The dragon girl stands in the midst of the fire, staring at the brave heroes with her blood red eyes, yet despite her rage the dragon girl remains idle without doing anything. But still, her stare gets more intense over time, this isn’t merely the watchful eyes of one opponent to another, but the savory gaze of a predator waiting for her preys to slip up an opening before starting the hunt.

-This doesn’t look good, Fino…

Says Oka. The heroes fall back and keep their distance away from the dragon. Despite Deborah’s new powers, both sides remain in a stalemate without anyone making the first move, at least for the time being.

-We need to retreat. I have a bad feeling about this…

-Not yet! Not until all our allies have finished retreating! I can’t let loose a dragon on their back and watch the slaughter from afar!

The young hero replies the sailor with his sword points toward the dragon girl.

-Well said. But be sure to back up your claim. Nobody wants to follow a hero who can’t make good use of their promise.

The dwarf readies his axe.

-Do not show her mercy, Fino. She was the one who killed our friend Gust.

Fino’s right hand trembles for a moment from hearing Alan’s words, but the young hero quickly calms himself down and just simply nods.

-Yeah, I know.

-Watch out, she’s coming!

Oka shouts. From afar, Deborah gets down on all four like a savage beast. After a roar, the frenzied dragon launches herself away from the ground into the air, leaving behind a huge crater from the sheer amount of force used to propel her away.

-GARGHHHHHH!!

While still in the midair, Deborah breaths out a huge fireball from her mouth. Unlike the fire she used before, this fireball is the size of a small lake and more like a meteor in shape, and it’s coming down fast. Even if they run away it may still be too late. The moment the fireball makes contact, everything within the blast radius will be incinerated into ashes.

-Not on my watch!

But the young female wizard has anticipated such a thing may happen and has already prepared a counter spell prior, when her male companions were still in the middle of chit chat. With a wave of her staff, the remaining snow from both the wall and the ground below starts to gather to the air above the three warriors, forming a huge barrier made of snow in mid-air to counter the fireball meteor made by Deborah.

The barrier and the fireball makes contact. Part of the snow melts away from the intense heat, and part of the fire disappears thanks to the stubborn freezing snow enhanced through skillful use of Verbal Magic and soul energy concentration. But, to stop a fireball that caliber, the barrier Anna used must be a type that focuses on blocking away magic, especially fire, which by itself creates a gap so that the feral Deborah can physically slip through away effortlessly.

-Scramble!

Oka shouts as Deborah makes her entrance through her fireball and Anna’s snow barrier, destroying a chunk of the castle wall with her landing alone. Despite going through the very same fire she created, Deborah’s body and clothes are still intact even when her body is being lit on fire like a torch, as if the dragon is blessed by fire itself. Her glowing red hair under the burning fire looks like pretty sparks of embers, signifying the beauty of the young girl, if only her tender hands aren’t replaced by rough claws or her ruby eyes with small pools filled with blood. And now, that very beauty is now screaming like a feral untamed beast and attacking the human warriors like the savage she is.

With her two arms, Deborah simultaneously attacks both Oka and Fino while using her newly grown dragon tail to give Alan his own share of beating. Unlike the Deborah of before, her newfound power doesn’t simply give her more strength to unleash, it also gives her the brutality needed to become a true beast, and it is brutal indeed. Gentle punches have been replaced with sharp claws capable of tearing stones to shred, and without a moral restrain, Deborah now employs liberal use of her agony-inducing dragon fire whenever possible. Fino quickly finds fighting a wild dragon with only one arm isn’t a good idea as he gets bashed away from blocking Deborah’s claws attacks. Only Oka and Alan remain while Anna is still busy trying to maintain the barrier keeping the falling fireball above them, but even then, holding a dragon at bay by itself is no easy task, let alone a mad one in the middle of a thirst for blood.

-Feisty one, aren’t ya?

