"Get up, you devious witch," Raxor thundered. "I'm not done with you yet." He followed it up with another earth-shaking roar.

  Veridiana miscalculated the trajectory of the archdragon's attack, and more than a dozen icicles pierced Agniaz's torso. Veridiana slammed her friend's tail down to steady herself, but the force of the blow was so great that the tail broke at the hip, and Veridiana took a hard fall. That was the consequence of fighting inside a mostly hollow statue the size of a small hill.

  But that was not the worst of it. One of the icicles was aimed at the head where she resided. She was able to stop most of it in time, but still, a piece of it pierced Agniaz's forehead. Veridiana dashed to the side, but not before it ripped a bloody streak through most of her left side.

  Her dress lay in tatters. Blood seeped out of her wound, which looked worse than it was. If she had time, she would have brought some Health potions with her or kept one or two of Aksha's daughters close as her assistants, and they could have fetched the Health potions for her. But Raxor's arrival was so swift that they had no time to prepare. Firaan ran from her post to tell her of their impending doom, but by the time she did, Raxor was before them.

  Veridiana snorted. I always knew Raxor would be my doom—the prophecy said so…I never imagined Meera would bring the doom of my sisterhood.

  There was no time to zip down to the heart to get some potions if they even survived Agniaz's fall. So, Veridiana picked up her shawl off the dusty ground and tied it tightly around her wound. It stung, but she had faced far worse and lived.

  Next, using her Living Stone skill, she peeled Agniaz off the ground and used her arm to smash all the icicles embedded in her body. Agniaz's balance was all off with the missing tail, but she would have to manage.

  "You continue to hide in my Agniaz's body," Raxor growled. "But not for long. I will drag your corpse out of her body soon."

  Cold permeated from his entire body to cover everything—the trees, shrubs, the ground. Even some of the weaker dragonlings and sorceresses were frozen solid as a thick sheet of ice formed on the ground.

  In his rage, Raxor didn't care who he killed. The icy tendril of frost traveled up Agniaz's massive legs, but everything those tendrils touched froze on the spot. He was trying to freeze her out. If it were anyone else, it might have worked.

  Veridiana punched the air, and Agniaz copied the motion and, from her massive fist, unleashed her Seismic Shockwave skill. Tremors erupted from Agniaz's fist, which would have rocked the world to its core. Raxor side-stepped, but it's not so easy to move so fast when you're the size of a small hill. Her attack hit the ice archdragon in the shoulder and sent him spinning.

  Veridiana lunged for him while his back was turned. She put her arms around him, and stone spikes exploded outwards from Agniaz's body. It should have killed him, but an archdragon's scales are nothing like a regular dragon's. Still, more than a few cracked and fell, exposing him.

  Raxor staggered forward, but Veridiana activated her Stonebind skill. Stony tendrils shot out of Agniaz's body and wrapped themselves around the archdragon before he could steady himself. Then she slammed Agniaz's hand on his exposed skin and activated the Endless Tremors skill.

  Vibrations rocked Raxor's body, and he stood in place, vibrating as her attack destroyed his innards and ruptured his blood vessels. If she could keep this up long enough, she could finish him off for good. But an archdragon like Raxor was not so easily dispatched.

  He clenched his fists and grunted as he took control of his body. Then ice pellets the size of large boulders blasted out of him, wreaking havoc on Agniaz's body as they left holes through her. One of her wings was so badly damaged that the other put the whole body off balance.

  Her stone tendrils were destroyed, freeing Raxor. He spun around, much faster than his bulk would suggest, and backhanded her across the face. Agniaz's stone face, though strong, couldn't withstand the blow from the mighty archdragon. A part of her snout broke off as she staggered to the right.

  On the inside, Veridiana was thrown to the side and crashed against the stone wall. Thankfully, she didn't get hurt much, but the wound in her side screamed, and her world spun as she was disoriented.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Raxor didn't give her a moment's respite. He headbutted her into the ground, and Agniaz fell, almost destroying her wings. Then he fell upon her like a beast, claws digging into Agniaz's chest as he animalistically tried to dig something out. The something being Veridiana.

  "Where are you?" He roared. "Get out of her. Stop using her body! Have you no shame."

  Veridiana gasped as tears found home in her eyes. She hated herself for doing this, but she needed to do it to buy time for her sisters. The dragons moved the mirrors before the battle began, or they would've all retreated.

