RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
The 49th floor creaked and groaned from the devastating aftermath of Draco's failed attack. High above, a jagged chasm cut through the stone ceiling like a raw wound, exposing the floors above.
Draco, still reeling from the violent recoil of his own spell, groaned as he shook his massive head.
He tried desperately to clear the pounding pain and the creeping, heavy lethargy of the expenditure.
He had invested a colossal chunk of his mind reserves into that single, catastrophic strike…...and it had failed.
Thwarted at the last minute by Alfia's infuriating single chant spell.
Hiss…
Whoosh!
Taking several heavy steps back, Draco flared his nostrils, a hot plume of superheated steam escaping into the thin, scorched air.
Then, he locked eyes with Alfia, and a volatile cocktail of emotions flooded his thoughts.
Draco was furious.
He had just wasted a massive chunk of his energy, only to achieve a result that drastically reduced his chances of emerging victorious.
He was angry at his own lack of foresight...how had he fallen so easily for Alfia's deception? But above all, a white-hot rage flared at the sheer indifference that marred her expression.
It felt as though, she was mocking him.
Yet, beneath the anger, a cold sliver of surprise lingered at the lethality of his supercharged breath attack.
He hadn't expected it to be that powerful.
Though he couldn't see the full extent of the damage, from what was visible, the beam had easily pierced through several floors above them.
Still, the flaws of the magic were glaringly obvious.
The buildup was agonizingly long, and the consumption was astronomical.
Draco doubted Alfia would ever grant him the luxury of time for such a wind-up again.
And even if she did manage to slip up…..was he truly willing to drain his already depleted mind reserves to forge another attack of equal lethality?
The answer was a reluctant yes, but first, an opening had to be created.
CRACK!
SIZZLE!
From the hole blasted in the ceiling, molten magma streamed down like a glowing, viscous waterfall.
It pooled violently across the stone floor, hissing and churning as it formed a bubbling lake of fire between them.
Thick, toxic fumes spewed from the molten rock, accompanied by an oppressive, searing heat that saturated the entire room.
The floor beneath them creaked and groaned from structural instability.
In the corners of the room, newly spawned Fomoires shrieked in sudden agony, dissolving into black mist as they were instantly assaulted by the hazardous, hellish environment upon their very birth.
Draco knew he couldn't afford to wallow in frustration.
Survival demanded adaptation, and a new path to victory had already crystallized within his mind.
FWOOSH!
Releasing the wind dragon spirit transformation, Draco allowed the rushing gales around him to die down.
In its place, he summoned a far more volatile, destructive essence: the fire dragon spirit transformation.
As long as Alfia didn't reactivate her magic-negating armor, there was a high probability that his new plan would succeed.
Furthermore, the ambient heat of the fire element was an absolute necessity for the initial stages of his strategy to take root.
CRACKLE!
With a blinding flash of crimson light, Draco's transformation took hold.
His scales, eyes, horns, and hardened hide morphed into a brilliant, crimson sheen.
Wild tongues of fire danced hungrily along his armor-like scales, spilling out from his flaring nostrils with every breath.
The temperature in the room skyrocketed, bending the light around him.
..............................
To Draco's eyes, Alfia stood frozen in a posture of chilling, immaculate indifference.
Her expression was a blank slate of porcelain, masking whatever thoughts churned beneath the surface.
Clang.
Internally, however, Alfia was incandescently fuming.
The cold realization gripped her heart with a frosty talon: If I had acted even a single second later, that monstrosity's attack would have killed me.
It was a sensation she loathed.
Fear....
It was an ugly, ancient emotion, one she had felt only a handful of times in her short, agonizing lifetime...and one particular instance vividly stuck out, dragging her down into the abysmal, lightless depths of despair.
A memory seared into her soul, whispering endlessly of the utter futility of life.
The One-Eyed Black Dragon.
Though biologically and categorically unrelated, the towering, scaled terror of the beast standing before her began to warp in her mind's eye.
The overlapping images blurred together.... Draco's draconic visage superimposing over the apocalyptic scaled horror of her past.
A burning, volcanic surge of absolute rage exploded in her chest.
Whoosh.
A sudden, suffocating wave of concentrated killing intent flooded the room, sending a visceral, ice-cold shiver straight down Draco's spine.
Alfia's ghost-white skin began to wriggle grotesquely, shifting into a sickening, bruised shade of darker grey.
Most alarmingly, her hands turned pitch black, warped by the creeping taint of corruption.
Deep within her psyche, the corrupted spirit purred with dark delight, reveling in her descent. Alfia was finally opening the floodgates to its gifts.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
Seeing the sudden, terrifying metamorphosis, Draco didn't hesitate.
He immediately funneled mind into his Magic Skin skill, a desperate pre-emptive measure.
It was deeply unnerving to watch her serene, porcelain mask twist instantly into a snarl of bottomless, lifelong hatred…...the kind reserved solely for an unmitigated nemesis.