Oka and Alan attack in conjunction, one from the front, one from the back. Oka’s trident thrusts are fast and numerous, but they only serve nothing more than a mere distraction considering even with his full force Oka’s attacks barely manage to make a scratch on Deborah’s scale. And at the opposite, despite his strength, Alan can’t even make his attack connect. Deborah’s tail is essentially her third arm, it can be as powerful and bashful as her punches with the perk of having none of Deborah’s mercy. As soon as Alan gets in his position to attack Deborah’s back, he finds himself becoming a target for a beating from the dragon’s tail and forced to block and retreat. But that’s not the end of their nightmare.

-RAWRGHH!

Deborah is no longer the sheep she once was. She simply doesn’t contend with blocking away the futile attempts to harm her. Now, the dragon is actively seeking bloodshed to satisfy her hunger. Deborah makes the young sailor her first target, she rushes at him like a mad dog, forcing him to defend for his own life. From all sides, Deborah attacks the sailor without giving him a second to breath. The only hope Oka has now lies in the durability of his weapon, which despite its magic casting ability isn’t a weapon in the same caliber as Fino’s sword Solias. The longer this goes on, the more Oka feels like he has been sucked into to a maelstrom filled with despair in the middle of the sea of destruction. The moment his trident breaks will be the end of his life.

-Don’t turn your back to your enemy!

Alan exploits Deborah’s attention on his teammate and makes a move. He slams his axe down the castle wall, and with all his strength and soul energy, the dwarf tears a part of the stone wall off the ground and hurls those stones at Deborah. The chunks of earth quickly rush toward Deborah like a stream of water.

-ARGGHHH!

But to Deborah, Alan’s technique is nothing but a mere annoyance. With a quick turn of her back, Deborah prepares her left arm and bashes away all the stone conjured by Alan through sheer strength alone, hurling those very same rock toward the dwarf and forces him to taste his own poison. However, that small window of distraction gives Oka enough time to fall back, but that doesn’t mark the end of Deborah’s obsession with her prey.

-She’s bad news alright…

Oka mumbles. Right at that moment, Deborah goes on all four and charges at him to continue her hunt. Oka has prepared himself for another struggle. But he fails to notice that Fino has already charged forward to intercept Deborah by himself.

-This stops now!!

The young hero screams. His sword glows as he swings it in mid-air, which creates several sword waves made from pure light to attack Deborah. The dragon doesn’t even bother to block and let the sword waves hit her body, as if she instinctively knows Fino’s attacks won’t be able to stop her, let alone threaten her life. Her body is bleeding, drenching the stone tiles with blood, but like an eternal fire, her wounds heal faster than the damage Fino can cause from afar. As soon as Deborah gets in range, the feral dragon launches herself at Fino like a straight arrow, she bares not her claws but her fangs instead, aiming to have a taste of the hero in the most literal sense.

-Get away, idiot!

Oka quickly rushes to Fino’s side, grabs his shirt and throws the young hero away from harm, fast enough to protect Fino, but too late to protect himself.

-Arghhhhhhhh!

-Oka!

Deborah’s fangs find themselves stuck deep in Oka’s right arm, and it doesn’t end with a simple bite, Deborah pushes more strength down to her fang and sinks them deeper into the sailor’s flesh, all while shaking her prey like a ragdoll either to make it easier for her to feast, or simply to cause more pain for her wounded prey.

-Damn…it…!

The intense pain hinders any of Oka’s attempts to free himself. He’s now at Deborah’s mercy, if she still has any left beneath her hunger for blood.

-Let him go you ugly lizard!

Alan jumps up with his axe in hand for a surprise attack in the back, but Deborah doesn’t even need to turn her back around to deal with the dwarf, her tail grabs the dwarf in mid-air and slams him on the ground like a mere useless pebble and only releases him when she gets bored with her new toy, leaving him lies on the ground in the middle of his own pool of blood. Her interest with Oka also ends when she devours a part of his arm and swallows the meat down her throat, leaving the wounded sailor lies helplessly with a half-eaten arm. Now, her gaze is fixed upon Fino, the nearest prey in her path. Inside her blood-filled red eyes, Fino senses some sort of twisted tranquility that doesn’t belong to a mere feral beast. At this moment, Fino knows he’s facing a true dragon in flesh and blood, the presence of the pacifist girl he fought before has vanished without a trace.

