'Was she dead?'
That was my first thought, as I saw her Cold body lying on the ground.
But then.
She had stood up. Irene stood up, very slowly.
like someone had pressed the rewind button on a video and played the video backwards. One moment, she was lying in a crater with white fire, and Lava pooling around her.
and in the next instant. She was on her feet, brushing off the ash that accompanied her leather armour.
Her ribs, the ones that my tail had shattered, were no longer broken.
"Enchant: Damage Null."
She had said it so casually, it was like she was commenting on the weather.
The air around her sword started to distort, not from the heat of my fire, but something else, entirely. It made my scales itch. It was calling for me; it made my instincts scream for me to move, to dodge, or to run away.
My instinct was recognizing that this was an attack that could actually kill me.
[Warning: Enemy has applied Anti-Dragon Enhancement to weapon]
[Damage from this weapon will ignore 70% of your natural resistances]
[Dragon Scale Armor effectiveness reduced by 60%]
'anti dragon property?''
I stared at the blade.
The golden light wasn't just pretty; it was illuminating. This was it, the blade that could end me. It was given form through enchantments.
She rewrote the properties of steel.
That was....
Incredible.
and terrifying.
It was something that I had to deal with absolutely.
"You know..." I said as my voice reverberated throughout the reality marble,
"Thats quite rude."
but....
Irene didn't respond. She just moved.
she didnt run.
Nor did she charge.
Vanishing.
One moment, she stood thirty meters away from me.
And the next instant, she was beneath me, blade already mid-arc, as she aimed it directly at the soft spot of my scales, under my throat.
Too fast—'
My wings beat once again.
WHOOOM!!
The displacement of the air around us created a shockwave the riplled outward, lava splashed, and white fire bent away from the force.
I launched myself upward and backward. trying to dodge that illuminating blade.
The blade had missed.
barly.
a single red scale drifted down, served clean.
I landed twenty meters away. all four of my claws dug into the molten ground, and my wings spread wide, as I was adjusting myself, from landing on my front Claws.
That was close
Too close.
"Enchant: Velocity—Triple."
Irene adjusted her stance.
And suddenly, she was moving at speeds that shouldn't even have been possible with human limitations.
She crossed twenty meters. in under a second.
The blade came from the left.
Then the right.
then overhead.
then low.
Four strikes.
in the time it should have taken to make one.
My wings meet the brunt of—
Clang
Clang.
The first two strike.
The impact sent vibrations through the membrane. rattling the bones that held the wings together.
Creak!! My tail wrapped around, catching the third.
Clang!!
But...
the fourth.
Slash!!
It cut clean.
through my left foreleg's scales, carving a line from shoulder to elbow.
Blood sprayed out.
Dragon blood.
my own blood.
it was...
Dark, almost black.
She had drawn my own blood again.
The wound wasn't deep.
but...
It hurt.
It has proved it once again...
that she could wound me.
that anti dragon property wasnt for show.
But her voice was heard once again.
as she prepared eternano.
in mere seconds. She had started.
Damage Null. Velocity Triple. Anti-Dragon. Heat Resistance. And...
"Enchant: Blade—Sharpness Maximum."
Six.
The blade's edge became so refined.
It looked like it was cutting the air just by existing.
the distortion around us.
intensified.
She was stacking layer upon layer. of enchantments onto one blade.
'How many could she maintain?'
"Enchant: Blade—Weight Minimum."
Eight.
The blade became as light as a feather in her grip.
then...
She had disappeared once again.
And I knew this was not the time to let sentiments and my past hold me back.
This moment was a life-and-death fight.
where one would decide who would live, in the end.
Our deaths were near.
It was time.
i stoped holding back.
I bared my fangs as flames licked between my teeth.
I decided to take it seriously.
Every pillar of white fire in the entire space responded.
simultaneously.
hundred of them.
They bent toward Irene like trees in a hurricane.
from above...
below.
left.
right.
Forwards.
every direction held it.
There was nowhere for her to run.
nowhere to exist without touching Flame.
FWOOOOSH!!
The flames converged.
It created a sphere.
white fire so intense, it looked like a miniature sun had formed.
temperature inside? Ten, or maybe tens of thousands inside.
hot enough to vaporize steel.
hot enough to turn stone to gas.
hot enough that even looking Blinded.
I had held it.
for three seconds.
five.
ten.
fifteen.
FWOOOOSH!!
After fifteen seconds i had let it dissipate.
The flames pulled back. slowly revealing.
nothing.
Irene was gone.
Had I vaporized her?
The thoughts had come even in the spike of my potential death.
There was.
Concern.
regret.
as i didnt want to kill her.
I had just—
"Enchant: Space—Displacement."
The voice came from behind me.
As I turned my massive head.
She stood there.
unharmed.
Her sword raised.
comeplety unharmed.
Did she teleport...?
no she had.
enhanced the space that occupied the space that separated. the world. and us.
The reality marble.
It was cracking.
Creak!!!
She had used it like a shield.
and what greeted my eyes next.
Was the greenery the devided us and them?
The frost came.
The ground changed.
from the warmth of fire. and the heat that it made.
The greenery outside the reality marble.
was now frozen white.
the trees. the mud. And the dirt itself was frozen in a mist of white.
The reality marble had been depleted.
MP: 2000/ 15,500
I was almost out of mana, alone, and the reality marble was constantly used as a resource. every time.
It had been almost destroyed.
It had used my mana to repair it.
but.
Irene, where was she....
i couldnt see her.
She had vanished.
And where was I?
this color. of Red.?
everywhere....
The color red had replaced me. had replaced this scenery of white and green.
The frozen ground that I had just once seen was no longer in front of me. What I saw was Death.
the death of many. many men.
And there I had heard it.
there they started the charge.
men dressed in medieval armour.
Some had daggers. some swords. and some wands.
There were 100, 200, maybe thousands.
and they.
were charging towards me as I had heard the commander's voice. the one that was atop the horse.
"Charge"
Thud...
thud...
The voices of many were heard. They overlapped each other as the sound of footsteps stomped towards me.
had begun.
Fire flooded out like a tidal wave.
using what little mana that I had. white fire attached itself to the ground.
like the reality marble. It had turned molten.
molten black.
but...
They started. to run through it.
They saw me. for what I was.
An injured dragon.
in a barren land.
Untouched. To all.
[Ding]
[Use skill: Scorched earth.]
"AGRR"
The screams of many. of the knights were heard through the Molten ground.
They were burning.
being burned alive.
This was an act of fighting a god in their eyes. A single mistake could cost them their lives.
They had known that.
And they continued.
to charge.
The horse's burned first.
as the white fire attached to the soldiers.
The white fire spread like a living thing, encompassing every and anything that existed.
Men became tourchs.
Some became ash.
But more came.
The more that fell.
The more that came.
until they had met me.