Get up here, she said to Dazel. This might be it.

Wind rushed by her as she sped through the air to meet the white comet. She conjured as many hellfire javelins as she could, launching each of them into the comet's trajectory with the hope that her flames would degrade the spell.

Then, once she was close enough, she launched her sword using a [Mighty Strike]. The blade seemed to split the air with a thunderous crack as it sped away, a silver and purple blur. The counterforce threw her back several hundred meters, giving her enough time to reconjure the blade and perform the maneuver a second time once she'd burst the first sword inside the blazing missile of light.

But two weapons and several javelins worth of hellfire seemed to do little to eat away at the oncoming attack, which roiled and flickered upon contact with her flames, but ultimately didn't dim.

Ashtoreth dropped, falling through the air toward the Promenade below as she conjured and hurled a few more hellfire javelins, but it was too late to completely avoid the missile. It bent to streak toward her, and she used her [Power Tap] to bolster her defense in the moment before it struck.

Then the world became nothing but light. Blue light flared around her as Frost expended his defensive buff to protect her, but even that was drowned out by the sudden, all-encompassing white that flooded her vision as Morax Tol's spell detonated.

The force of the blast threw her the last of the way toward the Promenade, and only by instinct did she twist in the air so that she smashed into the ground back-first. After that, sensations seemed to fail her: she had the brief impression of the Promenade shifting below her, and then she simply couldn't feel its surface at all.

A hot pain flooded her body, along with a strange sensation that she'd never felt before. Heat, yes—the spell was partially fire. But there was a quality to it that she couldn't place, an unpleasant ringing that she could feel through her entire body.

Then she felt Frost's arms around her as he grabbed her and dragged her back toward their soldiers.

I'm out of protections, he said. That was my spare.

Her vision cleared. She spotted a dozen smaller bolts of white fire flying past overhead, the same spell that Morax Tol had used when they'd first arrived.

Then she shook her head, regenerated all her wounds, and floated up out of Frost's arms as she reconjured her sword.

"Good?" Frost asked.

She grinned and gave him the thumbs up, then turned to scowl at the distant palace.

Bad news, boss, said Dazel floating down to occupy the air beside her. His magic has dispel resistance.

And he's clever enough to not use it until the killshot, she said. Sensible, if inconsiderate. She rose higher into the air and conjured another set of hellfire javelins before quickly eating a heart from her locket. Ahead of her, a massive segment of the Promenade had been blasted away into a superhot expanse of twisted metal.

Then she heard Gao's voice in her mind. Omega Team is ready, he said. You're free to engage.

Not yet, she said. Her eyes were still locked on the distant palace, staring at the place just above it where she'd seen her enemy's silhouette. Let him cook us a bit. Make it look desperate.

There was a slight pause before Gao's answer. Understood. Then, speaking so that everyone could hear, he said, Protections on Frost and Ashtoreth. Get her ready to move out.

She felt a nearby soldier encase her in a defensive buff a moment later.

For another half-minute, they simply held their position. Morax Tol launched more volleys of white fire and Ashtoreth did her best to counter them. The towers resumed their long-range beam spells, requiring more soldiers to move to the front.

Their enemy didn't gain the upper hand, but she knew he didn't need to. They couldn't smash the towers with their missiles anymore, and the few that Ashtoreth might have destroyed with her makeshift spell would make no difference at all.

The humans weren't advancing. They were stuck, and while their supply of military hardware might seem endless, their soldiers had all already come through the portal. Morax Tol could comfortably wear them down.

Or so he should be thinking.

Another brilliant flash of light came from the peak of the pyramid, revealing the dragon's shape in dramatic silhouette as he launched another of his highly explosive comets.

Now, Dazel, she said.

He flew into her arms and she launched herself into the air, speeding straight for the white comet.

Protect me, Dazel said.

She focused on the incandescent bolt of power heading toward her, waiting to time everything perfectly.

Then, as the bolt approached her, she made as if to launch her sword at it like she'd done before… and then launched the sword behind her instead. The counterforce of the [Mighty Strike] threw her body forward so fast she was sure she must have broken the speed of sound, and she dispersed and reconjured the weapon as fast as possible.

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She launched the second sword just as she passed the missile, hugging Dazel tight to her chest and cocooning him in her wings, spinning as she flew threw the air and feeling more like a football than an actual flying creature.

Morax Tol's spell detonated a moment later.

Once again the world became nothing but white light, and once again she was filled with a strange, ringing sensation, as if her whole body could somehow suffer from tinnitus.

As she tumbled through the air toward the palace, she felt a surge of power run through her body from an unknown, unfamiliar protection spell of some kind.

This time, she'd put more distance between herself and the explosion, and she re-oriented herself quickly, spreading her wings and accelerating to make a beeline for the palace, flying as fast as she ever had.

She guessed that there were ten kilometers of Promenade between her and the palace, but it was a distance that was closing fast as she flew above the towers. She could have shouted a taunt to Morax Tol, but it wouldn't reach him much faster than she would.

She had no doubt that her enemy could conjure another one of the larger barriers that he'd used to stop the missile volley from earlier. But why would he?

