Magic threads spread out from the dragon’s body, covering any injuries it had sustained. Two wings—one orange and one purple—flapped, lifting the creature into the air. Raw power mixed with hatred emanated from it, having an effect on even the top-level awakened.

That’s a great dragon, Dallion thought. It would have been nice if he could use his empathy skills to resolve this without a fight. It would be even better if he could make the creature his familiar. Compared to Aquilequia, all the dragons so far seemed like kittens; not only the dragonlets and young adolescents, but the two ancient ones Dallion had met as well.

“You can stop pretending, mageling,” the dragon snorted, splitting into three instances. In two, its head turned to its right, staring seemingly at nothing. “You’re not particularly good at it.”

Initially, nothing happened. After a few seconds, a flicker of purple light flashed half a mile away, revealing Eleria of the Shimmering Circle. The mage seemed rather well, considering the circumstances. Even so, it was no secret she would have preferred not to be there.

“Now, amuse me!” All three instances of the dragon flew in different directions.

One darted straight towards Eleria, another swooped down towards Abla and the surrounding gathering, while the first specifically targeted Dallion. There was no time for hesitation.

Spark spiral! He executed the attack.

Every awakened knew that they had to hide their trump cards until their last moment. Using powerful skills carelessly provided information to the world, inevitably weakening the owner in the long term. When facing an opponent of this caliber, though, not going all out was risking a quick death.

A thin curvy line of white emerged, constantly growing as it flew to strike the dragon. Although strong, it wasn’t a difficult attack to counter. To Dallion’s surprise, that instant of the dragon merely faded away.

Knowing he had to take the initiative, Dallion burst into instances, flying towards the two remaining dragon instances.

The one that attempted to attack Abla was quickly met by a pair of flying weapons. All except Tors were aware they had to be on guard, so they reacted as Dallion had. Eleria was the only exception, choosing to flee while casting minor protective spells rather than take the creature head on. The mage’s form flickered, then vanished, likely teleporting miles away.

The flying weapons changed form, extending so as to tear off as many dragon scales as possible. Before they got the chance, the instance faded away, leaving the one in the air.

“It’s toying with us,” Abla said, full of frustration. If he were in better condition, he would have loved matching strength with such a dangerous specimen. As he was, though, his motivation for fighting was to stay alive.

“No,” Dallion corrected. “It’s scouting us. Just like area improvers, only we are the area.”

I’ve never seen anything like this, Vihrogon said within Dallion’s realm. I think you’ll need me for this.

As he spoke, Dallion summoned the armadil shield and cast a levitation spell on it.

“Gem,” Dallion said. “Wrap me.”

Slight confusion emanated from the aetherfish, but it emerged as well, covering Dallion like a thick layer of jelly. While unable to heal as efficiently as Lux, the familiar knew a fair number of spells and, more importantly, had the ability to multiply any spell Dallion cast.

Dallion’s hands and fingers moved at great speed, starting the ray of destruction spell, while also holding two weapons. To anyone beneath a level hundred, it would seem that he had grown two more arms. At such speeds, even reality itself would agree to the illusion.

I shouldn’t have used all my echo cylinders, Dallion thought. Even with infinity in the awakened realms, it would be too risky trying to make more now. The moment of confusion upon returning to the real world would be more than enough for Aquilequia to take advantage.

“Not very talkative, are you?” Dallion asked, using his music skills to seek out any flaw in the dragon’s character. Unfortunately, each of the music strands broke off upon coming in contact with the aether covering the monster’s scales.

“Music?” Aquilequia laughed, splitting into two new instances. “Why even bother?”

Taking a chance, Dallion attempted to use forced combat splitting, though to little avail. The splitting of his opponent was considerable, and while not outright overwhelming, the pressure was enough for Dallion to lose.

Don’t despair, dear boy, Adzorg encouraged from Dallion’s realm. It’s more a matter of practice than skill difference.

“When did you become such a splitting expect?” Dallion did a double spiral attack using both his harpsisword and aura sword. Both attacks landed from such a close distance, yet just as before dealt no damage. Aquilequia merely chose for another of her instances to become reality, then immediately went on a counterattack, filling the sky with torrents of orange flames. Dozens of Dallion’s instances were burned up, along with many of the instances of people on the ground.

The few other surviving members of the party were finally starting to get to their senses, managing to break through the terror the dragon’s presence had created. Normally, each would be able to defeat an army; in this case, Dallion doubted they’d amount to anything more than a minor distraction. The only hope was that their heirloom artifacts would be capable of a few surprises.

The Count had already gone out in full force. The armor he was wearing had floated off his body in large chunks, propelling sky silver fragments at the dragon, like the world’s version of a heavy machine gun turret.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

An imperial rocket would be useful about now, Dallion thought. Rather, that was another worry he had. All of Emperor Tamin’s internal rivals were gathered in one convenient spot. Given the range of the devastating weapon, it was practically certain that no one would escape the magic blast radius. Should the area be glassed, nothing would remain.

“Why did you let us wound you?” Dallion kept on talking in one of his instances. Fortunately, in this particular case, one of the strands had managed to go through Aquilequia’s defenses, matching one of her vital emotions—pride. “You knew we were in the realm. You could have taken us out before we got a chance to attack?”

“And why would I?” One of the dragon instances snorted. “You did exactly what I wanted you to do.”

