A black military chopper quickly speeds by the slightly boiling city below, it flew past the emergency military defense zone and headed towards the burning stadium.
A small portion of New York who had just seen a fire dragon fly past their heads was in a state of excitement.
Every news channel on the television was reporting this breaking news repeatedly, a fuzzy video of Merlin, Crow, and the fire dragon's chase had become crucial evidence that made the people go nuts.
Under the stimulation of such an event, there were already reporters on helicopters heading towards where the dragon had fallen, but all of them would be intercepted by military choppers.
Some dangerous secrets aren't meant to be known by all.
"Merlin's signal is up ahead! 1000 meters to the front!"
Black Widow Natasha fiddles with the device in her hand, a red dot was flashing on the radar-like device.
Natasha sits on the helicopter's passenger seat, next to her hand was a somewhat odd sniper rifle.
It looked different from all existing sniper weapons, it looked like a metal cuboid with a black gun body and white shell, at the back of the gun body was a grip and no sort of aiming device; it seemed very simplistic.
But at the back of the gun was a blue crystal embedded on the gun body, it was emitting a faint light blue glow which gave the gun a futuristic look.
This was a Kree weapon found in the weapons vault amongst the Kree wreckage which Carol had retrieved for SHIELD after the Kree war.
It was a real energy weapon that had been researched by SHIELD scientists in a lab over the past few months in an attempt to reverse-engineer it.
Frankly, this thing would not be taken out of the lab if not for the dire situation.
"Do you know how to use this thing?"
Agent Barton drove the chopper while looking at Natasha, who was fiddling with the energy weapon, he says in a low tone:
"Supposedly this thing works differently from our weapons?"
"Yeah, it is different."
Natasha raises the sniper rifle and makes an aiming posture, a crystal chip abruptly springs up from the gun body, and a triangular virtual aiming sight that moved along with her vision appears before Natasha.
"It's very intelligent, far more advanced than our weaponry."
Black Widow comments:
"According to Mr. Richard, this thing's technology is at least 200 years more advanced than ours...it's like throwing an assault rifle to a primitive."
"But it's something used to kill."
Agent Barton says softly:
"Bullets can kill, so do lasers, it's just how they do it, they're both weapons either way."
"True."
Natasha nods, she looks to the ground ahead; from this distance, she could almost see the ravaging monster in the burning stadium.
"You control the big guy! Wait for my signal."
Natasha takes off the flight headset, she stands up with the energy sniper rifle on her back, and under agent Barton's control, the helicopter swiftly hovers atop a building a few hundred meters away from the stadium.
Natasha leaps off the helicopter, rolls to the ground, then waves her hand at Barton.
Agent Barton pulls the helicopter upwards, he looks back as there was still something heavy in the helicopter's cabin.
It was a heavy weapon similar to a grenade launcher, but it had no launch tube, replacing it were four enclosed slideways, it was like the miniature version of the incomplete electromagnetic railgun.
It had a silver exterior just like the beam weapon Natasha was holding, it was fueled by energy, and after SHIELD's scientists removed the safety lock, it could be used by agents.
Agent Barton needs to find a stable launch platform, this miniature electromagnetic railgun had high penetration and power, but it had long intervals between shots, thus it can only act as a final card.
"BOOM"
The black fog enshrouded on the horntail's head bursts out in the flickering flames.
The heavy mana hit caused the Hungarian Horntail to let out a horrible shriek, the scales and bone spikes on its head were sent flying, even one of the majestic dragon horns had been broken apart.
Blood flowed out of the wound on the horntail's head, making it look very miserable.
In the burning stadium, the horntail driven mad by pain flings its morning star-like tail around, it flicks the nearby rocks and hurls them at Merlin on the ground.
"Wingardium!"
Merlin waves his wand and aims at the scattered rocks on the side, he flicks his wrist, and the rocks were lifted up into the air and thrown towards the roaring horntail as Merlin flung his wand forward.
"BANG"
The rocks collided in the air, causing a loud bang; two rocks even smashed on the horntail which forced it back.
The wild beast raises its head and spews yet another pillar of fire at Merlin, the latter aerosolizes into black fog and dodges the attack by spreading out.
The horntail could not spew its flames as far out as before, it seems that it too was exhausted.
But the thick-skinned bastard was really tenacious, it had wounds all over its body, even had one of its horns broken off by Merlin, yet it still refused to go down.
"Thick-skinned!"
Merlin looks down at the fire dragon from above, the wound he had previously inflicted on the horntail had begun to show signs of healing, draconic beings sure have powerful regenerative capabilities.
At this moment, Merlin realizes that he lacks some instant yet highly destructive skills, it was not a good idea to engage in a battle of attrition with this horntail, and he lacks a way to knock down a large creature like this horntail in one hit.
This guy's scales and fat were too thick, so thick that two mana explosions hardly even affected its internal organs.
Merlin looks at the roaring fire dragon, he reaches into his pocket and feels that the Berserker baton may be useful here. But that thing had some dangerous repercussions, and it didn't seem like a good idea to fight head-on with the dragon, so he was hesitant on using it.
And as Merlin was hesitating, a blue beam suddenly shoots out from the other side of the Stadium rubble.
As Merlin watched, the blue beam cut through the dragon's breath and stabbed into the dragon's injured neck like an arrow; in Merlin's dark senses, Merlin could see that the blue beam had punched a sizable hole on the horntail's neck.
"Merlin, we're here!"
