Fight to the Death (1/6)
The moment Dakka proclaims the duel has begun, Haalfrin shoots into the air and starts flying around the broken fortress. He doesn't have enough Aura to cover the entire place, so if he wants to collect all the Aura here, he'll need to travel a bit.
At the same time, Haalfrin tells the Wills inside him to flee from his soul and find as many weapons as they can. Even without Frey here to interpret for him, he knows the Will can at least understand him, even though he doesn't know what they're saying back.
Obediently, tens of thousands of Wills pour out of his soul like a flood. Anyone with spiritual sight would see the area around the man cloaked in a black, menacing aura, while the man himself is enveloped in the beautiful and brilliant silver light of the Will army.
Within minutes of dodging the dragon's breaths and tail slaps, Haalfrin has made it all around the fortress and gathered all the Aura available. With that one trip, his Wills and his Aura grow by 1/3.
By the time Haalfrin has finished distracting the dragon, all his Wills have found suitable weapons. The dead guards have been looted, and the armories have been raided.
However, since there are more Wills than weapons, some of them try possessing random scraps around the place, only to be halted by Haalfrin. "Put those down," the commander orders, "You won't be able to do much throwing a pot lid at the dragon, and I don't want you getting pointlessly injured."
Obediently, more of the Wills drop their vessels and return to his soul. This leaves about 20,000 floating Weapons, all of which are flying low as to avoid the dragon's sight amidst the fortress. They received an order from their commander to keep hidden and give the dragon a surprise at the right moment.
Once everything with the Wills has been situated, Haalfrin stops his mid-air flight by slamming into the side of a wall. He hit the stone so hard that he flies straight through the wall and blasts a small hole through it.
As he's flying through the air, he uses a small time manipulation spell he learned from one of his fellow prisoners to slow his perception of time. This'll give him more time to react and think of spells.
So, as he looks down at the ground slowly moving towards him, he uses his telekinesis magic to situate his body to land on his feet, rather than tumble painfully across the ground.
The second the demon's feet hit the ground, he skids across the paved street, and his legs dig deep holes in the ground as he uses his grounding magic to keep himself upright.
Not a moment later, the wall glows red before a long, scaled head plunges through the wall, followed by the entire wall shattering apart by the rest of the beast's body coming through unhindered.
Dakka dips his head low and runs as fast as he can at the boy.
Surprisingly the little demon doesn't move out of the way of the charging dragon. Everyone knows that because of a dragon's weight and the high mana-conductivity of their horns that a dragon's charging attack is their most powerful strike. Why isn't the human dodging?
Haalfrin hasn't used an illusion or any such trick humans are known for. Instead, he's simply curious how strong he is now compared to a dragon, now that he has his Dra Name and the goddess's technique. He could never get an accurate estimate back in prison, so now is a great time!
When the dragon's head connects with Haalfrin, the man is pushed back, though his feet don't lift off the ground, nor does he fly away. He has a VERY powerful mass spell to make him heavier and the ground firmer.
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"F###!" some of the soldiers gasp in horror as they're crowded around a mirror. The current warden had enchanted a mirror with a powerful scrying spell to look at what's going on up at the surface while they wait safely down below in the lower levels.
"Did he just stop a charging dragon?" one guard asks. Another adds, "Is that the Demon Warden Prella was so worried about?" Another guard in the back shouts out, "Get him, Sir Demon! Kill the dragon!" A few more guards cheer at this.
"Quiet!" the acting warden bark out, "We're not watching a show! This is important information, so don't add your voices to the recording!"
Besides the kids' troublesome interruptions, the new warden understands their sentiments. Other than Warden Prella, none of the guards stationed here in the Pit remember the prisoner called Haalfrin; they only know some vague stories passed down about some demon who was so dangerous that about half the prison had to be buried for good.
What they DO remember (quite clearly, too) is a massive, murderous dragon running into their fortress and killing many friends and colleagues. It's obvious who they'd be rooting for in this battle.
One of the guards whispers in the warden's ear, "Sir. What are we going to do?"
