Chương 97: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 97 - Enter the Dragon's Nest, Slay the Evil Dragon

A dark shape tore across the sky above the Dragon's Nest. Ji Taimei dropped inside with frantic urgency, barely landing before she started talking. She was the one who had spotted the human army. Inside the Nest, Anna was carefully pressing berries between the Black Dragon's lips, her touch so gentle and precise she looked like she was tending to a patient. Only a little juice ever made it down, but that was still something. Better than nothing. She didn't know what else she could do for Su Nian.

Polishing his scales. Curling up against him for warmth. That was all she had. Then the thought had come to her: her brother had been asleep for so long. What if he got hungry in his sleep? Anna knew what hunger felt like. She had learned it during her time being trafficked by humans, across countless days when there was no food, no end in sight. At its worst, three or four days with nothing. Her stomach would cramp like fire was eating through it.

She couldn't stand the thought of her brother lying there feeling that.

"Mistress! Big trouble! There's a human army — they're attacking!" Ji Taimei's cry snapped Anna out of her daze. The elven girl shot to her feet, her fair face tight with alarm, a fine layer of cold sweat breaking across her temples. She didn't correct Ji Taimei's address. Her cheeks flushed pink. She bit her lip and said nothing. She was her brother's, after all. The title wasn't wrong.

"What happened? How close are they?"

"They should have entered the outer edge of Silvermoon Forest by now. The Dragon's Nest is their target." Ji Taimei's expression was carefully respectful. She didn't let a trace of condescension show, despite the fact that Anna was just a Mage Apprentice. The girl standing in front of her was the Black Dragon Boss's, and his alone. Anna's brows drew together. She pressed her teeth together hard. These humans had chosen now. Of all the times they could have come, they chose now.

The Gnoll leader and most of the monsters were away. Inside the Nest, there was only Ji Taimei and Brother Chicken. Half the Blaze Rabbits had left with the others. What do we do? Anna had never faced anything like this. The panic hit first, sharp and cold. But underneath the panic was something steadier: she had someone she wanted to protect. That single fact forced her to breathe, to think.

"Ji Taimei. Send two Harpies to find Grey Wolf right now. Tell him the Dragon's Nest is under attack and we need reinforcements immediately."

"Tell Brother Chicken to move the Blaze Rabbits into the Flame Arrow Towers and hold position."

"Have all the Cockatrices scatter into the forest along the approach route. They stay hidden in the trees and wait for their moment. No direct engagements. Harass and fall back. Keep moving." The orders came out clean and in sequence, with barely a pause between them. She still looked nervous. Still young. But she had spent this time at the Black Dragon's side, and something of his calm and decisiveness had seeped into her whether she realized it or not. Ji Taimei felt it. Genuine admiration rose in her chest.

The ones who stood beside a master never stayed ordinary for long, even a young creature would be shaped by that proximity into something different. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.... Outskirts of Silvermoon Forest. Out of caution, Meima Gougouzi was pushing the advance slower than the players would have liked.

The male players fanned out across a front roughly a hundred meters wide, shuffling forward in a crouch with each step placed like they were defusing a bomb. They looked like they were surveying farmland. They had no choice. Four or five unlucky players had already stepped on traps, died, and respawned back in the beginner village, forfeiting any chance of discussing magic with Meima Gougou that evening. The forest around them was scorched black.

Rain had passed through, but the charred stench clung to everything, thick and unpleasant. As they pushed forward, though, the burned landscape thinned. Green started returning to the view. The trees filled in. The air changed. They were getting close to the Dragon's Nest. The silence hit first. No insects. No wind sounds. Just the growing density of trees and a dimness that pressed in from all sides. Something's wrong. The feeling registered in Meima Gougouzi's gut before her mind caught up.

Ever since she'd advanced to Grand Mage, her danger sense had sharpened into something real. A rush of displaced air cut toward her from the left. She didn't think. She rolled, hitting the ground hard and coming up just in time to watch a claw the size of a washbasin rake through the space where her head had been. She made it. The player to her right did not. The Cockatrice dropped from the branches above and crushed the man's skull in a single grip. He was dead before he hit the ground.

"Enemies! They're coming out of the trees!"

"Ambush! They were up in the trees this whole time!"

"Kill them!" The Sakura players surged toward the exposed Cockatrice in a screaming mass. The creature had miscalculated. It had planned to grab the female human, kill her, and use the momentum to vault back into the canopy. But she had moved. The plan fell apart. Now it had nowhere to go, the angle back to the branches was lost. It ran. But there were humans on every side. Warriors closed the circle.

Spells lit up between the trees, and the Cockatrice dropped to the ground with smoke rising from its charred feathers. That death flipped a switch. The moment the players bunched together, Cockatrices came pouring out of the shadows above, diving without hesitation, without self-preservation. Blades of cold light swept through the formation. Skulls caved in like fruit. Players dropped in a chain.

"Mages, get your shields up!"

"They go for the head — protect your heads!"

"Baka! Now they're going for the backside too!" The players' shouts and the Cockatrices' shrieks tangled together into one rolling chaos. Meima Gougouzi read the situation in a single sweep and made her call. She pulled a Fireball into her palm and launched it into the canopy. The trees caught immediately. Cockatrices burst from the flames in all directions, exposed and scrambling.

"Burn every tree that could be hiding one of them! Pick up the pace!" She was already turning to the mage players as she said it. It would work, but only if they moved. Stay too long admiring their own fires and they'd be trapped in them.

"Forget the traps. Move!" Under her command, the column lurched forward at double speed. Players still died, traps took more of them, and the retreating Cockatrices drew blood on the way out. But the formation held together and kept moving. They killed their share of monsters in return. The Dragon's Nest came into view. The blue-grey nest structure rose from the ground ahead, cliffs rising on either side, the whole shape familiar and stark.

But where it had been packed with monsters the last time they'd laid eyes on it, the place was quiet now. Almost empty. Just as expected. The hard monsters were gone. This was the window. Meima Gougouzi's gaze settled on the five Flame Arrow Towers positioned around the perimeter. Her mind ran the numbers. The towers had good firepower, placed at irritatingly precise angles. But they couldn't fire inward at the Nest itself, the arc didn't reach.

The correct play was to ignore the towers, eat the losses, and push one concentrated wave straight through the entrance. Players would die. That was fine. As long as it wasn't her. She reached up and undid the top two buttons of her shirt, letting the fabric fall open at the collar. Fair neck. Impressive view below it. She turned to face the assembled players, shifting her weight slightly as she moved. The male players, who made up most of the crowd, locked on like compass needles finding north.

Breathing got heavier.

"Gentlemen." Her voice carried easily.

"The Dragon's Nest is right in front of us. The dragon inside has brought nothing but ruin to every living thing around it. And right now, its defenses are thin." She paused. Let them look.

"Now is our moment."

"Killing the dragon gives everyone mission rewards. But the one who severs that dragon's head..." She tilted her head, blinked once, and smiled slowly.

"I'll discuss magic with him alone for an entire month. Any topic he wants~" She leaned forward just slightly as she blew a kiss. The view deepened. Several players looked like their souls were already leaving their bodies.

"Fight for Miss Gougouzi!" A middle-aged man in the front wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sword already raised. The crowd erupted.

"Into the Dragon's Nest — slay the dragon!"

"CHARGE!!" ➤ Next: Get Out of the Dragon's Nest