Kalis was giving up. He wasn't just admitting defeat—he was begging for mercy.
Animal fear, the very kind he, the City-Destroyer, the Slayer of the Dragon Clan, had sown for millennia, now bubbled in his own throat, sour and all-consuming.
"I SURRENDER!" a roar more like a shriek shook the cave debris. His eye, his only one, flooded with blood and terror, darted about wildly.
"What do you want?! Gold? Power? Might? I'll give it! All of it, in immeasurable amounts, as much as your hands can carry!" His scales, blackened by burns in places, cracked in others, convulsed on his side.
Saigo was silent. He stood at a distance, swaying. The smoldering wounds on his body were slowly knitting together under the effect of potions—visible muscles played under charred skin, bloody tears were filling with pink flesh.
He pushed off the rock and slowly, with a quiet crunch of his soles on the gravel, walked toward the dragon. With the clear intent to end this farce.
"No! Wait!" Kalis shook, his huge body, deprived of support, thrashed helplessly on the stones. "I will heal! I'll become your servant! Together we will conquer the world! I..." His voice broke into a rasp.
Saigo did not slow his pace. He didn't give a damn. Absolutely.
He took a few steps, gathering momentum. His shoulders straightened, his fists clenched—clad in meteorite gauntlets that glinted dully with stardust in the semi-darkness. The preparation for the final blow was complete. Everything was ready for the final chord.
"BLOODY MADMAN!" Kalis's scream was full of despair and fury. His single eye suddenly flared with a different color—bloody red was replaced by an icy, piercing blue. The air around the pupil froze, sparkling with microscopic crystals.
Saigo sensed the threat—not with his mind, but with his skin, by instinct. He jerked backward, almost falling.
VZZZOOOM!
Where he had stood a moment before, a wall of ice erupted from the stone floor with a monstrous crack and grind. Not just ice—a monolithic, dark blue block, pulsating with an inner light. It grew at a terrifying speed, relentlessly, crushing ancient stones, piercing the cave ceiling, collapsing tons of rock.
"You think you can hide from me?!" Saigo hissed through clenched teeth, blood bubbling in his veins.
The enemy's action demanded a countermeasure. He took a running start and slammed into the icy barrier in a leap. Not with his blade—with the knuckles of his right hand.
BOOOM!
The blow from the meteorite gauntlet left a deep web of cracks; the ice shuddered.
BAM! Another blow. Left.
BOOM! And right again.
Shards of ice, sharp as razors, flew in all directions, scratching his face, leaving bloody streaks on his already mutilated skin. The wall crumbled but did not fall.
On the other side, Kalis, barely breathing, was chanting. A deep, ancient rumble of words that froze the blood in one's veins filled the space.
His gaze, tired and full of pain, was fixed on a spot on the wall—where a bulge protruded from Saigo's blows.
Everything would be decided now. This trick was his last move. The last reserve of strength, allowing no room for error.
"Es... kanam... DUM!" he exhaled with a final effort, timing it for the moment Saigo broke through the last layer...
The world was consumed by Darkness.
Not mere darkness. Absolute, soundless, crushing nothingness. Kalis's field of vision shrank to a tiny, flickering point somewhere ahead.
Everything else—the wall, the cave, stones, dust, even the sound of his own breathing—vanished.
It all narrowed and stretched toward that point with an incomprehensible, monstrous force. Stone grated, crumbling into nothing. The ice wall was drawn into the black nothingness with a crunch, like water down a drain.
Dust swirled into this hellish vortex.
Half a minute lasted almost an eternity. Kalis felt himself being pulled into this void, felt reality tearing apart around him. He lay on the very edge of annihilation, praying for only one thing—that the attack would reach its target.
And the point... disappeared. The pressure vanished with it. Air filled the void with a resonant clap.
Before Kalis gaped a huge, perfectly smooth, semicircular void where his wall and part of the cave had been. He lay on the edge of this destruction, his huge body motionless, barely breathing.
Through the smoke and swirling dust, Saigo staggered out. His face was a solid bloody mask. He stopped before the defeated dragon.
"You... fought... worthy... human..." Kalis rasped, his voice holding a shadow of former greatness and... a strange respect.
"You too... lizard..." Saigo answered hoarsely, through broken teeth and a shattered jaw.
Those were the last words Kalis heard. The meteorite gauntlet whistled through the air.
CRUNCH!
A sharp, nightmarish blow to the base of the neck. Scales, bone—everything shattered. The huge head, deprived of support, crashed onto the stones with a dull thud. The gaze of the frozen blue eye dimmed.
"Heh..." Saigo tried to grin but only smeared the blood on his mutilated face. The dragon's last attack... It was beyond all praise.
Even for him, with his speed and experience, he had barely avoided being completely erased into oblivion. Thankfully, the real stone at the base of the cave wasn't as hard as the magical ice of the wall.
He had managed to create an illusion of his breakthrough, while he himself, leaving a clone to pound on the ice, had dug a tunnel under the floor at the last moment, burrowing deep into the rock.
