Rosa’s charms enveloped Scarlett and the others the instant a layered blend of notes rang out. They began clear and harmonious, then twisted as a deeper, haunting undertone bled into the melody, and Scarlett felt a wellspring of strength surge up within her.

The [Eternal Flameweaver’s Athame] appeared in her hand, the [Crown of Flame’s Benediction] settling on her brow as the [Sovereign’s Veil] draped itself almost invisibly behind her, accompanied by a host of lesser artefacts lending their effects in sequence.

At the same time, several points of interest began mapping themselves across Olgolzkreh’s form in her inner eye.

In preparation for this battle, she’d pulled out all the stops. That included finally using the [Tablet of Sovegrephor (Divine)] she’d picked up in Beld Thylelion to upgrade her [Charms of Apperception]. She had long since stopped relying on that artifact after regularly running into opponents far outside its original level range — but fully upgraded, it was a different beast entirely.

At this point, only the Charms and the [Depraved Solitude’s Choker (Legendary)] offered the sort of meaningful utility that was still worth upgrading at all. And even then, the Choker mostly existed to smooth out her mana economy, something the Stillwork of Shattered Glass already handled in part.

Her mana moved as she readied both pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis against the ancient dragon’s manifestation.

Olgolzkreh reacted violently to the presence of Fynn’s wolf form. Gales screamed as the dragon’s restraints tightened, the storm overhead flaring brighter as if trying to compensate for the sudden opposing force. Olgolzkreh was distorted by the storm, by rage, and something frayed at the edges.

The ground trembled as Olgolzkreh twisted, vast wings straining. Chunks of ice tore free from the air itself, flung outward as the pressure spiked.

Fynn moved.

The ethereal wolf he’d conjured surged forward with him at its core. As large as it was, it still barely amounted to a fraction of Olgolzkreh’s sheer size, but that didn’t deter him. Almost faster than Scarlett could blink, he was already beneath the dragon, running on air and tearing into the exposed side of Olgolzkreh’s neck, lightning and wind ripping through the wound.

Olgolzkreh bellowed, rearing back as much as he could with a massive convulsion that shook the ground. Several of the restraints around his left wing cracked.

Scarlett raised her hand.

She drew in a steady breath, closed her eyes for just a moment, and focused.

Then she clenched her fist.

A large, blazing sphere of white-hot flame snapped into existence above the damaged wing, hovering over a section where the membrane flickered between solid and something less defined. Compared to the sheer scale of the wing, the attack was insignificant. Even if she pushed her pyrokinesis to its limit, her mana reserves wouldn’t last long enough to engulf even a portion of Olgolzkreh outright.

Still, it did its job.

Smoke and scorched fragments burst outward where the flame met flesh, the membrane blackening and curling inward under the heat.

Then the fire vanished.

A dense bloom of freezing white mist swallowed the area completely, snuffing out her flames in an instant.

The dragon’s gaze snapped to her.

That alone was enough to make the space between them buckle.

Olgolzkreh’s maw opened wide.

“Shit—” Kat cursed nearby.

A barrier of stone rose, enveloping them completely. At the same time, a discordant note rang out, and the rock twisted as though it were alive, moving almost like lava without the threading heat.

The barrier shook, the earth rumbling beneath them. Frost began crawling across its surface.

Another note struck.

The spreading frost stalled for a heartbeat — then the stone began to crack violently under the pressure.

Scarlett channelled her magic to help, and just as the stone barrier gave way, she raised a dome of flame and water around the group. The dragon’s breath slammed into it in a torrent of icy fury, but it had been weakened just enough that her defence held.

When she dropped the dome, the ground around them was cratered and pocketed with jagged frost.

“Gods,” Kat muttered, bracing herself on her claymore. “That was just one breath?”

“You did well enduring the brunt of the attack,” Scarlett said.

Kat snorted. “I’d hate to see what ‘poorly’ looks like.”

Olgolzkreh’s roar rolled across the sky again, lower this time, the sound dragging even more pressure with it. Wind and ice collapsed inward as more restraints failed, and a storm of ice crystals formed, surging towards Fynn as he tore a superficial wound along the dragon’s neck.

Fynn twisted and weaved through the air, a tightly coiled storm of his own surrounding him. Lightning lashed outward in rapid bursts as he pressed the attack, the opposing gales grinding against each other.

Scarlett’s attention snapped back to the weak points marked across Olgolzkreh’s form.

Two at the left wing joints. One at the base of the throat. And a cluster around the sternum, where several of the failing restraints intersected.

She conjured several Aqua Mines—far larger than she’d normally risk—and detonated them in close succession. Explosions of steam and pressure slammed into the dragon’s chest.