But even so, Fino can’t let fear overwhelming himself. His friends are in dire need of his help. He has no time to even feel fear. There’s only one thing left for him to do, and it’s simple enough.

-You bastard!

Suddenly, Fino’s sword glows even brighter than before, his broken left arm also glows just like his sword, and before he knows it, the broken bones inside his arm have mended themselves back to normal, effectively healing his arm as if his injuries prior never existed. But Fino has no time to be amazed, his friends are on the brink of death, he can’t afford to waste more time.

-Take this!

Fino swings his left arm in midair and conjures four swords made of pure light from his magic. He launches his magic swords and charges simultaneously behind them. The magic swords hit their target, but they are merely a distraction. As Deborah herself charges toward Fino in retaliation, the young man rolls down to dodge Deborah’s incoming claw, and even manages to slip in a slash right in her stomach. That barely fazes the dragon girl, Fino knows that, but his goal is no longer trying to stop the dragon.

-Hang in there, both of you!

Leaving Deborah behind his back, Fino rushes toward his fallen friends. With a simple touch, the light radiated from his left arm transmits itself into his friends’ body, luring death away from them. Oka starts moving again, albeit slowly, while Alan barely manages to keep his breath, but the dwarf’s body is too badly beaten to even lift a finger or open an eye.

-Fino! Watch out!

Anna shouts from afar, which notices the hero of the charging dragon behind him, with her stomach wound already healed. The only one standing between Deborah and his two friends are himself, and so, Fino holds his sword with both hands, preparing for the incoming dragon.

Once again, Deborah makes a jump to midair, with fire concentrates inside the palm of her claw. She roars as she dives down to the direction of Fino and his friends. The young hero is prepared, but he’s not confident in whether or not he and his friends will make it for another day.

But soon, hope comes in the most unexpected way by the help of an arrow that hits Deborah’s back. Not just any ordinary arrow, but one that is almost as long as an iron spear and shot with a force so strong it sends Deborah flying along with it instead of merely stuck in her back. Not enough to stop her for good, but it buys enough time for the reinforcement of the reinforcement to arrive.

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From afar behind Anna’s location, a rider on a white horse makes his entrance with a wooden bow almost as big as its owner, it’s an amazing feat by itself considering this hunk of a man is two meters tall in total. His arms are packed in layers of muscles beneath the plain green clothes of a simple elven archer, betraying the grace and refined imagine from someone from a supposedly “high” race. Even with his gold-like wavy long hair, the mustache near his nose combined with manly facial features hardened through testosterone have made people wonder whether his elf ears are really just a fake decoration. But enough about the elven archer, he brings alongside him two horses, one is a common war horse not too hard to find anywhere, the other one is not so common, as it has a horn on its head along with a strange mythical aura radiating from its white skin and wavy tail.

A unicorn.

-Fino! Here’s your mount! The other guys have already retreated! We need to pull out of here!

-Egil!

The elven archer named Egil shouts while he prepares his bow and shoots another spear-size arrow toward the dragon. The arrow hits Deborah, but the girl blocks it without being pushed back thanks to having a foothold on the walls. Despite having an arrow the size of a spear stuck in her back, the dragon calmly plucks it out off her body and crush the two arrows with her claws.

-Alan got knocked out. Can you get him out of this place, Oka?

Fino helps the sailor get up from the ground. The huge chunk of lost meat on his arm really makes it hard for the sailor to function like normal, but he nods to confirm his newfound duty. With Fino’s help, the sailor gets on the war horse with the unconscious dwarf behind him, preparing to make their leave.

-Incoming!

The elf shouts. From afar, Deborah comes charging on all four. The distance is long enough for the elf to make several shots, which he does. Another arrow takes flight away from his longbow.

