Deep yellow dragon scales gave off a distinctly guarded air, and the deep red skin stood out in sharp lines under the sunlight. The dragon roaming the wilderness had a slender body with a sharp tail. Its wings, largely atrophied, had transformed into sensory organs that absorbed Magic Factor. Retaining the typical upturned, skyward horns and long snout of the dragon family, its head looked intensely menacing.
The moment it appeared, the surrounding air grew sticky and damp, and even the sun-warmed grass beneath their feet turned muddy.
Melina, well-read in the *Comprehensive Guide to Dragons*, instantly identified the creature—a Marsh Dragon.
Judging by the illustrations and descriptions in the guide, Melina sitting safely at home could easily laugh off the threat, simply because this creature—named the Marsh Dragon, with the scientific name of Sharp-Toothed Wingless Reptile—did not actually live in marshes. It was called a Marsh Dragon solely because it dispersed Magic Factor that deceived human senses, making people mistake it for a Black Dragon Species lurking in a marsh.
Yet, facing it head-on...
Six meters long and nearly two meters tall, with forelegs thicker than Melina's waist, this Black Dragon Species was terrifying enough at a single glance to drain one's fighting spirit and make one's knees shake.
"A Marsh Dragon, hm. Looks like a young adult."
Qiong, the twin-tailed blonde sister who took the lead in the duo, made a preliminary assessment, her voice carrying a hint of regret. "Barely over six meters? Senior Don Quixote, please attack to draw its attention."
"Understood."
With a simple reply, Don Quixote took off his shield, unhooked his iron flail, and stepped forward with steady strides while letting out an intimidating roar.
The roar vibrated through his shield, generating sonic waves as the Magic Factor rapidly spread outward. A layer of white energy surge suddenly coated Don Quixote's silvery-white armor, and the muggy feeling in the air vanished instantly. The Marsh Dragon's ability relied on illusions produced by interfering with the senses via Magic Factor, so the shield-and-hammer technique known as 【Battle Roar】 could counter it perfectly. Its underlying principle was to condense a body-reinforcing overlay using specialized Magic Factor and dispel the surrounding malicious Magic Factor with a roar.
Finding its Magic Factor ability neutralized, the Marsh Dragon felt provoked and let out a heavy, dog-like snort that sounded much like a canine bark. It clawed the ground, using unreasoning brute force combined with a powerful push from its hind legs to lunge forward, bringing its sickle-sharp claws crashing down toward Don Quixote.
Don Quixote's fundamentals were rock-solid. Angling his shield—reinforced by Magic Factor—to deflect the impact, he took the blow head-on and retreated two or three steps amid a thunderous crash, completely uninjured.
This was no turn-based game.
The Marsh Dragon's physical capabilities were terrifying. The moment its first strike was blocked, another blow followed instantly, accompanied by a sweeping tail.
A succession of deafening crashes erupted continuously.
Although Don Quixote remained uninjured while playing the defensive anchor, he was steadily battered by the immense recoil. The Magic Factor on his armor had turned green to heal his physical fatigue. Another signature technique of the hammer-and-shield Armament was 【Echo Revival】: by harnessing the continuous recoil generated by enemy attacks and combining it with specifically sequenced Magic Factor attached to the shield, the impact was converted into a restorative ability.
Meanwhile, Qiong, gripping her two-handed hammer, and Lei, holding a two-handed axe, had already moved with agile grace, silently separating to the left and right to encircle the Marsh Dragon.
"How are the shield and hammer?" Senior Sonia simply cranked her crossbow—the 【Brass Series】 crossbow—loaded a bolt, and began blatantly slacking off, chatting casually with Melina. "The five floating shields can defend, and the hammer's lethality is passable."
"Not good."
Melina shook her head.
She wasn't particularly fond of shield-bearing setups, and besides, having five shields floating in midair sounded downright bizarre.
In the blink of an eye, the situation shifted dramatically.
With a ferocious leap, the Marsh Dragon lunged like a wolf, slamming both paws onto Don Quixote's shield while pressing its other paw dangerously close to his faceplate, producing a teeth-setting shriek of grinding metal.
Yet, at the exact split second when the Marsh Dragon's front paws left the ground and only its hind limbs supported its weight, Qiong made her move.
Lightweight equipment, thinned-down armor plates, and a two-handed hammer slightly lighter than the 【Standard Heavy Two-Handed Weapon】—the fruits of these desperate combat modifications meant that Qiong moved with a speed entirely inconsistent with the clumsiness of two-handed weapons. She sprinted like lightning behind the Marsh Dragon and executed a peculiar maneuver: leaning her upper body backward while her momentum carried her whole body forward, as if drifting on inertia, she swung the heavy hammer with both hands.
This awkward movement looked remarkably like someone swinging a baseball bat with all their might and accidentally falling backward.
【Martyr's Strike】 was the sarcastic nickname for this move—a technique that used Magic Factor to convert one's entire impact force and body weight into sheer destructive power.
Moreover, the backward lean allowed her to effortlessly dodge the sweeping slash of the Marsh Dragon's razor-sharp tail.
The hammerhead made intimate contact with the Marsh Dragon's hind leg joint.
The heavy hammer let out a solid *thud*, and immediately afterward, the hind limb—covered in sparse, deep-yellow scales—was bent into a distorted angle along with the tough dragon bone.
It was a crippling strike!