She was fairly certain they did damage, yet this time Olgolzkreh didn’t even look at her, completely focused on Fynn.

The bindings around his neck tore all at once.

The dragon moved faster than something that size should’ve been able to, his head snapping around to seize Fynn. Fynn barely dodged, but the sheer force of the movement sent a torrent ripping across the battlefield, slamming into Scarlett and the others. Kat conjured stone walls behind them to brace against.

Just as Fynn was about to be caught again—pinned between Olgolzkreh’s jaws and a spiralling tempest of ice—shadow swallowed the wolf whole.

Olgolzkreh stopped.

A moment later, Fynn burst out of another patch of darkness near the dragon’s leg, lightning detonating as he drove the wolf’s form into the limb.

From a second shadow blooming near the base of Olgolzkreh’s horns, another small shape emerged.

Scarlett’s eyes flicked to the side, and she realised both Nol’viz and Carnwedain were missing.

Her gaze snapped back to the dragon’s neck.

It was Carnwedain, his usually massive frame looking almost absurdly tiny against Olgolzkreh’s scale.

Olgolzkreh either hadn’t noticed him yet or simply didn’t care, too focused on tearing free of his remaining restraints and crushing Fynn.

That was his mistake.

Carnwedain drove his sword down.

Olgolzkreh locked up.

A low, grinding rumble rolled through the space, deep enough that Scarlett felt it in her bones.

Even from this distance, she could practically hear the blade biting into Olgolzkreh’s spine, sinking in with a shriek of resistance that sent sparks of pale light bursting outward. The moment it connected, crystalline growths rose around the impact point, tightening violently as if trying to crush both sword and knight at once.

Carnwedain did not budge.

Scarlett watched as something dark began to spread from the wound, a crawling, bog-like corruption seeping across the dragon’s iridescent scales and staining them almost black. At the same time, the weak points visible through her Charms multiplied rapidly, lighting up across the area.

It almost looked like the corruption might spread across the entire neck.

Then it stopped, barely a quarter of the way through.

Less than a heartbeat later, Carnwedain was gone.

Scarlett didn’t even see what happened. One moment, he was there, and the next, the ground detonated a short distance away as stone and debris exploded upward, leaving behind a deep crater.

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Scarlett teleported instantly with the Athame, reappearing on the crater’s edge. She peered down just in time to see movement and a gauntleted hand slam into rock, followed by Carnwedain hauling himself free, his dark armour coated in dust and shattered ice.

Nol’viz emerged from a fold of shadow a second later, dragging the knight’s sword along the ground behind her. Carnwedain accepted it without a word, immediately lifting his gaze back towards Olgolzkreh.

Nol’viz turned her masked face towards Scarlett.

“The dragon is strong,” she said evenly.

Scarlett nodded slowly. “He is.”

Nol’viz tilted her head slightly. “So are you.”

“…That I am.”

The shadows folded in on themselves, swallowing both Nol’viz and Carnwedain once more.

Scarlett turned back towards the battlefield, where Olgolzkreh’s attention was fully locked on Fynn again.

For a brief moment, she’d genuinely been worried Carnwedain might not walk away from that hit. But seeing him climb out like that only confirmed what she’d suspected. It would probably take a genuine ancient dragon in its prime—or someone like Vail—to seriously injure him.

Still, this wasn’t the time for distractions.

She teleported back just as the aftershock of one of Olgolzkreh’s attacks tore towards the group. Together with Kat, she braced it head-on before relocating everyone to a new position closer to the dragon.

Then she got started for real.

Fynn kept Olgolzkreh’s attention, darting through the air in wolf form and striking whenever he could, dodging where he had to. When he couldn’t dodge, Nol’viz appeared in bursts of shadow to pull him clear, while also repositioning Carnwedain close to the dragon. The knight drove his blade in again and again, spreading more of that dark corruption across Olgolzkreh’s scales, giving Scarlett targets to work with.

Carnwedain wasn’t as fast as Fynn. Localised ice storms and compressed projectiles slammed into him over and over again, but he just kept getting back up, relentless in a way that bordered on absurd.

Every hit he took was one less aimed at Scarlett and the others.

She kept her own attacks focused and precise, while Kat—who had initially tried to do the same—shifted more into defence and protection. She intercepted shockwaves and stray attacks with her terramancy spells before they could reach the backline, bolstered by Rosa’s charms. Shin broke away from the group and started getting repositioned by Nol’viz, much like Fynn, charging powerful strikes of silver aura whenever openings appeared. Allyssa occasionally joined him, but mostly stayed close to Kat and Rosa, keeping them supplied with potions and emergency concoctions when needed.

Rosa, though, was the one pushing her absolute limit the most.

