Dragon's Demeanor

Four minutes left. More than half of the time was gone. Kies counted down the seconds left until he needed to released his spell. He could feel the dragon's presence outside, waiting for the barrier to drop so that it could get in and wreak havoc on the city.

Rui and Lentis were trying to find a lone demon somewhere inside of the city. How feasible was that? Very unlikely, but they didn't have a choice. When the barrier went down, the dragon wasn't going to wait for even a second longer for anything. It was going to proceed with the destruction of Otane without mercy.

Not only did the two have to find Messa, but whoever finds her will still have to fight her and get the information of the baby dragon's location out of her. For all they know, the baby dragon may not even be here, but somewhere far away from here, where it was being held captive. There were too many holes in the plan and Kies just realized this. Finding Messa won't solve their problem. They may have to actually try to bring down the dragon...

No, when it came down to that, Kies will figure something out. For now, they needed to see if Messa did have the baby dragon. Since if she did, then negotiation with the adult one may be possible.

Kies closed his eyes and continued to maintain the barrier as it soaked up the magic in his core. He began to feel a strange tingling inside his chest. He didn't understand why, but it didn't feel harmful. Was his body being relieved after letting out all that stored up magic that built up in his for so long? Or was it something else?

The sensation became stronger and stronger until he couldn't ignore it anymore. He opened his eyes and looked around to see what was causing it. It wasn't coming from inside his body. Some force from the outside was pulling at him. It felt like there was a giant magnetic prying him from his spot. He couldn't tell where exactly it was coming from. It felt like it was coming at every side.

Wait... The fragment's location... Kies detected that it was not too far from him. Oh, so that was why. Kies turned his head until he was roughly in the direction of where the fragment was, and what did he see?

Across from him was a building that got hit by the dragon's fire breath and was damaged. Luckily, Kies put out the flames in time before the whole thing tumbled over. However, one of the walls was broken and angled such that it resembled that of a steep hill, and on the wall, climbing up for some reason was someone he knew.

What was Iris up to this time, scaling the side of a building? Kies didn't call out to her and just watched her. Below her, following the older sister's bad example was the younger sister, also for some reason climbing up the side of the building.

Kies kept a careful eye on the two of them. In case they fell, he needed to catch them with his magic. At least now he knew what was the cause of his core going wild. It was because the fragment was responding to his magic power. And as for why Iris was doing something so crazy? It was probably also because of the fragment. He saw it glowing against her shirt, and since Iris was a mage too, she could tell that something was up with the crystal. Even if she wasn't a mage, the glowing was more than enough to draw her attention.

Iris found a ledge on the third floor of the building and carefully made her way to it so that she can take a break. It was impressive how she managed to scale that wall when it was that steep. She used the cracks in the wall as footholds and managed to get that far up by doing that.

Iris bent over the edge and extended her arm down to help her sister who was having trouble. She opened her mouth but Kies was too far away to hear what they were saying. Wompa nodded and grabbed onto Iris' hand and she pulled her up.

After the both of them made it onto the ledge, they sat down to take a breather. They had yet to notice Kies watching their foolish endeavors atop the building right across from them, and as much as he wanted to continue keeping an eye on those two reckless idiots, he couldn't.

His core shook violently. He was almost out of magic. His estimations were off by some few minutes. He had seconds left before he had to drop the barrier. Kies knew that a few seconds weren't going to do anything, and wanting to conserve some of his magic, he canceled the spell.

Kies felt the strain on his body get lifted away like he just had a boulder taken off his back. Magic came pouring back into the core, rapidly replenishing everything that he used. At the same time, the winds surrounding Otane started to slow. Layer by layer, the winds either drifted away or disappeared into nothingness. Light began pouring into Otane again. The sun was still behind a mountain of clouds, and the dragon was still outside.

Now the wind barrier was down, there was nothing stopping the dragon from rampaging through the city. Kies saw flattened and burned-down farmlands and buildings outside of the city walls. While the dragon was waiting for the barrier to fall, it took the liberty of destroying everything that was outside of the barrier first.

People pointed up at the dragon standing right outside of the city. It growled and opened its mouth, gushing out orange-red hot fire at everything below it, setting everything ablaze.

Kies didn't know how many people were killed by that but he scowled.

"Tch..."

It's going to be Silverfield all over again... No, he wasn't going to let that happen. Kies recovered less than a tenth of his magic power but it should be enough to stall that beast. He could also recover it mid-fight so he didn't need to sit here and wait. If he did, more people were going to die.

Kies glanced back at the two princesses. They were still on the ledge, but both of them were staring wide-eyed at the dragon. The two of them should've stayed in the inn. Kies didn't have time to escort them back. He created a boundary around the two on the ledge with his magic, concealing them from the dragon. If hit by the flames, the winds would expand and blow it back, but it could only take a single hit.

'This should be fine,' Kies thought in his head as he leaped off the building and used the winds to pick him up and shoot him closer to the dragon.

Kies might lose his life here but he had to buy time for people to escape and for the two royal guards to find Messa.

Well, Kies always wanted to fight a dragon anyway. Let's see just how powerful a mythical beast of legend is and how it will compare to an incomplete God.

***

Iris stared at the burning buildings in front of her. The dragon... It killed all those innocent people without any hesitation. She made a grave mistake coming out to find Kies and to see the dragon. This colossal monster that she heard stories about from bedtime books was no joke.

Iris felt a hand on hers, shaking her and trying to get her attention. She looked left and saw that Wompa was trying to get her to snap out of it. Staying here was too dangerous. They needed to go before they became the next targets.

"L-let's go back into the inn..." Iris muttered, not taking her eyes off the magnificent but deadly beast. Iris looked down at where they came from. People were running in all directions, screaming and shoving one another as they fled, not wanting to become the next victims of the dragon's flaming breath.

Iris scooted over to the wall and carefully turned around, sticking her foot off the edge, trying to find a crack to put it in. She felt one but as she tried to climb down, she saw that her foot was shaking uncontrollably. It wasn't just her feet either. Her arms were also shaking. She couldn't do this.

The dragon struck fear into her. A fear that she never felt before. She was always making light of dangerous things because she never experienced it before but seeing the legendary beast in front of her, she understood what true fear was. The dragon could kill thousands of people every time it opened its mouth.

Iris got back onto the ledge with her sister. She couldn't climb back down, not when she was like this. A light breeze blew into the two. It was warm, almost like it was comforting them, but that was just the heat of the desert residing inside the winds.

There was a blur that flew across her vision and Iris thought that she might be seeing things after being so frightened by the sight of the dragon, but the Windstone hanging off her neck told her that she wasn't imagining things.

It suddenly started floating and flew in the direction of where the blue went, seemingly wanting to go towards there. The blue that went by was not her seeing things. It was Kies. He was going to try to fight the dragon.

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