Brixaby and the rest of his retinue emerged into the clear open air, very, very far away from the ground.

Brixaby gave a squawk of surprise that he would later insist was merely an exclamation and certainly not a yelp like a new hatchling. Quickly buzzing his wings, he situated himself upright in the air. Sams and Joy, both being larger with a greater wingspan, took longer.

Unfortunately, when the Dark Heart had taken them to the challenge, Cressida and Horatio had been standing near Arthur and had not been astride their dragons. So they continued to fall.

“Cressida!” Joy tucked her wings and dived, completely ignoring Marion, who was clutching onto her neck for dear life.

Sams did the same, diving after the flailing Horatio.

That was right and proper in Brixaby’s opinion. No dragon should ever be expected to care for some random person over their own linked rider.

But Marion was not experienced in dragon riding, and though Joy was doing nothing more than diving, he managed to slip off Joy’s neck.

With a roll of his eyes, Brixaby sprang into action. He didn’t simply dive—he buzzed his wings and flew down, even faster than a normal dive.

Just as Joy swooped neatly under her rider and allowed the woman to cling on to her saddle and pull herself aboard, Brixaby caught Marion under the man’s arms. He was heavier than Arthur, which made it a struggle to zip back up out of the dive, but at least Marion wasn’t screaming. Much.

However, there was no question about letting anyone else aside from Arthur ride him. Swooping back up, Brixaby neatly dumped Marion on Joy’s back before he turned to check on Sams’s extra passenger.

The yellow dragon had caught his rider. Somehow, Soledad had managed to hang on the entire time, probably because Sams had a much wider neck.

Only then was Brixaby able to take a proper look around. They were still very far up in the air—he didn’t know why the falling humans had screamed so much—and the blue ocean extended as far as he could see. The only spot of land was an island nearly directly below them. Green and lush, it was dominated by a volcano.

And that volcano appeared to be erupting with scourglings.

“Oh, I just got a quest,” Joy said, a moment before words bloomed into being in front of them, as if a large, invisible painter had taken a brush to the sky.

New Quest: Cleanse The Island: Defeat enemy scourglings and save the island.

Joy scoffed. “I was about to say that, Mr. Dark Heart. Anyway, we need to clear out as many of the scourglings as we possibly can, without letting them destroy the island first.”

Then she paused, frowning, and became unusually silent.

Cressida touched her neck. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Joy said. “I just don’t have a good feeling about that volcano down there.”

Brixaby made a dismissive sound. “Of course you don’t. It is erupting with scourglings. This is a grand challenge fit for dragons.”

“I agree,” Sams rumbled.

All this time they’d been talking, they had been in a spiraling dive. The island, which at first had seemed tinier than a foreclaw, was growing larger and larger. This would be quite the space to defend, which was a good thing in Brixaby’s opinion. That meant there would be a lot of scourglings to kill.

“What are your orders?” Sams asked.

Brixaby felt a rush of pride that he was to lead his own retinue in a proper battle. However, that pride was mixed with a little regret and irritation that Arthur was not here to share this moment with him.

“Kill as many scourglings as you can, and harvest everything,” Brixaby announced, and saw dragon-ish grins on Sams’s and Joy’s faces. Cressida and Horatio looked enthusiastic, too. In fact, the only one who seemed a little ill was Marion, but that might be an aftereffect of falling several hundred feet.

Brixaby went on. “I, of course, will attack from the air. Sams and Horatio, use your light to burn anything on that western slope there.” He pointed down to the rockier side of the island, which was free of the lush vegetation. That meant there would be less places for any scourglings to hide. “Joy and Cressida, sweep the jungle. Seek out the higher-ranked scourglings and poison them.”

“It looks like they’re chewing on the vegetation for some reason,” Joy said, squinting downward. “When they’re not setting it on fire, they’re just . . . chewing it down to the bare earth.

“Excellent,” Brixaby said, pleased. “That will make it easier for you to find them.” Then he looked at the two riderless humans. “You two: try not to slow us down or die. That would be most inconvenient.”

The girl scowled at him, and Marion threw what had to be the worst salute ever.

