Chapter 429: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 6

At this moment, the battlefield was split into three sections—the White Dragon, the Green Dragon, and the Red Dragon—and the chaos had reached its peak.
Siegwurm had not descended since activating the Law of the Dragon, and Noirlind, who targeted only Siegwurm, could not currently be counted as a threat.

If so, which dragon should be prioritized and dealt with first?

Bryreinyego, continuously birthing an inexhaustible supply of small dragons?

Or Brockentried, sucking up mana from the earth and unleashing attacks that warped the very terrain?

No. The answer was no.

Humans sometimes discard rationality and prioritize emotion. And it is that very emotion that sometimes produces results that surpass rationality.

In other words:

""""Shoot down that shitty Red Dragon!!!""""

Based simply on the single point that "its personality is annoying," the one targeted with the utmost priority was the Red Dragon Dreadhowl.

"Fire magic!!"

"It missed! That hover is so annoying!"

"Do attacks not work on its legs!?"

"At the very least, thrusting attacks have the worst compatibility! If you mess up, your weapon will break!"

"Slashing is iffy, thrusting is the worst... What about blunt force! How is blunt force!?"

"Oh my, then is it my turn?"

"Alright, Mad-D-san! Mad-D-san is here! The star of muscle-brains!! Gather 'round, STR buffers!!"

"More importantly, 【Black Sword】...! You came up to the front lines!?"

"That's right...! I'll stop its movements. Can you do it, Kusamochi!!"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up too much, but understood...!!"

An illustrious group—the Pioneers who once called themselves 【Black Wolf】... and now raised the flag of 【Black Sword】—began to move.

The moment Psyger-100, standing at the vanguard, began casting a spell, players possessing enhancement magic gathered from the surroundings and successively applied buffs to the heavily muscled warrior.
Finally, a man holding a golden bow aimed an arrowhead at the heavens and drew the bowstring taut with a creak. It seemed he was activating a skill even while drawing the bow; while not a storm of buffs like Massive Dynamite, several effects enveloped his body.

"Recently, I've been practicing hitting moving targets... 【Violence Thunder】!!!"

The tyrannical lightning that was once completely devoured by the Nether-King's shield. Its greatest characteristic was that it relied on the player's line of sight for targeting coordinates, and...

That the launch point was high in the sky.

『Ah? Wha—Gugoa!!?』

No matter how much it maneuvered through the air using jet propulsion hovering, Dreadhowl's frame was not agile enough to dodge a surprise attack of lightning coming from outside its field of vision.

In an instant, the lightning, having taken the form of a beast, struck the side of Dreadhowl's face, freezing the red frame in mid-air.

"Smash it!!"

"Acknowledged! I'm counting on you, Failnaught!!"

The man's name was Kusamochi.
He was the Sub-Leader of the clan 【Black Sword】, and an original member who had been involved in the founding of the clan back when it was 【Black Wolf】. There was one more noteworthy thing about him.

The Holy Bow Failnaught. One of the five Hero Weapons, following the Sword, Spear, Hammer, and Wand.
Capable of switching between and even combining two bow types—a standard bow and a magic bow—the arrow loosed from the Holy Bow was enveloped in golden magic power, as if the arrow itself had donned armor.
The moment the arrow ascending from below decelerated, the magic power wrapping it burst, re-accelerating the physical arrow serving as its core.

"If you wanna shoot down a jet-type quickly, the easiest way is naturally to shove something down its thrusters."

The "Gimmick Arrowhead," its power amplified by the abilities of the Holy Bow Failnaught, activated.
Though an arrow was a consumable, this particular arrowhead would instantly empty the wallet of a player who had just started the game. When it hit its mark...

『Guoaaaaa!!?』

It exploded.
In human terms, it was like taking a low kick to legs that had fallen asleep from sitting seiza for a long time. Losing its balance, Dreadhowl's massive body dropped sharply. Seemingly having lost control, it was slammed directly into the ground.

"Go get 'em, Mad-D-san!"

"Ufufu, I'm getting a bit too excited for my age... Now then, here I go... 'Hercules Blaster'!!"

