The sky bled red.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically.
It bled.
Crimson fissures split across the heavens like open wounds, light leaking through them as if the world itself had been torn apart. The clouds twisted into violent spirals, and the air trembled with pressure so dense it crushed the lungs of anyone who dared breathe too deeply.
As the Will of Ahriman descended.
A single pillar of light, dark and malevolent shooting stars shot toward the earth with the speed of light.
Jay did not think, he moved on instinct.
He turned.
"Lavinia!"
As he looked back at Lavinia, his dark hazel eyes reflected the impending annihilation. He threw his hand outward, scratching at the very fabric of the air, and a giant dome of black flame erupted.
It was a shield of absolute negation, forced into existence just as the golden barriers maintained by Michael and Gabriel began to shatter like glass under the weight of the dragon's impending attack.
And then-
CLINK
A blinding flash of life-force erupted.
The entire world shook. It was not a mere tremor of the earth, but a vibration of reality itself.
BOOOOOOOM
A deafening detonation tore through the sky and shake the earth.
The noise that followed was deafening, a roar that transcended sound and became a physical force. A burst of laser-like energy dropped from the heavens, a concentrated lance of absolute destruction that struck the heart of the Carpathian Mountains.
In a single instant, the ancient peaks of the Carpathian mountains in the Transylvania regions were erased, evaporated by sheer heat and the force of the shockwave alone.
Stone turned to vapor, and vapor turned to nothingness. The majestic range that had defined the horizon of Romania for millennia was annihilated, leaving behind a wound in the earth that glowed with the sick radiance of a cooling sun.
As the world turned into a literal hell of heat and pressure, the survivors looked up at the only thing standing between them and erasure. The black dome Jay had created groaned, its surface rippling like a disturbed pond as it absorbed the impossible energy of the dragon's doom.
But even this shield had its limits. Beyond the immediate protection of the black flame, some of the unfortunate Church exorcists and Carmilla vampires were instantly evaporated, their bodies reduced to ash before they could even scream.
When the attack finally dissipated, the landscape was unrecognizable.
A desolate, scorched wasteland stretched for miles as a crater so vast it looked like a giant lake bed that had been dried out by god itself.
The Carpathian Mountains were gone.
In their place was a hollowed earth, and above it, a hole in the sky that pierced every layer of the atmosphere, revealing the cold, indifferent stars beyond.
"Is this the power of an Evil Dragon?" Michael whispered, his mind shaking.
The Leader of Heaven looked at the devastation with a hollow expression. He realized in that moment that the masquerade was over.
The destruction was so total, so geographically massive, that no amount of memory manipulation or holy miracles could cover it. The human world would realize that something beyond their understanding had reshaped the face of Romania, and Europe as a whole.
Azi Dahaka hovered in the center of that sky. His body had become smaller, his massive bulk condensed into a lean, compact form of pure malice. His aura, however, flared even bigger than before, pulsing with a crimson light that felt like a heartbeat.
"Leave this to me, Lavi," Jay rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper on stone.
"No!" Lavinia rejected him instantly, her eyes burning with a sapphire light. "I told you I would be your wings, Illya-kun. I am not leaving you to face this alone. Even with the cost of my life."
Before Jay could argue, a burst of blizzard energy erupted from her form.
Lavinia activated her Balance Breaker, Assoluto Argento Mondo, for the second time in a single day.
The strain was immense, but she pushed her mana past its breaking point.
A torrent of frost shot toward Azi Dahaka, freezing the very air around him in an attempt to lock him in a tomb of absolute zero.
The dragon was encased in a block of ice the size of a cathedral, but a flare of crimson energy erupted like a volcanic blast, shattering the prison into a million shards.
However, the opening was all Jay needed. He was already on top of the beast.
"Cleave!"
SHIING SHIING
Two consecutive slashes of black flame tore through the air.
They bypassed the dragon's scales and severed his wings at the base, burning the stumps instantly. But Azi Dahaka no longer cared about preserving his lifespan.
"RARGHHHHH"
With a deafening roar, he forced his wings to regrow using every healing magic in his arsenal, forbidden or not, and in an instant, his aura flared.
Thousands of crimson, laser-like projectiles fired toward Jay at near light speed.
Jay flicked his left wrist, unleashing a black burst that swallowed the projectiles, but the dragon was already gone.
Devoid of his initial taunts and mockery, Azi Dahaka appeared behind Jay. His middle head opened its maw, revealing a condensed, beaming sphere of dark crimson energy.
Then it exploded.
BOOM
But Jay was too slow. He had not even finished turning his body.
The attack moved at the speed of light, a piercing ray that vaporized his left hand and shoulder, shooting past him and tearing through the horizon itself.
"Tsk…"
Despite the agonizing burning pain, Jay did not flinch.
He bit down on his lip as the Blazing Black Grail flared.
Obsidian fire danced along its rim, black flames licking across the wound. With a violent flash of darkness, his hand regenerated, bones, muscles, and nerves knitting back together in a grotesque display of supernatural regeneration, as if reality itself were being forcibly rewritten by the black chalice.
Before Azi Dahaka could reposition, Lavinia's mana flared again.
"Absolute Silver!"
She focused every ounce of her remaining strength to flash-freeze the dragon's core. The draconic body stiffened as the blizzard took hold.
Seeing the opening, Jay raised his sword to the sky. His eyes turned a pitch-black, and he gritted his teeth, enduring a pain in his heart so sharp he felt it might shatter.
