Sacrifice
No matter what Uller ranted, the party had no intention of falling back, and so the battle resumed whether anyone liked it or not.
That did not mean their strength had improved. Kron’s tail swept out in a casual arc; the spear that tried to block it shattered, and Jonas went flying into the wall. At the same instant the spirit Calis had summoned to support him was smashed to pieces. Lloyd’s blade sought the gaps between Kron’s scales, but the moment he tried to create even the slightest opening, a claw skimmed so close across his chest that he had no room left to press the attack. Panrak’s magic aimed for the eyes, trying to dazzle and snatch away the dragon’s vision for a heartbeat at a time, yet it produced little real effect.
Sooner or later, death came for the heroes one by one.
Jonas, torso and legs already separated, was the first to breathe his last. Calis was crushed under a dragon’s foot until she burst. Enzo burned to ash in Kron’s flame. Uller, who had never truly meant to put Seliac in danger, shielded her at the final moment, severing her chains even as the dragon’s tail crushed his skull. All that remained were Panrak, gravely wounded by exploding rock shards, and Lloyd, who still refused to surrender hope.
Sensing the end, Lloyd gasped out instructions to Panrak.
“Panrak… I’ll buy time. Use teleportation. As far as you can.”
“Impossible. Teleporting three people would take far too long.”
Lloyd shook his head at Panrak’s words.
“Three may be impossible, but if it’s only the freed elf and yourself, teleportation should be well within reach, shouldn’t it?”
Panrak flared with rage, ready to refuse.
“Absolutely not! You as well—”
“Whatever decision you make, I’m going to die here anyway.”
Lloyd cut him off with iron finality and, without waiting for an answer, shook the bloody scraps from his claws and charged the dragon that was already staring them down. Panrak spat a curse and began weaving magic.
“Let’s finish this, Dragon!”
Lloyd’s reckless charge convinced Kron of victory; the dragon’s roar rolled out once more, and he poured every densest drop of dragonfire he possessed straight at Lloyd alone.
I’ve been waiting for this exact moment!
Lloyd had only been waiting for Kron to blanket the area in dragonfire and steal his own vision. He drew the magic crystal from his breast.
The crystal, etched with an ancient destruction spell, drank Lloyd’s life force as fuel and blazed crimson; the forgotten high-tier magic of the old world began to charge—an ultimate-rank spell that demanded both unbreakable will and the caster’s entire life force, the very same spell that had once brought the ancient elven kingdom to its end.
"End of the White Night!"
In that same instant Panrak’s teleportation magic finished by a hair’s breadth.
“Your hand…!”
Panrak seized Seliac’s hand for the transfer. Seliac, who had been staring only at Lloyd, closed her eyes the moment Panrak’s fingers touched her and began drawing up her mana, laying her hand upon his magic formula. Even though her power was still thrashing wildly from the forced interruption of her sealing art, she interfered with an eighth-circle spell.
Panrak’s eyes went wide when he realized what she was doing.
“What in the world are you—!”
The moment she opened her eyes again, the light of annihilation that had begun with Lloyd erupted outward. Then Seliac’s remaining mana—every last scrap of her power as a dragon—amplified Panrak’s spell.
The ancient magic detonated.
More than half the mountain range collapsed; the entire vicinity of Kron’s lair was reduced to a wasteland. Caught full in the face by a shock he had never anticipated, Kron was buried beneath more than fifteen meters of rubble and lost consciousness.
“What the hell did this bitch just do…!”
The instant the teleportation ended, Panrak saw an impossible shockwave rolling out from the place where Kron’s nest had stood. He seized the collar of Seliac, who had collapsed to the ground as though her strength had left her, and shook her.
Touching a spell already being cast was taboo among taboos. And this was teleportation magic—infamous even among eighth-circle spells for its difficulty and danger. To manipulate a spell already in motion the way one moves an arm or a leg was something only a dragon—
“—could do… A dragon?”
Only then did Panrak become certain of what she was. Ready to die with her if he had to, he kept grilling Seliac.
“What the fuck did you do, you piece of shit?!”
But Seliac, having wrung out every last drop of residual mana, had already rolled her eyes back and lost consciousness.
“Fuck.”
Shaking her by the collar produced no reaction, so he half-flung her aside and looked around. Not far away he found Lloyd, steam still rising from his body.
“Lloyd!”
Panrak reached him in a single bound. The skin was cooked red and beyond, already charred, but the arms and legs were far worse.
Blood welled and overflowed from the places where the right arm and right leg had been. Anyone could see the man already had one foot in the coffin.
