I know what you heard on that day, human. I know what you fear. I know what you strive to achieve. I tell you this instead of claim your life, for you see, in this instance, our goals align. Your life will be but a blink to mine, and yet, for once, a blink could change this world…

Legends speak of creatures so powerful, they could wipe out everything on the surface of the world within a matter of hours. These creatures have leathery, craggy skin armored with scales that glow with the heat of fire and raw power, wings that can summon storms, and a breath of distilled hell itself. They are avatars of destruction and harbingers of the end, invincible to all. They are known as dragons.

Legends also speak of a human infantryman who became the first true slayer of colossi, knighted for his deeds against a terrifying creature known as the Holgamoor, and who fears nothing. He wears improvised armor scrapped together from anything he deems necessary, brandishes an armor-breaker sword and an otherwise generic family sword alternatively, depending on the foes he faces, and he is said to be able and willing to kill any monster plaguing the dreams of men and women alike. He is known as Murtoa of Lakia.

While easy to describe him as the furthest thing from being an orthodox knight, it is undeniable that Murtoa is skilled in battle against monsters whose very movements alone could be deadly. But, in true fashion of a warrior knight of legend, his entrance was grandiose and perfectly timed, saving his relatively new friends from untimely demises at the breath of a true dragon, something he has said he has never faced and believed to be extinct.

As usual, though, whether or not he wants to or knows how to face a particular monster, Murtoa of Lakia is the last one to give up -quite possibly lacking the actual psychological ability to do so-.

With that said, his friends had resigned themselves to a quick and likely painful end until that moment, where his very presence surges inspiration and hope in all of them.

If anyone CAN kill a dragon, it will be him. And his friends, Gyrryth the drakyk spellshot, Maerin the fairy chemist, Coco the teenage techromancer, and Lykha, the young fairy still learning how to be most useful to her team, will do anything to help him achieve victory.

And this time, as Lykha watches someone she’s come to unconditionally trust and cherish, she realizes what his very first step was; wounding the dragon’s wing to limit its ability to fly, just as he did with the nightenmael a few short months ago.

As the dragon struggles to rise to its feet, its own weight toppled in an awkward way from being taken out of the sky by that very attack on its wing, Murtoa of Lakia immediately follows his seeming second rule to engaging a monster; absolutely do not let up the pressure.

There isn’t time to coordinate an attack. Not now. He MUST keep wounding what parts he can while the monster is disoriented and ever-so-briefly off of the offensive. With little more than a single nod after Coco called out to him, Murtoa of Lakia sprints straight back into the fray with the dragon, closing the distance as quickly as his body will allow. The dragon shifts onto its stomach, snapping its jaws at him, but he feints the opposite way of where he seemed to be headed, slipping past the dragon’s head so that he can attack the same wing a second time. He hops up onto the wing’s elbow before the dragon can lift it, spinning into a vicious aerial slash that finds a gap between the scales, and the dragon howls in pain. It tries to flap its wing to dislodge him, but the warrior is already sliding down the leathery canvas-like wing webbing, and he manages to tumble on the ground as the dragon’s motion sweeps the wing upward.

Still not hesitating or breaking momentum, Mury sprints back towards the dragon’s hind-legs as it stands up. He sprints past the leg, slashing viciously again at the back of the joint, which causes the dragon to howl again and sink to a kneel.

As with the other creatures, by the time it looks for him where it was just wounded, he’s already somewhere else, and he slashes at the ankle of the other hind leg after having sprinted under the dragon’s falling waist from his prior attack.

Reading its motions, Mury leaps in a sideways flip, using his free hand to push himself off of the swinging tail so that he can vault over it as the dragon tries to sweep the ground. Now back on the dragon’s right side, Mury sprints for the right hind-leg again, slashing once more at the joint while staying in a sprint headed for its front claw.

The dragon is not an inanimate object, though. It, too, seems to read his motions and slams its left front claw down at the human warrior. He narrowly dives out of the way, rolling back to his feet and then falling quickly to lay flat on his back as the dragon scrapes its right claw across him, his positioning putting him between the raking talons as they pass him harmlessly.

Mury curls back, kicking up from his position to land on his feet with cat-like agility, and he sprints briefly away from the dragon, avoiding yet another attempt to crush him.

The dragon roars angrily, and it inhales a deep breath.

This triggers Murtoa to sprint back towards the dragon, even as the glow fills the creature’s mouth.

Seeing everything happening, his party of fellow monster hunters were idle only for a short moment in their stunned stupor. Maerin orders, “Gyrryth! Lightning!”

