We stood in the vast, open plains of the Crag, in the palm of Stoneclaw Mountains. He didn’t mutter a word, simply walked to his left, as if trying to circle me despite his far distance. His slicked snow-white hair was as smooth ever. Even now, he still wore the white robes of the academy. He was frosting, with each breath that icy smoke would release, as if he was in Glacier Crest’s unforgiving climate. Our eyes never left each other, glaring like eagles shadowing their prey.

I gulped, recent experiences giving me a frigid body, even knowing I was stronger than before. My hand slowly reached for my vials. The moment my fingers touched the cork, he jumped on his ice disc and bolted toward me, his robes flapping endlessly in the wind’s resistance. A large talon appeared on his forearm, its reach twice times that of said forearm. He was about to drive it into my chest, but my body moved on reflex.

A large water pillar, gushing water upward in a circle around me to act as a pylon of protection. It was effective, if at least for a couple seconds. A shadow formed beneath me, when I looked up, he was there, inside the water pillar, his ice talon sweeping down towards me.

I flung the vial into the wall of water with a flick of the wrist, then placed a force field upward, barely catching the razor-sharp spell. I teleported outside, at the top of the pylon of water and managed, somehow, to catch the red potion that was pelted upward from the water’s force. I wrung the cork with my teeth whilst preparing another teleport spell. The second I began downing the red potion, he teleported atop me once again, this time, a huge ice mace was in his hands.

He swung downwards again, and I remedied it the same way as before, a forcefield aimed upwards. The last drip of red potion touched my tongue and I swallowed, then braced myself for the impact. The mace hit the force field, firing me down into several spikes of ice. Thankfully, my teleport was ready and instead of going to a safe place, I teleported right behind him.

In this fight, I didn’t dare underestimate him. So, in my palm was the nefarious shadow sphere, a spell that would end the life of any living thing it touches, yet, when I slammed it right into the side of his head, nothing happened. He brushed it off and sank his elbow into my stomach, then made a spiky ice knuckle and smashed the back of his fist into my face. I fell off him, spitting fire to cushion my rolling landing.

Why? Why didn’t it work? Whilst questioning the very power of Eblis that ran through my veins, Winter’s ice disc came to his rescue and he began forming a winter star in his hands the moment he landed. With a grunt, he hurled that death star before it even began spinning up. On the way to me, slipping past the air’s resistance with ungodly speed, its blades began rotating, humming that eerily buzzing noise. Blood ran down my face from the cuts I sustained below my eyes.

I crouched a little, ready to intercept the winter star, but the minute it got close, it exploded into a wall of snow and blinded me from the man’s actions. Do I teleport? Is he behind me? Will he appear on the left? Or will he prefer the right? My brain fizzled into a mess, so I chose to channel a barrier and teleport upward, but he was gone. Winter had disappeared.

The snow fell to the ground, as did I, landing much more comfortably this time. Using this chance, I swallowed a green and blue potion, casted a healing spell over my face and wiped the blood running down my cheeks, all while keeping my eyes peeled. I popped a pill of each colour into my mouth all at once and swallowed. Where the hell did he go? Was I to believe he decamped so cowardly?

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. The minute my arm reached my eyes, a hole opened up from beneath me and my body became entrapped into the ground, up to my elbows. A winter star was rushing to me, ready to sever my body in two and I couldn’t dodge. Though my hands were bound, I could still cast. Arcane spheres formed rapidly and blew apart the ground. Once more, I casted the arcane spheres, but this time, upwards. The shards of rock made small lacerations on my neck, jaw and cheeks. Pieces of soil splattered onto my face, a less than perfect escape, but an escape from death nonetheless. I simply leaned back and allowed the winter star to fly past, above me.

I crawled out the hole, and found myself with a heavy breath. When he finally appeared, I saw that he was unfazed, unfettered, not diminished in any way. I realised then that, with our difference in experience, it was inconceivable that I’d defeat him in a game of tactics. What then, was I supposed to do? What change should I employ?

To contemplate my next step so deeply in the midst of battle, I was a fool. This wasn’t a board game where your opponent would let you peacefully strategize your next move. He fell from the sky like hail, crashing down onto me. We fell and rolled down a shallow slope, throwing punches where we could. The rotation stopped with him mounted onto me. He raised his fist, another talon of ice growing from his muscly, hairy forearm. I spat dragon fire upwards and forced him to move, rolling over clumsily, but not without burns. He jumped up and sprinted to me. I blasted a cannon of water from my hand and sent him spiralling uncontrollably through the air, his hair a watered-down mess. One winter star, and another, and another. He flung them to me like a desperate soldier on his last legs, struggling to survive the impossible odds that was the enemy forces.

