Prince of The Abyss

’How did I even end up in this position?’ Aether sighed, barely getting out of the way of a beam of electricity heading right to him. He would have never thought he would have to fight something like this in his life.

Sure, he had fought something similar, with three heads, but a Dragon? It really did bring back to all those books he had read where the main character has to fight an evil dragon to save a loved one.

...

’Instead I’m the evil one... and it is trying to kill Sena and me so it can protect its people... how ironic.’ Turning back to the giant dragon, it was already flying towards him. He waited at the edge of the cliff for it to come.

This region was interesting; it had many floating islands, all connected by bridges. Everything was up in the sky... which only made things more difficult since if he got knocked off, he was probably dead.

As the Dragon got close enough, he jumped from the cliff as it came for him, just barely getting over its head as he turned while in the air to thrust Voidpiercer into its scales and get onto its back.

Its scales were tough, really tough, to the point Voidpiercer barely managed to get through. Its weak part was its belly, since it lacked scales there. But these scales weren’t just strong.

When his feet landed, they started moving, trapping him, and slowly grinding them against his leg, starting to cut through the skin. "I really don’t want to amputate my leg, you know?" He said, tilting his head, thinking of something.

The Dragon started spinning in the air, trying to make him lose concentration, and it was, in fact, working; he was really getting dizzy from all the dives. But at the same time, because of the time, he managed to throw Voidpiercer into one of the islands, helping it stay inside with Abyssal matter that climbed onto the chains connecting the blade and him, using all the strength in his body, redirecting the Dragon’s path right into it, making it slam its head right into the island.

If he hadn’t used the Abyssal Matter to help Voidpiercer, it would have just been pulled out.

The moment the contact happened, the scales let go, letting him free, so he jumped off, letting the chains from Voidpiercer catch him, before summoning his bow while falling, and shooting two Abyssal Arrows into its stomach.

Was it a risk? Definitely, after all, using two Abyssal Arrows was quite hard; it required a lot of essence, and he had also needed to use some to help Voidpiercer. He didn’t have that much left; if he continued wasting so much, he was going to have a real problem.

...

But there was one thing he had not accounted for: the fact that now he had nowhere to go. After the dragon regained itself, it turned towards him, preparing a ball of fire inside its mouth.

’Shit.’ Aether cursed. What could he do? If he let himself fall, he was going to die most likely, not to mention he wasn’t even a ground below him right now; looking down, he didn’t see anything. And if he retracted the chains to pull himself and dodge it, what then? He was still stuck.

... That is, unless he tried climbing back, but would he have the time... after all, with a Dragon on his tail, until he got Voidpiercer out, and the creature something from his Abyssal Matter to stick into the wall instead of it that way he could slowly climb up, he was probably going to be hit either way.

...

"Can we talk about this?" He said, putting on the hood of his mantle and turning his head away

In the next seconds, the beast launched the ball of pure fire onto him. Making him fly into a tree that was five islands away from the one the fight had started. Looking at himself, his mantle was heavily broken; it was going to be risky fighting with it... so he let it rest... he was going to have to fight without it.

’I should have expected this kind of fight from the last guardian; the last one wasn’t this hard!’ Not that the other two had been easy.

Aether watched, sighing as the Dragon flew right to him... but then he saw something that made him lose even more faith. The Dragon had lost the string Sena had connected to it; it was probably too far away.

Luck couldn’t save him this time.

He watched as death came for him, but this time, as the Dragon opened its mouth to bite him, he rushed in, its teeth only scraping some skin on his back... maybe more than he would have liked, but it was still better than what could have happened.

There was no point in fighting it from the outside; its scales were too hard, and its belly was almost never seen. Its mouth, however, was completely scaleless... and it was also pitch darkness inside.

Gripping Voidpiercer, Aether started to thrust at the top of its mouth; it started shaking its head to get him out, but binding himself to it with his chains, he managed to stay there, continuing to stab more and more. He felt every one of them, getting through all the layers before the scales.

This had been his plan; if he couldn’t get through them and get to the skin, he was just going to start from the skin itself.

But his chains weren’t going to last forever, breaking, but leaving a bit of Abyssal Matter inside, as the Dragon threw him out, biting down on his legs while in the air.

"Fuck!" Aether screamed in pain as the Dragon bit hard, breaking one of his legs, but before he could do even more damage... in pure desperation, Aether let his pin back inside his core, getting a bit of essence, and making the Abyssal matter inside its mouth shape into small spikes and pierce multiple spots inside his mouth, and making it let go of him.

But it hadn’t killed it...

Using Erosion, Aether passed through the Dragon, jumping in the air with his good leg and with his bare hands, latching onto its eye, dragging it out, before ripping its eye socket from the inside.

It tried shaking him off, but he held on until he saw Sena arrive holding a blade in her hand. Seeing the situation, she slid under the beast, barely avoiding being crushed by its feet, and cut its belly, creating a giant opening to its insides, which just fell to the floor, finishing it off.

Aether let go, letting himself slide off its body and fall onto the ground.

’That... was the last one...’