Rory pressed her lips into a smile, then said softly to Eriri, "In that case, let's see who can reach the Flame Dragon first!"
Without waiting for Eriri's agreement, she took off running in the direction of the Flame Dragon.
Rory's speed was incredible, covering dozens of meters in the blink of an eye.
In less than a minute, she had already crossed over a thousand meters and arrived at the battlefield where the Flame Dragon was rampaging.
At the moment, three military jeeps were facing off against the Flame Dragon. Several soldiers in green uniforms were firing nonstop at the creature.
However, because of the Flame Dragon's extremely tough scales, the bullets only sparked on contact and failed to deal any damage.
Elsewhere, several overturned wagons lay on the roadside, with some burning intensely. Panicked villagers in plain clothing were fleeing in all directions.
Among them, one wagon was racing along the rough mountain road as if it bore no weight at all.
Driving the wagon was a short-haired blue-haired girl, and beside her sat an elderly man with white hair and beard, gripping the reins to help stabilize the cart.
After surveying the scene, Rory pulled her gaze back.
She was just about to glance behind to see how far Eriri was when—to her surprise—she saw Eriri standing calmly at her side, as if she hadn't run at all.
Rory blinked. Then, with a curious expression, she asked, "Eriri, when did you get here?"
"Same time as you. Didn't you notice?" Eriri replied with a soft smile.
She had indeed arrived at the same time as Rory. However, instead of running or flying, Eriri had simply used teleportation to appear at Rory's side the moment she arrived.
In terms of timing, their arrival was perfectly synchronized.
"Hmm... alright then, I guess it's a draw," Rory said with a touch of resignation.
But deep down, she knew she had lost. Though the result was technically a tie, she had exerted herself fully, while Eriri remained completely at ease.
The difference in their abilities was obvious.
Still, Rory didn't dwell on it. There were more pressing matters at hand.
She turned her gaze away from Eriri and calmly looked at the Flame Dragon, which was about a few dozen meters away.
At that moment, the Flame Dragon had its mouth closed, but through the gaps in its teeth, one could see a massive amount of fiery energy building up. It was preparing to unleash a stream of flames at the three jeeps in front of it.
Seeing this, Rory didn't hesitate. She immediately raised her massive axe-spear and hurled it at the dragon.
The weapon, which weighed several hundred pounds, tore through the air with a sonic boom from Rory's immense strength. In an instant, it appeared above the Flame Dragon and came crashing down.
The powerful shockwave shattered the ground around the dragon, sending debris flying.
Although the Flame Dragon was only staggered and took minimal damage, the impact was enough to interrupt its charge attack.
"Eriri, I'll go first!"
Rory smiled and called out to Eriri, then dashed toward the Flame Dragon at full speed.
At the same time, the color of her lips shifted from red to purple—a sign that she had entered her combat state.
This sudden transformation immediately drew the attention of the soldiers who were relentlessly firing at the Flame Dragon, as well as the blue-haired girl and elderly man racing away in the wagon.
As for the fleeing villagers, they had no time to notice anything around them. All their energy was focused on surviving this deadly situation.
...
In the lead military jeep, a man who looked to be in his early thirties stared in shock at the churning earth ahead.
Just then, his shoulder radio crackled to life with a teammate's voice.
"Captain Itami, the Flame Dragon was attacked by an unknown force."
"Yeah, I saw it too!" replied the man, Youji Itami, his tone filled with disbelief.
Though they had already witnessed how terrifying the Flame Dragon was, such power made sense for a legendary creature. But the recent attack clearly hadn't come from another dragon-like being.
If that strike had been made by a human, then it meant the hidden powers in this world were beyond anything they had expected.
He quickly composed himself and shouted into the radio, "This is good for us! Take the chance and open fire with everything we've got! Don't stop!"
With that, he gripped his rifle and resumed firing at the Flame Dragon.
But just a few seconds later, he spotted a girl in a red-and-black gothic lolita outfit entering their line of fire.
His face changed drastically. To prevent her from getting caught in the crossfire, Itami immediately shouted into the radio again, "Cease fire! There's a human girl in the area! Stop shooting!"
At his command, all gunfire abruptly halted, and the soldiers on all three jeeps stared intently ahead with serious expressions.
What they saw next made them question everything they thought they knew.
...
Rory had sprinted to the Flame Dragon in an instant. She reached out and pulled her axe-spear from the ground without pause.
With no hesitation, she leapt high into the air and launched an attack on the airborne dragon.
The Flame Dragon was powerful, but Rory, as a demi-god, wasn't weak either. The two clashed evenly in combat.
However, since Rory lacked the ability to fly, she could only land blows when the Flame Dragon flew low. If it increased its altitude by just ten meters or so, she would be out of reach.
At that point, her only option was to use her weapon as a projectile, but those ranged attacks lacked both accuracy and power.
If the Flame Dragon was on guard, such attacks were nearly useless.
And sure enough, the Flame Dragon quickly realized her weakness. It stopped engaging her head-on and raised its flight altitude, once again charging a massive blast of flames in its mouth.
