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Chapter 58  Swampy

The swamp had plenty of dangers even without the dragons: mires, snakes… Cael was so focused on looking under his feet that he didn\'t notice the danger until it was too late.

His only clues were the sensation of someone\'s mana, and a splash of water—both coming from just behind him. Less than a step away.

At that moment, Cael didn\'t think—his body reacted on its own. Forgetting about snakes, mires, and dirt, Cael rolled forward through a patch of grass and—hopefully—solid land.

When he jumped to his feet, he turned behind to look at his assaulter—a swamp dragon.

It was an unassuming beast, especially as far as dragons went. The size of a large dog, it had mossy-brown scales with uneven texture, and was covered in weird stumps and growths from tips of its claws to the ends of its wings. If the dragon lied down and stopped moving, it would\'ve been easy to mistake it for a fallen tree trunk.

Right now, the dragon was moving. Its small eyes were empty like the eyes of lizards often were, but its movements were full of ferocity.

It crouched and jumped, spreading its wings wide as it aimed with its teeth at Cael\'s throat.

Cael\'s hand shot up. He never chanted a spell faster in his life. "<Arrow of magic, fly true!>"

The arcane arrow cut the dragon\'s lunge short, piercing it right between the open jaws. Compared to the force of the lunge, though, the force of the shot wasn\'t that big, and the dragon\'s body kept moving by inertia, threatening to fall right on Cael.

He stopped it with his walking stick and pushed it to the side.

As his madly beating heart slowly calmed down from this fright, Cael studied the corpse of his adversary. It was…

\'Yeah, I heard they are fairly small and weak, since even first ranked mages in hunting parties can take them down, but this can be barely called a dragon.\' Cael pursed his lips. \'Doesn\'t seem like it would have much blood, either. Hm, what else does it have of use? Right, they are venomous, too. I should cut off the venom gland to sell it.\'

He quickly drained the dragon from blood with a spell, and his reward was System\'s message that he had only a couple dozen points until his next upgrade. Those really became more and more expensive as the time went on…

Cutting out the venom gland was much more tiresome. In the end, Cael found the damned thing—but it was so mangled by his ministration that he just threw it out.

\'Now I stink like a swamp multiplied by a swamp dragon…\' he thought ruefully.

The evening was going to set on the marsh in a few hours. Cael pushed the dragon\'s remains into the water and marched on, searching both for prey and for a suitable camping spot.

The swamp dragons were almost impossible to notice when in water, and even out of it they hid themselves astoundingly well; but Cael searched them not with his sight, but with his mana sense. They were, after all, still magical creatures—even if their magic was so diluted compared to their greater counterparts that they lost even sentience. The mana in their blood glowed next to the stagnant mana of the swamp around.

Looking for the dragons, though, wasn\'t hard. They never were afraid to attack Cael if he got near.

By evening, he killed two more (not bothering to cut out their poison glands this time), and settled camp on a relatively dry meadow, using a magical fire to cook his food. Cael didn\'t sleep well this night—between faraway groans (what were those sounds, really?), other swamp noises, threat of more swamp dragons attacking, and the cool, wet ground, Cael had all the reasons to not be able to close his eyes for a moment.

But he did, and in the end, no one attacked his small camp.

The next day, Cael\'s search continued. He had a plan—with how things were going, he would hunt for that day and the next morning travel home. By then, he might have enough Blood Points to purchase all necessary upgrades.

He already spent yesterday\'s BPs to purchase the Curse of Endless Pursuit. This spell allowed him to track creatures he had blood of, and as soon as he returned, Cael intended to take some of Ginevra\'s blood for it. Just in case.

For now, though, it was just another step in a ladder towards Vitality Transfer.

And the swamp dragon Cael had met was the fuel that would let him make his step.

moment. The shot that should\'ve pierced its neck hit the shoulder This time, Cael was the one who noticed the dragon first, and he used the opportunity to shoot an Arcane Arrow at the beast. It was too aware of its surroundings, though, and twitched at the last moment. The shot that should\'ve pierced its neck hit the shoulder instead.

The dragon turned towards Cael with loud splashes of its paws, its mouth wide open. Then a strange, pained, groan-like cry flew out of it—and was soon echoed by several others, some closer than the others.

Cael swore. So this was the mystery of the Groaning Marsh… And he would soon have more company.

He finished the first dragon off with Greater Exsanguination, not giving it a chance to cross the distance between them and bite. But barely a few minutes passed after, when Cael felt swiftly approaching mana of three more dragons.

They were superb swimmers—much better than walkers.

Cael threw the walking stick aside and pulled out his rapier. His other hand was already aiming, and a new spell flew from his lips.

"<Crimson river, I command thee to become the blade of death!>"

From dragon blood, a crescent-shaped green blade appeared in Cael\'s hand. Cael launched it at one of the approaching dragons, not even waiting for it to rise above water.

The blade hit its mark, but didn\'t kill it. The dragon trashed in pain, but while it did so, its brethren approached.

Cael commanded the blood blade to fly for the second attempt at the first dragon\'s life. After that, he only had time for one more spell.