"Why are you even here?"
A dragon claw clamped around the crimson spear aimed at his heart. Antares stared straight into Scáthach's eyes, his expression grave. "You… Have you joined forces with the Shadow Monarch?"
"I get the feeling you've misunderstood something." Scáthach let out a light laugh. "That kid Jinwoo is my disciple now. If you're going to lay a hand on my disciple, then as his teacher, of course I have to step in and back him."
The spearhead in Antares' grip suddenly erupted with biting frost. Ice crystals condensed in the fog, forming crescent sword-auras—blue-glowing ice blades that tore through the air and slashed toward the King of Dragons.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Explosion after explosion rang out. Antares threw up both arms—scales flaring—yet he was still driven back, skidding a hundred meters as each ice blade detonated.
When he lifted his head again, an ice-blue crescent moon hung in the sky, glittering points of light frozen inside it as if an entire galaxy had been trapped there. The icy moon fell straight toward Antares, as though Scáthach had plucked the real moon from the night and turned it into a killing blow.
"Mere party tricks!"
Antares split his mouth wide, nearly to his ears. A pillar of deep red flame roared up, shattering the plunging ice moon in an instant and burning it to nothing.
Then his eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of Scáthach's silhouette. He struck without hesitation—his greatsword, wreathed in flame, swung in a full-force slash. Scorching pressure screamed outward; the ground hundreds of meters away began to melt and collapse, forming a bubbling pool of magma, the heat haze warping the air into wavering curtains.
But what his blow incinerated was only an afterimage.
By the time Antares realized, the real Scáthach was already behind him.
The King of Dragons spun and swept his claws. Razor wind grazed the tips of her hair—and in that sliver of an opening, the crimson spear drove precisely into the dragon scales at his waist. Blood as hot as lava seeped from the shallow cut.
"Is that all you can do—hop around like a bug?!"
The growing tally of wounds made Antares seethe. All he needed was one clean hit and he would win, yet his opponent kept slipping away like a slick eel, again and again.
Five streaks of spear-light shot out like roaming dragons tearing across the sun. They crossed the sea of fire, ripped through the curtain of flame, and came in from different angles—aiming for Antares' forehead, heart, abdomen, thigh, and shoulder.
Antares swung his greatsword with brutal force. The blade carved a blinding arc, shattering the incoming crimson spear-lights. Sword and spear collided with an ear-splitting clang of metal.
"I'll ask you instead," Scáthach called. "Why haven't you returned to your true form yet? You insist on fighting me in a human shape—do you think you can beat me on technique?"
Scáthach's eyes flashed. "Don't underestimate me!"
Her spear—wrapped in a savage scarlet aura—thrust again and again. The moves looked slow, but each carried hidden intent; layered shadows of spearwork blurred truth and feint until Antares struggled to keep up. At last, the final thrust slithered like a venomous snake around the greatsword's guard, carving a fresh wound into his supposedly unbreakable dragon scales.
The next moment, Scáthach was suddenly swatted away—like a cannonball—slamming into a distant peak slick with flowing magma.
But because she'd inscribed defensive Rune sigils in advance, the blow didn't do much damage. Even the surging magma pool couldn't approach her, held back at a one-meter boundary—no closer allowed.
What had sent her flying was Antares' wings.
Those vast wings that blotted out the sky only had to beat once to whip up a violent, scalding gale.
"Sometimes, being too large becomes a burden," Antares said, frowning faintly. "It makes my movements clumsy. That's why I intended to finish you in this form… but it seems I was too complacent."
His gaze hardened. "Your skill is honed through countless battles to the death. Fighting you in a human shape only makes it easier for you to suppress me. In that case…"
A low growl edged his words.
"I'll grant your wish—I'll use my full strength!"
Even as he spoke, Antares' frame swelled to over ten meters tall—and that was only the beginning.
Four twisted dragon horns burst from his brow. Crimson scales spread over his body at a visible pace. Teeth and claws lengthened under the flood of mana, turning into weapons meant to rend all things.
By the end, Antares had transformed into a massive crimson dragon on four legs, magma seemingly flowing beneath his scales. Those dragon eyes brimmed with a ferocity and madness that made the soul tremble.
