I tried to ignore the pain in my hand as I landed; it was bad, but not as bad as I had expected, and I was doing my best not to think about the implications of that.

The dragon was looking at me, its gaze still somewhat hazy; not wanting to waste any advantage my shock to its brain might allow me, I leapt back up to the neck. I had used one of my three trump cards, and it had worked a little, but that still left me another two, and I was planning to try them both. Of my two remaining trump cards, I did not think my echo punch would have much of an effect, but it was worth the try, it was not like it took much time, after all.

Landing on the scorching scales once more, I grimaced at the increased pain in my feet, though it was mostly being gated by the pain in my messy right hand. I braced to leap again, expecting the dragon's claw to pay me another visit, but it did not come and I felt gratified that my attack had apparently been more shocking than either the beast or I had thought. Seemingly, it did not matter how tough you were, lightning to the brain was not easy to ignore.

For a moment, I considered simply doing it again, but a glance at my hand quickly convinced me that if I wanted to still have a hand, I was going to need to keep that idea in reserve.

Dashing along the neck, I felt the muscles tense again, and I heard a deep, attenuated growl ripple out of its throat, indicating that my grace period was perhaps coming to an end. Reaching the head quickly, I aimed for where the skull seemed to meet the spine and bracing my feet, shifted my concentration to my crystal arm, and triggered the echo punch.

Sensation vanished for an infinitesimal instant, replaced by the strange blurring and loss of control I was growing used to. I regained control just as I heard the dull clack of prosthetic against metallic scale, and I saw the area I had aimed for flatten into a crater, some of the scales bending and warping at the impact as the dragon lurched and I was sent rocketing up and away.

Punching down with that particular ability was never a great idea, and I was more than aware that there had been a possibility of being sent skyward again, but I had hoped that I would be able to exert enough of a counter-force with my Praxis to stay in place; no such luck. I did not end up thousands of feet up, but I did end up at the far side of the beast’s area of destruction, landing lightly amidst rubble.

Glancing back at where I had come from, I saw the dragon climbing back to its feet, and while I was behind it and could not see its face, it still looked shaken, its legs slightly unsteady as it climbed back atop them.

As I watched, a grin spread across my face as I saw it stagger again, barely catching itself; apparently, my full power echo punch was getting pretty strong. I still had no idea just how many times I was attacking in that moment, but I was guessing it was a lot if I was knocking dragons punch-drunk.

The grin did however slip from my face as I saw my friends finally enter combat, realising all at once that I had not reasserted my Path after the punch and that time was flowing normally. I watched as Toria was propelled by blazing lines up through the air to drive a punch into the side of the creature’s head, noting that while it clearly did have some effect, the giant skull barely moved.

I winced again, expecting a claw to sweep around and knock the justice worshipper away, but was glad to see a delay in its movements, allowing her to dodge the really very vast swipe, if barely.

As Toria veered off to build momentum for another attack, Darina rushed in, what looked like bone plates from my distant vantage point forming around her as she landed where I had stood moments before, and began to hammer at the same spot, her arm elongating into a spiny maul each time she drew it back to strike.

The dragon – even in its dazed state – was clearly getting annoyed; rearing back until Darina was stood along a vertical surface, the thing let out a roar that hurt my ears from hundreds of feet away, hammering at my head and making me dizzy until, with a pop and a sharp pain, the sound vanished.

I dabbed at my ears and my hand came away bloody; the damned thing had burst my eardrums. I began to run back towards the fight, the continuing roar buffeting my body with the force of the sound waves, and then transitioning once more to heat as it blasted a blossom of crimson flame into the air that was somehow both hotter and brighter than the first it had tried to hit me with.

I knew that Darina would be able to handle the proximity from her position behind its head, though I had to imagine that it was painful with the temperatures involved. Toria was also fine, it seemed; the jet of flame had halted her approach, but she was already circling back around and I grinned again as I closed in; I might not be able to take the thing down on my own, but maybe we could.

Finally, back in the fray, I dodged a lashing tail as I popped a healing pill into my mouth, the fiery breath finally coming to an end and the oppressive heat cooling momentarily. Stepping onto my Path once more, I leapt up again to stand stop the thing’s shoulders, ready to run along the dragon’s spine to join Darina.

