Chapter 86: Fighting Smaug

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Edward, unaware he had just saved the dragon, only saw a human shoot an arrow at the dragon. He didn't know that was the black arrow, and felt the man was quite brave to have attacked the dragon, although a little foolish.

The dragon, Smaug, was gigantic, more than a hundred meters long and a wingspan that probably went past 300 meters. It's greatest weapon was probably his dragon fire, followed by his body. As for his defence, it was absurdly strong. Not only was it strong in the beginning, after having spent years sleeping on mountains of gold and other precious materials, they seemed to have fused with his hide, making it even more durable.

Smaug, knowing the human archer had used his last black arrow, ignored him as he was no longer a threat and turned to the flying human, and spit out a fire breath at him.

Dragon Fire was known to be able to melt anything, so even though Narya gave him a fire resistance which could even be called immunity, he quickly jumped out of the way.

Then, he took out one of the javelins he crafted in Rivendell and threw it at the dragon. The javelin flew silently, and Smaug did not even see it, he only felt a strong impact against his back.

Although the impact was felt, Smaug's hide held on perfectly. Without missing a beat, the other four javelins appeared around Edward, and he grabbed another one, which he threw right at Smaug's face.

This time, the dragon saw the projectile, but could only close it's eyes as it felt the thing smash harshly against it's face.

"Human you are pissing me off!"

Smaug flapped his wings and flew up before sending another fire breath at Edward, who dodged masterfully. Then, he threw another javelin, which smashed against Smaug's belly. Again, he felt the impact, but it did not do any damage.

Smaug felt the impact was strengthening, and knew he couldn't continue like that. Since the human could dodge his fire breath, he would use his body. With one flap of his wings, Smaug was upon Edward, and he did not even bother to use his claws or teeth as he wanted to smash Edward into meat pulp.

Edward clenched his fist in response and with a Chi covered fist, he punched the incoming Smaug.

Edward was strong, but Smaug was more than a hundred meters long, and had just smashed his body into Edward, so even with all his strength he was sent flying.

However, Smaug was forced to a stop too, and even as he crashed against the burning houses, Edward managed to shrug off the damage. From that impact, he quickly understood Smaug's true strength.

Smaug was gigantic, which gave him great strength, but his strength was only proportional to his size, and although it was bigger than Edward's, it wasn't by too much, he wouldn't have too much dealing with it. What really troubled him was his defence, which had been strengthened by the years spent in the lonely mountain.

From within the ruins of a house, he threw the fourth javelin, which once again hit Smaug's belly. This time, a mark appeared on the scale hit.

This made Edward sigh, in the end those were just Javelins he had enchanted on a whim, of course they wouldn't be enough to kill the dragon. He still threw the fifth one, but this time Smaug was prepared and clashed with it with his frontal horn, and utterly destroyed the javelin.

Seeing Edward stopped throwing those annoying weapons at him, Smaug laughed, "What, you realized your weakness before me, human?"

Edward snorted at that, and Aeglos appeared in his hands.

Smaug did not leave the ground but flapped his wings for speed as he reached Edward with a speed not fitting his size.

Before he could smash into Edward though the earth below his feet rose uncontrollably, rising a pillar of earth to the sky. Smaug smashed into the pillar, and Edward jumped down as he pierced his spear toward Smaug's back.

The snow white tip of the elven spear was covered with Chi as it smashed against the strong back of the dragon.

As the spear reached it's mark, the dragon's body was suddenly forced into a bow as it's body flattened against the ground. It's hide, which was rumoured to be nearly indestructible, had been breached open by Edward's spear.

However, Edward wasn't too excited as although he had pierced through it's armor, he hadn't even drawn out blood.

Smaug, feeling it's first injuries for centuries, roared and rolled on the ground like an alligator, trying to smash Edward.

He dodged the body itself, but he could do nothing to dodge as the wing smashed into him and sent him flying once again.

The houses looked like they were made of paper as the two fought, the city standing on water was being destroyed quickly under the two's wrestle.

Edward stopped at the fifteenth house, and as soon as he got back onto his feet he jumped toward the dragon.

His spear in his right hand, he clenched his left one into a fist, and as he did the water the dragon was standing on transformed into a huge fist that pounded the dragon's belly.

Smaug, who was about to release a fire breath, had the wind knocked out of him as only dark smoke left his mouth, and Edward reached him. The spear struck several times, making several cuts on the dragon's body, but no blood flowed yet.

Using his wings as propellers, Smaug made a 360 as he used his tail as a whip, and Edward jumped in time. Smaug didn't even look at the results of his attack and flew up, before preparing a fire breath while looking at the sky. This way, Edward couldn't interrupt him.

Smaug looked down, and as expected Edward was still not dead, so he breathed out fire onto the area below him.

This time, the fire breath was so strong and so large Edward had no hope of dodging. Both of his arms went up as torrents of water rose around him, and blocked the fire breath for a moment. However, they couldn't hold for long enough and were vaporized, and the remaining fire fell toward Edward.

