Around the time of Chapter 666, during the “Summer Spirit Festival” arc. “So, I can’t go with you!” With those words, the silver dragon beat the air with its vast wings and launched itself downward from the summit of the rock mountain, kicking off with its powerful legs. Her name was Leila. And in response, the black dragon Lyra handed her master, best friend, and loyal servant to Maya for care, rising into the sky to intercept. “Diane. …I leave the two of them in your care.” Two dragons. And they were also the last guardians of their master’s world, a role they had chosen for themselves. Harboring mutual respect in her heart and burning with the pride that she was the strongest, the black dragon Lyra let out a roar. She slammed her massive black body into the silver giant as it ascended toward her from below at an unwavering speed.
”…Was it a dream?”
Lyra murmured softly.
Dragons do not sleep. There is no need to.
Most other races believe this to be true, and it is close enough to fact.
They can live without sleeping. They can sleep while standing, sitting, or flying through the sky.
They require little time for it as well. Even when they do slumber, they wake up before a mere few minutes pass, or at most, within an hour.
It is not driven by a physiological urge for rest. It might be comparable to a human simply zoning out or spacing out.
However, for dragons, sleep was also a vital process for self-exploration.
They were stronger than anything in this world, capable of bending reality to their will. For dragons possessing such power, entrusting their consciousness to the dark and sensing what lay beyond was essential.
Dreaming was one thing; feeling the moment when the ego dissolved from the body without dreams was another. It was secretly considered a crucial step in objectively evaluating one’s own worth.
“Am I nostalgic for my own glorious exploits? …Even I admit, how shallow and despicable that is.”
The violent collision shattered scales from both sides, scattering them into the air.
The armor of a dragon, difficult to wound even with human strength, offered little protection against the impact of another dragon.
However, beneath lay muscles holding unimaginable power, bones supporting them, and most importantly, a miraculous regenerative healing ability that restored their forms in the time it took to look at them.
In the overall strength of a dragon as a creature, scales were merely superficial.
The two beasts bounced off each other from the impact.
Lyra rebounded back into the upper sky like a ball striking the ground and ricocheting up; Leila fell straight down, pulled by gravity.
In aerial combat, attacking from above was still advantageous. But Leila was fully aware of that.
“Annoying.”
Against the silver dragon, which had barely managed to avoid crashing into the earth, Lyra dove mercilessly at her.
Lyra held the advantage in physical durability, being a fire dragon. To fight back from below even as a show of resolve was foolish.
Lyra drove her frustration down upon her.
Leila avoided the heavy blow by deliberately maintaining the speed of her crash, skimming so close to the ground it was millimeters away before kicking off the earth to evade.
The black dragon’s claws dug deep furrows into the cliff face. However—
“Think that will catch me?”
Using the claws stabbed into the ground as a pivot, Lyra swung her body in a semicircle to land, immediately sprinting with beastly agility. She caught Leila, who was unsteady from using the ground to take flight, pouncing on her and finally slamming her into the earth.
Naturally, for rapid acceleration, it was faster to kick off the solid earth than to push against the yielding air to fly.
That said, other dragons besides Lyra likely would not have been able to switch so abruptly from the sensation of a bird soaring through the sky to that of a beast sprinting across the land.
“I’ve got you.”
“Not yet.”
Leila planted her four legs and tried to rebound back up into the sky once more.
However, Lyra seized the tail, folded her wings against herself to create a vortex, and spun horizontally. She slammed Daydream Nightdream back into the ground, crushing and vaulting over the massive frame.
The wilderness, where two bodies of sixty meters engaged in close combat, continued to tremble from the shockwave.
But Lyra’s repeated slams had not yet landed effective blows on Leila.
A battle between dragons, who possess superior recovery abilities, is not ended by taking a deep wound twice or three times. This has not even reached the stage of inflicting serious damage; it is merely a warm-up exercise.
“So you fly up with such bravado? Only to retreat when things get serious?”
“Naturally not… Black Dragon, I will fall for my master.”
“Hm?”
Leila severed her tail. Shrouded in flying blood, the silver dragon escaped. Having finally regained her footing, Leila regenerated her tail, soared powerfully into the sky, and exhaled a Blizzard Breath.
“Mngh”
A dragon’s breath is ineffective against its own kind. However, while ice is an opposing attribute to the fire dragon Lyra, who can endure it better than ordinary races, it is not without effect.
