"Heh, heh... Not long ago, certain emissaries came to me seeking an alliance... and they brought exquisite offerings." Smaug let out a laugh laden with arrogance, while his footsteps made the bed of gold vibrate beneath his claws.
Bilbo was so hypnotized by the terrifying head of the dragon that he did not notice the subtle expository movement of one of its front claws, which was cutting through the treasure like a blade.
"They warned me that someone would come to the mountain... individuals of a very peculiar nature."
"Peculiar... guests?" Bilbo asked, forcing his voice so that Smaug would keep talking. He knew that as long as the dragon boasted of his cunning, he would keep breathing.
Smaug raised his neck, inhaling the air with a prolonged hiss.
"Dwarves, elves... and several scents I do not yet recognize... besides yours," he said, before furrowing his brow and fixing his gaze on the gloom of the upper corridors. "And it seems they are not so insignificant; they have drawn the blood of my concubines," he commented with total indifference. To him, they were nothing more than replaceable pieces.
The dragon moved once more, causing an avalanche of coins that made Bilbo stumble. The hobbit fell back, crawling away with his hands while panic clouded his vision.
"In any case, I suppose I must go clean my home of dwarves and their companions," Smaug declared, returning his lethal gaze to Bilbo. But suddenly, his attention diverted to the shadow behind the hobbit. "Oh... so here is the most peculiar guest of all. I thought you wouldn't dare show yourself..."
Bilbo turned his head and found the figure of Miquella. The prince advanced with a profound calm, holding a scepter in one hand and a crystal pulsing with an internal light in the other. His seriousness was absolute—a stillness that contrasted with the chaos in his heart.
"You truly are... brilliant," Smaug murmured, taking a step forward and pushing more coins and Bilbo along with them, as if he were an insignificant stone. "I was warned to be careful with you, but you are so strange and striking that I wonder if I should keep you among my treasures... or at least, what remains of you when I am finished."
The dragon's eyes, capable of seeing what is hidden from mortals, perceived the magnificence emanating from Miquella's small body: a pure, ancestral, and blinding light that made him stand out in the darkness like a captive sun.
"I am sorry, but I am not a trophy... not for you," Miquella replied, his voice resonating with an authority that did not belong to that world. "And it remains to be seen if you possess the strength necessary to attempt to keep me."
The crystal in his hand began to consume itself, transforming into pure energy as he channeled his power.
"Hmm... arrogant." Smaug snorted a cloud of gray smoke that enveloped them both. "Before, perhaps, I would have hesitated. Your light is blinding, it is true... but now... now I possess something that tips the scales."
Smaug's laughter echoed in the vastness of the vault, a sound full of contempt. With a deliberate movement, he raised one of his claws and rested it upon the mountain of gold, revealing an object he was not supposed to possess. On one of his colossal fingers sat a metallic band: a ring composed of broken pieces forced together, whose cracks pulsed with the glow of an internal forge—a color reminiscent of primordial fire. At the same time, the dragon's throat turned incandescent, fueled by an unknown energy.
Miquella, who had only revealed himself to save Bilbo, widened his eyes with an expression of incredulity that rarely crossed his immortal face. Before he could process the horror before him, Smaug exhaled. The dragon released a blast of fire of immense magnitude; the ring on his claw glowed in unison, intensifying the flames into a torrent of total destruction intended to incinerate both the hobbit and the demigod.
Bilbo watched the red death falling upon him. Before the fire even touched him, the heat rose with such violence that his mind clouded. Dazed and dizzy, the small hobbit felt the world vanish into unbearable pain, on the verge of fainting.
In that last second, just before the flame consumed him, Bilbo saw a shadow move. Miquella crossed the distance at a speed that defied mortal perception. He planted himself in front of the hobbit, raising his hands as a spherical barrier of pure gold enveloped them at the exact moment of impact.
The fire fell upon them like an infinite tide, spreading in all directions with a power that distorted the air and generated a roar capable of deafening anyone. The light was so intense that shadows vanished from the room.
Despite the protection, the staff in Miquella's hand disintegrated, turning to ash under the caloric pressure. The demigod held back the flare with agonizing effort; his face turned a deep red and the barrier faltered at times, shrinking under the weight of Smaug's breath, but holding firm through pure divine will.
When Smaug's breath ceased, the scorching light faded, returning the chamber to its sepulchral darkness. Only Miquella's golden sphere remained lit, illuminating the chaos with a dying purity.
"Miquella!" Bilbo shouted, recovering from the thermal shock inside the protection.
He saw the Elden prince fall to one knee, panting violently as sweat ran down his brow. The hobbit ran to his side to support him, looking into the shadows with terrified confusion. The demigod, he who seemed invincible, had just been pushed to his limit.