CLANG!

But this time, it gets easily deflected by Deborah’s claws. Egil once again draws his bow, but his next arrow doesn’t make any new progress and gets unceremoniously deflected away by the dragon again.

-I’m going to need a bigger bow…

By this time, Fino has already got on the back of his unicorn and Oka also started riding away. Egil turns his horse backward, but not without making another shot at stopping Deborah before the dragon comes closer and prepares to tear them all apart.

-She’s too fast! If we don’t move now, we won’t make it!

Fino shouts at the elven archer. Strangely, the hunk of an elf only replies with a smile, not a smile of confidence, but it’s still strange considering their situation.

Suddenly, as Deborah in the middle of running toward the human heroes, she finds her body slammed into an invisible barrier, or more precise, a trap made from four physical barriers from all sides, which are moving closer in an attempt to crush her until not a piece of meat remain.

Fino only knows one person who can use barrier magic this strong, and that’s the same person who just gives Oka and Alan a brief healing spell as they ride past her into safety. That person is riding a black horse. A girl wearing a white priestess robe, holding on her left hand a medium length magic staff which - unlike the kind mostly used by witches – it has a regal and dignified air within it since it was made from steel mixed with gold instead of simply wood. The most noticeable aspect of her appearance isn’t her neatly cut raven black short hair, but a pair of black cat ears sticking out from her hair instead. This cute yet dignified priestess isn’t human, but a beastman originated from the Cat clan.

-Elisha!

Fino shouts the name of his childhood friend. Right at this moment, the trapped Deborah roars, and the atmosphere around her becomes so intense it feels like there’s an invisible earthquake happening in the air.

-ARGHHHHHHHHHH!

Through sheer overwhelming soul energy alone, the dragon breaks free away from the barrier box made by the cat priestess Elisha. And now, her gaze starts to fixed on the hero and his companions once again.

-You need to get out of there!

As per command of the young catgirl, Fino and Egil rides their horse away from Deborah. At this moment, the wizard Anna cancels the snow barrier above, letting Deborah have a taste of her own fire as it comes crashing down and vaporizes the walls she’s standing on. But then again, that won’t help much considering how she went through her own fire earlier. The wizard Anna gets on behind of Elisha’s horse, and together with Fino and Egil, the heroic mercenaries ride away from danger.

But that’s simply the start of another game of the hunter and the hunted.

Enraged, the feral Deborah roars again and chases behind the riders on all four. The wall on their part of the castle is already empty with the retreat of the human soldiers, but the feral dragon no longer cares about the absence of her fellow allied demon soldiers, now, only her preys matter.

-Stubborn monster!

With the combined force of Egil’s arrows, Fino’s light swords and Elisha’s homing light bolts, Deborah finds her path blocked by various attempts to kill her. But none of them works, it doesn’t matter how many wounds she suffered nor how exhausted she was prior to her transformation, Deborah’s rage is enough to sustain her hunger for blood and her regeneration power. And she keeps moving forward, neither gods nor demons have the power to stop her now. Nothing can.

-We’ll divert our path here!

The elf Egil points his bow toward a road that doesn’t exist on the castle wall: a stone bridge leading to the land of the Demon Realm, created by the mage Niccolo’s spell at the start of the siege. That’s the same path the elf and the cat girl took to come for their hero’s aid. The heroes hop on the stone bridge and start riding away from Melas castle, but the stubborn dragon behind them still hasn’t given up the chase.

-ARGHHHHHHHH!

Deborah shoots some fireballs at the heroes, but the way the bridge was made makes it hard for the feral dragon to get an accurate shot. Deborah has no choice but to give chase for an up close and personal hunt, though with her current state of mind, it’s ambiguous if Deborah can even aware her actions come from choices and decisions rather than pure predatory instincts.

-She just doesn’t know how to give up, doesn’t she!?

Egil laughs despite the fact that there is a bloodthirsty dragon chasing behind their back.

