In the gaps between overwhelmingly hot, air-burning breath attacks and clashing, shimmering dragon horns and teeth and claws, bolts of magic met with glowing, crescent sword shockwaves, again, again. The two mortals danced and weaved around the hazards of the battlefields and attacked at the slightest openings, several attacks a second when they had free ight of one another. The sunset sky gradually lost is vibrant orange and grew dark, with only the endless rain of meteors illuminating the world far below. The Lair laid in mostly darkness under the abyss breach, but the internal glow of the World Core dragons did not fade, their breaths violently lighting up the world. Stormshard danced around the breaths of the amalgamation dragon at the speed of sound and twirled away from the mage’s magic zaps with the mighty grace of a mighty ballerina, but there was no part of the battlefield that wasn’t constantly engulfed in shimmering heat, causing a slow down-tick of Estelles HP over time even with all of her heat resistance levels. Barely noticeable, yet still there.

Judging by the way the mystery mage gradually grew slower, however, they did not have the luxury of maxed heat resistances. After dodging yet another air-slash, they dove behind the massive crown of horns of the amalgamation dragon to charge their spells from there, resorting to siege warfare.

Coward, Estelle thought with a widening grin. Coming here with such audacity, yet hiding like a little mouse behind your boss. As if I’m going to let you get away with that!

Moments later, the perfect opportunity presented itself to Estelle; the amalgamation dragon snapped its jaws close to the Arkenland core’s throat, and for just a split second, the gap between the two was nearly closed. Estelle nudged Stormshards sides with her heels, the directions clear, and once again, stormshard leaped, mightily, across the kilometer-long chasm. He landed with rainbow-flaring hooves on the amalgamation dragons forehead, and immediately dashed to where the mage was hiding.

The mage was prepared, but so was Estelle; a torrent of multi-colored magic shot towards them, a sustained stream of it; for seconds, then moments, then long minutes did the veritable waterfall of arcane energies come crashing towards them with the aim of tearing them asunder.

Estelles impractical-looking sword, however, did not lose; she cut shockwave after shockwave, hundreds of cuts, thousands of cuts, uncountable slashes of mighty power, meeting the spellwork and matching it in both speed and mana.

“NEIGH!” Stormshard said and took a single hesitating step backwards.

“No, we can do it! Just a little more….!” Estelle said, gritting her teeth in exhaustion, and channeled most of her remaining mana, a solid chunk of 200,000 of it, into one final slash. As the mage’s spell grew gradually slower, weaker, Estelle unleashed this mightiest of cuts with a glow that rivaled that of suns. If the former slashes had hummed with power, this one was a full metal band backed by a symphonic orchestra and a chorus of a thousand singing angels.

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There was no escape, nowhere to hide. The mage dodged behind the cover of the dragon's horns, but the slash simply washed over and around their cover like water, a great wave of searing, falsetto-singing light. In its wake, as the world darkened again, the robed silhouette of the mage fell from the dragon, fell from the sky, and crashed into the temple ground.

Stormshard landed in front of them with his kinds unparalleled silent grace and kicked away the mage’s staff. The figure, their robes smoking from Estelles attack, struggled to get up and Estelle put an end to that by getting off Stormshards back and placing the edge of her blade against the strangers shoulder.

“I doubt I need to tell you that you have broken the very laws of the Isekai Convention, or that your actions here have set a dangerous presedence of which you should be deeply ashamed.” the chainmail bikini-clad warrior princess said with fury brimming in her voice, her sword burning with the same zeal as her eyes, except literally. “State your name, your origin and your purpose, filthy coward, so that I may decide whether to spill your blood here as an offering to my World Core, or drag your near-dead mangled body in front of the Council of Champions for them to decide your fate. Either way, you have dared attack the land I defend, and I shall carve your end into my legend before this is over."

“Haahh… hahhh… as if… as if I’m going to lose to some crazy idiot in stupid underwear…!” the stranger said with a deep, masculine baritone.

“You speak much, for an unarmed coward who’s out of mana. I wonder, does your world have that saying about barking hellhounds?”

A flash of gritted teeth. Then - a flash of darkness, followed by a searing pain, and a mighty, but tortured and pained, ‘NEIGH’.

Estelle was certainly no stranger to pain. She was not even a stranger to wrongness. And yet…

“... you would bind the foulness itself..?" She spoke through gritted teeth, having been forced to take several steps back by the abyssal energy. "How far have you allowed yourself to fall? You should end yourself here and now, stranger, and end your own stain on the Worlds themselves.”

A second flash of darkness, a second wave of pain and wrongness, and Estelle fell to one knee, supporting herself against Helliondragonhoundbunnyslayer. The mage stood up with his weariness gone as if it were never there, and looked down on her, his face still largely obscured by the shadow of his hood.

“You have been a commendable opponent, I’ll give you that. An absolute idiot, to face an unknown foe in naught but a strippers fetish outfit, but I suppose you did have the strength to back it up. To bad, but it ends here for you. Have fun joining the foulspawn, woman, I’m sure your disturbing bloodlust will make you fit right in with the crowd.”

“You… what?” Estelle said, practically hissing the words through her teeth. “You would make more of…”

The mage raised his hands and black lightning came down from the abyssal breach, gathering and playing around his hand like it was naught but a simple spell rather than the chaotic and sundering energy it truly was. A glowing grey eye glittering ominously and very, very judgementally under the shadow of his hood. Then he brought his hand down with a casual gesture.