The flames blooming inside its jaws erupted with startling speed, grazing my already abused left side.
Even so, I gritted my teeth and endured it.
Besides, my battered left arm wouldn’t have been much help in this fight anyway.
My fire magic was of little use against a fire-breathing reptile, and everything else I had was simply too weak to threaten a dragon.
What finally allowed me to close the distance was the volley from my fellow elves, who had come to my aid, sparing me from having to take down the dragon single-handedly.
The reptile had thrust its head forward and downward as it breathed fire, and at the cost of a dozen elves burned alive, I managed to reach its head and drive my flamberge toward its eye with all the strength I could muster.
The shape of the blade allowed it to hack through the heavy brow ridge, and the frost-laden sword destroyed the dragon’s eye.
Letting out an agonized roar that shook the air, the scaled beast tried to ram me with its head, but…
the River of Time was still in effect, and I managed to duck.
And drive my flamberge straight up into the dragon’s vulnerable chin, protected by nothing more than a layer of thin scales.
My blade was long enough to reach its brain.
“Heh.” I let out a satisfied chuckle as I yanked my sword free, sprang backward from a crouch, and rolled back to my feet.
…Only to sidestep the freezing breath of the second dragon.
Fortunately, it was slower than fire, allowing me to evade it completely.
The slain dragon’s companion paid for that with a volley of meter-long icicles that slammed straight into it.
The white-scaled frost dragon clearly couldn’t have cared less about ice magic…
But once again, overconfidence proved the Dovah’s undoing.
One of the ice spears—Vaysi’s, I thought—buried itself in its eye…
distracting it and giving me the opening I needed to close the distance.
“Good afternoon…” I muttered through the pain throbbing in my left arm as I darted beneath the dragon’s belly and slashed my flamberge across its right hind leg.
Don’t worry, you’ll die too.
It’s not like I slaughtered your kind hundreds of times in my previous life for nothing.
Reality may be different from the game, but your anatomy certainly hasn’t changed.
The moment it dropped to the ground like its companion, it made a fatal mistake.
Dragons were kings of the skies—not the earth.
Slipping beneath the sweep of its tail, I answered with a powerful slash of my own, feeling the blade crash against its tough scales.
This time, the frost enchantment wasn’t helping—in fact, it was getting in the way.
All I could rely on were the distracting attacks from the city’s mages, who were bombarding the beast with all three elements at once.
Forced to fight on several fronts at once, the dragon had to choose what to defend against: the townsfolk’s magic, or my relentless attacks carving into its wings.
And for some reason, it refused to make the one decision that actually made sense—take off.
…Then again, of course.
Dragons believed themselves immortal.
And they had every reason to—there wasn’t a Dragonborn around.
Even if this thing died, Alduin could simply bring it back.
Kind of depressing, really.
Like being Konrad Curze fighting Vulkan… Damn it, there I went thinking about Warhammer again.
“Hss…” I hissed irritably as the sharp tip of the dragon’s tail finally managed to nick my already battered left arm, which was hanging almost uselessly at my side.
“Yor!” the reptile snarled in frustration after failing to swat me flat.
Meanwhile, I kept hacking at its tail whenever an opening presented itself, badly damaging its scales and even cutting into flesh in a few places.
A particularly powerful bolt of lightning struck the beast, making it jerk violently and turn its attention away…
In doing so, it lost sight of me for a moment, letting me slip past to its hind legs.
Its belly was covered almost entirely by thick, nearly impenetrable bony plates… But that wasn’t what I’d been waiting and risking for.
I was waiting for it to use its frost breath again to get rid of the city’s persistent mages.
Aaaand…
Yes!
…No.
Having seen its companion die the same way, the dragon jerked its head aside the instant pain flared through its own jaw, just before my blade could reach its brain.
My sword, lodged deep inside…
Snapped.
Even the masterpiece forged by the smiths of Auri-El’s Temple couldn’t withstand so many glancing impacts against those impossibly tough scales.
The blade was already marred by dozens of chips.
Getting wedged inside the dragon’s unbelievably dense bones was simply the last straw.
Tossing aside the now-useless fragment, I finally allowed myself to rely on…
Magic.
I’d barely touched it throughout the battle, leaving my reserves almost completely full.
So the dragon was in for one hell of a surprise when a massive fireball slammed straight into its neck.
“La!” the dragon somehow managed to snarl despite its split lower jaw, only to be swallowed an instant later by dozens of spells unleashed by the city’s mages, who had been relentlessly battering its increasingly weakened body.
At last…
At last the idiot tried to take off!
Unfortunately for it, thanks to all the damage I’d done to its wings, the attempt was anything but graceful.
Which gave me exactly the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
After all, the broken blade of my sword was still lodged inside its mouth.
A fireball formed in my hand… Pouring every last scrap of my strength into it, I hurled it straight upward, directly beneath the dragon’s chin.
The explosion itself wasn’t powerful enough to inflict any serious damage—I simply wasn’t that skilled with magic—but… it drove the broken blade deeper into the beast’s skull…
And into its brain.
Which meant that, this time without the River of Time and under the normal flow of time, I had to sprint for my life to avoid being crushed beneath the falling mass of scales and flesh.
“Haaah…
Haaah…” I panted, feeling my heart hammer wildly in my chest.
“That…
was…
good.” Resisting the overwhelming urge to collapse where I stood, I forced myself upright, swaying slightly as I found my balance.
Looking around at the elves cautiously emerging from cover, I noticed the disbelief written across their faces.
They simply couldn’t believe it was finally over.
A third of the city had been destroyed…
Another third lay frozen or burned.
But the victory…
The victory was ours.
Hmm…
I wonder.
Will they start calling me a dragonslayer after this…?