As soon as he thought about it, he knew; it was his soul bond. Something was wrong with Hero.

  Turning his head to the side, he saw that the little crab was using a pincer to raise the cap of Rain’s backpack and peek outside. Following her line of sight, Phac’s gaze fell on the dragon’s mound of gold and jewels. He could still feel Hero’s euphoric, almost love-struck excitement. A horrendous realization dawned on him.

  Oh, no.

  Faster than he thought possible, the crab had sneaked out of the backpack and jumped on the ground. Rushing toward the mound before he could stop her, she was clicking her pincers together in a continuous repeat of two words:

  "SHINIES! MINE! SHINIES! MINE!"

  Of course, she was speaking in Crabbian, meaning that only Phac could understand her. The dragon should just be seeing a crab rush toward its hoard. A minor annoyance, right?

  Suddenly, Vainmarius’ head snapped to the side, and a wide, red tail slammed heavily on the ground in front of Hero, halting her advance. When the dragon spoke, its voice came from the depths of its throat, along with an intimidating rumbling that spoke volumes of the dragon’s fury. Smoke was already escaping its nostrils.

  "What did you just say?"

  It was rubbing its teeth together to produce the sound. Phac paled. It’s speaking in Crabbian... How the fuck is this possible?

  Hero did not look away from the dragon’s death-promising eyes. Instead, she stared right into them.

  Dragons were obsessed with their hoards. So were crabs.

  She couldn’t understand what the dragon had just said—it had used too many words—but she knew that the shinies belonged to the dragon, and that she wanted them. They had to be hers. Even if this strange, red, pincer-less crab was much larger than her, much larger than even the king, she had nothing to be afraid of.

  Because the Messiah was here. Her companion.

  She stared into her rival’s furious, prideful eyes, and slowly enunciated her challenge.

  "Shinies. Mine."

  Of the three people, only Phac could understand the words spoken, but the rest could see Vainmarius’s eyes contort and freeze, losing their intelligence and becoming overcome with wrath. For a single, short moment, its entire body stilled, relishing in the mayhem it was about to cause as it surrendered itself to its most violent and repressed instincts. That was its hoard.

  The dragon snapped.

  "NO!" screamed Phac, rushing toward Hero, but he was too slow.

  Rain wasn’t.

  He grabbed Hero by the pincers and dashed away, narrowly escaping a torrent of red-hot flames that flooded her previous spot and spread in a cone, reaching a corner of the dragon’s hoard but not melting it.

  At the same time, a heavy, Smash-enhanced greatsword slammed on the top of the dragon’s snout, cracking scales and shoving its head to the ground. As the strike forced its fire-spewing mouth shut, tendrils of flame escaped from its sides.

  "Get the fuck away from Hero!" shouted Phac, raising Pincer to strike again. Inwardly, he was terrified. This was a surprise attack right on the dragon’s head, and all it had achieved was to crack its scales a bit. True, he hadn’t placed all that much Stamina in Smash, but still…

  Preparing himself to imbue Smash with half his Stamina and perform some serious damage, Phac raised Pincer but didn’t have time to bring it down on the dragon’s neck. A tail snaked its way through and struck his legs like a whip, making him land on his back. He quickly rolled out of the way as a claw struck his previous location, cracking the cave’s hard ground.

  Phac bolted upright, coming face to face with Vainmarius. Its red scales had cracked right above the nose, the red blood barely visible as it flowed around its snout. However, the fire in its mouth was still burning, and the flames of unbridled fury in its eyes even more so.

  "I will destroy you," it roared in injured pride. "I am a dragon!"

  Vainmarius lunged at Phac and was immediately upon him. The dragon was bigger than a horse, and as it towered over him, it brought down a claw. No magic, no skills, no tricks; just a claw. And yet, it was this claw that fell on Phac like a piano from the fourth floor, the ground cracking under his feet as he blocked with Pincer. He barely managed to stop the strike.

  Completely out of place, a brief burst of music washed over him, doing absolutely nothing.

