Sige turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with her, facing the dragon lizard.
“Elsa,” Sige said.
“Ready!” Elsa’s flames erupted instantly. She had been waiting for this command for far too long.
“Flame Triple Burst! In front of its left eye, in front of its right ear, and above its head. You judge the intervals yourself.”
“Got it!” Elsa’s flames were already flying. The first fireball detonated in front of the dragon lizard’s left eye, the orange-red blaze erupting at point-blank range and forcing its single eye shut reflexively.
Less than half a second later, the second fireball exploded beside its right ear, the high-frequency blast piercing its eardrum and snapping its head to the side.
The third burst detonated above its head on the left.
Though the three flames landed at different points, the intervals between them were razor-thin, and the dragon lizard squeezed its eye shut tightly to avoid unnecessary injury.
The moment its eye closed, Xuan Xi moved.
She circled to the dragon lizard’s right side—her right hand still throbbed, and every inhale sent a spike of pain through her broken rib, but her steps remained unhindered.
Water blades condensed into shape on both hands, gripped forward in her left and reversed in her right.
The colorless, transparent water vibrated at high frequency along the blade edges, emitting a faint, shrill hum.
“Reggie.” Sige didn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the dragon lizard’s left foreleg—the wound her thunder light had blasted open was still seeping blood, scales peeled back to reveal gray-blue soft tissue beneath.
“When its tail sweeps left, hit the nail gap of its left foot with an Earth Spike. As for Xuan Xi, don’t worry about her. I’ll protect her.”
“Got it.” Reggie spat out the bloody froth in his mouth, pressed both hands to the ground, and let his earth-element spiritual energy seep into the bedrock.
He could sense every shift in the dragon lizard’s center of gravity.
Sure enough, the tail swept toward Xuan Xi. And Reggie didn’t move—Sige had said not to intercept a rightward sweep. Right on cue, Xuan Xi dodged on her own—she ducked low and slid beneath the tail as it whipped past, the wind from its passing scattering her hair backward. The instant the tail swung through empty air, the dragon lizard’s center of gravity tilted. It tried to correct, only to discover something wrong with its left foreleg—Veralis’s Ice Mist had been clinging to that wound the entire time, dealing constant frost damage.
Xuan Xi rode the momentum and slid directly beneath its left foreleg. Her twin water blades crossed and simultaneously carved into the wound that thunder light had blown open. The two blades sheared together like scissors, severing scales from the middle and tearing the wound twice as wide. A low, guttural roar rumbled from the dragon lizard’s throat as its entire left foreleg buckled and slammed to the ground.
Panic began to set in, because it realized it could no longer handle everyone’s attacks at once the way it had before. Elsa’s flames kept blinding its vision, Reggie’s Earth Spikes kept trapping its footing, Veralis’s Ice Mist kept slowing its wound healing, and Sige’s thunder light was still suspended above its head, waiting to fall—like the Sword of Damocles. It knew what that lightning was waiting for. It was waiting for the dragon lizard to expose a weakness, then strike with a single killing blow.
So the dragon lizard pressed its body low, jaw against the ground, shielding its weak point desperately beneath itself. It waited. Waited for a chance to turn the tide.
Too bad that chance never came. Instead, the first to arrive was the Death God herself—Xuan Xi.
She slipped through beneath its left foreleg and dragged a water blade across the knee joint of its right hind leg. The blade cut through the gap between scales, severing the ligaments on the outer side of the joint. The hind leg went limp, and the dragon lizard’s body collapsed half a pace to the right. Its weak point flashed exposed for an instant.
One instant was all Sige needed. Her lightning fell. A thin bolt of Lightning Spear shot from her fingertip, precise and true, driving straight into the softest patch of keratin at the dragon lizard’s throat. Its body had just crumpled; before it could shove its head back down, the spear pierced through the keratin layer and burned a charred black mark into the soft tissue outside its windpipe. Blood oozed steadily from the wound. It pressed its head back down to protect itself, but it was already a dead thing.
The dragon lizard knelt on the ground—its left foreleg wound bleeding, its right hind leg ligaments severed, half a shard of Veralis’s ice still jammed in its eye socket, and a blackened lightning scar scorched into its throat, Sige’s handiwork. A third of its scales had shattered, and its spiritual energy was burned down to less than twenty percent. It raised its head and looked at the five people standing before it with its one remaining good eye.
Elsa’s flames still danced at her fingertips. Reggie’s earth-element energy had condensed into dark yellow spikes on the ground. Veralis’s ice crystals hovered in her palm, already re-formed into the shape of an Ice Spike. Sige’s lightning crackled at her fingertips, ready to fire another spear at any moment.
And Xuan Xi—she stood at the very front of the group, her right sleeve soaked through with blood and plastered to her skin, a thin scab already forming over the wound on her face. Dark cyan scales still covered both hands. The water blades remained in her grip. Her eyes locked onto the dragon lizard, and in those amber-gold pupils there was no anger—only a pure, undiluted killing intent.
The sight stirred something in the dragon lizard’s memory. A hundred years ago, on this same scorched black earth, that woman had stood before it the exact same way. Looked at it the exact same way, with that faint but utterly pure killing intent. Then she had said, “Go.” And it had run. Fled for three days and three nights, all the way to Echo Valley, cowering in the depths of this valley for nearly a century. Since then, no Dragon Race had troubled it, no one dared approach it. It was the most powerful existence in this valley—until today.
“W-wait.” The dragon lizard spoke. But this time there was no threat, no mockery—only a plea so low, so buried in the dust, it was barely audible. Its single eye fixed on Xuan Xi.
“Your mother… that woman…” A gurgling sound rumbled from the dragon lizard’s throat. “She let me go back then. She didn’t kill me. She said I wasn’t a vicious beast, just one that chose the wrong place.” Its left foreleg trembled uncontrollably at the fear of death. “Can you… can you also—”
Xuan Xi stared at it, her amber-gold eyes unmoving. The dragon lizard didn’t finish its sentence, because it saw the answer on Xuan Xi’s face. That stillness, that water-like expression—an exact replica of the woman from a hundred years ago.
Xuan Xi lowered her gaze and glanced at the Jade Pendant beneath her collar. Her mother had spared that dragon lizard once. She hadn’t killed it not because she couldn’t, but simply because she didn’t want to take a life without cause. After all, back then she never could have imagined that this dragon lizard would one day terrorize a region—and nearly kill her own daughter.
“I can’t make decisions in my mother’s place.” Xuan Xi’s voice was quiet, but every word landed with absolute steadiness. She raised her right hand, and the water blade condensed above her fist—colorless, transparent water vibrating at high frequency, emitting a faint hum that gleamed cold in the twilight. “She gave you your life back then, but you didn’t cherish it. I have no right to forgive you, and no reason to spare you. The only thing I can do is send you to meet my mother.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Xuan Xi’s water blade fell.