Draco didn't understand the sudden trigger, but instinct screamed a singular warning: The difficulty just spiked.
And as if on cue, the storm broke.
Swish!
In the blink of an eye, Alfia vanished.
Draco's enhanced vision caught only a blur of afterimages, but it didn't matter.
Without her magic-negating armor, Alfia was burning like a beacon in the night.
The sheer potency of her magic radiated outward, turning her movements into a luminous, chaotic trail.
As long as he could sense it, he could track her location.
"There!" Draco's voice boomed like rolling thunder.
He whipped around, violently dropping his massive twenty-meter frame into a low, braced stance.
By compressing his posture, he instinctively minimized his blind spots, funneling any potential assault to his sides, his rear, or directly from above.
BOOM!
The strike landed from the heavens.
A crushing, catastrophic weight slammed into his back with the kinetic force of a falling meteor. Draco's ribs shrieked in protest, pressing heavily against the unforgiving stone floor as a massive spider web of cracks formed a deep crater beneath him.
Alfia had funneled a terrifying quantity of mind into the blow, determined to crack his defenses wide open.
Yet, thanks to his reinforced Magic Skin absorbing the brunt of the kinetic impact, Draco held.
The moment the crushing pressure dissipated, Draco flexed every muscle in his massive frame, launching himself backward.
His scaled, twenty-meter body vaulted gracefully through the smoky air.
BOOM!
SPLAT!
His gargantuan weight impacted the molten surface behind him with a thunderous slap, sending a blinding spray of red-hot fireworks in every direction.
Hisssss….
This was precisely what Draco had planned.
The searing, volatile expanse of the lava pool would act as a natural barrier, ensuring Alfia couldn't simply close the distance with impunity.
As long as he kept the magma churning, hot, and thick enough, it would swell outward, expanding past a thirty-meter radius...effectively bypassing the range of her directionless sound magic.
It was a tactical retreat that served a dual purpose: a clever exploitation of his fire dragon spirit transformation, and, most importantly, buying himself precious seconds to chant.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Draco prepared to unleash his only Falna magic.
'Ring of Pain'
It was a high-tier domain-type magic that warped the surrounding atmosphere.
For allies, it offered a litany of empowering boons; for enemies, a suffocating cocktail of negative status effects.
But in his current predicament, its most vital property was a particular effect: Within this domain, only elemental magic is permitted.
By default, this meant Alfia, a master of sound-based magic, would find her primary arsenal rendered functionally powerless.
Granted, "powerless" was a generous stretch against someone of her caliber; the spell's efficacy scaled inversely with the difference in stats between user and target.
Even so, it would suppress her sound magic enough to dull its edge.
Furthermore, the domain's radius and potency scaled directly with the amount of mind funneled into the casting process.
Draco harbored a wild, desperate ambition: he wanted to cover the entire floor.
It was a massive, high-stakes gamble.
But if it succeeded, it would forcefully strip away her ranged advantage, dragging her kicking and screaming into a brutal, close-quarters physical brawl.
And in a slugfest of raw muscle and durability, Draco possessed absolute confidence in his victory.
He could always rely on physical supremacy if his mind reserves ran dry.
If there was a fatal flaw to this master plan, it was the horrendously long chant time.
It was a vulnerability Alfia would ruthlessly exploit.
She would not simply stand by and watch.
Draco knew with absolute certainty that he was about to endure a savage, unmitigated beating.
'Act now' Draco resolved.
Acting swiftly on his calculations, Draco flared his magic, creating a bubble of fire that expanded outwards.
Crackling heat radiated outward, violently churning the magma and forcing the pool to expand until its glowing perimeter stretched a full thirty meters across.
True to form, Alfia didn't wait.
Whoosh...CRASH!
From the distance, she unleashed a rapid barrage of concentrated sound cannons.
Invisible shockwaves tore through the air, aimed squarely at his body with enough force to blast him right out of his molten sanctuary.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The concussive blasts hammered his scales, threatening to disrupt his equilibrium.
Yet, gritting his teeth through the agonizing vibrations, Draco stubbornly endured, refusing to yield an inch until the lava pool reached its desired, protective circumference.
"Why won't you just fall?!" Alfia's voice pierced the roaring heat, laced with a venomous frustration that echoed across the cavern.
Draco ignored her, shutting out the taunts entirely.
With the first phase of his plan locked in, a complex, luminescent magic circle flared to life beneath his massive feet.
It was an advantage granted by his Mage development ability, cleverly obscured from sight by the roiling, opaque surface of the lava pool below.
Alfia, scanning the battlefield from afar, remained utterly oblivious to the glowing runes taking shape beneath the fire.
Now came the most crucial, razor-thin edge of the blade: the incantation.
Once initiated, there was no turning back.
He could neither pause nor let his focus waver for even a microsecond.
A broken concentration meant a catastrophic magic backlash…...an implosion of uncontrolled energy that would likely tear him apart from the inside out.