  "Not fucking helping!" he shouted, taking a step back, but there was no outrunning this dragon. It fell on him like a hurricane, throwing attack after attack that he struggled to defend against, but it was futile. Not only was the dragon stronger than him, but it also had four weapons where he only had one.

  The dragon attacked with its fangs, its tail, and its two front legs, which were long enough to be used for attack and had claws sharp enough to cut through iron. It was exactly one such claw that collided with Phac’s left ribs from below, launching him off his feet and a couple meters into the air before he slammed hard into the ground.

  He stood back up at once, but the dragon was no longer upon him.

  It was already chasing Rain and Hero, with the water mage running around, dodging, and doing everything he could to avoid the dragon’s attacks, even while carrying a crab. The dragon was fast, but Rain was faster.

  Phac touched his ribs, where the dragon had attacked. A slight scratch on the armor could be felt, and his ribs hurt like hell, but he was alive. If it wasn’t for his new armor, Shell, he would probably be in two pieces by now.

  Shit. We need to escape. Phac began to panic. But where to? Outside? No, it can even fly, and there’s nowhere to hide! In the hill? This thing can bring it down if it wants to! Hell, even I could!

  No, I’m panicking. I’m not thinking straight. Grul taught me to fight, and I have my Skills.

  Phac’s eyes hardened. Hero and Rain need me. I have to do this.

  Tightening his grip on Pincer’s orange handle, Phac turned sideways and rushed at the dragon. From the cave’s entrance, an aggressive, epic battle ode washed over him. It stoked the fire inside him, washed away his fear, and cleared his mind. Suddenly, he was faster than before, ached less, and was full of energy.

  His heart was fire, and his mind was ice. He was going to destroy this overgrown lizard.

  The dragon roared, "YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME! IT IS MINE! ALL MINE!"

  Phac dashed forth, using Crab Step to quickly close the distance. Rain saw him coming and moved toward him. Blinded by rage, the dragon did not notice Phac’s approach until it was too late.

  Pincer struck Vainmarius at the side of its scaly body, and this time, Phac invested half of his Stamina in Smash. He wasn’t going to get another such opportunity. The attack crashed on the dragon like a lightning bolt, breaking scales and cutting deep into its body until it hit the bone. A guttural growl of pain left the dragon’s maw as it was heavily smashed into the ground, a resounding boom following the impact, but this boom seemed to fit in with Feraya’s music, amplifying its effect.

  Phac was getting fired up.

  "Stand back up, lizard," he said, pointing the tip of Pincer right at its scaly face. "I will show you why humans are the apex predators."

  The dragon growled, its amber eyes clashing against Phac’s. "They are not. Dragons are. And I will show you why."

  With a flap of its wings, covered in hard membrane, Phac was pushed backward, but Vainmarius released another pained roar and failed to take off. Blood was pooling under its crushed side. Phac’s strike had hurt it. Good. I don’t have another like it.

  But, while it couldn’t fly, it could still fight.

  The dragon lunged at Phac again, its fangs snapping shut around his body, but Phac was no longer there. Crab Step.

  He rotated around himself to dodge and smashed Pincer against the scales on the dragon’s other side. They cracked but held. He could almost feel the dragon’s bloodthirsty grin.

  The claw came from below him, striking his well-armored groin and launching him three meters vertically into the air. Seeing that it couldn’t penetrate his armor, the dragon’s wide, muscular tail struck against him at the apex of his trajectory, catapulting him to the far wall like a cannonball.

  He smashed heavily into it, breaking the rocks and raising a cloud of dust, but the dragon was already chasing. This human had hurt it. He was not prey, but a threat. He could not be allowed to live. No mercy would be given.

  Before the dust could dissipate, Vainmarius had already struck, its left claw heading for exactly where Phac lay. A pincer-shaped greatsword rose to meet it. The two weapons clashed in mid-air with a resounding clang.

  But Pincer faltered. The claw scraped it aside, Phac barely managing to parry the strike enough that it struck the ground beside him. He dashed away, creating some distance.

  He was exhausted. These Smash-empowered strikes had taken a lot out of him.

