As I flew, I had to start doing evasive maneuvers.

  I am flying towards a giant furball that flies by farting and it's shooting lasers at me from the tips of its tentacle limbs. It's shooting big bright yellow lasers that explode in mid air. Why does it have anti-air lasers? I guess- why wouldn't it have anti-air lasers, that's a stupid question, it's a flying furball with tentacle limbs, it probably mostly fights other flying things, of course it would have anti air lasers.

  Now, I could dodge the attacks and in the occasion that the explosion was close enough that it hit me, I could tank them, no problem. It was strong, it was actually scuffing my scales and even leaving small holes and cuts in the membranes of my wings, but it was not outpacing the speed of my regeneration.

  Unfortunately, such was probably not the case for the Priestess, who had been flying beside me, I was certain that if one of the lasers hit her, she would not be doing quite so well, so I took a lot of hits shielding her from the attacks.

  Actually, this is getting annoying. "Priestess, stay behind me," I called, "I'll get you close, you go in and find the people, rescue them, get them out, and then give me a signal when you're ready."

  "Yes, Great One!!"

  I hummed in response to her response, and then as she moved behind me, I created a thick barrier right in front of me and then increased my flight speed, making sure that the Priestess was able to ride my slipstream as I pushed closer and closer to the, frankly, quite immense inverted turtleshell covered in brown fur with laser-blasting tentacles, and immediately began tanking dozens upon dozens of exploding lasers.

  It hurt.

  It really freaking hurt. Even creating a thick barrier with my will and power didn't make it free, I had been tanking the hits but not direct ones, and now that it could trace my flight path so accurately as I was flying in a straight line, it was actually hitting me directly.

  Suddenly, it extended a bunch of tendrils and wrapped them together like a braid, the tips merging into one single big huge cannon.

  "Oh for fuck's sake..!"

  It launched a big bad red beam and I countered it with my breath, blasting a white-blue beam of lightning elemental energy, which was more than powerful enough to overpower the enemy's beam, though as my beam started to eat the fuzzball's, it just wrapped more tendrils into the furry braid and just added more power, adding three more beam shooting tendrils and matching my beam in power.

  Well, at least until I decided to just add more power, enough to destabilize both blasts and create a massive explosion, generating a massive cloud and distortion in space from the wave of pressure that almost knocked me out of the sky.

  But I could still push through and, protected behind me, so could the Priestess, we charged forward and after tanking a couple more shots, I did a fly-by, catching the tendrils' attention while blasting my Breath Weapon along the Creature's side, cutting many of the flying furball's tendrils and watching as they fell down to the empty... steppes? How far did we fly?

  Whatever. The Priestess would now be on the task of saving the people that this thing had, hopefully, kidnapped and not actually just eaten.

  As I glanced back, I saw the priestess sneaking into the creature's body... I don't know if she found a hole or carved one herself, but, she pulled out a flap of fur, and then snuck in.

  Thus, in order to keep the creature distracted while she did her thing, I rushed away and blasted a much weaker icy cold beam out through my mouth, much weaker than a proper frost breath, but enough that it would keep its attention centered on shooting me.

  Seemingly angered by my persistence and having taken damage, the tendrils redoubled their efforts, now, there were half a dozen braided triple launchers, it had used almost all of its tendrils to do that, though I could already see that the ones I had blasted off would probably be regenerating soon - there were fleshy tubes growing out of the tendril stubs sticking out of its body.

  The problem was that with that many strong lasers, I didn't have much in the way of hope of being able to tank multiple blasts like I could the single ones.

  I increased my speed, the blasts were not just stronger, the explosions were bigger, and since it was only aiming six tendrils at once instead of twenty four, it was also much better at aiming, predicting my movements and forcing me into more erratic flight patterns.

  Its accuracy was so good in fact that I took a shot to the face that blasted much of my face off, which forced me to acknowledge the enemy and start counter attacking.

  I looked for the first beam shooter that was ready to blast, and when I saw one starting to glow yellow to prepare to loose a blast from the mouth at its tip, which I only now actually realized had freaking teeth, I targeted it myself and then blasted it with a powerful beam, strong enough to defeat the beam that erupted just as mine was about to reach, and then completely erase about two thirds of the beam shooting tendril.