He unleashed a thunderous roar. The shockwave lifted the surrounding magma pools, flinging scorching molten rock into the sky like a rainstorm.
"Come again! We'll see whether my Breath of Destruction destroys you first—or your spear pierces my chest first!"
Once the Boss entered phase two, the earlier "anti-humanoid bonus" stopped being useful. But it could be swapped for "anti-super-giant," because the red dragon in front of Scáthach was truly enormous. The ordinary giants Sung Jinwoo had subdued were about the same height as Antares' body when he lay low to the ground.
The dragon claw that crashed down didn't need to hit to be lethal—its wind pressure alone pulverized nearby stone peaks into dust. Scáthach tapped the ground with her toe, and her figure vanished from where she stood as if she'd blinked through space. The spot she'd been on became a crater a hundred meters wide.
Hundreds of meters away, Scáthach's form snapped from blur into focus—only for Antares' gaping maw to lunge in again, fetid wind howling with it. Instead of retreating, Scáthach advanced. She arched her slim waist back in a hair-raising dodge, dragon fangs scraping past her shoulder, and at the same time used her spear like a pen—ice-blue Rune sigils forming instantly in the air.
Before Antares could close his jaws, the runes had already flown into his mouth.
BANG!
BANG!
Ice blossoms detonated deep in Antares' throat, frost bursting out between his teeth.
"An attack like that… can't hurt me!"
Antares wrenched his head around. Molten-gold slit pupils locked onto Scáthach. He opened his fang-filled maw, and a blazing white pillar—packed with the will to destroy—erupted.
Compared to his humanoid form, this draconic breath was far thicker, far more overwhelming.
When it failed to hit, Antares didn't look surprised or discouraged. He twisted his head with terrifying agility, continuing to spew the ruinous fire column. The blazing white dragonfire moved like a primeval serpent with a will of its own, clinging to Scáthach's elusive silhouette as it writhed across the battlefield, turning everything it touched into a surging molten hell.
Just as the roaring dragonfire was about to catch her, Antares—focused solely on pursuit—failed to notice the massive iceberg forming overhead.
By the time the air-rending sound reached him and he looked up, it was already too late.
The giant iceberg—crafted by Rune magecraft—crashed down squarely onto his skull.
BOOOM!
The solid impact forced Antares to cut off his breath midstream. Shattered ice crystals exploded into the sky like scattered stars.
"You really are as tough as ever," Scáthach said lightly.
Her foot planted on Antares' neck. Every dragon scale beneath her boot was like red-hot iron, heat rolling up in waves through the gaps, so that it felt as though she were standing on a river of magma. A faint hiss rose from time to time under her sole.
"If Jinwoo had to face you, he'd probably spend ages just figuring out how to crack your defense… Of course, I don't need to overthink it like that."
Scáthach leaned forward and sprinted—like a shadow panther—skimming along the dragon's spine. In her hands, the crimson spears spun like twin wheels of wind; each swing neatly split the scales beneath her feet.
Antares' supposedly indestructible dragon scales fractured under her spear-edges. Lava-hot blood sprayed from the new wounds in pulsing bursts, the heat warping the air into shimmering distortion. Dragon-slaying power rampaged through Antares' body—cursed energy tailored to suppress dragons, gnawing relentlessly at his organs.
Then Antares' entire body flared with blinding fire.
He wrapped dragonfire directly around himself, forcing Scáthach to leap away and abandon her assault for the moment.
And right then—one by one—blazing suns rose in the sky.
Those "suns" were highly compressed flames of destruction. The instant Scáthach pulled away from Antares, they locked onto her position. With piercing shrieks, they fell like meteors, and the moment they struck, they burst into a light-and-heat storm that devoured everything, turning the entire area into a white-hot purgatory.
Scáthach had already started moving the moment they fell, but she was still caught by the shockwaves. As she ran, she drew flowing Rune sigils in midair with her spear; gleaming ice walls surged up from the ground in succession—only to be vaporized and erased under the rolling heat.
Ice and fire crashed violently across the battlefield, but these hastily conjured walls clearly couldn't withstand dragonfire that could burn even stars to nothing. After who knew how many ice walls were melted away, Scáthach finally shook off the sweeping flame tide—far behind her—still without a scratch.
