They reached the dragon(s), and started by diverting their attention to the tank, the Knight however had other plans.
The visage of terror sent ripples of fear through everyone, even the beast diverted its attention to the source. The adventurers themselves were even more paralysed, if the Knight wanted to, it could suffocate them to death with nothing but this power, seeing that they were at lower levels.
"Halt! Red scorch I have come here to represent the humans."
With a loud voice, shaking the snow that has not yet melted down the mountain, "You sure do speak like one, but I am no fool."
"I assure you, I come here on their behalf. Why is it you have chosen this mountain?"
This time the answer came from another dragon, but the Knight could still tell it was the same being talking.
"Humans never speak; they only fight for what they believe is theirs. Why should I reason with you now?"
"Because I will slaughter you right here and now, and believe me, you will not survive, not even the smallest of your vessels. So, answer me, why have you chosen this mountain?"
"You seem to be aware of what shape my soul is, still after a thousand years no creature has come close to defeating me, and you speak so boldly adventurer."
"I take it you have not met the knights. I am no adventurer. You seem to believe my patience has no limit, otherwise you wouldn't be testing it. I am a knight Bachelor, the Vile Knight, and I have grown to despise wasting time, as such I might just kill you without hearing any of your pleas.
As you can see, I have stopped these here adventurers from doing away with your vessels, I doubt they could defeat a disaster, but I am sure they could injure you enough to watch you flee in shame."
This answer also came from a different dragon in this massive horde, "You are no adventurer? I see. Makes no difference you will die all the same. We dragons despise pointless fights as such we leave battles that hold no meaning, I am sure that these friends of yours could damage me, but if I judge this fight to be of worth to me, none of you will leave alive."
"Would you look at that boss. Not only did it answer your question about why dragons do not unleash their full might against their provokers – the adventurers – without you even asking it, but it did so without answering the question you did ask."
The dragon speaking now had a faint glimmer of confusion and a small spark of familial recognition, "Is that you Mugaw?"
No answer came, instead, the Knight spoke, making it clearer to the dragon. "You have all these multitudes of vessels yet not a single one of them is capable of hearing, I have warned you."
There was a low growl reverberating through the whole horde. "What have you done?"
"I have grown weary of answering your questions when you have failed to answer my single question, so for every single word you speak that is not an answer to my question is every piece of your soul you lose along with your vessels. What did you think?
That I would I destroy your vessels, and your soul would retreat out of the destroyed vessels, and redistribute into the remaining vessels? I have warned you, push me any further and I will wipe your scaly hide from the crest of this mountain, and nothing escapes my wrath. I ask you again, why have you chosen this mountain? I urge you to choose your words wisely."
"Grrrr… So be it I will answer your pointless questions. I dine on the material buried beneath; they serve as my diet."
The Knight had destroyed ten vessels to prove a point. It had counted the 'Grrrr' as a word, albeit a distorted one. The answer is of no consequence to the Knight, the real purpose was to issue out a warning without seeming to be unreasonable, and now that the Knight had established a conversation, the real questioning could begin.
The knight was distorting, Lief, Cathina, and Gold's senses to make them less privy to the details of the conversation that might lead to complications later. For example, they had not heard the dragon identify the Knight as no human. "Do you have any more vessels outside the ones present here?"
"None, spreading my soul too thin can lead to unfavourable outcomes."
"What are these outcomes?"
The Knight had finally gotten used to moving between heads every time a new answer came. "Not being able to exert my full presence, should the need arise."
"As far as I can tell, these multiple vessels seem to be a skill, how had it come to be?"
"It is a curse of my kind, not a skill; one we pay for the power we possess."
"What is this power?"
"The power over an elemental, while other beings have come to posses' skills allowing them to manipulate the elementals, only we dragons possess absolute authority over our respective elementals. Now, that I have answered your question, answer me this, what is a destroyer doing walking amongst the humans? As one of their defenders, mind you."
"I never said I was done asking questions, but I will humour you, this is a conversation. Have you seen the vile sword? It radiates the same aura as my armour, none can wield it but I. This is what has fallen into the hands of humans, and what I seek from them."
"I have never seen such a sword, even including the sheer number of these legendary weapons that had been lodged in some of my vessels." Upon closer inspection some of the vessels has scars, fully lodged weapons, swords and spears, some had broken off, leaving only the blade in the wound, and around each of these, the flesh had fully healed.
"Here's my last question, would you rather, I destroy you mercilessly as you try to escape, and find your death and destruction here, or should I let you live and in turn I make you one of my followers?"
The next dragon proceeded to answer the question, "Should I refuse to answer, you will take my life regardless? It sure is one strange conundrum, a dragon ever rarely has to bargain for its life.
I had never thought I would live long enough for the time to come, and even now, it still has not. You might be able to destroy small pieces of my soul, but make no mistake fiend, you are not my equal. You do however pose a threat; one I cannot ignore. A destroyer able to move in the day cannot be allowed to live, so vile scourge of existence you will have to die!"
