With the resounding sound of thunder, Asterion balanced himself on the dragon while Ancalagon was thrown slightly backwards by the 150 km/h winds. Even the dragon seemed to have trouble moving in the face of a storm. The rain felt like a snake bite when it touched the skin of Asterion's face.
Turning his face to look at the horizon, he saw that the inky sea seemed to be covered in stormy clouds, lightning dancing in the clouds like serpents before tearing through the air with brutality in mere moments. Waves of nine meters broke on the sea and became even bigger again.
At the same time, a tornado linked the sky and the sea in a water spout capable of frightening even the most voracious sailor. A truly apocalyptic scene.
Asterion recognized where he was, he had already exorcised a Special Grade Cursed Spirit in this infernal sea off the coast of Brittany in France, although he had not entered French territory.
Sea of Iroise.
Frowning, Asterion looked around, but apart from the darkness of the night and the dripping rain nearby, there was no one beside him, Rose and Luna were missing and probably knew nothing of their surroundings or even where they were.
At that moment, like Rose, he also cursed the technology of mass apparation, it still needed a lot of polishing to be used in case a war happened.
Suddenly, Asterion's eyes caught a flash of red light in the corner of his vision, turning his head, he noticed the red flash again, but this time, he realized it was magic, someone calling for help or trying to locate themselves in the storm. As there was only Rose and Luna, Asterion assumed it was one of the two women.
However, the place where she was was very dangerous!
It was practically next to the Water Spout!
Ancalagon, who didn't need Asterion's orders, moved his body through the strong winds and approached the spot, struggling to remain stable in the face of the extremely strong and brutal winds, although something like this proved to be a difficult task.
As he got closer to one of the most energetic events on the planet, Asterion could feel the wind increasing and the amount of water in the air was simply colossal. The pain of the water droplets turned from a snakebite to sharp knives, a considerable pain, to the point of forcing him to re-summon his armor; after all, unlike Ancalagon, he had no natural scales to protect him from too much damage.
Drawing his wand, Asterion managed to raise his arm because of the armor, he chanted a spell in the next second. A bolt of crimson lightning shot out from the tip of his wand and tore through the air with electric bursts and spread for miles. He made the spell as thin as possible so that it would travel a greater distance, practically shouting everywhere that he was in that place.
His response was a blue spell letting Asterion know who the unlucky girl was to be teleported next to a Water Spout in the middle of a storm in one of the planet's violent seas.
It was Luna.
As Asterion expected, he located Luna's magical aura and her dragon. Knowing the exact location of the Seer, he put a huge Protego around Ancalagon, helping him to fly in the storm, and rushed to the scene.
Luna's dragon wasn't as strong as Ancalagon or Oberon de Rose, it was a normal dragon and in the face of the force of nature, a hatchling dragon definitely couldn't withstand much in the face of one of the most energetic weather events on the planet.
After a few minutes that seemed too long in his perception, Asterion saw a silver-blue streak in the air not far from him, but at that moment, he noticed that he was just under fifty meters from the Water Spout, even the Protego that protected Ancalagon was deformed in the face of the extremely strong winds and water trying to drag it down and swallow it whole.
Knowing that he couldn't go on like this or he would be dragged into the Water Spout, Asterion summoned his Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
"Sadalmelik-Albus." Asterion muttered and a ten-meter curtain of smoke appeared behind him, from which emerged a humanoid Cursed Spirit, if it weren't for the tail in place of the Cursed Spirit's legs.
Sadalmelik-Albus looked like a human woman with blue skin and long hair made of water, which rippled like waves on the sea. Her generous bust was hidden by two white shells.
But unlike a normal human woman, instead of legs like any normal person, there was a fish tail covered in blue ladders full of beauty and brilliance. In her hand, she held a golden trident.
She looked like a sea goddess full of sacredness rather than a cursed spirit. Sadalmelik was about ten meters tall, her enormous body like a masterpiece made by the gods. His tail moved with surprisingly graceful movements, and a voice reminiscent of a mermaid's song hung in the air.
