The Bow Puppet ran out of arrows while rapid firing at the Forest Dragon, so William was forced to recall it to his side.
On the other end, the dragon was riddled with wounds and missing a few scales. Embedded in its flesh and wings on all sides were a few dozen arrows, making the dragon look like a giant hedgehog. Its eyes glowed a ferocious red as it had lost all semblance of reason, ready to fire off another flame breath the moment it returned to the sky.
Unfortunately for the dragon, William wasn't planning to let the dragon have its way. He launched himself forward, slicing into one of the Forest Dragon's wings with his Sword of Shifting Sands, ripping through the webbing without much resistance.
The dragon roared in pain, taking to the air despite the damage to its wings. Somehow it was still able to fly, albeit much slower than before.
William realized his Puppets were in a dangerous situation once again, so he recalled them to his Space Ring just before the flame breath spread across the room.
This flame breath was much stronger than the previous wave, despite the poison weakening the Forest Dragon. It must have been the final death throes of the Magical Beast, but William was still unharmed. He bathed in the flames like it was a bath, finding it incomparable to the pain from the most recent Fire Affinity upgrade.
Ahh, that feels good... William hadn't had a hot shower in so long.
He walked out of the flames casually, feeling refreshed and reborn as the Forest Dragon looked at him with wide eyes. It couldn't believe a mere human, a Core Formation Cultivator at that, could survive the flame breath of a Nascent Soul Dragon.
The dragon had made an understandable mistake, assuming that William was in the Core Formation Realm, but the reality of the situation was that William's Stealth Talent made the dragon think he was hiding his Cultivation. If the dragon knew William was a non-Cultivator, it would probably be ashamed for the rest of its life.
William wasn't completely uninjured, having sustained minor burns across his entire body, but a quick sweep with the Life Element healed everything in mere moments.
William channeled Mana of the Fire Element into his Mana Gathering Staff, launching a flamethrower spell that he hadn't used in a long time. The flames were just as intense and flew slightly faster than the Forest Dragon's, targeting its wings and body while the dragon did its best to dodge.
The dragon was livid that William dared to launch its own attack against it, but there was nothing it could do but dodge. As it tilted its body midair, the flamethrower spell traced it, blocking off the dragon's path of retreat as the flames corralled it into a corner.
Even after ten seconds of continuous flames, the flamethrower spell didn't die out. William was still feeding Mana at a rate of thirty per second into the Staff, meaning he could maintain the spell for another thirty seconds easily.
By the fifteen second mark, the dragon had run out of space to fly to. It had no choice but to pass through the flames in order to limit the amount of damage it took, but the poison had taken effect long ago and the dragon's reaction speed was slower than usual.
As it passed through the flames, the webbing on its wings caught fire, forcing the dragon to the ground. With a poisoned body and a useless pair of wings, the Forest Dragon was doomed to fall here.
William rushed forward, slicing off one of the dragon's claws with an underhand sword strike. The sword continued forward and stabbed into the dragon's hide, stabbing deep into a fleshy part where the scales were missing.
The dragon roared in pain, but even this wouldn't take it down. It released a third flame breath, thinking that there was no way William would remain unharmed again. Follow current novᴇls on novęlfire.net
Unfortunately for it, that is exactly what William did. He coated his body with the Water Element so he didn't have to heal himself later, releasing dozens of sword strikes at the dragon's face while tanking the flame breath at point-blank range.
The damage he dealt wasn't incredible, given that he wasn't supported by his Array Puppets this time, but it was enough. The dragon gave up trying to roast William, realizing its fire was almost completely ineffective and wasn't just a fluke.
It spun around, forcing William to perform a nimble backflip as he avoided the set of spikes at the end of the Forest Dragon's tail. The tail stopped after traveling a mere meter past William, sweeping in the reverse direction in an attempt to trip him up.
William didn't see this coming and was swept off his feet, the sharp spikes creating holes in his Forcefield and ripping through his clothing. No blood was drawn, his Earth-reinforced Hard Skin preventing the spikes from causing any further damage.
Its facial expression didn't show it, but the Forest Dragon was once again surprised by William's various abilities, especially when a bloody wound formed near the base of its back legs due to the Attack Reflection Talent.
It could accept that William had some immunity to the Fire Element. It could accept that he had impressive skill with Arrays and could control multiple Perfect Array Puppets simultaneously. It could even accept that William's skill with various weapons was so fast that he could perform multiple different weapon styles simultaneously with said Array Puppets.
What it couldn't accept was that William's defenses were even stronger than the dragon's own scales. If another dragon were to hit the Forest Dragon with a powerful reverse tail swipe like that, there was no doubt that the attack would draw blood and it would lose many scales.
But William was mostly unharmed! His Spirit Aura was incredibly solid, absorbing most of the momentum, while his Earth Element was almost as powerful.
If William had a fully charged Tribulation Transcendence Protective Amulet, even his clothes wouldn't be torn by such an attack.
The dragon tried to back away and recover some stamina, but William wasn't going to give it any chances. He rushed forward with his sword in hand, executing as many strikes as possible to cut away the scales on the dragon's shoulder before it could try anything else.
William jumped over the Forest Dragon's tail, twisting to the right midair to avoid the reverse swipe as the tail returned to its original position. He made use of his downward momentum to stab deep into the dragon's now unprotected shoulder, disabling its right arm and forcing it to the ground.
With that, the fight ended in under five minutes, the Forest Dragon eventually bleeding out while the poison continued to spread. Even though it had been struck by so many arrows, the poison still wasn't the main contributor to its death. This just proved that dragons were incredibly formidable creatures.
The Forest Dragon disappeared into particles of Mana while William was teleported as usual.
Welcome to the 150th floor, the final step in this portion of the trial. You have 6 hours to rest before the trial begins...
A Challenger has entered the 150th floor...
William surveyed his surroundings after the trial creator finished speaking. The room was incredibly dark, so he first activated a minor fusion spell of the Plant and Fire Elements, creating a dozen balls of flaming moss that flew at an incredibly slow pace towards the back wall of the 150th floor.
What William saw next made his jaw drop in complete shock, his knees shaking as he was suddenly overwhelmed by a mass of anger and bloodlust that made him dizzy.