Geronimo felt an uncontrollable hunger.

It was as if a bottomless black hole had opened inside his body, endlessly siphoning away his vitality. Only by devouring more flesh and blood could he slightly ease the hunger that filled him.

He no longer had the presence of mind to care about Catherine's arrows. All he wanted was to swallow every last demon in sight.

Catherine, however, had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by. Riding her giant eagle in wide circles, she persisted in drawing and loosing her bow.

Arrows infused with starlight nailed themselves into Geronimo's body one after another, quickly turning the giant dragon into a pincushion.

It looked brutal, but the effect was underwhelming. As Geronimo's body continued to swell, the slender arrows grew increasingly insignificant. Many of them were even squeezed back out as his flesh regenerated automatically.

Catherine, too, was frowning hard. She truly had not held back at all. Every arrow was fired at full power.

The longbow in her hands was one of the elves' divine artifacts. Arrows fired from it would be armor-piercing, accelerating, and splitting, alongside a bevy of other effects. In theory, one archer wielding it would be equivalent to an entire legion of master marksmen. Yet these enchanted arrows were failing to display their proper strength.

Ambrose flew up beside Catherine and said, "Save your strength. There's something seriously wrong with this dragon."

As a dedicated mage, Ambrose's sensitivity to magic was sharper than Catherine's. This dragon, gorging itself on demons, was not just consuming flesh and blood. It seemed to be devouring the mana from its surroundings as well.

When Catherine's magic-infused arrows struck the dragon, some of their damage was blocked by its scales, but a significant portion of the magic itself was being absorbed by its flesh.

"This looks a lot like your elven anti-magic weapons," Ambrose said. "Any magic that reaches its body gets forcibly dismantled and absorbed."

"Anti-magic weapons? How could you turn a living creature into one?" Catherine said incredulously. "That's a dragon, not a Phaelinn."

Anti-magic weapons were based on magical arrays designed to mimic the traits of Phaelinn. Weapons could have their internal structures freely altered, but replicating such behavior in a living being would mean turning it into some kind of monstrous hybrid.

"I don't know either," Ambrose said. "But this dragon is clearly abnormal. I suspect it wasn't a dragon to begin with. Someone modified it." His first thought was of a deranged alchemist and a runaway experiment.

Before Ambrose could think of a way to deal with the creature, the dragon seemed to tire of demon flesh. It raised its head and roared at Ambrose and Catherine.

It was several times larger than before, a veritable colossus. It looked as though it could swallow Ambrose whole in a single bite.

Yet despite its massive size, its speed was terrifying. A single beat of its wings whipped up a hurricane, and the dragon was already upon them.

Its jaws opened, and a torrent of flame erupted from its throat.

Ambrose shoved Catherine aside, summoned the Golden Throne, and wrapped himself in a magical barrier.

Though he could have avoided the attack, he was looking for an opening with which to strike.

As the dragonbreath began to fade, Ambrose seized the opportunity to fire a Disintegrate spell straight into the dragon's still-open maw.

The ominous dark-green glow pierced through the thinning flames and struck deep within its unprotected throat.

The spell tore the dragon's mouth to shreds. Ambrose could even see a hole blasted straight through its neck.

"The magic resistance is purely superficial!"

Ambrose excitedly shared the discovery with Catherine, only to watch in shock as the grievous wound began to heal rapidly.

"This is absurd!" Ambrose snarled. "What kind of lunatic created a monster like this?!"

Overwhelming magic resistance, rapid regeneration, and a body that grew larger the more it ate. Given enough time, wouldn't it devour the entire continent?

Mad scientists really were more dangerous than any other kind of madman.

Ambrose tried again, invoking the power of the Golden Throne, but the result was the same. Any attack spell that struck the dragon had most of its effect negated. What little damage remained could not penetrate its scales.

Catherine fared no better. She and Ambrose could only dodge the dragon's attacks, completely stuck on the defensive.

The power of the Golden Throne and his dice of fate had lost their meaning. The Golden Throne could greatly amplify spell effects, but it could not negate magic immunity. The dice of fate could guarantee that Ambrose's spells hit, but that meant little against such overwhelming resistance.

The dragon acted purely on instinct. After snapping at Ambrose for a while and failing to do anything to him, it returned to the ground and resumed devouring the demons pouring out of the Hellgate.

As soon as it started eating again, its body began to swell once more.

Ambrose and Catherine realized that as the dragon grew larger, its defenses would grow proportionally. Even working together, they could no longer break through its scales.

