Outside the base camp, every single soul stood paralyzed. As they looked up at the sky, which had suddenly plunged into an unnatural darkness, they found themselves utterly speechless, their mouths agape as they stared at the unidentified biological titan looming above.
What was this creature? Why had such a terrifying entity manifested in this specific location?
Many attempted to scream in terror, but their throats remained locked; they discovered that when panic reaches a certain threshold, the human body loses even the most basic ability to produce sound.
The gargantuan creature surveyed its surroundings with cold, emotionless vertical pupils. Eventually, its gaze settled upon the huddle of mortals below, watching them with an inscrutable expression that none could decipher.
In that moment, a collective thought rippled through the crowd: the beast looked hungry. Many were convinced that the glint in those massive eyes was the predatory desire of a creature that had been famished for eons, finally looking for something to serve as an appetizer.
But what was Fafnir actually thinking? In truth, it was feeling rather dazed. It didn't quite understand which world it had descended into, nor did it know where it was supposed to go.
It was only now realizing that this world was fundamentally different from the one it remembered. What were these hard particles floating in the air? They seemed to contain a dense, delicious concentration of energy.
Moreover, the humans on the ground were incredibly strange. Why didn't they look like the humans it knew? Why did they have such bizarre decorations growing out of their heads? Had it stumbled into some sort of specialized kingdom?
The newly awakened Fafnir had no sense of direction, nor was it sure if it should simply exterminate the tiny creatures below. To the dragon, that seemed like a perfectly sound idea; after all, in its experience, nothing good ever happened when these little things were around.
Driven by that logic, Fafnir's gaze turned vicious. Primal mana began to coalesce within its maw, preparing a breath attack that Theresa and her vanguard would have absolutely no hope of resisting.
Hearts leaped into throats. It felt as though a black Reaper was closing in step by step, and the impending dragon fire already seemed to scorch the very air around them.
Yet, amidst the mounting dread, Theresa did not feel the same overwhelming panic as the others. High atop the massive beast, she could sense two familiar souls—the Doctor and Jeanne.
Beside her, Kal'tsit wore the wide-eyed, shocked expression of a bewildered cat, staring up at the sky in silence. Even she, the tactical mastermind who should have been directing the crisis response, seemed to have momentarily forgotten her duties.
Just as the tension reached its breaking point, the palpable killing intent vanished in an instant. The dragon suddenly became "harmless"—though that term was strictly relative. Even as the immediate threat subsided, no one dared to lower their guard; this was clearly no docile house pet.
Under the vigilant watch of the survivors, the dragon began to move. With a sudden, powerful beat of its wings, it vanished into the horizon in the blink of an eye.
The crowd was stunned. One moment the beast looked ready to devour them all; the next, it was gone without a trace. What was going on?
Once the dragon had truly departed, a massive wave of relief swept through the camp, followed by a cacophony of nervous chatter. Those with weaker psychological constitutions broke down into fits of sobbing, overwhelmed by the realization that they had just walked back from the brink of death.
Theresa and Kal'tsit did not intervene. Even though the logical priority was to seek cover and ensure the beast wouldn't return for a surprise raid, they knew their people had been pushed too far. If they weren't allowed this moment of catharsis, a full-scale psychological collapse across the ranks was almost a certainty.
Their calm was also bolstered by a recent confirmation; the Doctor had used her communicator to send a brief message, assuring them that the immediate danger had passed.
However, their troubles were far from over. Rim Billiton officials would undoubtedly arrive soon to investigate the cause of such a monumental disturbance.
The plan was to blame the meteor. Given the circumstances, it was perfectly plausible that the celestial body had harbored some dangerous, dormant lifeform, which would hopefully deflect further scrutiny from their specific location.
Where were Jeanne and the Doctor now? They were currently perched atop Fafnir's back, experiencing the rare, exhilarating sensation of being enveloped by the gale-force winds of draconic flight.
"I appreciate the gesture... but this is a bit too much stimulation!" the Doctor cried. "Can you tell it to slow down? I think I'm going to be sick!"
The Doctor, whose physical constitution was significantly less robust than Jeanne's, was currently being held tightly by the holy maiden to prevent her from accidentally slipping and plummeting to her death—an outcome that would be very difficult for Jeanne to explain later.
High in the atmosphere, even Jeanne's warmth couldn't fully offset the biting cold, the thinning oxygen, and the nausea induced by the extreme velocity. It was a grueling experience.
"Just hang on a little longer! I'll have Fafnir stop as soon as we find a secluded spot," Jeanne said, her voice laced with worry. "Just... whatever you do, don't throw up on him. It's his first day out..."
To the Doctor, Jeanne sounded less like a warrior and more like someone who had just picked up a brand-new luxury car and was terrified their drunk friend might ruin the upholstery. Still, given Fafnir's temperament, it was a legitimate safety concern.
"I'll... I'll try my best..." the Doctor groaned, slumping against Jeanne with her eyes squeezed shut, desperately trying to ignore her motion sickness to prevent the "tragic accident" Jeanne had described.
Seeing the Doctor trying to rest, Jeanne turned her attention to Fafnir, sensing the dragon's unadulterated joy in being airborne once more.
As she traced the powerful, muscular lines of the creature's silhouette, Jeanne realized that without her specialized "Dragon Witch" authority, defeating such a beast would be an almost impossible task.
This was the raw power of a True Dragon—a being that could easily annihilate a mobile city before the inhabitants even realized what was happening. To be able to move freely through the skies of Terra, largely untouched by the nations below, and possessing such terrifying resistance to both physical and magical attacks... it was, in a sense, the perfect organism.
Jeanne also noticed that Fafnir's scales weren't actually black as she had first thought. They were a deep, iron-grey color, forming a natural suit of armor that radiated raw power. The darkness of the excavation pit had simply made the dark grey appear pitch black.
After flying for some time, Jeanne guided Fafnir down to a deserted wasteland where no human life was visible, intending to figure out their next move.
The immediate problem was that Fafnir didn't exactly fit in a pocket. Jeanne began searching for any ability that might address the issue—perhaps a human transformation or a size-shifting spell?
Meanwhile, the Doctor lay quietly on the ground, trying to recover from the high-altitude journey. She watched with amusement as Jeanne struggled to communicate with the massive beast. It seemed Fafnir wasn't quite as intellectually sharp as they had hoped; Jeanne had repeated her instructions several times, but the dragon didn't seem to understand a word.
"I'm not asking you to curl up in a ball! How much space do you think that's going to save?" Jeanne exasperatedly shouted. "I'm asking if you can actually shrink your body... not just tuck your tail in!"
As the Doctor watched this bizarre comedy of errors, a more practical question crossed her mind: where exactly were they, and how were they supposed to get back?