Draktharion twisted mid air, landing hard, claws digging into the soil.
'Tch… bastard…'
His Dragonfire raged around him. His claws lengthened further. His wings spread wide.
The echo didn't wait.
They launched toward each other.
Clashes exploded in a flurry of crimson fire and azure arcs.
Sparks flew. Trees were cleaved in half. Wind screamed.
As the island continued to fall, Aurora and Zoey tried to reach the core again.
But the island's swaying momentum kept pulling them back.
"Shit!" Aurora cursed, her voice filled with anger.
Still, Draktharion and the echo clashed again.
Crimson met azure.
Blade met claw.
Draktharion's eyes trembled.
'It's just an echo… yet I'm still getting pushed back…!'
Atticus's movements were fluid, insane. Every slash. Every dodge. Every twist, it was like he could predict every move.
Draktharion's rage boiled.
'I'll have to transform.'
He didn't have a choice. He had to fulfill his end of the bargain. He had to kill Aurora. Or Carius would abandon him and all this would have been for nothing. He had to transform into a dragon!
But then, as they clashed, his eyes gleamed as he noticed something.
As they passed close to the core, Draktharion's eyes flickered.
'His speed… it dropped!'
He sharpened his senses.
'It's siphoning his essence…! Because it's still him. The echo is a fragment of Atticus. And the core is drawing it in!'
It was a chance. The core had been made to trap Atticus. And his echo was still him.
Draktharion steered the battle closer to the core.
The echo resisted, but Draktharion bombarded him with a flurry of feints and direct attacks, forcing the confrontation into that space.
Even though the echo knew, it couldn't abandon its instruction. It wasn't the real Atticus. It couldn't exactly think for itself. This was its main weakness.
It was akin to a program, and its current sole directive: protect the others and defeat the threat.
And so it still stayed, fighting, slowing down and weakening.
As the essence continually bled from its form into the orb, its movements soon grew sluggish.
Draktharion's eyes gleamed.
'Now.'
His wings flared. His speed surged. A blur of motion.
And then;
SLASH!
His claws ripped through the echo, tearing it apart.
The final fragments of the echo's essence were pulled into the orb with a shimmering pulse.
The forest fell still again. A defeaning silence.
Draktharion stood panting lightly, gaze locked on the orb, his chest rising slowly.
'I did it.'
Although it was just an echo, the fact that he had somehow defeated Atticus thrilled him.
'No more wasting time.'
And then… he turned.
His eyes locked on Aurora in the distance once more.
"You're next."
But just as he was about to move:
BOOM!
A figure plummeted from the skies, crashing down like divine judgment, earth rupturing beneath his landing.
Darkened skin. Two black horns curling upward from his head. Two pairs of crimson eyes, glowing with chaos.
He was clad in the midnight blue uniform of the Alliance military, torn at the shoulders from the force of his arrival, his presence radiating like an inferno.
The dust cleared.
All eyes landed on the figure.
Staff Sergeant Viktor Halden.
His voice came like a thunderous roar:
"Dragon Apex Draktharion Ignisyth. Are you betraying the Alliance?"
One question.
Nothing more.
Viktor had seen the echoes of the earlier battle. He had seen the dragon fight a translucent Atticus and win. He knew of Atticus's power already and knew that it wasn't the real Atticus.
He knew Atticus's heart. His mind. His history. His hatred for the Obsidian Order. No one desired their eradication more than that boy.
It wasn't Atticus who was the traitor.
It was the dragon.
Draktharion's gaze darkened. An officer had seen too much. A mid race officer, no less.
Draktharion could simply deny Zoey and Kael's claims if they called him a traitor. With Atticus gone, the humans would fall down to their rightful place at the bottom. But with Viktor's presence, that whole notion had to change.
'This is getting out of hand.'
The longer this dragged on, the worse things would become.
He moved again, stepping in front of the core as it slowly floated up once more, defying its impossible weight.
His eyes blazed crimson. Find adventures at My Virtual Library Empire
His silence was Viktor's answer.
"A traitor," Viktor growled.
Killing intent exploded, flooding the ruined forest like a storm. It slammed down on Draktharion like a collapsing sky.
All the years Viktor had spent on battlefields, all his scars, his pain, his experience, came crashing down in one moment. A lifetime of survival forged him into a war hardened monster.
Hellfire roared, flooding the forest, devouring trees in an infernal blaze. His horns elongated. Claws grew sharper. His skin hardened, glinting like obsidian steel.
Smoke and fire seeped from his mouth as he snarled:
"I'll make you pay for this."
The tension rose, the very air crackling under the weight of what was about to unfold.
But before either could move;
"They trapped Atticus inside the core!" Aurora cried out, her voice sharp and desperate.
"We have to get it to free him!"
Draktharion and Viktor's gazes locked again, two pairs of slitted crimson eyes, colliding midair with feral intensity.
They moved.
CLASH!
They collided in the air with a cataclysmic burst, claws clashing at blinding speed. Shockwaves rippled outward, uprooting trees and shattering stone.
Hellfire surged around Viktor. Dragonfire raged around Draktharion.
Infernos collided, red and gold against crimson and black.
The entire island trembled beneath their power.
Fangs, claws, fire, rage, two apex predators unleashed.
But the difference soon became clear.
Both were Grandmaster+.
Both were mid-race members.
But dragons had always stood at the top of the mid-races.
And Draktharion's claws, his Life Weapon, were weapons of unimaginable strength.
Cracks began to appear on Viktor's claws.
Hairline fractures…
Then splintering.
Each clash brought him closer to shattering.
Draktharion's attacks intensified, blurring faster, hitting harder.
Viktor clenched his teeth, aura surging as hellfire exploded around him, engulfing both combatants in a roaring tempest.