Zeke took an inadvertent step backwards as a wave of primal fear swept through his mind. It only lasted a moment, but in the brief instant, he knew what others might feel when they looked at him. Violently, he shoved that away and studied the creature looming over him.

It was enormous.

Zeke had seen many huge monsters since being reborn in the troll caves. From the cyclops to the enormous tortoise to his recent encounter with the necromantic vessel, he’d often been made to feel very small. Despite being only a couple hundred feet tall, the dragon gave that same impression, though it seemed to encompass more than just size. It was like, for the first time ever, Zeke found himself face-to-face with a true god.

Which was ridiculous, considering that he knew for a fact that Shar Maelaine – or even Oberon – were far more powerful than the creature looking down on him. It took a few seconds – during which, Zeke just stared at the thing – before he zeroed in on the source of that feeling. Mana, thin and diffuse, swirled around the dragon, sending tiny tendrils of energy to interact with everything in its immediate area.

That included Zeke.

With a flex of his Will, he destroyed them.

“In some cultures, using a skill on someone is enough to pick a fight,” he said, tightening his grip on Voromir. “Luckily for you, I’m not here for that.”

“Why you are here is unimportant, little golem,” the dragon announced. It was at least the size of a jumbo jet, with jet-black scales that glistened with red highlights. Otherwise, it looked remarkably similar to the depictions of western dragons back on Earth. Inevitably, he couldn’t help but compare the creature to the wyrms he’d seen, and though there were similarities between the two species, there were enough differences to make them appear wholly different.

For one, wyrm bodies tended toward the serpentine. They had legs, but they were closer to the way eastern cultures depicted dragons. They were missing wings, though. By comparison, the dragon looming over Zeke was thick-bodied and muscular, with huge, bat-like wings that were currently tucked close to its body.

But the most impactful difference was in the eyes. At the end of the day, wyrms were monsters, and when Zeke had looked into the eyes of one even as powerful as Mikaena, he’d seen the evidence of her heritage. However, this dragon was obviously sapient, with intelligence behind its eyes that said in no uncertain terms, that it was a person, rather than a beast.

“Then what is important, big lizard?” he retorted.

The dragon’s eyes widened in shock before a puff of red flames erupted from its nostrils. “You dare?”

“You started it,” Zeke pointed out, shifting his feet slightly. He felt confident in his defenses, but he was well aware of the reputation associated with dragons. So, he had no interest in taking the thing’s best attack head-on. Beyond that, he only ensured that he was between the giant, reptilian creature and Adara, who surely could not withstand an attack from what Zeke suspected was a peak being.

“Impudent –”

“Look,” Zeke interrupted. “Like I just said – I’m not here for a fight, but I want to make it perfectly clear that if you want to throw down, I’m more than happy to oblige. I’ll warn you right now, though. If it comes to that, you’re going to end up regretting it. So, I’m asking right now – do you really want to do this? There’s still room for us to coexist.”

That was when Zeke used [Inspect], which confirmed what he already knew. The dragon was level one-hundred, which meant that it was as powerful as any creature on the Eternal Plane. Yet, the notification he received also contained a slight surprise:

Juvenile Dragon – Level 100

“Juvenile,” he said in his mind.

“Dragons aren’t like us,” Eveline stated. “Level for level, they are far more powerful than any other race. And a dragon isn’t considered to be full-grown until they cross the threshold and ascend to the Ethereal Plane. This one is practically a child. An adult dragon is many times its size, and an elder dragon can grow to the size of a planet.”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“Which planet?” he asked. “There’s a big difference between Pluto and Jupiter.”

“Does it matter? We’re talking about creatures whose size defies comprehension,” Eveline stated. “Degrees to which you are outclassed are irrelevant.”

“Touche.”

“You ignore me?!”

“I was having a conversation,” Zeke said calmly.

The dragon narrowed its eyes. “By mocking me, you court death.”

