The Final Push

“Gah-ACK!” I expelled with a cry as the dragon's jaws clamped down on my body.

The wyrm’s sharp teeth had punctured my right side, piercing the tattered clothes I wore with the ease of a knife through butter. I felt the residual acid of its deflected spray piercing deep into my core as the angered and wounded beast added insult to the grave injury. Shaking my body violently, it tossed me into the air like a chew toy before opening its maw wide in anticipation of gravity taking over.

Whoa, déjà vu. I thought to myself as I was flung into the air, feeling myself succumbing to the wounds that trailed blood in my wake. I-I've had this dream before.

I suddenly recalled the moments leading up to my transmigration. The dream that I awoke from that day. The supernatural speed of my body. The fight with the dragon. I remembered how real it all felt and how vivid the world was. Then, in the brief moments of recollection and wondering if this was my end—if it had always been my destiny to die in this moment—I also thought about what an amazing, albeit short, second life it had been. 

Even with all the pain and near-death experiences before this moment, to go out fighting a dragon after punching it in the face was something of a legend. I wondered if anyone from my old life would have ever expected me to go out this way. If Alyx, the only friend I had back then, would even believe me if I told him of the adventure I went on. How my mother—no, Tahvin’s mother—had been wrong. And how, in the end, I had not been weak.

I wonder if they would have been proud? The thought crossed my mind. Proud that their disappointing son made it through a dungeon and punched a dragon in the fuggin' face? Eh, who cares? Fug them. Fug their opinions.

I exhaled a relieved sigh as I let go of the trauma, allowing my tense body to relax. In the final moments of my life, I had moved past the terror I had of them. Past the pain and fear, they brought me in my youth. If only I had a life remaining to enjoy the feeling of unshackled freedom from my past, I wondered how I would spend it.

But I’m still proud of this short life. I continued to think as a smile crossed my lips. Proud of my team. Even if this is it—I died putting in the effort, and my only hope is that the triop will be better prepared for the world to come.

Reaching the apex of my arc, I began to descend towards my impending doom. But not before I could see the entire world beneath me. A last look at my world from a vantage point above the fog bank. High enough still to catch a glimpse of Aesandoral’s shadow moving closer to the dragon and Rionriv hovering behind distant rocks, watching anxiously. Then I saw the mist swirl in the wake of something nearly invisible as it sprinted from one boulder to another.

Sharzin had not yet given up, releasing an arrow that cut through the mist, piercing the throat of the dragon once more. But even as the attack hit its mark, the creature barely flinched. The angered beast was spiteful, determined to consume me, the one who had taken two hits of its acid breath and remained standing. The one who had stolen numerous kills before driving a fist into its eye and striking a staff over its head. The one who speared its throat and survived its bite. And so, even though exposed, its jaw remained open for me to continue my plummet, not giving up its fight without taking at least one of us down before it fled.

“Iz, I’m sorry!” Aesandoral cried into my mind as a point of emerald energy formed in the fog.

Right. I thought, now remembering the end of the dream. The arrow. Was that always Aes' voice? Was it always her arrow?

I felt a sudden sting in my shoulder, and the next thing I knew, I was flying in a different direction. Aesandoral’s powerful shot had connected with such force that it launched me out of the jaws of the dragon and towards the nearby wall. My body made contact, cracking my skull against the cavern’s edge, and causing the world to spin. But I was still alive. And, as I began to fall, I felt the tight grasp of thorny vines binding my torso in place, locking me in high above the sand and stone.

I watched through swirling vision as a trio of arrows flew from the fog, connecting with the wyrm’s exposed throat as it tried to understand where its meal had gone. And by the time it had spotted me on the wall and prepared its corrosive attack, another arrow of liquid silver had found its way into the creature’s remaining functional eye.

The dragon cried out, releasing a pained and panicked shriek as it reared itself up. Arrows quickly connected with its ankle, causing the leg to buckle before forcing it down to its back. Then, as the beast began to flail wildly, thrashing and kicking up sand in an attempt to right itself, it would receive no respite. More arrows now cut through the remaining fog, striking eyes and throat, burying deeper into the wounds already carved out by previous shots. And, even from my position, as the world spun and threatened to go dark, I could see the fear of death on the beast’s scaled face as it crawled to its feet. Turning its wounded head from Aesandoral and Sharzin as it began to bury itself back under the sand, disappearing from view as an eerie quiet consumed the cavern.

Trying to reach for my temple to send a message, I found my arms still tightly bound to my hips. I had no choice but to do it the old-fashioned way. So, with a deep breath, I shouted out with everything I had.

“Ri! It’s coming!"

It was then that I felt the smallest drop of magic remaining within me. Choosing now to use it, I placed a hand to my thigh and channelled just enough healing to keep me conscious. Just enough to make the world cease to spin. Just enough to see the far end of the marina take shape as the final moments unfolded.

And there it was, a tunnel with a narrow sand river that led out from the cavern towards the distant desert. What was once deep enough for shimmer ships to sail on was now too shallow for the dragon to swim out.

Focusing, I could see the obsidian beast emerging from the sand and fog. It stood nearly eighteen feet at its maximum and stumbled forward blindly with an awkward gait. It didn’t hesitate or look back as it raced in the direction of the exit with as much speed as it could muster. But what the blind dragon couldn’t have anticipated was the figure that had been lying in wait for the entire battle.

There was no warning. No charge-up or incantation. Only a flash of light that consumed the dragon and illuminated the marina.

In an instant, the wyrm became the heart of a plasma globe as lightning arced out from its large body, connecting with the cavern walls, stalactites, boulders, and anything that could ground it. The thunderous wave that was summoned by the spell was enough to banish the fog of the marina, scattering it into a soft haze and revealing the entirety of the sand lake beneath in an instant. And once the roll of thunder had passed, and the glow of the space returned to normal, all that remained were the faint arcs of electricity over a charred corpse.

The dragon was dead, its body having been reduced to a smouldering heap that now blocked the exit. She had done it—they had done it…