bdsm-fiction Page 74
Page 74
Or perhaps we shouldn't use wind at all.
It stretched its tail straight out, spreading its scales, revealing a dense array of pale yellow cylindrical granules neatly attached beneath Casaloz's scales.
The second high-level elemental was summoned; it was a fire elemental.
As soon as it appeared, the fire elemental was thrown far away. It stared blankly at its summoner like a falling meteor, unaware that it was the torch that ignited the flames and smoke that spewed out behind that meteor.
Using the explosive wave generated by the solid fuel, Casalos finally smashed through the invisible wall blocking his path, entering a completely new speed range. The higher wind element had never experienced such rapid flight before; it reacted with exhilaration and jubilation, instinctively communicating with the passing air, shaping the wind shell enveloping the summoner into a form truly suited to this speed.
The fuel burned out in just a few seconds, but Casaloz did not drop below the local speed of sound as the flame went out; instead, he became even more agile and graceful.
"That's gunpowder? It can be used like that?" The Scroll Dragon, focused on preparing its unknown spell, still had the energy to exclaim in amazement, while the Tungsten Dragon and Chromium Dragon gaped in astonishment. The dragons, engrossed in their battle, had no time to notice the strange phenomenon in the sky.
On the Kingdom, which seemed to be making preparations as it wandered the outer circle, the mage captain from Aluha silently opened his notebook and began to scribble something.
Casalos had already left the sound behind, so the Terasque behemoth couldn't hear anything; its height provided excellent cover. It then launched a near-vertical dive.
Chapter 231
The wind element gathers in front of the head, forming a cone shape, which separates the air in front of it, and then the mouth is slowly opened.
A blue-white ice ball formed in the dragon's mouth as its magic boiled, then grew larger and was pushed out of the dragon's mouth, propelling it forward. Before the dragon's breath, transformed into ice element, could be exhaled, a second breath, reverting to the original electric sparks of an iron dragon, formed almost simultaneously and surged forward. It was blocked by the ice ball and exploded, releasing an overpressure shock.
The pressure peaks converge along the mortise-shaped opening and are reflected back onto the puck, propelling it out like a projectile.
With a fleeting ring of fire, the ice ball was accelerated to a speed much faster than Casalos's dive, crashing into the barrier protecting the Tyrandemon like a streak of light and exploding with a deafening roar.
The power of this shot was no less than that of an armor-piercing shell fired from a 406mm cannon, but that didn't matter.
Importantly, the cracks accumulated in the ice puck broke through the barrier's defenses as the puck invaded it, pouring into the still-developing embryonic dimensional rules behind the barrier and extinguishing it.
167. Turning Point
Casalos has shattered the protective barrier of Terasque as the Plane Guardian and disrupted the plane rules that created the barrier; the barrier will not reappear for some time.
"A good opportunity!" Dracol, with his keen sense of opportunity, sensed the chance and rallied the dragons to reorganize their attack. But this time, apart from the gold, silver, and bronze dragons, few dragons paid him any attention. Even though many of the gold, silver, and bronze dragons were still alive, after being weakened by the Miser Energy Core during this period of attrition, they were unable to organize an effective joint attack again.
The heavy responsibility of hatching still rests on Casalos's shoulders.
However... its diving speed was not much slower than the ice puck breathing down. The ice puck had already crashed into the giant beast's barrier. How far away could Casalos be?
As the colossal Tyranitar grew larger in their field of vision, Casalos, far heavier than the ice ball, had no time to recover from its near-vertical dive. Like another bullet, it hurtled towards the behemoth, leaving a trail of afterimages, astonishing the other dragons. At that speed, a collision with the ground would turn an ancient dragon into a bloody pulp.
The behemoth Terasque, encased in a divine armor, was indistinguishable from the earth itself.
Is this Iron Dragon cub courting death? A suicidal attack?
The question had just surfaced in the minds of the dragons when a furious thunderstorm erupted from the falling iron dragon, then stretched into a real lightning bolt, twisting and forking to connect instantly to the tip of the highest thorn on the shell of the Tyranid behemoth, and then back to connect to the sky hundreds of meters away.
The rumbling thunder and the muffled whooshing sound mingled together, the smell of ozone filled the air, and Casalos's figure reappeared at the end of the lightning, still maintaining the original diving speed, only the direction of flight had changed to climbing.
