Chapter 61: A fiery deal between two shadows

Eddena has just walked away from Edward and his party and started heading towards the center of the marsh. She couldn’t see anything through the dense fog but she could easily feel the bloodlust from any beast that tried to sneak upon her, thinking she was an easy pray.

Cleaving her way through the low level beasts that resided at the peripheral area of the swamp, she slowly made her way towards the center. If what Edward said was right, she knew that she would eventually get out of the fog if she just continued walking forward.

One week later, as she starting to get irritated by all the low level beasts around, she finally saw that the fog started to thin out. Another half an hour later, she was finally out and able to see more than three feet around.

Heaving a sigh of relief, she closed her eyes for a moment to get a feel for the place.

“Indeed, there is a high amount of fire mana in the atmosphere. It also appears to grow even stronger towards the center.” She said to herself as she opened her eyes and looked towards the center of the swamp.

Not discouraged at not spotting anything out of the ordinary, Eddena started looking around the area for the humanoid beast she came here to meet. She made her way forward slowly, paying close attention to her surrounding and the fire mana in the atmosphere.

It took another three days until she finally reached the center of the entire swamp. Using the shadows of the trees to hide, she looked around but wasn’t able to see a single sign of the humanoid beast she was looking for. The only thing that seemed out of place was a small black mountain in the center of the swamp. It was only around three hundred or so feet high, but what seemed out of place was the fact that the mountain was completely black. The black mountain also appeared to be the source of the fire mana in the air.

She was about to head closer to it so she can investigate further when a feeling of danger gripped her hear. Not hesitating for a single moment, Eddena pulled out a dagger and turned around with it raised in front of her.

*Clang*

The sound of metal hitting metal resounded throughout the area and Eddena was pushed slightly back. After having blocked the attack heading for her, she looked at the cloaked figure in front of her and asked in apprehension: “Who are you?”

From that attack earlier, she could feel that the cloaked figure was just as strong as she was, maybe even stronger. Also, the black cloak combined with the dagger it used told her she may be dealing with another assassin.

“Haha, Scarlet, can’t say I didn’t expect meeting you here.” Replied the cloaked figure in a male horse voice as he lifted the cloak covering his head. Underneath it was an ordinary looking black haired man. Despite his earlier laughter, his expression looked indifferent but if one would look closely, they would be able to spot a slight trace of arrogance hidden deep in his eyes.

Eddena frowned and said: “Shade, what are you doing here? This is the City of Ashes’ territory.”

“Oh, I just heard an interesting rumor and had to check it out. As far as I’m aware it’s not against the law to take a walk around your little city’s territory.”

“Is Oasis interested in the humanoid beast as well?” asked Eddena, going straight to the main topic. As far as she was aware of, there was nothing else of interest to Oasis in the entire swamp besides the humanoid beast.

“Humanoid beast? Haha, your information network is as bad as always.”

Eddena branded her dagger and said: “I have no time to listen to your ramblings. I would suggest you make your way back south before things get ugly.”

Shade shrugged at her threat, not minding it too much, and turned towards the black mountain in the center of the swamp: “I would love to fight you and see if you got any better since the last time we met, but I’m afraid that would disturb our sleeping friend here.”

Eddena followed turned her head to look at the black mountain, but she couldn’t understand what he was hinting at. Turning back towards him, she said: “I don’t understand what you came here to do but if you don’t agree to leave on your own, I’ll have to make you.”

Seeing that Eddena was getting ready to attack, Shade shook his head and said: “I’ll tell you what I know since I don’t think I can fight it on my own. Who knows, we might even get to work together.”

Eddena snorted and just waited for him to continue.

“You must have heard of what happened in Darkinire, no?”

Eddena frowned at his words before taking another look at the black mountain in front of her and exclaiming with an amazed expression: “Don’t tell me..”

“Indeed… Oasis got news of a black dragon being spotted traveling south from Darkinire. It seemed to have been injured and ended up landing in the swamp. They told me to try and see if I can kill it and get it’s core back.”

“Have you tried communicating with it?” asked Eddena, knowing full well that dragons were a race not that different from humans or demi-humans. They had their own empire, Darkinire, and all dragons were capable of speech once they reached maturity.

Shade shook his head and said: “I’m sure that the dragon must be injured so I don’t plan to. I was just bidding my time, looking for a chance to attack, when you happened to arrive and made me have no choice but to reconsider. That’s why I have a preposition, we work together to attack it and you can have all the materials gathered from the body.”

Eddena frowned and felt that something was not right, prompting her to ask: “But, if I get all the materials, why would even risk your life to attack it?”

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“Wait for me to finish. It’s core and everything else the dragon might be carrying belongs to me.” Replied Shade with the same indifferent expression he carried since the beginning of the conversation.

