Now, only a battle of strength would determine the winner. We ascended to almost four and a half thousand meters when Ragni began to run out of strength. Far to the north, the edge of the ocean glistened beyond the mountains, and ahead, there was only dense cloud covering the entire sky.
"Krito, I can't keep this up; she's catching up with us!" Ascareza was indeed starting to catch up with us. At the moment, there were six hundred meters between us, but in another minute, the advantage would be on her side.
"Dive into the cloud and prepare for descent."
"Okay!" Roaring, the dragoness breathed out flames, shaking off the ice from her wings, and made one final leap. "What's next, try to dive onto her damaged wing?"
"No, dodge her and catch me," I released the dragoness's neck and drew my blades.
"WHAT?!" Ragni turned around, but I was already running along the almost sheer dragon's back. Pushing off from her tail, I emerged from the dense clouds to meet the raging beast.
"To hell with you!" Ragni snarled maliciously, folded her wings, and plunged downwards. As I requested, she didn't dive toward Ascareza but changed her course. I, on the other hand, flew straight into her jaws.
Now the most logical choice would have been to twist and devour the falling black dragon; the human would crash to the ground from such a height. Such a decision would be made by any white dragoness in her place. But I didn't sense that logic in her, which was inherent in sentient beings.
I looked into the creature's eyes, black pupils in bloodshot whites. Something was definitely off with her; her gaze showed only blind fury. Perhaps that's why she behaved in battle like a wild beast, but that gave me an advantage.
She acted recklessly and exposed herself to attack in that maneuver because she lost sight of us. Something clouded her peripheral vision, so she could only see the target in front of her. She was rapidly approaching—two hundred meters, one hundred—and her toothy maw opened wide to embrace me... And that was my chance.
A dragon's eyes are on the upper side of its muzzle, and when it opens its mouth wide, it can't see a small target like me. But she didn't consider that I could change my trajectory mid-flight.
I gathered wind mana in my blades and made a sharp dash to the side. The airflow pushed me ten meters away, just enough to pass by the dragon's fangs and stay out of her line of sight. I flew within a meter of her cheek, alongside the glistening scales, and approached my target.
The wide wings were half my height in thickness, but there was no time to ponder. I swung my blades and struck at the spot where three adamantium tips had settled next to the bone. The metal of my blade clashed with the arrows, and I heard bones crunch. Now, she wouldn't be able to fly for some time... But I should probably find my wings as well.
"Ragni!! I hope you didn't forget about me?" I spread my arms, trying to slow down the fall, but the distance from the girl was still considerable.
"I'm flying as fast as I can; you should have warned me earlier," the dragoness stretched herself into a single line and flapped her wings to catch up with me. But that did little to slow the persistent approach of the ground. "Hold on tight!"
Finally, she caught up with me, and her neck aligned with mine. However, grabbing onto something at such speed was problematic. The only option left was the dragon's horns.
"Aaa, not the horns!!" Unexpectedly, Ragni squealed in pain.
"But there's nothing else to hold onto!"
"Fine, just hold on, it's going to be a rough landing."
Only about a thousand meters remained to the ground, and at this speed, we would meet it very soon. Ragni leveled her body parallel to the ground and spread her wings. The push and the rush of air almost threw me off her neck, but I clung to the dragon's horns with all my strength. We began to slow down, but the ground was still too close. At an altitude of about ten meters, the princess released a blast of fire into the ground, and the recoil gave us the final push. Ragni landed on all fours, and our collision left a mark in the ground almost ten centimeters deep.
"Phew, we made it," the dragoness finally managed to breathe calmly. "Don't do such risky tricks anymore!"
"Yes, yes, as you say," my voice didn't sound convincing at all. "Can you fly away from here now?"
"Yeah, just let go of my horns!"
"Of course," but as soon as I let go of the horns, the world turned upside down. Ragni simply turned her neck so that I ended up beneath her and dropped me to the ground from a height of three meters.
"Ouch, that hurt!"
"And wasn't it painful for me?! You know, pulling a dragon by the horns is like dragging a person by their hair! Want me to demonstrate?"
Ragni reached out her claw towards my head, but I quickly covered myself with my hands.
"I get it, I believe you, I won't do it again... It would have been easier to put a saddle on you."
"As if I'd let you do that! What are you thinking, trying to saddle the princess of dragons!"
Trying to soften the fall, fluttering with one healthy wing, Ascareza made a forceful landing half a kilometer away from us.
"Fly away faster, the rest is our concern!" I let go of Ragni and contacted the others. "Grain, Hilda, start!"
As soon as Ragni soared twenty meters above the ground, the earth mage set in motion the last part of the plan.
An enormous plain stretched westward from the capital, unremarkable except for the geysers that periodically made themselves known. Underground waters from the nearby glaciers flowed into this depression and erupted under pressure during sunrise and sunset. But deep below, vast reservoirs of water always remained. At my request, Grain slightly modified the layers of the earth in this area, and now he was ready to set the final trap for the dragon.