The Marsh Dragon nearly collapsed to the ground, letting out a miserable howl. In a fierce counterattack that nearly snapped its spine, it lashed out with a backhand claw, but Qiong was remarkably nimble. Having successfully landed her blow, she used her momentum to roll continuously across the ground. Simultaneously, Lei stepped forward, leaping into the air to bring a charged overhead smash from her two-handed axe, cleaving the Marsh Dragon's tail clean off.
In a split second, the Marsh Dragon was reduced to a crippled state with half its tail severed.
Yet the three members of the Echo Squad grew even more cautious, patiently switching to bleed-inflicting weapons to slowly wear down the increasingly ferocious beast.
"Hammer, or axe?" Sonia asked leisurely.
"Hmm..." Melina felt she had finally encountered a weapon type that moved her. Whether it was the simple, brutal two-handed hammer or the timing-dependent two-handed axe, both possessed a raw, violent aesthetic. If controlled through floating manipulation, their mobility could be massively enhanced, just like Qiong and Lei. She had to admit that lolis dual-wielding heavy weapons was indeed one of the mainstream Armament configurations in this world; as long as their strength kept pace, their agility was bound to outstrip that of a normal giant dual-wielding heavy weapons.
A loli with low-tier giant strength was fairly easy to find, but a giant with low-tier loli agility was hard to come by...
Consequently, in many Explorer teams, those who served as users of such two-handed weapons were indeed mostly lolis, shotas, or young boys and girls.
"Let me look a bit more..." Melina didn't rush to a decision.
"Better be careful," Sonia joked. "At worst, you can always go for dual swords and channel the unyielding will of Ionia."
Melina watched the performance of the Echo Squad's second set of Armaments.
Don Quixote's scimitar and shield clearly didn't handle as well as his hammer and shield, but relying on his wealth of experience and the lower Magic Factor consumption of scimitar-and-shield setups, both his speed and strength had noticeably increased. The seventy-something veteran vanguard was starting to push his limits, displaying the speed and passion of a youthful spirit locked in an aging body.
As for Qiong, she had switched to a modular short spear, initiating a barrage of leaping attacks that flashed back and forth. Combined with the young girl's slender figure, she looked like a dancing fairy—striking a balance where strength came with beauty, speed came with beauty, and utility came with beauty. In short, Melina wasn't very optimistic, rating it simply as: "My Qiong fights strictly by the book; my Qiong is out here being pretty all by herself"—because the Marsh Dragon didn't take her seriously at all, nor could she pierce the scales on its back to inflict bleeding.
Lei, having abandoned her sweeping two-handed axe, adopted an Armament of kunai thrown from the periphery. Kunai required an exceptionally high share of Magic Factor because the weapons had to be enchanted with 【Recall Magic】, otherwise she would quickly run out of ammunition from throwing them away... As for their lethality, it was surprisingly decent—probably because steel kunai had decent armor-penetration capabilities, and since Lei belonged to the monstrously strong loli archetype, her thrown kunai still packed a lethal punch.
...
"What about these three?"
Sonia was a bit more impatient than expected. Whether it was her imagination or not, Melina felt this woman had the distinct vibe of someone thinking, *We finally rolled an SSR, but she didn't equip any gear.*
"I don't really like any of them," Melina added. "They're still not as good as the two-handed hammer."
The Echo Squad had already killed the Marsh Dragon, assigning Qiong to keep watch while the remaining two harvested materials.
Noticing this, Melina lowered her voice and said to Sonia:
"None of these six weapon types really work for me."
She voiced her concerns:
"It's already exhausting just fighting Black Dragon Species. Blue Dragon Species are slippery and probably even harder to handle, most Yellow Dragon Species can fly, and the strongest Red Dragon Species go without saying."
Dragons were divided into the Four-Colored Dragons: red, yellow, black, and blue. However, they were classified not by the color of their skin and scales, but by biological taxonomy.
Yellow Dragons were mostly social, feathered dragons. Typical representatives included the winged-clawed dragon species or winged-feather dragon species.
Blue Dragons were aquatic dragons. They had evolved fins, and about half of them retained the ability to fly, hunting fish from low altitudes.
Black Dragons were terrestrial dragon species that had gradually lost the ability to flight alongside ecological evolution, retaining only limited gliding capabilities. Only a very few powerful Black Dragons maintained true flight.
The Red Dragons, finally, were the largest of all dragons, mostly behemoths proficient in various Magic Factors, and represented the most dangerous breed.
Sonia nodded softly:
"You certainly have a point there. In the various crises that emerge in this world later on, the vast majority of dragons are winged and gigantic. Bleeding teams and blunt-weapon teams really won't cut it... Ah, screw it! Why don't you just build Irelia!"
The 【Irelia】 and the 【unyielding will of Ionia】 that Sonia kept bringing up referred to a female character from a game called *League of Legends*—Irelia, who had multiple blades floating behind her. It was a shared topic between the two transmigrators.
Yet Melina felt a bit puzzled.
If she reached her full, complete form in the future, why would Sonia have no idea what weapon her peak self used? To take a step back, she should at least know what kind of Armament she excelled with!
Melina voiced her doubt.
In an instant, Sonia's expression turned somewhat sorrowful. A hint of sentimentality crossed her features, as if she were mourning something. In the other woman's gaze, Melina caught a flicker of a complex emotion—a mix of affection and something heavier, resembling the look someone might give upon watching a living idol step down from the stage for the very last time.
The senior spoke softly:
"No one knows what your peak looked like. There is only one sentence about your story."
"【She could have...】"