"That wasn't Lightning Leap, it just... turned into Lightning Elemental?" The Scroll Dragon turned to look at Fiona and Lothley, asking in confusion, seemingly hoping to get an answer from Casalos's companions. Little did it know that the Tungsten Dragon and Chromium Dragon were even more confused than it, as they didn't have the Scroll Dragon's arcane vision.
The dragons, engaged in battle with the behemoth, had no time to ponder their questions. After being hit by two effective pinpoint attacks, the behemoth, whose spikes used to display its might were burned to ashes by lightning, unleashed its fury upon them. The rainbow light from its mouth once again gathered into a red torrent and swept haphazardly across the sky, prompting the dragons to once again employ a variety of evasive maneuvers.
Whether it was due to surprise or bad luck, an ancient white dragon, hiding in the icy mist, was still grazed by the red light. Half of its body, along with its left wing, burst into a cone-shaped firework, while the remaining half of its body fell weakly to the ground.
It is still alive for now, but without dragon rescue, it's no different from being dead.
Led by the old golden dragon Dracol, a new wave of attacks was launched by organized gold, silver, and bronze dragons. A dozen or so fire, ice, and lightning dragon breaths, along with non-ballistic spells, slammed into the behemoth's shell, which had lost its protective barrier. However, their attacks did not cause disintegration. The magical structure was smoothed out by the divine power flowing within the behemoth's shell. Both the dragon breath and the magic collapsed into a burst of primal, scattered energy, which, apart from cracking the shell and causing the behemoth to stagger, only stirred up dust that obscured the view once more.
Of course, compared to the overwhelming effect of the first perfect combined attack, this sandstorm only covered an area of a few hundred meters around the behemoth. As it spread further, the obscuring effect decreased sharply, but it provided excellent cover for Casalos, which had already swooped down again.
Casaloz's dive angle is no longer as extreme as before. The higher wind elements have fully adapted to the new speed, providing it with an excellent soft aerodynamic shape at that speed. As long as it doesn't consume too much speed to change angle and altitude, it can maintain this for a long time.
The barrel roll evaded the red torrent erupting from the sandstorm, turning and pulling back to level flight, dodging the barrage of thorny projectiles. It then slowly lowered its head and turned back towards the Terasque behemoth. As another rainbow of light surged from the sandstorm, Casaloz pulled a thick, ten-meter-long steel spear from each of its hind claws, while its front claws simultaneously tore open a magic scroll. Its high-speed flight vanished in an instant, reappearing with a gust of wind that cleaved through the swirling sand, exposing the behemoth's back, where two spears were deeply embedded in its carapace.
It was just an ordinary steel spear, without any magical effects, and the divine power within its shell had no effect on it.
The Terasque behemoth's rapid healing was taking effect, but the newly grown chitinous carapace was stuck with the two spears and could not be expelled. This was because when the pure kinetic energy was thrust, the steel had already twisted, cracked, and even melted during the collision and friction with the Terasque behemoth's diamond-hard carapace, and was nailed to the carapace like an expansion bolt driven into a wall.
"Tsk, a higher-dimensional jump, a ninth-circle spell scroll, that really hurts." The scroll dragon muttered as it focused on casting the spell, while Fiona and Losley's hearts trembled.
Casalos accelerated away to make up for the speed lost due to the stabbing, and once again entered lightning elemental form. In an instant, he pulled the crackling lightning across hundreds of meters and connected back to the giant beast's back carapace. He detached from elemental form and returned to solid form, maintaining his original flight speed, and then two more identical spears pierced into the giant beast's back carapace.
He cast the Burning Cloud spell, enveloping the front half of the giant beast, blocking its vision and continuously burning it with a barely perceptible flame. Before the giant beast's sweeping tail could touch him, he took out another magic scroll, tore it open, and vanished without a trace.
The behemoth Terasque had no choice but to shift its focus to the dragons flying around it, recklessly spewing destructive torrents that swept across the sky.
Casaloz's use of the high-level spell scroll served as a reminder to these stingy creatures that now was not a good time to save money. They finally pulled out their treasured collections of precious combat consumables, and in an instant, high-level spells such as Mirror Image and Illusionary Clones, which were highly effective against the behemoths but not against them, filled the sky. Restraining spells like Earthquake and Swamp, which altered the terrain, turned the ground around the behemoth into a mess. Even the divine power attached to Terasque's limbs couldn't dispel the chaos, leaving them disoriented and confused. Fortunately, the dragons didn't suffer any further losses.
