Chapter 259: Chapter 255: Slaying
In this world, if anyone could withstand the bombardment of twelve 75mm recoilless guns and remain unscathed, it would likely only be a top-tier Alchemist like Perfikot or a human Demigod who has surpassed the rank of Knight.
However, even they cannot rely solely on muscle strength to withstand such attacks; instead, they use various methods to evade or stop the bombardment.
For instance, when facing such situations, Perfikot can raise a defensive barrier made of diamonds or manipulate airflow to deflect the trajectory of the shells, ensuring they cannot hit her.
The more powerful Knights can dodge the bombardment through high-speed movement, a feat possible for most Knights agile enough.
Just like in the original world, some can dodge bullets, but in reality, they’re avoiding the shooting line rather than dodging the bullets after they’ve been fired, because as long as your reaction is faster than the person shooting, dodging away from the gun barrel trajectory makes avoiding bullets possible.
However, for a giant dragon over twenty meters long, dodging shells is not so easy.
After all, no matter how fast it is, given its massive size, it may dodge one or two shells but not ten or twenty.
Under the assault of twelve Steam Knights, no matter how powerful this dragon is, it can’t defend from all directions. Its wounds increase, its strength wanes, and it begins to fall into a disadvantage.
This dragon, though not as intelligent as a wise dragon smarter than humans like Perfikot remembers, is not a brainless beast. At least, in its current injured state, it is ready to flee.
This is quite contrary to animal behavioral habits because most animals, when attacked under normal circumstances, do not immediately counterattack but choose to flee—in particular wild animals, which will flee when you don’t provoke them. Effective intimidation and attacks usually make them run away.
For animals, survival is the primary instinct. Without absolute certainty of victory or when not driven to the brink of life-or-death struggle, animals typically won’t engage in fighting, as it wastes precious energy needed for survival.
But this dragon struck back the moment it was attacked and kept fighting despite violent assaults, only preparing to flee when it was covered in wounds, which indeed is unusual.
Of course, it might be due to its lack of intelligence, as only the most foolish animals fight stubbornly without retreating when attacked. Smart animals typically prepare to escape before their injuries become too severe.
But for this dragon, it’s too late to flee now.
The corpses entangled on the dragon have long been blasted apart by artillery, exposing its pale, skinny body, and at least a dozen bloody holes have been opened on it.
If it weren’t for armor-piercing rounds emphasizing penetration over lethality, half of this dragon’s body might have been blasted apart.
Or maybe the high-explosive shells lacked penetration and couldn’t inflict significant damage on the dragon’s body.
But now, with the dragon’s body so injured, some Steam Knights who have exhausted their armor-piercing rounds started reloading high-explosive shells to continue shooting, bringing even more severe damage to the dragon, forcing its desire to escape.
Clearly, the Steam Knights present would not let it escape. The honor of dragon slaying is something everyone desires; they couldn’t just watch this dragon escape from under their noses.
Especially since its escape direction was towards the position where Samantha deliberately avoided during battle—the direction where Perfikot was located.
"Damn! My Lord, Count! Everyone, quickly protect the Count!" Seeing the dragon darting towards the bunker, Samantha ordered in a fluster.
Though she had set up defenses in that direction, it was the weakest link in the entire encirclement, with only a few guard soldiers stationed there.
In Samantha’s original plan, she avoided involving that direction in the battle to protect Perfikot. As long as the dragon wasn’t lured in that direction during the fight, Perfikot would indeed stay safe.
Moreover, the location where Perfikot was wasn’t facing the direction of the valley, so the dragon wouldn’t flee in that direction to return to its lair.
Thus, in Samantha’s judgment, this location should be safe enough.
However, she didn’t expect the dragon to flee in that direction due to the lack of attacks from there, unexpectedly making Perfikot face a fleeing dragon directly.
It’s worth noting that an animal is at its most ferocious at such times, because if it doesn’t fight desperately, it really might die.
Although the Steam Knights all pursued the dragon immediately, attempting to intercept it, and the guards were ready for battle, intending to use their lives and bodies to block the dragon and buy time for Perfikot’s retreat, they ultimately did not fulfill their roles.
It’s not that the dragon broke through their blockade and defense instantly, nor did their defense get bypassed, but rather the dragon died.
Pierced through the chest and abdomen by a giant rock spear that rose from the ground, it was hung on the spear like a roasted chicken speared on a spit, and thus met its end.
Subsequently, the earth rolled, and Perfikot, holding a staff, emerged, looking at the dragon impaled on the rock spear.
Seemingly to ensure the dragon wasn’t still alive, Perfikot rotated the staff in her hand, and multiple small branches quickly protruded from the rock spear, thoroughly piercing through the dragon, like an umbrella rib expanded from inside its body.
Looking at the flowing dragon blood, Perfikot seemed intrigued. Enacting alchemy again, she opened up drainage channels on the rock spear, allowing the dragon blood, seemingly still hot, to flow down through the channels she created.
"Is this the legendary Dragon Blood? Indeed, even though it’s dead, this blood is rich with life force. No wonder the legends say bathing in dragon blood can make a human’s body stronger." Perfikot collected the dragon blood into a container she fashioned on the spot, inspecting a drop of it before the Eye of Omniscience, and couldn’t help but marvel aloud.
Adhering to a principle of not wasting, all the dragon blood spilled on the battlefield was now under Perfikot’s control, gathering into the container before her.