  He was hurt. The dragon’s previous attack hadn’t penetrated Shell, but the impact had shaken him to the core. His entire body was in pain, and his left arm hung limply by his side, waves of pain rocking him from where the shoulder was dislocated.

  The dragon’s amber eyes were still set on him. It wouldn’t stop until he was dead.

  Taking a deep breath, Phac slammed the pommel of Pincer into his dislocated shoulder. Even filled with adrenaline, the pain was hellish, and a grunt of pain escaped his lips. He’d struck at a wrong angle. Gritting his teeth, he did it again, a pained cry escaping his mouth once again.

  Now, his shoulder was back in place. He could still fight.

  The dragon had been watching him. Heedless of human physiology, it thought he was mutilating himself. When his arm came back to life, the dragon frowned. It roared. It attacked.

  And as Phac raised his eyes to meet the dragon’s advance, he knew he couldn’t defend. Even with Feraya’s music empowering him, it was just too strong…but if he went down, he would go swinging.

  He prepared himself. The world faded away. Everything slowed down. He became fire.

  At the final moment, a river of energy exploded inside his body. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He was stronger, faster, more powerful. His body could barely contain the newfound strength; he could already feel his muscles straining. He grinned manically.

  Off to the side, a single crab was dancing on a small hill of gold and jewels. Its pincers were bobbing left and right, up and down, together and at the sides. Its legs were skittling over the coins, its little body rising and lowering itself to Feraya’s tune.

  Through the soul-bound connection, Hero spoke to Phac.

  Victory. For honor. For shinies.

  He laughed uproariously. That’s my companion. That’s it, Hero!

  The combination of Feraya’s and Hero’s buffs threatened to burst his body, and the dragon’s claw was still coming at his face. He let it all out.

  "BOR’GAH!"

  With a roar, Pincer clashed against the incoming claw, and this time, it was the dragon that was pushed back. Before it could recover, Phac was already swinging again. Pincer clipped one of the dragon’s wings, slicing the thin bone and easily tearing the membrane apart.

  It growled in agony and hatred and bit at Phac, but he wasn’t there anymore.

  Now that he was faster, he had a chance. The dragon might have been fighting with four weapons, but Grul had made him fight against a dual-wielding orc many times. The dragon was much less skilled than the orc. Phac could see it now; the flow of its attacks, the turn of its body. It attacked with whatever weapon was more convenient. If he could read this flow, the battle was his.

  Crab-Stepping to the side, he ducked under a claw and aimed for the dragon’s hurt side, the one he’d already mangled before. The tail was already whipping at him, and Pincer met it instead.

  Both Phac and the dragon’s tail were pushed back, Pincer thrown upwards and almost escaping Phac’s grip, but not quite. The dragon used the tail’s momentum to swipe a claw at Phac, but he had seen this coming and steadied his body at the right time, bringing Pincer down, but not at the attacking claw. He accepted the strike, allowing it to throw him to the side and rotate him, using this momentum to slam Pincer into the side of the dragon’s snout as hard as he could.

  Phac was once again thrown sideways like a ragdoll, but he rotated mid-air and landed on his feet, his boots sliding across the ground as he skidded to a stop. His blood was drumming against his temples, exhaustion was settling in despite the battle fever, pain was still coming from all over his body, and he probably had a couple of broken ribs, but he couldn’t care less. The fight was still not over.

  Below the dragon, blood still flowed freely from its mangled side and torn wing. Its snout was broken. Its red, glowing throat could be seen through the side of its mouth, but its eyes still held boundless hatred and rage, overpowering the pain. If it tried to escape now, they could not chase it, and it knew that. But it would never retreat. It was a dragon.

  It roared in pride and defiance, charging at Phac. He readied himself to dodge, trying to gauge what attack the dragon would try now. But neither its tail, nor its claws, nor its fangs came to attack him. The dragon rammed into him like a horse-sized ram, the enormous beast carrying Phac with it until they ran into the bulk of the dragon’s hoard, with Hero hurrying to escape, still dancing frantically.

  Phac was pushed through the hoard, armor, gold, and jewels thrown to the side, and then he was slammed into one of the cave walls right above the gold, rocking the entire hill with the impact.