Unlike the previous warden, the current one isn't actually a member of the Vanteri Family, which means he has no rights to inherit the Pit, nor does he have much responsibility for it.
Prella or her (now dead) distant cousin may feel their hearts bleed knowing their precious Pit will only exist in the history books now, but the acting warden is much more concerned about keeping his colleagues alive and not getting chewed out too harshly by the emperor for letting so many prisoners escape.
If the warden had been emotionally invested in the Pit, he'd have ordered the cannons to fire on the battling titans up above. He'd give a tactical order like, "Fire on the winning side to keep the fight balanced. That way, they can tire each other out, and we can capture the victor.
…The Vanteri Family certainly needs someone to blame, so a captured villain would work out just fine.
However, the current warden has his own priorities. He answers, "Let the dragon and the prisoner fight it out. They'll tire themselves out eventually. Once they're done fighting, let's just hope the victor leaves without caring about us. Just to be safe, let's reactivate the teleport circles on the lowest floors and hide there."
"Isn't the Demon living down there, in the forbidden area?" one of the newer recruits pipes up.
One of the older guards elbows the kid in the ribs. "You kidding me? The demon's up there now. We have nothing to worry about going down there."
The warden nods at this. "That's right. On the way down to the lowest floors, bring as many employees and prisoners with you as possible. Be quick, and don't feel bad if you don't have time and have to leave some people behind. We don't have much of a choice right now."
He then turns to one of his officers and commands, "Make sure to bring the remote controls for the cannons, in case we have to use them from down below."
"Roger that, sir."
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Despite all these efforts to stop the dragon in its tracks, Haalfrin is still pushed back and slammed through multiple buildings before he decides to use the backward momentum from the dragon's head-butt to jump far away from him.
Dragons have more mass, which means they move a lot slower than a human body, even when using the same amount of Force. Plus, whenever two physical objects collide, an equal force is always exchanged between them.
When Dakka's head and Haalfrin's arms are pushing against each other, Haalfrin (having the lighter body) is launched far away in the air as soon as he lets his feet disconnect from the ground.
Despite seeing his prey successfully launch himself out of sight, Dakka doesn't run forward or grow agitated, instead, he looks over at the human with a bit of fear in his eyes… for he'd never heard of a human directly wrestling a dragon with strength alone.
Don't get me wrong; to a dragon, feeling fear and respect are the same thing.
Haalfrin looks behind him and sees the dragon's open mouth closing in on him fast. He uses a spell to momentarily lock his position in space. With how fast he's flying in the air, coming to an abrupt stop like this would normally turn you into a bloodstain.
Still, because of his strong and sturdy body, the most he feels is his organs lurch uncomfortably to the side.
Since Haalfrin had stopped so suddenly, Dakka's bite misses the mark, and he flies right past the human.
Haalfrin lets go of his spatial lock spell, and he slides down the dragon's back. Due to a dragon's thick scales, Dakka actually doesn't notice the human touching his skin. However, with his long neck able to bend his head around to strange angles, his eyes have never left the man.
Just as Haalfrin makes it past the dragon's back, Dakka flicks his tail and smacks the human out of the air.
Haalfrin plummets to the ground, groaning in pain. He barely has time to spit a dislodged tooth out of his mouth before he has to dodge more tail strikes.
Left and right, Haalfrin weaves. If it weren't for his time perception being buffed by his spell, he'd never have been able to see Dakka's tail come at him over and over again. Even with this slowed-down vision, the thing looks like it's moving incredibly fast.
In a strange, distracted moment, Haalfrin grows fascinated at the sight of Dakka's tail moving at supersonic speeds.
The entire tail (despite being green) is burning red hot by the heat of the air friction. The heat from the friction also ignites the air around it and leaves a trail of fire in its wake, like a comet falling from the heavens.
Behind the trail of fire around the tail is a visible air wave that scatters the fire everywhere and makes deafening BOOMS as it passes.
Even more terrifying is that Dakka is blindly slamming is tail so fast that he has multiple strikes in a single second, beating the ground violently and without discretion.