Vera herself didn’t understand why she had been so frantic when Anke was abducted, why she had jumped into the water without a second thought.
Perhaps it was because Anke was the key to her own Race Revival Plan. She couldn’t let Anke’s accidental death ruin all her plans.
Or perhaps, during their long time together, she had inadvertently come to see Anke as someone important, someone she cared about?
But whatever the reason, Vera had only one thought—Anke must not die. At the very least, he absolutely could not die before she had finished using him!
As the icy river water soaked her completely, Vera opened her eyes. Through the murky water, she saw a flash of white light—the light emitted when the amulet on Anke’s body activated.
The amulet’s light was still there, so Anke must still be alive. Vera thought with relief.
Guided by the white light, Vera quickly located Anke and swam toward him at full speed.
But as Vera swam toward Anke, the Blue Water Dragon that had abducted him also spotted Vera.
The Blue Water Dragon, already transformed into a Zombie Puppet, wrenched free of the specially-made iron arrows embedded in its body.
Twisting its torso, now covered with hideous wounds left by the arrows, it swung its tail at Vera.
Faced with the Blue Water Dragon’s tail swipe, Vera had no time to dodge. She could only block with her side-sword, and was sent flying back several meters before stopping.
‘This is Necromancy’s mana! This thing is a Zombie Puppet!’
While enduring the attack, Vera sensed the necromantic magic contained within the Blue Water Dragon’s corpse and immediately realized the current Blue Water Dragon was actually a resurrected corpse!
The Blue Water Dragon did not stop there. Perhaps realizing it couldn’t do anything to Anke, who was protected by the amulet, it made Vera its new target.
With one claw firmly gripping Anke, waiting for the amulet to shatter so it could finish him off, it used its underwater terrain advantage to continuously attack and suppress Vera.
Vera, underwater, couldn’t exert her full strength. Facing the Blue Water Dragon’s attacks, she could mostly only endure them head-on.
She was pressed into the muddy riverbed of the Piranha River by the dragon’s claws.
Vera struggled free from under the Blue Water Dragon’s claws, but not without sustaining serious injuries.
Blood slowly seeped from wounds on her cheek and elsewhere, dissolving into the cold, murky river water.
Yet even so, Vera still held her sword with both hands, confronting the Blue Water Dragon, searching for an opportunity to rescue Anke.
Protected by the amulet, Anko could breathe briefly underwater, even speak.
“Vera!”
Seeing Vera injured while trying to save him, Anke called out to her anxiously.
“Vera, don’t worry about me! Run! You don’t have to die with me! I order you to run!”
But Vera paid no heed to Anke’s command.
It wasn’t that she lacked the power to defeat this Blue Water Dragon. It was that using that power would directly expose her identity as a Mimic Beast right before Anke’s eyes.
If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to continue hiding by Anke’s side. Saving him would become meaningless.
But if she didn’t save Anke, if she just watched him die by accident, her concealment would also be meaningless.
What should she do! What should she do? Vera fell into hesitation.
In the moment Vera hesitated, the Blue Water Dragon twisted its slender body and lunged at her again.
“CRACK—!”
At the same time, a crisp sound suddenly came from Anke’s body.
It was the sound of the amulet on Anke shattering as it failed.
With the amulet’s destruction, the protective barrier around Anke vanished instantly.
The immense crushing force of the Blue Water Dragon’s claws and the suffocating sensation from the icy river water assaulted him simultaneously, making Anke’s expression twist in agony.
MIMICRY! WHITE DRAGON!
Realizing Anke’s life hung by a thread, Vera made her choice.
The rose-haired knight’s body melted like red soft clay into a ball, then rapidly expanded like a blown bubble, transforming into a majestic white dragon with blue eyes.
BURST BREATH!
Vera, having mimicked the White Dragon, gathered a blue-white energy sphere in her mouth and fired it at the Blue Water Dragon Zombie Puppet.
It shattered the Blue Water Dragon’s skull and a small section of its neck beneath.
The headless Blue Water Dragon, carried by momentum, continued forward for a distance before finally sinking into the water.
After killing the Blue Water Dragon, Vera didn’t dare waste a second.
She immediately grabbed Anke with her claws, then used her dwindling magic to recast Protection Magic on him, allowing him to survive briefly underwater again.
After doing all this, Vera shrank from the White Dragon’s massive form back into her human shape. Then, holding Anke with one hand, she shot toward the river’s surface.
……
While Vera was rescuing Anke underwater, Anke’s Imperial Guard Knights, rowing over a dozen small boats, anxiously searched the river’s surface for any trace of Anke and Vera.
A few knights who were good swimmers took off their armor, armed only with a dagger, and dove into the water to search for them.
But the murky, turbulent river forced them to surface after just a few meters; they couldn’t find Anke and Vera’s location at all.
As time passed, the expressions on the faces of the Imperial Guard Knights, who still couldn’t find Anke and Vera, slowly shifted from tense worry to pained self-blame.
“Damn it, it’s all my fault! I didn’t notice that beast was playing dead! I should have been the one taken!”
“No, I’m the one who should die. I was the last one to say that beast was dead.”
The several Imperial Guard Knights originally responsible for monitoring the Blue Water Dragon’s condition pounded their chests in self-reproach.
“It was you! You said that beast was dead! Why did it still attack His Highness!”
Other knights vented their anger over failing to protect Anke on the young Crossbowman who had inspected the Blue Water Dragon’s corpse.
“Are you a spy! An accomplice of that dragon! Did you deliberately try to kill His Highness!”
A knight grabbed the young Crossbowman by the collar, berating him.
“I… I really thought that monster should be dead… it should have been dead…”
The young Crossbowman, being shouted at, answered dazedly. He couldn’t imagine what kind of terrifying punishment awaited him for causing the death of a Lord.
Just then, a blue-white flash suddenly lit up beneath the river’s surface, followed immediately by a towering column of water erupting from the center of the river.
Icy river water drenched everyone, drawing all their attention.
“Someone, quick! Help!”
Vera, having surfaced, was dragging Anke with one hand while swimming toward the nearest boat.
“It’s Lady Vera! Lady Vera has brought His Highness back!”
The knights cheered at Vera’s return, then rowed their small boats harder to pull Vera and Anke aboard.
“Lady Vera! You’re incredible! You actually rescued His Highness from that monster’s clutches!”
People on the same small boat, after confirming Anke was safe, praised Vera’s strength.
“Hmm.”
But Vera only acknowledged it with a sound and a simple nod, because she knew the matter wasn’t over yet. The one who had used necromancy to control the Blue Water Dragon’s corpse hadn’t been found.
“Halt! You disgusting Lich! What are you doing skulking around there!”
A sudden shout from the shore caught Vera’s attention.
Following the sound, she saw Kaxier and several Barbarian pursuers confronting a Lich sitting on the back of a Headless Knight’s horse.
‘That must be the one who put Anke in danger.’
Vera glanced over, took a long spear from a Crossbowman, aimed at the Lich, and hurled it with force.
The spear flew with a whistling sound, piercing through both the Lich and the Headless Knight. It carried them forward until it finally slammed into the ground, pinning them there.
Unfortunately, the Lich took out a scroll, tore it, and was teleported away, preventing Kaxier and the others from capturing it alive.