“Split up!” I shouted. “There’s two of us and one of it. It can’t follow us both!”

Aerion, of course, didn’t respond. How could she? She was still in Reaver mode, her cold rage forcing her to concentrate on one thing and one thing only—the dragon. Her mortal enemy.

And from the way she stared down the terrifying thing without even a shred of fear, I think she was about to fight it.

Shit.

“Plan B it is.”

I ran, forcing the dragon to take its eyes off Aerion for the briefest moment. While I wasn’t running at the dragon, I felt the same level of dread. I just hoped Aerion had enough awareness not to cut through me, given the state she was in.

Grabbing the bomb off my back, I Initialized the thing—or I tried to.

ERROR: Initialization failed.

The headache hit me, but not before I managed to lob the thing. Even uninitialized, it was plenty lethal. Especially against something made entirely of glass.

The [Aural Siege Bolt] sailed through the air, tumbling end over end, before smashing right into the dragon’s snout.

My aim had never been so good.

“You like that, motherfucker?” I roared, blearily extending my finger at the dragon in victory. The headache still hurt, but I didn’t care. In just a few seconds, the thing would be missing half its snout.

I watched as the sonic bomb hit a spike on its snout… And bounced off. It hit the dirt, bounced twice, and crashed into a rock.

And then the damn thing went off.

“Son of a bi—”

Mud filled my mouth, cutting off my words.

The shockwave had swept me off my feet and into the dirt, face first. The dragon roared in indignity. A few of its scales had shattered, along with several of its spikes. More than enough to make the dragon fly into a fit of primal rage.

I got to my feet, ears ringing. I spit out the dirt, found my bearings, and ran. Except, I didn’t run toward the thing. I ran to Aerion.

I charged right into her, intercepting her as she ran to the dragon, ready to attack. Without stopping, I lifted her light body off her feet and scooped her up like a bag of rice over my shoulder.

She didn’t say a word, though she didn’t need to. From her desperate attempts to break free of me, I could tell she was pissed. She wanted nothing more than to assault that dragon. At least she had enough presence of mind not to attack me outright.

We disappeared into the trees a moment later. The dragon didn’t like that. Not at all. The massive black beast bellowed a roar that nearly sent me toppling over in fear, but I knew the huge thing couldn’t penetrate the forest. It was why it’d had such a hard time finding the poor woman we couldn’t save.

I also knew that this wasn’t the end. Just like her, we were now hunted.

I cut left and right, zigzagging to stop the dragon from finding us. It turned out it didn’t really need to find us.

Not when it could just light the damned forest on fire instead.

Black flame erupted from its mouth, instantly setting the trees ablaze.

It was like I’d warped into the middle of an inferno. One moment, there was a healthy forest. The next, everything felt like it was a million degrees, smoke seared my eyes and my lungs, and I suddenly didn’t have a clue which direction I was going.

At least Aerion wasn’t struggling anymore.

“Oh, crap, Aerion!” I shouted. She’d gone unconscious and was breathing in this toxic air. I had to get her out of here, and fast.

Minimized System messages popped up, but I willed them aside.

I picked a direction and ran for it. No matter how hot the fire was, I didn’t think the dragon would set fire to the whole forest. At least, I hoped. And that meant it had a boundary.

My enhanced Vigor barely kept me fueled in this forest full of poisoned air, and I was pretty sure it had increased again. I felt a sudden surge of new energy, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The boundary, as it turned out, was the beach. I sprinted onto the sand, thankful for my fire-resistant armor. I couldn’t say the same about Aerion. Her robe had caught fire, and the moment we were out of the forest, I dropped her and rolled her around, dousing the flames.

Behind us, the forest burned, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

And above it all, the Obsidian Dragon patrolled, scanning for any signs of us.

I went prone and edged as close as I dared to the burning forest. Smoke cut both ways, after all. We couldn’t breathe it, but it also blinded the dragon.

