The entirety of the Abyss realm felt the tremors of the blast. Everything around 50 miles of the two opponents was destroyed to cinders. This scenery would have made the previous battlefield from the north-western forest look like a child's play. The flames still continued to burn the land even after 5 minutes had passed. 

The wooden giant stood on one of its knees, supported by his sword. It was huffing like a human. Its left hand was gone, torn from its shoulders. Out in the distance, the black dragon lay curled up, hiding its massive body under its similarly large wings. 

Suddenly its wingtips moved. After which its wings were retracted to reveal its body. The giant's arm was gripped between its jaws. This time though it had not come out of the encounter, unharmed. A large gash had appeared over its abdomen, from which a very thick liquid spilled on the ground. It was her blood, sizzling the ground. 

"It hurts... it's been so long.. Ahahaha..!!" It was still laughing but this time it was different than its usual carefree laughter. There was definitely a building up wrath in her voice. "It's my turn then, I believe." Its speech unhurried, the wings on the back unfolded to their extremes. 

A powerful gust of winds crashed against the giant as they began whipping back and forth. The next minute, the entire body of the mountain-like creature was air-bound. Its body began glowing with a strange black aura simultaneously as it expanded in size. 

"This madwoman..!!" The giant took great effort to push itself back on its feet. This was it. He had lost. He was very familiar with what was going to happen. In front of his eyes, the dragon's body expanded twice its original size. It was dwarfed the wooden giant by three times over. 

A black simmering covered its entire body, from head to tail. She was exciting the particles around her at a molecular level. The situation was so bad that even the matter that made up Ryu's body was vibrating along with it. Staying in the air, its chest enlarged. 

As soon as the demon saw this he abandoned his creation and jumped back from it. *SCREEEEEH* Right in the next millisecond the dragon's breath is the giant, engulfing it into a cloud of dark smoke. This breath didn't bring any mighty force with it like the last one. Yet, as soon as it came in contact with the matter, it began dissolving it. 

Once the fog cleared there was nothing left in the place where the giant once stood, except a crater. The breath had destroyed everything at a molecular level, wiping everything out of existence. No matter if it was a living tissue or a dead rock, nothing survived. This was one of the most powerful attacks of the black dragon, Atomic Breath. 

The massive creature in the sky dropped down, taking its human form once it touched the ground. She strolled towards the man coughing blood, kneeling on the ground. "Too tired? Want a break?" Her smile stretched from ear to ear.

"Cough.. ahh.. fuck.. yes.. just give me some time out. We can resume after I take a short nap." His vision blurred, his consciousness fading rapidly. "haha.. still trying to be funny? I was waiting for the spankings. How can you do that now?" She fell on her knees, staring right into his eyes as she coyly cupped her face in both hands. 

"Bastard.. you knew... all along...!!" The woman broke into a stroke of laughter. "You are such a pain in the asss...." His eyelids collapsed, his body losing all strength. Before he could fall headfirst on the ground, the woman caught him. 

"It's been so long, ****!" She called out his name in a foreign tongue. Holding the body in her hands she found it losing the transformation until it was only a human kid at the end of it. Carrying him in his arm she gently kissed his forehead, bringing him away. 

***

"Is she alright? And Kira?" Amelia asked after Emily explained the matter to the whole family. Apparently, Ryu had gotten involved in a fight with a few boys from outside the town. It was a big fight and both parties got injured. Fortunately, Emily had made returned and discovered them. 

She intervened, stopped the fight and brought Ryu along with Lyla and her girl to her house. Right now all three of them were resting at her place. "Both are good. Lyla is okay but her daughter is still passed out from exhaustion. It might take her a week to return to normal."

Amelia massaged her chest. Thankfully, no one was gravely injured. "What about Ryu? How long will it take him to recover?" Dorothea might be the second most concerned out of all here. "He is a sturdy fellow. He might be good tomorrow itself or at the most, it might take him a week too." 

Emily sipped her drink calmly. "Then can we visit them tomorrow?" Her face fluctuated at the question but she eventually nodded. Hopefully, the boy will be back by tonight. She had placed great trust in the demon's words. 

"I will take my leave then. I must tend to them." No-one stopped her, making way as the older woman levitated and left the house. Jeff placed his arm around his wife. "It's alright. We will see the boy tomorrow. Come rest for the night." He had seen her being at the edge since she returned with his mother. 

Naturally, she was worried for the boy. Amelia didn't say anything, lost in thought. With a nod, she got up and retired to her room. Unknown to any of them a sense of guilt had set in her heart. She was not there when her boy needed her. This was not a small matter for her. His face kept flashing in her mind before she eventually passed away into a deep sleep. 

