I Guess I'm a Dragon Now (Part 1)

Battle

Clawing his way through a separated group of goblins, Ergen couldn't believe how many of the creatures had rushed out of their buildings to face him. The frost trolls had only been a drop in an ocean compared to the numbers that he was having to face now, though thankfully he was a bit more experienced now as his used both his tail and the edges of his wings to decimate any of the creatures that attempted to surround or get behind him. And while he was fighting, Rae was struggling on the top of his head to keep her light as bright as possible, which seemed to be an exhausting task as she was already breathing heavily.

While he'd assumed before the he'd be surrounded by at least several hundred goblins, Ergen hadn't expected the thousands that now seemed to gather around him as weak arrows and magic poured onto the ice armor that he coated his upper body with. Though while the armor protected his body, Ergen was really wishing that Sera and her mercenaries would hurry up as the constant volleys of ranged missiles forced his eyes to remain almost completely closed to protect them. This interfered with his ability to attack accurately, and Ergen ended up wasting energy by swinging blindly in hopes of fending the small creatures off. Though eventually, the magic and most of the arrows thankfully stopped as Sera and her men did their jobs, allowing Ergen to fight in full as he blasted the immediate area with his frost breath.

Freezing hundreds of the goblins solid at once, Ergen then beat his wings, creating powerful gusts of wind that shattered the creatures that he had frozen and making their razor sharp pieces fly into their allies that had escaped the original attack. And once he was finished with that, Ergen ran forward slightly so that he could immediately engage the goblins again, only to unknowingly evade a massive detonation that blasted directly behind him. Rae screamed slightly from the top of Ergen's head, though thankfully she was protected by the ice armor that he'd formed over her. However, his tail wasn't so lucky as the armor there had shattered and both the scales and skin stung from being burned.

"What the heck was that?!" Rae asked in complete shock from Ergen's head. "Goblins shouldn't have access to such powerful magic! There... there must be something else here!"

'But what could have done that?!' Ergen wanted to desperately ask as he waved his tail frantically through the air to cool it off, and almost as soon as he asked the question, he spotted a small shadow between a few of the buildings. The creature was laying down and well hidden by magic, but Ergen had seen the trick done before and even now he could see that the creature was somehow silently chanting magic for it's next attack. And while he would have liked nothing more than to simply freeze it solid with his ice breath, Sera's earlier comments about being careful around buildings echoed throughout his head as he pondered what to do. After all, the creature was hiding underneath one of the houses, and he was simply to large to get underneath of it to kill the offending mage. But his tail wasn't...

Charging forward and trampling any goblins that couldn't move out of the way in time, Ergen suddenly realized that the small creature had finished chanting another spell, and he used his left wing and legs together to quickly dodge to the side right before another explosion detonated beside him. This time, he'd covered Rae with most of his ice armor, and his body paid for it as even then he could tell that he was badly burnt. However, now that the creature's attack had failed to kill him, Ergen's tail shot forward just like one of the chimera's stingers before impaling the creature underneath of the house, bringing it outside so that he could see it for what it truly was.

Returning to their normal size as soon as they had been killed, Ergen was completely shocked to see that there was a black robed human of all things impaled on the end of his tail, though he couldn't of the development for long as he turned around to see that the goblins had already replenished their numbers that he'd defeated only a few moments ago. However, now that he was close to the buildings, Ergen saw a clear path in which he could exterminate his opponents before he opened his mouth to breathe ice. The rocks, crude spears and arrows that the goblins were hitting him with couldn't even make it past his scales, and when he finally released his frost breath, all of their assaults seemed to completely stop as Ergen froze at least a thousand of them in one attack. And after they had been frozen, Ergen heard something strange from his side before turning to look at the disturbance. 

Shattering all of the frozen goblins in it's path, something that looked like an elephant with beetle-like chitin surrounding it was charging across the clearing towards Ergen, releasing a low growl as it trampled over anything in it's path. Judging from the multiple goblins riding on it's back, Ergen guessed that the creature was perhaps a war beast of some kind that the creatures had tamed, but he wasn't about to be intimidated by something that was slightly smaller than him. After just having faced the chimera broodmother, Ergen confidently waited for the beast to get closer before standing on his two back legs and grabbing hold of the creature's single large tusk that grew from the center of it's head.

With both his rear claws and tail creating large trenches in the ground as he attempted to stop the creature's charge, Ergen used the beast's momentum against it, roaring as his pick the creature up off of the ground and throwing it behind him. Thankfully the beetle-elephant thing only partially hit one of the goblin buildings when it fell, but it continued to roll over and over again, killing several more dozens of goblins in it's path before it finally stopped at the base of one of the larger buildings. And with no time to finish off his opponent as he was getting swarmed again, Ergen quickly spun in place, stretching his wings and keeping them low so that his sharp blade-like bones cut through every goblin nearby, which gave him some breathing room. Though, it wasn't enough breathing room, not at all.

For every goblin that he killed, several more seemed to take it's place. And other than all of the ice on the ground, there was absolutely no evidence that Ergen had been fighting at all as his surroundings just seemed to be an endless ocean of small green humanoids that were cautiously attempting to approach their target. There was no end to them, and Ergen started wondering just how much longer he could fight until he became exhausted when a miracle seemed to happen. Several goblins started shouting in the distance, and soon a group of goblins at the back of the mob started to run away. The group was joined by several others within seconds, and soon all of the goblins started following their comrade's examples in retreating.

Surprised that everything that had been trying to kill him was suddenly running away, Ergen looked around for what could have possibly scared them so much before his eyes rested on a destroyed stage at the center of the village. Sera was standing on top of it while holding a severed goblin's head, and while Ergen attempted not to judge her for her strange newfound hobby, he was extremely thankful that whatever she had done worked as she had somehow dispersed the goblins. Though, even if he was thankful, his eyes immediately darted to the equipment Sera now had on her. The sword on her back and the shield ratcheted to her left arm seemed to glow in the moonlight, and for a reason he didn't know, they made him wary. He guessed that there was something about them that made his dragon instincts scream out that there was danger, and seeing as it looked as if she and her men had managed to cut through a hundred or more goblins by themselves, he didn't plan on arguing with his instincts, or the woman currently parading a head above her.