Chapter 55 — Everything Is Relative

So this is him—the dragon.

Far more impressive than I had imagined, and far more impressive than anything I had ever seen in movies, novels, or games.

The giant monsters began attacking him.

Yeah… a true battle of giants had begun.

"Hey, we should get out of here," I heard Rem’s voice.

Yes, she was right. This was not the time to stand around and watch.

Besides, the dragon’s appearance—and the way everything looked—made me forget the fear I had been feeling, if only for a moment.

But right now, safety was more important.

We started running toward the forest.

As we ran in that direction, I heard the battle begin.

I wanted to turn around and look, to see what was happening, how exactly they were fighting—but no. I couldn’t.

It was better to endure for a few hundred more meters and reach the forest.

From there, I thought I would be able to safely observe the fight.

We reached the forest and stopped.

Yes, logically it would have been better to keep running, but I wanted to see this battle—and to my relief, Rem and Sherial stopped as well.

I took a convenient position, hiding behind the roots of an especially large tree, and looked toward the battlefield.

But I was too late.

The battle was already over.

All the giant monsters were scattered across the ground.

And the dragon… for him, those monsters seemed to pose no threat at all. He dealt with them far too quickly and, judging by everything, did not receive a single injury.

He simply stopped and stood still for a while, staring at the center of the field.

At that very black structure that stood there.

Then he slowly lowered his head and bit off a piece of the giant monster’s body lying in front of him.

It seemed… he was going to eat it.

Well, of course. No matter how majestic a dragon may be, it is still a monster.

And monsters, as far as I know, almost always devour their prey after victory.

But suddenly, the dragon made a strange movement with his body.

And damn it… he vomited.

The dragon roared and spewed a stream of fire from his mouth.

Although… could this even be called fire?

It looked more like clumps of superheated plasma or something similar.

From this “fire,” the ground itself began to melt, and the bodies of several monsters that were too close vanished almost instantly, as if they had simply been erased.

Within a few seconds, everything around the dragon was burning, and the soil had turned into molten lava.

After that, the dragon seemed to calm down.

Or at least, that was how it looked to me.

He no longer moved and simply stared at the center of the empty field—at the place where that same black structure stood. Then he slowly opened his jaws.

Something inside began to glow.

Red rays, similar to the fire he had spewed earlier, but far brighter and denser. The glow intensified rapidly.

Only a few seconds passed.

The red light turned blindingly white.

In the next moment, the entire world turned white for me. I instinctively closed my eyes and almost immediately heard the loudest sound I had ever heard in my entire life—even in this world.

At the same moment, I felt something slam into me with tremendous force and throw me backward. Then something heavy fell on top of me, pinning me to the ground.

Damn… what’s happening? I didn’t understand anything and still couldn’t see.

--

What’s going on? Why is it so hard to move my body?

And why is it dark?

Something is on top of me…

I could still move my right hand. I pressed it against whatever was pinning me down and tried to push it away. It didn’t work. Then I strained harder, braced my legs, pulled—and with great effort, managed to crawl out from underneath.

It turned out that I had been pinned by a massive tree. A clear imprint of my body was even left in the ground.

At that moment, something touched my shoulder. I turned sharply.

Ah… it was just Rem.

She looked bad.

Her clothes were covered in dirt. Her hair was disheveled. Her face was smeared with soil as well.

I involuntarily looked at myself. Well… considering that my clothes had already been in poor condition before, I probably looked even worse.

I looked back at Rem.

She was opening and closing her mouth. No… it seemed like she was saying something. Or rather—shouting.

But why couldn’t I hear her voice?

No. Something was wrong.

Why was it so quiet in this forest right now?

It shouldn’t be like this.

Rem began pointing at her ears.

I looked closely—blood was flowing from them.

"Rem, are you okay?" I immediately grew worried.

This could be bad. Very bad.

I immediately created a third-rank health potion and handed it to Rem.

"Drink this," I said.

She didn’t take the potion. Instead, Rem shook her head and pointed at me.

And then it hit me.

I touched my ear with my free hand and looked at my palm.

Blood.