“It shall be done!” The spellshot swipes his hands across his lightning pistols, drawing them in an instant and intoning the spell just as quickly. The pistols glow, and he fires the first at the dragon’s head while it rears back to take a deep, forboding breath. Thunder flashes against the dragon’s head, and although the damage is likely minimal thanks to the creature’s magic resistance, the flash is as bright or brighter than Coco’s flashing devices, which allowed Mury to flinch the dragon once already. This shot seems to do the same, startling the dragon into flinching its head, and its deadly breath of fire expels far into the distance as it loses control for the briefest of moments.

The dragon shakes its head clear, roaring angrily. Gyrryth holsters the first lightning pistol, keeping his second at the ready. He can’t keep his spelldusters charged too long, or they’ll succumb to the magical energy stored in them. He’s melted more than one of the extraordinarily costly enchanted weapons in his time both as a Holy Order spellshot and as a freelance monster hunter. However, he has a couple minutes or so, and he expects he’ll definitely make use of the charge.

Maerin, meanwhile, asks Coco, “Coco, you have any kind of decent throwing arm?”

“I go’ this…” The teen withdraws a fairly simple device from her gear bag. It consists of little more than a piece of metal shaped roughly like a “T” with upward posts, like a cross between a “T” and a “Y”, with an elastic band across the posts and a wider pad in the middle of the elastic band. Maerin, a little bit experienced with exploring and travelling with mercenaries and other adventurers, recognizes it easily as a slingshot, though with a pad apparently large enough for one of her flashers or the thunder-ball.

“Can you hit anything with it?”

“I uszh’ly jitter away snack-stealers an’ egg-layers wit’ ih’.”

“Good enough. Try to hit the dragon’s head with this. Closer to the eyes the better.” Maerin hands the teen another brewed potion; though it’s mostly glass shards and syrup rather than an actual chemical mixture.

Tomoba asks as Coco lines up her shot, “What if she misses?”

Maerin explains quickly, “With two enchanters in denial about their ability to enchant, it’ll have to do. I threw in some pepper extract, so it should irritate its skin some or throw off its sense of smell.”

Gyrryth retorts over his shoulder as he watches Murtoa slash once more at the ankle of the left hind leg, and the dragon claws the building to its left, casting rubble towards the human warrior, “I told you, I can enchant with offensive-...”

“I AM WAY TOO SOBER TO DEAL WITH ALL THIS, GYRRYTH!” snaps the mature fairy. “I’ll deal with you later! Coco, whenever you’re ready!”

Coco shouts confidently, “Spicy lip-licker for ya, ya goob!” The slingshot snaps, and the vial of Mearin’s mixture sails in a high arc, smashing on the center of its muzzle, about as dead-center in its head and as far away from its eyes and nose collectively as it could get while still hitting its head. Any other time, it’d be an arguably perfect shot center of mass, but that’s not what is most useful to them now.

Maerin grumbles, “Of course…”

“Wha’!? Tha’ was me bes’ sho’ yet!”

“It was too good, in this case. Okay, we’ll-...” She’s cut off when the dragon roars, pivoting to try to attack Mury, who has worked his way behind it and chopped into its tail with the armor-breaker. It swings a claw at him, and he somewhat-instinctively tries to block, fortunately throwing his body back as well. The blade of the sword snaps almost cleanly-off at the hilt, pinging and clanging across the ground as the others look on.

I can save him, little fairy.

The voice is soft and gentle, whispering to Lykha from seemingly thin air. She glances around, but no one else seems to have heard the voice.

Murtoa, also, doesn’t seem to feel that he needs saving. He tosses the useless sword hilt away, drawing Kolaya’s sword without hesitation.

It seems almost absurdly disrespectful, having just broken an enchanted blade, for him to draw the family heirloom against the being that just broke the former. But, the human warrior isn’t battering away thoughtlessly at the dragon, and he isn’t doing it because he has no respect for the blade. He’s doing it because he trusts his life to it.

Mury sprints in towards the dragon once more, juking off to the side with skillful footing to avoid the dragon’s repeated attempts to attack him. It rears up, removing its head far from his range, but he has no specific target. The way he is attacking allows him to adapt on the fly. Can he chip away at the dragon this way? Not likely for as long as chipping away would take, but he just needs to weaken it enough for him to take complete control of the fight and finish it with whatever plan he has to do so. At the very least, he might be able to drive the creature off and end the brutal attack.

