The battle with Gnathia raged with violent intensity, the corrupted ambient magic of her rotting realm clashing fiercely against the ancient, disciplined power of the Dragon Master.
Gnathia swooped down like a phantom of death, the full, suffocating weight of her decayed domain trailing behind her like a tattered funeral shroud.
She descended with claws outstretched, aiming to tear the old master to shreds where he stood.
Lao Shi didn't even flinch.
With practiced precision, he slammed the butt of his wooden staff hard against the cracked earth.
A violent gale of compressed wind magic detonated outward from the base of the staff, expanding in a razor-sharp, atmospheric shockwave.
The sheer force of the sudden blast caught Gnathia off guard, slamming directly into her chest and forcing her back a considerable distance.
She tumbled through the air before catching herself on dark, leathery wings, her talons scraping against the corrupted ground as she skidded to a halt.
When the dust and howling winds finally settled, Lao Shi and Fu Dog were still standing side by side, holding their ground in absolute defiance.
"Is that the best you've got, you overgrown lizard?" Gnathia snarled, bared fangs dripping with dark, viscous magic as she spat onto the ground.
"Hmph," Lao Shi snorted with cold disdain, his eyes narrowing into furious slits. "You think far too highly of yourself, you overconfident witch. The only reason I haven't crushed you into dust where you stand is because you know where the Tooth Fairy is. So I will ask you one last time: where is Tathiana? And do not bullshit me by claiming you have killed her. We both know you have some sort of sinister plan that requires her alive."
Lao Shi was thoroughly done entertaining her games. Every second wasted in this wretched realm was a second closer to catastrophe.
A guttural, dangerous growl escaped Gnathia's throat. She wanted nothing more than to rip their heads from their shoulders, tear the flesh from their bones, and feast on the remains.
She tensed, preparing to throw herself back into the fray to obliterate the old man once and for all.
Bzzt.
A sudden, sharp ripple echoed through her mind via a shadowy mental link.
It was Diente.
'My lady,' Diente's voice echoed silently within her thoughts. 'It is done. The task has been accomplished. I have the girl.'
The murderous rage consuming Gnathia instantly evaporated, replaced by a dark, blooming satisfaction.
Diente had done his job. The true prize was secured.
A slow, smug grin stretched across her pale, terrifying face as her eyes locked back onto the duo standing below. The desperate intensity in Lao Shi's posture suddenly looked pathetic to her.
Seeing that twisted, confident smile spread across the witch's face, both Lao Shi and Fu Dog felt a cold pit drop into their stomachs.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
"As much as I would love to rip your heads off right now and experiment on your rotting corpses," Gnathia purred, her voice dripping with malice, "I suddenly have somewhere far more important to be. So... tata."
Gnathia offered a mocking little wave of her hand. Dense, unnatural shadows and swirling darkness began to rapidly engulf her form, swallowing her whole from the boots up.
"Wait! No!" Lao Shi shouted, his instincts screaming at him. He surged forward, his staff raised to strike, while Fu Dog frantically lobbed a concentrated sphere of magical energy directly at her heart.
They were too late.
Before either attack could connect, Gnathia vanished completely into thin air, leaving behind nothing but fading specks of lingering shadow.
"Fuck!" Lao Shi barked, missing his target entirely. He did not like this. Not one bit.
Fu hurried up beside him, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the empty air. "Where the fuck did she go?!" the Shar-Pei demanded, panic lacing his rough voice.
"How the hell should I know?!" Lao Shi snapped back, his pulse hammering against his ribs.
Before they could contemplate her sudden retreat, a low, ominous rumble vibrated through the earth beneath their feet.
The sky fractured like broken glass. Jagged tendrils of dark magic and localized rot began to rapidly spread across the environment, consuming the landscape at an alarming rate.
"Holy mother of all shits! That bitch must've rigged a self-destruction spell to trigger the moment she left!" Fu Dog exclaimed, wide-eyed as the ground beneath them started to crumble into a bottomless abyss.
The whole realm was collapsing.
"Tsk!" Lao Shi clicked his tongue in deep annoyance. There was no time to think at all.
So, the old man made his move.
He flicked his wrist, unsummoning his staff as it vanished into thin air.
He then planted his feet, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and activated his true form as stormy gales of violent wind roared into existence around him.
The spiraling vortex of air enveloped Lao Shi completely, hiding the rapid shifts of his anatomy as the dragon master unleashed his power.
His body expanded exponentially, his human limbs elongating and morphing into raw, scales-clad power.
