Martha returned to a scene that looked more gruesome than when she left. There were a lot of feathers piecing down on corpses. Some corpses were on fire due to flames from impaled canons beside them.
The Soldiers on the wall had joined the battle. Missiles came flying down on the back of the dragon.
For a while, the dragon was confused about where the attacks came from. It fussed around, trampling and munching to death soldiers it could find.
There was almost nothing left of the ground soldiers.
Martha cautiously advanced towards the dragon, hiding behind chunks of concrete at intervals. She was trying to find a soldier. She found one after she advanced to another chunk of concrete.
The soldier was hiding behind this concrete. The soldier was a blond lady elf who was dark skinned. The elf had a deep wound on her left thigh. She pressed hard on the wound with her hands to stop the bleeding.
"Hey," Martha said, "Let me help you with that."
Martha cut a piece of cloth from her suit and her under shirt. She used it to stop and bandage the injury.
The elf's clothes couldn't be used because it was very dirty due to the dust incurred from the current battle. Using the dirty cloth would risk the elf getting infected.
Martha asked, "How's the battle going?"
The elf stared at Martha derisively.
Martha shrugged with a smile.
The elf gazed at the insignia on her chest. Martha was a master sergeant.
The elf apologized, "Forgive my manners, sergeant."
Martha soon said, "Talk."
The elf said, "The dragon has eliminated most of the ground troops. The others have retreated into hiding but they still sustain attacks from their hideouts."
"The main attack is solely coming from the way," Martha reasoned.
Martha lifted her head a bit above the chunk of concrete to observe the area. She and the elf were behind the dragon. She was expecting to see severe burn chars on the ground or on the walls of the buildings close by. But her expectations were let down, there were no chars.
Martha squatted back and asked the elf,
"Did the dragon not use its flames?"
The elf replied, "No, it hasn't."
Martha said, "This makes the beast more scary. It has only used its speed, jaws and tail to inflict this level of damage.
"We have to eliminate before it can use its flames."
The elf pessimistically said, "Or we could piss it off the more and it will roast us all.
"Why is the emperor not here? Or is he scared to fight a fellow dragon?"
Martha didn't believe that the emperor was a dragon. She gave the elf a stare of ridicule.
The elf rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe the Master sergeant didn't believe that the emperor was a dragon.
The elf saw how eager Martha was observing to battle. She knew Martha wanted to contribute to the battle.
The elf sighed and said, "Sergeant, if you try to jump into the fray, there is a high chance that you will get killed.
"Just sit it out. Since you don't believe in the Red dragon, let the guys with the weapons do the job."
Martha wasn't set to be discouraged by words. She still focused on the battle trying to find an opening to join in. She had two grenades resting on her hip pouch. She trusted that she could make something happen if given a chance.
DANG! DUNG! KAING!
Sounds of metal shattering concrete reverberated across the city. The Peacock Flamebird realized that its attackers were above it. So, it launched its feathers at the wall. The result was another chunk of the wall shattering to rubble.
This event shattered all the hopes Martha had. This was because there was nothing to deter the beast when she would try to sneak up on it.
SPLUSH!
Suddenly, the right wing of the dragon was torn off its body. It shrieked madly as it thrashed around on the ground.
Martha instinctively gazed in the direction opposite the wall, at a building. She saw silhouettes of five adult men standing near a window on the second floor of a two storey building. She also saw the unmistakable lustre of a gun-like nozzle.
It was these silhouettes who were responsible for the obliteration of the dragon's right wing.
"Go! Go! Go!" Three soldiers urged a group of scared civilians.
This group consisted of mostly children, five women, and a skinny man.
They ran past Martha.
"We should follow them out of this place," the elf said to Martha.
Martha was adamant. She returned her attention to the dragon.
"Get the hell out of here!" Someone yelled from the direction in which the shot that ripped the dragon's wing came.
