"What are you doing here?" Noah heard the monotone voice ask. He immediately spun around to face where the voice had come from. He watched as William walked out of a hole in the wall of the cave, facing him and holding a spear. With William this close, Noah could see the changes that he had gone through when he became a dragonoid clearer. The scales that had grown on his body were the same shade of black as Nightmares, and the skin around them had become a sickly green. His right arm had become a dragon's arm, claw and all. His eyes had become cat-like and the irises had become the same color as his green skin. After a while of Noah inspecting William's changes, William pointed the spear he was holding towards Noah and repeated himself, saying, "What are you doing here? No humans are allowed to be in here." Noah sighed and thought. 'What should I do here? Can I lie to get out of this situation? Will he even let me go? No, I've come too far to run away now. It's now or never.'
"I'm here to kill Nightmare," He said before rephrasing, "I'm here to kill the dragon."
"You know I can't let you do that to my master." William responded in the same monotone voice.
"I do, and I'm not going to let that stop me." Noah said with a swell of confidence and he pulled out his spear, holding it in front of him. He took a fighting stance and looked William directly in the eyes as if to challenge him.
"We'll see about that. Your fate was sealed the moment you stepped into this cave." William monotonously responded, accepting Noah's challenge and he got into his own fighting stance.
Neither one moved for several seconds. Noah stood watching William for any sign of movement. 'I don't know how these changes affected him outside of what I can see, so I need to assume that he is stronger and faster than me. However he isn't making any move to press this advantage. Why is he not doing that? Wait a moment." He finished that thought with a sharp, somewhat panicked breath. He remembered that Nightmare was currently out dealing with the bandit camp, but that wouldn't mean that he would be gone forever. In fact, it was very likely that he would come back to his lair after he had dealt with them, and William was using this to his advantage.
"So you finally realized your position." William said when he saw Noah's breath. "You just realized how screwed you are." He smirked when he finished, the first facial change from his blank expression Noah had seen in his entire interaction with him. 'So he still has some form of intelligence, and he isn't some mindless pawn like I previously thought.' Noah thought, quickly formulating a plan on how to approach this fight.
After waiting for a few seconds, Noah suddenly sprung forwards and quickly thrust his spear towards William's chest. William moved with inhuman speed and reaction time, stepped to the left to dodge the spear and stomped on Noah's foot, and grabbed Noah with his right hand. He prepared to headbutt Noah, but Noah beat him to the punch. His head hit Williams as it was winding up. This stunned William for a bit, and he lost his grip on Noah. Noah moved to press his advantage by using his right leg to sweep Williams legs out from under him, but he jumped away just as Noah's leg would've hit his legs. Noah quickly recovered, and he took a defensive stance, staring directly at William. William however, was just standing there casually with a smirk on his face.
"Just another nail in the coffin. Everything about me is better compared to you. There is no way you're going to kill me, much less my master." William cockily said with his arms wide open. Noah responded to this by knocking William down with a shoulder tackle.
"Shut up. I am going to kill you if you don't focus on this fight." Noah said, looking down at William while he was getting up. Just as William was about to fully stand up, Noah thrust down at him with his spear, and he swung it towards William as he jumped to the side to try to dodge the spear. This attack caused William to get a somewhat deep scratch that went diagonally over his chest. This enraged William, and he jumped at Noah, initiating his own attack for the first time by thrusting his spear forwards with insane speed. Noah managed to dodge the spear by stepping to the side as he predicted that William was going to attack, and he just had to react to what the attack was. William managed to stop himself a few steps away from Noah, and, as he attempted to turn back around to face Noah, Noah counterattacked by thrusting his spear into William's leg. It wasn't as accurate as Noah would've liked as the spear slid across some of the dragon scales that were on William's leg which caused it to miss the bone when it finally sunk into his flesh, but it still did substantial damage. William roared in pain with inhuman volume, and he immediately grabbed his leg with one of his hands once Noah had pulled his spear out. Red blood with hints of black in it began to pour out of his leg which confused Noah at first before he realized that the black was the dragon blood that made William a dragonoid. William looked back at Noah, his rage multiplied, and he lunged at Noah with his spear. However his attack was slightly slower and slightly less powerful than before by an almost insignificant margin, but Noah noticed this and he took note of this after he dodged the attack. 'Is the loss of dragon blood causing him to become weak? That's the only reason I can think of that would be the cause of this.' Noah thought, piecing things together in his head. 'If that's so, then this is a cruel trick of fate. The best course of action would be to cause as many injuries as possible to him to make him as weak as possible so killing him would be easier, but I don't have the time to do that. I have to kill him now.' William had turned around while Noah was piecing things together, and he was now preparing his next attack. William rushed forward with another thrust. Noah stepped to the side, and he also stepped toward William. He grabbed William's arm as he passed him, and once he grabbed his arm, he immediately pulled forward until he heard a pop. William roared out in pain as his arm was dislocated, and he turned around, clutching his arm. He looked Noah dead in the eyes, somehow even angrier than before. Noah lunged at William's side that had the dislocated arm, and he began to start stabbing with his spear at that side. William tried to turn around so that he could attack him, but Noah kept moving so he stayed by William's dislocated arm. The spear penetrated William's flesh multiple times, but it had also bounced off his dragon scales just as many times as it penetrated. However with each time the spear bounced off the scales, Noah got a better idea of where the areas that had scales were.
They kept up this dance for a while until William attempted to end it by turning around and swinging with his spear towards Noah's head at the same time. Noah ducked this attack as it was significantly weaker compared to his previous attacks. From this position, Noah thrust upwards with his spear, and he managed to pierce William's heart. He froze once he saw his spear exit through William's body.
"H-how did you do that? That place is e-entirely covered by scales." William stammered out, coughing up a mouthful of blood and looking down at Noah.
"I must've just gotten lucky." Noah responded, meeting William's gaze. He had not gotten lucky in fact. The loss of dragon blood had weakened the dragon scales enough so that Noah's spear could penetrate them.
"Even though you've killed me, there is still no way you're going to kill Nightmare. I think that's the name you call my master." William said.
"How do you know we call him that?" Noah asked in confusion.
"My body and mind may have changed, but I still have most of my memories." William answered with a smirk.
"Then why are you working for him? He killed your mother and father! Burned down your town! Slaughtered all your friends!" Noah exclaimed.
"I work for him because he gave me power. He gave me the ability to control my own destiny." William responded, his voice getting weaker. 'No he didn't.' Noah thought to himself, looking down at the group. 'That's just the dragon blood talking. He actually took that control away from you.' He remembered the conversation he had with his father about William. He looked back up at William and thought 'What a sad life you had. It's a pity really.' Noah stood back up and pulled his spear out of William's chest which caused him to collapse to the group where he lay unmoving.
"Rest now, your parents and town are waiting for you. I'm sure they will forgive you." Noah said to William as he died. He then looked away towards the large cave where he was certain Nightmare held his treasure, ready to end his journey.