We met in midair, each of us travelling faster than the pressure waves we left in our wake. The being was big, but not enormous, approximately as large as a truck. It opened its mouth to bite me, ready to snap it shut. I brought my arms in front of my body and grabbed its snoot with my hands, my fingers digging through its scales. Our momenta cancelled each other and for an instant, we remained motionless in midair.

Exerting strength through my wrists, I turned my body upside down and kneeled its jaws shut. Its teeth slammed one against the other. Most of them broke and the shock travelled throughout its body, which went limp for a moment.

I tried to keep hold of its body, but the flesh I was grasping with my sunken fingers broke off of it and remained in my hands while the recoil sent me flying further upwards. The wyvern regained control of itself and nimbly somersaulted its body, interrupting my ascension by swinging its tail down on me. The spines tried to dig into my flesh but my skin remained undamaged.

The ground swiftly approached. I opened up by stretching my limbs outwards to distribute the force. I made contact with the surface and my body penetrated it, leaving behind a crater which sent debris flying everywhere.

I sank my fingers and toes into the surrounding rocks and propelled myself outside of the earthen casket. I looked at the wyvern flying in circles around my position. Its broken teeth and jaw were reforming, fed by the streams of mana swirling around.

The enemy understood it had the advantage of flight over me. Its wings enabled it to freely manoeuvre through all three dimensions, while I needed to aim correctly my leaps if I wanted to reach it. I could see in its eyes that it would not come down to the ground, as it knew that there I would be much faster than it was.

I aimed at it and jumped. It swiftly evaded my body and tried to cleave me in half with its hind legs. I twisted my body to avoid the razor-sharp talons, dodging them by a hairbreadth, before attempting to get ahold of its body once again. Sensing the danger, it kicked me away, but not before I was able to grasp and pluck out one of its claws. While falling, I swung my arms and legs in opposite directions and propelled the talon deep into the side of its body.

The wyvern screamed out in pain and looked at me with hate, before turning its attention in the direction of the Perimeter. I could almost feel his thoughts while looking at his demeanour. If fighting me was a useless endeavour, the beast would unleash its fury on something else.

It flapped its wings mightily and its heavy body set off faster than the speed of sound towards the walls. I followed its path while running on the ground, matching its pace. Once we reached the base of the walls, me on the ground and it in the sky, I started to climb them running up vertically, sinking my feet like pickaxes in the stone.

For a swift instant, I saw the pale expression of Jonah, still busy reorganising the resistance front. The next moment I was already high up in the sky, my hands grabbing the tail of the monster.

I twisted my body, kicking my legs to one side and swinging the torso to the other. I used all the strength of my core to generate enough torque in midair to propel the beast back from where it came from, deep into the wastelands.

My body shot in the opposite direction driven by the fundamental law of conservation of momentum and stopped only after several buildings had lost their roof. I ran back outside bringing with me a consistent piece of a house and hurled it at the recovering wyvern before it could return airborne.

The impromptu projectile made its mark and gave me time to return to the field. I approached it and clawed at the wyvern’s body with my right hand. The attack easily went through its scales and gouged out its flesh. The wivern cried out and swung its tail. I evaded one of the spines but another one made contact with my thigh, partially piercing it before my body flew back towards the Perimeter.

I opened myself up once again to distribute the impact on a larger surface and stopped after leaving behind a hole shaped like my body through the entire thickness of the wall. I left the Perimeter from the same opening through which I had entered and I saw the wyvern rise higher and higher into the sky.

The talon was still embedded in its side. The beast still bled from the wound but didn’t show any sign of losing strength. We stared at each other. Its eyes betrayed feral fury, while I didn’t feel any particular hostility. Quite opposite, it was refreshing to have an entertaining scuffle after many years.

The wyvern stopped flapping its wings. The accumulated vertical momentum made it rise higher for a while longer, but soon gravity started to get hold of its body. The beast opened its wings wide and it glided in the air while slowly descending.

Then, it closed on itself and dived down towards me. The spines on his tail mutated, flattening and elongating. The beast moved its tail like a fish swimming in the water, rapidly building up speed. Soon it broke the sound barrier, but it continued to accelerate.

Suddenly, the beast opened its wings. The impact with the air tore pieces of its membranes creating several holes. The body of the wyvern made a sharp turn before it hit the ground and shot in my direction. The beast opened its jaws, aiming to devour me.

I didn’t avoid the attack on purpose and let myself be taken by the beast. I grabbed a tooth of the upper dental arch with my left hand and planted my right foot symmetrically on the lower one. A few moments later I found myself flying hundreds of metres above the ground.

I enjoyed the surrounding landscape while the jaws of the beasts vainly tried to inch closer to my body. It had tried to gamble its victory on devouring me alive, but it had failed. Now, its body was in my grasp and I would soon rip it apart with my hands.

Suddenly, a perturbation travelled through the air and the swirling ambient mana came to a standstill. The next moment, it converged towards the beast. A spherical volume tens of metres in diameter became completely devoid of mana. The wyvern’s body became hotter and started to shine. My eyes were attracted by the front of fire forming in its throat and the next instant a river of flames came over my body. All of this happened in a fraction of a second.

My body was propelled far away by the hot jet of plasma and sunk deep into the ground. The thud that reached me signalled that the beast had landed while it continued to spew flames at me.

I could see nothing apart from white, although my vision started to be tinted in dark colours once my eyes began to boil out of their sockets. My skin charred and it became more difficult to feel the texture of the soil around me, vitrified by the hot flames.

The fiery torrent continued for a few minutes until all the mana in the surroundings was completely spent. Most of my senses were rendered inoperational, the outer layers of my body having burned up. I still maintained a portion of my sense of touch, as I was feeling the breath of the beast against my carbonised dermis.

My hands moved blindly, trying to reach where I imagined its head to be. When my fingers encountered a bit of resistance, I knew I had hit the target. I felt my body being lifted from the ground and wildly swung around, but I sunk my fingers deeper into the flesh until I reached the bones. I would not let go.

The scorched skin was the first to regenerate, returning to its previous state. After that, my eyes grew back and the scene of the whimpering wyvern finally appeared in my returned vision.

My arms had dug their way deep through its upper jaw, almost emerging from the opposite side. Its green scales had mostly fallen off and a blackened skin had appeared. The flames it had spewed out were so great they had ravaged its body from the inside out. It was flapping its wings, trying to return to the sky, but it had not enough strength remaining in its body. The wyvern had spent itself completely in its last attack, hoping it would dispose of me once and for all.

If left alone, it would eventually heal, but this wasn’t its lucky day, as it wasn’t alone. I was there and I was extremely irritated now. This thing had dared to spit on my face and burn my eyes. It was rude.

So I simply ripped the beast apart, limb by limb, skin to bone.