Chapter 250 Turned to Ash

Fire.

The story began in ancient times—with a raging inferno sparked by a lightning strike in a storm, devouring a forest, or a spark struck from stones in the hands of a bipedal ape deep in a dark cave.

Countless years had passed, and intelligent creatures had long grown accustomed to this fiery substance.

It dispelled darkness, brought warmth, and forged tools.

Even an illiterate peasant woman who had never stepped out of her rural valley knew how to light firewood and use its searing heat to cook a meal.

But even today, it had never been tamed.

Sweeping through cities and incinerating forests—even the faintest flicker on a candlestick was enough to spark a catastrophic disaster that could swallow countless lives.

Xia Nan certainly knew its power.

Profound lessons passed down through thousands of years of human history in his past life made him acutely aware of the catastrophic damage this element could cause.

Because of these repeated teachings and the safety measures of modern technology, the most dangerous fire-related incident he had experienced before his transmigration was a simple kitchen flare-up. His clumsy cooking had caused flames to erupt from a pan on the stove, which he calmly smothered by covering it with a lid to cut off the oxygen.

After arriving on the Aifala Continent, his exposure to fire had noticeably increased thanks to throwing items known as "Fire Oil Bombs."

He had endured a few situations that bordered on an actual "fire."

Perhaps it was due to a superhuman physique that far surpassed what he once had, but he knew that even if the flames reached him, he could easily break out using his combat techniques and bursts of speed.

His fear of fire had actually diminished quite a bit.

Under normal circumstances, this mindset would only have been corrected in the near future, when he faced a mage or sorcerer above Level 5 and encountered the legendary "Fireball" head-on for the first time.

Instead, the lesson arrived drastically early—shortly after he had just obtained a Class Level and stepped onto the path of a Class Holder.

His opponent was not one of those fragile, delicate Spellcasters clutching a small staff that he had imagined.

It was an adult red dragon with a Challenge Rating as high as "17," a creature capable of effortlessly destroying a medium-sized town.

The expected "Fireball" had been replaced by the legendary "Dragon Breath," an ability he had long heard of but never seen with his own eyes.

Hiss—it was a low, ominous, and bizarre humming sound.

It sounded like a massive amount of gas being forced into a narrow space, the dangerous noise of extreme compression.

It felt like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

The air trembled, drowning out the roar of the wind and rain.

Thanks to rapid reflexes born of keen Perception, Xia Nan was the first to regain bodily control from the suppression of Dragon Might. Looking back at the source of the danger, he "luckily" caught a complete view of the giant dragon unleashing its Dragon Breath.

The massive, ferocious head covered in fiery red scales slowly reared back. Beneath its dense scales, neck muscles flexed and bulged like steel cables.

Then, a terrifying, blazing white light with fading edges illuminated its internal veins and bones.

Piercing through the gaps in its armor-like scales, the glow visibly traveled up from its chest and abdomen, surging through its neck, and pooled blindingly in its throat as its maw slowly parted.

There was no roar.

What exploded in the air was an extremely suppressed hiss, like a high-pressure furnace bursting open.

"Boom!!!"

Incredibly concentrated, the fiery current transformed into a pillar of flame connecting heaven and earth. Wrapped in the searing white mist of vaporized rain, its core churned with pure golden light while explosive orange-red hues diffused across its outer edges.

There was no need to deliberately aim at a precise target.

With absolute air superiority secured from the heavens and the sustained duration of an adult red dragon's Dragon Breath...

...it acted like a fiery red bomber soaring past. Even from hundreds of meters away, the blazing torrent struck the ground. As the dragon moved at high speeds and tilted its head slightly, the destructive stream dragged straight toward the escort squad.

Xia Nan's first reaction was, of course, to flee.

The moment the lingering effects of the Dragon Might faded and he turned to spot the red dragon, an illusory Wolf Head had already condensed around him.

As his mind raced and his legs moved, he wondered which direction he should take to escape the Dragon Breath in such an open environment using the explosive power of [Fang Hunt].

But not far ahead of him, a sudden, panicked, yet inexplicably stern shout rang out.

"Get close to me!!"

The one who spoke was Hai'an.