Zeke shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he admitted. Indeed, ever since being reborn, he’d leaped from one death-defying stunt to the next. It was a miracle that he had yet to pay the ultimate price. But in that time he’d grown inured to the inevitability of his own death. He didn’t want to die, but he accepted that, at some point, he would find himself facing off against something that could permanently put him down. It had nearly happened against the necrotic vessel, and he expected it would probably do so again.

“I will tolerate your impertinence no longer! I will –”

Zeke didn’t let the creature work itself up. Instead, he exploded into motion, harnessing all of his physical strength to aim a momentous uppercut at the monster’s chin. He leaped, his movement so quick that the air blistered at his passing. Doubtless, the dragon possessed impressive physical attributes of its own, but its posturing had put it on bad footing. And it certainly hadn’t expected him to attack.

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The results were monumental.

Voromir hit the creature directly in its scaley chin, and a second later, it rocketed backward, flipping so quickly that what little of the forest remained standing was destroyed. Trunks splintered, and trees were uprooted. Boulders went tumbling across the ground as if under the effect of a bomb, and most importantly, the dragon sailed away in a long and lazy arc that saw it colliding with the face of a mountain.

A second later, the peak of the mountain collapsed into an enormous landslide that buried the creature beneath hundreds of tons of rock and dirt.

Zeke glanced back at Adara, who’d been thrown backward as well and said, “You need to get out of the area as quickly as possible. If you stay, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Adara was a proud warrior, but she was no idiot. As such, she knew when she was outmatched, so she wasted no time before pushing herself to her feet and taking off at a sprint. With her attributes, she could cover quite a lot of ground in a hurry, but even so, Zeke could only hope that the dragon would stay down long enough for Adara to get clear.

Because if anything happened to her, he didn’t know what he would do.

“Probably murder that dragon and anyone it calls kin,” Eveline provided.

“Yeah,” Zeke agreed. “Probably.”

Wanting to keep the dragon distracted, he stepped forward. As the results of the landslide began to shift, he accelerated from a simple stride to a light jog, and when he saw a scaled snout poke its way out of the pile of dirt and rock, he pushed himself to a sprint. So, when the creature finally climbed free, spreading its wings and roaring its displeasure, Zeke was already upon it. He buried Voromir’s head in the thing’s eye, eliciting a gasp of pain as the orb popped under the pressure. Zeke didn’t let up, either, and over the next few moments, he pummeled the thing with every ounce of force he could muster.

And given his massive attributes, that was quite a lot.

The dragon never had a chance to react, and over the next few minutes, Zeke bullied the massive thing with his superior strength and the building momentum that came from beginning the fight on his terms.

Then, finally, the creature managed to clip him with one of its claws. Not only did the graze send him flying away, but it also sliced through his impressive endurance without issue. His metallic flesh parted with a spray of quicksilver blood, and it was Zeke’s turn to let out a gasp of pain.

That attack, simple though it had been, had cut through his defenses like they were nothing. What’s more, it had completely ignored his resistance to pain, lighting his nerves on fire as if he’d never changed his race.

“There was Will in that attack,” he muttered inwardly.

“Of course there was,” Evelin stated. “Dragons are better than us in every way. They’re inherently magical, and they can utilize their Will with unrivaled instincts. I thought I made this clear.”

Before Zeke could respond, he felt a massive surge of mana before he was buried beneath a wave of flames so dense that they seemed almost solid. They tore through his body with a viciousness he could never have anticipated, and for the briefest of moments, all thought ceased. He simply didn’t exist.

But then, [Hand of Divinity] soared through him, restoring everything he’d lost. His body had been melted into a puddle of molten silver, but his mind – or his soul, perhaps – remained intact. He used that, as well as the spark of divinity at the core of his being, to rebuild himself. He surged upward from that puddle, all of his body’s details gone. In that moment, he looked like nothing so much as a featureless mannequin made of silver. Yet, a few seconds later, he was back to normal, with black-and-red energy billowing out from the cracks all over his upper body.

The dragon, which was more than half a mile away at that point, looked on in shock.

