The woman was violently thrown into the sky due to the shockwave from the dragon's attack. Fortunately, she could rearrange her position in the air with wind magic and now float at the same height as the dragon. Their eyes met.
Noticing the woman was still alive, the dragon flew to her place with frightening speed.
"Can't you let a woman prepare herself first?!" shouted the woman while trying to tidy up her messy, yet glossy hair.
An aerial battle ensued, the woman and the dragon exchanged ranged attacks in the sky. Splashing the horizon with various colors, not caring for other people's opinion of their destructive artwork.
She formed and sent numerous spears of blazing fire to attack the approaching dragon, but the dragon's maneuver was simply too fast, despite its massive body, and not a single spear came close to hit it. This result did not find success in dampening her fighting spirit.
Right after, she weaponized the gentle breeze around her and ceaselessly threw crescent moon-shaped wind blades, and quite a number of them successfully reached the dragon. Nevertheless, they were not strong enough to pierce its barrier.
To retaliate, the dragon unleashed another non-elemental magic from its mouth, easily vaporizing any blades that came to invade its personal space.
This time, the woman formed three layers of thicker ice shields to confront that attack. The attack was halted. Unfortunately, that too was not enough to block it in the end, and another vertical explosion was created. The woman was again spinning in the sky due to the blast wave. At this point, she was barely able to keep up with the dragon and did not have any leeway to worry about her hair quality anymore.
Strength, speed, magic power, mana capacity, and stamina, the dragon was winning in every aspect.
Moreover, when she was still arranging her position in the air, the dragon successfully arrived in front of her, sending a chill down her spine. Before she could protect herself, the beast performed a swift tail swipe. The woman received that overweight physical attack directly with her body, and she crashed to the ground from a dangerous height.
"Gahaahhhh...."
The woman was coughing blood, a sign of internal bleeding, and hurting all over. She could feel the bone in her left arm break, ribs fractured, and vision spinning. The pain was beyond anything she had experienced before. Thankfully, that kept her awake.
Even though visually unreliable, her outfit was a piece of high-grade equipment, made from a special fabric capable of continuously generating magic skin that was sturdier than steel by consuming its wearer's mana. That was the only reason she could survive such a lethal impact. Regrettably, her cloth was now in shambles, exposing her exotic body. Though she did not notice, nor the least bit care about her inelegant appearance right now.
The next time the woman was hit by a similar attack, she would surely move on to the afterlife, followed by a mountain of regrets. "Or, maybe I'm going to become a ghost instead...? If that's the case, I'll haunt that discourteous dragon forever..." Her thought was all over the place and was spouting nonsense.
Strangely enough, the rambling managed to calm her down. Simultaneously, she painfully admitted that the current her was still nowhere near the might of a dragon.
Above her, the dragon was about to deliver a finishing blow, once again gathering energy in its mouth, when it noticed something moving irregularly from the corner of its eyes.
Something illogical and unreal, and it took a while until the dragon decided to make sure of it by shifting its head. A boulder as big as his body, and covered by a barrier, was an inch away from him. Puzzled by this situation, the dragon could not evade the approaching boulder. The two giants collided in the air, causing an explosive sound to escape the collision.
Both the boulder and the dragon's metallic skin disintegrated, widely revealing the latter's weaker skin surface. The dragon lost consciousness for a second, and the gathered energy dispersed completely.
On the ground, the woman could not comprehend what the hell she just witnessed, it was like her eyes were playing tricks on her. A flying boulder? Was it earth magic? Did another adventurer come to her aid? Was there another strong beast in the forest she did not aware of? She was completely in the dark. But, this was a one in million chance, there was no way she would let it pass!
"Ice! Lightning! Wind! Fire!" she shouted hoarsely at the top of her lungs.
The woman formed two fusion magic circles at once, she never did this before, because creating just one required considerable mana and concentration. But, right now her ability to focus and concentrate was at its highest and turned her eyes crimson like the fabled devil in stories. It's all or nothing!
The first magic circle was a fusion of ice and lightning magic, between the elegant and the wild, and the second was of fire and wind magic, between the raging and playful, creating a massive elegant ice blade clad in violent lightning and a wrathful sharp firestorm, respectively.
"Gooo!!!"
The two magic attacks landed on the inert dragon at the same time, causing a four-colored explosion, as well as a gust of cold and hot wind with electric particles.
The dragon let out an eerie scream that pierced her ears. For the first time, it felt pain.
Nevertheless, she did not stop, she would not stop! and continued to send the same powerful magic attacks toward the now struggling dragon. She put aside the issue about her mana consumption, which was critical for a wizard such as herself. She would die being eaten anyway if these desperate attacks failed to kill the dragon. After the nth time, the dragon finally became silent, and his limb body that was both burnt to a crisp and frozen solid dropped to the ground.
A speck of unnatural dark mist left the dragon's bloodshot eyes, and it peacefully closed its eyes afterward, seemingly finding the peace it deserved, forever. Though, the woman did not see it.
The battle concluded haphazardly...
The woman was at her limit and fell forward to the ground. She felt drowsy, her body rapidly went cold, and she was twitching uncontrollably, this was due to both her wounds and mana deficiency. If not treated right away, it would be life-threatening. Unfortunately, all the potions in her bag were either lost or broken, but the money she brought was still there.
In this circumstance, what could money even do?
'...Is this my end...?'
There were tons of dreams she wanted to accomplish, but it seemed those dreams would remain as just unattainable dreams.
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't..." she pleaded repeatedly.
Unending tears burst from her eyes, the woman refused to accept that her life would end today. Sadly, contrary to her unyielding determination her body was getting weaker with each passing second.
"..H..elp..."
After the woman's last attempt to seek aid that was unlikely to come, her vision went dark and the woman turned ghost-quiet.
Then, a figure was slowly approaching her...