The building is missing half its roof.
I consider that relatable.
Every breath feels like dragging shattered glass into my lungs—courtesy of me having the audacity to inhale during the rather impolite moment where I almost transitioned from biology into physics.
I take inventory.
Legs.
They are… not aesthetically pleasing.
From the knee down, the skin is blackened and split, cracked in jagged plates like overfired porcelain. In several places, it has sloughed entirely, exposing raw, angry red beneath. Blisters the size of coins swell and rupture sluggishly, clear fluid mixing with ash and blood before dripping down what remains of my calves.
Below that—
The flesh looks half-rendered.
My shoes and socks are gone. Not damaged. Not displaced.
Gone.
Tragic.
They served with distinction.
The arm bracer I never even used met the same fate.
My thighs are spared, courtesy of my indestructible tail, which remains perfectly fluffy and deeply smug about the entire situation.
My back and face are untouched as well—my equally indestructible hair having taken the brunt of the blast without so much as a singe.
Everywhere it did not cover, however, is making its displeasure known.
The starlight fabric of my clothing remains immaculate.
The skin beneath it does not.
Pain radiates upward in steady, throbbing pulses, deep enough to suggest more than surface damage. The kind of burn that seeps inward. The kind that doesn’t politely stop at the skin.
I wince.
This is going to leave some horrific scars if potions don’t fully reverse it.
Not that I can even use one.
Cooldown.
Naturally.
I check my health.
Lower than I would prefer.
Not immediately fatal.
At bare minimum, Death Corruption will not finish the job before my potion becomes available.
Silver linings.
Outside, explosions echo through the ruins.
Walls collapse.
Stone fractures.
The dragon is not the forgiving type.
If he cannot see me, he will simply remove everything that might conceal me.
Efficient.
Rude.
That means I am on a time limit.
I push off the wall and stand. The motion pulls at half-seared muscle and split skin; my calves protest violently, nerves screaming where they still exist and broadcasting static where they do not. I stretch anyway—carefully, methodically—then nod once.
Mobility remains intact.
Structurally, my legs still function despite their current resemblance to something excavated from a charcoal kiln.
Primary issue: roughly thirty percent of my body has been cooked beyond recognition.
Secondary issue: the pain.
So. Not catastrophic.
My tier-one evolution was worse.
I could run. I should run.
I don’t.
It’s personal now.
And I know I can pierce his mana armor. That is all I require.
I raise my hand, and starfire blooms above my palm—radiant, eager, inefficient. Instead of feeding it, I begin to compress it. Not increasing output. Reducing volume. Shrinking the space it occupies.
The dragon’s breath carried an absurd amount of energy—far more than I can produce—yet it did not sprawl outward uselessly. It focused. A narrow channel. No wasted radiation. No dramatic, unnecessary spread.
Precision.
My flame tightens as I collapse its chaotic corona inward. The light diminishes even as the air distortion intensifies, heat compacting into something denser, sharper. Smaller and smaller, until all that remains is a single ember—no larger than a coin, yet hot enough to warp the air like glass left too long in a furnace.
Dense. Contained. Efficient.
My tail swishes in quiet approval.
The mote stabilizes. It does not bleed energy into the surroundings. The ambient heat drop is immediate. No waste.
I was wielding starfire like a sledgehammer—effective, brutish, careless. Relying on overwhelming output instead of understanding the structure of what I command.
That ends now.
I close my fist. The mote collapses instantly without flare.
My stamina dips further in quiet protest— hovering at triple digits. I refrain from conjuring replacement shoes despite the deeply unpleasant sensation of charred skin grinding against grit and broken stone.
Priorities.
Let’s end this.
I extend my hand and form a new blade.
It’s smaller than the last one—the previous iteration having been violently relocated during the explosion. Thinner. Shorter. Sharper.
Minimalist.
I don’t inscribe runes. Precision work costs stamina I do not possess, and they won’t assist much with what I intend to do anyway.
This is a single-attempt maneuver.
All remaining stamina will be allocated accordingly.
I ease the warped door of the half-collapsed house open and slip outside without sound.
Destruction continues to echo through the city, making his position obvious. He is not subtle.