“I was going to do this without skills,” Zeke said, stepping forward with the inevitable stride of a man on a mission. “Remember – you’re the one who started this. You’re the one who escalated it. Now it’s my turn.”

Before the dragon could respond, Zeke used both of his domains. Normally, he didn’t bother with either when he was alone, but the psychological effect of suddenly being surrounded by demonic corruption was a valuable tool. On top of that, the resulting atmosphere did make using his Will easier while enhancing skills like [Hell Geyser].

The domains took hold, transforming the fallen forest into a hellscape of fire and corruption. The dragon’s eyes widened once again, but Zeke was already moving. He stomped on the ground, sending a fissure to tear across the intervening distance before it erupted into a column of earth and hellfire. Before it had fully manifested, Zeke used [Eye of Reckoning], which sent a beam of destruction to tear into the dragon’s face. When it hit, it carved a giant wound from just below one eye diagonally across its snout and into its horned head.

Blood erupted from the injury, but Zeke wasn’t finished.

He ran forward, and mid-stride, used [Shifting Sands]. As time slowed, he saw the terror and pain writ large on the creature’s face. It reeled, trying to regain an advantage it had never really had. But Zeke didn’t allow himself to feel pity for the creature. It had attacked him. It had pushed for a fight. Now, Zeke intended to finish it.

He sank into the earth, then rocketed forward. When he erupted from the ground, he used [Unleash Momentum]. It had been quite some time since he’d used the skill, so it had reached its maximum capacity. He let loose with the power of a thousand swings, aiming directly for the dragon’s already injured face.

But a second before Voromir made contact, Zeke’s momentum disappeared. Suddenly, he couldn’t move.

“Enough,” came a boundless voice as immense pressure descended up on Zeke. “Your point is proven, demonkin.”

Zeke fell to his knees, all of his strength gone. Taken from him. And he didn’t need to look up to know the culprit. Some powerful entity had deigned to look down from on high, just as Shar Maelaine had.

And he was tired of it.

Summoning his Will, Zeke forced himself upright. He’d intended to leap to his feet, but the best he could manage was a strained stumble. Still, he shoved the ascended entity’s power aside and finally looked up.

There, a dragon hovered.

And it was at least the size of a moon. Perhaps larger. All Zeke knew was that it filled his vision entirely.

“I am no demonkin,” Zeke growled. “And you have no place here.”

“Oh, but I do. You were about to kill my child,” the dragon said.

“Your child attacked me first. Your child escalated the fight. Your child –”

“Is an impertinent whelp,” the giant dragon stated. Zeke got the impression that it was female, but the voice was androgynous enough that he wouldn’t cling to that assumption. “I know this, but he is my child. I will not allow him to fall.”

Zeke gritted his teeth. With every passing second, he regained some of his mobility – mostly because he was circulating increasingly potent Will through his body and soul. “You don’t get a say in the matter,” he spat, fully embracing his Path of Arcane Destruction. In doing so, he shattered whatever force held him in place, and the image of the dragon shimmered. He hefted his hammer, saying, “I will kill him if I choose to do so.”

“You will not!” the dragon roared, doubling the pressure. However, one side effect of constantly inoculating himself against his own power was that his Will had become incredibly potent. And no matter how powerful the dragon was in their realm, in the Eternal Realm, they were just a projection.

And no projection could stand against his Will. Not the dragon. Not Shar Maelaine. No one.

With the sound of breaking glass, the image shattered into a million pieces. But the dragon pulled its power back together a moment later. As Zeke advanced on the fallen juvenile dragon, its parent screamed, “Please! I will…I will do anything. Just don’t kill him!”

Zeke stopped.

Then, he said, “Anything, you say?”

“Anything!”

“Alright, deal,” he responded, letting his Will fade. “I’ll let the whelp live, but when I ascend, I will call on you for a favor. If you have any honor at all, you will make good on your promise.”

“I swear it,” the image of the dragon said gravely. Even as they spoke, the projection grew less solid. Just before it faded entirely, it said, “I will remember this.”