  The three braided tendrils came apart, the appendages too damaged to continue being used.

  That didn't give me much time however because three others were ready to blast in short succession. Bringing my wings close and doing a spinning corkscrew maneuver, I dodged the three blasts and prevented my wings getting torn up.

  An unexpected fourth blast caught my tail and ripped the tip of it off, which wasn't as painful as I thought it'd be.

  It was worse.

  It hurt horrendously, I saw white for a moment and rage came over me, for an instant I thought, fuck everything, I can destroy this thing in an instant so why don't I?, but a calmer mind prevailed and I reminded myself, there's people in there.

  I had an idea, Stephen would serve as my inspiration for it. With the lightened burden and my tail already regenerating, I burst forward as fast and as hard as I could and then used my powers to shunt to the side, remembering physics are for chumps and people who aren't Dragons, avoiding a large blast and since I was moving towards the source of the blast, managing to avoid most of the blast too.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The creature would likely adapt quickly, but I had a target, and as I rushed past the anti-air lasers, I once more did a pass along the creature's side, concentrating power on my wings, causing them to glow white and hone their edges like blades, cutting through as many tendrils as I could.

  I should've done this from the start, my wings are way bigger than my beams after all!

  I managed to cut two of the big tentacles, making my total of cut tentacles now-

  Wait why does it have seventeen? Shouldn't it-

  Oh it can speed up its regeneration. It has all twenty four tendrils again. SHIT.

  In melee range, it wasn't firing beams, instead, it began to freaking spin at high speeds, it apparently could spin its furry top half without moving the turtle-shell like bottom half, and it could then use its spinning top half to add momentum to the tendrils.

  I learned of this as the flying hairy testicle began to smack me with all twenty four tendrils like it was a move from a fighting game or some shit.

  The first one hurt. The second was worse. The third one was officially where I started losing my shit, and by the time the twentieth hit me, roughly in the space of about half a second since it first started spinning, I was done, though I only managed to grab the thirtieth tendril as I recovered enough to do so.

  "I can spin too asshole!"

  And so I did, I began spinning like a dragon top in mid air, no matter how much Aqua insists that I'm a bottom, and as I did that, I once more turned my wings into edged blades and then as the furry creature tried to bitchslap me with its tentacles again, the only thing it achieved was slicing all twenty four tendrils off.

  Which it responded to by seemingly just concentrating on growing a big thick huge single tendril right in front of me from one of the openings, and then it fucking punched me in the stomach with the massive 24-tendril braid.

  And then it blasted a beam that, luckily, went right through me, opening a hole and leaving out my back, exploding what I had to guess was very far away, and even so I still felt the wave of pressure and heat.

  I'm missing most of my organs, I'm bleeding, my vision's swimming and I've severely underestimated just how powerful this thing is.

  But even though my spine was severed, it only prevented me from using my hind legs, my front claws were still fully functional, so while trying not to think about how horrifically painful my situation was, I grabbed the massive braided tentacle, bigger than my arms actually, and then ripped it right off of the creature's socket, taking a very large chunk of flesh along with it.

  And oh hey! There's a lot of people in there!

  "Great One! Good timing, we are ready to exit! I've recovered the villagers!"

  Oh. Goody. "Excellent. Then come on out," I called.

  "Great One we-"

  I raised my arms and brought them forward, creating a platform of ice, giving it walls and sort of making it a bit like a big bowl, then while holding that bowl with one hand I used the other, uh, claw to rip the hole bigger so they could walk out. I even made them a slide so they could safely drop down to the bowl.

  They were a very diverse bunch, actually, I'm surprised how many esoteric hair colors they had! Most of them had dark skin but some were really dark, not like Stephen dark but-

  Oh that's the last of them.

  "Alright," I then pulled back, noticing how the creature was already most of the way through to regenerating, and in fact, as I pulled the bowl back, I saw that the turtle shell-like bottom and fuzzy top seem to separate and-

  Eugh, is that what its insides were like? It's all weird and fleshy and, oh well I guess that makes perfect sense, it's more like a huge mouth with- with-

  Dozens, no, even over a hundred tentacles.

  They were all immediately coming together and forming into one huge braid.

  Oh no you fucking don't you stupid testicle!

