By the time Ras arrived in Gradage, the forests around the canyon were in chaos. A great battle was unfolding between a group of Chasseurs and endless hordes of fiends. The fiends seemed to be fleeing in a panic, with the Chasseurs trying to hold them off. Privateer units made up the bulk of the forces, which meant they most likely belonged to the mercenaries Princess Tishna had brought with her from the capital.
“What the hell is going on here?!”
Spotting a lone Chasseur surrounded by foes, Ras moved to assist. The mercenary unit was up against a horde of ferocious, midsize fiends called Wolflizards. Usually, these intelligent creatures attacked in packs, but right now they were too crazed to utilize proper teamwork. Ras didn’t even draw his sword—he flew toward one and sent it flying with a punch, before using auramancy to burn another to ash. That gave the privateer unit time to recover, after which they eliminated the fiend in front of them using their two-handed sword.
“You all right over there?!” Ras yelled across the radio comms.
“All good. Thanks for your help, stranger.”
The jockey’s voice was ragged with exhaustion. He seemed to realize Ras had just saved his life, and was too grateful to question his appearance or motives.
“You’re with the guild in Charlgia, right? What happened here?” Ras asked.
“It’s a stampede. A dragon showed up on the shores of Lake Voss. Sent all the fiends into a frenzy.”
“Did you say a dragon?!” cried Ras in astonishment. He’d been expecting to have to rescue Tishna from assassins, but this was one outcome he hadn’t predicted.
“Yeah. Princess Tishna ordered us to keep the fiends away from civilization.”
“So the princess did come here. Where is she now?”
“No idea. But she hasn’t come this way. She’s probably still in the fortress at Gradage Canyon. Maybe she’s planning on fighting the dragon herself.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense…”
Ras felt dizzy. The princess had just so happened to visit Gradage Canyon on the very day a dragon appeared. And she just so happened to bring a squad of mercenaries with her to fight off the rampaging fiends. There was such a thing as coincidence, but this was far beyond that. There was only one possible explanation—Princess Tishna had somehow known the dragon would appear.
But how? Even auramancy was incapable of predicting the future. There was no way Princess Tishna could acquire knowledge of events that hadn’t happened yet.
“A dragon? Fighting a dragon? Are we going to kill it?”
Ras heard the voice of the Vildhjärta—Koko’s voice—which snapped him back to reality. Whatever strange powers the princess possessed, they were of no importance now. There was a dragon, and that meant there was only one thing to do: slay it. Ras was a disciple of the Black Blade, and that compelled him to rise to this task, even if it got him mixed up in Princess Tishna’s enigmatic schemes.
“Yes, we are, Koko,” he said, a ferocious smile on his lips. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a dragon or a group of assassins, our job is to protect Fiarca’s wife.”
“Okay. We’re going to kill a dragon.”
Ras swore he felt the Vildhjärta’s core swell with joy. The jet-black Chasseur began spewing aurons like fire, and the next moment, the Chasseur started to transform.
Over at the fortress, Count Tegnail and the fort garrison were frantically swapping orders over the wireless, desperately trying to understand the situation. They had already sent out every available Chasseur, and any leftover aura knights and mages were busy manning the citadel’s defenses.
However, no matter how many of the lesser fiends they exterminated, the dragon remained a persistent threat.
“Princess, we’ve wiped out the bulk of the fiends,” reported Girrith, his expression grave, “but we won’t be able to withstand a direct attack from the aquatic dragon. We must take shelter in the fortress cellar at once.”
But the princess remained unsettlingly calm.
“Come now, Girrith,” she said with a smile. “There’s no need for that.” Her beautiful azure eyes, as clear and serene as a cloudless sky, remained fixed on a long-range observation aura device, through which she viewed the approaching dragon with as little concern as she would a mere play. “It looks like he’s finally arrived,” she said.
“He? Whom do you mean?”
Girrith furrowed his brow quizzically. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes shot wide. Standing directly in the path of the calamitous fiend was a jet-black figure. A beast of steel, clad in a crimson glow.
“A Managarmr?!” came the fearful voice of one of the citadel’s sentries. A Managarmr was a mythical creature spoken of in old Telosian legends. It was a jet-black wolf with flaming wings that crossed the heavens, devoured the moon, and stained the sun and sky in blood.
