Just because the fight was seemingly impossible did not mean they had the option of giving up. The objective was clear. Irwyn kept firing through his rain of stars as he put the rest of his attention on retreating. Whatever was going to happen next, distance would be to his benefit. The dragon seemed briefly stunned after its sudden transformation, which let both him and Elizabeth land another second of uninterrupted attacks. Unsure what else to do, Irwyn kept popping the new eyes, while Elizabeth used a similar strategy to stab deeper into the body - apparently the new armor did not spread beneath them.

  Then Irwyn felt half his barriers shatter. He realized that much through the severing links, rather than actually seeing anything happen. In a way, it would have been reassuring if that had been all the damage of withstanding a Domain. Which wasn’t the case. The damn monster still had yet to use even a shred of magic. Instead, it had physically slammed claw first into a dozen layers of protections - that had withstood other monsters at the peak of Conception without issue - and pierced right through.

  The monster seemed likewise surprised by being slowed at all, causing it to pause again. That was becoming a pattern - confusion gifting the mages openings. If the creature had been moving at that speed constantly, Irwyn doubted he could have caused a hundredth of the already limited damage. Which he was still trying to inflict, pouring everything he had into the still ongoing offensive spell, while simultaneously re-erecting his barriers and retreating further away. The dragon briefly glanced down at its claw, pierced halfway through one of said protections that teetered at the brink of collapse, then it breathed in.

  Irwyn did not burn. But reality did.

  The sheer cataclysmic heat of the dragon’s breath erased his spells so utterly, Irwyn couldn’t even feel the connection sever. Magic itself burned to metaphoric ash. The air around him decomposed back into mana, which in turn ignited as well, causing a cascading feedback loop that broke down the world itself. The epicenter around Irwyn almost instantly became so intense that it seemed to accidentally create a degree of separation from reality. A feat so miraculous it should have lasted just a few instants. And yet, the conflagration just continued, Time itself seemingly strained under the pressure.

  For a far too long while, reality became Flame. Intellectually, Irwyn knew that there would be a limit to how long such intense Flames could be sustained even by a Domain. In his mind, the number of seconds counted quickly surpassed his repeatedly heightened estimates. Eventually, he pushed through the surprise and realized what was actually happening. It would indeed be only a few moments… just stretched by an inferno so intense it had incinerated the very passage of causality.

  That was perhaps part of the breath’s true terror. Not even speaking of Concepts, this did not feel like something that should even be feasible with mere Domains. Irwyn was no expert, but if that was the leap into just the beginning of the next realm, then the fight was even more impossible than it had seemed. And despite everything, the Trial had always given them a chance. There had to be something he was missing.

  Irwyn suddenly happened to have far more time to think than he knew what to do with. It did not take him too long to make a certain connection with what little he understood of creatures like their new foe. People told stories about a dragon’s breath specifically. Basically, any myth or legend worthy of that name tended to focus on that aspect of them. It had not occurred to him as strange before, but after the months and years spent within the Trial, he understood that monsters rarely ever had just one defining feature.

  Even the dragon before them had actively transformed to adapt to the attacks it had weathered. And it certainly would be able to wield elemental magic of some kind, once it shook away the confusion of being newborn. Yet the stories always focused on the breath. It then stood to reason that it was especially powerful. Something so uniquely potent that it surpassed the boundary of what a Domain should be able to accomplish. They were the first of all monsters, after all, and their mythical might had to have more to it than even newborn hatchlings hosting a Domain.

  Irwyn imagined someone of matching strength facing the monster. Even in a clash between two Domains, what would happen if the opponent was struck by this breath? Because the Flames were still licking at Irwyn, futilely trying to burrow beneath his skin. If he had to put actual effort into surviving this predicament, it would be exhausting. Forcing any would-be slayer to either exhaust themselves in possibly hours of desperate defense, or to break out somehow, which would be difficult given how close to utter annihilation reality seemed to be at the epicenter. How does one dodge an attack that has already burned away the notion of distance or geometry? Leap away in a world without distance?