Martha saw four people hop out of the two-story building. These people were clad in black tactical shirts and black tactical trousers. Three of the four were men, and the other was a female Orc. Each of them carried a shotgun that was the size of a bazooka. Their speed was not hindered by the mass of the gun.
From the movements of the four, it was clear they were combat trained. Their symbol on their chest suggested that they were force officers. But Martha couldn't recognise what force they belonged to from the badge.
The group of four rushed towards Martha.
"What are you waiting for?" One of the four said to Martha.
"Get your succulent butts moving, girl," the orc said to Martha.
Now that the orc was closer, Martha realised that she (the orc) was more buff than the men.
The four ran past Martha, not bothering to convince her.
The elf said to the departing four, "Hey, help me. She doesn't want to live, but I do."
The men didn't stop, but the orc came back for the elf. She placed the elf over her shoulder and dashed away.
Suddenly, a whistling sound echoed in the air.
The peacock flamebird ignored its pain and raised its head towards the west. It fired a blue fireball that trailed blue flames towards the western sky.
Martha gasped. "It spat fire."
She wasted no time and fled away from the flamebird.
BANG!
An explosion erupted in the sky after a red fireball cancelled out the blue fireball.
BOOM!
The Red dragon, travelling faster than the speed of sound, collided with and trampled on the peacock flamebird.
Three earsplitting bangs resounded as the Red dragon stomped on the flamebird's head three times. The stomps forced the flamebird's head to form a crater.
The Red dragon looked around the flamebird as it heard a humming sound gradually grow from soft to sharp.
A blue light shone behind the Red dragon. It looked behind and saw that evenly spaced patches of blue grew sequentially from the flamebird's tail going towards the spine. The Red dragon foolishly followed the patches of light move across the spine until the head of the flamebird glowed up in blue.
This was the flamebird's ultimate attack move. It became stronger than the Red dragon and tossed over the red beast. The Red dragon tried to quickly get back on its feet.
KABOOM!
An explosion destroyed almost half the city, throwing thick fumes of smoke and dust all over the city.
Underneath the fumes, the Red dragon was lying in a wide, deep pit, wretched in pain. The pit was some distance away from the flamebird. On the other hand, the peacock flamebird was gasping desperately for air. The attack had consumed a huge chunk of its mana and strength.
The pain forced the Red dragon to shift back to its human form, Emperor Gerald.
Shapeshifting into a dragon didn't cost the emperor his clothes. His clothes would still be on him when he returned to himself.
Emperor Gerald leaped out of the pit in a single bound.
He coughed profusely as he was greeted by the thick cloud of fumes. He controlled his actions and became silent after sensing the presence of the flamebird. He gazed accurately in the direction of the opponent, despite the fact that he couldn't see it.
The emperor had good perception and didn't need to use his sight on some occasions.
"Oh sh*t!" the Emperor cursed, sensing fear.
He quickly turned his back to the flamebird, and at the same moment, a pair of 8-foot-wide dragon wings protruded from his back and wrapped him. This reaction was precise enough to deflect the barrage of tail feathers from the flamebird coming at him.
When the barrage of feather attacks stopped, the emperor's wing spread open and flapped powerfully, clearing up smoke around them.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The emperor manoeuvred past fireballs directed at him as he approached the flamebird.
When the distance between Emperor Gerald and the Flamebird shortened, the emperor said,
"Saber!"
His right hand was behind his back in a gripping position. A red sabre formed from hilt to blade. The hilt was within the emperor's grip as it materialised.
The Emperor yelled, "Ignis!"
As he yelled, he thrust the tip of the sabre's blade to point at the flamebird. Simultaneously, a fireball dashed and slammed into the Flamebird, setting off an explosion.
The explosion flung the flamebird into the boundary wall. The momentum of the helpless, hulking mass helped clear up fumes. Fortunately, the boundary wall held steady despite the force of the crashing beast.
Emperor Gerald ran like a speeding bullet, closing the distance between him and the dragon. He used the momentum to chop off the head of the dragon.