Rowan knew he needed to fight back against the dragon, but he didn't know how. He needed to come up with options and fast as the red dragon slowly approached.

  There was only one problem.

  His mind wasn’t working as properly as he would like it. He could feel his thoughts jumbling up together and becoming more incoherent.

  Rowan had already begun to feel light headed and he could feel blood building up in his throat. Coughing the blood up to clear his throat would be the best choice, but that would make him look weak in front of the dragon.

  Rowan refused to give the dragon the satisfaction of seeing him as a weakling.

  Not that he was in much shape to fight.

  Injuries were visible all over his body and the blood loss over the course of the fight must be the reason why he felt so light headed. Majority of the injuries weren’t fatal, but there were a few that were life threatening. A few of the fatal injuries were internal, especially in his chest. He was sure a few of his bones were broken there, but he didn't have the time check.

  Options. What were his options?

  Rowan's mind knew what it needed to do, but not how.

  It knew it needed to fight back. The problem was that he was in no state to move. His body barely obeyed his orders. Just one push and he would topple over. If that happened, then that meant the dragon wins.

  He needed a method of fighting to minimize movement. That meant he couldn’t engage in close combat. It wasn’t like he could fight the dragon with brute strength in the first place. One hit from its tail and he was almost out of commission.

  So that left attacks from afar. What could he use to attack?

  His bow.

  But there were no arrows. They had fallen off him midway through the battle.

  Attack by growing his arms?

  No, he had tried that and it would not be enough to pierce the dragon. He surprised it once in the air. The dragon would not fall for it again. Besides, overgrown arms would be hard to control with its increased weight. It was a gamble that Rowan would most likely lose.

  What was the next best choice?

  Rowan’s mind raced with thoughts, but a lot of his thoughts were flickering and fading. It was becoming difficult to even focus. Options came and went as he thought up possibilities and eliminated the ones that he deemed impossible.

  Let's change the way of thinking. What was he good at? Rowans didn't have much time left to counterattack and he needed a method fast.

  Bow and arrows. That was his main weapon and the one he had been training for years.

  But there are no arrows.

  No matter what Rowan thought, his thoughts kept racing back to the bow strapped around his body. His mind kept denying the possibility since he had no arrows to use. However, no matter how much he denied the possibility of using the bow to fight back, his brain still turned to the it.

  Why?

  There was something he was missing. The only problem was that it was becoming increasingly hard to put together a complete thought.

  Was there actually no arrows? Otherwise why would his brain keep telling him to use the bow?

  How would he acquire arrows in the first place? The ones he originally bought were scattered somewhere in the forest. If Rowan couldn't get new arrows, then he would need to make his own. Rowan knew he was fumbling the dark at this point, but he felt like he was onto something.

  Rowan always created his arrows by growing them from his hands.

  Wait.

  Create?

  Grow?

  He always created his own arrows, but that took time.

  But, Rowan didn't have time as the looming dragon figure came closer with each step.

  Arrows took time and mana to make. He didn’t have time.

  But he had mana.

  Thanks to constantly exchanging mana with the Mother Tree, Rowan felt the mana pool inside his body was a vast amount. He never ran out whenever he used it. It was always an issue of his actual body tiring out from handling the man instead.

  Rowan felt like he almost had an answer. It was right in front of him. He only needed to reach out, but his brain was failing on the last step.

  Arrows. Grow. Create.

  Those three words stood out. They created a sentence, an action that Rowan had been performing for quite a while. It didn’t make sense to Rowan in his current situation though.

  A good arrow took at least five minutes to make. He didn't have five minutes.

  Rowan needed a way to attack and he needed now. Then he paused.

  Wait, a good arrow?

  Why did the arrow need to be good?

  It just needed to work.

  It just needed to pierce the dragon.

  Once again Rowan began to circulate his mana, but this time he poured it into his left arm instead of his whole body. Both arms were barely functional as they had shielded him from the brunt of the impact from his fall, but they still worked. Grasping the bow in his right hand, Rowan aimed at the dragon. He held the bow string between his left thumb and the bottom of his index finger. His fingers were still awkwardly shaped since he cut off the overgrown parts in the sky and had no time to fix them.

  But his left hand was good enough to hold onto the bow string and that was what he needed..

  Now, the arrows.

  The arrows didn't need to be proper, but they needed to pierce the dragon.

  They needed to be sharp.

  How to make it sharp?

  Rowan arms had always imitated the details of a regular human arms as much as possible. Each finger was sharp at the end, just like fingernails. However those details were lost when he forcefully grew his fingers to escape the dragon. His version of fingernails were not good enough anyways as it was evident that it had failed to break through the dragon scales the first time.

  That was fine, Rowan never intended to make his nails sharp at that time anyways. Too sharp wasn't a good thing since that would make scratching himself difficult. He would only use mana to forcefully transform his hands into claws when he was fighting in the forest, and forcefully fix it when he was back at the camp.

  His index finger immediately began to transform itself at his command. The end of it became a simple pike narrowing down into a sharp edge. There was no arrow head like his typical arrows, but that was fine. He wasn't going for beauty, he was going for functionality and the point at the end should be good enough to pierce through the scales.

