[Oliver’s POV]

  From three combatants, they were now two. And the King was only starting.

  The dragon’s maw still dripped with blood, thick strands of crimson and green ichor trailing from its fangs. Shreds of flesh and tangled entrails clung between its silver-scaled teeth, steaming as they burned away in the heat of its breath.

  The remaining Orks needed no warning. The instant Uklush’s severed legs struck the sand, panic detonated among them like a gunshot. Discipline evaporated. They scattered in every direction, abandoning the fight, abandoning honor, abandoning everything but the urge to survive.

  Oliver’s eyes followed them briefly, watching as they dwindled against the dunes.

  How far would they need to run before they could truly escape this thing? he wondered. How many kilometers before the dragon’s shadow no longer fell across them? Or was escape even possible?

  [Hahaha! You think you can run from me? I will hunt every living soul on this planet. Every one of you is complicit in freeing the Chaotic One!]

  Around them, Adrian’s soldiers faltered. Their weapons lowered. Their eyes turned upward, wide with dread, as the dragon hovered above them.

  Oliver’s hands tightened around the haft of Uklush’s axe. The weapon was crude, oversized, built for Orkish body, not for human hands. His fingers barely wrapped the grip. It was awkward, but it was all he had.

  His thoughts raced. [Prometheus]

  He could feel the golden fire already coiling in his veins, begging to be unleashed. He could burn everything he had left. Pour it all into his body. Strike once, strike with everything. But without Ranger Armor to stabilize him, without its systems to hold the damage, the toll would be catastrophic.

  His chest rose and fell. He exhaled slowly, forcing the doubt down.

  With a grunt, Oliver pressed one foot against the ground and pushed himself upright. His body ached, his bones screamed, but he stood.

  And he was not alone.

  Adrian stood across from him, his soldiers trembling behind. His face was pale, streaked with blood and sand, but his eyes burned. They were locked on the dragon with a clarity that cut through the chaos.

  Adrian knelt low, both hands pressed against the scorched sand. The battlefield trembled faintly as something beneath the surface stirred. Tiny grains of ore and flecks of metal began to shimmer, drawn to his palms. Slowly, they gathered, condensing in his grip.

  The fragments twisted and fused, aligning into jagged forms that turned into spears. They were dense, obsidian-dark, every inch of them vibrating with the raw Energy. Even from where he stood, Oliver could feel the power radiating off them.

  Adrian’s chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. Sweat streaked his dirt-stained face, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked as if his teeth might crack. Each shard of metal he pulled from the earth drained him further, his body shuddering with the strain of channeling so much Energy at once. His eyes, though, burned with manic determination.

  “[Gaia’s]…”

  He raised one arm back, the black spear poised in his hand. The dragon, its massive wings still beating against the air, turned its gaze upon him. Its lips curled into a grin, cruel and confident. To the beast, this was nothing more than another futile attempt.

  Adrian’s arm snapped forward.

  The spear left his grip, cutting a thin black streak as it arced through the sky. To Oliver’s eyes, it was slow. Too slow.

  The dragon's tail whipped lazily through the air, swatting aside the projectile with ease.

  But then Adrian’s fingers opened.

  “[FURY!]”

  The word exploded from him as all the Energy he had poured into the weapon detonated at once.

  The spear shattered midair.

  It broke into a storm of a thousand shards. Each one a miniature spear, each one screaming with compressed Energy. They burst outward in a cone of death, a black-and-silver tempest that filled the sky.

  The dragon’s grin faltered.

  The storm struck it full force.

  The hail of shards ripped through its wings, punching holes through the silver membranes, shredding them into ragged sails. The air filled with the sound of tearing flesh and ringing metal as the shards embedded themselves deep into the beast’s scales. Some bounced harmlessly off its thicker plates, but dozens pierced through, lodging in the softer joints of its wings and torso.

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  The confident smile vanished from the dragon’s massive mouth.

  It roared with rage and pain. Its enormous body staggered midair, wings faltering as they struggled to hold its weight. For the first time since it appeared, the King faltered, its altitude slipping as it fought to remain flying.

  “That’s it!” one of Adrian’s soldiers shouted, his voice breaking with desperate hope.

  “Was it enough to bring it down?!” another cried out, still wide-eyed at the spectacle of Adrian’s devastating technique.

  Oliver didn’t waste a second. He had no interest in waiting to see if the dragon would recover; he knew it would. And if they gave it even a moment, all of them would be ash.

  Gripping Uklush’s massive axe in both hands, Oliver sprinted across the sand, his body a streak of golden fire. Ahead, the silver dragon staggered, its wings faltering, its altitude failing.