They didn't know what Casaloz was trying to do by constantly driving those harmless but unremovable "nails" into the behemoth's back, but for now they could only trust him and cover for him, and the tide of battle turned.
Casalos, reappearing from the teleportation of the Instant Protection Scroll, appeared beside the Kingdom, the safe haven it had chosen earlier. This magical ship was quite famous, having been destroyed only during the turbulent years, so it was likely safe in this battle and was an ideal teleportation point for the Protection Scroll. Without even greeting its crew, it maintained its speed, made a gentle turn, and rejoined the battle.
186. Combat, exhilarating!
Not all dragons remain lucid; the treacherous ancient green dragon infiltrated...
Chapter 232
Within the Blue Dragon Clan, relying on their superior mobility compared to the clumsy Blue Dragons, they used their Blue Dragon descendants as cover, forcing Sustherhiras to provide protection. The two Black Dragons had long since broken away from the dragon pack, creating two mudflats in the desert to hide inside. This is how they survived the massive casualties in the first wave of the sun-obscuring sandstorm, whether waiting for a sneak attack or waiting to die is unknown.
An ancient brass dragon continued to hurl insults at the behemoth, regardless of whether the creature, whose intelligence was practically nonexistent, could understand. Its untimely and aggressive language often disrupted the concentration of nearby dragons casting spells.
Two other mischievous bronze dragons, infected by the brass dragon, spouted nonsense. Fortunately, their ability to turn sand into mud was quite impressive. While constantly mocking the giant beast, they also transformed large swamps of desert around it into sticky magical swamps. The giant beast had to devote a significant portion of its energy to fighting the swamps, stomping here and slapping there, looking as if it wouldn't feel comfortable until it had cleared away the swamps and found a place to stand.
Varo got at least one thing right: this thing only has an intelligence of 3 points, or even possibly a PF version of -3. Otherwise, the dragons trapped in the divine kingdom would have been better off slitting their own throats as soon as possible.
However, the ruthless white dragon and the irritable red dragon were pushed back several times by the destructive torrent of the behemoth and were on the verge of dragon rage. They began to attack frantically. If it weren't for some metal dragons thinking of the bigger picture and manipulating the weather and wind to create more suitable flight conditions for them and creating bait to cover them, the red dragon and white dragon would have become the subspecies with the heaviest casualties.
The Kingdom also joined the battle, with paladins and priests buffing and healing the flying dragons, while the Fragrance Warriors and halflings operated two ballistae on the deck, unleashing a barrage of expensive enchanted bolts at the behemoths. Although it wasn't very effective, it annoyed the behemoths, causing them to roar frequently and relieving a considerable amount of pressure on the dragons.
None of this mattered to Casalos. As the battle progressed, the high-intensity combat that it feared would crush its spirit did not materialize. Its dragon magic was boiling, its body was heating up, and the weakness and fatigue from its body were accumulating. Lactic acid and the residue formed after the release of magical energy were piling up, but the spiritual light surging in its indigo eyes grew brighter and brighter, turning from bloodshot red to purple; its spirit, which was originally on the verge of collapse, was becoming more and more solid and rounded, and the resulting mental sluggishness and physical slowness had long since disappeared.
The encounter with the Kingdom merely awakened it; now it has truly come back to life. The reward mechanism originating from its brain is prompting its glands to secrete excitement hormones frantically, and the fighting will engraved deep within the dragon is surging forth.
A crimson sheen climbed up Casaloz's scales, which resembled the surface of water under moonlight. Dragon blood seeped from the gaps in the scales, suspended in the embrace of wind element, outlining the silhouette of a larger iron dragon. Its terrifying aura, no less than that of an ancient dragon, began to be released.
Dragons may have been born for battle, and the trials of the Dragon Treasury have already molded Casalos into a battle maniac, though he is unaware of it.
"Fighting is fun!"
Casalos could feel its strength and physique growing unnaturally, enabling it to withstand more intense and sustained bursts of power. Even without the cover of the dragons, it would fight the Terasque behemoth to the bitter end, all alone.
