After about two and a half minutes, Icy finally began to better grasp the dimensions of the incarnation and attempted to dodge with it. Obviously, a bigger body just meant that Lostradus sent over multiple whips of fire to block off all retreat. However, it became easier to tell which flames Icy should break. This maximised the room to dodge.

He managed this imperfectly, but the battle thus far hardly stressed him out as much. Some lashes and cuts across the incarnation obviously remained, and he repeatedly healed the non-fatal damage done to his body within it, but Lostradus matched this state perfectly.

Thankfully, when this battle began, he received a surprising message from the Nexus.

[4 minutes until burn out begins. You can survive that state, unharmed, for 55 seconds]

He hadn’t grown any stronger, rather, his body adapted to the divinity somewhat, and the advanced power transformed itself to impact him at a far slower rate. In the last fight, Lostradus’ endurance clearly outlasted his by a huge margin, but now this correction narrowed that gap.

With his better senses in battle and greater success with evasion, Icy began to attack. To exhaust both the flame which healed his foe and deal so much damage that they collapsed.

Icy released the pocket watch and accelerated himself tenfold for a single second, the burst of speed so great that Lostradus could only retrieve his flames and block the incarnation's swipes or jabs. Halfway through though, an empowered wingbeat whilst merged with the Auric spirit rammed his body against Lostradus, breaking through the encirclement of flame to touch the ashen dragon’s scales. With a few seconds of acceleration remaining, Icy activated several seals on his scales before jumping backwards before the recombined flames engulfed him.

He selected an arrangement of Adept true spells for this, specifically self-destructive effects which also harmed the caster in a total disregard for backlash. These, combined with his retreat, worked to launch him well outside the Divinus-wrecking flame’s range.

A field of lightning exploded first, the orange jagged bubble of bolts filled with flares of red as it sat on the cusp of master tier. Another burst of lightning came in the form of a concentrated spike. It launched from his scales and embedded itself into the opponent’s body, exploding in a paralytic mess with heavy explosive force.

He also released a shadowy veil which clung onto scales, containing an effect to directly diminish healing and regenerative effects. To deal with this on his own body as well, Icy utilised another spell which literally just exploded. Nothing fancy, it created a massive explosion with great knockback force, the heat of which melted through his left wing entirely and blew open a good chunk of his body.

But he lived! And anyway, by releasing a single container of condensed mana within his palace, that damage healed in the final second of accelerated time.

Lostradus though, now had to deal with dense lightning elements coursing through his body as well as a coating of dark elements. The explosion also spun him around in the air momentarily. But that last one was the least effective as his flames automatically righted him, the natural intelligence of such fire an annoying thing to overcome.

However, even through all that, with a paralytic force which ought to have stunned his body for seconds at the least, the orange flames filled with vitality destroyed every spot of blackness and wiped away all that lightning.

Icy narrowed down the flames to a smaller selection, but he still couldn’t precisely identify the type.

“Is that your best? A few useless spells? Where’d all that arrogance go when you were smashing Golsheinna?” As the two approached again, Lostradus couldn’t help but comment on the weak overall display. Literally speaking, Icy’s use of Blood Explosion when they first met did more damage to him than all this!

The incarnation jumped forward again, blocking the other’s attacks whilst making several at the same time, the exact same situation as less than a minute ago, with only occasional, minor mistakes. However, mid-way through, another seal activated and released a whirlwind from his right leg. The sharp and stormy winds dispersed some flames nearby simultaneously as a seal on his head released a wave of cold mist. The repelling cold further weakened nearby flames and gave Icy enough time to move forward.

A pair of seals on his left leg coated the incarnation’s claws in lightning and fire. On collision, the mixture of elements combusted and exploded in a volatile display. The two dragons stood in the mess. Icy’s tail jabbed forth, another seal activating, the golden tail transformed and gained a layer of crystal which formed a threatening spearhead.

It stabbed deep into Lostradus’ flames, the crystals melted and chipped rapidly, but the tip remained sharp as it penetrated his belly.

Just a few more now… More seals activated, aimed to push the tail in deeper, and one across his chest created a gravitational well between the two, stopping any escape.