Even so, Draco was a pragmatist.
Should that worst-case scenario play out, he had already formulated a contingency to weaponize the resulting explosion.
With a mental breath, he unsummoned his Fire Dragon Spirit transformation, reverting to his base form while simultaneously redirecting a small bit of mind into his Magic Skin.
He locked his crimson eyes on the distant figure of his tormentor, sharpening his concentration to a razor's edge.
Taking a deep, resolute breath, Draco opened his mouth, and the cavern trembled.
"Heed my call, elements that roam..."
Draco's voice echoed ominously through the cavern, a deep, resonant rumble that marked the point of no return.
It was an action far too conspicuous to miss.
Alfia's eyes snapped toward him, narrowing with lethal intent.
..............................…
Upon realizing that Draco was chanting, Alfia was a bit stunned.
This was different from the chantless magic he had been using so far, that much she could tell. And based on the destruction he had caused without using any chants, just what kind of power could a spell that he chanted unleash?
She could try interrupting the spell, but would her opponent not have considered such an obvious strategy?
Still, she had to try regardless.
If she couldn't stop him, her next choice was simple…
Moving in a flash to the edge of the lava pool, Alfia chanted, "Ataraxia."
It was an application of her magic, Silentium Eden, designed specifically to disrupt and fracture the chanting process of spell casters.
THRUM…
A wave of sound traveled through the air, not the brutal, destructive kind like 'Gospel' or its spell-key 'Lugio'...no, this had a much softer, penetrating effect, seeking out the rhythm of a mage's mind and shattering it.
However, Draco was prepared.
He knew of this spell.
Alfia had used it five years ago during the war, and he had thoroughly studied the intelligence reports regarding its debilitating effects.
Thanks to the passive defense of his magic skin and the armored thickness of his scales, Draco was able to grit his teeth, absorb the mental shockwave, and continue on with his chant.
Screeech—!
Seeing no obvious reaction to her disruption, Alfia escalated.
She launched several concentrated, destructive sound waves that crashed against him.
Draco had to tank the impacts with his physical body, his scales smoking and tearing under the pressure, but he didn't stop.
He pushed forward, his voice rising in cadence.
Then, there was only one thing left.
Alfia retreated several meters from the boiling lava pool, her footing light as a ghost, and opened her lips to chant.
"O cursed root of my blessing, my cursed birth. O sin of mine, my twinned half demise..."
Alfia began chanting, and Draco didn't fail to notice.
'Huh, has this woman lost it? There is no way she would finish chanting before me, unless…'
Draco's thoughts trailed off as he saw a ghostly silver bell manifesting over Alfia's head, radiating an ominous, oppressive aura.
This could only mean her chant was drastically shorter, or she possessed a terrifying shortcut to bypass the buildup phase.
But Draco believed it was the former.
Either way, he was way too deep into his own incantation now; neither of them could stop.
Even if he tried disrupting her and ate the agonizing backlash of canceling mid-way, Alfia knew concurrent chanting.
There was no point in trying to outmaneuver her that way.
He could only hope that his magic activated first, allowing him to sever her spell at the root.
Their overlapping chants echoed through the cavern, a symphony of destruction.
Magic built up around them like a pressure cooker, the air humming violently until it reached a fever pitch.
And the first to complete their magic chant was… Draco, crossing the finish line a mere few milliseconds before Alfia was done.
VOOM!
With his chant complete, a two-hundred-meter red magic dome enveloped the chamber. It was not nearly large enough to cover the entire 49th floor, but Alfia was within his domain.
Hsssss!
He could smell the searing scent of sizzling flesh…...a horrific perk of his domain, which he had imbued entirely with concentrated fire magic.
At the same time, Draco could feel Alfia's magic pressing against his senses.
Unfortunately, because he could sense her magic, Draco could also tell that it had almost reached its completion, too.
Just a fraction of a second more.
Negating that much magic in an absolute instant wasn't possible, but he had to try regardless.
He threw his remaining will outward, desperately attempting to disrupt her threshold.
And during the process of his interference, Alfia's magic lost its stability.... much to Draco's sheer horror.
His forced interference, clashing against a spell on the very verge of completion, created a volatile, unnatural anomaly.
As Alfia lost control of the spell, the floating silver bell didn't lash out at her in backlash. Instead, it behaved like a black hole, violently pulling in and pooling all the chaotic, residual magic lingering in the surrounding.
Of course, this terrifying vacuum included Draco's own freshly cast domain magic, too.
WAAAAH…..!
The silver bell swelled in size, deforming and stretching as it gorged on the conflicting energies. It didn't take a genius to tell what was going to happen next.
CRACKLE!
The compressed magic fractured with agonizing intensity, spinning completely out of control, a vortex of white-hot and crimson death.
And when it finally reached its absolute peak…
FLASH!
It erupted in a blinding, all-consuming flash of light that swallowed the cavern whole, erasing sight, sound, and reality in one cataclysmic roar.