And, to that end, Murtoa stops near the abdomen as the dragon roars, inhaling a deep breath. Just before Gyrryth fires, though, the human warrior takes a very deliberate stance, swinging the simple blade with precision and along a perfect and specific arc. This swing carries the blade tip at an angle up and under the long belly scale, rather than impacting the biological armor plating itself. Finding this nearly impossible gap, the blade is able to strike flesh, and the dragon flinches once more, howling in anger as fire expels from its mouth in a more mild vent, rather than a full blast.

Lykha is a naive young fairy. She has no illusions about who and what she is. Her hubris is how she ended up in a jar in the desert, and her humility is how she earned the greatest friend she’s ever had. But, that doesn’t mean she believes him at his word every time he speaks. Now is one of those times. He claims he’s never run into a dragon before, and that they’re believed to be extinct. It’s only now, as she watches Murtoa unhesitatingly engage this dragon with intentional and precise attacks that she questions what he said.

He’s going to die. You can feel it, can’t you? You will be able to do nothing.

I’m not listening to you. Leave me alone.

Your choice, little one.

Lykha hugs her own chest nervously. She recognizes the voice as the spirit, Niolsynys, the spirit of void magic and the same one who essentially misled Lykha into using a terrifying magic against the male silveryourd.

Still though, she feels uneasy watching Mury fight. He is as competent as ever, but will that be enough? Something feels off, nagging at the young fairy.

Still, the fight rages on. The dragon finally is able to breathe fire at the ground at its feet, but Mury dives behind its foot, shielding himself from the blast even as the ground melts almost instantly. The smell of burning flesh fills the air quickly, but it’s far too potent to be from the relatively tiny human.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It becomes quickly apparent that the merciless breath of fire bored through the street, shell and into the flesh of the giant snail upon which the city is resting, and this is reinforced when the entire city shifts. Everyone’s balance is upset in the moment, including the dragon’s, when the whole city seems to suddenly lean in response to the snail’s flesh receiving injury. It settles quickly, and Gyrryth aims his remaining lightning pistol, waiting for the right time to fire, having missed the window just to stop the last fire breath.

Murtoa, however, is still on the move. This time, he’s now hanging onto one of the spines of the dragon’s lower back, struggling to gain footing.

Coco calls out to Maerin, “Mae! Gimme’nother goop to sling!”

Maerin snaps out of her own thoughts, glancing between Coco and Gyrryth’s gear bags, deliberating on what she has stashed in each of their bags. She flies to Coco’s bag, digging through small pouches and vials. She chooses a few, mixing them together quickly.

Gyrryth finds an opening as the dragon looks down at its back where Mury is. He fires the lightning pistol, and the impact hits it square in the nose -right where Coco’s first shot hit-.

The liquid still sticking to its face flares, and the dragon snorts in surprise, as if it suddenly has to sneeze. Sure enough the dragon’s gaze goes distant as it snorts repeatedly, trying to clear its nose. Its large claw rubs its muzzle, but it inhales sharply several times, sneezing fire, which seems to pain it even more.

Coco asks excitedly, “See tha’!?”

Maerin replies, “I did! Fire hurts its nose! Gyrryth!”

“Indeed!” Once more, the lizardman spellshot is quick to connect what Maerin is about to say, and he swaps to his fire pistols -his last two unused spelldusters other than one of his void dusters-.

The dragon shakes its head wearily as it tries to nurse its nostrils. Maerin presents the next mixture to Coco, saying, “Aim for its nose!”

“Aye, Love!” The teen takes the vial, loading it into the slingshot’s pad and taking aim. She swings her arms up for distance, launching the vial of liquid into the air. Unfortunately, the dragon’s motions are erratic and difficult to predict, and this time, the vial smashes on the dragon’s cheek. Coco replies with a small shrinking wince, “Sorry…”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re just keeping it from dislodging Mury. Gyrryth, fire when ready!”

He nods, firing the first of his two pistols a moment later. “Was just waiting for an opening.” He fires again, and both of his shots hit the dragon square in the nose, the blast of the second one catching the dragon on an inhale, and it snorts again, shrieking in frustration.

The creature bucks its torso forward, putting its forelegs down once more, and the violent motion throws Mury, which he is able to soften by gripping its rear leg as he falls, and he tumbles to a kneel.

No one blames Gyrryth, though. The dragon’s movements are unpredictable, and it was already trying to dislodge the warrior. He’s still alive, and he rises to his feet, though there’s a bit of hesitation in his movements now.

Lykha shifts nervously, realizing that she’s been holding position all on her own, now that Coco is actively assisting. She fidgets with her hands, unable to assist with her magic expended.

You are helpless. Let me help you.

She ignores the voice of the void spirit trying to tempt her. The last time she trusted this very spirit, she put an innocent -but dangerously predatory- creature through agonizing pain. With that said, though, the spirit is right. Murtoa is in danger, and there’s nothing she can do.