But Lostradus already collected a dense wall of flames around his heart, the crystal-tipped tail unable to penetrate through even with all the spells dedicated to its strike. Furthermore, his flames now created an invisible head and zoomed towards the incarnation’s. Icy saw no option but to merge with the spirit and accelerate himself several times faster than usual to escape. A single wing beat carried him well outside the head’s range, and a sonic boom actually thundered out for the first time so far.

However, as Icy pulled out the tail, one last seal activated alongside that crystal spear tip falling off his incarnation. A giant crystal suddenly grew from Lostradus’ chest, ripping open a massive wound and passing all the way through his body. Unfortunately, the crystal only expanded around his heart, the wall of transparent flames still defended that all-important organ.

Watching as the crystal broke in half and pushed out from either wound, Icy spoke as the wound immediately patched up, “How was that one? I think it was more effective.”

“It was, and I can’t see how many tricks you planned. You can’t have much time left either though, but this has been very very enjoyable,” Lostradus’ cheeriness immediately cautioned him, and finally, the dragon revealed his source of confidence.

Orange flames sprouted from his body, forming a complete coating which clung tightly, unlike the invisible flames which extended outwards. These orange flames radiated a pure and intense heat alongside the immense vitality Icy already felt, the heat was a symbol of origin, specifically narrowing down the list of possibilities to a measly two options. On that list of options, one of the flames was of gold, and the other orange… He didn’t need more time to think it over.

“Phoenix flames. The clan doesn’t hold any strong enough to heal your heart though… Your master truly dotes on you it seems,” Icy obviously looked into phoenixes early on, but further research provided a first-hand source of phoenix flames being used to treat dragon hearts.

In that book, that dragon used a cornem tier heart flame and still took weeks to fully recover. Which meant something provided an unimaginably valuable supreme tier resource to Lostradus… An item Icy absolutely planned on keeping if he killed the dragon.

Coated in the fire emitting pure heat and life, the two clashed once more, but Icy’s place immediately turned for the worse. The incarnation incinerated slowly in front of the unimaginably hot fire, with its natural enemy lashing out as well, numerous wounds sprouted over his entirety. Lostradus abused these gaps as well, slipping the phoenix flames within to incinerate Icy’s body.

Just little wisps of fire could instantly char his scales and melt entire chunks of ice cream, the temperature at thousands of degrees meant that a puny body of ice cream couldn’t negate the volcanic temperatures.

However, he did have a solution here. Icy withdrew a potion from his ring and swallowed its contents, followed by a few more of the same for good measure. Each potion contained a faintly blue fluid with a layer of white ice buildup on the outside due to condensation. When Icy swallowed he felt a comforting chill pass through and the flames nearby no longer destroyed his body completely.

The fact he could resist a supreme tier flame with adept tier potions spoke more to Lostradus’ poor control over these flames. It gave Icy a chance as the fight continued.

Countless seals activated on his body in close quarters, shocks burst out, blades of ice slashed with impunity, darkness corroded their bodies, both Mind palaces quaked and rumbled from psychic explosions, and both souls shook as they endured spears of focused soul power. Icy revealed at least 20 different Adept true spells when combined with the supportive spells he chained together with these attacks. It was not just his claws and tail which saw use, Icy made use of his teeth and scales wherever possible.

With every hit, every bit of damage, Icy could see how the phoenix flames reduced ever so slightly. Their power not infinite by any measurable means.

He saw a path to victory without any extreme cost.

And Lostradus desired to cut off this hope as soon as he realised Icy’s goals.

In truth, he never realised just how easy he had it last time by suppressing Icy with even a child’s concept of battle intuition, it literally just took some thought and training to realise the parts of his body often overlooked. A factor which greatly eased Lostradus’s time in their last battle.

Now, as the pair approached the four minute mark, he saw how Icy fully intended to continue the battle. If he didn’t end it soon, the backlash he faced from these flames far surpassed what Icy received after their last battle, and so it became time to use that final option. Once he combined the two flames together, it created a new sort of thing he held no control over, which led to its own problems.

At some point over the past week, Lostradus realised another fact whilst training. When he thought about how he’d melt and boil the ice cream dragon, considering how to focus the flames into an attack which killed his opponent, an alternate proposal appeared.