They were badly aimed, and I didn’t have to do much to dodge them. I used arcane bind to pull his ankles together and teleported over him the moment he began falling, mashing a shadow sphere into his face when he hit the ground, but again, nothing happened. Why didn’t it kill him? I was so angered by it, that I formed two and struck him with them simultaneously, but that didn’t work either. He formed an ice dagger this time around and stuck it into me. It hurt, unimaginably horrendous and writhing pain. The serrated blade was ripped back out at a different angle and I felt like it pulled out everything inside me, but when I looked down, I’d only see my heliotrope-coloured demon’s blood splayed onto Winter’s face.

I backed off, shaken up by the agonising rupture. What the hell was I doing? As if my body running cold finally woke me up, I casted a healing spell on my wound and saved my own life. My breath was fast and shallow, we both stood up. In both his hands were winter stars. He simpered, and called me a rookie.

Right then, I felt a cold fist smack me on my jaw. I was losing consciousness, but, thankfully, not entirely. A clone?!

I was caught off guard, but I used this chance to fake getting knocked out and kept my eyelids open just enough so I could see properly. There he was, two of him. I knew the one I was fighting with all along, the one with his hair drenched was just a clone now. After all, an ice clone was not a living thing. That’s why, my shadow sphere didn’t work, I thought. The bigger question now though, was whether the new Winter here was the real thing.

“Ah, miss Crescent. Did you really think I’d take a beating like that for no reason? You’ve still a long way to go. Well, no matter, today is the day you die. There’s a new spell I want you to have the first honour of dying by.”

There was something, rising from behind him. I couldn’t completely make it out because my eyes weren’t fully open, however, his next few words killed me inside.

“Come now, Aurora, your first kill will be the half-breed child of man and dragon, born of demon’s blood!”

Several thoughts bombarded my mind with heavy artillery. How did he know who I was? Where did I slip up? But it was foolish of me to assume he didn’t know who this miracle chemist that appeared from thin air was. Alright, that was fine, he found out, that knowledge doesn’t make a difference in this situation, so I shrugged it off. However, that name he called… Aurora. There was just no way, its unthinkable.

Did Winter brainwash Aurora, the queen of the ice dragons, as he did Levi?

A wintry draft ensnared me whilst I laid on the ground. The inexorable sunlight was blocked. She was upon me. It was unfortunate, that the real Winter hadn’t taken the chance to close in on me himself, he wasn’t susceptible to my attack this way. The second Aurora raised her claws into the air, Audax raised from the earth, clamping down onto her neck with his jaw and throwing her over.

Leaving him to deal with Aurora, I teleported to the Winter I’d been fighting all this time to get rid of him, assuming he was a little spent from our scuffle. I blew fire right at his face but he moved robotically to the side, right into a lava sphere I’d charged up. It burst open on him, splashing the bright orange fire water on him and burning through him. Now, I had only the real Winter to tackle.

He exhaled, his arms dangling at the sides. “Enough of this!” he yelled, and waved his hand, bringing up a block of earth and shackling my wrists and feet to it. Unbeknownst to him, my pills and potions had taken effect when I laid on the grassy plains. I bust out of it by sheer force. My physical power had multiplied, though I couldn’t say how much. In a sprint, I went, rivalling speeds of a cheetah and beelining straight to him. I didn’t think too much, just let my body flow the way it wanted to.

A lava sphere was thrown at him, the spiralling ball being met with a stone wall and answered with a small line of water, thin enough to mimic a feather’s quill. It struck me right in an eye, leaving me disoriented for a few seconds, enough for him to teleport to me and sink an uppercut into my stomach. I held onto his wrist whilst a large ice talon began forming, pushing farther and farther into my clothes, but hitting a force field I deployed at the last second.

I breathed fire onto him, but a barrier of his own protected him, although his was of much worse quality than mine, so just a few seconds into the fiery onslaught and it broke, forcing him to teleport with me in tow. But by the time we got to the other end of the field, ice was already caving in on him after the heat shattered his face. He was a clone too.

The ice breath and fire breath from Audax and Aurora lit up the skies a northern blue and central orange. The mere fact that he opted for his fire breath instead of his newly acquired shadow breath showed he didn’t wish to kill Aurora. I’d wish she could live too, but we both knew this wasn’t a fight we could underestimate.

Not taking the risk to avert my attention, I scanned the area for my foe. But where? Where was the real Winter and how long had he intended to play this game? I swallowed in suspense, my feet heavier with each passing second and each spin I made, looking ‘round and ‘round like a lost lamb.