But Brixaby was distracted a moment later when Joy flicked her tail at him.

She was looking at him with concern. “Brixaby, I want you to be very, very careful. I don’t have a good feeling.”

He scoffed. “I will be victorious—I mean, we will all be victorious, and will return with many shards! Now, follow me!”

It is a shame, he thought as the dragons dived to meet their enemy. Arthur is really missing out.

* * *

An hour later, Brixaby was still having a grand time. He had positioned himself near the mouth of the volcano, which was as close as he could get while avoiding the hot poisonous gasses.

He was currently practicing interesting ways to kill scourglings as they were thrown free.

Most were the non-flying type, and as they were ejected upward, they unfurled themselves in midair in preparation for a landing. This was when they were the most vulnerable.

Brixaby used any number of offensive capabilities to kill them. His personal favorite was his Stunning Shout, which paralyzed or knocked them unconscious and kept them from landing correctly. The splat sound when they hit the ground was most satisfying.

His Night-Mare Fire had a very similar effect, which put stunning fear into the heart of any being he touched while using it. However, he had to be careful using that effect, as he could not use it when Arthur was aboard.

Occasionally, he would simply take out several weapons to test on scourglings from his Personal Space. He had forged several swords and affixed different basic runes with his enchanting skills. Though cutting down an enemy was more of a human thing, it could be satisfying.

Unfortunately, he could not test out his Berserker Rage or use his superior ability in the air and snatch shards out of the hearts of the falling scourglings. Because when they exited the volcano, they were scorching hot. Most came out glowing orange and red with some kind of earth elemental touch to them. Even with his Toughened Skin, he could not get too close.

If they landed in vegetation, they started fires. However, a few minutes out of the volcano had them cooled down enough to approach. He often broke off from killing new ones to go harvest shards from the cooled, stiffened dead.

Unfortunately, those shards were only those odd blanks without a proper rank. He threw them in his Personal Space anyway. There had to be some use for them.

The best part of this eruption was that he gained levels in his movement skills. Experience appeared to be accelerated.

In fact, Brixaby was getting even more levels in movement skills than he had when he was fighting those scourglings in his forge challenge.

Flying Sprint, Pinpoint Turn, Trick Flying, Barrel Roll, and Flying Accuracy all received multiple levels.

But even with all this, he was only one dragon and could not kill them all. The scourglings that escaped his wrath usually recovered from being ejected out of the volcano and ran straight into the forest, where their hot hides inevitably started a forest fire.

That was not an issue. Plants grew back, and his retinue were all far too strong and clever to get caught in a forest fire. He caught glimpses of Joy’s bright pink hide in the foliage as she hunted scourglings while being careful of the flames. With her abilities, a single scratch from her venomous claws meant certain death. He fully expected that she and her rider were getting their own shards as a bounty.

Meanwhile, Sams and Horatio were on the opposite slope of the volcano, which was much more rocky and provided little cover from aerial attacks. Brixaby wasn’t quite certain how light could injure something that was already glowing hot from lava, but occasionally he would catch bright flashes out of the corner of his eye as Sams or his rider powered themselves up from the sun. Then, suddenly, a swath of scourglings on the far slope would die.

Arthur had tried to explain what Horatio had told him about invisible burning light, but Brixaby didn’t have the patience to listen. He just trusted his retinue to do their job.

Finally, the other two dragonless humans were off a little ways in a freshwater lagoon. Occasionally, Brixaby would climb high enough to see over the top of the forest and check on them. He saw multiple versions of the boy, all confusing the scourglings. The girl seemed to be doing most of the fighting, using one of the swords that Brixaby had left her.

They were, in Brixaby’s opinion, in very little danger. By the time the scourglings had reached that far, the molten hot hides had cooled down, making them stiff and awkward. Perfect practice for somebody who didn’t even have a dragon to aid them.

Yes, he was feeling quite self-satisfied, right up until the point where the volcano sputtered out three final scourglings, and then no more.

“That cannot be it!” Brixaby used his Flying Sprint skill to quickly take himself over the mouth of the volcano. He had to do this quickly because those hot gasses were corrosive and could burn through his scales despite his protections.

