The next twenty attempts ended the same way as the previous ones. Dod and Evangeline were either burned to a crisp or impaled by the dragon's claws.
Attempt #23
Dod and Evangeline scattered right at the start of the scene, hoping to confuse the monster. It was in vain; the dragon shook and flapped its wings. The entire cave began to shake, and huge chunks of rock impaled Dod and Evangeline. Time before death: 4 seconds.
Attempt #29
Changing strategy, using the fantasia stored from previous attempts, Evangeline cast a quick spell to distract the dragon while Dod hid. This tactic meant almost certain and instant death for Evangeline. The small fireball that the princess sent at the dragon was immediately returned to the sender. Evangeline was badly hurt but did not die instantly. The dragon let out a roar of immeasurable power, and Dod and Evangeline's eardrums burst before they lost consciousness. Eight seconds passed, and they were still not dead. In the ninth second, the dragon breathed fire that disintegrated their bodies in half a second. Time before death: 9.5 seconds.
"Damn! That was close this time!" exclaimed Dod. "Princess, let's do it again. Hold on a little longer, please. I'm almost done."
"What exactly are you almost done with?"
Dod approached her and held out his arm. The princess noticed that one of the eyes embedded in his forearm was now closed.
"Since my fight with the gargoyle, this eye has been closed, but that's not all. Now I can feel the fantasia in it. Give me time to enchant it, and by trial 40, I should be able to launch an ice attack that will partially immobilize it. Hopefully"
"What enchantment do you plan to use? I haven't taught you any enchantment formulas as far as I know."
"Well, I didn't use any against the gargoyle."
"What do you mean? You didn't chant anything, you mean?"
"Yeah, nothing at all. It was more like a feeling."
The princess frowned, both amazed and jealous of Dod.
20 SECONDS LEFT
"I'm willing to follow you, but remember what I told you about the barrier of imagination. If you go too far and break it again, I won't be able to save you. God knows what could happen to you."
"We don't really have a choice, princess, unless you can cast a spell more powerful than mine with the little time and fantasia you have left."
The scenes and trials followed one after another, and both stuck to the plan they had laid out. Death after death, they saw their chances of survival dwindling. Dying so many times left scars that neither Evangeline nor Dod could have predicted. Now, when they were sent back to the first floor between scenes, not a single word was spoken. Dod didn't have the strength; all his attention was focused on his fantasia. After each death, he worked hard to feel that sensation, the one he had felt during his fight with the gargoyle. If only, for a moment, he could reproduce that feeling, then maybe...
One attempt after another, he found himself with less and less time. It was almost an impossible task in his eyes. Converging his fantasia was not the problem; moving from the imaginary to the real was what blocked him. Now that he was aware of it, this barrier became insurmountable.
"It's a normal reaction," Evangeline said wearily.
She had already seemed weakened after several attempts. Her gaze was becoming increasingly vacant, as were her reserves of fantasia.
"As I explained to you, you've already broken through the barrier of imagination. Your body is fighting to prevent it from happening again. Think of it as a defense mechanism. From now on, enchanting even the smallest thing will be at least three times more difficult for you."
Dod didn't reply. He already knew the answer to his questions; his futile attempts had already told him.
Attempt #43
"Princess, I don't think I have a choice... I'm going to have to force it open. One of us has to survive, at least that, otherwise it will have been in vain."
Evangeline suddenly moved closer to Dod and punched him hard in the chest. His fantastic mist came to him for a moment before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.
"You're not going to start acting suicidal again. There must be another solution! Think!"
40 SECONDS LEFT
Dod remained silent.
"Answer me! Say something!" Evangeline cried, pounding her fists against Dod's chest.
"Princess," Dod replied calmly, "you're going to survive, I promise you. And...and if you manage to reach Danaël...tell him that..."
"Tell him yourself!"
"Tell him I'm sorry, I couldn't keep our promise."
A tear rolled down Dod Allentown's cheek. After dying 42 times, he didn't expect to be so terrified of death.
The princess stopped hitting him and gently rested her head against the young boy's chest. She, too, was crying; her sobs interrupted by incessant sniffles, as incessant as the tears streaming down her cheeks.