  Relative position was becoming a bit moot in the destruction. Irwyn at least served as his own anchor, keeping his body whole. Indestructible Starflesh was a spell that he always kept going for a reason, and with his Concepts, even if the defensive one wasn’t a perfect fit, it had reached heights far above mortal limits. Yes, Space and Time were ripping and contorting as they were, had been, and will have been obliterated, but those motions barely registered as slight ripples onto his flesh. Simply not potent enough to even strain him. The same went for all the other side effects of reality getting scorched. Undoing the seams of the world wrought destruction, but not more than a Concept could withstand. After all, it was basically extreme physics. There was no greater will behind those natural phenomena that could contest a mage’s own.

  Despite all his idle thoughts, Irwyn was not willing to waste the situation. He was determined to turn a predicament that would be certain death to anyone else into an opportunity. While any magic that so much as passed his skin succumbed to instant erasure, Irwyn had other ideas. Flames wielded by someone incomprehensibly more powerful than him? That had happened before, more than once. But Flames loved him. So, he could once again try to subvert them into doing his bidding instead.

  He started with the layer touching every millimeter of his skin. Relying on his sheer affinity with the element rather than direct magic. Quickly, he made a very optimistic discovery: There was incomprehensible power behind it, yes, but the will was lacking. Monsters did not have Souls, after all. That meant a fraction of the willpower that a fully sapient being could display at the same level of power. Irwyn had known and abused that fact throughout the Trial, both in logic and magic. It was good to confirm that dragons were no different. The air dissolving into combusting mana to mix with the breath only served to further dilute whatever control the hatchling held.

  The process was still slow and arduous. Such was the issue of reaching above his station. Despite all his advantages, Irwyn took over a minute to convince each individual spark that it should obey him rather than the dragon. Furthermore, it quickly became apparent that he would need to dedicate almost his entire focus on each such conversion, rendering him unable to multitask. In an objective timeframe of a battle, that would render the attempt pointless. But in the mangled subjective time Irwyn was experiencing, the opportunity was there.

  The next problem was storage. Since geometry didn’t really exist outside Irwyn’s body anymore, if he ever let any stolen spark slip away from touching his skin, it would disappear into the greater inferno. But hiding it within his flesh proved difficult, as piercing his body with something so powerful seemed to interfere with his internal magic from his first probing attempts. A problem he couldn’t afford to test the limits of. Eventually, he settled on a somewhat ironic solution: Hiding the plundered dragonfire within his mouth. The separation between the rest of his body and the emptiness of a throat was seemingly just about enough to allow for mostly harmless containment.

  Then Irwyn worked. The small part of him not occupied by the task tried to keep the time - at least as he perceived it - and scheme some other plans for the rest of the battle. He even had a few vaguely possible ideas on how to overcome a Domain, though they would need a deeper review once he could focus on the details instead. Like that, the inferno passed with paradoxical serenity. All 13 or so hours of it.

  Irwyn did not really realize it was dispersing until the very moment it did. When reality re-asserted itself, fire fading, images once again reaching Irwyn’s sight. Said images were definitely distorted and still partially obscured, but that was fine. He was aiming at a beacon of Flame, the presence of the Domain unmistakable. So, with great pleasure and appreciation for the irony, Irwyn immediately returned the monster’s stolen breath through a similar method.

  The dragon, as most mages, was not immune to its own power. Oh, it was certainly resistant, given it was mostly made of living Flames, but there was a distinction there. Even fire could be ignited. Incineration itself may be incinerated in turn. Stars might yet be reduced to ash. Just because something happened to be inherently hot did not mean it would be unaffected by a far greater extreme of that state. The dragon’s breath contained power even above its own body. Thus, it burned.