Natasha half-squats on the top of the rubble of the stadium stand, she held the activated energy sniper rifle in a standard kneeling position. The heated wind blows her wine-red hair, and in front of her, the triangular aiming sight had locked on to the horntail's yellow eye.
She was like the most lethal assassin, her fingers moved on the grip as she says softly:
"Step back, don't get splattered by the blood."
"Shoo"
Yet another blue beam shoots out from Black Widow's muzzle, but this time, the horntail seemed to sense the danger and tilted its head, narrowly dodging the beam.
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Natasha's firing could not hit its eyes, instead, she left a bloody wound on its jaw.
The horntail waves its tail and slaps a giant rock towards Natasha. Merlin in the air waves his wand and shatters the large rock with an accurately-landed Reducto.
Seeing the approaching cobblestone rain, Natasha's eyes shrink and she rolls to the ground, narrowly dodging the flying rocks.
"You almost killed me, Merlin!"
Natasha shouts through the comms:
"Aim higher alright?"
"Oh, Natasha, you and I both know a few rocks can't kill you."
Merlin replies:
"Fury's secret weapon is a gun? Hell, he's underestimating this cunning beast a bit too much isn't he?"
"I'm here to contain it!"
Black Widow agilely slips into the stadium along the shattered rocks, she runs for a firing point while telling Merlin:
"There's an electromagnetic cannon with Barton that can punch through the fire dragon, but we have to immobilize it and keep it still."
"Alright!'
Merlin answered so, Merlin's figure rises into the air in the rising black smoke of the burning stadium; like a shadow flying through the air, he swiftly dodges the horntail's dragon breath and lands on the rubble not far from the dragon.
Merlin moves his lips and raises the wand in his left hand, a thread of crimson red mana intertwines on the wand, and as Merlin slowly lowers his wrist, streaks of invisible mana chains shoot out from all directions.
"Colloportus!"
As Merlin finished chanting, the coagulation of mana chains invisible to normal people begins to finish.
In Merlin's eyes, dozens of thick crimson red chains swiftly fly up from the ground and bind the horntail's large body, tying its wings, legs, claws, and tail onto the ground.
The horntail feels the magic bind from Merlin, it struggled fiercely and quickly broke two mana chins.
Colloportus was meant to imprison small creatures.
It was clearly stated in Mr. Arthur's magic textbook that Colloportus may fail when used on large creatures.
But for now, Merlin had no other ideas.
He stood firmly and injected mana into his wand Lola, the irritated mana forms new chains which bind the horntail on the spot.
Further away, Natasha stands up, and as her long hair waves in the air, she aims her sniper rifle and fires at the horntail's head to disrupt its struggles.
And even further away, on a small hill nearly 500 meters from the stadium, on the descended helicopter, agent Barton holds a small, silver-white, phone-like controller.
His fingers move on the screen, and as his fingers moved, the activated electromagnetic railgun‘s slideways begin to spread outwards.
Blue rings begin to glow on the
A triangular bullet made from tungsten is pressed on the launch port.
Under agent Barton's calibrations, the electromagnetic railgun set on a metal platform begins to adjust its direction, until it permanently locks on the bound fire dragon on the ground 500 meters away.
"Target locked on!"
"Merlin, Natasha, get back!"
Agent Barton says so in the comms, and then, he begins to enter a launch code on the screen.
The last blue ring on the electromagnetic slideway is lit up, and a triangular bullet shoots out from the cannon muzzle of the metal slideway.
As it left the muzzle, it reached triple sonic speed.
It practically crossed 500 meters in a flash.
The horntail senses the threat, it ignores Natasha's shooting, turns around, and spews out a most powerful dragon breath, but the triangular bullet easily penetrates the flames, and as Merlin and Natasha watched, the bullet tore a horrifying wound across the horntail's neck like the sharpest blade.
The bullet's final landing point was on the horntail's back.
The tough scales and thick fat could not block the shot from this weapon from space, as the ground rumbled, the horntail's back then bursts open from the inside, and the sounds of cracking bone could be heard.
Nearly half of the horntail's body had been ripped apart by the triangular ammo.
Its neck had been severed from the middle like it had been broken.
The raging dragon lets out its final roar before collapsing onto the rubble of the stadium like a collapsing mountain.
Merlin descends from the air and walks to the head of the horntail, there were no signs of life in the yellow eyes of the large beast, there were only residues of excruciating pain left.
"Does this mean we're dragon slayers?"
Natasha walks next to Merlin with her sniper rifle, she contemplated the giant and ferocious head with a surprised yet curious gaze, saying:
"It's quite ugly when you look at it this way."
"It is quite ugly."
Merlin shrugs, he walks forward, takes out a black combat knife from his magic pocket, and in Natasha's slightly disdainful gaze, he extracts some bloody teeth from the dragon's heated mouth.
He turns around and throws one of the dragon teeth to Natasha, the latter catches the ferocious-looking dragon tooth with two fingers and says with slight disdain:
"Is this thing very precious?"
"Well, dragon tooth brings warriors good luck in wizard's legends, they too symbolize courage and strength."
Merlin throws the few bloody dragon teeth in his hand and says:
"These are quite the precious enchanting materials that can be sold for a good price in the black market."
"If that's the case, then I'll take it."
Natasha wipes it cleans and stores it in her bag, she brushes her hair and tells Merlin:
"Let's go, someone specialized will come to handle this."
"We're not done with Hell's Kitchen yet."