Lyra felt strength draining from her limbs as they froze before her eyes. For a normal race, this would be far worse; the cold air was enough to shatter their bodily tissues in an instant.
However, that applied equally to both of them.
“Don’t look down on me.”
Lyra murmured and unleashed her own flame.
The fire spewed from her mouth rapidly expanded and detonated within the abruptly frozen world.
Moisture condensed from the atmosphere in an instant was turned back into vapor by the blazing hellfire, enveloping the space between the two dragons in a white smoke screen.
The damage from being frozen could not be erased merely by warming up, so Lyra poured her own vitality to recover while pursuing Leila in the sky.
Leila now took the upper position.
Ice dragons tend to excel in flight. She must have believed she would not lose to Lyra if she could secure a sufficient stance in the air.
But Lyra, while chasing, scoffed at that notion.
“Did you think this Lyra was just an ordinary fire dragon, just an ordinary black dragon?”
The reason ice dragons are said to be strong in flight is not due to physical ability, but because they possess a relatively superior perception of wind patterns and atmospheric changes.
It is a crucial ability for long-distance flight, where slight differences accumulate into significant ones.
However, if it were just about flying fast and maneuvering, that would be a different story.
Lyra forced herself to fly faster, surpassing Leila’s movements.
“Guh!”
“You have the will to scheme cunningly to try and win; I acknowledge that. But—”
Lyra’s claw pierced through Leila’s abdomen with a single strike.
“Being a dragon means brute force. Without the madness to crush the impossible by fulfilling one’s duty, how could you push through what is impossible?”
“You speak as if you know.”
“I have witnessed miracles. I have continued to witness them.”
Lyra took Leila’s counterattack on her body while landing another strike to inflict further damage.
Before falling to the ground, they separated from each other, scattering blood and scales, continuing their dragon-to-dragon conversation that would sound like mere roars to an outside observer.
“Simply by chance is not enough; what I call a miracle requires more than that. Even with resolve, if you cannot surpass yourself, it cannot be achieved.”
“It doesn’t have to be a miracle. I am… I will do what I can.”
“I will bring about a miracle. We will bring about a miracle. No matter how you feel about it, obey Andy Smison.”
Once again, the two collided.
Straight ahead, at the same altitude, head-on.
And at that moment, the difference in power became clearly apparent.
The silver dragon was clearly pushed back and blasted away by the black dragon’s raw power.
“If she chooses to die for her own fate, so be it. A creature of that caliber will never be my match. This shall be an easy fight.”
“Let me tell you something—!”
Lyra steadied herself and confronted the black dragon hovering in the air with arrogance. She swung claws capable of easily blowing apart stone buildings and bit down with fangs strong enough to crush a horse in one gulp, fighting desperately to bring Lyra to her knees. However, Lyra’s claws pierced faster; her bite was met by a hardened fist that swatted her upward. Just as Lyra flinched from the fire breath scorched at point-blank range, a vertical spin of Lyra’s tail struck again, slamming her back to the ground.
As the silver dragon hit the earth with a force that shook the ground, Lyra accelerated in mid-air and descended, delivering a stomping blow with both hind legs that gouged into Lyra’s neck and flank. Yet despite this, Lyra healed those wounds and began to rise again.
“I’m not… I’m not giving up yet.”
“That is well, then.”
In an instant, they parted ways.
Shifting from a frantic charge, Lyra launched her body using her front legs as a pivot, unleashing a diagonal sweep of her tail at Lyra. Lyra intercepted it with a headbutt. The silver dragon’s body went airborne and rolled across the ground.
“Your turn now.”
Lyra chased after the rolling silver dragon and mimicked her tail attack. A horizontal swing connected with a clean hit, sending Lyra flying away with satisfying precision.
Even so.
Even still, Lyra rose again to challenge the black dragon.
It wasn’t that her attacks weren’t landing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t reach him.
She relied on that.
Like a prayer.
“…Or perhaps, in his own way, he simply finds such a life interesting as a dragon. No.” Lyra scratched her head, then looked around and smiled. “After all, battle is but a dull instinct. This is better now.” The sight of women cradled by their owners, looking happy. Suddenly, Lyra wondered whether that dragon knew the taste of such joy.