-If this keeps up, she will make her way toward our allies! We need to stop her somehow!

Elisha looks at Fino, as if expecting her childhood friend to do something or else the ensuring result won’t be pretty. The hero himself closes his eyes for a second, before opening them wide when determination fills his resolve.

-I’ll try to stop her. You guys get to safety before me!

-Fino!

Anna shouts.

-Anna, Egil! Protect Elisha for me! I’ll depend on you guys for that!

The elf and the hero exchange gazes, and the hunk archer quickly accepts his comrade’s plea.

-Don’t go and get yourself killed!

-Of course!

Fino commands his unicorn to run slower to keep a closer distance to Deborah, but not close enough to make himself an easy prey served on a silver plate. The two horses in front of him have already ran away with their fastest speed.

Soon, all of them will reach the mainland of the Demon Realm, where another battlefield awaits, and Fino won’t risk turning that battlefield into a slaughter ground for the dragon chasing behind him.

-Arghhh!

Fino’s sword glows, and with all his strength, he throws his sword away, not toward Deborah as a desperate attempt to halt her track, but to the front of the stone bridge ahead of him. The glowing sword is now stuck on the surface on the stone bridge, but from its tip, Fino’s soul energy has already found its way beneath the layers of stone.

-Now or never!

Fino slides to the side of his unicorn and grabs back his sword from the stone bridge. Right at that moment, the part stuck by the sword prior suddenly explodes, making the bridge itself falls apart, along with Deborah who’s in the wrong end of the bridge and finds herself falling down to the dark valley beneath the castle.

Fino more or less stopped Deborah, but he himself also isn’t safe from harm. His part of the bridge is also on the verge of crumbling away. His destination is close, and all his friends have already got their foothold in safety, only he remains to play a game of dice with fate and destiny. Will he make it before the bridge collapse completely?

-Come on Fino! You can do it!

Egil shouts as Fino rides his unicorn with the fastest speed it can afford.

But that fails to get Fino to safety in time. Just before Fino’s unicorn makes it to the mainland, the bridge completely collapses and makes it fall down to the valley just like Deborah prior.

-FINO!

But what kind of story would let a hero die before his final confrontation?

Fino’s unicorn starts sprouting a pair of feathered wings made from pure light, the unicorn flies itself out of harm away along with Fino on its back and safely lands right after.

-Huh…what a show off…

Still half dead on the back on a horse, the sailor Oka comments as the more healthy companions of the hero start gathering around their object of devotion. Though rather than being showered in praises, Fino quickly finds his head being attacked repeatedly by either Egil’s fist or Elisha’s staff, which some stealth attacks contributed by the wizard Anna. Certainly not the celebration a hero expected.

-That was reckless of you! Please never do something like that again!

The cat girl cries. She rushes at Fino and hugs him tight, right after contributing her own share of beating on the hero’s head along with the elf Egil.

-I know…I’m sorry…Though you don’t have to hit me like that…

The cat girl lets go of her embrace and starts blushing instead when she awares what she just did.

-That’s for making me worried. I hate it when you always take the most dangerous jobs yourself…What should I do if you are no longer around in this world?

-Making a girl cry makes you a bad man, Fino. No hero should have make any girls cry!

-I know, I know! Jeez, stop hitting me!

Fino replies the elf while trying to block his head away from further harm.

-I’m sorry, Elisha. I won’t be reckless again.

-You promise?

-I promise!

Fino smiles as he proclaims his promise to the cute cat girl.

-Pinky swear?

-Pinky swear!

The hero makes a pinky swear with the cat girl. They look like a pair of children playing house together, but it’s not like Fino’s other companions would complain about that. Without their weapons to fight and duties to fulfill, they are still teenagers awaiting a new future ahead.

That’s why all of them took arms to fight, in order to make the future an era of peace without wars.

-So…what’s the next course of action now, leader?

Anna asks the young hero.

-I doubt this will be our last encounter with that dragon, we need to report back to Theo now!