I hovered on the left side of the dragon, making sure to keep a distance of at least a hundred meters between us.

Returning to charge, once again, I reopened with a BoF, aiming for the head.

Just like a balloon filled with water was thrown at someone. It didn’t cause much damage to the dragon, but it did cause it to seethe in pain.

Almost immediately, the dragon thought of a comeback.

It charged yet another powerful breath attack.

I must admit that I grew to love how limited the types of attack monsters are capable of being, and I must say that I’m infinitely grateful that this even applies to Primordial Dragons.

But there is one thing…

With a charging time of less than a couple seconds, the dragon roared, sending a giant ball of fire straight at me.

"Hon."

"Ayo."

Using my sword and my fast-processed FoB, combined with Hanti-magic, I scythed throughout the giant ball of fiery fire. The two severed continued their course somewhere behind me, causing a massive explosion in the faraway background.

Unlike how Hanti-magic should’ve affected it, the giant ball of fire didn’t even dissolve itself entirely like it should’ve done, only the path of my slash did dissolve.

To put it simply, even Hanti-magic was a little too ineffective to attack that monster.

Immediately after having fired that attack, followed by yet another one, a breath attack, it darted toward me like a shaft of light, but as I was about to avoid it, the dragon lost balance, sending the giant shaft-like fire breath straight toward the sky.

The reason the dragon lost balance was Heon, who sneaked up below the dragon's jaw and fired her with a powerful breath attack.

Furious, the dragon charged after Heon, blasting breath attack after breath attack, using her sharp and heavy claws toward Heon.

The dragon, seething at Heon’s consistent inconvenience, slammed its claws repeatedly into the ground, causing powerful blasts and thus earthquakes, but thanks to the incredible speed her light-magic provided, she managed to avoid each of the dragon's blows by literally flashing around like shooting stars around the area.

While Heon was serving as bait, I didn't simply stand without doing anything.

At the beginning of this fight, we made an insane effort to lure the dragon here on this plane and wide surface. Even now, Heon, while avoiding the dragon attack, was putting an effort to not wander too far away from this area, for this was the perfect place for me, for us to perform our ultimate killing blow upon this dragon.

But before we can skip to that killing blow, we must at least weaken this dragon to the best of our ability.

Just knocking it out would do.

"Lance Showering!"

Hovering above the dragon, I bolted out 13 giant lance-like lightning bolts, reminiscent of the eight spears of Aurora of the late Godsent, Kiady, onto ithe dragon widely exposed back.

The dragon noticed what I was up to, but it was too late for it to muster any counterattack.

With a noise that suggested that the entire world was ripped apart, my 13 lightning giant lances lashed onto the Primordial beast.

With a scorning scream, flames, smoke, and thunder engulfed its entire body. One could tell, with the loud "thud" that followed, that the dragon's body slumped heavily to the ground.

I wanted to immediately follow up my attack, but unsure of where Heon could be amidst all this chaos, I waited, and almost instantly, I got an answer.

Taking advantage of the momentum, I provided, Heon unleashed upon the dragon, her most powerful move.

Heon, like a bright shooting star, a pillar of blinding light soared into the sky, from which she unleashed a mountain-sized ball of light that was fired once again at the dragon, like a meteor plunging toward the Earth.

An immense and insanely powerful explosion once again reverberated, shaking the whole world.

A mountain-sized mushroom cloud lifted from where the dragon was.

This should’ve been enough to make one somehow optimistic after how little we've inflicted upon it so far. But this, I knew, was far from being enough.

Using her remaining strength, she flew in a circle around where our attack hit, and we created a massive vortex that sucked the smoke, ashes, and fire from the raging volcanoes that were erupting within a hundred mile radius, thanks to Heon's spread.

From where the dragon was, in the epicenter of the vortex, a roar came out, along with a powerful laser-like fire breath, attempting to stop us, but Heon’s speed was beyond that of the primordial beast’s attack.

The breath attack missed us.

Violet and yellow raged, and millions of bolts of lightning clattered in the vortex we created, clattering with the sound of an entire universe being torn apart.

I announced to Heon that I felt my attack had reached its peak momentum.

"Now, Heon."

Changing her course of running, she suddenly headed toward the epicenter of the lightning storm, then suddenly, but not surprisingly, halted herself, propelling me forward high into the sky.

Brandishing my sword toward heaven, lightning from every corner of the vortex, vortexed around my blade.

The amount of power was such that not only my sword was teemed with lightning, but my whole body as well.

This was easily three thousand times more powerful than my original BoF.

The experience was painful indeed.

I even felt the smell of my own flesh being burned, but I bore through. For a short instant, I felt like being an omnipotent god of thunder, I felt stronger than I ever was.

Below me, the dragon peered. To counter my incoming attack, she mustered once again for another fire breath attack. From how long it took her to fire it, one could assume that this was her most powerful one.

My heart did not waver. This time, I was fully intent on confronting it head on.