Right then all the vessels started flying towards a single point, growing and convulsing as the red cloud in the sky, the workers below could not see this encapsulating sight.
They would be fleeing off the mountain by now, because just like the city walls this peak stood above the clouds, and today was a very cloudy day, all those below could see was a massive shadow forming from the multitudes of smaller shadows. The Knight told the vile army to retreat, and stay out of sight, they had been responsible for destroying the vessels at the Knight's command, out of the adventurer's sight.
The Knight did not have to guess the power over which Red Scorch had over the elementals, this meant that soon there would be a rain of fire hailing from above the heavens, leaving no snow behind, or the peak. The flash flood coming will wash away everything, the workers were all unleashed, but the Knight was not sure whether they could survive. Even if they could, the equipment and ore itself might be lost.
The Knight released its hold on the adventurers, even their senses cleared up. They would have had more questions for the Knight if not for the massive cloud of danger forming above their heads. None of them had ever seem a dragon go all out and the Knight knew why. The power of the dragons is such so that it destroys them if used for an extended period, similar to the strain on the Knight's soul due to full void augmentation.
So, they had gotten this duplication side effect that created multiple bodies to spread their power thin, as the soul is. If the heat wave the Knight had experienced when it arrived up here, was any indication of just how much heat was about to rain down, then things were going to get bad really quick.
The adventurers had noted the looming danger and realised just how much more dangerous this battle was and so did the Knight. It had wanted to stop the dragon while it was forming, but it was near impossible to do without using the void. So, now the Knight just had to prevent this battle from being its last, since the dragon had decided that this battle was worth it, it meant that it would be using this self-eroding double-edged power.
At the twilight of day, the cloud of red had formed into a grand form, worthy of being dubbed a disaster type true beast. Each scale was the size of the dragon, coming in at a hundred metres, making this beast dwarf the Knight and the adventurers atop the summit. "You guys are seeing this right." Said Cathine as she lost control over her voice, her feat trembling. In all due respect, what was her measly ice supposed to do against the massive breath of pure blaze hurdling at them at a speed faster than the blink of an eye.
The Knight's teleportation was faster, including that of the vile army. It had managed to teleport every single person off the mountain, into the furthest possible place. The whole mountain was melted into a pool of lava, gushing over and burning the trees and grass nearby, at the very least, now they don't have to worry about filling the mining site, the whole mountain was gone.
The mass teleportation the Knight and its army had pulled off was so quick that those moved by the possessed monsters, like Yuva, had not noticed. The heat was still impairing their vision and thoughts.
The clouds had cleared, but in the resulting massive cloud of smoke the sky was covered once more, the stunning site of the beast that had caused this was still not visible.
Before the Knight left Cathine asked, "You aren't going back, are you?"
There in the smoke-filled heavens the other mountains still stood, and before teleporting to the summit of one the Knight said, "I have to keep my word to that beast, I did promise to slay it."
The workers had heard the Knight and noticed him vanish, and up in the sky, the word just became darker. The Knight's followers had come along with it.
The Knight arrived at the summit and looked at the dragon, "I see you have come back to meet your death."
The Knight had no response, instead a dark cloud, a cloud of bellowing void formed around the Knight, up here hidden from sight of those below, the Knight released the constant suppression of its size. Ever since absorbing the void territory, the Knight had been constantly forcing the size of its vessel to the smallest it could be, which is around four metres. Now that the Knight had released this hold, it grew until it matched the size of the dragon, each sabaton was atop a mountain.
Another heat blast was about to come, when the Knight teleported above the dragon, landing on its back, the Knight quickly shut its trap, closing the jaws on itself. Even just touching this dragon, the Knight's armour was starting to glow red like the lava beneath, but as usual the armour held. The heat though was scorching the Knight's soul as well.
The Visage of terror sent a chill through the dragon, and that is all it did. While atop Red Scorch, the Knight felt the palpitations of whatever this thing had that served as its heart.
The Knight was still not used to heart beats, since it was lacking one itself. Slowly whisps of darkness started to snake around the dragon, soon it was deep in this void, making the whole thing look like a dark spot of nothingness in the skies, blemishing the skies.
The dragon thrashed around, trying to hurdle the Knight off. The heat itself kept intensifying, singeing the Knight's soul. The heat soon died down, this was because once the dragon was covered by the void, the Knight activated the dreaded power, taking away Red Scorch's power over fire.
This power had also been steadily rising the temperature of the flesh inside the armour, since it was mostly the cold lump of dead flesh the Knight used to use as a body when it was human.
This feeling of being a living corpse, one with internal heat, was fading. Once the power had been snuffed out, the Knight let go of the jaws, and started reangling the dragon, as it flew around hectically, trying to escape the hold. Thus, began the fight between the Vile Knight and dragon, Red Scorch.