  Without waiting for the tendrils to come together, and while pulling the giant ice bowl out of the way with both hands, noting it had at least sixty people on it, I blasted the open maws of the giant creature with as much power as I could, the blue-white beam becoming almost purely white, with a faint cyan hue, at first focused as I destroyed the gathering braid of tendrils, and then...

  I made it wider.

  I added more power, and instead of breathing a beam, it was a conical blast, I widened it more and more and tried to make it blast as much of the creature's open and fleshy insides as possible, without the armored outside it had no defense and even though my attack was losing destructive power with its width, it nevertheless destroyed much of the flesh of the monster, basically hollowing out the turtle-shell like bottom.

  And then, it began to fall.

  Oh.

  I kinda, uh, hadn't accounted for that. Shit.

  Well I sure hope that however heavy this thing is it doesn't cause absolutely massive environmental damage...

  Ahh goddammit.

  Rushing down to the ground, I deposited the bowl and let it melt so they could step out of it, just about fast enough that it didn't grab them by surprise, and at the same time, I gathered much power, raising my mouth, collecting as much as I could and then blasting it once again, this time without being quite so rushed, I could blast the creature with enough power to destroy everything, reducing it to just dust and vaporized mist.

  The beam was blasted so high I'm... somewhat confident the dust and gas is probably spreading in whatever passes for this planet's atmosphere by now.

  Thus, I turned to the cushion makers, or what was left of them.

  "Great One, you are wounded-"

  "A trifling wound," I said, "already regenerating, barely worth notice," I said, waving my arm. "Is everybody safe?"

  "Everybody I could find at least - the creature was devouring them one by one, we could not save all of them Great One," the Priestess responded. "About seventy villagers were unfortunately already gone."

  I did a quick count. Sixty three villagers, most of which were on the younger end of adulthood. They all looked weak, emaciated and they were shaking as if it was freezing cold, wearing only tattered rags. They were also all covered in slimy fluids.

  They all seemed thoroughly traumatized which, given they'd been eaten by a giant flying testicle not too long ago, I couldn't blame them for. I'm not equipped to handle trauma.

  "Damn. We should probably take them to Argentum," I muttered. "I guess our adventure is over already?"

  "Great One," the Priestess called, "this is what we have Kobolds for. Hear hear!"

  She brought two fingers to her mouth, took in a big breath, and then whistled. Loud. So loud in fact that it made my ears ring, though it seemed like the villagers couldn't hear it, maybe a frequency beyond their hearing range?

  "Do you think they'll hear it?" I asked. "We were pretty far from the town already and we chased this thing for a while," I pointed out.

  "Yes - it was moving in the direction of Argentum, so we're quite close, Ornlu and her kin should be-"

  "You called, Superior- oh, Great Silver One! There's a hole in your chest! Does it make you fly faster?" Ornlu asked, as she arrived, bouncing on her paw pads, in a mostly beastly form.

  "Yes - gather your people, bring aid, blankets, clothes and food - the kind for when we liberate slaves, and all related supplies as well!" the priestess ordered. "We have a new group, treat them gently!"

  Well.

  I'm glad I set people up to do this kind of thing. Good job, past me!

  "Excellent," I called. "In the mean time we shall heal them physically, we can't do much for their exhaustion and the mental scars but," I looked at the ones that had missing fingers, toes or even entire limbs, some looked like they were suffering gangrene.

  If it hadn't been for the Priestess, they wouldn't have even been able to escape the creature's body at all, she must've already been hard at work healing the ones she could heal.

  "I can do blankets and clothes, for now," I said, "bring supplies anyway for the trip back home, it'll be a very slow march and they'll need a change of clothes."

  A man who I could tell used to be quite large, and was probably in charge, fell to his knees. "G-Great S-Si-Sillllveeeer," he cried out, and I do mean cry, guy was downright sobbing, "forget this kindness, never!!! Our life we dedicate to the Great One of Silver!!"

  "Not the time, healing time now, worship time later," I countered, as I prepared to start doing the healing we'd need. The Priestess can do it even without her staff, now that she's a Dragonewt, but I'm better at it.

  I'll heal the hole in my chest while I'm at it too, I'm missing chunks of my lungs and it's getting really annoying.