Explosive Collision

Iris grabbed the Windstone and cupped it in her hands, afraid that it may fly off it she didn't hold onto it. It was clear now. Iris had proof that the crystal on her neck was somehow connected to him. That explained why he knew she had it on her from the moment they met and why he wanted it.

After all that he did, she was more than willing to give it to him now. Though he wasn't the one that directly cured her older sister, he did a huge part by bringing her out of the castle safely.

Now, will he be able to get Otane out of this mess safely too? A lot of damage has already been done to the city and the outskirts, but the damage was at critical levels yet.

Iris felt ashamed about having to put all the burden on an outsider to save their city but there was nothing that the rest of them could do. The dragon was far too much for the soldiers to handle. Kies was the only person who can resolve this.

***

The barrier was gone and the dragon was inside the city. Things weren't looking good, and Lentis found no traces of the demon so far. The storming barrier around the city suddenly disappeared which only added more concern. Peaking over the rooftops, he could see the dragon's massive thorny head, its mouth open wide, a torrent of fire crawling out from its throat.

Lentis slid to a stop and turned his attention to the dragon. Trying to find that demon was out of the question. Their search would just turn up fruitless. The city was too big and there weren't enough of them.

Extending his arm, Lentis called upon his magic and conjured a massive boulder using the surrounding debris. "Will my magic even reach it?" he muttered the question to himself. The distance was too great but he had to try something. He couldn't let innocent people die. Lentis poured all that he could into the boulder. Parts of it started to crumble and break off. If he channeled any more magic into it, it would shatter.

"Go!" Lentis fired the boulder, which was roughly the size of a small house at the dragon. It streaked through the air, almost like a comet, and smashed right into the side of the dragon's jaw. The effect? It was a lot less than Lentis expected. It was the equivalent of throwing a pebble at a person, but he did get its attention. Its eye shot his way, getting him an agitated look.

All the hairs on Lentis' body stood up. He tried to move but his body would not respond. Fear erupted from his chest. D*mn it, move! Lentis ordered his body to move, and slowly, his stiffened muscles loosened. Gasping for air, Lentis turned and ducked behind a house as a ball of scorching hot fire exploded into it, sending splitters of burning wood and stone everywhere. The burning debris scratched his arms, legs, and face, but all in all, it was nothing major.

Coughing, Lentis got out of the smoke and without thinking, dove into a sizeable crater in the ground that resulted from the explosion. Using it as cover, he regained his breath and peeked over overhead just as the smoke is clearing to see the dragon rapidly approaching the city. It looked like the beast was tired of playing around and was going to attack for real now.

Should he shoot another boulder at the thing? No, the previous one had little to no effect on it at all. Lentis could only watch helplessly as the dragon strode to the wall. Towering well over its height, the dragon merely gave the wall a moment's glance before stomping down on it, crushing the stone structure. Like a domino effect, the parts of the wall directly to the left and right also collapsed, triggering a chain reaction that brought nearly half of the wall surrounding that side of the city toppling down into nothing more than rubble.

Curse the Gods. Was Lentis about to witness it all over again? The flames and destruction he saw that day were still fresh in his mind as if they had happened just yesterday. Will he see Otane fall just as he had Silverfield? No, even if he were only an ant in the eyes of the mighty dragon, he was going to do all that he could to stop it. If Otane fell here, the demons would have already won.

Lentis mustered all his magic for a desperate attack to inflict any sort of damage on the dragon. It did not matter if it were a small scrape, if it did anything, then it was something. Just like before, he conjured a massive boulder, triple the size of what he managed before. The concentrated magic tore away at the edges of the rock. It was disintegrating fast and he would have to fire it now before it crumbled to nothing.

But before Lentis could send it off, the boulder shattered and fragments flew in all directions, with some impaling into the caster himself. "Argh!" Lentis staggered back until his back collided with the wall. Blood washed down his torn armor. He had poured too much magic into the boulder and it couldn't handle it.

Why was this happening? In the past, he had created rocks far bigger than this, so what was going on? Was the material of the rock here too weak? Whatever the case was, it didn't matter now. The dragon was on the verge of turning the entire city into ashes. While staring in horror as the dragon opened its mouth and prepared to lay waste everything, something flew into the corner of Lentis' eye and caught his attention.

"What is that!?" Lentis immediately turned his attention to the unidentified object, rocketing across the air in the direction of the dragon. It was sleek like an arrow, but the amount of magic it was emitting was unfathomable. It could wipe Otane off the face of the desert three times over.

The dragon also noticed the flying object beelining toward it and hastily canceled its attack to move out of the way. It sensed the threat and evaded it by taking off, soaring hundreds of meters into the air in nearly an instant. The downdraft from its wings blew away the other half of the wall along with all the buildings nearby. However, the dragon was not out of the clear yet.

The object suddenly changed directions, spiraling up, chasing after the dragon. It picked up speed and closed the distance between itself and the dragon in a heartbeat. The dragon held up both its scaly arms to protect itself and braced for the impact. The two collided and all h*ll broke loose.

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