Night fell over the land. Icarus had been travelling all day long, and although not completely exhausted, was ready to sleep.

  Yesterday, he had left the amnesiac and wished him well, although he doubted he would survive in that state.

  It was abnormally dark; Icarus could see well in the darkness, but there was no moon, and clouds hid the stars from view, casting great shadows over the land.

  Icarus was prepared for this; however, as he had his firewood stored in his bag, he pulled it out and threw it onto the ground in front of him.

  He ignited a ball of mana in his hand, but his instincts were triggered by something he had seen, and he instantly formed a shield of mana in front of his face.

  A bolt made of what appeared to be the night itself slammed into the shield and exploded into sharp fragments of shadows.

  Illuminated in the light of the fire, a fair distance away on top of a large slope stood a figure, clad in armor as black as the night itself, holding a spear of the same material.

  Only one person he knew of fit this description; he was trying to find out more about her, but it seemed she had come to him.

  "Shadow witch!.."

  Without bothering to converse, he held his arm out to the baby dragon, which had just awoken, climbed on, channeled a compressed ball of cold energy, and the dragon compressed a golden ball of fire.

  The attack ruptured forth, illuminating the night, a torrent of colliding energies that raced toward the witch.

  The witch simply raised her spear, and the night itself burst the attack apart before it could reach her.

  The attack was still strong enough to light huge chunks of the surrounding forest on fire, however, and the darkness she surrounded herself with seemed to fade a little bit.

  Icarus fired three more compressed spheres of fire at the witch, none of which hit before he decided to switch his strategy.

  'We can't beat her at this time of night, we have to stall until morning.'

  This seemed impossible, however, as he could not just fight the witch until morning, but perhaps if he lit the entire area on fire, it would weaken her.

  As he had this thought, massive hands of shadow simply smothered the fires that had been raging wildly.

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  He shuddered and raised his staff to the sky.

  A silent plea was all he could think of at the moment.

  'I need you to not run out until morning mana...'

  Wind magic roared around him, forming a tornado.

  He span just the staff around, increasing the speed.

  "Now!" He screamed.

  The baby dragon ignited the tornado into a massive spinning inferno that illuminated the entire surrounding area.

  The shadowy creature screeched at the sight of the light, and the darkness seemed to press in from all sides of the fire tornado, and the creature slipped back into that darkness.

  However, it could go no further than that; the flame tornado would last as long as the mana source within, and as such, it was a true stalemate.

  However, the darkness almost smiled; it knew keeping such magic up would be impossible. The mana consumption would be ridiculous. For an adult dragon, perhaps they could handle it, but a human and a baby dragon, as strange a pair as that is, had no chance.

  .

  .

  .

  The first rays of dawn blasted the darkness back.

  The fire tornado still raged on, defying all logic.

  The darkness fled back into its host, unable to maintain itself outside of the main body.

  The figure grimaced and concentrated all that was left of the great night's power into a single point.

  Its inner thoughts had grown increasingly more panicked as the night had gone on, from utter assurance of being unable to lose on the night of a new moon to being baffled by the opponent that it faced.

  However, no matter the trick this person had used, they could not produce an attack as strong as this.

  Almost the entire night itself, compressed into a single point of darkness just big enough to fit between a finger and a thumb.

  As soon as the fire tornado dissipated, the attack would be ready.

  Inside, Icarus had sweated and nearly fainted from the heat several times.

  However, his drive to keep going, survive, and fulfill the few goals he had in this life had kept his eyes open each and every time.

  To distract himself, he had decided to give a name to the baby dragon, based on games he had played in his previous life.

  He could feel his exhausted mana in the air; it had been burnt up, yet still hovered due to the unique circumstances of being encased in a fire tornado surrounded by solid darkness.

  However, now, he felt the pressure of darkness had been alleviated, and the mana was escaping.

  As such, there was no better time for him to attack one final time.

  He quickly drew in ALL of the mana in the surrounding area without regard for the damage he might do to his gate. If this failed, he assumed death was certain.

  Next, his eyes glowed with the sheer power he had just taken in, and he pointed his staff; the three-dimensional Sigil burst to life.

  Next, he channeled the fire from the tornado surrounding him into his staff.

  Taking two parts, the mana he had just taken in and the fire, he combined them into a massively condensed fireball, and then he took it a step further.

  Blood burst from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, but he did not falter.

  He could see the shadowy figure was doing something similar through his blurry and bloody vision.

  He gritted his teeth and transmuted the brutally condensed unstable ball of explosive energy into a negative, a freezing cold hypothermic reaction.

  And finally, he let out a scream.

  "LANCE! GIVE ME EVERYTHING!"

  The baby dragon roared, a ball of hyper condensed fire formed in its mouth, nothing compared to what was in the staff, but enough to act as a multiplier or almost a type of fuse.

  The shadowy creature had watched all this as it had taken only a few seconds since the tornado had been sucked into the boy's staff.

  Her vision was obscured, and she hoped the extra shadows that she poured into her attack would make a difference.

  Her cloak fell into the compressed sphere, and without waiting any longer, she snapped her fingers, releasing a massive explosion of shadow energy.

  The next second, everything vanished.

  Icarus had released his own attack

  But a moment after he had done so, the two locked eyes.

  His heart stopped, and the moment of milliseconds turned into an eternity.

  "Lyra?.."

  But as soon as the two forces met, everything seemed to fade to nothingness.

  .

  Then a small light appeared.

  Cracks spread across the ground.

  The light suddenly shot down like a spike and embedded itself in the ground.

  The cracks blew apart, and an explosion so bright it could not be looked at appeared.

  It travelled toward Icarus, and he could not avoid it.

  He closed his eyes and shielded himself as best he could.

  But everything faded to black.

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  .

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