Chapter 69: 69. Escape

The street fell into silence as Owen’s juvenile dragon form dominated the space—twenty feet of black scales and golden accents, wings spread wide enough to cast shadows across the entire intersection. His presence alone created pressure in the air, a weight that made breathing difficult for anyone without hunter-enhanced physiology.

Vonn’s sword, which had been raised triumphantly moments before, now trembled in his grip.

“That’s… that’s impossible,” he breathed, his face drained of its color. “It was just a hatchling. A baby. just a month ago—”

He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over broken pavement, his bravado evaporating like mist. His retreat didn’t stop until he had put Rogers between himself and the dragon, using his partner as an involuntary shield.

The mercenaries had similar reactions. Eight men who had been confident in their numbers and Rogers’s buffs now looked at Owen with expressions ranging from shock to outright terror. Several took involuntary steps back. One dropped his weapon entirely.

Behind Owen, Odessa descended from her Azure Sky Dragon coiling protectively above as she and Alfred moved toward where Yuki had been thrown through the restaurant window.

Glass crunched under their feet as they climbed through the shattered frame. Yuki sat among the debris, a few minor cuts on her arms but otherwise intact thanks to her Mana Reinforcement absorbing most of the impact.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy watching Owen tear him apart,” Odessa muttered as she and alfred helped yuki get up.

The three of them emerged from the restaurant to find Owen positioned between them and the Dark Reapers’ forces.

Rogers and Vonn had their heads together as they whispered to each other.

“—can’t be possible,” Vonn was saying, his voice laced with panic. “beasts don’t evolve this fast. It’s been what, a month? Maybe six weeks at most since she tamed it?”

“maybe , its because its a dragon…” Rogers replied, but his tone suggested he was trying to convince himself as much as Vonn.

“Not like this! Not from hatchling to… to that!” Vonn gestured frantically at Owen’s form. “Look at it! It’s the size of a damn house! That’s not normal evolution, that’s—”

“hey!” Owen interrupted, his voice a rumbling bass that made the remaining unbroken windows rattle.

Both men froze.

“It… it can talk?” One of the mercenaries whispered, loud enough to carry in the shocked silence.

“Of course I can talk,” Owen replied, turning his golden gaze toward the speaker. “I could talk when I was a hatchling. I’ve simply grown large enough that my vocal cords can properly produce sounds humans can hear without straining.”

Among the mercenaries, panic was beginning to override their professional discipline. They exchanged glances, had silent conversations with facial expressions and subtle gestures. Several began edging backward, putting distance between themselves and the dragon without actually fleeing.

One made his decision.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Fighting a C-rank tamer and her baby dragon, sure. That’s manageable. But this?” He gestured at Owen. “This is suicide. I’m out.”

He turned and ran.

but Owen moved.

One moment, he was standing between Yuki and the Dark Reapers. The next, he was directly in the fleeing mercenary’s path, having crossed fifteen meters in a blur of motion too fast for human eyes to track.

The mercenary tried to stop, tried to reverse direction, but momentum carried him forward into Owen’s waiting claw.

Owen’s claws extended and swept horizontally in a single fluid motion.

Three pieces of the mercenary hit the ground separately, the cleanness of the cuts preventing immediate blood spray. Then gravity caught up to biology, and crimson began pooling on the ground.

Owen looked at the remains without expression.

“Live by the blade,” he said quietly, “die by the claw.”

The remaining mercenaries went pale.

“Hold!” Rogers’s voice cracked like a whip, cutting through the rising panic. “Nobody else runs! We can’t retreat now—if we fail this job, Eckstein will do worse to us than the dragon ever could!”

He pulled mana through his body, green light flaring around his hands as his buffing skill activated at maximum output. The light spread to touch every remaining ally—the mercenaries, Vonn, and himself.

The mercenaries straightened as the buff took hold, their wounds knitting closed, their muscles swelling slightly as strength flooded through enhanced bodies. Even their eyes changed, pupils dilating as combat stimulants kicked in.

“You think numbers and buffs will save you?” Owen asked, his tone almost curious. “What makes you think the outcome will be different for the rest of you?”

“you’ll see, you damn beast” Rogers replied.

He reached into his inventory space and pulled something out—a small sphere perhaps the size of a baseball. he hurled it directly at Owen’s position.

Owen could have dodged. Could have batted it aside with his tail or incinerated it mid-flight with his breath. But curiosity stayed his hand for a critical second.

The sphere struck the ground at his feet and detonated.

Smoke billowed outward in a thick cloud, grey-black and unnaturally dense.

“A smoke bomb?” Owen’s voice carried amusement despite the obscured visibility. “Did you seriously think a smoke bomb would work against a dragon? I can see through smoke. This is—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Something was wrong.

The smoke touching his scales felt… wrong. Not hot or cold or corrosive, but wrong on a fundamental level. Like reality itself was slightly misaligned where the smoke made contact.

Then the system notification appeared.

[Status Ailment Detected: Outer-Divinity Miasma]

[-10% to all abilities]

[Dragon King’s Sovereignty resisting…]

[Resistance successful]

[Status ailment removed]

Owen’s mind reeled.