Sadalmelik seemed very happy with the current environment and knowing her mission, the Cursed Spirit swung her trident, making the water in a hundred meters practically bow before her, the range would normally be kilometers, but as Asterion wanted to save magical energy, he decreased the range.
Under her will, the water in a hundred meters began to form a thin but incredibly resistant film, covering an area of a hundred meters.
Asterion sighed with relief as he felt the atmosphere calm down, at least inside the dome created by Sadalmelik. Hearing the sound of wings flapping next to him, the Black patriarch looked up to see an apparently very tired dragon flying around Ancalagon.
Riding the dragon, Luna waved at him with a tired and very exhausted expression. Apparently, even her magical energy was almost depleted, showing that she had had to use a lot of magic to protect herself.
"Asty, I don't know about you, but when I meet Dumbledore, I'm going to make him regret being born into this world. He'll see the power of a Seer when we get angry! I swear he won't sit in a chair safely, I promise pain and anger for that old man!" Luna commented with an exhausted tone on top of the dragon, the girl's eyes practically screaming with vengeance. The hatred for Dumbledore in her eyes was louder than ever, in this damned race she had only suffered and gained nothing.
In the desert, she was chased by three dragons, in the sea she almost died because of a huge Water Spout! By the time she reached the third part of the race, she would probably die!
Asterion pursed his lips at Luna's words, the girl had really suffered a lot in this Dragon Race. "Let's try to find Rose and find the portal to the third part of the race."
Luna nodded and muttered to herself. "Just you wait, Dumbledore, your ass won't come out intact in the face of my wrath."
Ignoring Luna's grumble, Asterion controlled Sadalmelik and while both dragons moved away from the site near the Water Spout, the water dome made by Sadalmelik followed them both, driving away the strong winds and the cutting water at those speeds wherever it went.
Ten kilometers away from the Water Spout, Asterion canceled Sadalmelik's invocation and the water dome broke apart, exposing him and Luna once again to the strong winds and splashing water that hurt worse than knife cuts.
Luna felt very upset by the dampness all over her body, the clothes stuck to her body, making her extremely uncomfortable. She had decided, she hated rain with all her might from that moment on.
And she began to hate Dumbledore even more for letting her suffer this sadistic torture while the man sat comfortably in his chair drinking a cup of tea to warm himself on the cold night.
Suddenly, Luna noticed Asterion trying to talk to her with signs.
"Let's go. Find. Rose. And. go. To. Some. Island." Luna muttered to herself, trying to decipher Asterion's signals in the middle of the darkness and in the middle of a bloody storm. She showed an okay sign and controlled her dragon with the reins to move further away from the storm above her.
Asterion made Ancalagon overtake Luna's dragon and took the lead without a second thought, making Luan's dragon surf through the vacuum created by Ancalagon.
Luna noticed this and showed a grateful expression, only she knew how tired the poor dragon beneath her was getting. She stroked the dragon's scales and spoke in a low, gentle tone. "I'm sorry for forcing you to take part in this, but when we're done, I promise I'll find the best Dragon Breeding Reserve with the most beautiful female dragons in the world so you can have a huge harem."
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Rose looked to the side as her blue eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the stormy night, the lightning that bathed the sea made her feel nothing but very noisy. Apart from that, she was really enjoying riding a dragon in such a violent storm, it was like being on a rollercoaster, only much more dangerous and exciting.
"If I were a portal in the sea, where would I be?" Rose muttered to herself as she looked around with a thoughtful expression.
*Sound of Thunder. *
With the deafening sound making her whole body shake, Rose felt her vision blurred by the intense glare as she smelled ozone in the air along with a ferrous taste in her mouth. A bolt of lightning had passed dangerously close to her. If she had been five meters to the left, the lightning would have struck her full on without any mercy.