He was the second son of the lord of Nym, the escort squad's protection target, and the only member of the team who had yet to obtain a Class Level.

At this moment, a translucent shield radiating emerald-green light and a strong aura of nature had already enveloped him, slowly expanding outward.

Without a doubt, this was the precious trump card he had brought from home for self-defense.

Thoughts flashed through Xia Nan's mind in a thousandth of a second.

The moment was so fleeting that barely had he processed Hai'an's words in Common before he was already weighing the pros, cons, and feasibility of two strategies: escaping with [Fang Hunt], or moving closer to Hai'an to rely on his defensive trump card.

First, regarding the former... could he really outrun it?

If the Dragon Breath followed its current trajectory and swept across the ground in a straight line, he might just manage to escape the flames by running at a perpendicular ninety-degree angle.

But what if the red dragon noticed him? Or what if, for some other reason, it merely tilted its head slightly?

Since his [Bronze Sinews and Iron Bones] Feat only mitigated physical damage and the fire resistance of his Plate-Chain Composite Armor was practically nonexistent, he would undoubtedly be burned to ash.

If he changed tactics and placed his hopes on Hai'an's trump card—could that emerald shield really withstand the Dragon Breath of an adult red dragon?

If it succeeded, all would be well.

But if the shield broke, they would all be incinerated anyway.

What should he choose?

The chasm in their strength meant that a casual breath from the red dragon had plunged Xia Nan into a nearly fatal predicament.

Neither option guaranteed survival.

And the brief, rushed timeframe gave him no chance for a thorough analysis to calculate the highest probability of survival.

Xia Nan decided to trust his instincts.

Howl—

The illusory Wolf Head circling him did not dissipate, but his legs, which were poised to retreat, suddenly shifted their exertion.

He pushed off the ground hard!

His muscle strength erupted.

Almost simultaneously, Wood, who was just a short distance from Hai'an, and Verol, who was near the back of the formation just ahead of Xia Nan, entered the expanding shield surrounding the Half-Elf.

Sava stood at the front of the squad; her main duty was flanking and support.

Her identity as a dragonborn had made her performance exceptionally poor during their last encounter with a red dragon.

Unexpectedly, their few days of rest in Molten Scale Town seemed to have brought her some clarity.

She had transformed the hatred between their two species into a resistance against fear.

She even recovered from the suppression of the Dragon Might slightly faster than Wood.

Without any hesitation in this extremely perilous situation, she obeyed Hai'an's command and converged on him.

In a matter of breaths, the vast majority of the escort squad had gathered within the shield surrounding Hai'an.

Except for... Luca.

With his robust physique, he served as the meat shield of the squad. During wilderness marches, he always stood at the very front to clear the path for his teammates.

He was a Class Holder, undoubtedly, but having grown up in the Wycliffe Family in Nym, his Class Level had been attained through a funneling of resources. Like a product off an assembly line, this perhaps made him perfectly capable of handling the family's guard duties, but he lacked the temperament and willpower that Adventurers of the same level gradually accumulated through countless missions.

Truthfully, Luca's reaction to the Dragon Might couldn't be considered entirely inept.

In fact, as Xia Nan stood inside the shield and watched him turn and run toward the group, Luca's expression—though panicked—held together. He wasn't completely overwhelmed by a dazed, paralyzing terror.

His reaction was just slightly too slow.

Two steps.

The mere two steps between him and the shield became the boundary between life and death.

"Boom!!!"

Accompanied by an eardrum-shattering hum, the gold-and-red flames plowed from the distance right up to them.

From afar, the fiery torrent had looked like a terrifying pillar of light; now, it engulfed their entire field of vision.

Devastating waves of heat surged in all directions from the Dragon Breath. The searing air distorted and expanded, creating visible, blurry ripples.

Hard rock surfaces softened and flowed like hot wax. Solid boulders that had stood across the barren mountains for countless years melted and vaporized with a hiss, dissolving into the depths of the fire.

Nothing on the battlefield could survive even a single second in such an overwhelming tide of flames.

Luca maintained his desperate forward sprint. His contracted pupils even reflected the emerald shield inches away, along with the figures standing inside it.