  Rowan began to draw back the bow string with the end of his finger still touching the bow. However his index finger grew to match the length of a regular arrow. The typical arrow body was more than two feet and that was how long Rowan grew his index finger. He eyeball the length as he created the rest of the arrow on the spot.

  Now to make it fly. Rowan added to fish like fins at the end of the arrow before forcefully commanding his mana to break off his index finger that had transformed into an arrow.

  The arrow was simple and primitive.

  But Rowan had created it in a matter of seconds.

  The moment Rowan had commanded the newly transformed finger into an arrow to be cut off, he let go of the bow string. The arrow soared at the dragon.

  Rowan hadn't stopped to look at his handiwork though. He was nowhere near done with just one arrow.

  From the second he released his arrow, he had not stop pouring his mana into his left hand. A new index finger was already being grown to replace the previous one. Rowan was already drawing the bowstring, this time his thumb and middle finger pinching the bowstring. As he drew back the bowstring, the middle finger was going through the same transformation process as his index finger. When the arrow was ready, he released it right away.

  Once again, Rowan didn’t stop. Once again, he drew his bow string. This time the transformation process occurred for the ring finger with the middle finger already growing back. Once that arrow was ready, he released it and then began the process with his pinky. Once the pinky arrow was released, he began the whole process from the beginning with his index finger.

  Rowans fingers were constantly growing and transforming as poured in all his mana. His left arm had become a blur as he was constantly drawing it back and forth to release the bow string. HIs finger arrow transformations were becoming faster as he grew familiar with the process.

  The first arrow had come in as a surprise as it stabbed through the dragon scales on its shoulder. The dragon had thought Rowan had no more arrows, but it was proven wrong.

  Soon another arrow came flying over. The dragon sensed the second incoming projectile and prepared to meet it. It had paused its advance to wave one of its wings to block off the incoming projectile.

  Only to find the arrow piercing through it instead.

  Before the dragon could overcome its bewilderment of the suddenly improved arrows, one more arrow came flying at it.

  Then another.

  And then another.

  Rowan had not paused when the first arrow struck and he wasn't going to stop until one of two things happened.

  HIs mana ran out or his body gave out.

  There was the third option, the dragon struck him down instead. That option didn’t even come up in Rowan’s mind.

  This time the dragon was in the defensive position as more arrows flew at it. However no matter what the dragon did to block off the incoming arrows, it still pierced its scales.

  If the dragon block with its claws, then the arrows would stab through them. Its wings were in tatters as it had tried to protect itself with its own pair of wings and met with failure.. The dragon quickly determined that there was only one way to prevent these arrows and that to stop them at its source.

  Rowan wasn't aiming for any specific spot as he was just aiming at the general direction of the dragon.

  Not all his arrows were perfect, nor did they all fly properly. Some even missed the dragon’s body and just fell short.

  Rowan was perfectly fine with some of his arrows missing. He was transforming and releasing his arrows mindlessly at this point.

  The dragon suddenly changed tactics and decided to just charge at Rowan like a bull. The forward charge was the best way for the dragon to minimize the damage incurred from the barrage of arrows.

  Rowan had no energy to dodge the incoming charge, so he decided to counter attack it instead. One attack from the dragon was enough to end him right now. Rowan began to reach deep within himself and pull out whatever mana he could. His left arm was already burdened with damage and the constant use of mana flowing through it did not help the slightest, With even more excess mana being pumped through, cracks could be seen forming all over the arm. Rowan's left arm would not last much longer.

  Which was perfectly fine with Rowan as one arrow was all he needed.

  BOOM!

  The last arrow was the most destructive arrow Rowan had ever released, if not the loudest. He had poured all the mana as he could muster and pulled the bow string as far back as he could in his current state. Before, Rowan's mana was like a river when he was still in control. Now his mana flowed like the currents of the ocean; wild, free and undisciplined. The last particular mana infusion was like a tidal wave being crammed into a tiny shell. His hand exploded into pieces as he discharged the mana and released the arrow. As if released by a catapult, the arrow practically disappeared.

  The dragon had begun to look like a porcupine with all the arrows stuck on it. It was bleeding in numerous parts all over its body. When it rushed over to end the source of its incoming discomfort, it had determined it still had enough strength to endure a few dozen more arrows.

  However this arrow was different.

  When the arrow hit the dragon’s body, an explosion went off. This time it was the dragon being sent flying backwards.

  Seeing the legendary monster flying backwards was a satisfying sight, but not one Rowan could enjoy for long. Rowan slowly walked over to where the dragon laid sprawled on the ground. The last arrow collided with more power than he expected, evident from the caved in chest with blood spurting outwards.. Despite the fatal looking injury, the dragon still lived. Most animals with the same degree of injury would have died.

  However, it was clearly a heavy injury since it had left the dragon unable to move

  Rowan took a step forward and transformed the area where his left hand should have been into a simple sharp spike.

  It was finally time to put an end to this fight.