She would have been fine, Limitless would have protected her automatically, but Oberon would have been in serious trouble, dragons were not lightning-proof, which easily had millions of volts, a voltage capable of killing anything in the flesh.
"Put aside the search for the portal and focus on finding an island, then find Asterion and Luna." Rose muttered to herself again as she brushed away the hair stuck to her face, obstructing her vision which was already badly affected by the storm and the darkness of the night.
Although she said it, Rose discovered that it was easier said than done, how in Merlin's name could she find an island in the middle of a storm at night and risk her dragon being killed at any moment by a bolt of lightning.
In short, she was fucked, and she didn't mean it in a good way, at least that's how Daphne put it.
Suddenly, Rose's eyes caught the red lightning tearing through the dark night, which contrasted sharply against the dark surroundings. From the red beam, she noticed the magical aura that belonged to Asterion, her fiancé.
"A very visible sign, fortunately it's only us in the second part of the race." Rose commented as she controlled Oberon, heading towards Asterion's magical aura. She could imagine the skies full of dragons, all fighting among themselves as they tried to kill each other while in the middle of a storm. It would be real pandemonium, they needed to find the second portal quickly and get to the third and final part of the race before chaos broke out in the sea below them.
After a short trip on the dragon, Rose spotted two figures flying low, dangerously close to the huge waves, which would easily sink a medium-sized boat without too much difficulty.
She quickly identified Ancalagon and Luna's dragon, the former flying ahead while the smaller dragon followed behind taking advantage of the vacuum provided by the larger dragon. It was a good strategy to conserve the dragon's energy.
Rose commanded Oberon to descend and stood next to Ancalagon, essentially creating a formation that resembled a triangle.
Asterion wasn't surprised by Rose's arrival; when she entered his detection field, he had already sensed the girl before.
He quickly made a few signals to Rose, who responded just as quickly with her hands.
"No island nearby." Asterion muttered Rose's reply. This gave him a headache, it was as if the second part of the race had no safe harbor, just like the desert Oases, which increased the difficulty a lot, especially with Luna's dragon getting more and more tired with the continuous flight without breaks.
Rose had also deciphered Asterion's hand signals and was equally helpless, because of him, she already knew the situation Luna was in. Potions don't work on dragons, even if she gave some to Luna's dragon it would at most be like drinking water for the dragon. The rate of blood pumping and the colossal amount of blood in dragons was simply too different from humans.
While humans only needed one vial of potion to have an effect, to have a similar effect on a dragon it would have to be a vial the size of five meters high! Such a quantity of potions could easily provide stamina potions for a month or two in any store in Diagon Alley.
Asterion and Rose looked at each other and saw the helplessness in each other's eyes, then a thought crossed their minds at the same time.
If there is no safe haven, what's stopping them from making one?
Asterion quickly did what he needed to do, summoned Sadalmelik-Albus again and made her control the seawater, creating a huge platform a hundred meters long. In the next second, a blue beam emerged from the tip of Rose's wand and the entire water platform was frozen in an instant.
All the ice seemed especially resistant, something Rose did on purpose, she also began to Transfigure the entire platform, making it even stronger and more resistant, as well as malleable. Under Sadalmelik's control, she lowered the Ice Platform into the stormy sea, splashing water everywhere.
Luna, knowing what this was all about, quickly made her dragon land on the Ice Platform while she used what little magic remained inside her to create walls on all four sides of the platform, playing her part in saving Asterion and Rose's magical energy.
The poor dragon fell heavily onto the ice platform and didn't move, completely exhausted from all the flying so far. No one could blame him, he had already done something that many dragons couldn't, stand in front of a water spout and remain firm.
Luna, despite the weakness in her limbs from magical exhaustion, leaned on her own dragon and breathed heavily as Rose poured a whole bottle of a stamina potion and a magical energy recovery potion.
Luna's face contorted at the extremely bitter taste of both potions, she looked at Rose with a childish expression and asked hopefully, "Do you have any strawberry flavored ones?"