Sure, it would be extremely entertaining to make her strike the barrier like a bird hitting a windshield. The problem with that, though, was that it wouldn't kill her—even if she was flying full-speed.

But if he let her and her single ally in? He could fight her, by herself, in his own place of power.

And Morax Tol wouldn't just have one or two massive, bombastic defensive spells. He'd have prepared an functionally endless supply for every occasion he could think of, and he'd be using them against her as fast as he could pull their triggers.

And Morax Tol wouldn't want her to retreat. Earth's monarchy was right in front of him.

It likely looked too good to be true. There was a very good chance that he suspected a trap.

But Ashtoreth could handle that much. He probably only suspected one, after all.

As she approached, Morax Tol's silence told her all that she needed to know: he definitely suspected something. The lightbringer's children weren't supposed to be this stupid… especially not the ones who had apparently conquered worlds.

No lightning yet, she said, looking down at the towers as they sped by below her. It was the only medium-range attack she'd seen from them, and she was sure that Morax Tol could have at least tried to strike them with it on their approach.

Probably not bothering, said Dazel. Right now, I expect that he's just lining up bombastic kill-shots to chain together.

At least one of them will involve the towers, Ashtoreth said pointedly. Ahead of her, she could make out details of Morax Tol's massive palace. It was shaped like a ziggurat, or a pyramid, but she could clearly see that the top, where the dragon himself stood, was hemmed in by six of the crystal-topped towers, each much larger than the ones lining the Promenade.

Interference? she asked.

Sure, Dazel said. Gonna need hellfire and about ten seconds once you touch down, though.

Frost? she asked. Where you at?

Way behind you, he said. Might arrive a minute after you do.

That's workable, she said. Then, to Gao, she said, I'm almost ready for boomtown.

She approached the top of the palace, a flat expanse that contained nothing but Morax Tol, who simply waited.

{King Morax Tol — Level 811 Boss}

He was a demonic dragon, with thick wings and a pair of spiralling horns rising from the crest of his skull. His scales were striking: black in the center, lightening to a bright white at the edges. He wore a suit of black armor that glittered unnaturally, as if it were made of faceted glass that was always catching the light, rather than simply metal.

She knew that Dazel was almost certainly right—he was getting ready for her. Still, if she could get him talking… even a few words would buy her seconds that she could spend well.

She landed in the shadow of one of Morax Tol's six towers and let Dazel slip from her arms.

"What's up, lizard wiz—"

Morax Tol brought his claws together as if grasping something in midair, and white light built between them, then flashed as a lightning bolt spanned the air between her and the dragon.

Ashtoreth only had time to push her sword into the air beneath her, then launch herself straight upward with a [Mighty Strike].

She flared her [Defense] with [Power Tap] just as the lightning hit her, but the spell was still so powerful that it set her ears ringing and innervated the whole of her body. She had a faint impression of the hulking dragon rushing toward where she'd been when the lightning hit her, but Ashtoreth was already gone, rocketing into the air as if she'd been shot from a cannon, her wings folded against the wind forces like an inverted umbrella.

She gritted her teeth as she regenerated away all of her cooked tissues, reconjuring her sword jerking her head downward to see Morax Tol, his wings flared as he rose into the air and gestured with his claws.

A beam of white light began to gather in the air between them, and she launched her sword once more to avoid the cataclysmic power that surged through the air a moment later, feeling it singe her hair as she oriented herself midair and then landed in a crouch in front of one of the towers to face the dragon across the flat top of his palace.

As she landed, she conjured Wanderstein, her scythe-cannon, and fired a [Draining Round] directly into his chest.

It did nothing, bursting into a flurry of white sparks and completely failing to apply an [Energy Drain].

"Well heck," she muttered, taking one hand off the weapon to conjure a heart from her locket and consume it.

It brought her up to a third of her total [Bloodfire]. Despite the massive pool that she had to work with, she'd been spending a lot.

Conjuring the weapon every time she dodged was, if she were being fair, pretty resource-intensive.

Morax Tol laughed as his tail traced a rune in the air. "Feeling out-gunned, little girl?"

He launched a volley of firebolts that she countered with a mix of evasion and intercepting hellfire javelins.

Here it comes, said Dazel. I gotcha.

As she dodged, Morax Tol continued to speak. "Let me show you the full extent of your, shall we say, comparative inadequacy."

He raised a claw.

A sound that was louder than the loudest thunder wracked the air around her.

The tower flared bright enough to wash all the color out of the world as it shaped more energy than any of the spells that had been put forth so far.

Then it exploded.

It was as if the hand of a god had simply slapped the tower away from the top of the palace. The massive cloud of white energy burst outward and away from Ashtoreth, so that the shockwave that did hit her was gentle compared to the pummelings she'd already taken.

Morax Tol hissed and jerked his gaze to stare at the tower, tendrils of white flames rising from his mouth and nostrils.

"Oof," Ashtoreth said. "Wow. Okay. That's… disappointingly premature."

Morax Tol growled.

Ashtoreth let her sword float beside her as she crossed her arms. "And after all that talk… I'm not going to pretend I'm okay with this."

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