The open throat of the volcano glowed ominously orange. And . . . was there something moving inside?

He grinned, a feral dragon’s grin, and flitted through the turbulent air to get clear of the volcano. Then he accessed his mental thought subskill, a reward for eating a mind card. With that, he spoke into the minds of his retinue. We may have a demi-scourgling emerging.

At least, he certainly hoped so. The emergence of a demi-scourgling meant that there was a Legendary card at play.

The creature that crawled out of the mouth of the volcano was huge and so hot that its hide glowed white with streaks of red and orange. It was shaped like an iguana with an extra-long backward-facing shield over its head to protect its neck and spine. That told Brixaby that was its most vulnerable point.

It was as long as three horses put together, nose to tail. But to Brixaby’s disappointment, the power he sensed coming out of it was Rare. This was a mega-scourgling, not a demi.

Still, it should provide him with some valuable cards to harvest.

After it crawled out, the volcano coughed as if it had been stuffed up behind the mega-scourgling and waiting to explode again.

This time, no more scourglings flew out, but dozens of glowing lava bombs did. Brixaby was hard-pressed to dodge out of the way. It wasn’t just the balls of lava that exploded when they hit the ground, but the shards of molten rock that flew along with it and filled the sky like rain. He nearly lost the tip of his bottom-right wing trying to avoid one deadly shower. And for the first time, he was glad Arthur was not with him. If he’d been hit . . .

Then again, he would have told Brixaby to stay away from the edge of an erupting volcano, and he might have had a point.

Most unfortunately, Brixaby’s distraction allowed the mega-scourgling to start heading down the lush, rainy slope of the volcano. Wherever it stepped, plants exploded into flame and rock melted.

The lava bombs were reaching the top of their arc and starting to fall down again. Looking at the distance, some might even hit the lagoon. Brixaby quickly sent a mental message to Marion and Soledad to take cover. He didn’t not know how they could, considering they were wingless, but Brixaby could not possibly think of every detail. He had bigger scourglings to fry.

More lava bombs were ejected and fell into the jungle, starting new fires. These joined others that had already been started by red-hot scourglings. He suspected that soon they would have a conflagration on their hands.

Joy and Cressida flew out of the jungle. Since Joy had kept well clear of the mouth of the volcano, she was able to keep an eye on falling lava bombs. She made an ooh sound as she spotted the mega-scourgling.

“Is that the boss?”

“It is no boss! If anything, I am the boss of it,” Brixaby said, irritated.

And he proved that he was much better in every way by inhaling deep and directing the full force of his Stunning Shout directly at the mega-scourgling.

He had been practicing with his shout over the eruption, and like everything else in this challenge, it had leveled up. Now it had reached level 15.

Harnessing that power, he directed it in a tight, focused beam to the base of the creature’s neck, in a gap between its back and the fleshy shield that extended backward from its head. He intended to carve through flesh and sever the spine . . . or whatever the equivalent a scourgling had.

His stunning beam hit, but instead of cutting through like a scalpel, the hide rippled. No, it was not hide at all. The irritating creature was covered completely in molten lava.

There was more than one way to kill a scourgling. They could not live if their magic was ripped out of their hearts!

With a growl, Brixaby dived.

Joy yelled a warning, but Brixaby ignored her.

What did she know about snatching cards from enemies? Nothing!

By the time he got thirty feet above the creature, the sheer heat of that molten rock made him pull up sharply. It was like hitting a wall of fire, and if not for his Toughened Skin, he might have already been burned.

“Brixaby, look out!” Joy yelled, too close behind him. When had she dived? He glanced over and saw her coming in fast, close enough that they were in danger of crashing. What was she thinking?

Then in the next second, Cressida shouted something as a red-and-orange whip of lava came straight up from the mega-scourgling. It impacted a hastily thrown-up shield by Cressida. Some of that lava was reflected straight back to the scourgling, but as it was already coated, that was not a problem for it.

Brixaby’s Counterfeit Siphon card activated.

New Counterfeit spell obtained: Mana ShieldDid you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

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