When the blinding winds and kicked-up debris finally dispersed, the frail old human master was gone.
In his place stood an awe-inspiring serpent of the sky: a sixty-foot Chinese Wind Dragon.
The magnificent creature twisted its elongated torso into a sweeping, fluid "S" shape, perfectly mirroring the natural motion of a howling gust of wind.
A thick, vibrant blue mane of fur and feathers ran continuously down the length of his spine, whipping backward violently as if caught in a perpetual high-speed draft.
His body tapered off into an elegant, split tail plume resembling stylized wisps of air rushing over water.
He possessed a powerful, mammalian snout, baring rows of razor-sharp white teeth through a partially open jaw.
Two bold, orange-red horns swept backward from its brow, providing a sharp, fiery contrast to its cool-toned palette.
His intense, human-like eyes glowed with a brilliant blue iridescence, fixed forward with an air of ancient, crushing intelligence.
Long, thin white barbels extended gracefully from its muzzle, trailing through the air like delicate ribbons, while four relatively short, muscular limbs extended from his underbelly, each ending in dark-blue, lethal talons designed to grip the sky itself.
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"Hop on!" Lao Shi's deep, resonant voice echoed psychically.
Fu Dog didn't hesitate for a single second.
He leapt into the air, scrambling onto the broad back of the dragon, digging his claws into the thick mane for dear life as Lao Shi launched himself upward into the collapsing sky.
Lao Shi opened his jaw and unleashed concentrated, destructive blasts of pure wind magic, obliterating anything standing in their path.
Behind them, Fu Dog frantically chanted ancient protective incantations, shielding their rear from the creeping, absolute decay of the unraveling realm.
With a deafening sonic boom, they breached the structural barrier of the corrupted dimension.
Space warped, distorted, and finally snapped back to reality, dumping them out of the rift and tumbling onto the cold, dusty concrete of an abandoned warehouse in New York City.
Lao Shi instantly condensed his massive form back into his human shell, landing gracefully on his feet with absolute poise.
Fu Dog, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.
He hit the ground rolling, skidding across the concrete floor and coming to a humiliating stop face-first, tail in the air.
"Ugh, damn it..." the Shar-Pei groaned in pain, flopping over onto his side. He rubbed his bruised muzzle and barked out a complaint. "You could've warned me about the sudden stop, you damned geezer! My chin feels like it just kissed a brick wall!"
Lao Shi ignored the dog's complaining, pacing back and forth as his mind raced.
Where could Gnathia have possibly gone? What was the point of all this?
Sure she wanted revenge. That one was obvious.
But he knew that there was more to this than that right now.
Fu, still grumbling under his breath, pulled out a glowing magical scroll to file an emergency report to the Dragon Council. "Reporting in... Tooth Seeker Gnathia has escaped her prison... confirmed responsible for the abduction of the Tooth Fairy... requesting immediate backup..." He finished sending the message, shaking his head bitterly.
Suddenly, Fu paused, a thought striking him. "Hey, Lao Shi... didn't the Tooth Fairy have automated reports and live updates on who or what was about to lose a tooth anywhere in the world?"
Lao Shi stopped his pacing and slowly nodded. "Yes. Tathiana keeps absolute track of every tooth-related milestone..."
The air in the abandoned warehouse went dead silent as a horrifying realization hit both of them simultaneously.
If the Tooth Fairy received real-time updates on every impending tooth loss, then dragons were included in those reports too. And right now, there was only one dragon on the entire planet currently losing her first baby tooth.
"HALEY!" they both screamed in unison.
A cold wave of absolute horror turned into an inferno of pure rage within Lao Shi's chest.
Gnathia was going directly after his granddaughter.
"That miserable, psychotic bitch!" Fu Dog cursed loudly, whipping out his magical communicator to dial Jake's line. He pressed it to his ear, listening to the hollow, dead silence on the other end. "Fuck! There's no signal! She's jamming the local network or setting up a ward!"
"Then we go. Now!" Lao Shi roared.
Without waiting another second, the old master transformed back into his massive, majestic wind dragon form. Fu Dog leapt onto his back, instantly casting a high-level cloaking spell around them both to ensure complete invisibility from the public.
Lao Shi burst through the roof of the abandoned factory, taking to the clouds and setting a maximum-speed course straight toward Central City, leaving an invisible trail of sonic booms behind him.
'Hold on, my children,' Lao Shi prayed silently, his draconic eyes burning with intense, lethal intent. 'Jake... please be smart. Keep your sister safe until I get there.'