"I am the end of all things—the destruction that will inevitably come!" Antares roared arrogantly. "Your attacks are nothing but an itch to me! To kill you, I need only a single blow. From the beginning, you never had any chance of winning!"
"Isn't that…" Scáthach smiled, utterly relaxed. "…even better?"
"If I can leap over the failure that's 'destined' for me, wouldn't that be wonderfully, wonderfully interesting? Just imagining it makes my blood boil!"
She stamped her heel lightly.
Ice mountains erupted from the ground in an instant.
They slammed into Antares' dragon body and, at the same time, anchored his flesh in place.
The giant dragon shattered the ice mountains with brute force. His dragon eyes—violent and raging—fixed on Scáthach.
"Are you trying to stall until the Shadow Monarch arrives? Impossible! That human can never become the next Shadow Monarch, Ashborn. The Monarch of Frost and the others will kill him! And you will die by my hand as well!"
The response to Antares' roar was a crimson spear streaking toward him like a meteor.
"That kid doesn't need to become anyone," Scáthach said, her voice ringing like steel. "Both Ashborn and I place great hope in him. As long as he hasn't forgotten why he moves forward, death will never be his end."
Stepping on glittering ice shards, Scáthach charged straight at Antares. "And… I don't need Jinwoo's help to kill you."
"If their battle ends and I still haven't finished you off, then as a teacher, I'll lose face. So kindly lie down for me!"
She thrust an arm up.
Behind her, in the void, hundreds—thousands—of crimson spears appeared, each wrapped in ominous scarlet flames.
"O RUNES! WISDOM OF THE GREAT GOD—SEND YOUR POWER HERE!"
With her chant, flowing Rune sigils lit up across every spear shaft. The cold edge flaring from each spearhead sharpened as if reinforced, and the dragon-slaying power within them stung Antares' eyes even from this distance.
"PIERCE MY ENEMY!"
The instant her words fell, it was like pulling a trigger.
The spears launched.
A storm of red meteors tore open the sky, plummeting toward Antares.
Antares' neck swelled slightly; between the gaps of his scales, a terrifying light seeped through. He converted that surging mana into an extreme torrent of light and heat, and exhaled a world-splitting breath of destruction.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Where the blazing white pillar passed, the red meteor storm melted away like snow thrown into a furnace—leaving not even ash. Even bone spears forged from the Red Sea sea-demon's bones were still too fragile before that fire.
But many crimson meteors still punched through the curtain of flame—like vengeful arrows that refused to break—and slammed into the dragon's body.
With an unbroken chain of thunderous booms, every spear that hit detonated into a dazzling halo, as if tiny suns were igniting across the dragon's scales.
"ROOOAR—!!"
Antares' howl was laced with rage, agony, and unwillingness. Blood-red pupils burned with endless fury.
Dragon-slaying power surged in through every wound, gnawing at his organs, bringing pain beyond imagining.
And then—
One crimson meteor shone brighter than the rest. It ripped through the remaining fire curtain, a spiral scarlet vortex coiling around its shaft. The shriek it made as it broke the sound barrier was deafening.
It seized the exact instant Antares' rage peaked—
And shot in like a bolt of light, unstoppable.
It punched clean through Antares' neck.
At the same time, Scáthach appeared on the dragon's neck as well—so sudden it was almost absurd—right beside the puncture wound.
And in her hands were two longswords.
"Time to open you up for surgery! So… behold…"
"[STARBURST STREAM]!"
The twin blades exploded into countless interwoven streaks of light. Cold gleam linked into a pallid curtain as the edges tore the air, and unbroken slashes rained down, sparks bursting brilliantly from dragon scales.
Before the first arc of the sword-light had even faded, the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth had already piled on—pouring down like a storm.
Of course, it wasn't just any "Starburst Stream."
It was just frantic sword-swinging—focused on one thing: speed, and doing as much damage as possible in the shortest time.
But if she shouted something like "random bullshit hacking," she worried it would sound too cheap. In the heat of the moment, she blurted out "Starburst Stream" instead—probably because the move had left too strong an impression.
And it was also because of that anime that, to this day, she still believed the coolest outfit in the world had to be a black trenchcoat.