Chương 53: Chapter 39 - The Might Of A True Dragon

"Overdrive." I blink. That is a deeply concerning name for a skill. I wonder what it— The question never finishes loading. His mana armor erupts, flaring brighter than before—orange light bleeding outward in unstable pulses just above his scales. Then—naturally—he attacks. Flames detonate into existence around him.

Fireballs and lances form in fractured instants, coalescing and launching toward me with all the subtlety of an aggressively flaming vehicle bearing down on an unsuspecting pedestrian who made the tragic mistake of existing nearby. They're bigger. Of course they are. Because why settle for a single overpowered stat buff when you can stack them like a responsible adult abusing compounding interest? Simple math. My Garden answers without hesitation.

Starlight vines surge upward in intersecting arcs, intercepting fireballs mid-flight, slicing lances into sputtering fragments. Where flame meets starfire, the result is immediate and humiliating. Starfire does not negotiate. It consumes. The lesser flames collapse into embers almost instantly, swallowed whole beneath arrogant, prismatic heat. As for the dragon himself?

"Flare Claw!" He is currently attempting to disembowel me with a flaming limb that probably weighs more than I do. Rude. I Astral Step through the swing, reality folding just long enough for the claw to pass harmlessly through where I used to be. I reappear at his flank and carve a clean line across his forearm as the momentum carries him past. The mana armor absorbs it completely. Of course it does. I couldn't even break through the unempowered version.

The marginal boost Starborn gives to my actual damage isn't bridging that gap—even if I layered a Horizon Slash on top. Tragic. Waiting for him to cook to death under Astral Burn would technically count as a win, but it is quite possibly the least satisfying option available to me.

"Flare Burst!" The detonation blooms outward in a violent corona of heat. Another Astral Step carries me clear of the blast radius, the shockwave licking at my boots as I land. Several vines and a handful of dahlias are vaporized instantly, their forms collapsing into ash. I blink. My Garden feels… thinner there. Not broken. But less certain. Ah. I get it. The dahlias aren't decoration. They're anchors. Points of stabilization. Load-bearing elements in the structure of my Garden.

If he destroys enough of them— It might fail entirely. That would be mildly inconvenient. I step back into the fray the moment the heat disperses, closing distance instead of widening it. New plan: Keep him contained. Minimize collateral damage. And absolutely do not let him redecorate. The exchange continues. Flame lances spear into the ground, detonating in violent bursts that send dirt, shattered stone, and fragments of starlight vine into the air.

Fireballs scatter in every direction, curving and correcting mid-flight as they hunt me down. I weave between them, stepping, turning, vanishing and reappearing in tight arcs that keep me just beyond the worst of it. My vines intercept most of the incoming barrage, slashing through lances and smothering fireballs before they can bloom fully. Most. Stray impacts still slip through the cracks, vaporizing dahlias I fail to notice in time.

Black petals disintegrate under sudden heat, anchors severed in brief flashes of light. Cosmic Perception's gravity sense is doing heroic work, mapping trajectories, calculating impact vectors, tracking the dragon's shifting mass and the displacement of air around every incoming projectile. Still— Even my immense and objectively undeniable genius struggles to keep up with what feels like a bullet hell game that somehow married a Michael Bay movie and decided to duel me personally. It is loud. It is excessive.

It is deeply rude. Thankfully, the destroyed dahlias begin reforming at irregular intervals, dark blooms pushing back up through fractured soil as if nothing had happened. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Good. I do not currently possess the spare cognitive bandwidth required to reverse engineer the exact mechanic behind their regeneration. Therefore— Later. For now, containment is sufficient.

At least the dragon hasn't noticed what the dahlias actually are. If he realizes they're structural— This fight changes. Dramatically. Another Flare Burst detonates, forcing me to retreat once more. I am already preparing to dive straight back in when I notice— He's stopped. No more projectiles. No more aggressively attempting to reduce me to decorative charcoal. Just… watching. Then he speaks.

"What is your name?" I tilt my head slightly. He's attempting dialogue now? While standing in my Garden? While actively being converted into experience points? Bold strategy. Naturally, I answer. It's not as though I could meaningfully damage him at the moment, even if I resumed the assault.

"It is considered rather discourteous to request another's name before offering your own, is it not?" He pauses. The hesitation is obvious—calculating, weighing pride against practicality. Then:"Alex." Ah. So he does remember who he used to be. I nod politely. Then, with deliberate care, I pinch the hem of my skirt and lower into a graceful curtsy. The maneuver is slightly compromised by the absurd length of my weapon, but elegance is a mindset, not a limitation.

"Lyn," I reply, rising smoothly.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He looks… surprised. Vaguely unsettled. Rude. It is almost as though he believes I am some sort of rainbow-flame-wielding berserker intent on theatrically murdering him for tutorial points— —and not the perfectly composed, beautiful young lady that I very obviously am. The audacity.

"Why don't we stop this already? There is no reason for us to fight to the death, is there?" My tail swishes in open irritation before I can stop it. A lie. He has absolutely no intention of allowing me to walk away from this. It is admittedly more difficult to read a lie from a towering fantasy reptile than from a human, but biology is biology. The tells are still there. The fractional tremor in his voice. The microscopic delay before he finishes the sentence. The subtle shift of weight through his forelimbs.

The heartbeat—elevated, not with fear, but with anticipation. Seeing through deception is quite simple once you know what to look for— —and with fox ears and an aggressively irresponsible investment in Perception, I have more than enough data to work with. Which leaves a more interesting question. Why stall? Time is not his ally. Astral Burn continues to consume him second by second. Every exchange favors me. So why talk? The answer resolves almost instantly. He is charging.