Suddenly, he appeared some metres in front me, unmoving. Despite his stillness, he amassed a scary amount of magic. Any rookie could tell it was time to give up, turn tail and fight another day; the thought had certainly passed my mind. However, I had no plans of delaying our disagreements further.

His garments ruffled like stormy winds fought against it. Such immense power, he intended to finish this scuffle. The two dragons tumbled between us, Audax’s jaw latching firmly only one of Aurora’s wing. He breathed shadow onto her and the hungering deathly magic consumed her wing and continued spreading along her body, until she slowed her fighting with last-breath fidgeting. The minute I took my eyes off of the enslaver, a large, overwhelming dome of icy particles formed, flowing at high speeds and mixing with snow.

A blizzard. I wasn’t sure what advantages he had whilst in it, aside from my visibility being thrown off a little. This whirling dome of snow covered an extremely large area, though I knew not how much. In the midst, I heard a strange whispering then suddenly felt like I was choking inside, yet, I could breathe completely fine. I tried casting a teleport, but the spell wouldn’t output anything. I remained where I was, helpless, until Audax flew me away, onto a nearby mound.

I could see the circling wall of snow, the blizzard spell he casted, dark and ominous. A glinting light could be seen within the blizzard, getting bigger and brighter each second, until it escaped the blizzard. A cataclysmic ball of fire with a weird texture to it. I jumped, not wanting to face magic of that scale head-on. It collided with the mount and exploded, obliterating the land into a nasty rubble.

Three winter stars came afterwards, their sizes and speed were incredible. Each blade spanned about a metre long and destroyed my ice barrier with the first hit. His spells had become so destructive that earth dragons flew around, wanting to intervene, but never got the chance to. The Earthmother had stopped them, and led them away from the destruction to come. If anything, her eyes were the most enraged of her brethren.

From that blizzard came ice spears swifter than any I’ve faced, fireballs with unmatched explosive potency, walls of earth that sought to trap me and forced me to teleport away. Even wind magic that made it difficult for me to physically move about. He didn’t bother using water spells, as it would probably be too slow. I had a fair idea of the blizzard now. It buffed his spells immensely, and interrupted the spell casting of others who stood in it. If Audax hadn’t come to my rescue, I’d either be halved from the winter star or splattered from the force of his fireballs’ explosion.

I kept dodging. A couple minutes in and I could see the landscape had changed significantly. Stoneclaw Mountains were no more. Much of the land was opened up from the explosions, showing the brown underside instead of the soothing green pastures. Whilst I kept running, dodging, teleporting, I thought about how to counter the blizzard, but couldn’t come up with anything. He had me on my heels.

Out of desperation, I mounted Audax and we circled the blizzard. He breathed shadow energy onto the blizzard, at random places. “Emily! Don’t just sit there, help me flood him out!” Audax complained, and that’s when it hit me.

“Audax, you genius!” A flood, why did I not think of that? I asked myself, amassing a stupendous amount of water ready to gush down the hill and into Winter’s playpen. Audax kept him distracted with relentless shadow breaths, trying to gnaw its way into the blizzard but simply vanishing after penetrating a little.

This is it, I thought, and released the dam. An unstoppable force. Like a rat, he came scurrying out on his ice disc, flying by right beneath us. I leapt from Audax and began falling to him. I formed a shadow sphere, then bound him with my arcane chains and quickly formed a lava sphere in my other hand, in case this was just an ice clone that I fought. Using all my might, I rammed the two spheres into his back, both lava and shadow enveloping him as he fell downward. He nosedived into a pine tree, spinning and falling in the most spectacular way.

I knew he was down for the count, whether it was the real Winter or just a clone, so I approached carelessly. He played possum until I got close enough and kicked one of my shins, causing me to fall over and then kicked me in the midsection once again. I placed a barrier up just in time, so why, why was I flying through the air at such a high speed? How? When? The speed seemed to sap my mind’s ability to formulate answers, but I knew one thing: if I collided with whatever was in my path, I’d surely die, unless…

The dark violet shadow enveloped me, without my permission, Eblis’ power forced metamorphosis onto me. I smashed into a tree, effectively destroying it and a couple behind as well, until I hit a robust boulder and finally stopped. I looked at my palms and noticed the shadow cloak around me. “I see.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled calmly.

“Interesting,” Winter levitated in the air, slowly descending down to me. As fellow magic users, we had a genuine moment of intrigue at each other’s states. “So,” he landed deftly, “you have something like that too. An armour that boosts you.”