Maintaining charms across distances like this was hard enough, but she was also amplifying Scarlett’s flames, keeping buffs on everyone, and healing injuries as they happened. While Fynn did an impressive job avoiding anything immediately fatal, the constant barrage of attacks inevitably clipped him, and his conjured wolf form took steady damage that had to be continuously mended.

The only one who hadn’t acted yet was Slate.

Scarlett was holding her in reserve for the right moment.

As the fight dragged on, Olgolzkreh grew increasingly enraged. One restraint after another failed until only a single wing and one leg remained bound. By that point, every movement displaced massive volumes of air, the ground shaking violently beneath them almost constantly, but none of them let that affect them.

Scarlett had finally managed to cripple Olgolzkreh’s left wing to the point where it was barely functional, but she’d burned through an alarming amount of mana and was actively chaining potions. Still, it was clear that with Carnwedain’s help, her magic was at a point where it could seriously contend with something on this level.

Yet…

The dragon refused to fall.

It had barely even slowed.

And their progress hadn’t come without a cost.

This manifestation of Olgolzkreh lacked a dragon’s usual intelligence and could be baited into focusing on Fynn most of the time, but it was still dangerous. Scarlett managed to teleport them clear of larger attacks on several occasions, but there were breaths and storm surges they weren’t as lucky with.

Even when Kat’s reinforced defences absorbed much of the damage, the rest fell to Scarlett. And some of those attacks carried something extra. A pressure layered beneath the raw force. An intent that was familiar in a way she couldn’t place, but unmistakably dangerous. Whenever it surfaced, a portion of the attack punched straight through her defences and left them all exposed.

The [Sovereign’s Veil] helped protect her against some of that damage, its protection living up to its origin as one of Thainnith’s possessions, but the others weren’t as fortunate. Kat and Rosa both suffered frostbite more than once. At one point, Kat’s legs were completely encased and torn bloody by ice when Scarlett was a fraction too slow.

Without Rosa here, some of them would be missing limbs, or worse.

It didn’t slip past Scarlett’s notice when the bard’s tempo started slipping between breaths, or when Kat’s spells began to falter more and more often. Exhaustion was setting in. And while Scarlett had no way of telling how close Fynn was to his limit, she doubted he could keep this up forever. In the game, his wolf form had always had a timer.

The worst thing was that Olgolzkreh was almost completely free of his restraints.

They were approaching the point where attrition would start favouring the dragon, no matter how much damage he’d taken. Their goal had been to end this quickly, and they were dangerously close to failing at that.

Eventually, Fynn seemed to have had enough.

It was as if he’d sensed Scarlett’s unspoken assessment and decided to force the issue himself.

The ethereal wolf pulled back, skidding through the air as a blast of snow and ice detonated where he’d been just a beat earlier. He landed hard, claws digging into nothing as the wind held him aloft in front of Olgolzkreh. The storm around him tightened, lightning crawling visibly through its form.

Then he threw his head back.

The howl that followed wasn’t loud in the conventional sense.

But it didn’t need to be.

The sound itself carried weight. A presence that cut along the storm instead of competing with it, folding into the wind and dragging everything with it. Scarlett felt it ripple through the battlefield itself, a spike of pressure that demanded attention.

Olgolzkreh reacted instantly.

The dragon’s head snapped towards Fynn, rage flaring in its eyes as its maw opened wide. The last of its restraints buckled. Ice, wind, and raw force gathered in its throat, condensing into an attack Scarlett didn’t even want to think about taking head-on.

A small bloom of shadow spread across the ground beneath Olgolzkreh.

Carnwedain emerged from it, sword raised.

This time, the blade sank into the stone rather than the dragon. Corruption flared outward from the impact point, racing across the ground and transforming it into a churning, tar-black bog. Olgolzkreh’s legs plunged deep into it, the substance clinging and slowly corroding wherever it touched.

Olgolzkreh roared even as he continued charging the attack.

The opening was there.

“Rosa,” Amy said, downing a mana potion and pulling out several more. “How tired are you?”

“On a scale of one to eleven?” Rosa replied, her brow slick with sweat.

“Yes.”

“Let’s call it one point past whatever you need me to be.”

“Good. Then I’ll rely on you.”

There was a brief pause in the melody.

Then Rosa laughed, breathless but bright. “Don’t let it be said that you don’t at least try to check in before running us into the ground.”

Scarlett didn’t answer. She turned her focus inward.

She needed one decisive strike to end this. One that would take everything she had — and more.

The Stillwork of Shattered Glass wasn’t meant to be used in combat. At least not the way she’d been using it until now. But Jahror had shown her other applications for the technique, even as he’d warned her about the risks.