10 SECONDS LEFT
"For what it's worth, I wanted to apologize to you, too, Princess Evangeline," Dod continued, his voice slightly broken. "We should never have tried to steal that stupid cart...and one last thing, I think that all things considered, it was nice to meet you."
BEGINNING OF THE SCENE
1s
Dod pushed the princess away from him. She landed with a thud in a pile of gold coins nearby.
2s
The dragon sprang into action, killing the princess instantly. Dod found himself alone against the monster. His fantastic eye, which had been dormant until then, opened again.
3s
Dod had to get moving. The fantasia was coming to him more and more, but he needed at least two more seconds.
4s
In a rage, the dragon breathed its devastating flames across the entire surface of the cave. The scene continued, and Dod Allentown was nowhere to be found.
5s
Half of Dod's face was charred, and the rest of his clothes barely clung to his tattered skin. Clinging to the dragon's tail, he had just gained precious seconds.
6s
His hands, right down to his fingertips, were embedded in the dragon's stiff, cracked skin as it thrashed its tail in all directions to shake off the boy.
7s
Dod let go and was thrown into the air. As he levitated, he found himself face to face with the dragon, which opened its mouth wide enough to crack its jaw. At the back of its mouth, an enormous amount of fantasia was preparing to be released onto Dod.
7.5s
Dod crossed his fingers before joining his hands together as if he were about to say a final prayer. However, instead of bringing his hands back to his heart, he stretched them out toward the dragon. White smoke escaped from his hands, and ice in the form of frost gradually spread across his forearms.
8s
Dod concentrated all of his fantasia at the tips of his hands. BOOM! The wave of ice burst from his hands with a sound almost like a cannon. At the same moment, the dragon roared its fantastic attack, letting out a noise even more deafening than Dod's.
9s
The thermal shock was such that young Dod was thrown to the ground in accelerated time, much faster than his simple free fall would have brought him. The walls of the cave shook, and huge masses of rock exploded from the ceiling before crashing into the mountains of gold coins.
10s
Dod had lost consciousness; half his face torn away, his left arm missing. His body lay slumped on a mountain of gold coins several meters high. His blood dripped onto the coins, trickling slowly toward the ground like a small stream. Despite everything, a faint sound emanated from his body, coming from the hollow of his chest, faint but distinct: a heartbeat.
END OF SCENE
Evangeline suddenly opened her eyes, buried under a mountain of gold coins, and struggled until she found solid ground. Evangeline coughed repeatedly, filled with pain, and with a muffled cry, she finally spat out two gold coins that had been stuck in her throat. She staggered her feet, far from having all her strength back, but Evangeline noticed that all her wounds had disappeared. It also took her a few moments to realize that she had not been sent back to the first floor.
"He did it... He really did it!" She exclaimed.
Evangeline jumped for a moment. Looking up, the princess was stunned to see the dragon frozen like a statue by a force she could not explain. She quickly took cover, thinking she was witnessing the beginning of a new scene, before realizing that the dragon was indeed motionless. She let out a slight sigh of relief, placing her hand on her chest as if to check that her heart was still beating.
"Dod! Dod! Where are you?"
Evangeline made her way through the debris, waving her arm to clear the dust from her eyes that had been kicked up by the huge rocks smashed against the cave floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dod slumped over a mountain of gold coins. Evangeline nearly slipped on several gold coins as she rushed toward him. She scanned Dod Allentown's body and confirmed that his wounds had also disappeared. However, the boy had not woken up.
Evangeline was not surprised. With a tense expression, she rolled up what was left of her sleeves before breathing, drop by drop, a little of her fantasia into him, the little she could afford to share given her condition. The princess closed her eyes and began to pray in silence for several long minutes.
The silence was broken when an object fell from the cave ceiling, its fall muffled by a pile of gold coins. Evangeline remained calm, first making sure that the dragon was still frozen above. It was.
The mass that had fallen from the ceiling began to move. It was a person, barely able to stand, and covered entirely in blood. Whether it was his own or not, Evangeline had no idea. She was sure of one thing, however: she recognized him.
"Danaël!"