The ground trembled, and cracks started spreading in circles around me and the dragon. Streams of water, accumulated for centuries within the earth's depths, began to surge upward, causing the ground to sag around. At that moment, Hilda and Asura unleashed their ice magic, turning the water walls into a crystalline prison. Such walls wouldn't be a problem for the dragoness, but Grain kept pumping the underground water, and soon the thickness of the walls reached several meters. The dragoness wouldn't be able to break through such walls, considering that she didn't have enough space for acceleration. The only way was through the air.
"Katrina!" The princess released lightning and spread a net of discharges over the trap. The dragoness could try to break free, but with her weakened wing, she would only hurt herself even more. However, the water surged unevenly, creating a convoluted maze across the entire plain, and the perpetrator of her suffering was right in front of her. As expected, she lunged at me. "Grain, lead me, we need to lure her into a narrow passage."
"Okay," Kurone transmitted the image of the labyrinth to me. But luring the dragoness alone was difficult.
"Vivien, Asura, lend a hand."
I ran as fast as I could, but my pace couldn't compare to the stride of the dragon. She was swiftly catching up to me, and Grain helped me to escape.
At the next fork, the mage raised a stone wall behind me, leaving the dragoness confused. At that moment, Vivien leaped from above and, thrusting the opposite side of her spear into the dragoness's neck, drew her attention. The blow was barely noticeable for such a monster, but she still switched her focus to the new target. Soon, she was replaced by Asura, and then Werner. With these simple tricks, we lured her into the narrowest passage of the icy maze.
At the end of the passage stood Hilda, both as bait and as the last person capable of reaching Ascareza.
"Lady Ascareza, please calm down!" Unfortunately, the princess's pleas went unheard. The monster rushed towards the girl, and Grain closed the walls over her, trapping her body and limbs.
The dragon was raging, trying to break free, but the earth mage firmly held the trap.
"Ascareza, please, come to your senses!" Hilda's voice was on the verge of tears, but her old friend couldn't hear it. Ascareza was struggling, and the only parts of her body that she could move were her tail and neck. Rizel jumped onto the immobilized dragon's body and used her strength to push her muzzle into the ground, finally calming her down.
"Hilda, let me try," Kurone emerged from the shadows and took the princess's hand. "Just focus your thoughts on her."
The girl touched the dragon's cheek with her other hand and immersed herself in Ascareza's mind. Echoes of visions from Ascareza's soul reached everyone connected to Kurone.
"Ascareza! Can you hear me!?" Hilda's consciousness plunged into the infinite darkness inside the mad dragon's mind.
"Prrooochh!!" A growl illuminated the darkness with a crimson flash, and the dragon's red eyes flared before the girl.
"Please, wake up and explain what happened!"
"Get away!!" A black shadow appeared in the crimson sky and swallowed Hilda. In the same second, Kurone pulled her out of the dragon's mind.
However, we all felt the horror that reigned in Ascareza's soul. Because of it, Rizel momentarily loosened her grip, and the dragoness threw her off her back. By chance, Hilda and Kurone found themselves defenseless right in front of the monster's jaws.
Ascareza stretched her neck forward to seize them, but Hilda erected an ice wall just in time, and the enormous head crashed into the crystal with a loud crack. The shards pierced Valkyrie's hands and flung her to the end of the corridor.
"We need to leave!" Kurone tried to lift the girl, but the impact left her unable to stand straight on her feet.
"I want to try again!"
"It won't help. She's completely gone mad; you can't help her."
"Arrgh, leave me alone," Hilda pushed the sorceress away and staggered towards the dragon.
Ascareza didn't hear what they were shouting and opened her mouth, preparing to exhale icy breath. Sparkling snowflakes appeared in the air, and in this confined space, she would freeze both girls in an instant.
The stream of ice burst from her mouth, but a young lad in a gray cloak stood in its path. Werner placed his newly crafted blade, finished by the Nordic masters, in front of him, and several symbols on its surface ignited with a bluish glow.
The blade repelled the magic, and the white mist spread in a cone around Hilda and Kurone, but in this confined space, the ice surrounded them, leaving less and less room to retreat.
"Someone stop her!" I tried to approach the edge of the passage to pull the girls out, but the icy wind pushed me back.
"I'll do something," Katrina released the restraining spell and leaped onto the dragon's back. Ascareza was already trying to break free from the trap, and standing on her was challenging. "I'll try to paralyze her."
Electricity crackled on her golden claws, the discharge was not strong, at least not for a dragon, and the princess aimed it precisely at the monster's spine. Unlike her other brethren, white dragons were sensitive to elemental magic, and with a piercing cry, the dragoness collapsed to the ground.
"What? What happened? I didn't hit her too hard..." Katrina pressed her hand to the dragon's chest. Its heart was barely beating, gradually slowing down. "Why did this happen?"
"It's all right," a voice we hadn't heard before sounded in the heads of those who were close to the fallen dragon. "This was the only way to stop me. Thank you."
"Lady Ascareza! We will heal you; just hold on a bit," Hilda hugged the giant dragon's cheek, but its heavy breath was gradually slowing down.
"Thank you, Hilda," small snowflakes formed into an indistinct image of a beautiful woman. "I brought so much destruction to your home; I deserved this. But please protect my children."
The silhouette's hand caressed the princess's cheek and then dissipated. The dragon's heart stopped at that very moment.