Ignis struggled to weave through the dense, intersecting branches. Not only did he have to avoid crashing into the trees, but he also had to keep a close eye on the two people running below. He had absolutely no time to worry about the White-robed Men behind them.
Villanelle was well aware of this.
‘At this rate, we’ll be caught sooner or later. I have to do something…’
She took a deep breath, no longer conserving her Mana, and lifted her Magic Staff to begin charging.
Immediately after, with her as the center, a vast expanse of white mist thick with tiny ice crystals rapidly spread out. In an instant, it shrouded everything within several dozen meters.
It was a Mid-tier Spell, Frigid Storm. However, due to Villanelle’s casting level, it was only a rudimentary version with almost no lethality. Still, it effectively interfered with both sight and perception.
“They’ve hidden in the mist! Watch out for an ambush!” the White-robed Leader’s irritated voice rang out.
Taking advantage of the mist’s cover, the two women and the dragon accelerated, heading deeper into the woods. However —
“Hmph, found you!”
A raspy sneer came from behind a tree to Villanelle’s side. A White-robed Man had somehow crept near them silently, clearly having used some kind of Stealth Spell.
The blade atop his long-handled Magic Staff glinted with a cold light as it lunged straight for Villanelle’s shoulder.
“Watch out!” Emily screamed.
Villanelle’s reaction was swift. She gripped her staff tightly and raised it to parry the attack, but the sheer force of the blow rattled her balance, sending her staggering backward.
Seeing this, Ignis let out a roar. He dove toward the White-robed Man with all his might, crashing through branches as snow and leaf debris showered down.
The White-robed Man quickly retreated several steps and raised his staff to rapidly manifest a shield, attempting to block the strike.
However, against Ignis’s impact — which felt like a small cannonball — the shield lasted for less than half a second before shattering like paper. Then, the terrified eyes behind the mask rapidly magnified in the man’s field of vision.
Enraged, Ignis opened his mouth. A black Dragon Breath, completely different from his previous Black Flame, surged out. He blasted it directly into the man’s face.
The White-robed Man shrieked, dropping his staff and clutching his face as he stumbled back frantically. He tripped over a tree root and collapsed to the ground.
His entire face was rapidly corroding and sloughing off with a *hissing* sound. Black smoke drifted through the gaps in his fingers, and pale white bone was faintly visible.
He had dealt with one, but the commotion had already alerted the other White-robed Men.
“Over there!”
The dense sound of footsteps treading through snow approached once again.
They soon left the area filled with the icy mist behind. The familiar pursuers charged out of the white fog, flanking them from both sides.
Multi-colored lights flickered at the tips of the White-robed Men’s staffs. Wind Blades, ice spears, and poison arrows — a dense barrage of magical projectiles flew toward them one after another, sending wood chips and leaves flying.
Villanelle and Emily had already exhausted a great deal of physical strength, and their speed was much slower than when they had started.
Ignis circled anxiously above their heads, occasionally using Black Flame to delay the White-robed Men’s advance, but he had also sustained many small wounds on his own body.
“I don’t think we can get away… Get down!” Emily suddenly shrieked as she turned to see something. she lunged, tackling Villanelle to the ground beside her.
A Bursting Fireball shot toward them from a tricky angle, exploding just a few meters away. Snow and clumps of dirt sprayed everywhere; there had been no time to chant a defensive spell.
Villanelle scrambled up to check on Emily’s injuries. The girl appeared to have been knocked unconscious by the shockwave of the explosion, and blood was seeping from her nose and mouth.
This was bad.
The pursuing White-robed Men slowed their pace, surrounding them in a semi-circle.
Ignis tried once more to attack with Black Flame, but it was blocked again. Suddenly, the surrounding branches seemed to come alive, binding him tightly like tentacles.
Not far away, the White-robed Leader lowered his staff. He brushed the leaves and broken twigs off his robe and strode toward the two women, stopping several meters away.
Villanelle knelt in the snow, holding the unconscious Emily in her arms as she warily raised her staff.
“The game of cat and mouse is over, little girl. And you…” He turned his head to glance at Ignis, who was pinned against a tree trunk by the branches, struggling desperately. “Stay still, little monster. If you come with us quietly, you can avoid a lot of suffering.”