I begin moving toward him—slow, deliberate, silent. Each step placed with care, weight distributed to avoid loose debris.
There.
He tears through buildings with reckless efficiency, stone and timber exploding outward as he searches.
My flames still cling to his wounded wing, prismatic embers licking stubbornly along torn scales.
Notably, he isn’t using lances or fireballs for demolition.
Resource conservation.
Good.
The mana armor remains active, its orange sheen stable and unbroken.
Also good.
I will pierce it.
Or I will not survive the attempt.
I continue my approach, slipping from shadow to shadow as he changes direction.
Then his trajectory shifts.
Directly toward me.
He barrels forward at terminal velocity, rubble shattering beneath his claws.
Closer.
I slow my breathing until it becomes optional.
Closer.
Every muscle in my body coils tight, vibrating with restrained intent.
Closer.
And then—
He is within range.
I launch.
Dash detonates beneath my feet and the world snaps backward as I tear out of shadow, a streak of pale motion cutting straight toward the oncoming dragon.
For a single, exquisite instant, we are mirrored—two projectiles on a collision course.
His eyes widen.
Too late.
The distance collapses violently between us, stone and dust blasting outward from the sheer force of our opposing momentum. He tries to adjust, but we are already inside the margin of error.
My hilt snaps to my left shoulder.
The blade hums.
Motes ignite along its edge—tiny, prismatic stars flickering into existence one after another. They gather at the tip, compressing into a concentrated, kaleidoscopic glare that refracts across fractured stone and broken glass.
The air bends.
I reach him.
And I thrust.
The motes arc forward, stretching into razor-thin lines of condensed light that wrap the edge of my blade in a spiraling lattice.
“Blazing Star Dance, First Step:”
The dragon jerks—barely.
The point connects.
“Rending Starfire Line!”
The mana armor does not shatter.
It parts.
A hairline fracture blooms where the condensed starfire touches, then splits open in a violent seam as if reality itself briefly forgets how to contain the energy passing through it.
The blade punches through.
Scales split like brittle ceramic. Muscle yields. Bone cracks with a sound too sharp to be natural.
I drive as deep as I can before momentum dies.
He roars, the sound erupting from him raw and uncontrolled, shaking the surrounding ruins.
I grimace.
Not fatal.
He moved.
Just enough.
I rip the blade free in a clean, efficient motion and discard it mid-air as his tail whips toward me in a blur of scaled fury.
My hand moves faster.
The spatial ring flashes, and the rune-stacked dagger appears in my grip as if it had always been there.
I drive it into the wound.
Deep.
Past torn scale.
Past ruptured muscle.
Into the space my blade opened for it.
Then gravity shifts.
I drop and twist away as his tail slams into his own injured side with a concussive crack that sends fractured masonry skittering across the street.
I hit the ground in a roll, momentum tearing at already ruined legs.
I force distance.
Then I try to stand.
My body disagrees.
The world narrows to a thin tunnel of light. Strength drains out of me like water through split fingers. Every breath drags against lungs that still remember the pressure wave.
I check my stamina.
Empty.
Not low.
Empty.
I push myself upright anyway.
If this is the end, I will not watch it from the ground.
He is still standing.
Severely wounded—scale split, flesh torn, one entire wing burning in prismatic defiance—but standing.
The mana armor remains active, its orange sheen whole once more.
He glares at me, eyes sharp and venomous.
Flame gathers above his shoulder.
Then it falters.
Stops.
His gaze sharpens.
Understanding dawns.
“You are out of stamina now, aren’t you?”
I see no benefit in deception.
“Yes,” I reply evenly. “That was the last of it.”
He throws his head back and releases a sound caught between laughter and a roar, the noise reverberating off broken stone and shattered glass.
When his head lowers again, the hatred has faded.
In its place—relief.
And something else.
Respect.
“You pushed me further than anyone.”
His voice is quieter now. Certain.
“But this is where it ends.”
I incline my head slightly.
“Wait.”
His eyes narrow.
“Before the ending is decided, I require clarification on one matter.”
He hesitates, confusion threading into his expression.
“What?”
My tail sways once—weak, but deliberate.