Unprecedented heat exploded from his body, the ashen scales now bathed in orange flames which lit up the blackened land like a small sun. Icy’s body stung simply on approach, and even the potions hardly helped at this stage. Both his Elder eyes and mana sense agreed on a similar fact though, as they saw unrelenting mana surge into the fires and summon a vortex of them above Icy. The gigantic dome of flames completely blocked his path upwards, and a second such vortex immediately came from beneath to completely secure him.

However, as hot as these flames were, they formed too thinly. He drank another potion quickly and prepared the pocket watch to escape. Heat required time to transmit, a basic physical property which even mystical flames like these shared, and so an extreme acceleration could pass through with minimal damage.

But by the time this dome closed in around him, Lostradus already urged his other transparent flame to meet up with the swirling encasement of fire.

The invisible met with the visible, and Icy bit his lip at the transformation in front of him. A ball of golden flames wrapped around him, and the wall had a thickness that now blocked his mana sense. A seal on his side activated, sending out a simple lance of black ice, but that already melted before even touching the golden flames, Icy sweated from within his incarnation as the ball tightened and heat increased with every second.

From the storage ring around his neck, he retrieved several scrolls and sent mana into each unreservedly.

Dozens of Adept true spells activated, shockwaves which caused the swirling flames to bulge outwards, jets and waves of water that boiled in seconds, and a variety of ice which met a similar fate moments after. Bolts of darkness pushed into the flames but achieved nothing, and Icy took an extreme stance by releasing Origin Force and merging it into a spell composed of grey energy, it gained a golden tint with this effect and fired into the endless wall of fire.

Rapidly, he saw how the endless spring of life contained within this fire died down slightly, like a dam blocked of its power, but that sensation collapsed soon after. The flimsy dam collapsed against the raging torrent and its weight.

Even death element spells didn’t last long enough for him to support them with other things…

As the closer flames now melted his body inside the incarnation, he threw a large metal plate below his body, measuring 5 metres in both directions, a stream of concentrated mana surged into it and activated the array engraved into its body. The metal plate resembled steel with a chromatic finish, meanwhile, Icy utilised a talc white metal for the array’s body.

Once it activated, a sputter of cold air ejected out from beneath him and kept a small region completely frozen. With another snake of mana, he further powered the array and kept up the cool zone, now chilling winds could actually sustain themselves in the centre of this fiery ball.

Icy considered waiting it out, Lostradus clearly lacked the mana to sustain this, but that only worked if these weren’t phoenix flames and he wasn’t a dragon. No doubt he prepared a huge volume of mana restoratives to win the battle of attrition here, and as the ball tightened, his array’s functionality quickly reduced. Phoenix flames also naturally lasted extensive periods of time, even if he ran out of mana, the fires would incinerate Icy to sugary ash before they naturally extinguished.

The exhausted dragon outside could not allow this victory to go without bragging though, the very depths of his mind craved that he lorded over Icy and his divinity. He said maniacally, “This is it! This is where you die and I rise! And after today these flames will heed my commands!”

Without a solution to the flames, Icy could only activate the last few seals on his body and give up on using further scrolls. The dark orb shot out towards the thickened gold wall but barely pierced through with full power, Icy having no choice but to recall it immediately and change tactics. His pocket watch accelerated him once more and a long spray of vanilla extract and caramel flew in all directions, the whole breath laced with Origin Force and modified to contain ice elements.

He rarely made use of this ability granted by his heart’s transformation, but now he just hoped to slow down the incoming threat of death.

Obviously, Lostradus continued his gloating, unable to speed up the tightening of the flaming ball as his control over these flames hardly existed. Happily shouting through its walls, “Come on! Surely you have more tricks to beat me! You were the one who spouted about absolute power, so how about matching mine?!”

The layer of chilly, sticky fluid all over the wall of flames didn’t even last a second before it completely disintegrated from such power. His unstable Origin Force couldn’t save him here… Perhaps.

However, before resorting to anything dangerous, Icy’s Mind palace descended as an illusion once more. The mountain hung above his head and tried to release golden waves outwards, but the waves actually popped like flimsy bubbles before even touching the flames, an expected outcome. He pulled it out to focus on the clouds which hung above the snowy mountain. Mind focused on the palace, he pictured the snowfall transforming to a storming blizzard which froze and buried all life on the mountain. A blistering wind which cut deep to one’s bone and flurries of snow so heavy that it blinded one’s sight.