  Something touched Irwyn on his shoulders. On two extremely specific spots. Which was why he did not try to resist as he was pulled back with inhuman strength. He just closed his eyes and tried to perceive as little as he could while Elizabeth dragged him into the Void. She assisted him with that, enveloping her companion in a cocoon of Flame.

  Irwyn had attempted to look around while inside the Void exactly the first time, and it had resulted in one of the most existentially painful experiences of his life. The sheer pressure of his Light’s antithesis stretching into infinite infinities in a number of directions that exceeded ‘every’ by an exponent had left him catatonic for hours. The journey was still no delight, even with all the precautions and past experience, but it had gone from maddening to merely intensely unpleasant.

  When they reappeared somewhere else inside the volcanic cavern not long later, Irwyn released a sigh of relief. In the far distance, he could feel the dragon exploding with power, magic rampaging in between enraged roars. But with Finity back in place, they were several times beyond the area of even Domain spells - unless the hatchling spontaneously attained the understanding of the tricks needed to counteract it, they would be fine for the moment. It didn’t seem to know their new location either, as it was staying in place.

  “It wasn’t healing. Even if it had covered the wounds with that new armor, they still bleed beneath,“ she said, presenting her arms in the same motion. Several sparks of the Domain imbued Flame lingered on her palms, rapidly eating through layers of Temzda made barriers as Elizabeth struggled to keep them from biting into flesh. Irwyn noted that a some more still clung to his body as well, but were quickly dissipating.

  “Hopefully that will not change in a few minutes if it realizes how to somehow easily reshape damaged parts back together,” Irwyn nodded, immediately grabbing onto those few sparks before they could give Elizabeth real burns.

  It would take him a while to fully bring even the handful under his control, but he managed to transfer them into his far less vulnerable hands with a quick scoop, doing the same with those around his body right after. By pouring mana into his palm without restraint, he would stop most of them from fading before a proper connection could be established. They were certainly not in a position to give up their foe’s weapon, even if it was just a remnant.

  “Maybe for the early scratches, but that final retaliation? Those are not the kinds of wounds that heal with just some quick trick. Breathing back at a dragon, and only the monster flinched! That is the kind of stuff even great mages tell legends about, Irwyn.”

  “Glad to include the dashing heroine saving me from being mauled right after,” Irwyn smiled. Judging by the still ongoing carnage in the far distance, he would not have lasted long in the aftermath.

  “Could you do it again?”

  “Only if it breathes at me the same way,” Irwyn shook his head, then briefly explained the peculiar state of things that came to be from the breath’s power. Without the extreme dilation, he would not be able to steal the Flame in the same way.

  “Not reliably then. Dragons are known to be particularly smart among monsters. It will likely not use its breath again at all in abundance of caution.”

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  “At least that hopefully keeps it from hitting you.”

  “I am probably dead to anything more than a glancing blow anyway,” she shuddered. “An Aspects damned Domain. That initial roar shook me to my core through the closed boundary to the Void. Do you have any ideas how to actually put it down?”

  “A few,” Irwyn nodded. “All of them range from between implausible to outright impossible. My best was that it might perhaps die to my return-to-sender surprise.”

  “No chance of that, unfortunately. Its new armor and a good chunk of the body had been burned off, but you hit the torso rather than the head - and even that wouldn’t have been enough in all likelihood. The Flame splashed in a way that it severed one of the wings and crippled the front legs, but none of that seemed immediately lethal. And I don’t like our odds of somehow waiting it out for a possible gradual demise.”

  “Do dragons have brains?”

  “Yes, but not in the way you think,” Elizabeth nodded. “Theirs is distributed across the spine. The bulk is still in the head, so blowing it off will daze it, but not outright slay one. You might have also grazed some gray matter through the original eyes, which could have led to it growing some extra elsewhere.”

  “Anything more you know about them? Like the rapid adaptation?” Irwyn asked, dismissing the idea of somehow exploding the inside of its head as likely insufficient.

