In the exposed heights of the altar chamber of the Saintess’s Spire, a mere healer stood before the king of fell dragons as the wind roared around them.
“A shadow healer?” Galhamut echoed. “What is that? And where did you come from?”
“R-Right!” Artemisia stammered, still looking bewildered. “H-How...”
Zenos, meanwhile, remained expressionless as he glanced between the dragon and the saintess.
“Your room and board,” he said flatly.
“Huh?”
“Arty. I told you I expected payment for my troubles, didn’t I? And you said you’d compensate me for hiding you, yes?”
“Um, yes...”
“I took a risk when sheltering you, and instead of getting paid, I got arrested by the Royal Guard, thrown into an underground mine, and forced into labor!!!”
“H-Huh...?”
“You think I’m just gonna let this go before I get paid?!”
Artemisia stood there in silence, dumbfounded for a few moments, before her expression slowly changed to one of remorse.
“I-I’m sorry... I thought I’d arranged for your reward. I didn’t know about any of that. I swear, I’ll give you anything you ask this time!”
“You swear?”
“Yes! I promise! So please...”
She had thought she was doomed, and even tried to make fond memories so she could be at peace with it. But now she had felt the warmth of others, she desperately craved more of it. She didn’t want to die anymore.
Biting her lip and clenching her fists as she fought back tears, Artemisia shouted to the skies over the capital, “So please help me!”
“Gonna be more expensive this time,” Zenos said, unable to help a small smile as he stepped between Artemisia and Galhamut.
“Nonsense,” the dragon spat. “What can one gnat do?”
Galhamut’s tail lashed sideways like a whip, aiming to throw Zenos off the tower. But instead of colliding with the shadow healer, the tip of the fell dragon king’s tail spun away, spiraling toward the ground.
“What...?” the dragon muttered, noticing his partially severed tail.
Zenos, standing there with his magically enlarged Scalpel in hand, said, “Careful there. Even a single parasite can be deadly to its host.”
“Pathetic weakling!”
Galhamut flapped his wings and rose into the air. Circling directly above Zenos, he began to shoot out his fangs in rapid succession, like bolts from an automated ballista. Zenos used enhancement magic on himself and rolled across the altar to dodge the barrage, then looked over his shoulder.
“Arty! Hide downstairs!”
“B-But—”
“Hurry! If this thing eats you, it’s over!”
“O-Okay!”
Arty rushed away from the altar and toward the exposed staircase leading down the tower.
If Galhamut managed to devour her and regain his full power, it was likely going to be impossible to stop him.
“Pest! Die already!” the dragon roared.
Jets of liquid shot from the holes of his hollowed-out fangs. As soon as they hit the altar, it began to sizzle and bubble as the liquid ate through the stone floor. The deadly acid continued to rain down, and Zenos barely managed to avoid it thanks to his enhancement magic.
“Diagnosis,” he chanted, raising his right hand.
Multiple lines of light streamed toward the airborne Galhamut and locked onto the left side of his chest.
“Raaah!” Zenos bellowed, hurling his Scalpel toward the dragon’s heart.
“Ngh!”
The pure-white blade tore through the air and drove straight into Galhamut’s chest. The sounds of cheering came from far below the tower, but Zenos furrowed his brow. Something felt...off.
Galhamut opened his jaws wide and chanted, “Impulse.”
A blast of compressed air struck Zenos like a cannonball, sending a heavy shock coursing through his body.
“Guh!” he groaned, coughing up blood and dropping to his knees.
He’d let down his guard for barely a moment after piercing Galhamut’s heart, but the delay in casting a protective spell had cost him.
“Excellent,” Galhamut said. “The demon lord’s curse is nearly broken.”
The dragon beat his powerful wings and descended once more upon the altar. There was no sign of a wound on his chest, and even the severed tip of his tail had already regenerated.
“I see. So you can manipulate time,” Zenos muttered.
This had to be the divine power Carmilla had spoken of. While Galhamut had granted some of it to the saintesses, now that his curse had begun to lift thanks to their blessings, it seemed he could access his old abilities once more. By reversing time on a localized scale, he had erased the wound on his chest. Though he’d only just awakened and had yet to devour Arty, meaning he was likely still not at full strength, that power would still be difficult to deal with.
Galhamut opened his jaws again as Zenos pushed himself up from the floor. “Begone already.”
An odd sensation hit the healer then. Even though his enhancement magic was active, his body felt incredibly sluggish, as though time around him was flowing more slowly.
By the time Zenos realized Galhamut was using time-manipulation powers directly on him, it was already too late.
“Impulse.”
“A-Agh! Ngh...”
The powerful shock wave had rippled through his body, damaging every single one of his organs. Zenos collapsed face down, blood gushing from his lips. The sun, slowly disappearing behind the mountains, mercilessly cast its fading light upon his collapsed form.
Galhamut roared with laughter as he looked down at his motionless prey, his monstrous voice rising with the black smoke into the skies over the capital.
The nuisance was gone. Now, all that remained was the saintess. Looking for her, Galhamut began to stomp on the stone floor underfoot.
But just then, a voice could be heard. “Scalpel.”
The man Galhamut had thought dead had somehow risen, and now four magical blades were floating in midair. Before the fell dragon king could activate his time manipulation once again, the blades flew straight into his core.
“Grah!”
Galhamut coughed up dark-red fluid as he quickly pulled away from Zenos.
“How...are you...alive?” he asked.
“Because you didn’t kill me,” Zenos replied nonchalantly. He wiped the blood from his mouth and grinned fearlessly.
The shock wave had hit him with intense force earlier, partly due to the slowdown of time around him. But there was another reason he’d delayed casting a defensive spell: Zenos had wanted to lure Galhamut into a false sense of security.
“I knew something was off,” the healer said.
Even if one could manipulate time and rewind it, such an unnatural ability had to require a great deal of focus. Normally, piercing a creature’s heart should deal damage severe enough to prevent such powers from being used at all—yet Galhamut had remained perfectly calm.
That meant either the attack hadn’t pierced the dragon’s heart, or he had more than one.
When casting Diagnosis earlier, Zenos had focused only on the left side of Galhamut’s chest, assuming that was where the heart would be, as with any ordinary beast. But upon closer inspection, he’d realized the dragon had four organs that all served as separate hearts. Even if one or two were damaged, Galhamut could endure and rewind time in the injured areas to make the wounds vanish.
“So I figured there was only one way to take you down,” Zenos explained.
That is, destroy all the hearts simultaneously.
Zenos had baited his enemy into lowering his guard, only to immediately strike all four of his hearts with surgical precision. Surely even Galhamut couldn’t recover from that, he’d thought.
But then suddenly, he felt his movements slow as though he were wading through mud.
“Wait, what?”
Galhamut’s eyes were narrowed with amusement, gleaming smugly. The four wounds Zenos had inflicted were no more, and the dragon’s time manipulation was still in effect.
“Why... How...?” the healer stammered, the words coming out fragmented.
Diagnosis hadn’t revealed any other heart-like organs. Zenos was absolutely certain he’d struck all four. Galhamut should not have been able to use his powers anymore.
But the truth was simple: Zenos had been outsmarted.
“Perish,” the dragon rumbled.
Before Zenos’s eyes, Galhamut opened his jaws wide. From deep within the dragon’s throat, searing black flames surged forth with terrifying force.
“Dragon’s Breath.”
The abyssal flames filled Zenos’s vision, painting the world in absolute darkness.