Irene's eyes didn't change one bit. not even a flicker of her eyes, almost like this didn't mean much.
She stood in the middle of a world that wouldn't normally exist, one that shouldn't have come to be, molten ground beneath her feet, white fire clung, stretching itself, as far as the eye could see. Every direction was littered with flames of white.
The heat started pressing against her from all angles, almost like the air itself had become a wall. It was hard to move.
Then the temperature dropped.
not gradually. but instantly.
like someone had reached into the reality marble, and turned a dial.
I stared at her.
She stared back.
The white fire around us didn't go out. It just stopped moving.
"What idiot raised you to be this dumb?"
I replayed those words inside my head as I thought them over and examined them from multiple angles.
"....That's a genuinely good question."
I said it out loud without even meaning to.
But Irene's eyes didn't change, still as flat as they could be. They were empty, a dark wine-stare that looked at me the same, as if you would look at a wall that you intended to knock down.
The frost that had started at her feet kept spreading.
It was slow and patient. like it had all the time in the world. to settle in my reality marble.
but. i wasnt going to let it slide.
"Hey, that's not fun. Why are you ruining my space, like that, inviting those pests?"
Her magic, for some reason, invoked the fearies. They attached themself's to her ice, it was irritating to deal with the cry's they made when she attacked.
'They were utterly annoying.'
[Ding]
[You have activated, Scorched Earth.]
[ding]
[As you are inside of your own mental space, Scorched Earth has been made into Scorched Domain.]
The molten ground started to spew lava, like it was a waterfall, falling into a lake. It was almost endless.
SKRR!!
the fearies screamed.
not the cute kind of scream.
that came from something small being told firmly that it wasnt welcomed here.
They detached themselves from the ice, in a frenzy, dozens of tiny lights scattering upward like sparks of an anvil, their cries, high picteched ecohed out.
grr!.
The lava didn't pour slowly.
as it erupted. columns of it punched upwards, through the molten ground, it exploded upward, in every direction it spilled, reclaiming the heat that existed before the ice invaded this home of its. It began to flow, even more brightly.
The ice that had spread across the ground hissed,
Then it was gone.
[Ding!]
[Fairy's Whisper has detected residual Fae energy in the vicinity.]
[Note: The faeries were not hostile. They were drawn to the Dragon Slayer's cold as a habitat.]
[They have relocated outside the Reality Marble. They seem irritated.]
Huh.
So they weren't attacking. Just... nesting. Like pigeons in a subway station.
I processed that information for exactly half a second.
Which was half a second too long.
Clang!!
The blade caught my forearm.
Not a graze. It wasn't a warning swing. It wasn't the faint I was expecting.
It was a full hit.
My arm hit the ground before I registered the pain. It was severed clean, bones scattered across the molten stone like picked-clean chicken wings. Fire exploded from the wound. Blood gushed out like a fountain, spraying across the white flames, sizzling where it landed.
Ah.
I looked at my empty shoulder. Then at my arm on the ground. Then back to Irene.
Her eyes still hadn't changed.
"I thought I aimed at the neck."
Her voice came out flat, clinical. Like she was reviewing security footage.
"Well, an arm will do."
Just a clear observation. There was no satisfaction. No disappointment. Just... an assessment.
The blood kept pumping from my shoulder. Bright red against the white fire. It pooled on the molten ground, sizzling, steaming, but didn't stop. My heart was doing its job too well.
Right. Heart's still beating. That's going to be a problem in about sixty seconds.
Was it time to get serious? In this moment, surely right.
I guess the arm was the indication, i couldnt treat her like that little girl I once saw, at least not anymore.
I started to transform, and the scales came first. the deep red black repeating across my skin, that had never been the right size for what had lived underneath it, the colour of dried blood.
The claws found the ground.
each one splitting the molten earth where it landed, deep furrows that radiated outwards from the points of impact, lava spilled out.
The horns rose, as big as a mountain, wrapping around his head like a crown upon a king. They sat.
As the wings spread, out, they were vast, midnight dark, and vast the membrane caught the domain's heat as they strechted pushing the burning horizon backward another thirty meters.
The white fire gathered at the throat, behind the jaw.
It started to spew inwards, gathered towards the maw, as I gathered more and more mana. I decided to unleash it.
[You have used the skill: Inferno Breath]
The white fire didn't just pour out. It detonated like a bomb, 45 meters wide, 20 meters deep.
a cone of white hot annihilation that turned the air itself into a blaze, it had no longer, had a word for what it was becoming, the reality marble boosted the output of the fire, the atmosphere bended around the fire, lightning crackled around it, but it moved faster than one could see.
BOOOOM!!!
The sound arrived after the light of white.
the shockwaved arived after sound.
The lava columns nearest to the release point didn't melt, they ceased to exist, in one moment they were presenet nesxt momment, they were only a concept, only white fire eating through the molten ground.
the Reaility marble almost crumbled.
I watched as the fire travelled. I watched as it crossed the twenty meters between us in the time it took to blink. I exhaled, and in that single second, a single thought came into my mind.
Did she move?
She had
when?
i didnt even know when, one moment she was standing at the end of the cone, directly in the path of scorched earth.
But in the next moment, she wasn't there.
The white fire hit the reality marble's edge.
The edge absorbed it.
The reality marble shuddered like something that had taken a hit. it wasnt meant to survive constant damage to the edges of the marble.
But I turned. Slowly.
The way you turn when something deep in your chest has already understood what the turning will show you.
There she was.
behind me.
two meters apart, both her enchants running across her sword, illuminating it like a candle in the dark.
She had used the light and sound of the shockwaves I created after I unleashed inferno breath. They were the largest attacks I've ever done, and she had used them as a cover.
used the light and sound, of the single largest thing, I had put into this fight as the distraction, she needed to close the distance, and with that, she got behind me, she got inside the one angle that one should never give, the one angle they could never cover.
my behind.
Swish!!!.
My tail crackled, like a whip. There was no thought behind it, just pure instinct, as it caught her mid-lunge.
Crack!!
The impact was immediate.
My tail caught her ribs, not a Shallow blow, it was a direct hit that sent her body spinning sideways, through the air, like a rag doll.
She rotated three times, maybe four.
her body carved through the white flames that lined the reality marble's interior. Each rotation, sending ripples throughout the fire, distorting it like still water.
Then she hit the ground.
SLAM!!!
The molten earth cracked upon the impact, lava spewed upwards into a perfect circle, as someone had just done a cannonball into a pool, her body skipped once, twice.
Thud!! Thud!! Thud!!
Each Bounce carved a new Trench into the Molten Ground.
She had finally stopped moving.
As I watched.
i Waited.
and waited.
and waited.
my servered arm, still lying on the ground, pouring out red liquid. The regerneration, hadnt kicked in yet, it would, but not immediately. That's how [Self-Replenishment] worked. It prioritized keeping me alive first, before anything else.
losing an arm. Wasnt fatal.
So it could wait.
Irene's cold body lay still in the crater that she had created.
She was too still.
'Was she dead?'