But she knows what he’s trying to do.

“The head! He’s going for the head!”

The others look at the young fairy, who until now, was almost completely useless from her panic. She quickly adds in clarification, “That’s why he’s trying to climb. G-Gyrryth…?”

The lizardman looks. While Murtoa is showing no fear or hesitation about approaching the dragon, Gyrryth is not so confident.

However, he is also far from being a coward, given that he is still in the engagement area while trained and actively serving Holy Order warriors are fleeing.

Maerin adds, seemingly sensing his hesitation, “Mury likely only needs a boost. Get him high. Coco, if you’ve got another of your flashers…”

“Righ’ here, Love! Say the gab!”

Maerin nods, “We’ll try to keep it distracted if it notices you.”

“Please do.” Without further hesitation, the lizardman spellshot holsters his pistols, sprinting towards the dragon’s feet. The mature fairy finishes her current action, which was blending powders in another vial and feeding a fuse in through the cork. She hands it to Coco, saying, “This will also flash brightly. Light the fuse and launch it.”

The teen nods, aiming her flasher in her slingshot first as she awaits Maerin’s order to fire.

Maerin calls out, “Now!”

Coco releases, and the slingshot launches the flasher into the air, flickering intermittently. The dragon instantly takes notice of the device and recoils, snarling angrily. Its breath draws in and a glow emanates from between its teeth, but before it can incinerate the girls, Mury scrambles forward, jamming his blade into the wound he made earlier.

The dragon howls, and the human warrior is cast through the window of one of the ground floor buildings when it kicks. It turns its fire-charged gaze towards the building, but Gyrryth does what needs done this time. He sprints headlong into the dragon’s other leg, jamming his own knife into one of the wounds Murtoa made. The dragon launches itself back, howling in pain as it falls sideways.

The lizardman spellshot sprints to the window, finding Murtoa wearily jogging towards him already.

“I am here to help you mount the beast.”

Mury simply nods, and the two jog towards it. “Gimme a boost.”

Gyrryth nods, jogging ahead as the dragon catches its breath facing briefly away from them. The lizardman spins, cupping his hands together as Mury builds up speed towards him. The human warrior steps in Gyrryth’s hand with the utmost trust, and Gyrryth uses his mighty strength to help launch Murtoa into the air. The unorthodox knight grips the dragon’s back again, shouting, “Keep the girls safe!”

“Wait… Sir Murtoa…!?”

The dragon, startled by Mury once more gripping onto its back, bounces to its feet quickly, in spite of its pain. It roars, instantly realizing it can’t reach him where he is. Its broad wings spread wide, even as Mury tries to crawl towards its head.

The dragon doesn’t want to die, clearly, and it never considered it was in danger before Murtoa’s arrival. Now, it will do anything to escape the Grim Reaper in spite of its own body.

With a mighty sweep of its wings, one wounded and the other healthy, the dragon lifts its feet off of the ground. Unhindered by its injuries, the powerful creature roars one last time before its mighty wings carry both it and Murtoa into the sky with impressive and nearly break-neck speed, leaving his friends behind on the ground to watch as the giant winged avian shrinks into the sky.

“Wh-... What do we do now?” asks Lykha nervously.

The rest of the group is silent, glancing at her briefly.

Tomoba murmurs in surprise, “That’s him… isn’t it? The real Murtoa of Lakia…”

Coco nods at him, and she replies uncharacteristically normally, “You don’ have to worry no more. He’ll sto’ the fire monster.”

Tomoba looks up into the sky for a moment. “Will it even matter?”

Maerin flies from Coco’s bag to stand in front of Tomoba, saying gently in a reassuring tone, “You hired us to return Maribel to you. We will find her.”

He looks at her with solemn eyes, but he nods subtly. He then asks a little dryly, “I… don’t know how you work together, but…” He looks up again, asking, “C-... Can he fly? H-How…?”

The girls turn pale as Gyrryth approaches with his own slowness. The lizardman replies quietly, “I don’t think it was a factor…”

The other four look at him with surprise, though Maerin is the fastest to realize that it’s the mechanical practicality Murtoa calculates everything with, and the decision was made beyond the control or input of anyone, including Gyrryth who had a split second chance to alter the outcome, but completely missed any -if there were- warning signs.

It’s difficult to see from the ground, but the tiny speck that is the dragon suddenly takes a sharp movement, halting its ascent high in the sky.

The moment of truth is upon them. Did Murtoa succeed? Can they help him in any way?

Did he kill the dragon?