A massive buff from an unspecified number of people, the iron whip of a Pioneer who devoted everything to muscles, and a maximum-impact strike referencing STR via a level-cap-breaking Triple-Digit skill.
A tremendous sound—neither a Goshah!!! nor a Gobon!!!!—smashed into Dreadhowl's chest, and its massive body was undeniably lifted back into the air, albeit for an instant.
Even if it was bizarre, it was still a dragon. The sound, unfathomable as the result of striking a living creature with a blunt instrument, released a pressure that made even the surrounding players who hadn't taken a direct hit flinch and tremble.

"...Too bad, looks like I couldn't snatch the 【Maximum Firepower】 title."

『O, Goka...!?』

Dreadhowl's entire body stiffened. It was clear to anyone's eyes that it had taken an undeniable amount of damage.

"Pile it on!!!"

Psyger-100 shouted an order filled with ear-splitting spirit. As if to say "You don't even need to tell us," the surrounding players readied their respective weapons and swarmed the agonizing Dreadhowl.

"We don't need to finish it here! Just land your attacks and disengage! Stay alert for the possibility of a wake-up attack!!"

Although these colored dragons were apparently "not Raid Monsters" systematically, that didn't guarantee they lacked special actions triggered by remaining HP.
While their skill levels varied, every player who had advanced to the New Continent possessed a certain degree of player skill.

『Gu, o... no,』

"Everyone fall baaaack!!"

"I'm gonna purposefully stay behind! Gather its intel from my corpseeee!"

"Alright, have a good death!"

"Leave the posthumous portrait (screenshot) to meee!"

『You, damned... insectsssss!!』

"It's mad? Seriously!?"

"Wai—"

"Are you a spinning top!?"

Spewing flames from the protrusions all over its body, Dreadhowl began to rampage with movements just like a spinning top, as someone had screamed, sending several players flying.
However, perhaps because fighting bravely until the very last second paid off—or backfired—downward-pointing arrow icons appeared all over the place.

"Mad-D-san! You're the one being targeted! Get away from the respawn icons!!"

"Oh my, this is troubling... You know I'm slow on my feet, right?"

Massive Dynamite. Having poured almost all her parameters into STR and VIT, perhaps as the destiny of an extreme build, her shortcomings were also glaring.
A warrior boasting unparalleled strength in bracing and brute force, in exchange, her speed and stamina were extremely low.
While she could mitigate chip damage to almost zero with her VIT, if she was sent flying by a massive mass, losing all her HP was unavoidable.

If that was the case, what a fragile cannon needed was none other than a shield to protect it from the enemy. 

"Tank Number One, arriving!"

"Number Two!"

"No time, so etcetera etcetera! We're from SF-Zoo!"

"Sorry! Number Five's dog said it wanted to go for a walk!"

"My kid is a Golden Retriever who loves night walks!"

Five players lined up in an echelon formation, uniformly bearing heavily armored, visibly sluggish shields that could almost be called excessive.
And, activated with perfectly synchronized timing, their aggro-stealing skills diverted the behavior of the spinning Dreadhowl away from Massive Dynamite.

"""""Phalanx!!!!!"""""

A defensive skill that increased armor value proportionally to the number of people simultaneously activating the same skill triggered, and the five shields clashed head-on with Dreadhowl.
A brief moment of equilibrium... and then the power balance tilted.
Having its own kinetic energy reflected back by the continuously activated counter skills, Dreadhowl's body was forcefully flipped over.

『Ogua!?』

"You've gotta be kidding me, they stopped it!"

"As expected of the Zoo's tank squad... The sense of security is three times higher."

"I mean, didn't those guys have almost no attack skills other than counters?"

"True paragons of tanks."

In a peaky clan where almost all members were rear-guards, the five tanks who single-handedly absorbed all aggro could be said to be the finest possible escorts for Massive Dynamite in this situation.
Protected by the absolute best shields, who pinned Dreadhowl down as if passing a ball between them, the battle against the Red Dragon accelerated.

And then, one battlefront that pulled ahead of the rest in this chaotic battlefield would end up churning the vortex of the Dragon Calamity even further.