The machine that just landed in the Gradage Canyon looked exactly the same.
“What is that?!” barked Girrith, his voice hoarse. “Is that a Chasseur, or an omen of death?!”
It was clear to the eye that the coat of this “Managarmr” was made up of aurons, so the mysterious machine had to be a Chasseur. A Chasseur that flew on crimson wings.
In addition to possessing the airspeed of a Caladrius, the Chasseur took a bestial form, such that even on ground, it could move much faster than a normal unit. The mysterious Chasseur bolted toward the dragon at incredible speed.
However, the true surprise was yet to come. Before the astonished eyes of Girrith and the other fortress guards, the bestial Chasseur rose up on its hind legs and, with nary a sound, slipped smoothly into a different shape.
“The Managarmr! It walks like a man!” cried one of Girrith’s men. The count was shocked utterly speechless.
In truth, Chasseurs that could shapeshift were not completely unheard of. Charlgia was said to possess a unit by the name of Haüyne, which could alter parts of itself, and the Registani Centodieci could even transform into a wyvern. However, even the veteran Girrith had never seen one with such an unsettling appearance.
“Madness! Does it mean to confront the beast alone?” came another cry from the men. No matter how mighty a single Chasseur, it was no match for a dragon. That was more than common sense; it was a rule of nature. An aura barrage by a platoon of top-class auramancers would fall apart before it even reached a dragon’s scales, which were hard enough to deflect a Chasseur’s sword. In terms of both speed and power, a single Chasseur was outmatched.
And yet the jet-black Chasseur was winning in its fight against the raging dragon. It employed auramancy glamours to slow the beast’s movements, while adjusting its tactics on the fly. With pinpoint precision and bladework, it aimed for the few weak points all dragons shared: the unprotected eyes and ears, as well as the horns, which were responsible for generating its aura-repulsing field.
The overwhelming speed and strength of this jet-black Chasseur was almost enough to occlude the pilot’s raw skill, rendering his exceptional talent invisible to all but the most keen-eyed observers.
“Unbelievable! Who could possibly pilot a machine of that magnitude?”
Girrith shook uncontrollably. He couldn’t think of a single man or woman in all the kingdom with that level of ability.
Yet even that was no assurance of victory against the dragon. No matter how many times the two opponents clashed, the Chasseur was still far from dealing a lethal blow. Meanwhile, each attack by the dragon backed its mechanical foe farther and farther into a corner. While the pitch-black Chasseur seemed at first glance to be dominating the fight, in truth it walked a delicate tightrope, and one mistake would spell its doom.
“To think a single unit was capable of such things. But even so…”
Girrith felt powerless to prevent what was coming. No matter how great a Chasseur’s energy stores, they were not infinite. Sooner or later, the jet-black unit would run dry, though its performance would surely drop enough to allow a decisive strike long before that.
Girrith longed for an army, but another half dozen, or even just one unit of the same class as this jet-black enigma, would be enough to tip the scales.
Yet there was nothing. All he could do was sit back and twiddle his thumbs. It was humiliating.
“All is well, Girrith,” Princess Tishna whispered, in a voice so free of doubt it was like she could see the future.
Girrith turned to her in shock. “Well, you say?! The power of that fiend approaches that of a Greater Dragon!”
“That is to say it is weaker than a Greater Dragon, is it not? If so, then it poses little threat to our Prince Charming. Just watch.”
Tishna smiled as sweetly as a child. Upon the monitor her auramancy conjured, the jet-black Chasseur dodged another one of the aquatic dragon’s strikes before leaping into the sky. Though it was still far from death, the fiend had lost torrents of blood, and its movements were growing slow. The jet-black Chasseur raised its sword and aimed a swing at the dragon’s neck.
A dragon’s scales and its repellant force field were dense enough to deflect any weapon, but if that weapon were clad in a coating of aurons even denser…
“An Over Art?!”
The citadel’s garrison watched in astonishment as the jet-black Chasseur’s sword sliced through the dragon’s neck as easily as snapping a twig. Amid their horrified silence, Tishna muttered quietly to herself.
“The Black Arts. Splendidly done, Ras.”
Then the earth rumbled as the slain beast fell, and the citadel erupted into joyous cheers.