Stones parted on Agniaz's forehead like a third eye, and Veridiana floated out like a goddess coming to deliver her verdict. After being in the dark for so long, the light of the afternoon sun was almost blinding.

  But that was not what made them water. No, it was the look she received from her sorceresses who still lived and the way they called out to her to save them that broke her heart.

  "Sovereign, please save us," They mostly called out.

  "My Sovereign…" Duinith looked at her with reverence as if she were some goddess. The woman was the first sorceress to join her. Out of all the sorceresses, she had known Veridiana the longest, yet she showed such devotion.

  Veridiana's eyes met Firaan, one of the only sorceresses who stood mostly without injury, even as she faced a full-grown dragon. Tears streaked through her dirt-marked face as she shook her head slightly and looked away from Veridiana. She said more in that simple action than words ever could. She had the gift of foresight or, as some would say, curse. She wasn't like a true oracle who could see centuries in the future but only the immediate future. In some ways, she was better than an oracle.

  The time has come for me to prove my worth.

  The archdragon looked at her and grinned. "Go ahead, save them, Sovereign."

  "Will I save them? I do not know," Veridiana said. "I do not know if I can defeat you, but I do know this…I will etch my name so deeply in your mind that when next you sleep, all you will see are the wounds I inflicted upon you. Come, Raxor, let's finish this."

  She floated on stone boots hidden under her dress, and that suited her just fine. She had a stone armor similar to Meera's mirror armor, but it was left in the dragon's heart and was unreachable to her. Even if she had the armor, she knew in her heart that she would not live to see the end of this day.

  She drew a deep breath, touched the tips of her fingers together, and formed a leaf-shaped tunnel. She pointed the tunnel at Raxor and activated her Heaven Splitter skill. Tremors that could cause earthquakes that would level the highest of peaks blasted out of the tunnel.

  Raxor barely had time to register the attack as it hit him square in the chest, crushing even more of his scales. His whole form vibrated. This and the damage that the Endless Tremors had done to his body prior made him cough up blood.

  The scarlet rivulets of blood were a stark contrast against his bluish-white scales. He stomped on the ground, and icy spikes raced from his foot towards her. The spikes were tall enough to dwarf the largest of dragons.

  Veridiana dodged right, and they followed. She stopped and made a quick left. The spikes sailed on harmlessly, or so she thought. The spikes broke off in the middle and flew at her like a hail of thorns. She dodged left and right, for even one mistake would end her life, and she couldn't die here, not like this.

  She dodged the first few, but the speed at which they came was too fast. She couldn't dodge them all. With a roar, she thrust her arms outwards, and tremors so violent blasted out of her that they seemed to crack the very air itself. The thorns broke into tiny, harmless shards.

  Raxor's next move came with her next breath. Before she knew it, she was frozen in a cage of ice and pulled towards the archdragon. This was what she had most feared. Being outside of Agniaz's body made her vulnerable to such attacks, but it wasn't like she was entirely defenseless.

  Tremors thrummed out of her body. The ice cracked and broke apart, but by the time she had escaped his ice cage, he had brought her within striking distance. He growled and swung at her as if she were a fly to be swatted out of the air.

  She thrust a palm out and unleashed the Tremoring Palm skill, amplified by a skill from her third class, Focused Skill, which amplified the power of her skill twenty-fold. Raxor's palm met with her skill and flew back. The look of shock was unmissed on the dragon's face.

  Sorceresses cheered her on from the ground, which only fueled the archdragon's anger. He was quick to retaliate by swiping his left-hand claws at her, but she dashed away in time and put some distance between them.

  Then before she could do something else, she noticed a humongous purple wave rush through the trees and came for Raxor's feet. The wave ate the trees and left nothing in its wake.

  Oh no…

  It was Aksha.

  Veridiana didn't need to see to know this wave was made of toxic poison. It crashed against the archdragon and made him stumble. The poison ate through some of his scales but not nearly enough to hurt Raxor. He grunted and stomped, unleashing more icy spikes in all directions.

  Veridiana searched the treeline in the direction from which the wave had originated. Finally, she saw movement, and without thinking, she dove toward her daughter, praying to the gods that she wasn't too late to save her.

  Everything was happening at once. The spikes flew in every direction. Aksha hid behind some trees for all her offensive skills; she hardly had any defensive skills or, rather, any skills that could save her from the retaliation of an archdragon. Veridiana raised a stone wall to protect her daughter, but it would not be enough. She dove full tilt and got there as the icy spikes smashed through Veridiana's meager stone wall.

  She gripped her daughter, turned her around, drew her in a tight hug, and activated her Endless Tremor skill, shattering the massive ice spikes into mere shards. She gasped a little but made sure her daughter was safe. After all, that was all that mattered. More spikes came for them, but her skill took care of them.

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  Veridiana quickly looked her daughter over. "Are you okay? Did the spikes get you?"

  "No, I'm fine," Aksha replied. "You got here just in time." Then her hand swiped over Veridiana's blood-soaked shawl, and lines of concern creased her forehead. "Mother, you're hurt."

  "I'm fine. It's but a scratch."

  "It doesn't look like a scratch. We must get you a Health Potion or to Ilomena. She'll heal this in no time."

  "There is no time." Veridiana looked behind her, and Raxor had gotten even angrier.

  "This is what you get for using underhanded tactics, witch," he roared and stomped his feet. The world shook violently, and ice spikes shot out in every direction.

  "There is no time to debate anything," Veridiana repeated herself. "At this very moment, more of our sisters are dying from his attacks. I must return to the fight and draw his attention to myself immediately."