“Yeah,” I replied, taking notice of his own ‘armour’. It was shaped more like actual armour than mine was. The spaulders having a scaly texture, with horns sticking out. So too was his helmet, and cuirass, and greaves and sabatons. The only thing weird about it, was that it wasn’t even a solid, physical thing, but an ethereal mass of iridescent energy. The translucent dragon armour had protected him from my attack and gave a simple kick of his such eruptive power. I was awestruck. “This may be a stupid question, but, is that from all the draconic magic you absorbed?” I stood up and watched him.

He grinned, a flagitious and irritating one at that, and replied “yes,” throwing a hissing emphasis on the end of the word to rile me up even more than I already was. “Now, you are the first person able to force me to use this dragon form, I do hope you’ll entertain me.”

He reeked of confidence even whilst ignorant of my power in this form, showing absolute trust in his own power. He took a low fighting stance, a fist tucked near his side and a palm facing me, gesturing me to approach with the flick of his fingers. His taunt was as clear as day, and I knew, but I still bit, if only to gauge him.

I walked forth, composed and ready, stopping within his range, tensions flaring high until I threw the first punch aimed right at his chin. The power this form gave left me astonished every time I used it. The speed was past the realms of normal man, incredibly so.

He deflected it upwards with his outstretched hand and launched a counter to my stomach, that resentful smirk still present on his face. I swung an elbow across and diverted his fist’s trajectory off its mark and sank my shin into his ribs. As I had destroyed trees on my travel path, so did he after that kick, ending up lodged between the branches of one, upside-down.

I spread forth my wings and flew over to him, catching him in the act of gripping down on the branch with one hand alone and smashing it to pieces so he could get out. “Not,” he landed on his feet, “bad!” and flew to me, tackling me with all his weight behind it. We tumbled down the hill, hitting on several trees as we punched and kicked each other in an awfully familiar predicament. I held his head still and rammed my forehead into his nose. The back of his head hit a slab of stone and destroyed the thing. Each blow we exchanged with each other let off an ear-piercing sound, akin to someone being slapped, but with much more oomph and echo to it.

We toppled down the side of the hill, destroying it as we went along with mere physical attacks and fell into a nearby stream of water, startling a bear and a couple elks. Birds and such timid creatures decamped without hesitation as we stood up, sharing blows, ducking and dodging and not thinking twice about using nearby rocks or logs as weapons. He feinted a punch and I blocked with my arm, “Greenhorn,” he said and planted his heel in my stomach, spiralling me upstream until I hit the mossy rocks that the water fell over. I sank a little in the shallow pool of water, baiting him to come to me and that he did. He flew downward, feet-first to stamp into me and in the guise of the muddy water I released two shadow blasts from my hands and breathed fire after I made a little opening through the water. He collected all three attacks and was blown back upwards, shattering into splinters of ice and forming a snowy veil. An ice clone.

Through that veil another Winter flew down with the same exact attack but this time I chose to teleport right above him. He stamped into the water but only to be lodged in the muddy riverbed. He landed with so much force the water splattered away in all directions, leaving the mud below him clearly visible for a few seconds. I joined my fists together and slammed them both down onto him, hammering him farther into the mud.

He teleported onto the smoothened rocks above me washed the mud from himself with a gentle splash of water, “Enough playing!” he yelled out and blew a bombardment of fireballs toward me, although, these were a lot smaller than before, maybe even the regular size of a student’s fireball.

However, their explosive reach, was frightening. It was large enough to destroy and scorch a half acre, and with the multiple that he fired off, the Crag began changing shape rapidly.

I dodged them, sprinting along the rocky landscape and jumping over chasms that Winter so feverishly busted open with agility and acrobatics I never knew I had. Whilst avoiding his attacks so much, I realised I couldn’t match him at long ranged battles. After all, he mastered the draconic arts to such a frightening degree. I had to choose between arcane, shadow and close combat but I knew not how effective my spells would be against his draconic form.

His attacks were mostly comprised of fireballs, winter stars, and ice spears since they were effective and quick projectile magic. What do I do? I thought, jumping around the desecrated forest. At that moment, Audax swooped down and grabbed the white-maned enslaver, flying off with him like a rat snared in the talons of the skilful hawk. Nearing a mountain, Audax released him and Winter crashed into the rocky walls with stupendous speed. With haste, the shadow-flame dragon flew up, into a backflip of sorts and nosedived back down, firing off a mixture of shadow blasts and fireballs in a swirling cluster. The attack hit the foot of the mountain, razing the greyed redoubt into mere rubble.

