City of Sin

Book 7, 35

Suffer

Tiamat’s voice was still echoing through the air when her eyes went wide at the sight of starlight dropping like rain. Sharon appeared only a few dozen metres before her, standing atop the tower with unconcealed rage. The legendary mage’s eyebrows were almost vertical as she screamed, “So what if you’re not afraid? The only thing you have the right to do here is suffer!”

The Prime Evil’s front paw was larger than Sharon’s entire body, but the legendary mage actually felt like the taller of the two. Tiamat shuddered for a moment before flying forward to meet the challenge, “Let’s see how strong you are!”

The dragon’s five-metre-long paw flashed with grey light as she swiped down, containing her unique energy that was anathemic to all life. With this activated, a single scratch could kill most below the legendary realm.

However, the paw only made it halfway before coming to an abrupt halt, not moving any further. Tiamat was puzzled— the ground was still a distance away— but no matter how much effort she pushed in the paw wouldn’t press down. She ended up putting her entire body’s weight behind the effort, even lifting a hind leg, but it was of no use.

There were no power fluctuations, but her paw was still glued in the air with no sign of an obstacle that could compete with her might. It was only when she tried lifting back to see what trick Sharon had pulled that her eyes went wide.

Sharon was still standing in the same place, one hand held high and clutching at one of the dragon’s claws to resist the swipe! Every single claw of hers was more than a metre long, her entire paw much larger than the mage’s body, but her full-strength blow had been stopped with one hand!

“You wanted to see my strength? This is it!” Sharon smiled maliciously.

The stunned dragon tried to pull back immediately, but no matter how much strength she put in she couldn’t accomplish the task. The paw held by Sharon was deathly still, not even shaking from her grasp. As she continued trying, the legendary mage finally shouted and pulled. The dragon’s entire body seemed to lose all weight as it was lifted up, crashing down on the other side of the tower.

Rubble flew up from the terrace of the Deepblue, something extremely difficult to accomplish owing to its blackstone and bluestone construction. It seemed like guns had been fired as small holes appeared everywhere, the entire tower seemingly pushed down a little.

However, it was only the top level of the tower that had been compressed. Near-dead and gasping for every breath, Ensio shuddered as the dragon’s enormous body flipped off him; Sharon hadn’t noticed his presence during the attack, and he barely had the time to cover his eyes before he was crushed.

One couldn’t tell from the expressions that Tiamat was the one who was just slammed down. The tears in Sharon’s eyes threatened to flow uncontrollably as she saw the damage she had wrought upon the Deepblue herself, the cost of repairs and reconstruction quickly calculated in her mind. Her eyes blazed at the enormous numbers, hair fluttering in the wind as blue light filled the space around her body. In an instant, it seemed like her surroundings had been replaced with a beautiful plane outside of Norland.

At this point, one couldn’t begin to describe Sharon’s rage. Tiamat turned around and got back to her feet, but she couldn’t see the legendary mage anywhere. Senses sweeping across the tower, the opponent was nowhere to be found. Finally crouching down, the dragon roared majestically, “Sharon! I’m done warming up, let’s see your true skill. Use your dragon call, you qualify for my respect!”

These words sounded quite brave and arrogant, but anyone who actually knew the so-called Prime Evil understood that this wasn’t the case at all. Tiamat never talked nonsense before winning a battle; she only did these things when buying time to escape. Very few legendary spells were instant, and this was especially true of high-level summonings. The dragon planned to use that time to flee.

However, Sharon immediately erupted with rage, “You dared to destroy my Deepblue! You want to die! No, you have to die!”

Freezing up in fear, Tiamat couldn’t even retort that Sharon was the one who had slammed her into the tower. It was Ensio who screamed despite his injuries, fearing that the Dragon would be slammed right down on him again, “Master, I’m here! Mercy, don’t hurt the innocent!”

Tiamat felt an inexplicable chill. She had met Ensio many times before in the myriad planes, and he was a majestic being who didn’t show any signs of weakness even when severely injured. However, now he was squealing almost like a child.

She had to get out. The dragon turned to run, but before she could even move she felt searing pain from the top of her head. The legendary mage had flashed over and started breaking off horn after horn, throwing them into the distance. She flapped her wings and took off, but a blue figure chased right behind and continued the torture; the Prime Evil started shaking like a plant in a storm, eventually shooting into the earth like an arrow and scooping out more than ten metres of the cliff.

Back on the Deepblue, the place Sharon had been standing in was overflowing with blue energy that made the place look almost dreamlike. Looking at the unstable power, Ensio smiled with an ashen face, “So I don’t escape my fate after all...”

Even as he resigned himself to death as collateral damage, Sharon’s hair seemed to notice him from the distance. It summoned a few blue orbs that surrounded him, keeping him safe in the midst of her attacks. The lock of hair was shivering as it saw the sweaty man; Sharon hadn’t ordered it to protect Ensio, just letting it do whatever it wanted.

The blue light atop the Deepblue finally lost cohesion, vanishing away alongside half a metre of the top of the Deepblue. Everything was absolutely silent without any magical fluctuations or bursts of energy; the people below didn’t even sense anything.

Back at the cliff, Tiamat struggled to stand up but was pushed down by Sharon’s foot. Her huge head immediately plunged into the ground, entire body angling downwards until she was almost vertical. The legendary mage gritted out, “You dare to attack the Deepblue? Who made you do this? Tell me! Or was it your own idea, making a ruckus near my home! You little... Why can’t you people let me take a nap?!”

Sharon’s bare foot was pushing into the dragon’s skin, twisting left and right constantly. The foot that wasn’t even a hundredth of Tiamat’s head was forcing her to twist proportionally, a few dozen shakes causing the dragon to drill further into the ground. Many of her horns rubbed against the hard rock and sparked, but even as they were broken off the head went further in.

*RUMBLE!* A loud roar filled Floe Bay as the cliff that had weathered millennia of waves without shaking finally broke apart, a huge section of rock just crumbling down into the water. The water splashed up hundreds of metres high as the cliff face split apart, exposing the dragon head that was screwed into the earth.

Her anger finally starting to fade, Sharon grabbed the tip of the dragon’s head and carried it into the sky. Tiamat spat out a large volume of mud that had a dozen teeth mixed in, and as she saw Sharon’s hand drawing symbols in the air she started to shiver. Hundreds of symbols were sent out in the blink of an eye, forming the beginnings of an enormous portal that could barely fit even the dragon’s huge body. Something so large should have taken days to make, but for Sharon, it took only a few moments.

“You... What are you doing? Let me go! Let me go!” Tiamat started struggling with all she had.

“You expected to lead a good life after messing with me? Come, I’m taking you to a fun place!” Sharon replied without turning her head.

“W-what place?”

“My semiplane.”