The scorched earth still sizzled with the remnants of the dragon's wrath, yet Ascalon stood—arms raised, breath steady, eyes locked onto the colossal beast before him. His legs ached from the sprint, his body screamed from the impact, but his spirit… his spirit was unyielding.
The prince's voice murmured in his mind, quiet but present. "This is madness."
And Ascalon—his lips curving into a faint grin—responded not with words, but with the way his body shifted. Steady. Ready. He bent his knees, arms lifted into a stance that wasn't taught—but earned through instinct and sheer will. A defensive posture, raw and unrefined. It was the stance of someone who refused to fall without a fight.
The Crimson Dragon's molten eyes narrowed. His pupils, thin slits of gleaming gold, pulsed with ancient recognition. He had seen this before—this defiance. Long ago, in forgotten ages.
"Then come," Ascalon whispered, his voice barely louder than the cinders fluttering in the wind.
The dragon obliged.
With a roar that shattered the skies, the creature lifted one of its titanic claws—each talon the size of a carriage—and brought it crashing down like divine judgment. The impact was cataclysmic. Trees split, rocks screamed, the very earth fractured.
But Ascalon was already moving.
At the precise instant the claw slammed down, he launched upward, body coiled and released like a spring of tempered steel. The shockwave of the dragon's strike whipped at his boots, but he soared just above it, flipping through the air like a streak of lightning.
He landed lightly on a tilted slab of blackened stone. Dust rose beneath his feet.
The prince's voice echoed, surprised. "You predicted that?"
"No," Ascalon replied silently, his grin crooked. "I felt it."
He could feel the timing—the rhythm of the dragon's anger, the weight of its motions, the pattern of destruction. Not as calculations, but sensations. His body, though foreign and flawed, reacted with unnatural precision. Something deeper than skill. Something primal.
The Crimson Dragon glared at him now—not just with rage, but with a flicker of something more… curious.
The air grew tight again as the beast turned. The ground groaned under the titanic shift of its body. His massive tail, gleaming like a blade of molten obsidian, arced around, slicing through the atmosphere with a deafening scream. It came not like a weapon, but like a hurricane incarnate—raw, wild, and inescapable.
Ascalon didn't run away.
He ran toward it.
Boots pounded across broken ground. Each stride was a gamble, each step a heartbeat away from death. The prince screamed in his head—but Ascalon only gritted his teeth and jumped, just as the tail came within striking range.
"Here goes the second," Ascalon muttered, the words spoken through gritted teeth, not for the dragon, but for the prince—a warning. A promise.
The tail passed beneath him in a blur of black and red, close enough to blister his skin with heat. He twisted mid-air, landed—and faltered.
Crack.
Pain flared in his ankle, white-hot and immediate. His foot rolled, and he dropped to one knee, teeth clenched, voice torn from his throat.
"Ahhh…!" the cry wasn't loud, but it was raw. His fingers dug into the ash-coated ground, struggling to hold steady.
The dragon paused.
Its massive head turned—slowly, deliberately. Smoke curled from its nostrils like whispers of death. The beast leaned forward, its colossal body lowering, wings folding slightly in cruel ceremony.
"So ends your little struggle," the dragon intoned, voice like thunder breaking against mountains. And then—with terrifying grace—it lunged.
The Crimson Dragon's maw gaped wide—impossibly vast, terrifying in its hunger—and the world vanished behind its teeth.
Earth, trees, ash—and Ascalon.
Swallowed whole.
But fate had not yet tightened its jaws.
Through the sheer chaos, Ascalon's hand snatched onto something—a root, gnarled and weathered, stuck stubbornly between the dragon's jagged teeth. A twisted tree had grown along the volcano's slope, and somehow, a fragment of it now clung for dear life in the mouth of a god.
And Ascalon clung to it.
The heat was unbearable. The air itself scorched his lungs with every breath, but his grip did not loosen. One hand wrapped around the splintering root, muscles strained to their limit, body dangling above the abyss of the dragon's gullet.
Then it moved.
The dragon's tongue—a serpentine mass of muscle and molten saliva—thrashed violently, trying to dislodge the foreign object between its fangs. Each sweep of the beast's tongue came closer to severing the root. Each moment, death crept nearer.
Ascalon exhaled with a faint, sardonic smile. "I never thought I'd be killed again… this shortly after being born again." His voice was hoarse, but calm. "It's been a pleasure, Prince."
A pause. Then the prince's voice, resonating within the soul they shared: "I wish… there had been more time."
Their words weren't filled with dread.
Only resignation. And… something else.
Anticipation.
Then Ascalon's eyes narrowed. "Prince," he said slowly, a spark igniting in his tone, "are you sensing that?"
"I am," came the answer, quiet, steady—bracing. "I'm ready."
Dangling with only one arm, Ascalon reached with the other—toward the card pouch. His fingers brushed the flap, singed and scorched, trembling with pain and effort.
"This isn't some dramatic revenge like, 'If I go down, I'll take you with me.'" His smile widened, wild and honest. "I just really want to try this card."
No fear. Only thrill.
The prince's awareness surged forward. His eyes, metaphysical and all-seeing, gazed upon the arcane inscriptions as Ascalon pulled the card free. The runes were old—ancient beyond reckoning—etched in a script Ascalon couldn't read.
But the prince could.
His voice read the words aloud in the soul they shared—incanting them.
The card ignited with blinding light.
A heartbeat of silence. Then—
BOOM.
The world erupted.
A sphere of energy detonated outward from Ascalon's body—colossal, merciless, and beautiful. The interior of the dragon's mouth was annihilated in a flash of light. The explosion ripped through the beast's jaw, shattered its skull from the inside, and tore through scale and sinew with a roar that sundered the heavens.
Fire spiraled skyward.
Mountains trembled.
A wave of destruction consumed everything within a hundred yards—the dragon, the cliff, the surrounding forest, even the soil itself—scorched into silence.
From within the burning core, as the light faded, the prince's thoughts fluttered like dying embers.
"I wish… I could cross the limits of this body. I wish that my might could make my body stronger…"
And then—a voice. Distant. Ancient. Echoing from a memory forged in the blood of the past.
"You will cross your limits one day, young prince."
It was the High Priest's voice—calm and clear, as though whispered in the void between life and death.
Tch. The prince chuckled softly in his own mind, even as consciousness faded. Why is it I always remember that old hag's words when I'm near death…?
The light disappeared.
Silence fell.
The land burned in the aftermath. Smoke curled into the bruised sky. Ash blanketed the remains of trees, rocks, and charred earth. And at the center of the crater, where fire and fury had danced—
There was nothing.
And thus, the world held its breath.