I would not be able to use another echo punch just yet - though being knocked away and having to run back had helped there at least – but I still had my third trump card, if I could figure out how to make it work with something as large as the burning kaiju.

I was just beginning to attempt to run up the dragon’s neck, using Praxis for purchase when the head came down, fast, swinging around to point in Toria’s direction as she came in to land another punch. I felt my eyes open wide, along with the beast’s mouth and tried to shout a warning, even knowing that it would do no good.

Flames erupted again, this time flashing towards my companion and engulfing her. My heart leapt and I felt rage and loss rise up in me, twining around each other as a growl of my own bubbled up from inside me.

I hovered on the edge of reason for just a moment before I saw Toria emerge from the flame, shot away on a line of flame much thicker than was normal, thicker than even her body. Her clothing and hair were on fire, and her breastplate a glowing mass of molten metal, but she at least seemed alive, though how much of a blessing that was would depend on if she survived, and in what state.

Rushing up behind Darina, I dropped my Path so I could speak normally, and shouted for her to help Toria, before stepping back on it. The apprentice healer began to stand, painfully slowly to my accelerated and attenuated perception, and after a subjective moment of thought, I grabbed the diminutive girl around the waist and tossed her as hard as I could towards our fallen friend, just as the dragon flipped over once again.

This time, Instinctive Precognition sent me running around the neck of the giant beast, rather than laying against the spines, and it was a good job that it did, as the second time involved a small leap that sent its spines digging into the stone, and would have likely smashed me flat if I had attempted the same again.

As the dragon wriggled against the ground, presumably trying to grind my to powder, I positioned myself above the spine once more, just below the skull and focused my will around my time aura, extending it into the spikes I had for so long thought useless, and then harder, moving more and more of my aura away from myself and out of my hands, the efficiency I had built into them ballooning it out and away, until they joined into one huge spike as long and thick as my body, and time moved normally for me.

The spike jutted down into the dragon’s flesh, and I hoped it would be enough to reach and cover the spinal column; for half a second, I thought I had failed, as the dragon continued to grind into the city’s foundation. But then, the grinding stopped.

Cutting off my Focus, I leant my full attention to my Path and to my hold on the creature’s hide. All at once, the dragon began to jerk and spasm as its muscles received multiple instructions at the same time, locking and cramping as they tried to move in many directions at once.

It was like this, as I stood grinning on top of a spasming dragon that I realised the one, fatal flaw in my use of my trump card; it was both very costly, and I had no way to simply stop and take advantage of it. With the sect member, I had been able to knock her out as she lay distracted by her own body, but with the dragon, I had no such option. I might be able to hold on long enough for another echo punch, but by that time, I would be close to out of Praxis, and if it did not knock the thing out, it would be free to simply annihilate me and my friends.

Helpless, I stood there as my energy drained, trying to think of a plan that would at least get us away from the thing, but from the speed with which it moved, I had to guess it would be able to catch me at my normal speed, especially if either Darina or I was carrying Toria; Darina was a great healer, but the other woman had suffered a lot of damage, from what I could tell, and it was unlikely that she would be up and ready to run for it, if my batteries died.

Desperate, I eyed my Core, feeling the pulse that indicated how low I was, and felt a hint of dread at the nearly imperceptible hum, indicating that I was almost done. I swallowed, knowing that holding on could kill me, but also knowing that it was my only shot at survival. I had to hold on, and hope that the Blood Guard would show up... even though it had taken hours to get there and back.

Seconds slipped by and I began to feel faint, and I had to simply drop down and hold on as best I could with my legs, as I had to stop supplying Praxis to keep me attached in favour of maintaining the spike. I felt a pain in my gut as I was bounced up and down atop the lizard, and the time spike guttered and began to die, fading back towards my hands as I ran up against absolute emptiness.

I felt myself fall as I heard a metallic ringing and a wet sound like a water balloon bursting, the ground slapping me hard as I fought the urge to vomit, my body struggling uselessly to do something – anything – to resolve the problem it knew I had but had no way of identifying. Sweat poured out of me spontaneously as my temperature rose precipitously, and the world spun as darkness closed in around the edges of my vision.

At least I would not feel the dragon kill me, I thought as the world faded around me. I felt like crap, but it was probably better than being eaten and then digested in its belly for a thousand years...