But its surging fighting spirit and desire to tear the behemoth apart did not overwhelm its reason; it was keenly aware of what it was doing and what it should be doing.
Even with its high defense and powerful attacks, the dull-witted Tyrask behemoth is just a punching bag; the planned tactics need no change. Maintain speed, approach, evade, alternate between using advanced magic scrolls and elementalization, use displacement to cross the final circle of force fields that severely impede flight, use kinetic energy to pin the steel spear to the behemoth's carapace before its speed diminishes, and then find a way to evade the subsequent pursuit.
This cycle continued, with spears getting stuck haphazardly into the behemoth's carapace, making it even more ferocious. Such a high-speed attack, coupled with the need to use instantaneous displacement to traverse the final distance, left Casalos with far too narrow an attack window. At least a dozen spears either struck the wrong spot or failed to get in place, otherwise it would have been over long ago.
Before the dragon's rage subsided and its magic cooled, Casalos finally did as he wished, using six spears to pierce a five-meter-diameter ring on the behemoth's back.
Having once again escaped the pursuit of the destructive torrent, Casalos tore off a high-level invisibility scroll to hide himself, then ascended, slowed down, and flew to Vera Marandes' side: "You said you owe me a life. Can you hold it off for at least 3 seconds so it can't move?"
“Okay, lead it towards the mountain peak.” The golden dragon didn’t waste any words, but silently took out its crown, then swooped down and, using the desert terrain as cover, flew towards the mountain peak first. Its mate, the silver-winged dragon, rode on the clouds to the location of the old golden dragon, Dracol, who was almost exhausted.
The gold, silver, and bronze dragons, who had been holding the line and drawing the behemoth's firepower, the red and white dragons, who were attacking recklessly on the verge of rage, the blue dragons, who were doing their best to protect their clan, the goofy brass and red copper dragons, who seemed to have inexhaustible energy, and the scheming green dragon—all those still alive had reached their limits. The dragons were exhausted, their blue energy depleted, and their strength waning. The two black dragons that had hidden in the swamp had already been crushed into meat patties and eliminated from the ranks by the behemoth as it frantically thrashed and dispersed the swamp. Facing the behemoth Terasque, which seemed to be a perpetual motion machine powered by the power of the plane, the collapse of the dragons was imminent.
Silverwing persuaded the old golden dragon, and with a slightly weaker dragon roar, the metal dragon began to move towards the mountain peak. The clumsy behemoth instinctively chased after this largest swarm of "flies," while the chromatic dragon and two idiot species followed closely behind for their own safety.
Just then, the mountain peak that had been cut in half by the destructive torrent began to vibrate and hum. Then it slowly left the molten crystal lake and flipped over like a floating city supported by a Mystic core. The peak floated up into the air, then drifted on the wind towards the giant beast.
Led by Dracol, the gold, silver, and bronze dragons, squeezing out the last of their magic and strength, launched a final joint attack to draw the attention of the Terasque behemoth.
The rising mountain crashed down with a deafening roar, pressing down on the location of the giant beast. In an instant, the sky collapsed and the earth cracked. The deafening sound of the collision drowned out the roar of the giant beast and reverberated throughout the entire plane. The ring-shaped shock wave stirred up sand and dust that rushed outward. Endless dust spread out and blocked everything, making the sky dark and the earth gloomy, leaving only the dim red light of the lava at the point of impact.
The iron dragon scales flickered with flames, seemingly reflecting the shimmering light of lava.
169. Penetration
Compared to the behemoth's unreasonable carapace, the mountain peak that Vera Marandes brought with the mountain crown was too fragile. The desert was also soft ground, so when it was thrown from a great height, it lacked speed and had mass, making it difficult to injure the Terasque behemoth. It only buried it and knocked it unconscious, and it was not even as good as you breaking a few of its back spines.
However, this thing may have negative intelligence—its actions are controlled not by the brain but by somatic ganglia, so how long such a physical coma affecting the brain can last is a big question mark.
Casalos had no time to think about these things; he could only complete the final hatching task as quickly as possible.
Tearing open the last high-dimensional jump scroll, pushing aside rubble and lava to reach the six steel spears on the back of the behemoth, then tearing open several fossils to turn the surrounding area into a paste, using the head, tail, and six limbs to dig out a large enough cavity, and then exhaling a cold, fan-shaped breath that froze and solidified the mud walls.