***

"Aahhh.. shitt.." The demon woke up with a strong headache. "Oohh.. our prince charming had finally woken up!" He found himself laying on a large rocky platform with the dragon lady sitting beside him. As he got up, she threw a piece of cooked meat at him. "Have some." 

The boy didn't refuse, devouring it in one go and asking for more. "So? How is life treating you, my former master?" The boy smiled wryly, listening to the blame in her voice. "Haha... Hmm.. no one came to form a contract with you? Why am I not surprised?" 

Her eyebrows twitched and the boy fell silent. "Let me first say this." He faced the woman and pressed his head onto the hard ground. "I am sorry. I had no other choice." He laid there for the next 5 minutes after which the woman sighed at looked away. 

"You know, had you found me and apologized after the war, I would have definitely broken every single bone in your body. But now that such a long time had passed, I don't even know how to react." 

"Good. Then why don't we start with you forgiving me." *Slap* Her hand landed at the back of his head, leaving him tossing in pain. "Not happening." "Oii.. come on you can't still be mad at me? Also, didn't I come back?" The boy acted truly like a kid, displaying all his teeth to her.

"Come back? You call this coming back? This is even worse." The demon had no answer for that. He decided not to think too much and sank his teeth in the juicy meat. "What's done is done. I was the one who decided it to be this way. There was no other way to maintain our survival." 

"You invoked 'that' spell, didn't you?" Her eyes brimmed with tears now. Finding her like that the boy felt like his heart was being clenched from inside. Shifting his body, he took the woman in his arm and made her lay her head on his small shoulders. "It was worth it, Evren." 

"Worthy enough to sacrifice your existence for it?" He caressed her face with his hands while looking straight in the black sky. "I know you will hate me for this. But please know this, I would have chosen to do the same thing over and over again. I had the responsibility to save my people." 

"Now I would need your help to bring them back." Evren wiped away her tears, forcing the boy away from herself. "They are no one to me. All of them can rot in hell for all I care." "You know that includes my mother too?" He didn't get mad at her, despite the harsh words.

"So what? She was the one who brought doom to her people. Too much pride became her undoing." "Haha.. that's rich coming from a dragon." "Humph..!! There is a difference between pride and madness." 

"As far as I am concerned. You are already dead. That's where my relationship with the demon race ended." She had seen through him when he had they had stuck their foreheads together the first time when he arrived here. There was not even a trace of his soul present in this body. He was living on just a borrowed existence.

"Come on.. with the amount of ass-whooping I received today, you should be in my eternal debt." She had beaten him senseless just to alleviate the pain in her heart. She got off the rock and walked away. "Go away. I don't want to see this unfamiliar face talking so closely with me any longer."

The boy followed her, holding her waist from behind. "Come on, it's not that bad haha.." Suddenly her body jerked as she broke free from his bind. Bending her head down she grabbed him by his chin and pressed her lips against his. "You bastard...!! You treated me so badly.." Her demeanor changed as she began throwing tantrums with large drops of tears wetting her face. The boy only smiled as he pressed his head in her chest, rubbing his hands over her back and feeling the warmth that he longed on his deathbed. 

***

Past midnight, Emily lay in her bed staring through the window. Her eyebrows twitched but she kept staring into the distance. "Took you long enough." Ryu's body manifested right outside her window, smiling as he made his way inside the room. "Hehe.. were you waiting for me?" 

He let the black cloak dissolve away, leaving him to buck naked. Emily didn't say anything just staring at his face as the boy made his way right next to her and slipped inside her blanket. "Can't help it. You got no idea how I managed to get away." With his arm around her, he casually snuggled between her bosom like she was his actual grandmother. 

Emily's face was blank but her piercing eyes kept staring at his face without breaking. A few minutes passed as the boy opened one of his eyelids to look at her. "Damn woman... if you got something to say then shoot it. It's creeping me out." 

Emily remained unmoving. "I have an intuition that I know who you are." 'Ryu' emotions fluctuated as he sat back up. Nevertheless, he composed himself very soon. "Haha.. what difference does it make? So why don't you grace me with your knowledge, just what did you find out?" 

There was no particular expression on her face. "You are just a kid. Or should I say you must have been a kid, at the time of your death?" "Hahaha.. kid? Do you know how old a demon 'kid' is?" She nodded her head. "Probably 300 years. Still, by the standard of the demon species, you were nothing but a juvenile." 

"That makes me twice as old as you, little girl. Now shut up and let me sleep. I have got enough of the females for the day. Even the boy inside is getting restless from all the butt-kicking I received." He did not bother explaining any further, closing his eyes as his head fell back in those comfortable breast pillows. Emily used her hands to caress his forehead. She didn't tell him the full truth and even the demon boy in her arms probably realized that. 

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