“What are you not telling me? I know dragons love treasures, but at the same time, there’s a chance it might not be holding anything of value.” Asked Eddena in a skeptical tone. The body of a dragon was a treasure trove of materials and Shade would not give it away so easily. The core was indeed precious, but not as precious as the rest of the body combined.

“This place is closer to the City of Ashes and I know I have no way of making it out with an entire dragon body. I’m mostly interested in the core and I have no choice but to compromise.”

Shade’s explanation made sense, but Eddena still felt he was hiding something. Seeing that Eddena was hesitating, Shade said: “I’ll let you look around and think about it, but better hurry. If the dragon recovers, we might not stand a chance against it even if we work together. I’ll return in three days to ask what you decided.”

Being left alone, Eddena started approaching the dragon to try and see if she could find out more information. She couldn’t say she wasn’t tempted by Shade’s offer since every single part of a dragon’s body could sell for a small fortune, but she wanted to make sure there was nothing else there even more valuable that Shade knew about and she didn’t.

For the next three days, Eddena kept moving all around the sleeping dragon, closing examining every inch of it’s body from the distance, but she couldn’t find anything of interest. She even tried to approach it and look a bit closer, but as she got in the range of a hundred or so feet from the dragon, she felt the fire mana in the atmosphere slowly starting to move and knew that it was a warning from the dragon not to get any closer. Not willing to engage it yet, so she had no choice but to move away.

On the third day at noon, Shade appeared out of the shadows again and said: “So, have you made your choice?”

Eddena grit her teeth and nodded before saying: “Fine. We’ll attack it. If we manage to kill it, the body belongs to me while the core and anything else is yours.”

“Great.” Exclaimed Shade as he pulled out a small tablet and threw it towards Eddena.

Eddena quickly read through the tablet and they both soon placed a drop of blood on it. Once the binding contract was done, the tablet disappeared and Shade said: “We’ll both attack from different sides at the same time. As the dragon focuses it’s attacks on one of us, the other will move to attack it back. I’ll signal when to start.”

It was a simple plan, but they were both veteran assassins and knew what they had to do. Splitting up, Eddena started walking towards the west of the mountain while Shade took the east side.

Eddena didn’t have to wait long until a small fireball exploded on the sky from the east. Knowing it was the sign to start the attack, Eddena didn’t waste any time and moved as swiftly as she could towards the dragon. Since the dragon was curled up, she couldn’t really aim for any vital spot but if the dragon really wanted to defend itself she knew it would have to eventually stand up.

White shockwaves kept flying out of her small dagger and hitting the sides of the mountain, but except the fire mana in the atmosphere shaking up slightly in response, there was no other visible change. Still, seeing the explosions coming from Shade’s side, she didn’t relent and started using even stronger attacks.

Not long after, the black mountain was barely visible anymore under the constant bombardment of the two assassins. Cracks were also starting to appear on the sides of the mountain and blood was starting to flow through said cracks.

As the dragon couldn’t take the bombardment quietly anymore, the mountain started to shake and a powerful, full of rage voice sounded throughout the area: “Vermin, scourge of the world, have you finally gotten tired of your petty little lives and came here to seek death?”

Hearing the dragon finally react and seeing it’s body starting to shake, both Shade and Eddena jumped backwards, getting ready for the real fight to begin.

The black dragon slowly unfurled it’s giant wings, and raised it’s head proudly from under them. Fixing it’s eyes on Eddena, it opened it’s maw and a ball of fire started taking form inside it.

“Why did you chose me first?” cursed Eddena under her breath as she started to move backward quickly. When the dragon was about to launch the fireball, another explosion took place at the back of it’s head and made it’s attack miss Eddena completely. The other explosion came from Shade attacking while it was distracted.

Even more enraged than before, the dragon turned it’s head toward Shade, wanting to attack him next, but Eddena moved back quickly and started focusing attacks on the back of her head as well.

Eddena and Shade kept attacking the dragon with their strongest attacks. Whenever it would look away and focus on one of them, the other would launch an attack on it from it’s back.

What Eddena found curious was the fact that the dragon seemed to refuse to stand up or fry into the sky no matter how bad it’s injuries got, but she just told herself it was too injured to do so and continued with the assault.

The fight went on easily for over and hour, time in which the dragon was nothing more than a sitting duck getting bombarded constantly by the two assassin’s attacks.

As more and more of it’s scales got cracked and even outright broken completely, with blood flowing continuously out of it’s giant body, the two got even bolder with their attacks.

The dragon was soon in a very state, but just when the two thought the fight was close to being over, a terrifying amount of fire mana started flowing out of it’s entire body and it’s voice sounded once more.

“Spirit of the Sacred Flame, In the name of your our ancestors, I, Flastrdra, queen of Darkinire, summon you onto my world once again to honor your vow.”

“Come forth, Ignis. Come forth and bless this world with your mighty flames once more.”

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