Stimulated by the cold and magic, the behemoth's body began to tremble instinctively. Amidst the increasingly violent shaking, Casalos managed to stand firm by gripping his carapace with his limbs. He pulled out a bowl-shaped object, five meters in diameter and six meters high, from his inner storage space, placed it face down at the end of a spear, using the spear shaft as support to elevate it. Adjusting the height to more than three meters above the carapace, he welded it securely with scorching metal. Then, with a heavy heart, he pulled out 18 scrolls to create 18 force field walls to isolate the elevated space before tearing off another scroll to instantly protect himself and return to the Kingdom.
Chapter 233
Before it could adjust its direction, the destructive red torrent cleaved through the shattered mountain peaks, scattering dust across the sky and creating a rain of molten glass wherever it passed.
The sintered sand and glass raindrops cooled into obsidian doll-shaped mounds as they fell, making a crisp, tinkling sound as they hit the ground, but this was quickly drowned out by the explosive roar of the leaping beasts and the dying screams of the dragons. A dragon, exhausted, landed on the ground, only to be spotted, crushed, and swallowed by the freed beasts.
It wasn't the first. The dull thud and surging dust indicated that the behemoth was still leaping. Most of the dragons had already landed exhausted, and apart from the Kingdom, none of them could fly to help. Even if the Kingdom wanted to help, it couldn't find the dragons' landing spots. No one knew who the next unlucky one would be.
"Are you alright? How long can the force field wall hold?" Casalos asked the Dragon of the Scroll via telepathy, his weakness after the berserk state beginning to erode his remaining strength.
"Soon, the final movement."
"If I had known I would encounter something so disgusting, I should have installed a flying vehicle and probes instead of leaving it like this to prepare for counter-fortifications..." Muttering words that no dragon could understand, he barely managed to stay conscious and not fall to the ground, anxiously waiting for the signal from the scroll dragon to prepare its spell.
Another dragon's scream echoed from the sandstorm. Judging from the sound, it was the ancient green dragon. It seemed that no matter how hard it tried, it could not escape the fate determined by the Judge.
Then a golden dragon died tragically, followed by a bronze dragon. A few dozen seconds later, a crimson roar and curses rang out again—it had actually dodged, apparently having kept a trump card to save its life.
"I'm ready!" The scroll dragon finally uttered a heavenly chant, and Casalos used his last bit of strength to trigger a ranged spell.
The sound faded into the distance, growing fainter and fainter. Darkness gradually swallowed its vision. It saw a flash of light in the sand and dust, followed by the surging of the sand and dust, and the invisible and intangible fluctuations of magical power that seemed to point directly to the essence of magic.
Casalos closed his eyes and plunged headfirst into the desert...
When Casalos opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the dragon faces of Fiona and Lothley, then the cheers of the little figures on the Kingdom entered his ears, and the light of Suren and the sweet scent of the Prime Material Plane occupied Casalos's senses.
"we won?"
"We won. It's good to be alive." Tungsten Dragon lowered its head and nuzzled Casalos's neck with its beak, whispering something similar to what it had said when they first reunited.
"Yes, it's good to be alive." Casalos closed his eyes again, enjoying the rare peace, and asked about what had happened after he fell unconscious.
The tungsten dragon didn't speak, but quietly lay down beside it, wrapping its wings around its back. The chrome dragon sat upright beside it, its voice still cold and brief as it spoke: "You punched right through the Terasque behemoth, rendering its divine defenses ineffective, and the scroll dragon killed it with a prepared wish spell."
"A wish spell? Does a wish spell take this long to prepare?"
Casalos almost choked on his breath: What a stupid scroll dragon! It's been working so hard, and it still takes so long to prepare a wish spell. It's really unreliable!
Captain Valimar of the Kingdom interjected, "You can't blame Lakmadon. Even if the divine defenses were breached, the essence of the Terasque behemoth is still connected to the entire plane's embryonic form. Ordinary wish spells won't work. Lakmadon cast a wish spell beyond the ninth ring, although I don't know how he did it."
Even so, I couldn't kill the Terasque behemoth. In the end, I had to destroy a minor artifact on the ship to send the behemoth back to the plane's core.
Send it back?
