Erebor was a kingdom of titanic proportions. Though it did not reach the ancestral vastness of Khazad-dûm, the Lonely Mountain harbored a labyrinth of civilization within its roots: an infinite network of galleries, workshops, and deep mines from which the dwarves carved their fortune.
Malenia moved through this internal geography with mastery. She took advantage of every narrow passage and ventilation duct to descend toward the most secluded areas of the mountain, forcing the colossal beast pursuing her to fight against the environment itself.
"Run! Flee as much as you like, but my fire will always reach you!" Smaug roared, releasing a blast of flames that illuminated the tunnels with the glow of a dying sun.
Malenia slid across the cold stone, gripping a rusted chain to drop into the void of a mining shaft. Above her, the dragon's breath turned the rock incandescent, and the metal of the beams began to drip like wax.
Smaug growled at yet another failed attempt. The battle had turned into a game of attrition that was beginning to grate on his patience. Although the Sharded Ring granted him immense power, he found himself forced to use it primarily as a shield; that woman continued to radiate a sense of danger that kept him on guard. He felt that Malenia was hiding something lethal—a latent venom—and he did not dare discharge his life-devouring flame for fear of being left vulnerable to a counterattack he might not see coming. For now, he relied only on his physical strength and the passive benefits of the ring.
Despite his size, Smaug's agility was terrifying. Malenia filtered through the cracks, but the dragon followed closely, pulverizing columns and widening tunnels with bites and claw swipes so as not to lose her trail.
"Why do you keep running?!" Smaug asked, sweeping his tail across the chamber Malenia had just entered. "I thought you came to challenge me!"
The warrior leaped aside, traversing a narrow ledge as the dragon's claws pierced the wall behind her, crushing the granite as if it were sand.
"Where is the other one? Did he turn coward?" the dragon insisted before spitting another flare.
Smaug was trying to undermine his opponent's morale, searching for a crack in her discipline. He was concerned about having lost sight of the small blond demigod. He knew he wasn't invincible; these two beings, though they hadn't yet caused him wounds, were true opponents.
Malenia did not respond. The beast's provocations bounced off her without leaving a mark. She moved with absolute precision, for the constant whisper of Trina resonated in her ears. She wasn't running blindly; she was being guided toward a specific point.
The pursuit intensified as they entered the natural caves of the mining veins. Here, the terrain was irregular and heterogeneous; the rugged walls and low ceilings limited Malenia's acrobatics. Smaug, sensing he finally had his prey cornered in a space where his wingspan could impose itself, quickened his pace, his eyes glowing with a promise of death beneath the mountain.
Malenia leaped from wall to wall, defying gravity while Smaug's jaws snapped shut on empty air with a metallic click. At that precise moment, from the gloom of the upper levels, a rain of aquamarine lights swooped down. They were arcane daggers—projectiles of pure brilliance that slammed into the dragon's back. Although they failed to pierce his natural armor, the constant hammering of magic forced him to recoil.
"Is this all you have... 'little golden one'?" the dragon roared with a provocation thick with contempt.
However, Miquella had achieved his goal: giving Malenia the necessary seconds to reposition herself. Smaug, noticing the maneuver, turned his long neck toward the platform where the demigod awaited him.
"You cannot flee forever!" the beast bellowed, scrambling up the rock wall with unnatural speed.
Miquella stood motionless on the edge of a mining precipice, counting the heartbeats of time. His eyes were fixed on the opposite wall, where a vein of immense gold sparkled under the light of the crystals.
"I will catch you, I will crush you, and I will keep your remains as my most prized trophy," Smaug roared as his throat began to glow with an igneous radiance.
Just as the dragon opened his jaws to incinerate the platform, Miquella unleashed a shattering spell against the ore vein. A colossal block of solid gold broke free, falling into the void directly toward the tunnel the beast was ascending. To crown the work, the demigod raised his scepter, and a red flame—dense and viscous—erupted from its tip, following the gold block in its fall.
The impact was a nightmare of molten metal. Smaug's breath collided with the mass of gold and magma, melting it instantly and turning it into a liquid, burning web that covered his face. The dragon thrashed violently, letting out shrieks of pure frustration as he tried to claw the liquid stone that was suffocating his eyes and jaws.
"ARRGGHHH!" Smaug's roar was a mixture of nausea and fury. "You think this can stand against me?! I am the fire! I am death!"
Although the burning mass caused him no real physical harm due to his fireproof nature, the humiliation and the obstruction of his senses drove him over the edge. Smaug lunged after the demigod with renewed malice, ignoring everything else.
Miquella, however, was no longer there. With a sharp whistle that echoed in the cave, the demigod jumped into the void. In mid-air, a flash of light appeared out of nowhere: Torrent, the spectral steed, appeared beneath his feet. With a defiant neigh, the animal touched ground and took off in a swift gallop, leaving behind only the echo of his hooves as he delved into the depths with the dragon hot on his heels.
The chase entered the most secluded forges, a labyrinth of steel and stone that Smaug reduced to rubble in his wake. The dragon cared nothing for cave-ins or the mountain's integrity; in his mind, there was only the need to crush these insolent ants. The halls, plunged in millennial darkness, lit up violently under Smaug's breath, waking ancient, sleeping forges, while Miquella's aquamarine flashes cut through the gloom to deflect the tons of rock falling from the ceiling.