Its roars grew increasingly frantic as it flew around, bellowing flame breath this way and that. Each blast set off a small fire, and I guessed that the whole island would be ablaze before long.

Just when I thought the thing had enough, it turned and flew our way, buzzing the treetops.

Grabbing Aerion, I dove into the fire despite every instinct screaming at me not to.

My gambit worked. The dragon passed right overhead and never even saw us.

Instead, it found our subs, some few hundred yards away. Shrieking in rage, it hovered over the metal contraptions and let out a plume of fire breath. A second passed. Then five.

Holding my breath, I edged away from the burning forest and flattened myself against the ground again, placing Aerion beside me.

“How much mana does that freak have?” I muttered.

It was only a full minute later that it stopped, seemingly satisfied with its handiwork.

When the flames cleared, only molten slag remained. There was no trace of their former shape, and the metal was so hot it glowed white—like the inside of a blacksmith’s forge.

Shrieking again, the dragon rose into the sky and headed away. Presumably back to its lair.

Aerion groaned, turning over. “Ugh… What happened?”

I pointed to the subs. “That happened. And,” I pointed to the forest. “That happened.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that if we want to get out of here alive, we’re gonna need a new plan. And fast.”

---

“No, that won’t work,” Aerion said in frustration. “We have to lure it out. One of us escapes the dungeon. The other has to lose the dragon and circle back on their own.”

We’d been over this before, and we both knew that whoever acted as the bait wasn’t coming back.

“Say… Aerion? Aren’t you mad?”

“That’s…” Aerion paused, searching for words.

“Because I am,” I said, meeting her eyes. “I’m pissed. And I’m tired. I’m tired of losing, Aerion. Even before Emma, all we’ve ever done was run away. I’m tired of it. And… I’m tired of failing to keep my promises. First with Emma, now this.”

All that stuff I said in the dragon’s lair. The delver’s dying wish… What meaning did it have?

Promises were kind of a big deal to me, after all. I’d been powerless. Utterly unable to do a thing to help.

“Sometimes, life does not go as we wish, Greg,” Aerion muttered, looking devastated at the mention of her friend.

“Bullshit. If we stop here, that guy’s death meant nothing. His wife’s death means nothing. That whole group will have died in vain. For what? So they can fill the belly of a fucking monster? No. That’s fucking bullshit, Aerion, and I refuse to accept it.”

All the shortcuts. All the safe rooms. It now felt like they were all there just to lure them in—giving them a false sense of confidence. Did Dominion even give a shit that so many died in his Trial?

“I was the one who made that promise, Greg!” Aerion cried. “I understand how you feel! But what can we do? You saw how deadly that dragon is. How can we hope to defeat it?”

“With a lot of explosives, Aerion. A whole hell of a lot of them. And maybe it’ll eventually respawn. Maybe doing this only lets a handful of delvers after us to leave the Trial safely. Doesn’t matter. That dragon needs to die, and we’re going to be the ones to kill it.”

Maybe we failed to save the delver and his wife. But I meant the words I spoke down in that dragon’s lair.

“For the delvers who helped me…” Aerion said, clenching her fists and firming her resolve.

“That, and because I’m sick of losing. And, well, because I really want to murder a dragon right now,” I said, just barely restraining my seething anger.

I could’ve left through that portal, but I didn’t. I’d chosen a harder path. The right path. I hadn’t known before then if I would. I didn’t know if my courage would fail me. But I knew now that my resolve was real. Real enough to make this dragon regret ever fucking with us.

I couldn’t think of a single time in my life I’d been this mad. Not even at my dad.

Come what may, this dragon was going down.

---

Our plan was simple, as most good plans tended to be. We had two hundred bolts, just begging to be used. Two hundred opportunities to turn that Obsidian dragon into a heap of shattered glass.

We were gonna lure it into the forest… and then Boom. Yeah. Pretty good strategy, wasn’t it?

There was just one small problem. Most of the forest was on fire, and the dragon hadn’t bothered coming out in the day it took for Aerion and I to set our trap.