"What do we do now?" Catherine frowned. She had never seen such a monster before. If it kept eating, who knew what it would become?

She could retreat and leave, but if the creature invaded the Court of the Silver Moon, the elves would suffer catastrophic losses.

Ambrose thought the same. This monster had to be dealt with now. Otherwise, his castle would be the first to fall.

As if the Goddess of Fate were mocking him, the dragon suddenly abandoned the demons on the ground and flew straight toward Ambrose's castle.

Ambrose was startled and hurried after it. If that thing crashed into his castle, his home would be gone.

He threw out dozens of dice of fate. The dragon's wing twitched, and with a sharp crack, its joint dislocated.

Ambrose had turned a tiny probability of dislocation into reality. The massive body teetered on the verge of falling, but the injured wing healed almost instantly.

Ambrose was left speechless. Its regenerative ability was completely unfair. The dragon had to be killed in a single blow.

After recovering, the dragon did not pursue Ambrose. Instead, it locked onto the castle and charged straight at it.

Ambrose immediately activated the castle's magical defense system to erect a massive magic barrier.

The dragon slammed into it with a thunderous crash, shattering the enormous shield into fragments.

The monster was like a living anti-magic weapon. Any magic it impacted would lose its stability and collapse.

Fortunately, the impact also reduced the dragon's speed, forcing it to land on the ground.

Before it could attack again, large numbers of aberrant skeletons surged out from around Ambrose's castle and swarmed the dragon.

The mantis-like skeletons crawled over its body like white ants attacking their prey, hacking wildly at the dragon with their blades. Sparks flew across the dragon's scales, making it look as though it were being welded whole. Fire and lightning flashed all over its body.

But the attacks were meaningless. The aberrant skeletons could not break through the dragon's defenses. A casual roll from the dragon crushed most of them outright.

Ambrose also summoned several skeleton tanks.

Most of his skeleton tanks had been dismantled during the paladins' raid, but thankfully, he now had a private extradimensional space in which he could adjust the flow of time. Ambrose had quickly rebuilt them.

Though the skeleton tanks were colossal in their own right, they seemed small relative to the dragon. Their cannons were not even as thick as a single dragon tooth.

Catherine followed behind Ambrose, staring at the bizarre skeletons in astonishment. "What are those? Your skeletons look so strange."

Ambrose had no time to explain. He ordered the skeleton tanks to open fire.

Bone shells struck home, concentrating on the dragon's head and forcing its ferocious visage to rear back.

Most of the shrapnel failed to pierce the scales, but the fragments were so densely packed that many struck softer areas, leaving shallow wounds.

The bone-proliferation virus began to take effect. Clusters of white bone coral sprouted from the dragon's eyes and mouth, quickly engulfing its head.

"What a terrifying weapon," Catherine said, her heart pounding.

She had never seen such a vicious creation. Bone spikes that grew wildly at the slightest trace of blood were a nightmare to behold. If such a weapon were ever used against elves, the consequences would be unimaginable. Catherine felt fortunate that she had chosen to cooperate with Ambrose. Facing such horrors on a battlefield would spell disaster for the elven race.

Yet the bone-proliferation virus, which had been unfailingly effective to date, did little against the dragon.

Even with its head wrapped in bone coral, the beast merely roared in agony and smashed its head into the ground repeatedly. Most of the coral shattered. Though its skull was left a mangled mess, its powerful regeneration forcibly pushed out the continuously growing bones.

Ambrose was not surprised in the slightest. This monster had been unreasonable from the very beginning.

Pain only drove the dragon into greater frenzy. It opened its jaws and began to devour everything in sight.

Bone shards, dirt, sand, stone—whatever it bit into, it swallowed whole.

Ambrose's skeleton army was utterly crushed. Lesser skeletons were completely useless against the beast. Elves inside the castle rushed out to help, but their arrows and magic likewise failed to cause any damage.

Catherine had no choice but to shout for them to retreat. Staying any longer would only lead to pointless sacrifice.

Escape itself was not difficult. The dragon lacked intelligence and could not stop the elves from teleporting away. Ambrose had long prepared evacuation routes within the castle. Isabel and the others had likely already left.

But Ambrose's castle could not be moved.

Watching the rampaging dragon, Ambrose fell into deep thought. Something about this creature felt familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

At that moment, Catherine flew over and said to him, "This… looks like a case of mana addiction gone berserk."