The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Chapter 149: I Slayed It

Shrugging, Aria watched as the people slowly poured in. To the people that were currently fighting the dragon with all their lives, this new group's arrival would probably be like a Godsent gift.

However, little did they know, they were about to be robbed of all the spotlight. Apart from Aria, that is.

Knowing that this was the perfect time to rejoin the battle and finally end things once and for all, she drew her gleaming sword and imbued it with Dianthe's water element. After that, she strengthened it using Rallaka's Earth element, successfully solidifying the weapon and increasing its integrity.

Using this dual mix, she charged forward. This time, she went all out, no longer back in any sort of way.

She jumped up from the ground, propelled by her spirits' powers. She had been storing her power up, so she still had a mountain load of energy left to spare. With a dash, she aimed her sword at the dragon's eye, which was easily the most penetrable surface on its body. In order to get there, she had to make a sequence of perfect jumps, but she finally got on the dragon's head after coating herself with Dianthe's power before jumping in.

Every single inch of the flame dragon's skin was naturally hot, and it took a lot of maintenance to be able to stand on top of the dragon without being boiled alive.

The people who saw Aria flash ahead and do those crazy parkour stopped to look at her movements because their attention was stolen. The receiver of all the looks, Aria, was currently stabbing the dragon's eyes mercilessly. With concentrated strikes, the dragon continued to take intensive damage from Aria due to its vision being attacked. It rampaged, swinging from left to right uncontrollably.

Right then, Aria composed herself after having slashed the dragon's eyes to the point of pus coming out of the crevices in a high amount. She then stood in the middle of the dragon's head. This point was also one of typical dragons' weakness. Because the flame dragon wasn't one to have a particularly unique trait except for the fact that it had the element of fire assisting it flexibly, this weak spot was also possessed behind the hard scales.

Taking advantage of the dragon's lack of defense due to having both of its eyes injured, Aria carved out a large hole in the shell using Dianthe's Water Blade combined with her strike. After that, it was time to go mining like crazy.

She stabbed relentlessly into the exposed flesh, letting blood cover her as it sprayed all over her body and clothes. The dragon freaked out even more. The spot was akin to a bundle of nerves. It was hard to hit in a normal battle, and dragons would be protective of said weakness. However, since this dragon was just a child and did not know a lot about fighting, it was still considered an amateur.

Having this bundle stabbed by Aria, the dragon felt pain akin to stepping on thousands of poisonous needles. Every inch of its being was feeling a sharp pain prick it again and again.

Within no time, the dragon could no longer resist its exhaustion and pain, and fell to the ground after swaying back and forth. It collapsed, bringing Aria down with it. Aria then began to enact the final deeds, which was to lodge the sword deep into its head, killing it off and leaving no chance for it to recover.

It was tedious work. Her strength had been conserved precisely for this moment alone.

She looked back, and saw that Blythe's expression shifted quite a lot. His eyes were widened, and his lips were pursed tight. The others who were preparing to launch an all out attack were stunned.

Then, Aria laughed. Loudly. In a volume that everyone could hear. Standing on top of the fallen dragon's head, and looking down on the others as if they were smaller than her, she smiled at the new group.

"You see, we took this thing down ourselves, with our efforts, without any hint of help from you folks. I'm sorry, but you were terribly late. Everyone, let's dissect this material up without them! They haven't helped us at all, are you going to let them tarnish your work? They came in this late, everything has already ended. Surely, the righteous Blythe won't want to take a piece of this meat, right?" Aria chuckled as she teetered over to the dragon's head. With a large strike, she penetrated the dragon's shell located around the neck, which has already been melted in some places due to the magic attacks that the people collectively gave them, along with Aria's last killing blows.

After piercing through the shell, she reached the flesh and cut it off in one wide motion. A few more strikes later, the head was already rolling down the ground and blood was seeping everywhere, creating a very dense stench of death.

"Surely.. not, right?" Aria, who was drenched in the blood, flicked her long hair away as she bloodily looked at the people who were quite astounded at this woman's antics. It was Aria's objective to catch them off guard and land a blow on them. From the news that she had heard, this group was not at all filled with justice inside their hearts, but was instead rather wicked and uncouth.

Underground operations that couldn't be discovered by the public's eye. Even if they were disclosed, the blame would be put on another person, leaving the real culprits in an innocent position. It was a very methodical scheme that went on for a long time, with no one able to obstruct or destroy it.

Since Aria was here now, why should she hold back from tipping this balanced scale?

"We were indeed late, but this operation is supposed to be under our jurisdiction. I understand that you guys may have been fighting under another person's leadership, but could you let me take the lead from now on? It would make everything easier." Blythe spoke.

"Ha! Make everything easier.. Make everything easier for you to pillage the materials and begin taking the glory all for yourself again? Like you've always done in large operations? A lot of us died. They lost their lives fighting to their death, wanting to protect the people from this disaster. To take such a long time to come here, especially when the disaster is something of this dragon's caliber.. I wonder what is in the mind of people like you all. Did you become too accustomed to staying in power, to the point where you don't want to do anything else except for taking the final blow and claiming that you contributed a lot to the matter? I'm sorry, but you were completely late today. You weren't even able to do a speck of damage to the dragon before it died. All the honor belongs to us." Aria debated.

"...Please do not make it hard for all of us. You are over complicating things. Understand that we too have other busy matters that we have to attend to. We were late, but we did not do it on purpose in the slightest." Cha Seol-hyun butted in this time, saying that Aria was being unreasonable.

'There she is.' Aria commented internally. Cha Seol-hyun, the person who emitted an ominous aura right off the bat when she first came across her.

She was here in person.

"Again, I noticed that you haven't disputed my claim that you are simply here to gain the materials. Or should I say.. steal it away from us." Aria pointed her sword at the many people whose expressions were starting to turn ugly as the situation worsened.

The hot air that flowed throughout this dungeon as a result of the dragon's countless flame attacks was also not helping out.

"Of course, the material.. the rewards will be split accordingly, but do let us handle it first. It is our duty to do so."  Blythe spoke, moving forward.

"How about.. no? I don't think I will give these to you. I want to take them for myself. I'm sorry, but I can't comply with your favors," Aria smiled wickedly, waving the core stone in front of them like it was a cheap gemstone. "Duty? I don't care about such stuff. I only know that I want profit, and that this monster was taken down by us and not you guys."

Aria was purposely acting like a jerk in order to fan the people's emotions. Now that things have escalated to this point, the people should also be able to realize that they were the one who had suffered a loss, and that Blythe's group's arrival could possibly just mask all their hard work altogether.

Moments of unfairness. If Aria did not spark this doubt, then they wouldn't have raised such a question, but Aria's flames got to their heads and were starting to incur dislike towards the new people's behavior.

A devious smirk bloomed on Aria's face as she watched the people's mind turn with just some words.