With mana and realised psychic power to help, another burst of coldness actually descended but just barely. Clearly, the gap between this descended Mind palace and these flames was too great. Anyway, the progress Icy made on this technique in one day hardly amounted to what Pritaslo trained up over the course of a couple years.

While a fair effort, only two dangerous prospects remained. And obviously, he began with the safer of the two.

From his ring Icy carefully pulled out a single frozen rose. In the past, he misidentified this as a master tier object because of its decaying mana density, but even with Elder eyes, he saw this item for its true form.

The last part of a supreme tier bouquet, Icy couldn’t know where the other roses went, but this single item easily counted as a tier 0 item amongst the dragons. Composed entirely of great language runes, specifically Elementus which often only appeared in powerful elemental planes, and that meant the rose which quickly froze his condensed psychic force also staved off the flames nearby.

But that didn’t protect his body, so Icy took a small risk. A single leaf on the rose’s stem snapped as he willed it, and the rose vanished back into his storage.

“You only live once…” Hardly convinced by the statement, the incarnation’s mouth opened as did his within it.

Placing this leaf on his tongue, it quickly melted and completely dissolved into his body. The liquidised object now completely uncompressed as countless runes flooded the young adult dragon. Hundreds upon thousands of runes all related to the ice element filled him with a purity of coldness which approached the absolute limit.

Body, Mind, and Soul quickly chilled and he felt the danger of freezing over approach, however, the radiative flames from beyond suppressed this cold and kept his body in a fragile equilibrium. The Auric spirit merged together with him and helped bind the concept of coldness to the divine incarnation, the golden figure gained a light blue glow as secondary runes now flowed within its form unimpeded. The blue, icy glow held back the descending golden flames as well, a minor success for the dragon.

But this wouldn’t last forever, in a minute his body would begin to fail and the quickening breaking point held only one outcome.

To beat over two sealed supreme tier flames… One of which could enhance the other. Sure, Lostradus physically could not output anything above master tier, but what did it matter if this already killed Icy?

He would rise up, and the dragon marvelled by the Nexus would fall.

Sadness did not appear on his face though, rather a smirk and energised eyes of those filled with madness. A final chance pinned on his greatest desires since meeting Lostradus, and just for a laugh he asked, “Nexus, tell me once more what will happen if I try this idiotic plan?”

[Just do it. We’ll discuss what comes next if you survive. We can only hope that the disliked scenario does not occur]

Oh? That was a first. The Nexus always bluntly said he’d die trying this but now there was a second ‘disliked’ option?

“You sly bastard. Spirit, you’ll be controlling a lot this time and it won’t be stable. I’ll manage the mana, but you’ll have to deal with the Origin Force, understood?” Icy asked it a question to which it agreed perfunctually, merged and hyperactive within his body for the flood about to come. His voice shouted out, easily penetrating the wall of flames to reach his foe’s ears, “It’s finally time! Are you ready to see which of us survive?”

“You complete, uneducated fool! Can you not see the ultimate combination of flames which are moments away from spelling your doom?! I saw the little rose you pulled out already, and that thing with your palace was cute, but you lost. I know you have NOTHING!!!” Annoyed by the unfounded bragging by Icy, Lotradus saw no possible reality in which he lost.

Icy exhausted all his useful abilities, nothing he possessed dealt enough damage to the flames to escape. None of his preparations mattered against a thing of such power.

None of it!

So he just watched in spite as the frozen dragon filled with runes pulled out two items from his ring which were promptly swallowed. The first garnered no attention from Lostradus as he scoffed at the futility… But the second had his face scrunch up in confusion. Only to laugh in mockery as he thought this to be a suicide note from Icy.

The first object was a small vial of blood full of unprecedented energy. However, as it lacked any ice elements, he ignored it, obviously.

The second was a grey crystal which contained a small, flickering, transparent flame. The little bit of Divinus-wrecking flame which Icy barely extracted before his master saved him.

“I accept my victory, gladly,” Lostradus’ voice trailed off, an ecstatic grin on his face as Icy’s pocket watch suddenly activated with an unseen 100-fold acceleration. This was the final second.