"Dragon! Your fire, my lightning; we shall see which one shall devour the other. "

Swinging my sword downward, "Divine Light of Retribution!" I roared, unleashing the full force of my lightning on the dragon, while she retaliated with her breath attack.

For a split second, both her fire breath attack and my lightning met in a grandiose explosion. For a split second, both attacks tried to swallow each other, but soon, so soon that one could say that it was instantaneous, my lightning swallowed her breath, and continued its full charge toward the dragon.

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A loud, deafening blast scattered a powerful ripple, crumbling, melting, or reducing to atoms everything in its path in a thousand kilometer radius. Along with a desperate screech, the dragon's entire body was engulfed in a burst of light.

Some time went by, and there was still no trace of the dragon. Where it was an instant ago was now covered by a giant fog of ashes. Where it wasn’t covered with a smoke screen of ashes, it was a hellish sight. The surroundings had nothing else to do with what they formerly were. Beyond the smoke of ashes, everything was on fire, ablaze and melting.

A sight that one would only expect to see in hell.

Levitating, I went to land on a nearby hill that had survived.

Allowing myself a short respite, I left my butt falling onto the ground.

I couldn’t feel any movement or sign of life from the enormous smokescreen, but it was too early to tell whether it was dead or not.

"Did we win?"

To whom exactly I was asking this question, I couldn’t tell anymore.

My head hurt, my ears buzzed.

My whole body was sore, numb, and exhausted. All I wished was …

Just as I was about to lift my hand to my aching head, I realized that it was gone.

My right arm was gone, eaten away by my own attack. In fact, it was still crumbling away, slowly making its way to the shoulder, like fire slowly turning a fine cigar to ash.

With a simple slash of my other hand, I severed where I could save from the right.

Did I feel sad over it?

No, in fact, I can even say that it did well in surviving until now.

I lost my hand, my sword, but I felt no loss over it. Those were dispensable. As long as I won and survived, I could get another one.

At the base of the hill, Heon limply walked. She no longer beamed with precedent white clearance, just like I was, she was exhausted.

We had disposed of all of our assets. We were depleted of all our arsenal.

"Han, did we wo-"

My heart skipped a beat as I heard a loud noise coming from the giant pillar of smoke.

Once again, it reverberated.

At this point, it would be right to call it a ramble.

"This can’t be!"

Seeing the same thing as me, she ran with the best of her strength toward me, and so did I toward her.

But feeling how grim things were going to be, I screamed at her, "Heon! Retreat! "

A giant breath attack flashed from within the smokescreen, straight to the small hill I was on, and it swept it, engulfing Heon entirely.

By blast, her body was sent flying several kilometers away.

I was not even given the time to worry about her; the clattering sound of a wing flapping made my heart skip several beats, if not stop entirely.

The loud sound of a wing flapping reverberated

In an instant, the sky, the smoke screen was entirely cleared, finally revealing what was behind it, standing proud within an immense crater the Primordial dragon was, completely unarmed, but also somehow different from earlier.

On her back was something she didn’t have a few moments earlier, an immense pair of fire raging wings. A fiery inner radiance was pulsing below the primordial skin, making it look like a true god of fire.

Like thunder in a storm, a voice reverberated.

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, BUT I DO KNOW WHY I MUST DO IT UNTIL THEIR RETURN; I MUST LIVE AND FIGHT!, I MUST FIGHT, AND YOU MUST DIE."

Hearing those words, I felt hopelessness like I had never felt before.

The aura she was emanating felt simply omnipotent.

I knew very well that in my current situation, I had no chance of winning.

Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to simply give up and accept death.

A glance cast at where Heon was told me that she had survived the breath attack. She was most likely heavily injured, but she survived.

As long as I lived, as long as we survived, there could be a chance for us to win in the future, whether it takes a year or a lifetime.

I gathered all the strength I had left, I made myself another flying podium, and I fled.

Where to ?

Southward, most likely.

Passing by the dragon, I ran in the opposite direction of where Heon was. She was most likely injured, but as long as I gave her time, she would be able to find shelter. All I would have to do would be to flee away from that dragon.

Just as expected, the dragon flapped its wings, soared into the sky, and started to chase after me.

Despite how weak I was, my speed was undeniably impressive, but so was the dragon’s too.

With a roar, it fired a giant fireball at me, I avoided it. It did it once again, I avoided it once again.

It let loose a fire breath that engulfed everything in its path, eventually ending up darting high in the sky, but I managed to avoid it.

This went on for several dozen kilometers.

Up to this point, I was completely on auto-pilot, I was merely half-conscious of what I was doing. I was there, but at the same time, I wasn’t.

"Sigh, what am I doing?"

Right now, all I really wanted to do was jump into a comfy bed and sleep.

I’m so exhausted that I feel like I could easily sleep for four millennia.

After raining down fireballs, one of the dragon's fireballs landed on the flying podium I was on.

From the shock, my body was sent flying upward, high in the sky.