“You weren’t hiding in the nest.” Dallion carefully considered the implications of what he was saying. “It was your prison.”

“My slaughterhouse.” Waves of anger emanated from all of Aquilequia’s instances. “The place where many of me were kept only to be killed. Yet something happened centuries ago; something allowing me to prepare my escape.”

Purple lightning covered the dragon’s body, sending hundreds of bolts in all directions. This wasn’t an instance, but pure unadulterated reality.

A third of Dallion’s instances cast various protective spells as they simultaneously attempted to evade the attacks. In nearly all cases, the attempts were futile. Aquilequia’s magic easily pierced through, ending Dallion’s life in one hit. To his surprise, one of the magic barriers managed to hold out, not without help from Gem’s boost, of course.

The people on the ground weren’t so lucky. Unable to react fast enough, the Count was struck by a bolt in the left shoulder. The purple plasma burned right through, melting the appendage and everything covering it. Pain burst within the man, emanating like the sun, and yet he refused to make another sound.

Tors, despite the odds, had been fortunate enough to avoid every attack so far. Rather, it was more appropriate to say that the attacks avoided him. Likely, the dragon recognized he was no threat, so she concentrated her efforts on those that mattered.

Got you! Dallion thought, finally completing his ray of destruction spell. The beam flew straight at the dragon. Unfortunately, Aquilequia was able to react at the very last moment, avoiding a lethal hit.

Boosted by Dallion’s aetherfish, the ray burned through the dragon's scales, piercing the wing, and striking part of the massive tail. There, it stopped, creating a scorched circle of burned scales, though unable to continue.

One layer, Dallion thought, immediately starting a repeat of the spell. His most powerful spell was only able to burn through one layer of Aquilequia’s scales. If he were to defeat her, he’d have to hit where it counted.

“Annoying, aren’t you?” The dragon chose to respond, once again bursting into instances. The low numbers suggested that she didn’t have much practice.

“Why didn’t you escape centuries ago?” Dallion asked. His aim wasn’t to get an answer from the dragon, but rather use the pride within it as a wedge to perform further attacks.

Aquilequia either understood what he was going for, or didn’t particularly care, for instead of an answer she swung around, slapping Dallion with her tail.

Now, it was his turn to feel pain. The moment the dragon had chosen had precisely coincided with the one he used to create a new wave of instances. In his mind, he could almost see the red rectangle of damage as he flew back, all his other instances instantly fading away.

Knowing better than admitting defeat in the slightest, Dallion combat split again just as the pain spread through his body. It was a good thing he did, too, for Aquilequia followed up her attack by having thousands of her scales break off her body and propel towards him, like a wave of bullets.

She’s learning fast, the harpsisword said.

Of course she is, Dallion thought. She was a magic awakened being that had the benefit of observing the actions of those that attacked her. It didn’t help that the attempt on Abla’s life had forced many to reveal some of their hidden moves. Looking back, Dallion was outright astonished he had managed to survive so long. So much of what he’d done during his early levels was outright wrong. The only reason he had won was because most of his opponents were no better and those that were had much more significant matters to worry about.

Don’t think too poorly of yourself, dear boy. You’re actually holding your own against a great dragon.

“Maybe,” Dallion muttered. “But I’m not winning.”

Two more spiral attacks filled the air, sending a slight shot of pain up his arms. Despite his best attempts, that remained an attack he couldn’t use as often as he would have liked. Each next strike risked numbing his hands which, in turn, could disrupt the spell he needed for victory.

Dallion’s mind raced as it tried to come up with the optimal combination of skills. The truth was that while in the air, spellcraft and music remained his best options. Everything else was either rendered useless because of Aquilequia’s speed and aether coating, or helped in a purely defensive capacity. As Dallion had grown to know well, defense didn’t win battles, it only provided a better opportunity for attack.

A new instance of the dragon spiraled towards Dallion. The movement was elegant, almost mesmerizing. The goal, without a doubt, was to eliminate as many of his instances in a new wave of fire, before following up with another scale attack. Not a bad plan, considering that each action killed off about a hundred instances on average.

Just then, a metalin the size of a building flew up from the ground and “launched” two thirty-foot lances at the dragon. Naturally, the particular instances quickly faded out of existence.

A mecha? Dallion couldn’t believe his eyes. Unlike all the metalins he’d seen so far, this one had more than a passing resemblance to the giant sci-fi robots from earth. It was large, blocky, made entirely out of sky silver and sun gold, and had way more decorations than were functionally necessary. Also, several of its parts glowed bright purple with magic.

“You won’t be able to take it on yourself.” The Count’s voice came from the metalin. “We’ll have to team up on this one.”

“Count?” Dallion asked. “What’s this?”

“The last remaining living armor, given to the Order as a present from saint Jeremy.”

Internally, Dallion laughed. Only an otherworlder would have come up with something like that—a faithful recreation of an Earth toy made with what the awakened world had to offer. Both as a mage and a forger, Dallion was impressed at the skill and effort that had been put in creating such an artifact. He also acknowledged the waste. The creator could have single-handedly pulled out the world from its medieval level of development into modernity. And yet the person had chosen to forge a toy instead.

“Are you up for it?”

COUNT and ABLA TAMIN have invited you to their party.

Do you accept?

A purple rectangle flashed in front of Dallion. Before the fraction of time it took to disappear was over, he had already accepted twice.