‘Awakening Lith would be a terrible move since Night needs one hit to kill my Tiamat form. My best bet is to keep my human side on the back burner and bet everything on George’s recovery abilities.
‘I don’t need to win, only to buy time until my friends arrive. The guards saw Meln and at least one of them is bound to have sounded the alarm. Here goes everything.’
The Voidfeather Dragon left the Void in charge and transferred his consciousness in front of the door to limit the influx of lost souls invading his body. With the threat of Frost Soul negating his magic and without Lith’s military mind, there was only one possible path to survival.
The Voidfeather ignited a spark of his life force and threw it at the black goo seeping through the cracks in Lith’s life force.
Blue flames erupted from his body, consuming the torrent of raging souls and burning the Void Demon Dragon’s aura.
Derek activated the Voidwalker armor’s Full Guard enchantment, releasing a bright violet aura that expanded for 30 meters (100′) around him. It took the blue flames a split second to set it ablaze and turn Full Guard into a searing wave.
The world energy coming from the geyser was next, followed by everything in the enchantment’s area of effect. Full Guard burned. The Voidwalker armor burned. Everything burned.
“What’s with that face, Poopie? Don’t you know you can’t kill a boss monster that easily? You just unlocked my second phase!” Derek laughed, feeling the pain from the blue flames and embracing it with joy in exchange for its exhilarating power.
‘What’s a second phase?’ Night asked while activating Frost Soul again.
The bloodline ability was supposed to freeze the Full Guard and damage the Voidwalker armor but the blue flames protected it. The violet aura wasn’t just engulfed in fire, it was burning.
The heat and cold of the conflicting bloodline abilities were at an impasse, canceling each other.
‘How am I supposed to know?’ Orpal watched in anger at the crown on the Void Demon Dragon’s head, enraged at Lith for copying him and completing his crown first. ‘Let’s fight fire with fire!’
‘Excellent idea!’ Night’s beautiful face twisted into a feral smile as she activated Dusk’s crystal and ignited a full breath of Origin Flames in her lungs.
She hurled a jet stream of bright blue fire at Derek who replied in kind, the two Flames bore similar colors but they couldn’t have been more different.
‘This is my first time using a Dragon’s powers but I have to admit it’s really exciting. I can understand now why you were so jealous of-‘ Night’s train of thought derailed as the conflicting blue flames didn’t explode as she expected.
The torrent of fire coming from the Void Demon Dragon’s maw swallowed her Origin Flames, setting them ablaze like gasoline. The blue flames followed the stream of Origin Flames back into Horseman’s still-opened mouth and burned her inside out.
Night cut the Origin Flames just in time before the blue flames reached the black and red crystals. She released a pulse of pure darkness energy to smother the flames but it took fire as well.
Her equipment burned. Her flesh burned. Everything burned.
‘Fuck no!’ Meln saved Night and himself just in the nick of time by activating the Black Rose armor’s Blooming Shield enchantment.
It was akin to a Spirit Barrier but instead of forming a sphere of Spirit Magic, Blooming Shield generated an emerald construct comprised of petals-like plates. This way, cracking one of the plates didn’t destabilize the rest of the barrier.
When a petal was destroyed, it would detach from the barrier and another one would grow and replace it. By shedding the damaged plates, the damage wasn’t carried over to the rest of the barrier, lessening the strain on the Black Rose armor’s power core.
Blooming Shield took the blue flames off Night and detached the external petals as soon as they took fire to keep the blue flames from spreading.
The Void Demon Dragon roared in fury and hurled a second blast of blue flames.
This time Night Blinked away, the power of Moonlight brought her at a safe distance and fueled the Blooming Shield until the fire on her body was put out.
‘Okay, Frost Soul and Origin Flames are useless against that thing. Let’s see-‘
‘Behind you!’ Orpal cut her short while pointing at a Blink’s exit point that was about to appear.
‘Is your brother insane? This is suicidal!’ Night activated Thorn’s Wailing Wind enchantment while also readying another Doom Tide and preparing her best Spirit Spells.
The answer caught her like a speeding train.
The Void Demon Dragon emerged from the Blink at a break-neck speed and engulfed in blue flames. He tried to block Thorn with Ragnarök by exploiting his superior mass but the skill gap with Night was too big.
She twisted her wrist in a quick spiral, deflecting the bastard sword and hitting her target in one fluid motion. The spear pierced through the Dragon’s chest and released the Wailing Wail inside his body, blowing his right shoulder and arm away.
Yet it wasn’t enough to alter the course of the Void Demon Dragon.
The mass gap between the two allowed Derek to take the blow and return it with a left shoulder charge. The blue flames engulfed the Blooming Shield while the impact threw the Horseman off her saddle and broke every bone in her body.
Black crystals immediately germinated in the fractures to mend the damage and allow the Horseman to move.
“Get off me, you bastard!” Night shortened Thorn’s haft until it wasn’t bigger than a short sword, stabbing at the Void Demon Dragon’s alleged vitals.
“No.” As Derek exhaled to speak, a new blast of blue flames erupted from his body.
It burned the emerald petals faster than the Black Rose armor could conjure new ones, setting the Horseman ablaze.
Night screamed as a pain she had never experienced before ravaged her body. She had been hurt countless times in the past and burned by more Origin Flames than a block of Davross but none of that had prepared her for the blue flames.
They didn’t just burn like fire. They broke down her skin into carbon and hydrogen, taking her apart on a molecular level. Pressure and heat turned the carbon into coal which burned as well as the hydrogen.
The same was happening to her Black Rose armor and Thorn spear, the enchanted metal wasn’t heated but vaporized. The atoms vibrated too strongly to establish a bond between them and started to drift apart.
The enchantments of the Horseman’s equipment were losing cohesion as well, the single runes broken down in too many pieces to hold their power together.
Night stabbed as fast and hard as she could while the Void Demon Dragon shielded himself with his wings and used his remaining arm to hold the Horseman tight. They crashed on the ground like a meteor, turning an entire city block of Zeska into a glass crater.
Night cushioned the Dragon’s fall with her body and spat out a mouthful of blood from the impact.
