Zethi doesn’t give me a moment to catch my breath or even get a good look at her draconic form before she moves. She flies directly at me with colossal speed, the sharpened tail behind her an uncomfortable reminder of the memory of being impaled from my past life. Two four-fingered claws rake at my chest. I partially dodge, but the damage my armor sustains is testament to just how vast the difference is between a wyvern and a true dragon.

And she doesn’t give an inch. I raise [Repulsion] into the air with a thought, hoping to forestall her next attack, but she shatters the barrier with a contemptuous flick of her wrist, causing the pieces of magical energy to fall to the ground like broken glass. I take to the air, shooting straight up, burning through [Ether] like there’s no tomorrow. Barely seven hundred points left out of a maximum of over five thousand. But even burning through it as fast as [Angelic Form] will allow, I’m still not able to gain any ground over my draconic pursuer.

I abruptly switch my direction from straight ahead, parallel with the ground, to directly toward it. If I’m right, Zethi’s massive form will be clumsier in flight and less maneuverable due to her higher mass and therefore inertia.

I’m wrong. I’m very, very wrong. She can turn every bit as quickly as I can, and with her higher mass, she’s powering through the air resistance far faster than I am. No, that’s not quite it. She’s bending the air around her to hasten her descent, augmenting her natural draconic flight with wind magic. I hit the ground with a thud, using my hands to buttress my sudden stop, and then flinging myself into a backflip.

Zethi, however, crashes into the ground with a thud and an accompanying shockwave so intense that my ears begin ringing and I’m nearly thrown off my feet, only barely able to dodge the accompanying torrent of flame by flinging myself away with [Impulse].

Chloe jumps into the fray, launching another [Scouring Light] at the behemoth. It barely singes her scales in this form. A few of them incandesce a faint reddish-orange, but she seems none the worse for wear.

Alana uses another [Featherstorm], though I’m not sure if she’s trying to stall for time for me or if she actually expects her onslaught to out-damage Chloe’s own offensive magic. Plumes of white smoke briefly obscure Zethi’s onyx body, but I can tell even before it finishes clearing that her attack hardly does any damage to the black dragon. Even Jasmine’s blind-spot follow-up attack behind the knee of one of her hind legs only does a negligible amount of damage, and ends up with her getting batted to the ground by the tail of the beast.

I’m completely spent. All I can do is run. For the first time since the System arrived, I feel completely powerless, completely outclassed. I stand face to face with a being I can’t hope to defeat in an even fight. This must be what Lindsey and the members of the Order of the Wilds felt when they went up against [Seraphina Overlimit]. Yes, that must be it!

It makes no sense why Zethi would bother to fight in her humanoid form otherwise. Maybe to toy with her, maybe to test us, but in an actual fight for our lives, where it’s kill or be killed, she should go all out and crush us before we get a chance to get in a surprise attack. Unless, of course, she can’t. Because her transformation is like mine; limited in duration, and probably with some sort of drawback once that time limit expires.

So we have to stall out the clock somehow. Elissa is down for the count, crippled, unconscious, but still alive, given a lack of System notification otherwise. And Zethi hasn’t shown any capacity for healing magic of her own. All this means we just need to survive… somehow.

“Everyone!” I cry out. “Take defensive positions, spread out, and don’t attack! We need to outlast her transformation!”

“But–” Alana pauses. “Fine, but we can’t let ourselves get worn down, either.”

Chloe begins chanting under her breath, readying her [Sanctuary] spell. I doubt it’ll stand up to Zethi’s full assault for very long, but it might be able to shield us from her light attacks, and force her to waste valuable time and stamina on it instead of us. I have to assume her transformation is on the order of a minute or three, similar to my Overlimit.

Every second is hard fought, and every dodge and deflection is a victory. With the last bit of [Ether] I can spare, I envelop Alana in the light of [Angel’s Grace]. I’m remiss that I can’t do the same for Jasmine, but I have barely a hundred [Ether] left, not nearly enough to recast the spell. Still, this is a boon which will compound Alana’s physical stats and bring them close to mine after [Saintess’s Blessing].

I notice the difference in the way she moves. She looks more confident, and with her heightened speed, she’s able to defend herself and Jasmine to a far greater extent. Which still isn’t much, only barely holding her own. Zethi’s attacks are too ferocious, too numerous, and come from every angle.

The worst part of trying to defend ourselves is just how many ways Zethi has to attack us. A contemptuous flick of her wing, her four claws, her teeth, her tail. Every part of her body is a weapon at this point. And that says nothing of the fact that she can breathe fire, though there seems to be some sort of cooldown on how often she can use it.

Every muscle in my body aches as I narrowly dodge a tail swipe by forcing myself prone at the last second. Thank the goddesses I can deactivate my wings now, allowing me to spin out of the way of the claw stomp that follows before flipping back to my feet just in time to get swatted back by her fibrous wings.

“You okay?” Chloe asks through our bond. She’s struggling as well to maintain [Sanctuary], but seems to have just enough mental energy remaining to offer me a healing spell. One which I decline— my [Health] is still over 4,500 and I can use that as a resource as well.

The seconds tick by way too slowly. Alana and Jasmine fly into the air, trying to bait Zethi into attacking them. She hesitates, looking up at them, before turning her attention back to Chloe and me. That proves some sort of calculus is at play. I’m confident now more than ever in my earlier assessment. We need to run out the clock.