Smaug, noticing his flames were being repelled by magical barriers, opted for physical brutality. He lashed out with bites, claw swipes, and granite projectiles with ferocity. Miquella looked consumed—his face pale and his breathing erratic—but his ring, acting as an energy parasite, absorbed every scrap of magical essence from the environment to keep the demigod functioning.
Upon entering an extremely narrow passage designed for the flow of materials rather than transit, Miquella seemed to falter. It was an almost imperceptible reduction in speed, but Smaug's sharp senses detected it instantly. The dragon was filled with a sadistic euphoria, believing the spectral steed had reached its limit.
With the demigod only a few meters away, Smaug projected his neck like a spring, opening his colossal jaws. He didn't care if Miquella tried to defend himself; he would accept any minor wound just to close his teeth and end the farce.
Time seemed to dilate. Torrent leaped over a stone table in the center of the workshop as the darkness of the dragon's gullet enveloped rider and mount. Miquella could see the rows of teeth like iron pikes above and below, ready to grind him or swallow him whole.
In the final breath, a faint light covered Torrent, granting them a supernatural burst of speed that pulled them out of the impact zone. Miquella twisted his torso in mid-air, charging his scepter with vibrant energy.
In the shadows of the upper beams, Bilbo Baggins, summoning every ounce of his courage, threw his entire weight onto a monumental lever.
Smaug snapped his jaws shut on thin air, and before he could process the failure, the forge mechanism responded. Two colossal pressure hammers dropped from the ceiling with a seismic thud, impacting both sides of his skull. Although the sharded ring absorbed the raw force of the blow, the ultrasonic vibration left him stunned.
It was the exact moment. Miquella discharged the energy from his scepter directly against the dragon's sensitive nose, just as Malenia emerged from nowhere like a war-fey. The warrior moved in a dance of steel, unleashing a flurry of transverse slashes against the beast's side with blinding speed.
"ARRRRGHHH!!"
Smaug's roar was not of pain, but of a volcanic fury that surpassed anything seen before. His body exploded in a shockwave of pure force—a release of energy from the ring that leveled everything around him: the steel hammers were torn out by the roots, the walls were pulverized, and both Malenia and Miquella were repelled.
Smaug had become a whirlwind of hate and claws, lashing out at everything around him in a frenzied rage. Malenia was forced to retreat into the shadows, while Bilbo leaped from a platform that was disintegrating under the dragon's force.
Miquella, however, flashed an exhausted smile. He wasn't enjoying the beast's anger... rather, he had just confirmed something important.
On Smaug's face, around his nose, some scales appeared scorched. And on one of his sides, the marks left by Malenia's sword were still there.
Smaug's ring gave him an appearance of invulnerability, but it did not make him immune. His power had limits.
When multiple zones were attacked at the same time with enough power, the ring's defensive capacity was dispersed, weakening as it tried to reinforce too many points at once. It was possible to wound the dragon.
They only needed to saturate his defenses.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Miquella withdrew to recover some energy. He, Malenia, and Bilbo continued to follow the instructions of Trina, who guided them through the mountain, leading them away from the most dangerous areas while dodging Smaug's lunges.
And the dragon grew increasingly frantic. More anxious to finish them. Especially now that he had suffered real damage... and that his apparent invulnerability had been exposed.
Running between workshops, bridges, and mines, the division of labor was clear.
Miquella and Malenia were the offensive core: magic and steel combined in a constant assault. They harassed the dragon without rest, covering each other to escape his retaliation by mere margins.
Bilbo, on the other hand, took advantage of the invisibility granted by his ring. Guided by Trina's voice, he traversed the mountain activating mechanisms, cutting ropes, and manipulating the environment to support the siblings.
Smaug seemed to be fighting Erebor itself.
Wagons loaded with stone barreled down rails to strike his head. Great structures collapsed onto his body. Jets of water extinguished his flames. Elevators and chains snagged parts of his neck and wings.
He had never felt so humiliated. He knew perfectly well that, individually, those three were insignificant to him. He could crush them with ease. But they were cooperating in an irritatingly effective way. Even when he concentrated on one, he had to remain alert to the other two. And meanwhile...
The damage was accumulating.
He was not yet bleeding, not visibly, but his confidence was beginning to crack. His "impenetrable scales" were becoming marked, wearing down little by little.
And if the scales weakened, so did the effect of the ring upon them, for the ring's enhancement was proportional to the base.
Being an intelligent predator, Smaug changed tactics. He stopped trying to ram them in that labyrinth of traps and began pushing them toward more open galleries, forcing their flight in a direction where the environment could not be used against him.
Miquella read the move but did not stop it. The original plan was reaching its limit; the forge mechanisms were running out and physical exhaustion was devouring them. Bilbo was on the brink of collapse and could no longer participate, and Miquella felt his own fingers go numb, stripped of sensation by the amount of arcane energy he had channeled. He feared that, at any second, his body might simply stop responding.