  She put those thoughts aside and punched Raxor's jaw as hard as she could. The archdragon's head swayed to the side, but he stayed put, holding her down. Veridiana used her Quaking Fist skill and punched him again, sending such tremors into his head that if he were a normal dragon, the vibrations would have burst his skull, but all it did for Raxor was that it hurled him away.

  She got up and assessed the damage, which was quite extensive. Agniaz's torso had been slashed open, and her stomach was all but gone. Veridiana could close up the abdomen, but doing so would take an unjustifiable amount of time and Mana. Both of which she couldn't stand to waste.

  Raxor shook his head and glared at her. He dashed for her on all fours, something the archdragons hardly ever did. They considered it beneath them. But clearly, Raxor thought otherwise. He tried to tackle her into the ground once again, but Veridiana wouldn't let that happen again.

  She slammed Agniaz's foot on the ground and activated her Quake Break skill. She sent vibrations directly into the ground, and the earth split open, and a fissure raced towards Razor. He frowned, but he was coming too fast to stop. He tried to, but the crack widened, and he smashed into the ground face-first.

  She felt many rocks and stones in the fissure he was lying on. So, she conjured all the rocks she could find and slammed them into his torso like a reverse rain coming up from the ground. At first, Raxor didn't react much, but as the rock barrage intensified, he cried out and rolled away from the fissure.

  She would've smiled if she didn't think her enemy's rage and hate towards her wasn't justified. Her stone barrage had done a lot of damage to his scales. A wide strip of his scales over his torso was smashed and destroyed. Some stones were lodged in his skin, but though they were boulders, they looked like pebbles in comparison to the archdragon.

  She didn't give him a moment's rest either as more boulders shot out of the fissure and fell on him like hail but at the speed of a falling star. Raxor brought up his arm and blocked most of them, but not without cost. The stones were falling with such speed that they crashed against his scales and split them apart. Some rocks even got embedded into his arm, making him wince.

  Raxor grunted, jumped over, rolled face-first onto the fissure, and unleashed his icy breath, filling the fissure with solid ice.

  "You…" He looked up at her slowly. "You have breathed your last. Even Akhessai will not save you now."

  With two beats of his massive wings that raised a chill wind like in the dead of winter, he took to the air, somewhere she couldn't follow, even if Agniaz's stony form was utterly hollow from the inside. The stone statue of her friend was too heavy to fly.

  Raxor flew past the clouds in a heartbeat, then turned around and shot a devastating ice beam from his mouth at her. She retaliated by shooting an Eternal Petrification beam from Agniaz's mouth. The two beams collided in a show of dazzling light.

  Veridiana put as much Mana as she could behind the attack but the archdragon was not so easily undone. No matter her strength, she could not match a true archdragon's power. Her beam slowly but surely receded towards her as his ice beam overpowered her.

  She shut it off and jumped back to dodge it, but that was when she made a fatal mistake. The beam was too fast. It hit Agniaz's feet and encased them in a massive block of ice. She was unable to move. He swiped his head up, and the ice beam came for her head.

  Veridiana protected herself by bringing her friend's wings around her, covering her head. A thick layer of ice formed on the wings and started traveling downwards towards the main body. Veridiana had to do something fast, or he would freeze her and then crash into her. He was coming for her, flying full speed at an angle directly towards her.

  Tremors erupted outwards from her legs. The ice cracked and, a moment later, finally broke apart, freeing her. Another set of tremors rocked the base of Agniaz's wings, detaching them from the body. She jumped back just in time as Raxor crashed through the frozen wings, fist forward, and sent a shockwave that rippled through the ground.

  Devastation rocked the land as fissures raced outwards from his fist. Trees fell into the fissures. The small mounds nearby, which the sorceresses had used for conducting dangerous experiments, were flattened into the ground, taking immeasurable resources with them. Dragons took the air to save themselves, but some of her sorceresses were not so lucky.

  Veridiana thought she would be angry at the archdragon for all this devastation. Angry at Meera for unleashing this mad beast on the world, but all she felt was sadness. She had nearly four hundred years to come to terms with the death of her sorceresses. Domina told her that no matter what she did, she would not be able to save her sorceresses or herself.

  The oracle proved true once again.

  So, she had distanced herself from them, but still, tears leaked from her eyes. She distanced herself so she could train and prepare herself for this day. She had been training and growing herself little by little, day by day, but not to fight an archdragon with another archdragon.

  Veridiana drew a deep breath and placed a hand on one of the stone walls. "Thank you, sister, for protecting me for so long. It's time I go face my fate."