I felt the dragon approaching me.

Yet it didn’t engulf me immediately, instead it opens its mouth wide open and just like I did a moment earlier, it created a vortex, but instead of sucking wind and lightning, it sucked fire from every corner of this place, that with what I caused and all the volcanoes that went active in this place, wasn’t what was missing.

I like a fish caught in a net that can't move the slightest.

I knew, very well, I was about to get obliterated, reduced to ash by what I was about to get a full taste of.

This is going to hurt.

How did I know?

I couldn’t tell, but there was a strange sense of déjà vu to this.

But from where?

Well, not that it matters anymore.

Though I knew it was useless and wouldn’t change my fate, I raised my left arm and what I had left of my right one, in an attempt to block that attack.

Without much warning, the dragon unleashed its attack.

It hadn’t even reached me yet, when I told myself, "So this is it, huh?"

If I had to describe it, like a fly being hit by a fly swatter, I was engulfed by the dragon breath.

Enhanced or not enhanced, my left arm was gradually eaten away by the breath attack, just as I had predicted. It hurt.

Why did it hurt like this when it didn't hurt at all when I lost my right arm?

I couldn’t tell anymore. A moment earlier, I didn’t even notice when I lost my right arm, yet right now, it was one of the most painful experiences in this short and dull life.

Soon, but not too soon, there was nothing left of my entire arm but the elbow, and the breath was still continuing to eat me away, while my body was progressively blown backward.

It was the end, I knew no miracle was coming, that is something I’ve learned well over the first year I spent in this place, miracles never come, you only have to do it yourself.

And right now, there was nothing I could do.

I closed my eyes and waited for it, but it wasn’t what immediately came to me.

"What!"

Like a flash, Heon, from my left, came out of nowhere. She tried snatch me away with her, in her peak she would’ve been able to pull it off, but right now she was simply too weak, instead of being able to snatch me away, she too was caught within the dragon fire breath.

But instead of randomly and panickingly acting due to the pain, she ultimately chose to do the same thing as did one year ago, shielding me with her body from the dragon breath.

She let out a pained wail, and it was honestly very painful to hear.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING! LEAVE ME BE!"

Instead of paying attention to what I was complaining about, she kept pressing me even harder.

Suddenly, as if the breath wasn’t powerful enough, the dragon fired a second one, propelling the first one even harder onto us.

We were tossed and blasted for several kilometers, finally ending our course by crashing heavily onto the firm and rugged ground.

Upon contact, I must say that I was knocked completely unconscious for a good few minutes , if not more.

Coming back to my senses, I immediately remembered Heon and started to look for her, which didn’t take me long.

She was lying on the ground, maybe a dozen meters away, and though it was weak, she was still breathing.

Having neither the arms nor the strength to stand up, I crawled my way toward her.

"Hey, Heon! You’re hearing me, aren’t you?!" I screamed.

The closer I got, the more I heard her pulse and breathing weakening.

"Aaaargh!" Wailing, I summoned the little strength my legs had to push myself toward her.

Finally reaching her, a pungent smell of burned flesh and blood came to my nostrils.

This time

"Aaaaaaaaaaargh!" I wailed, this time in bitter realization.

This smell, those injuries, those weakening pulses and breathing.

Everything was suggesting something I didn’t want to even think about.

Death.

Without even me noticing, tears were rolling down my cheeks profusely.

Amidst all this chaos, physically, mentally and emotionally, I heard a strange puppy-like yelp sound from Heon.

It was so un-Heon-like that it took me some time to realize that the noise actually came from her.

"Heon, I’m here… don’t love okay. It’s all going to be alright. All you need is a little rest. " With the tears. and the snort, I myself knew how little convincing I was. "Don’t move, okay."

To my plea, I received not even her usual grunt.

Instead, it was a voice that responded to me.

"Hon."

"Han,... Heon, she’s …"

"I know, of course I know. Hon, we need to-"

I was suddenly taken aback by sudden and acute headaches.

Images flashed inside my mind, resurfacing along with long supposedly forgotten memories.

At that moment, I realized.

"Shut up!" I raged.

"You’ve seen it haven't you, so you already knew it, it would. But the fact remains that you must hear it from me."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!."

"Open your eyes, Hon, open them. It is time for us to stop lying to ourselves."

"I SAID, SHUT UP! AAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!"

To be honest, If I did have both of my arms, I would have definitely gouged them out.

"OPEN THEM!"

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! N-"

Perhaps bothered by my rambling, Heon let out another pitiful noise.

My heart aches like it's never ached before at the mere mention of it.

Seriously, what am I doing?

What have I done?

Despite my earlier claims and protests, I slowly opened my eyes.

It was fuzzy and blurry at first due to the tears, but progressively my visions got clearer.

Right in front of me was Heon's giant , bruised and bloodied body, her head laying limply on the ground. As her last breath left her body, her golden eyes met mine.

"I'm so sorry, Heon; this is entirely my fault."