"Ugh! Why'd you fly so high!? I can't reach you anymore!"
Despite the incoming fire breath, Rory didn't panic at all.
She was immortal. Even if she stood there and took the full blast, she wouldn't die and would recover completely in a short time.
Watching Rory battle the Flame Dragon from the ground, Eriri immediately realized it was time for her to step in.
With a flicker of motion, Eriri suddenly appeared beneath the Flame Dragon and gently caught Rory, who was falling.
The two of them came to a stop midair, suspended in the sky.
"Eriri, you finally made your move," Rory said cheerfully as she felt the small hand around her waist. She quickly steadied herself and smiled brightly at Eriri.
"I didn't expect you could fly. That's incredible! Are you not just a god's apostle, but an actual goddess?"
Her eyes were filled with curiosity. Although she had suspected earlier—when Eriri descended from the sky—that Eriri might be able to fly, she had also considered the possibility that it was just an extremely high leap, something Rory herself could manage.
But now, they were clearly floating midair, without wings or external support. In Rory's understanding, only gods could achieve such a feat.
"Ara, did I ever say I was an apostle?" Eriri replied with a bright smile, ignoring the Flame Dragon that was still gathering fire above them.
Rory was momentarily stunned. Eriri was right—her assumption about Eriri being an apostle had been just that: an assumption.
Which meant...
Just as Rory was about to question Eriri further about her identity, she was interrupted by Eriri's voice again.
"Of course, I'm not the kind of goddess you're imagining either."
At that moment, the Flame Dragon's fire breath reached completion.
It opened its massive jaws, and a torrent of blazing flame surged from its mouth, aiming directly at Eriri and Rory.
But just as the inferno closed in, Eriri casually raised her empty right hand without even looking back, palm facing the incoming flames.
Her hand slightly clenched, and in an instant, all the fire spewed by the Flame Dragon was drawn in, compressed tightly until it formed a blazing orb of fire less than a meter in diameter above her palm.
But it didn't stop there.
Under Eriri's control, the fireball's temperature soared.
Within seconds, the air around it began to distort and evaporate from the heat.
"Eriri, what is that..." Rory asked in astonishment.
Though she couldn't feel the heat thanks to Eriri's protection, her instincts screamed that the fireball was dangerous—dangerous enough to threaten her immortality.
Though Rory possessed a form of undying body and could recover from almost any injury—even being reduced to mincemeat—there was a limit.
If every cell of her body was vaporized, not even she would survive.
Of course, even in that case, it wouldn't be true death. After all, once she reached 1,000 years old, she would shed her mortal form and ascend to become a true goddess. In other words, her soul was the core of her being.
As long as her soul remained, she couldn't be considered truly dead—just stripped of her chance to ascend.
"Oh, it's nothing," Eriri replied with a grin. "I just refined the Flame Dragon's breath a little."
She lightly tossed the crackling fireball in her hand. "Now it's time to return this refined flame to its owner. Let's hope it appreciates the gift."
Rory wasn't surprised by Eriri's words. From the moment the fireball in Eriri's hand began radiating increasing danger, she had already guessed it was meant for the Flame Dragon.
So she responded with a bright smile, "Ara, what a lovely gift. I'm sure the Flame Dragon will be absolutely overjoyed."
The mischievous smiles on Eriri and Rory's faces made the Flame Dragon extremely uneasy.
Unlike Rory, it didn't have Eriri shielding it from the fireball's intense heat. Even from several dozen meters away, it could feel the scorching wave of heat rolling off the condensed flame.
And that residual heat alone far exceeded the heat its own body could generate.
The Flame Dragon couldn't even imagine what would happen if it actually got hit by the fireball.
Though it had always trusted in the toughness of its scales, even it didn't dare to gamble its life against that blazing sphere.
Abandoning its assault, it immediately turned and fled into the distance.
But Eriri had no intention of letting it escape.
She placed her right thumb against her bent middle finger and gave the fireball a gentle flick.
In an instant, the fireball streaked across nearly a hundred meters and struck the retreating Flame Dragon directly.
The moment it made contact, the destructive force sealed within erupted, completely engulfing the dragon's massive body.
Within a single breath, the Flame Dragon was melted and vaporized by the overwhelming fire—erased without a trace.
A fire dragon, slain by fire.
With the Flame Dragon gone, the residual flames it had left behind served no further purpose. Leaving them burning would only cause unimaginable disaster for the world.
So Eriri casually snapped her fingers.
At once, the unleashed fire dissipated into a wisp of blue smoke, vanishing completely.
Because Eriri had intentionally controlled the fire's impact to avoid harming the people below, they didn't feel much of the heat. But they had clearly witnessed what happened to the Flame Dragon.
A creature of legend, defeated in an instant—reduced to ashes without even a corpse remaining.
A wave of fear swept through the onlookers as they stared in awe at Eriri, mixed with the intense relief and gratitude of having narrowly escaped death.
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