Ignis’s scales bristled. He gnawed furiously at the branches binding him, but the originally fragile wood was now as hard as steel.
‘Damn it!’ he cursed inwardly.
Since his reincarnation, this was the first time he had felt so powerless and humiliated.
There was no doubt about it; they were in a desperate situation.
No, it wasn’t supposed to be like this…
He wouldn’t allow anyone to destroy the peaceful life he had now…
The leader stopped speaking. He raised his hand and fired an ice spike that knocked the Magic Staff — which was just beginning to gather Mana — out of Villanelle’s hand. He then approached the two in the snow with the posture of a victor.
Villanelle’s face was deathly pale. She stared fixedly at the White-robed Man walking toward her, an Arcane Missile slowly condensing in her palm.
Just a little closer…
“Stop…”
A voice, suppressed with resentment and pain, echoed in everyone’s minds.
“Who’s speaking?” The White-robed Leader looked around alertly.
“I TOLD YOU TO STOP!”
Up in the tree, Ignis threw his head back and let out a furious, deafening roar that sent the accumulated snow tumbling down. Deep within his soul, it felt as though something was coming loose.
“Boss, look!” someone pointed at Ignis in terror.
The leader snapped his head up just in time to see the small Black Dragon’s body trembling violently. A dark red light surged wildly around him, and his size began to swell rapidly in defiance of all logic. His bones emitted a scalp-numbing *clacking* sound…
The leader didn’t understand what was happening, but he knew he couldn’t let Ignis’s mutation continue.
“Quickly, kill it!”
Arcane Missiles, fireballs, and various other spells raced toward Ignis. Following a series of continuous explosions, a massive cloud of smoke rose, shrouding everything in the tree.
Villanelle’s eyes widened, and she scrambled to her feet regardless of the danger —
“Wait! It’s still there!”
The leader immediately sensed the violently fluctuating Mana behind the smoke. He raised his staff again, preparing to chant a more powerful spell.
The cold wind blew the dust and smoke away.
Ignis was hovering in the air. The lines of his body had twisted, becoming grotesque and overflowing with a sense of power. His molten-gold vertical pupils were rapidly swallowed by a surging darkness, leaving only two points of berserk crimson locked onto the row of White-robed Men below.
The previous bombardment hadn’t left even a single scratch on him.
*Crack…* The Collar around his neck flickered several times before finally shattering under the pressure. The shards fell into the snowbank.
“I TOLD YOU TO STOP!”
The violent roar exploded in everyone’s minds. Immediately after, the seven White-robed Men discovered to their horror that their bodies felt as if they had been hit by a Petrification spell; they couldn’t move an inch.
His size having more than doubled, and radiating a terrifying pressure, Ignis opened his massive maw — which looked as if it could swallow the world — toward the center of the enemy line.
A Chaos Breath, rolling with countless phantoms of agonizing faces, surged forth. Wherever it passed, the snow melted, the frozen earth below was corroded, and the towering, ancient trees were reduced to ash.
Then, the black breath touched the White-robed Leader standing at the front.
His body was like snow under a blazing sun, rapidly dissolving within the viscous black breath. Only a patch of scorched, black filth emitting acrid smoke remained where he had stood. Then came the second, the third…
One by one, the White-robed Men stared with terrified eyes before being annihilated by the breath of destruction. Not a single scream escaped their lips, and not a single trace of their belongings remained.
A moment later, every White-robed Man present had vanished into ash. A large, charred clearing had been gouged out of the originally dense forest.
Ignis, having released the breath, shuddered. The darkness in his eyes receded like a tide, his body shrank rapidly, and he fell toward the ground, swaying unsteadily.
Having witnessed everything, Villanelle was frozen with shock. She wanted to say something, but the words caught in her throat.
She stood up with trembling legs and slowly walked to Ignis, who was lying on the ground panting heavily. She crouched down gently and asked hesitantly, “Are… are you okay?”
Ignis lifted his head with difficulty. He made an effort to nuzzle her leg, looking directly into her ice-blue eyes.
‘My name is Ignis.’
This sentence materialized in Villanelle’s mind at that very moment.