Casalos understood. The Tyrask behemoth of unknown origin was actually impossible to kill. Even divine power could only destroy it temporarily, but after a period of time, it would be reborn from the core of Toril. Therefore, even gods did not want to face this thing when they walked among the mortals. He did not know what Karthus had done to capture it and make it the guardian of his future divine kingdom.
Therefore, in the original timeline, it seems that the old golden dragon sacrificed his entire family, along with several silver and bronze dragons, to kill the Terasque behemoth alongside the Scroll Dragon and the Kingdom. Now, with Casaloz as the main force in hatching, the Dracol family has survived, and several ancient silver and bronze dragons that should have died have also survived. Combined with Vera Marandes and Silverwing, this reputation boost has been incredibly impressive.
It seems that Jelllesk was unable to escape the Collapsed Demiplane from the beginning, and it's unclear which plane he was thrown into.
As for those colorful dragons… who cares about them? By the way, Karthus's Avatar spell—also known as Ascension—seems to contain tissue from the Terasque behemoth as a casting material?
"And what about the lich? It set such a trap, but it didn't show up in the end?"
"Of course it appeared. It showed up after the Terasque behemoth fell. But it seemed very excited and anxious, completely ignoring our intentions. It ran to the Terasque behemoth's body, took something, and then disappeared. I even prepared a big gift for it."
"Dracol has already issued a continental warrant for the lich through the Golden Dragon Court and the Harpists' Alliance. It won't be able to cause trouble for long."
Casalos nodded, thinking to himself: So he's gathered all the materials. It seems Karthus's unfortunate disciple is about to face a god who's controlling everything behind the scenes. No wonder he's disappeared without a trace. But what does it have to do with me?
It was very pleased with its innocent involvement in this "adventure." In addition to the unexpectedly great prestige, the Dragon Treasury was also sending it a surprising message, a truly enormous surprise.
170. Post-war events
Whether it's a training dungeon or real life, counting the loot after defeating the big boss is always the most exciting moment in Dragonheart.
When the behemoth Terasque fell, the only dragons still capable of movement were Fiona and Lothley, who were unable to fight at the level of those who could only grow wings; Vera Marendes, the ancient golden dragon protected by an artifact; Lakmadon, the scroll dragon who only used a spell to finish off the remaining dragons; and the crew of the Kingdom, who were engaged in guerrilla warfare aboard the luxurious magical ship built with the resources of the entire nation of Alha. Under the insidious leadership of the scroll dragon, this small group formed a temporary alliance through a pact, saving the lives of many surviving but largely immobilized dragons in exchange for control over the distribution of the final spoils.
For the sake of their own lives, Crimson didn't express any opinion, and the other chromatic dragons certainly had no right to object—what, there were three surviving chromatic dragons who ultimately failed to escape the plane's embryonic form, which was gradually frozen due to the temporary death of the guardian?
The battle with the Tyranitar was so intense that the entire battlefield was turned into a mess. The pervasive dust obscured all senses, the planes began to freeze, and even the magic network was malfunctioning. There was nothing that could be done about not being able to find the three colorful dragons; who could you blame but bad luck?
Whatever the reason, the temporary group that controlled the distribution of spoils had a good relationship with Casalos, so they naturally wouldn't miss out on Casalos's share as the main force in killing the behemoth. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to gain from either the Terasque behemoth or the future divine kingdom's dimensional prototype; only the behemoth's organization could serve as some valuable spellcasting materials. In fact, the dragons suffered a huge loss in this battle.
What could they do when they were used as pawns by that petty, pointy-eared god? According to the Scroll Dragon, throughout the history of the Faerûn dragons, this wasn't the first time the dragons had suffered at the hands of pointy-eared gods; what else could they do? No one mentioned seeking revenge against Rabelas anyway. Dragons aren't stupid; after being tricked by a god, besides enduring it, they could only complain to the dragon gods. However, no dragon god would respond to the Faerûn dragons. Bahamut was still imprisoned, and the true metal dragon god was the empty-faced Shimo, created by the Ptallian Code. The worship of Tiamat, the five-colored dragon queen, was only limited to dragon worship, and the other dragon gods had stopped responding to the prayers of the Faerûn dragons tens of thousands of years ago. The dragons of Faerûn only respected the dragon gods as exemplars of the dragon race…
In short, although Casalos was unconscious for half a week due to exhaustion and the weakness following the Dragon's Fury, he still received his share of the spoils.
Chapter 234