Will he live?

I can save him…

Lykha’s heart races as those soft and teasing words are spoken to her once more.

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Murtoa of Lakia slays monsters.

He did not knight himself. He did not choose to defeat the Holgamoor, but did so anyways. When his life’s mission awakened in him, he did not consider what-ifs or what could be. He decided and at once became a slayer of monsters, and every mission he survived, he learned from. Every monster he defeated, he remembered how to repeat the act.

He never asked for fame or glory to accompany his name nor legends to be written about him. He does not demand more than he needs to continue to function, and in some cases, requires nothing at all. Were it entirely up to him, he would simply arrive, slay the colossus plaguing the area, and leave. That is his entire mission.

He has been requested by name all over the world for missions that do not align with that simple and concise credo.

A knight capable of slaying a colossus should have no trouble assassinating a premier. A warrior who brought down an army should have no trouble defeating another. A freelance mercenary of unquestioned honor and integrity would be the perfect agent to address the illegitimate children of an Archbishop.

A slayer of colossi is the only one who can slay a dragon.

There are many secrets in the world, and many of those are held by the Holy Church of the Spoken Realm to ensure the balance of power in the world. Murtoa doesn’t care for those secrets and would learn none of them were they not revealed to him beyond his control.

And one of those secrets is the difference between a life and a death at this very moment.

It’s taking everything he can to hold onto the creature as it rockets into the sky in a violent spin, trying to dislodge him either by centrifugal force or by suffocating him high in the atmosphere. He knows, because he’s passed out before.

The dragon, however, is wounded, and it cannot muster the violent forces necessary to dislodge him with ease as it normally would be. It is only barely managing the flight as is, and he is still hanging on. His right hand dangles at his side, desperately holding onto the family sword given to him by Kolaya in hopes of the sword serving a legendary hero in his adventures.

Murtoa doesn’t care that he’s legendary, but he will do his best to honor the sword.

And in this case, avoid dishonor.

He will have only one chance, and he’s running out of time to enact it. He pushes through the cold rapidly piercing into his body from the altitude. He keeps his movements calm and steady and his breaths equally so to compensate for the thinning air. He cannot rush, but he cannot dawdle. Timing is everything. He climbs carefully up the dragon’s back, using its spines as hand and foot holds. Fortunately, the aerodynamic nature of the dragon actually aids him to some degree; the dragon’s body is designed to cool itself by forcing air against its torso -especially its spine and shoulders- like a sort of ram-jet. As long as he keeps his body close to its own, the air currents press in on him more than try to peel him off. Of course, the opposite is true if he lets any of the air under his torso; he’ll be blown off of the dragon’s back like little more than a tuft of smoke.

His visor begins to frost over, mainly from the moisture in his breath. A crack suddenly splits shortly after, the rapid cooling too much for his simple helmet’s protective visor to handle. Fortunately, this isn’t his first airborne takedown, and he learned through dumb luck why the innermost layer needs to have a skin to keep glass dust from falling into his eyes.

His body is shivering, and he can feel the stiffness starting to claim his fingers. But, he must reach his target. Not all creatures can be simply struck once and killed, and dragons are not one of them.

Fortunately, he’s not trying to kill the dragon.

What he IS attempting to do, though, has a similarly risky level of failure if he times his move wrong or misses the exact mark he needs to strike. All of it would be for nothing if he fails here and now.

As Murtoa reaches the dragon’s collar, he’s gasping for breath. The icy cold is burning his lungs, and the intensely thin air is insufficient to feed his body the necessary oxygen. His vision is narrowing and his mind is becoming cloudy. His fingers are stiff and his joints are achy.

It’s now or never.

Murtoa of Lakia uses the last of his strength to heft himself up and into the fastest spin he can manage, swinging the sword as swiftly as he can make the blade go. His aim for his target is mostly faith at this point, though he has a mental image of where the blade needs to go and the depth he needs to reach. Not too deep, but certainly not too shallow.

With a swift and barely audible swish, the dragon’s groaning roar hitches, and its breathing halts.

Through the frost and crack in his visor, the human warrior can see the shadowy figure lurch into an awkward pose, no longer flapping its wings as both of their bodies slow their ascent. The dragon’s body twitches briefly, but it’s clear that it has lost all motor control, and seems to quickly lose consciousness soon after.

And then, its body starts to shrink.

Murtoa of Lakia clings to consciousness with everything he has.

He knows she didn’t ask for any of this, and if his team is able to save him, he still has an obligation to her.

He may be a legendary slayer of colossal monsters, but saving lives that he can save has never been beneath him.

***********************************