  Adrian remained behind, slumped and heaving, still half-broken from the toll of his last attack. His soldiers clustered around him, too stunned to act. That left Oliver alone.

  The dragon hadn’t even touched the ground when Oliver leapt, his body propelled like a cannonball by the explosive force of his Energy. His boots slammed against the scales of the dragon’s back, the impact reverberating through his bones. The beast’s head whipped around, eyes narrowing, its tail lashing like a whip to dislodge the intruder.

  Oliver ignored it. He ran, his feet hammering across the shifting plates of silver armor until he reached the center of its vast body. It was the same spot where he had struck earlier, the faint scar in its scales still visible.

  That's the best place, he thought, his grip tightening on the Ork’s axe.

  He raised the weapon high, golden flames licking up his arms, his muscles screaming as he poured everything into a explosive strike.

  With a roar, Oliver brought the axe down.

  The blade cleaved into the dragon’s back with a thunderous crack. For the first time, the scales gave way. The axe sank deep, tearing through silver armor to bite into living flesh beneath.

  The dragon’s scream shook everything.

  A spray of silver blood erupted from the wound. The beast convulsed, its wings faltering, its body thrashing in agony.

  “CURSED INSECT!” the dragon’s voice thundered inside their skulls, dripping with rage and humiliation.

  Its jaws opened wide, silver fire boiling in its throat. Oliver’s instincts screamed. He wrenched free from the axe, leaving it embedded in the beast’s back, and hurled himself clear.

  A torrent of argent flame roared, engulfing the place where he had stood only a heartbeat before.

  Oliver crashed into the sand, rolling, his chest heaving, his body scorched by the heat but alive. He raised his head, eyes narrowing.

  The axe was still buried in the dragon’s back. The wound glowed, blood dripping in molten streaks. For the first time, the King bled.

  Now’s the moment to secure the kill, Oliver thought, his heartbeat pounding like war drums in his chest.

  Adrian was standing again. His stance was unsteady, his breaths still ragged, but in his hands shimmered another spear. His eyes burned with the same pride and fury as before. If he hurled it at the right angle, if it struck true, it could end this.

  The dragon’s mouth flooded with argent fire, torrents of silver flame pouring out in all directions. The inferno kept them both at bay, its sheer heat reducing dunes to molten glass. Yet, in its arrogance, the beast gave them something it hadn’t before: time.

  Time to breathe. Time to plan.

  It will have to stop eventually, Oliver thought, his body trembling as he began to channel.

  Energy surged through him, fire racing along his veins until his right arm blazed like a star. He was preparing his most dangerous technique, the attack that once would have destroyed his own limb. After years of training, he had refined it. It would not tear him apart like before… but even so, he knew the cost. His arm would break under the strain.

  At last, the dragon’s flames faltered. Its titanic lungs emptied, its maw closing as it drew breath. The battlefield dimmed for a second, the storm of fire thinning into smoke.

  Now.

  Oliver’s foot slammed into the ground, hurling him forward like a missile. The world blurred around him as he locked his gaze on the wound he had already carved; the axe of Uklush still jutting from the dragon’s back, marking its weakness.

  He couldn’t climb its scales again. He didn’t need to. He had positioned himself aligned with the weak point.

  His fist trembled with the sheer density of Energy caged inside it, the fire screaming to be released.

  [Prometheus Strike]

  His arm shot forward, the flames extinguishing in an instant as all of it. Every last drop of his Energy was unleashed in a single blow. His knuckles slammed into the dragon’s stomach, directly against the embedded axe.

  The world detonated.

  The scales split. The wound erupted. A violent eruption of plasma tore outward, a blinding flash that consumed everything it touched. The air screamed, the sand beneath them liquefied.

  Oliver staggered, collapsing to one knee in the molten sand. His arm was intact, but every bone in his hand screamed with broken bones.

  It’s done… he thought. It’s finally done.

  But then—

  [Interesting.]

  The voice slithered through his skull.

  [And who, I wonder, is the true victor?]

  Oliver’s eyes snapped to the side.

  The dragon’s stomach was torn open, smoking and charred from his strike. Yet its mouth had not been spared either. Dozens of jagged spears jutted outward from its maw, piercing through the inside of its throat and jaw.

  Adrian had loosed his [Gaia’s Fury] at the last possible second, firing the spear before the beast could close its jaws. The weapon had shattered into a storm of fragments, spraying upward through its throat.

  Both had struck. Both had landed killing blows.