  “I had no idea that was something they did,” she shook her head. “It is known that dragons have a few features they generally share - four legs, vaguely similar shape, wings and tail, and such - but I have been led to believe that the individual mutations they all possess are determined upon hatching. What we have seen makes me think that explanation is off by a few hours. In a way, it explains why each individual dragon on record seems unique - they are shaped by the first few things that fail to kill them.”

  “So it may well continue growing defenses against anything we try,” Irwyn frowned.

  “There has to be a limit to that ability. And more likely than not, it had just spent whatever it could on making itself resistant to burning again.”

  “Which scraps the plan of ‘baiting a breath on me again’ and ‘igniting its blood’.”

  “How would you even do that?” She asked, doubt clear in the tone.

  “As I said, highly improbable plans. Since it bleeds fire, maybe it would be less resistant to my subversion than any Flames directly under its control - that is as far as I had thought it through. Either way, the adaptation renders it futile. Do you have anything yourself?”

  “Nothing that could put it down. It's as fast as those spearfish with nine speed based Concepts we had fought, except it also hits hard enough that any blow will put me out of the fight at best, down at worst. And that is before it figures out how to do proper magic, which it is kind of doing as we speak.”

  “My next idea is to hide inside its body and slowly kill it from within. Which should be possible in theory… but would require a wound large enough for me to burrow into. Since it is not that big, I think that much damage would already be lethal if we could inflict it.”

  “And it would have plenty of time to find a way of expelling you. What more?”

  “The last option I have is trying an incredibly experimental spell that I think has a non-zero chance of cracking its Domain.”

  “And you have not figured it out fully in the rest zone, while we were dreading exactly this might happen, because?”

  “Because I just got the inspiration for it. Well, for the last part. Even stars can be burned to ash. Relative temperature, relative weight. Domains are above Concepts, so it shatters our magic without problem. But then, in the corner of my mind, there is something far greater than a Domain. I can never fully forget that. So, if I somehow managed to hit it with the weight of a Name that denies the Domain’s right of existence, that just might break the dragon on a fundamental level. The only problem is that I have only made causal attempts at achieving something of this sort and none of them had been successful. And that it might not even work like I am hoping.”

  “If you can actually break its Domain… as far as I know, that should kill it instantly. Even a crack should be debilitating enough to turn it into more corpse than a threat. If I have hours to hack at a cripled body, I will portion it eventually. What you are saying sounds significantly better than the other plans. But I don’t assume a spell like that will be particularly easy to cast or land, will it?”

  “I will definitely need to lean on my Concepts to carry it, as many as I can manage. All nine should be possible, if I stretch the meanings just right. So that means Starfall for one. I will also presumably be strained to the breaking point. And since I cannot take any chances given the difficulty… I will probably have to disable even the barriers.”

  “Then the distraction comes down to me,” Elizabeth nodded. She seemed to hold more confidence in Irwyn’s ability to do as he proposed than he himself did. “I will drag it into the Void and stall it as long as I can manage while you finish constructing the spell. Hopefully, at least a few dozen seconds on this side if I can push the dilation one way, but it’s hard to estimate against something still learning to fight. The moment it returns to reality should be disorienting enough to give you a brief opening.”

  “Then let me figure out the exact details. It will probably charge towards us when I start properly casting,” Irwyn said and closed his eyes.

  How would he carry the weight of a Name, or even a shadow of it? It was there, and it was his, yet Irwyn simply lacked the magical potency to do anything with that fact. Just the idea of achieving what he sought to do with mere Concepts was outrageous. But he didn’t need to actually imbue all of it into the magic, just the… weight. Reject with all his being the dragon’s Domain while leaning on a far greater pillar. Said pillar did not need to actually be present, he just had to show enough of a connection to bluff his opponent into fleeing. There was a reason why it was said that Domains inhabited their host, after all.