Today, she was pushing it further.

Something sharp flared inside her as she forced mana through channels she’d spent so much time cultivating. Far more mana than they were meant to handle. She drank mana potion after mana potion in rapid succession, enough that she knew mana exhaustion would be inevitable.

The excess mana surged without anywhere to go, trying to tear free of her control. She locked it down anyway, applying the Stillwork’s principles by force, keeping it inside even as her body burned and iron flooded her mouth. She was drawing far more than her lacklustre vessels were built to sustain.

The [Eternal Flameweaver’s Athame] burned cold in her grip as she fed a constant stream of mana into it, compressing it tighter and tighter. White-blue flame bled into existence around the blade, thin at first, then thickening as the heat shifted into something denser and sharper.

Flames of Itris.

She’d always been careful with them. At scale, they were obscenely expensive to use.

She siphoned another portion of mana into her free hand, turning her palm upward as a single spark ignited above it. A pinprick of white flame, growing and spiralling as it was fed more mana while being compressed again and again, pushed to the absolute limit of what [Argent Pyrokinesis] would allow.

Managing both at once wasn’t easy, even for her.

But she didn’t stop.

“Rosa.”

The bard’s charms shifted instantly. Scarlett felt every other effect drop away, replaced by a single, focused resonance.

The white flame in her palm flickered. Then, like echoes splitting off a central note, tiny translucent copies began forming around it, trailing delicate shades of azure that danced perfectly in time with Rosa’s new song.

Scarlett drew the condensed Flames of Itris closer. They leapt from the Athame, snapping together and forming a radiant halo around the core of her fire.

She paused for half a second, surprised, but then forced herself back into focus.

Her gaze lifted to Olgolzkreh.

“Slate,” she said, not looking away from the dragon. “It is time for you to assist.”

In the game, Slate had been incredibly important past the mid-game — a companion no route could fully ignore. Despite that, the homunculus wasn’t actually that strong. At least not in the traditional sense.

What she was, however, was a very potent enabler.

Slate stepped forward.

Scarlett eased the condensed flame forward, letting it float a short distance ahead. Even for her, maintaining control of it proved a struggle, the construct threatening to destabilise under the volatility of Rosa’s charm.

Slate raised her scythe and cut.

The air split cleanly where the blade passed, a narrow line where the rules of distance, spread, and dissipation simply…failed to apply. Scarlett felt it instantly, the feedback from her magic shifting as if a limiter had been flicked off for a fraction of a second.

This was Slate’s role.

She was here to let Scarlett’s magic surpass its own limits.

The moment the scythe brushed the condensed flame, it unfolded. The construct fanned outward in a cascading surge, expanding so violently that Scarlett had a split second to register it was about to consume everything around them—

And then it was gone.

A heartbeat later, white and azure fire sparked into existence beneath Olgolzkreh.

It spread far wider than Scarlett should’ve been able to sustain, a vast bloom of white-blue flame surging upward to engulf the dragon, the corrupted bog, and the space between. Olgolzkreh thundered as the fire clung and crawled across scale and membrane, consuming material and immaterial alike.

The corruption Carnwedain had carved acted like kindling, feeding the flames and accelerating the spread. Ethereal echoes trailed behind the fire, bursting into sharp flashes of light that stripped away what remained, cascading endlessly through the inferno.

Olgolzkreh thrashed violently, his breath firing wildly and tearing massive gorges through stone as the last of his restraints tore free in a cascade of fractured light, shards dissolving into nothing as the winds finally lost their hold.

But the flames didn’t stop.

They had too much to burn now.

Desperate counterattacks formed—ice storms collapsing inward, gales compressing into violent surges—but none of it held. Each attempt was swallowed whole, devoured as soon as it touched the fire, vanishing as if it had never existed.

Scarlett simply watched.

Layer by layer, the flames burned themselves out, leaving behind a dragon that was barely solid anymore. His overall form remained, but vast portions of Olgolzkreh’s body had turned translucent, edges blurring and phasing in and out of existence. Only fragments of his head, chest, and one claw retained any real definition, molten eyes dimming and growing distorted.

As the last of the flames faded, the battlefield fell silent.

Then Fynn acted.

The wolf surged forward one last time, lightning and wind collapsing inward as he drove straight through what remained of Olgolzkreh. The impact didn’t explode or roar. In fact, it was hushed.

Olgolzkreh let out a final sound. Not a scream, but something closer to release.

Then he came apart.

Light scattered. Wind collapsed. The storm above unravelled and died.

Scarlett barely had time to register it before her legs gave out. She stumbled, the strength finally leaving her.

The world went dark.

The last thing she saw was the flicker of a system window as the ground approached.