I stop focusing on trying to fully dodge Zethi’s attacks. I lack the stamina, and Chloe’s [Sanctuary] will suture up my wounds over time. Instead, I focus on avoiding lethal blows. Hits on my shoulders, my arms, my legs, anywhere that is armored and isn’t an imminently vital area, I allow myself to sustain. For a while, I eat small wounds up with [Saintess’s Cloister]. But it expires in relatively short order. And once it does, and I start tanking blows with my own body, it hurts like hell.

I clench my teeth in pain. Each passing second might as well be an eternity. Alana and Jasmine are taking their shots where they can, blunting and diverting the worst of the dragoness’s fierce blows. A [Curing Light] from Chloe sutures my wounds together as I roll out of the way of a butt stomp that would have crushed me just as easily as if I’d had neither armor nor [Vitality].

I take a quick shot of [Ether Bullet Barrage], aiming for what passes as her heel. It hits its mark, but doesn’t deal much damage. And with that, my [Ether] is fully drained. Only seven points remaining. Even [[Ether] Strain Immunity] is no longer sufficient to completely block out the lightheadedness I’m experiencing.

I want so badly to take a nap. To rest, to just do nothing for a long, long time until I recover. But I can’t. Adrenaline and the fear of death together help me fight the temptation to succumb. And with every bit of my [Speed], I run. I zig and I zag, trying to remain unpredictable, counting down each second like it’s the last I’ll ever live. Chloe is falling apart bit by bit, and Jasmine is clinging to consciousness. Only Alana seems to have any substantial fight left in her, but she will lose the battle of attrition.

But she fights on with valor and purpose. Three seconds. Five. Seven. I get a crucial moment to catch my breath as she enters some sort of trance-like state, dodging Zethi’s vicious rending claws before flying out of the way of her fearsome dragonfire assault.

Twelve seconds, then fifteen. Alana is still fighting with aplomb, though she’s starting to get pushed back. Still, she continues onward.

We’ve had to have been going at this for close to five minutes now. I clench my fist, feeling the light deep inside me, pulling my Overlimit close, ready to charge in the moment Alana falters.

But it doesn’t happen. Zethi’s movements grow sluggish, her body wavers. She turns around, back to me, and in her final seconds, she attempts to bring me down. She gets to within a couple of feet of me, her right foreclaw moving toward me. I fall out of the way for an attack that never comes. With a shriek, Zethi’s body turns a blinding white, and then her humanoid form appears in the center of where her draconic body used to be.

“Dammit all,” she mutters, clenching her heart and dropping to one knee. “Still, after all that. Couldn’t save Elsie. Couldn’t even save myself.” She looks at me with a vicious, hateful stare. “Well? What are you looking at? You won. Just finish us already and save me the humiliation.”

“No,” Chloe says. “There’s no need for this bloodshed. Can’t you just… go back to your own time and place?”

“You sound a lot like Elsie, you know.” Zethi says, the scowl in her eyes and bite in her voice dissipated. She turns to me. “And you, you’re her partner?”

I nod.

“Take care of her. Don’t let the cruel reality of your world break that innocence, that compassion.”

“I won’t,” I say. Even if I have to eventually do morally questionable things for her sake, I’ll make sure that I’m the one who has to get her hands dirty, so Chloe’s conscience can remain clean. Though, she is the type who’d insist we find the hardest way of going about things, some complex plan that ends up saving everyone in the end. That’s just who she is, and one of the things I love most about her.

“Here,” Zethi says. “A token of our gratitude for the fight.” She hands me a shard of golden crystal. “I’m not sure if you can make use of it, but if you can, I’m sure it’ll serve you well.”

With a nod and a smile, she and Elissa both vanish. The System’s notification breaks up the awkward silence.

[You have defeated Elissa and Zethira, Queens of Alstara (Level 46, 48). You have gained a boosted 165,000 Experience]

[You have gained enough Experience to reach Level 49. [Strength] +1, [Speed] +1, [Vitality] +1, [Mind] +1. Please assign free stat points (Remaining: 4).]

I put all four of my free points in my neglected [Speed] stat this time around. A bit more swiftness could have saved a lot of pain and dignity in the last battle. More importantly, had things gone a little worse, it would have been necessary to try to take Chloe and outrun Zethira’s flying speed, something I couldn’t do as I was during the fight.

[Maximum Health increases by [Vitality] x 2 + Current Level + Rand[1,3] = 252]

[Maximum Ether increases by [Mind] + Current Level + Rand[0,2] = 194]

[Level: 49; Experience: 1,949,100; To Next: 160,200]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 1,759 / 7,222; [Ether]: 223 / 5,296]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 126 (Base: 67); [Speed]: 120 (Base: 64); [Vitality]: 188 (Base: 100); [Mind]: 273 (Base: 145)]

I’d… love a long breather right now. But before I have more than a moment to even try to process and collect my thoughts, the void opens up, revealing a portal. One which leads on, I’m sure. To where, I don’t know, but the sound of rattling and a sense of ominous foreboding approaching from the distance is all the warning I need. The Tower is demanding we press forward without a break, and if it comes down to it, I’d rather face the perils of the twentieth floor a hundred times before I dare stand against the Warden.