Chapter 208 - Red-haired Guard Wyrm

“That's not a dragon, that's a wyrm!” Gustav corrected him.

“Potato potato! Shoot the bastard!” Timothy commanded.

The platoon had quite some time to attack it, given that the wyrm was still over three-hundred meters away from them. For the time being only those who could shoot lightning bolts, could actually hit the dragon, on the count of how far away it was, and these guys didn't hold back! Hundreds of bolts flew towards the wyrm, and when the wyrm reached the two-hundred meter mark, everyone who wielded fire so far, started shooting as well! This was where things started getting hot, and heavy.

There was a sea of fire and lightning, melting through the actual, salty sea, as the countless attacks paved their way forwards! The wyrm didn't have any arms or legs, it was a bit of a slow swimmer, so it'll likely be killed before it even reached the one-hundred meter mark in the platoon's radius! At least, that's what they expected, but even though the wyrm was hit countless times, it did not budge, so Timothy guessed that its scales were one of a kind - Supremely protective!

“Won't budge, eh? Let's see what I can do with my Ruby Mana, shall we? Level seven can't be bad.” He spoke to himself, and shook his hands loose.

Timothy then shot two, super-charged fireballs towards the wyrm, and the fireballs were so intense, that he was tossed ten meters backwards upon their departure! These twelve-foot wide fireballs were no laughing matter.

[-24,000 blue mana points,] The system beeped.

“Well shit,” He grunted, “It might as well be expensive, that shit’s looking like the sun!”

The fireballs headed towards the wyrm, until they suddenly didn't. The wyrm had apparently seen the massive fireballs, and had then launched a counter-attack of its own!

Timothy saw his fireballs being redirected to the left, and to the right of his point of view. Without a clear target to hit, those fireballs would eventually dissipate, so he wasted all of that mana for nothing!

“What?” He grunted.

Before he could figure out what was going on, a fairly violent, underwater wave swept him, and everyone else away from the battle scene. They were pushed well over three-hundred meters away, thus, leaving the vicinity of the old City of Aqumus, and all of its benefits!

Timothy was beyond angry, so he tried to regain his composure, and fry the wyrm's brain afterwards, but he couldn’t. The wyrm was gone, and it was nowhere to be seen!

“What the hell was that!? Why did it push us away from the ruins?!” He looked at his slaves, waiting for an answer, but they were as clueless as he was.

After a minute, Arvena swam towards the group, and explained. “That has to be a Red-haired Guard Wyrm, and they're known for guarding, as the name suggests. I've heard about them before, but they're said to be extremely rare.”

“You didn't think that a Guard Wyrm would guard the most important ruins of Valporovus?” Tim remarked, sarcastically. “Well at least the bastard wasn't trying to kill us, otherwise it would've kicked our asses.”

Anyway, regardless of what they thought individually, this wyrm was a problem, it was a problem that they had to fix, though right now they didn't know how. Sea Orcs used to be their biggest enemy up until a moment ago, but this wyrm was another definition of powerful, not to mention massive!

Timothy got a good look at it before, and he had noticed that it looked huge, even in the far distance. The wyrm had to be around two-hundred feet long, so it was needless to say that it was tough too, it could resist most destructive attacks! Not to mention, it was so big that it created those violent waves with its body alone, it didn’t use any magical powers!

This was a true dilemma, so after a moment, Timothy asked. “Arvena, what else do you know about the wyrm? Specifically, can you tell me how it knows what to guard? I know dragons are smart, but they hardly have any history books to read now, do they? The ruins likely mean nothing to it. What could be drawing it here, the mana… or?”

“I think you misunderstood me earlier,” She then added, “The wyrm isn't protecting the ruins, it's protecting us from the ruins! Something dark is going on down there, and the wyrm didn't want us to become the victims of this evil darkness.”

This made more sense, but it also made things a lot more difficult. The City of Aqumus was considered holy, in a sense, as it was where this universe's god used to reside, it wasn’t meant to be corrupted by anything evil, but yet it was! Tim suspected that a bunch of necromancers were hiding down there, and unless those necromancers were wiped out, then he, and the team might as well turn back, because they came here for nothing!

…

“Agagagagaga! Kurum gagaga tus!” Timothy chanted a bunch of words, in the mere language that the Deep-sea Red Crabs used.

Timothy had shapeshifted into a crab, ultimately bracketing every kind of power that he was known for, just so he could carry out a clever plan of his. The plan was simple, he was to sneak into the ruins, and as a five-inch crab, he expected to avoid suspicion from dragons, and everything else too! No one has ever heard of a powerful crab wizard, so his plan was foolproof, he was safe.

Through a seemingly endless episode of crawling, he made it to the ruins. He crawled onto an old stone, and with his 360° crab vision, he got a good look of what was around him. There were a bunch of towers in the close vicinity, which were the tallest structures here, apart from some noteworthy, beautiful buildings, but that was about it, most structures within the city were pretty short, or, absolutely ruined.

Considering that it would take an eternity to explore this place, Timothy decided to shift into another creature now. With little effort, he then turned into a tiny little anglerfish, and although he was only four inches long, he'd still be able to explore the area much faster like this, while avoiding suspicion at the same time!

“Jesus… my mana pool is down to thirty thousand points! This better be worth it.” He thought, and this was something reasonable to complain about.

However, just before he was about to move, his body emitted an eye-catching, blue light. He had another flash upgrade, and ascended to level eight this time! Considering that his mana pool was far easier to fill now, flash upgrades like this one were only inevitable!

“Why haven't I thought of this before?” He asked himself, he felt stupid. “Maybe smaller creatures get their mana bracketed a lot quicker? It has to be the case, or else Arvena would've had us living as crabs and shit a long time ago, I'm sure of it.”