Outside Jagged Peak Summit, the sky was torn open by lightning as red as blood.
The massive dragon soaring through the air began to crack and crumble. Its huge wings gradually split apart and shattered, scales peeling away piece by piece to reveal the pale gray bones beneath.
The gray-white Ancient Dragon began sweeping its long tail.
As that thick tail sliced through the air at tremendous speed, it gave off a deep, muffled hum, like countless raging currents surging at once.
As expected, Florissax chose to retreat. In this human form, she could only draw out a limited portion of an Ancient Dragon's power.
Not every Ancient Dragon could take human form. The price of living alongside insignificant life was to exist in a form called "weakness."
So Florissax gave up on confronting Senessax with an Ancient Dragon's body and instead made use of the advantages of her human form.
Florissax slowly backed away while watching Senessax's every move.
She wanted to lure Senessax into pouncing. A pounce would expose the colossal creature's vulnerable underside, the part its eyes could not reach.
But Senessax remained standing among the scattered boulders, only beating her enormous dragon wings and attacking with lashes of her powerful tail.
Each time Florissax's Flowerstone Gavel struck that thick tail, dazzling sparks burst out, lighting up the dim space around them.
At that moment, this meaningless exchange of attack and defense reached its end.
Florissax suddenly stepped back, drove a battle spear she had picked up into the ground with her left hand, and kept only the weapon known as the Flowerstone Gavel in her grip.
The Flowerstone Gavel was a dragon rock hammer forged in the likeness of an ancient flower, its stigma and four petals sharp and pointed.
Florissax slowly raised the warhammer above her head. Though the gale raised by the dragon wings howled around her, she stood as if rooted to the earth.
She lifted her head slightly, her gaze fixed on the hammer. It was as if time had frozen in that instant. Everything around her fell silent, and she alone returned to a state of absolute stillness.
Senessax sensed the killing intent radiating from her opponent. She drew back her tail and also went still.
"Lord Nolan, what a shame," Florissax said softly. "In the end, I still could not see that vile dragon die by the hand of a Lord."
She slowly turned sideways. The Flowerstone Gavel in her hand seemed to tremble, releasing a long, low hum. An invisible presence spread outward from her as its center.
It was no special ability, only the aura of killing intent and resolve woven together, the product of will itself, resonating even with her opponent...
It was nothing less than a stance prepared to meet death.
The warhammer began to change in astonishing fashion. Red lightning spread rapidly across it like the trunk of a growing tree.
At first, it was only a faint spark, but in the blink of an eye, it expanded into an enormous hammer.
The surface of the red dragonstone hammer was wrapped in dazzling, searing light, like a blazing sun.
The once-beautiful hammerhead twisted into a mass of thorns, as though countless bone spurs were jutting from it.
This was Florissax's power as an Ancient Dragon made manifest. Pure, violent Dragon Lightning.
A howling gale swept in, battering the mountain cliffs with thunderous roars.
Florissax stood steady in the middle of the storm, her figure looking impossibly small.
Senessax looked down at her from above, golden light shining from her eyes.
Senessax slowly stepped back, lowering her head to stare at her old foe. Every muscle in her body came alive, red-hot lightning racing across her frame.
She had returned from a servant of Flying Dragons to a proud Ancient Dragon, yet she could only use the Spreading Lightning that marked the Flying Dragons. From the rise and fall of her chest, it was clear that her enormous heart was pounding violently.
The traits of Ancient Dragon and Flying Dragon appeared on her at the same time. The Ancient Dragon who had submitted to the Lord of Flying Dragons with the body of an Ancient Dragon was finally freed from her invisible shackles.
This was her true form.
Senessax was like a dazzling, colossal flower blooming in full between heaven and earth.
In the form of a dragon, she once again ruled over the world, her whole body radiating a scorching will to fight, as if she meant to burn the entire world to ash.
She spread her wings, threw back her head, and roared at the sky. That savage, terrifying face was the very image of a dragon in wrath.
She charged fiercely at Florissax. The impact of that mountain-like body alone was enough to smash solid rock into dust.
But Florissax charged at the same time.
The Priestess carried the great hammer, several times larger than herself, and leapt high into the air.
Gaze. Gather power. Smash down.
Because of its incredible speed, the warhammer vanished midway through its descent, leaving only a hazy red glow.
Ancient Dragon Lightning, once the pride of the Ancient Dragons, had been perfectly recreated by Florissax. But its force now was beyond anything it had ever been before.
In the past, when she swung this hammer, it carried utmost majesty, solemnly proclaiming the greatness of the Ancient Dragon Lord and the gods. Now, when she swung it, what she brought down was life and death.
Though the battlefield was still locked in fierce combat, both the Flying Dragons and the dragon slayers could not help looking back toward Florissax, watching her charge through the raging wind at an Ancient Dragon ten times her size.
Victory and defeat would be decided in a single collision. Senessax was wrapped in a violent gale, powerful currents gathering in the air into a white curtain dozens of meters high, like an unbreakable wall stretching across her path.
Florissax smashed that white curtain apart with one blow, and lightning crashed into Senessax's skull.
With a tremendous boom, the colossal dragon's body jerked violently backward.
Judging by the difference in their sizes, it should have been impossible. Yet Florissax had done it.
She was an Ancient Dragon unlike an Ancient Dragon.
This was a duel between two dragons. Ancient Dragon Lightning and Flying Dragon Lightning collided with a deafening roar, instantly releasing an earth-shaking explosion.
Brilliant light burst outward, and the shockwave spread in every direction like a giant wave, its pressure no weaker than the force of an Ancient Dragon's charge.
Under the impact of that immense power, Senessax finally failed to hold on. Her massive body crashed down onto the jagged rocks.
Florissax stepped off the stones and leapt, landing on Senessax's body.
At that moment, she could no longer be called a Priestess. She was a fierce beast with a terrifying outer form.
The Flowerstone Gavel drove into Senessax's body, accurately smashing through bone and chest cavity. Crimson blood gushed out.
Florissax's original target had not been the body, but the Ancient Dragon beneath her struggled too quickly, forcing her to change her mind.
Her claw-sharp hands gripped the warhammer tightly, and she wrenched it free from the broken bone and flesh.
Step by step, she moved forward. Her final target was on Senessax's head: the Ancient Dragon's brain.
Senessax was making her last desperate struggle as well. She had already lost control over most of her body, but victory and defeat were not things one could simply let go.