  But Concepts were simply not strong enough of an anchor for that. Thankfully, Irwyn had one other tool available for the task. The shape of a Truth. WEEPING STARS. A lesser facsimile of it was still contained in that locket he had been studying, allowing him to grasp more and more of its true shape as his power progressed. Naturally, Irwyn had experimented with it. The allure of using even a fraction of a Truth within his arsenal was inevitable. But there was a good reason why he had ended up using just the shapes of his Concepts to empower his spellcraft.

  Firstly, the Truth simply did not fit his path quite exactly. He had relatively little to mourn or cry for. That misalignment meant that any boost offered by the mystical shape was lessened to a fraction. It did help with his magic, just not as much as doing the same for the perfectly fitting Concepts did. Thus, after much experimentation, he had settled on those.

  Because, much more importantly, he could simply not get close enough to the Truth’s shape when depicting it. His Concepts also had some impossible geometry, yes, but he could get pretty close to their true forms in the physical world. The Truth though? It was basically only non-euclidean angles and shapes. If the laws of regular space allowed for 90% of a Concept to be depicted, then they would let him show less than a hundredth of the Truth. At that point, the meaning was too diminished to achieve much of anything.

  Except, Irwyn had just witnessed his path towards avoiding that problem. Within the dragon breath invoked inferno, said laws that imposed geometry had faltered and broken alongside many others. What then would stop Irwyn from shaping exactly what he held in his mind? Let him craft the great anchor which could bear the echo of something greater still. Irwyn just needed to create an environment in which it could somewhat exist. And for that, he had a handful of sparks, still in the palm of his hand. Gradually being converted and draining enough magic to make most Conception mages pass out in minutes, all just to sustain their existence. But Irwyn was, as ever, a bottomless well, more than happy to provide.

  There was a saying he had heard many times in different phrasings: Edicts broke the natural laws, Truths bent them, and a Domain could nudge them. He did not have nearly enough stolen Flame to replicate the extreme environment he had experienced, but that was not what he needed anyway. He specifically required just enough nudging to allow for impossible shapes to manifest. With the plundered sparks serving as catalysts and his Concepts as both forge and fuel, it should be achievable. Had to be. The rest were details Irwyn had both the experience and skill to achieve.

  “I am ready,” he eventually announced, after subverting the remaining embers and figuring out whatever details he could. Elizabeth glanced his way and nodded, then turned back towards the faraway dragon. Its enraged rampage had essentially stopped, and it would have likely started searching for them soon either way. He dismissed all magic except his internal empowerments that would actually assist in the process rather than detract from it. Then began his long chant:

  “

  Beyond bounds, through heights

  greater than the world,

  observing the sights

  of a strife long curled

  …”

  Irwyn began his spell with a sphere of mostly Starfire. There were hints of Flame and Light as well, so that their Concepts might bear some of the weight. It would make the spell weaker if it was just meant to inflict damage directly, but that was not the intent. In the meantime, the dragon in the distance grew briefly still, then charged towards the starting spell at incredible speed.

  “...

  the first of a kind,

  yet born unwhole, blind

  so that Fate may find

  a struggle to wind

  …”

  The outer shape did not change, but Irwyn was only starting to work on the inner intricacies. He needed to use the plundered sparks as well as his Concepts to burn away the restrictions of geometry. That required tremendous quantities of mana. Irwyn poured out whole oceans as fast as he could, hoping it would be enough.

  Meanwhile, their foe was already upon them. Kilometers passed in seconds, though that was only to be expected. Irwyn did not have the leftover capacity to judge its injuries, barely even feeling it approach through the sheer intensity of its FLAME. Elizabeth, though, was ready, her own spell at the tip of her tongue. It was not too difficult to hit something moving in a straight line at high yet constant speed.

