Book 8, Chapter 105
Five-Coloured Barrier
Hearing that Richard had fought the Five-Coloured Dragon, even Nasia was rather shocked. Those who had seen the dragon’s pure strength before were rendered completely speechless. How could he have survived a fight when a legendary warrior had been crushed by a simple paw? Even if he was lucky enough to live, how did he keep all his limbs?
Richard glanced at the barrier, “She’s been powering this barrier from right on the other side, looks like I won’t be able to remove it for now. Let’s go back, just keep guard for a while.”
Nasia sighed, “Needing me to clean up after your ass again… You two, carry this reckless brat back home and force feed him ten litres of potions. He’s broken some bones!”
Hearing this, the others nearby immediately understood that Richard was just holding back all signs of his pain. For some strange reason, this made them feel better.
……
Richard shut himself in his room for the next two days to recuperate, during which time the dragons behaved themselves and didn’t attack once. Of course, the humans would never initiate a fight when the Five-Coloured Dragon was waiting on the other side.
Many powerhouses visited to seek information from him during this time, receiving some shocking news. Richard was indeed wearing Heaven’s Armour, the rune set. As for the specific grade, he only said it wasn’t the average saint rune.
A rune beyond grade 5! Many of them had never expected such runes to actually exist. However, the power Richard had shown was clearly far beyond what a grade 5 rune could provide, more powerful than the angels of the Sacred Tree Empire. It had boosted his strength, defence, and speed enormously, and the blood-red domain could suppress all elemental energy. Without the set he was only a powerful legend, but with it he was borderline epic!
Knowing this, nobody brought up a price. Runes grew exponentially more expensive at each grade. These legends could afford saint runes if they forked all their savings, but they could only dream about anything beyond. A handful had already understood that this was Midren, and one of them even knew that this was supposed to be the King of Angels in his enraged state.
Learning about Richard’s rune, these legends who had planned to leave decided to stay on and wait for a chance. Although that meant an endless battle with the dragons, Nasia retrieved and refined the draconic corpses after every battle and distributed the loot according to contributions. Even if two of them had lost their lives, they had all earnt well beyond what they could find on solo expeditions. Now that Richard was here with his 500 druids, there was a chance for a miracle.
……
Once he was healed, Richard gathered all his followers to discuss their defence from the dragons. The barrier was the biggest issue, giving all dragons within a huge boost to their strength and cursing anyone else, which meant they could only allow the dragons to control the valley. Those at or above the power of sky saints could resist the curses, but they still didn’t want to take the unfavourable fights. In the end, this meant the enemy had time to organise themselves before each assault.
It was impossible for Richard to guard all sides of the barrier, keeping even a single dragon from slipping out into Faelor. Nasia had already given up on a handful, allowing them to rampage all across the plane while she held onto the portal. The rune knights’s strength dropped by nearly a third when in the barrier, which was enough to keep their javelins from breaking through scales. Even the spells from the night elf druids would drop two grades.
Thankfully, the barrier couldn’t affect the power of the thunder cannons. Richard stationed over a hundred night elves on the edge and built a defensive structure around them, allowing them to respond to any ambush attempts with deadly force. The rune knights were stationed much further away, just in range of the edge of the barrier so they could help protect the druids. All saints and higher were allowed to move freely as usual, but he gave them designated zones to protect if they wished to; most were receptive to that arrangement.
After putting his defence system in order, Richard found that he could still only guard one direction from the portal. The attacking dragons could still fly freely in three other directions, allowing them to attack the rest of Faelor whenever they wanted. However, he was helpless to solve that problem; right now, it was impossible to completely stop an invasion.
As they were discussing things, a rune knight jogged into the command centre, “Your Excellency, five dragons flew out from the passage a minute ago! They only made one round in the sky before returning, we didn’t attack because they were outside range.”
Richard nodded, “Good. You can return, stay on alert.”
Once the knight was gone, a chill seemed to envelop the room. Everyone could tell that the Five-Coloured Dragon was surveying the defences, preparing for another violent attack soon.
An old legendary mage who was an expert at fire magic spoke up, “Your Excellency, it might be a wise idea to give up on this passageway. The Five-Coloured Dragon will have no interest in this plane, it cannot hold her strength and the resources cannot compare.”
Richard sighed, “You’re not wrong, but I don’t want to give up this passage unless absolutely unnecessary. I’m sure you’re all aware of its value.”
Everyone nodded at that. The passage connecting Faelor and the Dragon Plane had formed naturally, but it was strengthened by the dragons to allow those like Kralkalor and Bahamut to pass through. Only someone over level 30 like the Five-Coloured Dragon couldn’t pass through. If it had to be measured, this sort of passage was worth at least forty top-tier offerings.
“The dragons would be a huge threat to the gods of Faelor as well,” a warrior spoke up, “Could we collaborate with the local pantheon to guard this place together? We would be able to suppress that barrier, and if we borrow some divine power we could even suppress the dragons. Even if some break through our line of defence, they can be bogged down until we follow up and kill them.”
Richard laughed bitterly, “I wish. Truth is, compared to the unfamiliar Dragon Plane, the gods of Faelor definitely hate me more. I killed one of their strongest gods not long ago, and three others that belong to me are currently fighting some of the other members of the pantheon.”
The towering warrior’s expression changed in a bizarre way as he muttered, “No wonder… But did you not enter this plane a few years ago? Have you already started to kill their gods?”
“These gods are weaker than Norland’s,” Richard dismissed.
The man nodded, but his eyes betrayed his suspicion. Faelor was large and had a pretty high level limit; it would be insane if the gods here were weak. However, Richard had already given his excuse and prevented the conversation from continuing on that path. Pressing for an explanation would only be an annoyance.