lifetime as she needed him to save him.

He ordered everyone to return, although those from the Holy Light Empire were unsure, but they still followed although stayed at a far. But they soon were shocked to see the 11 God slayers flying in the air, flying like flies flying around poop. They attacked and fell backward, forcing the Dragon God to flee as he was too injured to stay and fight.

"Don't let it run, forward!" Jaden roared while everyone shot forward, launching attacks upon the Dragon God. But he shot towards where Erza was currently, just to be horrified to see the state she was within.

"My injuries can't be healed, his can," Erza said while sitting under a tree, catching her breath. Jaden although worried for her, knew his wife wasn't weak. So, he came to check up on me, although he wasn't a healer, he could call over a water and air dragon, which instantly began to heal me up.

"How are you even awake? Your soul is damaged, your body is nearly crippled... if you didn't have phoenix slayer magic, I'm sure you would be crippled for life." The air dragon said seeing how badly my muscles were damaged, and how weak my mind was at the moment.

I said nothing, as my attention was fully on staying awake, I needed fire, with the fusion of my mind and fire, my fire returning would mean my mind regaining its energy.

"W-what are you doing?" Jaden asked in shock seeing Erza take two blades that she was about to connect to her legs.

"Those bastards would attack us with greater force thanks to our show of power, we need more manpower. We have no space for weakness." She said while enchanting her burnt legs, having them open up to swallow the handle of the blades, a sight which made Jaden's body uncomfortable seeing.

The swords she had just equipped she planned to enchant one with my magic, and the other she doesn't know yet. She slowly stood up, trying to balance herself on the blades for some time, before she looked towards me.

"have everyone simply focus on injuring that thing, the later it came back, the better. We need more slayers on our side, and we need a space mage. Time magic wouldn't hurt as well, someone go back to the empire and get someone with those two, although Irene is saving them for the real battle, there would be no real battle if we can't last the remaining 5 days. Report to Irene what just happened, a dragon at a dragon god tier just attacked." She said to which a dragon nodded before shooting off toward the empire, 

She sighed while watching as I was healed to the point where I could open my mouth and eat some fire. At that point, I began eating all of the fire I could eat, mind, body, and magical energy restoring.

Even so, it wasn't perfect since my mind just wanted to shut down. But I shook off such a feeling, using this chance to try and put only 1 part of my mind to sleep, while the other part stayed awake. If I wasn't wrong, this was how fish and other animals slept. I had to learn this skill.

To avoid losing energy during this process, I had to put my body into auto-drive, allowing me to get some rest, while not using my brain for anything.

"The mastery of your mind is something," Erza said with a sigh, before going on to have me follow her to where the camp was at. There, I could rest alongside her. Soon the army returned, and they all got ready for the second round of attacks, but they were stunned when the dragon Erza sent returned, followed by a greater size army.

"Lady Erza, I'm from the Great Man Empire." A handsome blue-haired man said with a cocky smile, he wasn't the only one, as all of the empires in the country had sent support. But the most important was the Great Man Empire, which was an empire that was only of humans.

But how could a human empire stand in this era? That was because this empire was full of weapons capable of slaying dragons. In no time, A huge wall was built, a wall mounted by many dragon slayer cannons, along with many powerful weapons capable of slowing dragons, shielding against dragon attacks, and so many more.

"This would be our stronghold, no dragon is allowed to pass this point. Dragon friend, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but these weapons don't see friend or foe. So, please stay back to avoid danger." The prince from the Great Man Empire said, all to Erza's annoyance, as the guy just came here and took control. yet all this time who was the one holding back the dragon attacks?

But she said nothing, letting the guy take over while she and her man took the chance to get some long-needed rest... rest they didn't get to enjoy as 3 hours later, 6,000 strong armies came shooting towards them, the army trying to surround them.

The sense of danger awakened me, causing me to look towards the huge army, before looking around in confusion, not understanding when we had a wall, and when we had so much manpower. I wasn't complaining as we needed the help,

"They are support from other empires... I'm going to enchant myself with your magic, is that going to be okay?" Erza asked, to which I nodded, before she touched my shoulders, enchanting her left sword with my magic, the other sword had destruction Dragon Slayer magic.

"Then, I will go lower their numbers," I said fighting off how mentally tired I was, while bursting off, shooting straight into the sea of dragons like the sun. I avoided the countless Dragon Kings amongst them, going on to devour the minds of the many dragons I came before, before burning them to ashes, mind and all.

"It's like you're not tired at all," Erza said following me with her legs flying all over the place, slaughtering dragons left and right. I said nothing, simply working with her to lower the numbers as much as I could until I could no longer ignore the Dragon Kings, which sent me rocketing away from a sneak attack.

I looked at the dozen Ice Dragon Kings shooting towards me, where I quickly moved, dodging all of their attempts to freeze me while devouring their ice, and shooting towards them, my sword exploding with my magical power, giving my mind a chance to relax. I clashed with the dragons, cutting through their ice while making my way towards their neck. I didn't care to avoid any danger, for I simply healed from them. My body didn't need the rest, it was my mind that needed the rest. So, I fought, taking damage for the chance of landing a blow upon them.