But in the next instant, the explosive, searing current rushed up from behind him.

It didn't even take the brilliant golden core of the Dragon Breath and its aura of sheer destruction. Just the fading orange-red flames expanding on its periphery were enough to swallow his life.

The Fine iron armor specially forged by the excellent blacksmith hired by the Wycliffe Family, armor capable of enduring the full-force strike of a Bugbear without breaking, made absolutely no difference now. It was no better than the weeds scattered across the ground.

In the blink of an eye, it melted into thick, glowing molten iron.

His skin and flesh followed instantly, scorching and vaporizing into the air. His skeleton might have lasted an indescribably brief fraction of a second longer, but soon, all that remained were a few unrecognizable charred fragments.

Before the eyes of the escort squad, Luca was engulfed by the Dragon Breath.

The rushing currents of the blast left him without even a corpse; the blackened remnants scattered like fly ash into the wind.

The only thing left behind in his place was the item he had kept close to his chest—the oval Silver-White Metal Block known as the "Dream Weaving Corridor Terminal".

There was no time to mourn Luca's death, nor time to marvel at the high fire resistance of the [Dream Weaving Corridor] for enduring the Dragon Breath without a scratch.

The very next second, the pillar of flame swept past where Luca's body had been and slammed into the shield.

It trembled violently.

Not even half a second had passed, and the translucent emerald shield enveloping the group was already fracturing under the intense shaking.

The scorching heat filled the air inside the barrier with scalding white mist.

Xia Nan could faintly hear a crisp, cracking sound emanating from the Half-Elf.

At the same time, along with the violent shuddering of the crumbling shield, Hai'an's face suddenly turned pale with despair.

Just as Xia Nan thought the emerald shield overhead couldn't hold on any longer, a flash of pale blue light caught the corner of his eye.

He subconsciously glanced over.

Verol was gripping her unique greyish-white staff, the glow radiating from the deep green, transparent black Opal inlaid at its tip.

Her lips were moving, seemingly chanting a spell.

And guided by some invisible force, the pale blue light blanketed the fracturing shield.

It sustained the barrier for that most crucial 1.5 seconds.

Only after the Dragon Breath had completely swept past did it finally shatter, turning into countless specks of light that faded into the air.

Before them lay a scene out of an abyssal hell, as if they had been transported to another realm.

The air was filled with a dense, scalding mist, much like the Misty Forest.

Dirt and gravel had turned to glass under the high-temperature impact, forming a molten trench on the ground that stretched all the way to the hills, its end out of sight.

Even just standing in place and breathing, the burning pain that surged into his nasal cavity and trickled down his neck into his chest served as a harsh reminder of what had just occurred here.

The Dragon Breath had passed.

Was everyone... safe?

Of course not.

An ant that should have been casually crushed in a fit of rage had unexpectedly survived the noble, divine, and blazing Dragon Breath instead of being charred to a crisp as expected.

To the inherently arrogant and prideful red dragon, this was no longer a simple provocation; it was an insult to its noble bloodline.

Without a hint of hesitation, when "Kraugbari" realized that the little bugs which should have been incinerated in the flames were still standing safely after its Dragon Breath...

...a furious draconic roar erupted, and a brilliant white light began to brew once more in its chest.

Between the beating of its massive wings, a new wave of Dragon Breath was about to be unleashed.

But just then, an incredibly familiar flash of silver-white suddenly caught its golden slitted pupils.

It was the very source of its unbridled fury over the past few days.

The treasure that some damned, despicable thief had stolen from its Dragon Lair while it was away.

"Vrr-boom."

Deep within its throat, the blazing light that signified its Dragon Breath quietly dissipated.

The white mist in the air churned. Its wings whipped up the dense, misty rain falling from the heavy, leaden clouds, creating sweeping blasts of blurred air currents.

Its razor-sharp claws sank into the earth. Illuminated by the fiery red currents spilling from the edges of its maw, the ferocious dragon's head loomed in and out of sight, veiled by the rain and fog.

An overwhelmingly oppressive, massive shadow instantly engulfed everyone on the field.

The good news: they had survived the Dragon Breath.

The bad news: the red dragon that was merely passing by had just landed right in their faces.