Outer-Divinity miasma. The same corruption that had saturated the Shadowgrave, that had empowered the cultists, Less potent than what he had encountered before but unmistakably the same substance.

“That must be the specialized equipment Eckstein provided,” Vonn said from outside the smoke cloud, his voice carrying a renewed confidence.

Eckstein. The name connected dots Owen hadn’t realized formed a pattern.

This wasn’t just Vonn’s jealous obsession or Rogers’s professional contract. This was organized. Funded. Someone with resources and connections had provided Outer-Divinity miasma—a substance that he didnt think h would see outside story dungeons.

Owen’s eyes blazed brighter through the smoke, his Dragon’s Aura flaring in fury.

“You have no idea what you’re playing with,” he said, his voice dropping to something that resonated in the chest more than the ears. “But you’re going to tell me everything. Who gave you this. How they acquired it. What else they have.”

He stepped forward through the smoke, his form becoming visible again as he emerged from the cloud.

“He’s bluffing!” Rogers shouted, recognizing the fear trying to reassert itself in his team. “The miasma is working! He’s weakened! All of you, charge now!”

To their credit, the mercenaries obeyed. Professional discipline or Eckstein’s threats overcame survival instincts, and seven buffed hunters charged the dragon simultaneously.

The first mercenary came from the left, a massive warhammer swinging toward Owen’s foreleg. The weapon was B-rank quality, enchanted for armor penetration, and backed by Rogers’s doubled-strength buff.

It connected with a sound like thunder.

Owen’s scales didn’t even crack.

The mercenary’s eyes widened in the split-second before Owen’s tail whipped around and caved in his ribcage, sending him flying into a parked car with enough force to crumple the vehicle’s frame.

The second and third attacked together—a spear thrust from the right, a sword slash from above, coordinated timing meant to divide Owen’s attention.

Owen caught the spear in his jaws and bit down. the Enchanted metal crumpled like tin foil. He spat out the mangled weapon and lunged forward, his claws finding the swordsman’s torso and opening it from shoulder to hip.

Blood sprayed as the swordsman screamed. Rogers’s healing light flared, trying to close wounds that were too extensive, too deep, organs damaged beyond what even enhanced regeneration could fix.

The fourth mercenary had more sense. He didn’t try to fight Owen directly—instead, he targeted Yuki, reasoning that hurting the tamer might distract the dragon.

He made it three steps before Owen appeared in his path.

The mercenary tried to stop, but momentum carried him forward onto Owen’s waiting claw. The claws punched through his chest armor like it was paper, through flesh and bone, emerging from his back in a spray of blood.

Owen lifted the impaled mercenary, looked him in the eyes as life faded, then tossed the body aside like garbage.

The fifth and sixth mercenaries tried magic—one throwing lightning, the other summoning stone projectiles. Both spells were C-rank at minimum, enhanced by Rogers’s buff to low B-rank equivalent power.

Owen’s Indestructible Scales rendered both attacks meaningless. Lightning grounded harmlessly against his natural resistance. Stone shattered against scales that had been forged in conditions that would liquefy normal matter.

He crossed the distance to both casters in two bounds, his wings creating wind that knocked them off balance. His claws found the lightning mage first, separating head from shoulders in a single swipe. The stone mage tried to dodge, managed to avoid the killing blow, but lost an arm for his trouble.

Rogers’s green light flared desperately, trying to reattach the severed limb, but the damage was too severe. The mage collapsed, screaming, bleeding out faster than healing could compensate.

The seventh and final mercenary just stood there. His weapon hung loose in his numb fingers. He’d watched six companions die in less than thirty seconds despite having doubled stats and enhanced regeneration.

“Please,” he whispered. “I have a family. Kids. I just needed the money, I didn’t—”

“You chose to ambush an innocent woman,” Owen interrupted. “Your choices brought you here.”

He killed the mercenary quickly. A mercy the man probably didn’t deserve, but Owen wasn’t interested in torture. Just information.

Rogers and Vonn stood alone now, surrounded by bodies and blood and the wreckage of their carefully planned ambush.

Owen turned his full attention to them, golden eyes burning with a cold fury.

“Now then,” he said, taking a step forward. “Let’s have that conversation about where you got the miasma, shall we? You can answer willingly, or I can make you answer. Your choice.”

Rogers’s hand moved to his inventory space and pulled something out.

A crystal. Roughly the size of a fist, deep purple in color, covered in runes that glowed.

“Teleportation crystal,” Alfred identified immediately.

Rogers crushed it.

Purple light exploded outward, wrapping around both him and Vonn. Reality bent, folded, prepared to relocate them to wherever the crystal had been attuned.

Owen lunged, claws extended, trying to reach them before the teleport completed.

Too slow.

He even tried activating the Sovereignty of Space-time and slowing down time but their forms were already astral now.

The light flared to a blinding intensity, and when it faded, the space where Rogers and Vonn had stood was empty. Gone.

Teleported to safety, leaving behind only the faint smell of displaced air and a scorch mark on the pavement.

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