Edward clapped his hands, sending a powerful wind against the incoming flame, and managed to divert a little bit more of the flame, before what remained finally hit him.

As expected, Narya did not make him immune to dragon's fire. However, the addition of the ring, his Chi, his body's strength and the Armor of the Ancients, Edward managed to survive the assault.

He could feel burns on many places on his body despite covering his entire body with his armor before the fire could arrive.

Under the armor, the burns couldn't be seen though. Edward's armor changed as they fought, and now looked like an actual armor instead of a traveller's clothes.

As he looked at the dragon in the air, Edward couldn't help himself but grin like a fool. It had been a long time since he found an opponent that wasn't overwhelmingly stronger or weaker than him, and Smaug fell right in that category.

Using the air as his steps, Edward ran up to the sky and continued facing the dragon in the air.

The two beings showed to be equally matched, and even as they used every mean accessible to them, they could not finish the other side. Both seemed to be beasts of endurance too as despite the hours passing, they continued fighting with the same intensity.

However, it was three hours into the fight that a mistake was made. Thinking the fight was getting them nowhere, Smaug tried to fly away, but this gave Edward an opportunity, and he managed to pierce through one of his wings with Aeglos.

With one wing disabled, Smaug was no longer able to fly, and so he was stuck to fight with the human.

The remaining people of Laketown, who had been evacuated with Gandalf's help, watched the fight from a distance, awed by it. They did not know a man could have such strength. There were also three dwarves, Fili, Kili and Bofur left behind.

They, who had travelled with Edward for several months, found the battle to be mind blowing as they found Edward's claim to have his power sealed to actually be true, and he really was fighting the dragon by himself.

For the entire night, the two behemoths of power fought one another, but unfortunately Smaug did not know that time was against him.

They were both running dry of energy as dawn appeared, and the fight had already gotten much less intense than earlier.

But as the light of dawn shone onto the battlefield, Edward felt his Chi recover a little faster, and become a little stronger. The difference in strength was so negligible that in normal circumstances, Edward couldn't even feel it.

However, now, after an entire night of combat, the difference was felt.

Facing the huge dragon of legends, Edward grabbed his spear with both his hands as he ran toward him. He did not take the sky, he didn't use magic, he simply ran atop the remains of the city toward the great dragon.

With a mighty bellow that was heard throughout the entire lake thanks to the hint of Royal Will infused in it, Edward made a jump as he stabbed his spear toward the dragon.

Smaug, the Tyrannical, was exhausted too, but did not benefit from the advantage of the sun, and so unlike the other clashes before, one of them came out on top.

Aeglos entered Smaug's eye with force, and destroyed it. Smaug roared in pain, but Edward did not budge as he used the opportunity to jump to the back of his neck, and once again stab his spear.

From their earlier clashes many holes were left into the dragon's armor, and spotting one of those, Edward stabbed his spear into it, piercing deep into the flesh.

Smaug once again whined in pain, breathing out fire as he tried to crush Edward, but using his spear planted into the dragon's neck as support, he used all the strength in his body to send the dragon flying further into the lake.

Smau felt his body was sent flying, and failed to understand how the human managed to move his majestic body. If he knew Edward had used the strength of his struggles against himself…

Where he was thrown, the water was deeper, and Smaug struggled to stay afloat, but Edward came from the sky and once again stabbed his spear into his back.

Smaug cried out in pain, but he only had water enter his lungs as staying afloat only became harder.

Seeing the dragon still wasn't dead, Edward jumped with all his force into the sky as he used whatever Chi he had to throw one last spell.

As the dragon stayed afloat and did it's best to leave the water with it's remaining wing, Edward who was one hundred meters in the air was preparing a spell.

As he began falling, the water below came to accumulate in front of his spear as the surrounding wind was doing the same. This spell was a different variation of the enchantment Edward had used on the piercing javelins, one that used both water and the wind to form an extension of the spear.

From afar, the men and women of Laketown saw as a giant spear of water formed, and fell at a rapid speed toward the struggling dragon.

The dragon, who had been struggling, exhaled in relief as he managed to get out of the water, and although he was struggling to maintain himself in the air with only one wing, he searched around himself for the cursed human.

But suddenly, a bad feeling appeared in it's heart, and as it looked up it saw a giant spear coming down for him.

Edward's spell first hit the dragon, and destroyed the scales on it's back. Then, Edward's actual spear pierced deeply into the dragon. A last cry was made by the dragon before he was dragged to the bottom of the lake by the force of Edward's attack, alongside the attacker himself.

As they dived hundreds of meters into the lake, Edward felt the dragon struggle, but the surrounding water entered Smaug's lungs quickly, and his struggles grew weaker and weaker, until he stopped moving completely as they reached the bed of the lake.

Author's Note: Exciting fight wasn't it? I hope it wasn't too long, but I wanted to use the entire chapter for the fight. Hope you liked it.