Blood, thick and dark as tar, flooded the monster's single burning eye. Every scale on its colossal body, from the jagged tip of its tail to the twisted horns on its skull, radiated one unbearable desire—to kill.
Struggling to its feet, the dragon almost immediately collapsed onto its side. And as if in mockery, a new attack from the enemy plunged into its torso, right above its already mangled leg.
Pain flared in a double hell. Its single eye darted frantically in the bloody sludge. Where? I'll crush him... Smear him... There he is! In the distance, weaving between the frost-covered craters of the frozen ground, was Saigo. He moved cautiously, almost silently, hoping to blend with the shadows.
The air around the dragon suddenly thickened, darkened, taking on a strange, oily-black hue. It compressed, densifying, merging into massive, pulsating droplets of darkness.
They greedily consumed each other. A moment—and critical mass was achieved. Farewell! the dragon mentally exhaled. And a black rain—a stream of pure dark energy—crashed down on Saigo's position. He, to the dragon's surprise, remained suspiciously calm. And it was too late to run—the spell covered a huge area.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions of dark energy tore the earth apart. The dragon watched the hell it had created with wild joy and a sudden lightness in its soul. What a pity... And you started so well...
The realization came instantly, but all it managed was to turn its head slightly to the side.
SWOOSH!
A razor-sharp blade scratched the scales right by its neck—more insulting than lethal. It was Saigo!..
But how? flashed through its clouded consciousness. With the edge of its blood-filled eye, the dragon noticed the very crater—the place where the enemy should have vanished. It was empty.
An illusion! The most banal trick! For a moment, the dragon was stupefied by its own stupidity.
That moment was enough. Saigo, who had emerged like a demon from the underworld, was already working under its belly, trying to slit open the soft flesh.
The dragon resisted fiercely, pounding with its paws.
BOOM! – The first strike missed; Saigo ducked aside.
BAM! – The second whistled over his head.
WHOOSH! – A jet of fiery breath shot under its belly. Saigo didn't dodge! The flame burned his skin, scorched his clothes and armor, but he clenched his teeth, enduring the pain, and at that same moment drove his blade deep into the dragon's gut.
SWISH! SWISH!
Two long, ragged gashes gaped on its belly, cracking open, spewing intestines and streams of caustic, smoking acid.
"Graa... Des... pi... clone..." the dragon rasped, barely able to form words through the unbearable pain. Its silhouette blurred for a moment, became insubstantial, like a shadow.
And this shadow—a dark double—detached itself and leaped aside. Saigo sensed the threat and jerked back. Before him stood two dragons: the wounded, bleeding original and its absolute dark copy, oozing liquid darkness.
"Behold the power of the Dark Clone, worm! And die, finally!" the dragon's voice thundered.
"This is bad," Saigo growled, thinking frantically. "Have to improvise..."
He threw his head back sharply. His pupils dilated, filling the entire eyeball with blackness, and then... as if disappearing behind his eyelids, leaving only deathly white sclera.
VZZT!
He shot forward with inhuman speed, grabbing stones, debris—anything he could find on the way. The touch of his fingers made the objects flare up with blinding flame.
Unwilling to tempt fate, the dragon retreated behind its clone, beginning to chant a new spell. The dark double, however, rushed to meet Saigo, its maw wide open, baring curved black fangs.
"Too slow..." Saigo hissed. He jumped. High, about as high as ten cats, vaulting over the "meat grinder," and landed on the clone's back.
Bam… Bam… Bam…
Hundreds of ice spikes, forged by the dragon, were already flying toward him. Saigo punched at them, shattering the ice blocks into pieces with his bare hands. The clone beneath him writhed furiously, trying to throw its rider.
Waiting for the stream of icicles to end, Saigo slashed with all his might along the clone's spine. The artifact blade glowed red-hot, its edge began to melt, shining like a star; sufficiently heated, it sank to the hilt, cleaving the dark essence in two.
Graa... As a farewell, half of the clone managed to breathe a clot of pure, freezing darkness at him. But Saigo was already gone, moving faster than thought, faster than the dark flame.
"Got you!" the dragon shrieked. It drew a full breath of air, saturating the fire with magic to its limit. Its maw gaped open, its throat and palate smoked from the unbearable heat—the pain was irrelevant now; its survival was at stake.
Time was short. He was racing toward death, fleeing the black wave, honing the final steps in his mind.
Two fires—scarlet from the dragon and black from its now-dissolved clone—collided! They boiled like water in a searing cauldron, flowing in an avalanche of liquid shimmer, filling the world with blinding chaos.
When Saigo emerged from the epicenter, he was charred. His cloak and mantle were burned to cinders, leaving him in scorched, smoldering rags.
He shot back under the dragon's belly and, braking, splayed out in a jump, drawing a dozen heavy knives.
SWISH!
But his target was not the dragon. The knives, tearing through the air, flew to the farthest corners of the cave, embedding themselves in the rock with a loud clang. The space under and around the dragon began to shimmer with the splendor of mithril threads.
What? the dragon asked itself, trying to understand the opponent's maneuver. Its paw twitched and froze—something was in the way! It strained—pain shot through its leg.
In that moment, Saigo grabbed the first penetrating blade, and while the opponent was confused, drove it into the monster's leg.
At first—nothing. Then... the flesh under the scales swelled, boiled. The scales heated to red-hot, cracked, releasing tongues of crimson flame. The smell of fried flesh and charred bone filled the air.
The dragon immediately howled—no, roared so hard the cave walls shook. It could no longer feel its leg.
Not giving it time to recover, Saigo was at the second leg.
A strike!
The space around the knife became covered in frost. The leg was freezing from the inside—muscles, bones, turning into brittle ice at a terrifying speed. The dragon sagged.
Its two hind legs ceased to exist as part of its body altogether. In panic, it crashed down belly-first, hoping to crush its tormentor.
Saigo slipped out at the last moment, scratching the last healthy leg with his final knife.
Scratch! Graaa! The leg, like its whole body, shook in a horrifying rhythm. The pain was monstrous—as if it were being struck by eternal lightning from within. The flesh grew red-hot, emitting clouds of steam.
Deprived of support, the dragon crashed onto the stones. It lay, huge and helpless, like a giant lizard, looking down at its killer with ultimate horror. Its consciousness was already beginning to slowly drift away.
"Stop!" it wailed, already on the very brink of eternal darkness.