The wait felt like almost an eternity. The dragon tossed and turned like a colicky child. Every awkward movement sent a wave of pain through its scorched paw. This process was accompanied by sighs and hoarse groans of such force that it seemed the cave would crumble from the pressure. Then, a new attempt to sink into sleep. And so it went, over and over again.
Saigo's patience was dwindling faster than the dragon's flesh was regenerating. He was ready to leap at that carcass with his bare hands... Time was not on his side, but his innate caution kept him from acting recklessly.
Finally, after three hours, a long-awaited silence fell. The monster's breathing evened out, becoming deep and steady. The beast splayed on its belly, throwing its injured paw to the side. On the charred meat, pinkish threads of new tissue were already stirring, pulsating with a sickly black light.
Time.
The Black Clone Brooch appeared in his palm. His fingers trembled—not from fear, but from adrenaline and the understanding that there was no turning back. A soft click of a mental command…
Sh-sh-sh… Thick, ashen smoke poured from the brooch. It swirled at Saigo's feet, thickening, taking form. A few seconds later, his exact double stepped out of the mist—with an empty gaze, ready to execute any order.
Without losing a fraction of a second, Saigo handed the clone a vial of "Thousand-Flower Poison." The glass felt icy even through his glove, rattling his nerves.
"Pour this into the wound on its paw," he whispered. The clone nodded, turned, and dissolved into the shadows, leaping over a boulder with cat-like ease.
Awake... finally, I was getting tired of waiting. The thought flashed through the dragon's consciousness as it sensed movement. A quiet delight flooded it. He's coming! With an effort of will, it suppressed a tremble in its wings and a smirk ready to spread across its beak. Patience, old boy. Patience…
The invisible clone closed the distance in an instant. Like a ghostly shadow, it pressed against the bloody, sizzling flesh of the dragon's paw. The vial's cork fell silently onto the stone…
BOOM!
Not waiting for the poison to make contact, the dragon surged upward. A huge eye flew open, full of gloating triumph. Its paw, defying the pain, jerked upward—not a strike, but a solid kick, as if swatting a pesky dog.
The clone flew into the air, dropping the vial, but while still airborne, its body cracked. A blinding, white-blue light gushed from within, the contours of its body coming apart at the seams—dozens, thousands of fissures…
K-RA-BOOM!
A small sun was born in the bowels of the cave only to die out. The blinding flash wounded retinas, turning shadow into noon. A shockwave, hot and dense, rolled over the stones, stripping away layers of ancient dust.
GRAAA-A-A-A!!!
The dragon's cry was a long-awaited signal for Saigo, the signal for his hunt to begin.
Exhaling deeply, he burst forward, blade held ready, thirsting for dragon's blood. The saber already whistled through the air, emptied by the explosion. Saigo saw his target—the single eye that seemed to beg for a good, hard hit.
The blade gleamed in his hand. While he's distracted… this is my chance. Blinding it would automatically make Saigo the winner of a fight that had barely even begun.
A green orb of poison shot from the blade, piercing the air with a whistle. It crossed half the cave in an instant.
But the target... was never found. Saigo hit the wing membrane. The thin tissue strained and cracked, melting and dripping onto the ground in a maroon slurry. The smell of burnt flesh and sulfur hit his nose with an unbearable stench.
"Vile... WORM!" The dragon's roar shook the rocks. Its pupil narrowed into a crimson slit, and its fury materialized into the world as a wall of flame—tall, destructive, it rolled across the floor, devouring everything in its path.
Saigo dove into the nearest hollow. The wave of fire roared over his head, scorching his back; fortunately, his mantle held.
His eyes immediately shot upward—to the stalactite fangs of the ceiling. His fingers clenched two stones until they cracked.
CLACK! CLACK!
The projectiles flew not at the dragon—the target was different, the base of the most massive stalagmites above its head. The stone cracked, and the ancient ceiling collapsed.
BOOM! BOOM! Boulders the size of wagons whistled down onto the dais, intending to put an end to this story.
The dragon jerked aside like a scalded cat. "I'll kill you!" it screeched. "I'll roast you! I'll tear you to pieces! Slowly, with creativity!" Rage clouded its mind for just a second, and as it returned to the real world, it realized it had lost its target.
Where is he?!
SWOOSH!
Saigo dove from the ceiling like a shadow. One movement—calculated, economical, and precise.
