This was the same crushing force that had struck Lyra before, but now Nolan could not lift a finger. He was pinned by exhaustion and the dragon's mana-disrupting blaze; there was nothing left to summon, nothing to block the oncoming annihilation.
"Master—!" Lyra's cry cut through the roar. She was running with everything she had, ragged breaths tearing at her throat. She tried to shift into her behemoth form, to answer the dragon with divine power, but her reserves were spent. The transformation stalled; her shape wavered and frayed. Still in human guise, she surged forward, arms out, closing the last few paces between them.
Nolan looked up at her, pain and something like apology in his eyes.
The Divine Dragon King's maw glowed like a newborn sun, the Absolute Supremacy building into a colossal pillar of flame. His body had grown monstrously, towering like a mountain itself, wings blotting out the sky. Nolan and Lyra were nothing but specks before him.