"Turn to dust...," Jay whispered.
He swung the sword. The motion was not as fast as it should have been, for his muscles were tearing under the strain of this battle, but it was enough.
As the world went silent for a fraction of second, he whispered-
"World Slasher!"'
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
It was as if the white ice of Lavinia's blizzard had been split in two by a razor-thin black line.Azi Dahaka's body was severed perfectly down the middle.
From that line, an instantaneous surge of black flame erupted, racing across his form.
FWOOM
The upper half of the dragon ignited first as the black fire devouring his head, back, and wings in mere seconds, reducing the malevolent dragon to drifting ash that scattered into the frozen storm.
Jay saw the dragon split and burned by the all-burning black flame felt a wave of relief wash over him.
'It's finally over...'
His power had been drained to the dregs, his body screaming in a language of agony he had never known. He had pushed his soul to the brink, and he knew that attempting another healing cycle with the Grail in his condition right now would cost him everything, his very self.
'I might need… help from the Seraphs.' He thought, thinking about Gabriel healing ability.
As he began to fall slowly from the sky, Habakiri still clutched in his right hand and the Grail hovering faithfully around him, he closed his eyes.
He trusted that Lavinia would catch him.
But then, the world exploded with energy once more.
Jay widened his eyes, but he was too late. From the falling remains of the dragon's lower half, two heads erupted with impossible speed. They clamped down on his body with a cruel, crushing force.
"ARGH!" Jay screamed as the teeth sank into his torso, shoulder, and both of his hand.
'How!?' he thought frantically.
SPLURRTTT
Blood erupted from his wounds, painting the dragon's snout. Azi Dahaka's middle head, which was not currently biting him, let out a groaning sound of pure, concentrated pain.
"As long as I still have my souls, I can regenerate no matter how severe the injury is!" the dragon rasped.
The beast looked at Jay with a newfound respect in its six eyes.
"This has been the greatest fight anyone has ever given me. You should be proud of yourself, boy. Truly. But this shall be the end of it."
And then-
"Illya-kun!!" Lavinia screamed.
She launched herself forward, trailing a blizzard of frost, but Azi Dahaka shot a dark crimson flash toward her.
Even in the throes of death, the dragon's power remained absolute. Acting on pure instinct, Jay summoned the last of his strength to flare the black flame, erasing the attack before it could reach Lavinia.
The sudden burst of energy created just enough distraction for Lavinia to arrive. She slammed her hands into the air, and a wave of frost shot forth, freezing the dragon's whole body in place.
Ignoring the searing pain as his flesh was torn while he moved, Jay forced his hands free from the dragon's jaws. He pressed his palms directly onto both of the beast's heads that had bitten him, refusing to let go even as the creature thrashed against him.
"Then I will burn every single one of your souls until nothing remains," Jay said.
The middle head of the dragon widened its eyes.
A flaring black flame erupted from Jay's palms, and his eyes sharpened into two points of void. Both his body and the dragon's body were suddenly enveloped in a burning pillar of black flame.
"RARGHHHHH!!!"
Azi Dahaka screamed in an agony that transcended the physical, for the fire was now eating through the very layers of his soul.
But after a few seconds, as if realizing that the black flame would consume every inch of his soul this time, Azi Dahaka suddenly loosened his grip on Jay's body. His frozen limbs followed suit, relaxing as though surrendering to the inevitable.
In that fleeting moment, as they both burned against the backdrop of the sky, time seemed to stretch and bend. The roar of battle faded, replaced by a quiet, intimate space that belonged only to them.
"You... HAHAHA,"
Azi Dahaka laughed, a wet and rattling sound.
"You crazy bastard. You know you'll die after this, right? Burning away every inch of your life force for this attack..."
"Fuck you," Jay said, his voice cold and resolute.
"HAHAHA! I like you!" Azi Dahaka laugh again.
"Let us meet again after you die. Let us fight in the afterlife!" the dragon roared, his form beginning to wither and turn to ash.
Azi Dahaka's body withered into nothingness, consumed completely by the black flame.
Jay let out a final, gut-wrenching scream as the attack tore through him. His hands, shoulders, and parts of his torso were badly shredded from the dragon's final, desperate thrashes.
Pain lanced through every fiber of his body, yet he clung to consciousness, refusing to collapse.
The only thing remaining of Azi Dahaka was a pulsing, dark crimson heart-shaped thing.
It hovered in the sky where the dragon had once been, radiating a thick potent energy.
But Jay had no energy or life force left to consume the remnants.
Jay felt his consciousness slipping.
He was dying.
He knew that if he did not heal his wounds and the severed parts of his hands, he would be dead before he hit the ground. The only way to survive was to use the information the Grail had whispered to him earlier.
He had to use Azi Dahaka's flesh and the remnants of its soul to heal himself.
The hovering Black Grail moved in front of him.
With a flicker of black flame and a surge of crimson light, the Grail pulled the Dragonheart into itself.
Suddenly, Jay's body was encased in a cocoon of light. Both of his hands began to knit back together, stitched by crimson threads of energy that originated from the heart of the dragon.
It was a reconstruction of the self using the Holy Grail, but instead of drawing on his own soul, he used the remnants of Azi Dahaka's soul and flesh.
As the process completed, the last thing Jay saw was the blazing Black Grail. It glowed with an intense, searing heat before slowly melting into his chest, merging once again with his very soul.
Feeling Lavinia's soft hand catch his body, he let out a trembling breath and closed his eyes as the world faded to black.