I lay flat to avoid detection. I had not expected such a fast reaction from the black dragon. If the dragon flew to the sky his eyes would immediately fall on me.

I remained still in my position for at least a few minutes. Seeing that the black dragon had not taken to the air to inspect, I took a peek down. The black dragon had shifted closer to the older one. In doing so, he had directly placed himself below one of the bigger boulders on top of the rock formation. This was an opportunity of a lifetime.

I went to the boulder and tried pushing it. It probably weighed a ton and refused to budge. My frail human hands couldn’t move it by an inch. I accepted the limitations of my human strength. I had to find a different way to get the job done.

The position of one of the other boulders intrigued me. It was at a slight elevation and was half the size of the bigger one. Not only that, it was rounder. If only I could roll it and get it to hit the bigger boulder, then the fate of the black dragon was sealed.

I began to exert my strength on it. I was thrilled seeing it move. A little more force and I couldn’t stop the boulder anymore even if I wanted to. I cheered under my breath, as it rolled towards the bigger boulder, first slowly and then faster.

Just before collision, the smaller boulder came across a slight depression on the rock surface. Its direction altered. I grabbed my hair watching my plans go awry as the smaller boulder dropped, completely missing the larger stone.

I ran to the edge and there was a great cry from below. The smaller boulder had hit the black dragon all right, but it simply lacked the weight to crush the reptile to death. However, the dragon’s back and two of his legs were damaged.

The dragon screeched painfully. He was quite the piteous spectacle. He began to drag himself away, leaving a trail of blood behind. The animal’s agony gave rise to rage. He beat his wings. He was coming for me.

I trembled. What was I to do now? Caught by panic, I scurried to the back of the rock formation and began to descend the monolith.

In my hurry, I made a rash decision. I lost my grip and down I fell. It was by sheer miracle that I fell directly on top of the small horizontal platform just a little way down.

And the greater miracle was that I managed to hold on to it, even as spasms of pain rocked my legs. My sword however landed on the ground a number of feet below with a clang.

I wanted to cry out, wondering what kind of damage my legs had sustained. Had they broken? My eyes welled with tears. I took in deep breaths. I could hear the beating of dragon wings nearby. A broken leg was not the top of my worries.

Occasionally, I could see the spiked end of a huge reptile tail above. The monolith thankfully blocked most of the dragon from me and vice versa.

The dragon was inspecting the top of the rock formation. If he took a random turn and looked down, the dragon would see me.

I stayed put. My heart hammered in my chest. I didn’t make the smallest of noises. I passed some of the longest moments of my life waiting for the dragon to leave.

And then the flapping of wings became more distant, and the dragon departed, perhaps thinking that the rock had fallen on its own.

I breathed a sigh of relief, even though I was in excruciating pain. I had blown out my chances of killing the dragon with the boulders. The only option that I now had was to use my sword. The very idea of sneaking up to the wounded dragon terrified me. The jaws of the dragon seemed to be my ultimate destiny.

I would have to approach the beast from behind. But its tail posed a threat. One whip and I would be knocked cold.

There was no point returning to the top of the stone formation. I couldn’t move the big boulder with my bare hands.

The descent from the platform was not easy by any means. My swollen legs didn’t help at all. That I managed to reach the ground was no less than an olympic feat, considering my condition. I was jittery as I lay down in exhaustion, even as the sun beat down on me. I was thankful that I didn’t need to drink water in the game world, otherwise I would have already succumbed to dehydration.

I picked up my sword and I limped round the circumference of the monolith, to a point from which I could spy on the dragons. The black dragon was making pitiful repetitive snorts. The older dragon just watched his fellow without much emotion.

The black dragon had not searched the entire stone formation for me, not because he thought the boulder had jumped down by itself, but because he was in too much pain to continue being airborne.

The black dragon was thankfully facing away from me. The fallen boulder was sitting on the ground a few meters away, with some stains of dragon blood on it. Could I tiptoe to the boulder and then attack the black dragon from behind?

The hiccup in the plan was that the older dragon would easily see me. But would he even care to alert his companion? And even if he didn’t, how would I carry out my attack?

I could try burying my sword into the black dragon’s skull. What if the skull proved too strong and my sword shattered? The scales of the dragon alone appeared impenetrable.

Maybe I could stab his neck then? While the neck too was covered in scales, at least there were no hard bones like in the head. If I could puncture his wind pie, he would die, right?

There were beads of sweat on my temples. I was currently in an advantageous position. If the dragon just happened to turn around, I didn’t know when Miss Opportunity would care to look my way again. On top of that it was not like I could go on waiting. The ashes of the siren had a time limit.

I noticed that the old dragon had briefly closed his eyes. Perhaps he was tired watching his friend’s distress, and he didn’t seem particularly fond of his friend. I had to take my chances.

I moved as quickly and as soundlessly as I could to the fallen boulder, my eyes darting between the black dragon and the old one all the time.

If my heart beats stopped sounding like gunshots I would be glad. They were distracting. I took in deep breaths to calm my nerves, for I had begun to shake. This was easily the riskiest thing that I was attempting in Dharti. The other times I always had the reassurance of health vials, and even when I had been stuck in the underground dimension, at least there had been no immediate threat to my life.