  Sandwiched between the dragon and the rock wall, the air was knocked out of Phac’s lungs as he opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Feraya’s song was still playing and reaching a crescendo as Phac actively stopped himself from passing out.

  The dragon took a step back, thrusting a claw toward his chest and pinning him to the wall, legs not touching the ground. It couldn’t penetrate Shell but still stared into his eyes, a hideous, savage grin forming on its mouth before it opened to reveal a row of huge, sharp teeth, some broken by Phac’s earlier attack.

  Behind the teeth, from the bottom of the dragon’s throat, a red light was glowing and constantly growing stronger. It was about to breathe fire right into Phac’s face.

  By now, Phac could barely take a shallow breath.

  "FUCK!" he roared in defiance. The end was near, but he would be damned if he didn’t take this lizard with him.

  As the red light’s intensity was growing, and the heat steadily rising, Phac managed to raise Pincer. The weapon was too long to maneuver in the meter-wide space between him and the dragon; that was what the dragon was counting on to protect its vulnerable mouth. Additionally, from this distance, and with no leverage, he wouldn’t be able to cut through its hard scales. But Phac had a different idea.

  Even pinned to the wall, he grabbed Pincer by the blade and rotated it. Scales were essentially armor, and Grul had taught him how to deal with impenetrable armor. The backside of Pincer’s blade was now directed at the dragon, and this side wasn’t sharp, but instead blunt and extremely hard.

  A hint of panic emerged in the dragon’s eyes as it realized what he was trying to do, but the fire in its throat only burned with more intensity. It refused to back down. They locked eyes, and they were both thinking the same thing.

  If I go down, I’m taking you with me.

  Fire erupted out of the dragon’s maw, washing over Phac. At the exact same time, he rammed Pincer’s hard backside into the side of the dragon’s scaled head. He couldn’t exert much strength in this posture, but Smash wasn’t limited by that, and he poured every last bit of his Stamina into it.

  Pincer smashed against the dragon’s head, cracking the scales and viciously rocking the brain hidden behind them. The dragon’s eyes turned white as, near-death already, it immediately lost consciousness.

  The fire reached Phac’s face and could easily burn him to death. Just as Phac was losing consciousness, a wall of water appeared in front of his face. And then another, and another.

  Steam rose to the cave ceiling as the fire broke through, but the water had slowed it down. Even as the flames finally enveloped Phac, the now-unconscious dragon’s grip loosened, and he fell to the ground, the brunt of the red river smashing against the wall behind him before some fell onto him, hopefully too little to do any real harm.

  But Phac didn’t know this, as he was already unconscious.

  TWELVE

  THE KOBOLD SAILORS

  Phac’s eyelids slowly fluttered open, flooding his mind with light. Closing them again, he let out a groan.

  "Ugh…"

  "Good morning, buddy," came Rain’s cheerful voice from somewhere above him.

  Forcing himself to look again, Phac opened his eyes a slit. The grogginess of waking up was much stronger than usual, and he felt a strong impulse to go back to sleep, but he had a feeling that would be a bad idea.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he saw that what he previously found blinding was just a torch hanging on the wall above him. Sitting next to him was Rain, with his back leaning against a cave wall and a big smile on his face.

  "I have good news for you," he declared. "We got an airship."

  An airship… Phac’s thoughts were only now catching up. Right, an airship… Kobolds and a big, bad dragon…

  "Did we win?" he asked, only now realizing just how dry his mouth was.

  "You did, kind of," Rain answered, and his smile faltered. "I’m sorry about back there… I couldn’t do anything to help. I was useless."

  "Don’t say that." Phac supported himself on his elbows, lifting his upper body. He still wore Shell, but it was mysteriously clean of blood and gore. Had they washed him while he slept?

  "Water." Rain shrugged, noticing Phac’s confused gaze over his armor. "Helps clean stuff. But it’s true. I was useless in the fight."

  Phac shook his head. "Hero would be toast without you. And, if I remember correctly, so would I, if you hadn’t protected me from the dragon’s fire. Don’t underestimate yourself."