The explosives had been buried into the dirt all around the area—each one close enough that setting off one would trigger a chain reaction, lighting the place up with 200 sonic charges.

I doubted there was anything in this dungeon that could survive such an attack. It wasn’t the firepower I was worried about. It was everything else that led up to it.

To give ourselves as much time as possible, we’d picked the part of the forest farthest from the spreading wildfire, but even here, smoke filled the air and reduced visibility. It’d only be a few more hours before this place was also overcome, and then we would only have the beach.

The wide open beach, where the dragon could easily carpet bomb us with its fire breath.

If our plan failed, we were dead.

It meant one of us was going to have to go back to the ravine and drop a bomb to lure the monster out.

Besides risking a cave-in that would trap us here forever, there was a chance the dragon wouldn’t notice. But it was the best plan we had. The other alternative was for someone to enter its lair and get it to chase them out. Aerion had suggested that—I’d shot it down. There was recklessness, and there was being suicidal.

On the plus side, while the poor woman we failed to save had met a horrible death, she did leave behind a steel tower shield. Big enough for me to hide behind, in case I was ever blasted by dragon breath. I very much hoped that would never happen, but the shield gave me some peace of mind.

The only issue was I didn’t have enough spare Essence to Initialize it. Well, I did, technically. With the [Aural Siege Bolt] I had just Initialized, my Essence Utilization was now at 94/100.

I’d just have to give up my buffer—the shield cost 5 Essence to Initialize, leaving only one for an emergency. After mulling it over, I decided to do it. There wasn’t much else on this island I could Initialize, and the [Aural Siege Bolts] were plenty deadly on their own, as we’d seen earlier.

Steel-Plated Tower Shield [Common]

A well-made wooden shield plated in steel. Heavy and durable. A warrior’s best friend.

Essence Cost: 5

Condition: 150/150

Stats:

— Dominion: 2

— Vigor: 4

Abilities:

— Mirrored (Foundation - 0): Extremely reflective. No, seriously. It’s blinding.

Of course, it’d have a useless ability, but the Initialized Condition alone made it worthwhile. I couldn’t complain.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked Aerion for what had to have been the fifth time.

The elf rolled her eyes. “Do you want to climb down that ravine again?”

“Well, no,” I replied. “But it still feels like I’m not pulling my weight with this operation.”

Aerion was the one taking on most of the danger and doing all the hard manual labor.

“Not doing much? You are responsible for detonating the bomb,” Aerion said, jabbing a finger into my chest. “If you fail, this whole plan fails. And we’ll both likely die.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” I scratched the back of my neck. “Just, be careful, alright? I know how good you are at climbing. But still. Even experts die.”

I expected Aerion to roll her eyes, or tell me she knew what she was doing.

“I know,” was her muted response. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“Then, I guess this is goodbye, for now. May the force be with you.”

“The force?” Aerion asked.

“It binds us. It connects all living things,” I said, barely managing a straight face.

Aerion nodded. “I understand. Many people believe in the existence of such a spirit.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Not in the least,” Aerion deadpanned… And we both burst out laughing.

“Y’know? For the longest time, I was scared you didn’t have a sense of humor.”

Aerion cracked a small smile. “Trials are no place for levity, I’m afraid. You might just find me quite different once we leave.”

“Then I’ll look forward to that,” I said.

“Or not. You may find me annoying.”

“Well, let’s make sure we both survive to see that day, alright?”

“Indeed. And… May the forces be with you as well, Greg.”

And with that, Aerion headed off to the edge of the forest. To lure the dragon into our trap. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d messed up the phrase.

This was it. In just a few short hours, we would either be corpses in the middle of that Obsidian Dragon’s belly… Or we’d be out.

I didn't dare voice it, of course, but as I watched Aerion’s small frame disappear into the brush, I couldn’t shake off this horrible feeling. A feeling that said I’d never see her again.