  “A black rose, Tenebrous”

  The sensation of the monster’s flame suddenly grew distant to Irwyn’s perception. Dragged off into the Void, or close enough to it. That reduction in intensity was actually an unexpected benefit. The moment it returned, its intensity of being would as well. That meant Irwyn could simply bring down his spell the moment that happened, rather than needing to actually pay attention to the visual reappearance. An almost automated trigger that would not impact any of the capacity he so desperately needed.

  “…

  Dragon, a wall,

  ever a squall.

  Mighty and tall.

  One will yet fall.

  …”

  With a mighty heave, the forge of his spell ignited. It was Irwyn’s first real foray into even nudging the rules of reality, and it showed in the difficulty. He had no real step-by-step process by which he could burn away the tyranny of spatial geometry, so he was forced to rely on a mix of instinct and dogged intent. And perhaps a memory at the back of his head. Of dreams where he had possessed those skills. Not something he could interpret consciously, but almost an echo of muscle memory guiding his hand as he accomplished what should be impossible at Conception.

  “...

  Over then again behold,

  sorrow wide as skies,

  battles wrought a thousandfold

  where hope, newborn, dies

  …“

  Irwyn wasn’t actually sure whether he had succeeded. He had no sixth sense like Alice might for the euclidity of space. But everything else was done. All nine of his Concepts woven into the spell to some degree, hopefully enough to bear what he meant to bring forth. So he began to impart the Truth into its very core, starting with the roughest, yet already impossible, outline. And to his immense relief, it held… somewhat. Whatever he had achieved, it was not perfect. The most non-conforming segments were actively trying to dissolve, and would if his control slipped for but a moment. And that was with the equivalent of an image seen through tinted glass from the other side of the room. Still, it would have to do.

  “…

  So this once, intervene!

  Dictate just what should have been!

  Above abattoirs,

  therein weep the Stars.

  Above abattoirs,

  therein weep the Stars

  …“

  Then Irwyn started repeating. Two lines, over and over again. Every time he did, the effect on the spell was minimal, rather, it allowed him to stall. Prolong the cast, so that he may have the time to impart the impossible shape of a Truth. Magic kept pouring out, yet he always had more to give. It strained him, but the spell was not yet technically complete, as long as he kept the repetition up. Still malleable. And just as importantly, also not activating prematurely.

  “…

  Above abattoirs,

  therein weep the Stars.

  Above abattoirs,

  therein weep the Stars

  …“

  With everything else in place, Irwyn devoted everything he could to sculpting impossibility. The shape of the Truth was fickle, he also likely did not know all - or even most - of it, and it kept trying to diverge from he was insisting it should be. Every line he managed to bend into its anti-geometric shape, another tried to unmake itself. His attention was pulled in every direction, desperately scrambling to make progress without letting all he had already built crumble. Irwyn did not know how long he spent in that state. All he perceived was the magic, up until the very moment the switch in the back of his head registered a change. The dragon was back, and Irwyn - almost automatically - finally let the spell go.

  “…

  Therein weep the Stars,

  Share their eternal scars

  ”

  His will shifted. From expanding the shape, it almost entirely became devoted to rebuking the existence of the FLAME. And as he bore and shared those thoughts, he tapped into the awareness of his Name. Ignis Lumen, a scorching awareness he usually left out of his thoughts. For this one spell, he embraced it. Let it infest every strand of will, flow across every smithereen of magic. As they had hoped, the dragon could not react before he was struck by the falling facsimile of a Star. Likely due to confusion more than lacking speed.

  A million million meanings of Flame tried to imprint themselves onto Irwyn the instant the spell collided with its form. Arguing for their validity. Each presenting the most sublime depths of what could be achieved with a Domain. Irwyn lacked both the mental capacity or knowledge to argue with them. But that was fine. He did not need to look at their merits and judge. He merely rejected their right to even present a case. Denied their cause to exist with every iota of will he could muster.

  The Domain stared back, screeching of night infinite possibilities. But it felt his rebuttal and behind it the Name. A mountain, staring up at the skies above as they threatened to fall. And so, FLAME flinched.

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