  "Then I'll come with you," Aksha replied adamantly. "We can take him on together."

  "No!" Veridiana snapped. She sighed and held her daughter's shoulders. "You must take command of the sisterhood and focus on retreat. We cannot win this against the dragons, and with all the damage Raxor did to Agniaz's body, they cannot take refuge there."

  "I found the Gateway Mirror," Aksha replied. "The cultists had hidden it in the forest before the commencement of the war."

  Veridiana nodded. "That is good news. Very good news indeed. You rally as many sisters as possible and ensure they get out of here." Her daughter opened her mouth to no doubt argue some more. So, Veridiana quickly added. "This is my final command to you as your mother and Sovereign."

  "Final? Mother, you cannot mean…"

  Veridiana caressed her cheek and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Go, my daughter. You are the best thing that ever happened to me."

  Aksha hugged her tightly, making Veridiana wince, which she hid from her daughter, who looked at her through teary eyes. "I love you, Mother, and once I get my sisters out, I'm coming back to assist you."

  Veridiana smiled. "I love you too. Go and do your duty."

  A tear fell from Aksha's right eye as she stepped back. She nodded and rode away on a poison wave. Once she was far enough away, Veridiana winced and fell to one knee, for there were many shards that had escaped her tremors and pierced her lower back. She felt around, and her hand came back bloody. The price she paid to save her daughter, and she would gladly pay it again.

  She straightened through immense pain and burst into the sky. Every moment was pain, which fueled her anger. She punched the air and unleashed her most powerful Quaking Fist. The air itself vibrated as tremors that could reshape the world erupted from her fist. It hit Raxor's jaw and crunched up the scales on his face, and blood poured from his nose.

  Raxor staggered to the right, crushing many trees underfoot. Then he tripped on one of his own fissures and began to fall to the amazement of all. But the rage in Veridiana would not quiet down, for he had tried to hurt her daughter. She shot off towards him and, as he was falling, gripped one of his massive, clawed fingers and activated the skill that had turned her friend to stone—Eternal Petrification.

  Raxor's finger slowly turned to stone, and as she poured Mana into her skill, petrification raced from his finger down to his hand and up his arm. The skill was evaporating her Mana like water in a desert, leaving nothing behind.

  The world shook at Raxor's fall, but Veridiana didn't let go and held fast onto his petrified finger. The petrification had reached his elbow by now and was racing quickly up his arm. There was no way she would succeed in petrifying him fully. Any moment, he would realize what she was doing, and he did.

  "What are you doing to me?" He barked and shook his petrified arm.

  Any other sorceress would have been flung off, but she was not any other sorceress. She was the queen of the sorceresses, and he had tried to hurt her daughter so she would be taking a pound of flesh from him.

  His entire right arm had petrified until his shoulder. It was then that Veridiana had to let go, as her Mana was getting low, and he was powering up his ice beam, which she couldn't counter. Before she let go, she sent a dangerous tremor through his petrified arm. Cracks hissed and traveled up his stony arm, and when he shot his ice beam, the blowback shattered his arm into pieces.

  His beam went haywire, freezing everything it touched. Veridiana couldn't be sure if he had targeted her in particular or just lashing out from the pain and humiliation of losing an arm to a mere human.

  "Stop throwing a tantrum. You are not a child," Veridiana said.

  Raxor stilled. The ice beam shut off, and something changed about him. He sat up, and mist came off his whole body.

  "You would brand me as such," he said, voice calm and cool.

  "Your actions will."

  "Then let my words prove otherwise…" Then he said the words that proved true, the words of her prophecy. "Ice Age."

  A sheet of ice and frost raced outwards from his feet to cover the land in ice. Anything and anyone that touched the land was covered in it. Clouds converged overhead, and it began to snow, slow at first and then as if a god had kicked up a blizzard.

  The rapid winds made it hard for Veridiana to stay afloat, and the snowstorm made visibility next to nothing, but in that world of snow and ice, Raxor was king. He was practically invisible, so by the time she registered his attack, it was too late.

  She raised a Stone Aegis, which could have withstood the strongest of blows from the entire Conclave of Five, but the archdragon was something else entirely. Her aegis stopped the archdragon's claws for a moment before it broke through and swatted Veridiana out of the sky.

  She was blasted towards the ground through snow and hail. She formed a stone aegis behind her as she crashed through the trees and was dragged on the ground. Her aegis held, but the brunt of knocking against the ground kicked the wind out of her. She finally came to a stop when she smashed against a big boulder.

  There she lay in pain, moaning. She couldn't move her legs cause her spine was broken, but she wouldn't even want to move them as they lay mangled and broken. A bone was sticking out of her right forearm, and she was sure her ribs were crushed. The constant shower of thick snow might as well have been rocks hurled at her broken form.

  A terrifying shadow of a behemoth with outstretched wings was coming for her, laughing as he did it. The good thing was the biting cold would kill before he could ever find her. Her only regret was that she wouldn't be able to pass on her system to Meera. Without it, the world might very well be doomed.

  Then, there was a movement to her right, and two daughters of Aksha stepped out.

  "Grandmother!" one cried, falling to her knees, brushing the snow off Veridiana. "Stay with us, Grandmother. We'll get you to Mother right away. She's sure to have some Health Potions on her."

  "N-No… N-Not Aksha," Veridiana managed through quivering lips. "M-Meera…I m-must get to Meera."

  The daughters glanced amongst each other, no doubt wanting to dissuade her from what they thought was madness.

  "I command you."

  They bowed their heads. "As you wish, Grandmother."