Rose smiled and replied with an evil expression. "They all taste worse than you can imagine."
Luna's face turned grim at such bad news. Suddenly, the pale blonde-haired girl found herself sliding down another edge of the ice shelf, including her dragon.
Just as she thought she would hit the ice walls she had conjured up, the platform suddenly tilted the other way, causing Luna and the Dragon to slide to the other side of the ice platform.
Luna's face turned pale and her stomach churned with a strong feeling of nausea. She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed the stomach fluid that threatened to come out of her mouth.
After the sensation passed, Luna lay down on the ice platform without bothering to slide from side to side.
"I hate Dumbledore." Luna commented aloud without hiding her resentment towards the Hogwarts principal. If there was a favorable rating above her head, Dumbledore would have -100 with Luna.
Finally, Luna's dragon regained some strength and dug its Claws into the platform, holding itself in place, something Luna thanked Merlin for and leaned on the Dragon.
Ancalagon and Oberon were fixed in place with the same method used while Asterion and Rose got back on their respective dragons as the whole ice platform swayed from side to side.
"What are we going to do? Luna is recovering while it will take a while for her dragon to fly again." Rose spoke, her voice tinged with subtle concern. The longer they lingered in this place, the more the other participants might arrive for the second part of the race and when that happened, it would be a dragon war in the middle of a storm. Something she wanted to avoid if possible.
Asterion knew this, but there was nothing he could do until Luna and her dragon had fully recovered; until that happened, they couldn't go to the second portal.
"We'll wait a while, but our priority is to find the second portal." Asterion put aside these worries and focused on finding the portal, something they had to find as soon as possible.
Rose frowned and replied in a confused voice: "I tried to locate the portal, but there was nothing, not even a piece of rock in the sea. We don't have a clue as obvious as the oases in the desert."
Obvious?
Asterion muttered that word, thinking it was the key to finding the second portal. As Rose had said, the direction of the first portal was obvious, just head north with the help of the Ursa Minor Constellation.
In theory, the second part of the race should be similar, but there were no stars above them because of the storm and no islands apparently created as well as the artificial oases.
"Obvious... obvious... obvious..." Asterion muttered as he looked at the storm clouds above him and the Water Spout receding into the horizon.
Wait a minute!
"The Water Spout!" Asterion exclaimed as he looked towards the giant tube of water connecting sky and sea with the primordial fury of nature.
Hearing Asterion's shout, Rose wasn't slow to understand her future husband's thoughts, yet she couldn't help cursing loudly. "Fuck, Dumbledore wouldn't be crazy to put the second portal in the Water Spout!"
The more she thought about it, the more she was sure that the second portal was inside the Water Spout!
Luna's face was even more bitter, the second portal was more like a sorting line to separate the strong from the weak for the finish line. Unfortunately, she was on the side of the weak!
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Author's thoughts: Writing at four o'clock in the morning, eating cookies and listening to rap. I have to say that my routine is complete garbage.
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Next Chapter Second Volume: Chapter 210 - On the Night of the Storm (3), Chapter 211 - On the Night of the Storm (4), Chapter 212 - On the Night of the Storm (5), Chapter 213 -At the Highest Point of Heaven (END Dragon Race), Chapter 214 - The Spark of Chaos (1), Chapter 215 - The Spark of Chaos (2), Chapter 216 - The Spark of Chaos (3), Chapter 217 - The Spark of Chaos (4), Chapter 218 - Ancient Artifact (1), Chapter 219 - Ancient Artifact (2), Chapter 220 - The Last Moment Before Chaos (1), Chapter 221 - The Last Moment Before Chaos (2, Chapter 222 - The Labyrinth of Cnossos (1), Chapter 223 - The Labyrinth of Cnossos (2), Chapter 224 - The Labyrinth of Cnossos (3).
Next Chapter of the Third Volume: Chapter 225 - A Dark Day (1), Chapter 226 - A Dark Day (2).
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