I raised my gaze to Rem—she gave a short nod.

Without wasting time, I quickly opened the vial of the health potion and drank it.

At first, nothing happened.

And then…

Somewhere far away, a faint hum appeared. As if the world were returning from underwater. Noise, crackling, dull sounds—unclear, blurred.

With every second, they became clearer.

And after about ten seconds, my hearing fully returned.

"Can you hear now? Has your hearing come back?" Rem asked.

"Yes, I can hear you. My hearing is back," I said. "Do you need to drink a potion too?" I added.

"No, no. I already drank one. I’m fine," Rem replied.

"But there’s blood on your ears," I frowned.

"That’s just leftover blood," she said calmly. "My ears are fine."

Oh, right… I completely forgot that even if a wound heals, the blood doesn’t just disappear.

I began examining my body. It seemed I was fine—aside from a couple of small scratches. I looked at the tree that had pinned me down. It was surprising that I hadn’t received any serious injuries after that.

Although, considering that my strength, speed, and defense stats exceeded five hundred thousand, it really shouldn’t have been a problem. I was able to lift even the trunk of that tree.

But another thought bothered me. Why, then, were my ears injured?

If the blast was powerful enough to damage my hearing, why were my eyes fine?

I remembered that white flash—back then, I could barely see anything. But when I came to, my vision was intact.

My ears, on the other hand… they were in much worse shape.

Strange.

Although, to be honest, I didn’t really care why.

The important thing was that I didn’t wake up blind.

Hearing can be restored with potions, but waking up unable to see at all… I think I would have panicked long before remembering that I even had health potions.

So if I had to choose, I was definitely lucky. When everything calms down, I think I’ll ask Rem about this.

"Guys, it looks like our work is almost done," I heard Sherial’s slightly cheerful voice, completely out of place for the situation.

Well… if you think about it, the fact that we survived at all is already reason enough to be in a good mood, a thought flashed through my mind.

"By the way, the dragon… is he still here?" I asked.

"No, he should already be far away from here," Rem replied.

I looked in the direction she indicated, but of course, he was no longer there.

However, the sight that opened up before me was far more shocking than the dragon itself or the giant monsters.

I climbed higher onto the fallen tree trunk to get a better look at what lay ahead.

Where the dragon had stood, there was now emptiness in the ground. From here, I couldn’t tell how deep it was, but one thing was clear—it stretched forward, widening as it went. Narrow at first, then broader and broader, like an opening fan.

It seemed that everything in the path of that attack had been destroyed. Even the black structure in the center of the clearing no longer existed—not a trace of it remained.

Farther away, at a great distance, the force of the strike had probably weakened, but even from here it was visible: the forest on the other side had been flattened for kilometers. Trees lay as if they had simply been swept away.

If we had been on that side…

Most likely, we wouldn’t have survived.

On our side, there was damage as well—fallen trees, traces of the shockwave. But it couldn’t even be compared to what had happened where the dragon’s attack had been directed.

I silently stared at it all and felt something cold tighten inside my chest.

Just recently, I had considered myself fairly strong.

But now, seeing the scale of destruction the dragon caused with a single attack, I felt utterly insignificant.

Will I ever become like that?

That strong…

That destructive?

"I think we need to rest a bit. My golems will deal with the remaining monsters," Rem said.

"Remaining monsters?" I looked around, thinking they had already been destroyed.

And then I noticed it: here and there, devourer caterpillars were still moving. Though they looked terrible—half-disintegrated. They merely twitched and no longer behaved as before, no longer devouring everything around them.

Magical circles flared up around Rem—about a hundred of them. Large, eight-meter-tall stone golems emerged from them. At her command, they immediately began moving toward the nearest monsters to destroy them.

I felt the ground tremble and vibrate beneath my feet from their steps.

But now, after the giant monsters—and especially after the dragon—they no longer seemed as impressive or awe-inspiring as they had the first time I saw them.

Yeah… everything is relative.

I think Rem is right. Considering that the giant monsters are gone, and the black structure from which those devourer caterpillars emerged has been destroyed, Rem’s golems will easily handle the rest without our intervention.