“You…!”
Not knowing what else to do, Panrak hurriedly shaped mana to clamp hard around the right thigh while both hands pressed on the shoulder to stop the bleeding.
“Ghhhk…”
Pain dragged Lloyd back to consciousness; he groaned and groped with his left hand.
“Don’t move! I’ll save you, I swear!”
Yet Lloyd seemed to find something; he closed his left hand around it and held it out toward Panrak.
“Pa…Panrak… take this…”
Before he could finish the sentence, the hand he had stretched toward Panrak fell limp in mid-air.
“Lloyd? Lloyd!”
The jets of blood that had been spurting from shoulder and thigh in time with the heartbeat no longer carried any pressure. Panrak understood by pure instinct that Lloyd’s heart had stopped.
Aaaaaargh—
How much time passed after that, he could not say.
Panrak roughly buried Lloyd’s corpse in a crevice of rock, then dragged the unconscious Seliac into a deep cave where he and his comrades had once rested. Aftershocks still rolled through the half-collapsed mountain range, but he paid them no mind. Madness—rage and despair tangled together—glittered in his eyes. He guessed, no, he was certain that this “dragon” was the root of it all.
The cave was damp and dark. Panrak kindled a magical flame to light the space. Seliac still lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious. Her elf-like form was now fully revealed, yet to Panrak she was nothing but an object of hatred. He bound the manacles already locked around her wrists and ankles with fresh chains charged with mana and fixed them to the wall.
“Wake up.”
Panrak struck her cheek hard. Once, twice. Skin split and blood ran. Seliac’s eyelids fluttered; at last she opened her eyes and let out a moan.
“U…ugh…”
“You fucking dragon bitch. Finally awake.”
He seized her hair and yanked her face up. While her pupils struggled to focus, he already drew out the tools he had prepared: a sharp dagger, and an iron rod heated by magic.
“First question. What did you do to me? What did you do to Lloyd?”
Seliac drew a slow, pain-ragged breath.
Her voice cracked with agony, yet she still spoke clearly, word by word.
“No… I wanted to save that man. You were ready to abandon him and run. So I thought if I poured in just a little more of my mana and interfered only a little, all three of us could get out safely. That was all.”
Panrak’s face twisted.
“Lie.”
The dagger drove into her shoulder again—deeper this time, deep enough to scrape bone. Seliac’s body arched like a bow and a scream tore free.
“Aaaagh—!”
“The moment you poured in mana, Lloyd’s spell… that light… started to explode. His arm and leg flying off was your fault. His heart stopping was your fault too!”
Seliac clenched her teeth and shook her head. Blood filled her mouth so thickly she could barely form words.
“…That was… because he… offered up… all his own life force…”
“Shut up!”
Panrak’s fist smashed into her abdomen. Something inside twisted with a wet sound. Seliac tried to curl up, but the chains stopped her. She gasped and forced the words out.
“Listen… please… End of the White Night is… a spell that… burns every last scrap of the caster’s life force… to activate… I only… wanted you both… to live…”
Panrak laughed. The sound echoed through the cave. Seliac’s mouth closed.
The laughter swelled louder and louder, then cut off as if snipped by scissors.
“So?”
“You played the good girl and ‘helped’?”
“Lloyd burned alive, lost his arm and leg, and his heart burst to a stop—and that wasn’t your fault?”
“You call that ‘help’?”
Seliac said nothing more.
She looked straight into Panrak’s eyes.
Those eyes no longer held any will to accept the truth.
Only the desire to destroy, to break, to inflict pain filled them.
Seliac squeezed her eyes shut one last time and opened her mouth.
“I… only amplified the teleportation because I wanted to save that man…”
“Cut the bullshit!”
Panrak’s dagger sliced across Seliac’s shoulder. Once-tough skin, now soft, split open and blood sprayed. He paid no attention; he simply sprinkled salt into the thrashing wound. The salt sank into raw flesh; Seliac’s body convulsed and shuddered, her mouth working soundlessly, unable even to scream properly.
“I’ll ask once more.”
He grabbed the hair of her bowed head, forced her eyes to meet his, and demanded:
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
Hatred already close to certainty lived in those eyes. The moment Seliac saw them she understood he did not want the truth. He only needed someone on whom to vent.
“…Yes.”
Something—grief or rapture, impossible to tell—flooded Panrak’s gaze.
“And when you interfered with the teleportation magic, you meant to kill me too, right?”
“…Yes.”
Panrak’s breathing began to take on a strange, feverish heat.