Like this, the dragons came to fear me. Erza had to admit, she was shocked, for I was stronger than the last time I fought. Even in the mentally tired state, I was within, I was as strong as when I went all out just a few hours ago. This was of course thanks to my armor, for some reason, it didn't simply help me heal faster, it also made me grow stronger every time I healed.

The Scarlet Armor had grown to like the taste of blood, being bound to me, it did 2 things when it absorbed that blood since I no longer absorbed it thanks to my mental state. When my flames were black, my body absorbed the blood, but with my flames as pure as they were, I didn't.

My armor still absorbed it, and it took that blood and fed it to me when I was injured, healing me in the process while at the same time making me stronger. But there was more to this, as the armor was using the principle of rebirth upon me. When a phoenix, dies, it could come back to life stronger than before. it's just that this armor for some reason gained the capability to make me stronger after I healed, this happened after I purified the armor.

The Second thing the armor does after absorbing blood is improved itself, this is why it keeps changing. This Dragon-like form it's in right now is thanks to the number of dragons it had absorbed blood from. I was sure if I turned evil or something, then the armor would look evil... but that would never happen... right?

Although I was strong a few hours ago when I was going all out, going all out meant that I was fighting with all 4 slayer magic, plus my mental fire... my mind was still weak, which is why I just took all of the attacks coming towards me, I didn't have the mantle focus to calculate everything and dodge. Instead, I put everything into killing.

When the dragons fell back thanks to the loss of numbers, I felt like I would faint. Ignoring the ice spikes, and missing limbs, I returned to the wall, while I shot off half of my mind to rest... and so the days passed.

As the days passed, we got more and more support from not just all of the humans, but other races. Be it the Giant race, Lizard race, and so many more races, we got many support. But so did things grow harder and harder for us, as the dragons fought, they were learning, and getting the hang of forming a strategy against us. So, we were losing, and many times the wall had to be moved backward. The Dragons even learned to attack and flee, giving us zero chance to rest.

Once one group of dragon attack, another would follow up with an attack. They even split their numbers, some trying to go around us, forcing us to split our forces to face them. This forced me to move from battlefield to battlefield, for if the dragon surrounded, or even got past us, everything we were doing here would be proven useless.

Although I tried to shut off half of my mind to rest, I got pretty much no rest through this whole event, and to make things worse, Irene needed more than 7 days. By that time, I was fighting like a zombie... that was funny when an Undead Dragon was bringing back to life all of the fallen dragons and men, to attack us on the 8th day.

"This is some bullshit," Erza said while looking at the countless waves of undead heading towards us, with the undead dragon standing back. The undead dragon wasn't the only troublesome dragon, as a Spirit Dragon summoned the spirit of all who had died, joining the undead to attack us. Over 10,000 undead, plus their spirit, in total over 20 thousand.

"Ryu... you're up again," Erza said with a sigh, as my phoenix magic was the perfect counter to such unholy magic. but with the great scale, I would have to use it on... it wasn't going to be easy, so I was joined with the god slayers and the light-type mages. 

"I will go after the summoners. Anna, use your celestial spirit to transform into me and help them out." I said half asleep. Anna a celestial spirit mage wasted no time, pulling out a key that she used to open an invisible door, summoning a celestial spirit called Gemini, which transformed into me. An almost perfect copy of myself, down to my magic, it was just far weaker than me. It even shared part of my memory, but only that which I allowed thanks to how much mastery of my mind I had, and my magic.

Normally, these twins can only transform into a target whose strength is equal to, or weaker than Anna, but this was ignored thanks to the unique means she summoned them. She used my magical power,

"Let's go," I said shaking off the hunger for sleep. I almost fell over when I took a step, but I forcefully snapped myself awake and shot forward. I shot through the sea of undead, all of them turning to ashes as I passed near them, unable to withstand the power of purification.

I wasn't focused on them, as my attention was fully on the hunt for the dragon responsible for this, but this needed a lot of brain power, which made my magic slowly die down... my mind was shutting down, unable to take this anymore.

But something happened that forced it awake, in the sky, an astroid was falling towards the battlefield. All of the sleep should have disappeared seeing this, after all, in a life and death moment, sleep was the last thing on your mind... but my mind was so tired, that part of it didn't even care that this would kill us if we didn't do anything.

'I have to catch it, I don't have the mental power to destroy it.' I thought while bursting into the sky, causing Erza and everyone cheering to pause seeing my actions, as they realized I didn't know what was happening. 

They called for me, but how could I hear them as my mind flickered between shutting down and staying awake? Before I could even reach the astroid, my eyes rolled backward, before I began falling backward, out cold.

I rocketed towards the ground, the astroid quickly catching up to me. Erza quickly rocketed up into the sky to catch me but paused seeing someone had already caught me. She sighed seeing Irene who held me, before sitting down, knowing Irene could handle everything from here.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Irene said lightly, removing my helmet just for her face to twist in pain to see my face which screamed the hunger for sleep. She enchanted me, forcing me into a deep sleep, knowing that once my mind recovered even by the slightest, I would wake up ready to fight. She was here, and with her came an army of Dragon Slayers.

(A/N: The other races only joined after realizing how serious the matter was. The same for the human empires, many had planned to sit back and watch Dragnof grow weaker before they made their move to get some benefits out of a weakened Dragnof.)