“Did you consume the stat-enhancing items available within the tutorial?”
He tilts his head.
Rude.
That is distinctly my gesture.
“Yes,” he answers slowly. “Did you skip them or something?”
I nod with exaggerated solemnity.
“They appeared rather… unpalatable. I elected not to partake.”
He blinks.
“You’re beneath my level. And you didn’t take the stat boosts?”
“Correct.”
Incredulity flickers across his face.
Then he laughs again—shorter this time, edged with something closer to disbelief.
“You’re terrifying.”
I do not respond.
It is not necessary.
He raises his claw, flames gathering once more.
“This is the end. Any last words?”
I nod once.
“Your mana armor made the activation significantly easier than anticipated.”
He frowns.
“What do you—”
BOOM.
The highly unstable dagger buried in his chest reaches critical saturation.
It has been drinking steadily from his mana armor—layer after layer of structured energy forced inward and compressed far beyond stability, with no way to escape.
It does not fail quietly.
It detonates.
The blast originates inside him.
There is no outward flare.
No warning.
His shoulder erupts first—bone and muscle atomizing in a wet, concussive bloom. Scales shatter like brittle ceramic as something approximating dragon anatomy ceases to follow any recognizable blueprint.
His head is launched free of his body with violent enthusiasm, severed not by a clean cut but by catastrophic internal pressure. It spins once in the air, eyes still wide, before vanishing somewhere beyond the rows of dilapidated buildings.
Half of his upper torso simply disappears.
Not burned.
Not sliced.
Gone.
Converted into a dense spray of blood, bone fragments, ruptured organs, and pieces of what I assume were important structural components.
The shockwave rolls outward, carrying the remains with it.
Walls are painted.
Stone is baptized.
And I am—
Tragically—
Directly downwind.
A wave of superheated blood and shredded viscera slams into me, knocking what little dignity I had left clean out of existence. It is warm. It is thick. It is alarmingly textured.
I am, in technical terms, dunked.
Steam rises as dragon biology meets still-hot skin, coating me in something between battlefield aftermath and aggressively disrespectful marinade.
I blink through arterial spray.
Well.
That worked.
Notifications cascade into view.
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[Blazing Star Dance (Rare)] has been upgraded into [Blazing Star Dance (Epic)]
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[Rune Smith (Uncommon)] has been upgraded into [Volatile Rune Crafting (Rare)]
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You have slain Experienced Pyromage [Uncommon] (Level 50 | Tier 1)
A large experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a being 13 levels above you.
You have gained 139,862 Tutorial Points
Your race has leveled up to level 44.
Your class has leveled up to level 44.
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You have gained the title: [Dragonslayer]
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Perception Threshold Surpassed: 500
Special Skill Unlocked: [Peripheral Continuity]
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I whistle low.
That is an aggressively large amount of points and experience.
I will inspect everything later.
For now, I would prefer to not be standing.
I start to lower myself—
Then pause.
Something is… off.
My Astral Burn is still active.
I look back at what remains of the dragon.
The body is no longer burning in any physical sense. There is no flame consuming scale or flesh.
And yet—
The effect persists.
It is no longer devouring matter.
It is eating something deeper.
There is a faint, instinctive tug at the edge of my perception. A quiet certainty that if I do not withdraw the flames now, something irreversible will occur.
The flames would obey instantly. I could snuff them out with a thought.
Which is precisely why I do not.
In my defense, I am curious.
The burn continues.
For a few seconds, nothing visible changes.
Then it stops.
Not because it exhausted itself.
Because there is nothing left to consume.
The air feels… thinner.
A notification slides into view.
Not blue.
Not gold.
Crimson.
Aggressively so.
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You have done something that cannot be taken back.
You have gained the trait: [Atrocity]
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I stare at it for a moment.
Ah.
That seems… mildly concerning.
I consider opening the description.
I do not.
Future me can deal with that.
Present me is busy being extremely exhausted.
I shrug—carefully, because burns—and let myself fall flat onto my back in the middle of the street, dragon remains still gently steaming nearby.
It is going to be a very long ten minutes of not dying while a tiny invisible timer ticks down.