And just at that moment, a shrill screech of metal against scale tore through the silence, followed by a groan of discomfort that escaped Smaug's jaws. Across the dragon's face, a blade of pale gold slid, throwing off violent sparks and pushing the mass of his head aside with implausible force. Although the steel failed to penetrate the beast's natural armor, the ring on Smaug's claw pulsed with a crimson glow upon receiving the impact, as if the artifact itself had reacted to the threat.
"Malenia?!" Bilbo shouted, seeing salvation appear from the shadows.
Miquella, who had not yet recovered from the previous effort, wasted no time looking up. With a desperate movement, he wrapped his arms around the hobbit and, with a surge of golden magic, launched them both in an upward arc. They flew through the air, narrowly dodging the devastating lash of Smaug's tail, who had just spun around to face his new aggressor.
They both landed with a heavy thud on the bed of coins. The impact was painful and left them breathless, but it was a small price compared to having ended up as a shapeless mass beneath the dragon's weight.
"What a nauseating stench..." Smaug hissed, fixing his yellow eyes on the figure challenging him.
Malenia had fought to contain the Scarlet Rot within her, hiding her essence so as not to alert the predator. But after the attack, the containment had shattered. An aura of decay and invisible spores began to emanate from her—a scent of stagnant death that Smaug, with his hyper-developed senses, perceived instantly.
The Blade of Miquella spun her prosthetic arm with a mechanical click, adjusting her shoulder after the force of the clash. The dragon, whose arrogance had been absolute before the hobbit and whose confidence remained firm before Miquella, changed completely. His body language became rigid, alert. In Malenia, he detected something that was not simply power, but an existential danger; an infection capable of withering even an eternal being.
Miquella stood up quickly, his face marked by tension. His gaze drifted to the spot where they had been a moment ago. According to the laws of nature, Smaug's breath should have left a lake of molten gold and charred stone, but it had not. The treasure was intact; the coins shone cold, and the stone walls showed not a single scorch mark.
That fire, bolstered by the ring, did not seek to destroy inorganic matter. It was a flame designed to devour life, spirit, and essence. Both Miquella and the terrified Bilbo, who had been its targets, understood the terrifying truth: if a single spark of that breath had touched them, they would have burned from the inside out, without the outside world even noticing the heat.
Miquella's gaze fixed intently on the ring adorning Smaug's claw. It was the second time he had seen a similar artifact following the encounter with the Goblin King, but this one was of a superior magnitude, forged to be worn by the enormous beast. That burning flame, designed to devour only living flesh, was irrefutable proof that the dragon had been imbued with a fragment of an alien power. The demigod's confidence cracked; what had once been a certain mission had transformed into an uncertain struggle against a force that defied everything known in Middle-earth.
Malenia, oblivious to doubt, launched into the attack. Her metallic steps sent coins flying as she ran toward the beast. Smaug puffed his throat again, but the ring did not emit the same glow as before. It seemed that corrupt power needed time to recover its maximum intensity.
Seeing his sister about to be swallowed by the flames, Miquella summoned a new staff from the shadows of his magic. A violet, deep, and gravitational light emanated from the crystal and linked to one of the colossal dwarven columns in the room. With a cry of effort that tore at his throat, Miquella thrust the staff toward the dragon.
The roar of the stone breaking was deafening. More than half of the monumental column sheared away from its base and the ceiling, flying through the air like a projectile launched by a giant. The block of solid stone slammed into Smaug's side, pushing his immense mass aside and diverting the torrent of fire away from Malenia.
The blow caused more annoyance than damage to the dragon. With a roar of fury, Smaug swept away the remains of the column with a single swipe, regaining his balance and fixing his hatred on the small figure who dared to use the weight of the mountain against him.
"Go with the others!" Miquella shouted to Bilbo.
Under a purple light, the demigod rose into the air on a platform of enchanted treasures levitating by pure gravitational power. Before the hobbit could protest, a magical shockwave threw him through the air toward the hallway exit. A second later, Smaug's tail crushed the area where Bilbo had been seconds before with the force of an avalanche.
"Die!" Smaug roared, bathing the entire room in a tide of fire.
After the brutal impact, the hobbit scrambled to his feet, his vision blurred by the glare of a fire that had nearly consumed him. Looking into the room, he witnessed an unequal battle. Malenia lunged in a dance of steel against Smaug's impenetrable skin, now imbued by the malevolence of the splintered ring. Beside her, Miquella unleashed bursts of aquamarine projectiles and even cast magics so powerful the hobbit had never seen or imagined... but the effort was evident; his eyes, bloodshot, betrayed a great overexertion. His large-scale spells would have seriously wounded Smaug were it not for a terrifying detail: every time a blow, physical or magical, struck the beast, the cracks in the ring flared, reinforcing its defense to absurd levels.