Stalling for something that cannot be cast in motion. Something that requires stillness. Something that requires time. Unfortunately, I lack the means to interrupt it directly. His mana armor remains intact, and my current output is insufficient to breach it. Tragic.

"I am afraid that proposal lacks mutual sincerity. You have been most enthusiastic in your attempts to disembowel me." He looks faintly indignant.

"You are the one who said you won't let me live, no matter what." Ah. He took my cutscene line personally.

"My apologies," I reply smoothly, inclining my head a fraction.

"For the blunt phrasing of what is, regrettably, the inevitable outcome." His jaw tightens.

"Why do you want to kill me so badly?" I tilt my head a touch further, allowing a mild crease of confusion to touch my features. Internally, I blink. Is he serious?

"Surely such a matter requires no elaborate justification," I say gently.

"It is quite self-evident that only one of us may depart this tutorial alive." I gesture lightly toward the ruined battlefield around us.

"We both seek the highest rewards available, do we not?" There is no heat in my voice. No hatred. Just fact.

"You would do the same in my position." And he absolutely would.

"Why are you speaking like that? It's fucking annoying, you know." My ears angle outward in distinctly offended Foxkin. I will not be lectured on annoyance by someone who thinks "little fox" is an appropriate thing to call me.

"I do apologize if clarity and diction cause you distress." He doesn't react to my politely veiled assessment of his intellectual capacity. Not even a flinch. I suppose the subtlety exceeded his processing limits. Unfortunate. I was rather curious how a dragon might respond to being called stupid to his face. Naturally, that experiment is added to the mental task list. Later.

Preferably with a different dragon, as this one is currently preoccupied—very awkwardly attempting to assemble his next conversational gambit while pretending the increasingly vivid orange glow building in his throat does not exist. Honestly, I do not know why he is bothering. Does he believe that I am blind? The light intensifies with each passing second, brighter and denser than the surrounding sheen of his mana armor. It leaks between his teeth in thin, molten seams. Subtle, this is not.

He is concealing it about as effectively as one might conceal a lantern beneath a silk handkerchief. Which is to say— He is not concealing it at all.

"What is the deal with your flames anyway?" … That's what he came up with? Really? Does he genuinely believe I would indulge that line of inquiry, or is this an attempt to overwhelm me with secondhand embarrassment until I simply surrender? I select the most elegant response available. I look at him. Not sharply. Not angrily. Just… disappointed. I let the expression settle—mild exasperation, faint incredulity—precisely calibrated for maximum effect. He stares back.

The orange glow within his throat intensifies, bleeding through the gaps between his teeth.

"How curious," I say at last, my voice light and conversational.

"You seem to be under the impression that I am obliged to answer." A faint pause. Then I answer anyway. Because of course I do.

"It is flame," I reply mildly.

"It burns." I stare for a few more seconds. Menacingly.

"DARLING, DODGE!" The shift is immediate. His features twist into something that might be a grin—difficult to confirm without lips. Muscles coil. I move. Dash triggers in rapid succession, gravity shifting, boots tearing across soil as I throw myself sideways with zero regard for dignity and maximum regard for survival. His jaws open. Then he releases it. The world turns white. Not the orange and red of his flames. White.

A clean, violent absence of shadow that erases depth, distance, texture—everything flattened into a single, featureless plane. For a fraction of a heartbeat, my Garden becomes nothing more than a painted backdrop pressed against my eyes. Then the air screams. A tearing, metallic shriek detonates outward, like the sky has been stretched too tight and finally snapped. It isn't heat. Not wind either. It's pressure being born faster than the world knows how to contain it. I got far from the epicenter. Not far enough.

Something hits my side. The atmosphere itself solidifies for a single catastrophic instant and slams into me like a wall. My ears pop violently. The ground convulses beneath my boots, soil rippling outward in concentric waves. The pressure wave catches me mid-step and hurls me sideways. This is going to hurt. A lot. My tail snaps upward on instinct, wrapping across my flank and arm. My free hand releases my weapon without hesitation, flying to my hair and tearing it loose from its tie.

I fold inward, presenting the smallest profile possible. Nothing has ever damaged my hair or fur. So I gamble. Everything. The heat arrives. It rolls over me in one brutal, absolute wave. Dry. Total. My tail and hair do not burn. They halt the advancing inferno like a barrier the flames refuse to cross. The rest of me is less fortunate. Residual fire slams into my legs. Flesh chars almost instantly, pain spiking white-hot before dropping into sickening numbness as nerves cook beyond their ability to report damage.

My uncovered arm blisters and splits under the heat, skin peeling in ugly streaks. The starlight fabric of my clothing remains pristine. It does nothing to stop conduction. The shoulder that took the blast head-on burns worst of all. I cannot see the damage beneath the intact shirt, but the sensation is… comprehensive. My tail does not reach everywhere. Smaller burns lace across my front where skin was exposed for a fraction too long. It hurts. I ignore the pain. Vines disintegrate into drifting ash.

Dahlias vaporize mid-bloom. The white recedes. Shadows return cautiously, like witnesses stepping back into a crime scene. The scream of pressure fades. Silence follows. My Garden collapses inward, folding into itself and slipping through the torn veil as though it had never existed. Across the ruined battlefield, the dragon scans the devastation. Looking for me. Or what remains of me. He knows I am alive. There would have been a notification otherwise. But he won't find me.

The ruined city is far less dramatic than eternal midnight. It does, however, have its advantages. Collapsed rooftops. Shattered walls. Streets broken into uneven teeth. Enough places for a half-charred fox to disappear. And I have learned something very important from that attack.