Interminable and undying, Winter blasted the rocks that buried him away and teleported before my eyes could behold him. He appeared on Audax, ice hooked his feet onto the beast so he wouldn’t be thrown off. Seeing this, I did the same, and teleported behind him, casted a portal in front of him and pushed an arcane sphere into his back right when his winter star left his hand. It went off course, slicing a horn off Audax’s head. Winter was pushed into the portal I set, being thrown into the bottom of a nearby lake just like I’d planned. I dual-casted an arcane sphere and set it on the path to where he was so it’d clear the water from above him and give me a clear shot then fired off no less than ten shadow blasts after.

I knew it hit him, but was unsure how much damage it would inflict. With Eblis’ shadowy hand, I grabbed him and dragged him out the lake. His draconic armour was cracked, and pierced in certain places. He was drenched, his hair dangling and his breath exasperated by my pulling. He grunted in anger and smashed his fist on the ground, slumped over. “Why do you get in my way?!” He yelled out, just about having it with my pestilence.

“The salamanders were almost wiped out. The ice dragons probably already are, thanks to you. How can I let that go?! You killed my friend, and you ask why I get in your way?!”

“You know nothing!” he screamed, standing up and wiping some mud from his face. He threw his cloak aside, as it probably weighed him down, “They, are evil, violent brutes with enough power to wipe us out whenever they please! How can you defend them?”

“They’re family, I’m part dragon,” I answered, composed and calm.

“Well, my family, and almost everyone I know was murdered because of them!”

“You’re blaming an entire species because of the actions of the Summoner? How stupid can you be?”

“Don’t talk like you know!” his power flared and his armour stitched itself together, like it was a living thing. “After all, you’re both demon and dragon. I hate your guts, the most!”

“So why did you let me live?”

He sighed, “Because, I thought you would be of help to Venreval after I die. But, you’d much rather impede on an old blind man’s dream. Very well, then.”

He clasped his hands together and a large earth sphere encased him. Not wanting him to get an edge, I teleported right to it and blasted it away with an arcane sphere, ready to annihilate him, but he was gone. He teleported somewhere out of sight. I stood stupefied for a few seconds, then hopped onto Audax when he swooped down to get a bird’s eye view of the terrain to try to spot the ice mage.

A couple minutes after and a large shadow was casted on the ground. I’d have thought clouds blocked the sun if not for the terrifying magic I felt coming from above. I looked up.

A meteor. Dauntingly massive, ablaze and being followed by smaller ones behind it was racing to me. My legs contracted on Audax’s neck, I was frightened, all I could think of was a horrible ending. If not for my friend’s untimely jokes, I might’ve watched it until it hit me.

“You better not let me die again, it doesn’t feel good, you know.”

We landed and I began weaving a humungous portal, getting larger and larger, but the ridiculous size I had to compensate for was simply too much. The portal also began getting unstable because of its size. The death ball was going through the portal, halfway through, the portal failed, with results probably worse than if I’d just let the oversized rock fall on its own.

A blast rocked the Crag, leaving a huge crater. The meteor seemed to have a fireball condensed inside its rocky surface, causing an explosion that forced me to dual cast a barrier around Audax and I. We flew back, what felt like miles away, until we fell down the rocky hills of the coast and into the crashing shores.

“Are you okay?” I asked Audax after coming to my own senses, and he nodded in agreement.

“Just, tired.”

“I rubbed along his jaw, you can go back and rest. You did well. Thank you.” He disappeared, like a smoke, without saying another word.

I opted to fly back instead of teleporting. I assumed he’d be prepared to ambush me if I teleported blindly.

Within some minutes, I came back. Besides the gaping crater the size of five palaces, there was a huge fissure, showing that the ball rolled just a bit before exploding.

I finally spotted Winter, lying motionless in the guise of some bushes, his dragon form still very present. Even in this recuperative state, his perception was still second to none. He spotted me and forced himself to stand, charging up his magic once more. Suddenly, he coughed out blood. Did he push himself too hard with that meteor, what was happening?

I took the chance and gathered as much shadow magic as I could, making sure to keep an eye on him as he coughed his life out. It boggled my mind, as to what would sprout forth from my hands, but I knew I was charging every single drip of magic I had remaining, only leaving enough behind so that I wouldn’t die after using whatever this spell turned out to be.

After I levitated for about a minute, preparing this spell, I let forth the greatest shadow magic I ever casted.

A small stream of shadow energy, as thin as a feather’s quill, fell downwards. Being underwhelmed at this point was a stupendous understatement. Did it, fail? I questioned myself. Even though most of my magic was used and my shadowy metamorphosis form faded. Falling through the air and landing in a muddy puddle, helpless, I cursed myself.

Until, I felt a petrifying surge of shadow magic in front of me. It swelled more and more as I watched on, flat on the ground. What was happening? I could feel like it was looking at me, staring into my very mind. “What the hell are you doing?!” I struggled to talk, “Kill him!”