Sh-sh-shrip!
With a crunch, the wing—huge, leathery—separated from the body and slapped onto the stones, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Now you definitely won't fly," the statement was cold and precise.
He didn't even have time to land properly before a Sixth Sense clawed at his brain: "RUN!" He jerked sideways.
THUUUM!
A tail studded with spikes drove into his landing spot, creating a small crater; sharp stone fragments whistled past his temple.
"Another lunge." Saigo found himself under the dragon, in the dead zone between its legs. A smile touched his lips. The belly is soft, unscaled, pulsing with veins. The books didn't lie… The blade was already raised for an upward strike—to tear open.
BAM!
But this dragon wouldn't have been a nightmare for entire countries if it fell so easily. It reared up like a racehorse and spun in place with monstrous speed.
The centrifugal force of the air stream threw Saigo aside like a splinter. His body hit a rock, tumbled over rubble, scraping skin from flesh. Pain shot through his side, from which the first blood was already showing.
Stop! His will clenched his muscles into a knot, and his arm seemed to grab onto an uneven outcrop on its own, tearing it out and stopping his body. Barely jumping to his feet—his other hand was already throwing a smoke bomb.
FWOOSH! Thick, acrid white smoke exploded in a wall, cutting off visibility.
"Fight fair, creature!" the dragon growled through a cough. Its single eye flared like an icy diamond. The floor beneath Saigo hissed. A white edge of ice crept from the monster's paws. It grew, thickened, turning into a meter-thick shell of ice in seconds, hissing with frigid vapor.
"DIE!" The icy shell exploded from within, and millions of ice needles, sharp as razors, an elbow's length, shot upward with monstrous speed. An infernal reverse blizzard, covering the entire cave with no chance for cover.
Saigo was still in the air. His body, pushing off from stone to stone, ricocheted like a skipping stone over a river's surface, dodging the icy hell below. But when millions of spikes shot upward, he was unprepared…
His reflexes worked to the breaking point. The blade became a silver whirlwind.
VZZZ-ZZZHUH! The steel hummed, shattering the ice daggers into glittering dust that fell on him like a deadly, sparkling rain. The cold pierced his clothing to the bone.
"Got you!" growled the dragon. Above its horned head, like a drop of ink in water, a point of darkness pulsed. It grew at a frightening speed—from a pea to the size of a person in an instant—and, having gathered the necessary mass, shot into flight.
A lethal clot of pure negativity, carrying the smell of decay and emptiness, desired a meeting with the peace disturber.
There's not much maneuvering to be done in flight, but Saigo was ready for this too. An icy shiver ran down his spine—an instinctive warning. If he was even a moment late, nothing would remain of him, not even a wet spot.
His left hand with the "Abyss Ring" shot forward. The artifact roared, a black vortex swirling before it in a drawn-out dance.
The projectile of darkness flew into it—and disappeared without a trace. Swallowed, like a merchant ship caught in a whirlpool is swallowed by the sea.
Stabilizing his flight, Saigo turned the ring. It blazed with black fire, overflowing with absorbed energy.
BA-BOOM!
The recoil hit like a bull's jerk. It threw him backward, slamming him into the rock wall with monstrous force. The stone cracked, accepting his body thirty centimeters deep. Pain exploded in his chest, knocking the air from his lungs.
Ex shi lt— the dragon only managed to exhale the beginning of a defensive spell. Its barrier anti-magic—not yet charged with magical energy—a weak, trembling film—flared and shattered like glass under a hammer.
The weakened but still monstrous beam of the Abyss, lacking focus but filled with pure force, hit it square in the chest.
TR-R-RAAAKHH!
It wasn't the sound of a tear, but the crash of a titan's bones breaking. The shockwave. If the beam had retained its penetrating power, only ash would have remained of the dragon.
But all the residual force was enough to do was break its ribs, crush part of its scales, and tear out a chunk of flesh. The monster crashed onto its back like a felled oak, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris.
Saigo, wrenching himself from the stone embrace of the wall with a wheeze, quickly felt his chest. The pain was familiar and incredibly sharp.
Three ribs and the liver, he summarized. A salty lump of blood rose in his throat. He spat, looking at the defeated but still living dragon.
A cynical thought slipped through the pain: I've had worse. But damn, today is clearly not my day.