But that black hole... He had only read about such spells in old myths and half-mad treatises and hadn't really believed it was possible.
His pupils, dilated by the hereditary technique of the Kotto clan, finally narrowed, returning his irises. And his strength left him completely. He collapsed onto his back beside the dragon's head, like a felled tree.
"I... already... exceeded my limit..." he whispered into the void. Consciousness left him, carrying him into a bottomless, cold kingdom of eternal darkness, where there was no pain, no ice, no fire. Only silence.
...
Linsi sat at a massive oak table, heavily pushing away an empty plate. The servant who had served the late dinner—juicy roast beef, braised vegetables, and thick gravy—murmured cautiously:
"He's taking a long time in there, isn't he...?" Doubt laced his voice.
Linsi, who usually attacked food with the appetite of a hungry wolf, only grunted this time. The fork with a piece of meat froze halfway to his mouth. He was deep in thought, staring into the dark wine in his glass.
The servant was right. It had been over eighteen hours since they'd parted ways with that kid at the foot of the Black Mountain. Not a word, not a sign.
"Did he die?" It was hard to believe. Linsi knew firsthand what assassins from the Kotto clan were capable of. The image rose before his eyes, as if it were yesterday: his then-partner, an experienced fighter to boot, being literally disassembled into meaty parts right before his eyes.
Cold, methodical cruelty was their signature style. A fine shiver ran down his spine from the flood of memories, making him swallow a lump in his throat.
"No," he exhaled sharply, as if shooing away the vision. "The kid's fine. I'm just psyching myself out."
But the voice of his subconscious was relentless, and its argument was simple as a club to the head: "Kalis. That's what the monster called itself. One of the most dangerous monsters on the continent. Well, it was definitely in the top ten. And the mercenary's death was the most likely, almost inevitable outcome."
"Damn," Linsi whispered, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"I already paid half my fortune... Though..." The thought of the Kotto clan brought icy comfort.
"The clan always finishes its business. But that won't make me feel any better... The moment is basically lost... Fine!" He slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes rattle.
"What's the use of whining? Money? I'll earn more! And the kid..." He mentally calculated the time left on the "identity mask." "...has about five hours left."
Saying this to himself like a mantra, Linsi greedily grabbed a fatty chicken leg and sank his teeth into it, trying to drown the anxiety with the coarse taste of meat and fat.
...
Mari sat by the tall window of her chamber, hugging her knees. It had long been dark outside. Her husband had left a couple of days ago—on another mission, as always. And, as always, not a word.
But for some reason, this time, anxiety gripped her heart like a steel band, and ice water, not blood, ran through her veins. The lack of any information was infuriating, making every breath ragged. She peered into the darkness, as if she could make out even a shadow of his figure there.
She was pulled from her grim thoughts, which were getting darker by the minute, only by a bright flash: a falling star streaked across the sky, leaving a sparkling trail behind. Mari froze.
"In the empire, they say: make a wish on a falling star—and it will come true." She clenched her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms.
"Then let my husband return!" she whispered passionately, almost pleadingly. "Home. Safe and sound."
The star disappeared behind the dark spike of distant roofs, taking only a part of the girl's anxiety with it. She exhaled nervously, stood up, feeling her legs stiff from sitting so long, and slowly trudged to her quarters.
The shadow of the departed star had, at least a little, calmed her restless soul.
...
Katarina reclined on her huge bed—a truly royal structure, large enough to fit a small squad of men-at-arms.
The silk sheets pleasantly cooled her skin. The crackle of candles in heavy candelabras and the smoke of incense from a porcelain burner soothed her mind, weary from hours of tedious paperwork.
She had saved the last document for "dessert"—the Black Mountain guard's report on those who had dared to enter the Beast's lair in the last twenty-four hours.
"Well, well, what do we have here..." she said lazily, skimming the parchment. "Not much... Wait... what?" Her fingers stopped on the only entry. The list contained just one name: Linsi von Altshtadt.
Katarina's eyes widened with pure, almost childlike surprise, which was instantly replaced by a cold, predatory gleam.
Linsi—a man whose fortune in the imperial rich list stood right behind her own. The one whose tentacles held a good third of the empire's economy in their tight embrace. And the one she... could not stand.
The mere memory of his bloated face, his manicured hands (resembling those of a drowned man fished up after a week), and his constant attempts to douse her with his syrupy-sweet, cloying voice sent shivers of disgust down her spine.
"Hee-hee..." a quiet, pleased chuckle escaped her lips. She tossed the report onto the silk bedspread. "I hope you stay there, dearest. And I will find a worthy use for your money..." The thought of how she would "optimize" his empire brought a sweet anticipation.
Katarina stretched like a huge, contented cat, pulled a down pillow toward her, and buried her face in it, closing her eyes. There, in the world of her dreams, He awaited her—stately, powerful as a granite cliff, the one to whom she was ready to devote herself completely... If he didn't get too arrogant, of course. But that, as she thought lazily just before sleep, shifting her leg under the covers, was just details.