Chapter 1352: Combat or Roughhousing

Seraphina didn’t wait for her body to recover completely.

She beat her wings and charged straight at Vaelor. One enormous claw came down from above, covering nearly all the space around him.

The waterspouts nearby began moving inward, layer after layer of swirling water gathering around Vaelor.

He watched Seraphina approach with cold indifference and raised his foreclaws.

A blood-red sphere appeared between the two horns on his forehead. Energy streamed from between his scales and into his horns, gradually solidifying the sphere.

Seraphina’s claw was already bearing down on him.

Before it even made contact, the pressure forced Vaelor several feet lower. But when the claw finally struck, he raised both foreclaws and caught it.

The difference in their size was immense.

One of Seraphina’s toes was nearly half as large as Vaelor’s entire body, yet he remained suspended in the air instead of being swatted down.

The blood-red sphere between his horns shot forward.

It skimmed beneath Seraphina’s claw and raced toward her chest. The waterspouts surrounding Vaelor were pulled into the sphere one after another, rapidly increasing the power stored inside.

Seraphina felt the pressure building ahead, and the anger in her eyes burned hotter. Twin streams of flame shot from her nostrils before she opened her jaws.

Scorching dragonfire surged from deep in her throat.

The flames engulfed the blood-red sphere head-on. Heat swept across the surrounding waterspouts, instantly destroying their shape and sending sheets of seawater crashing onto the ice below.

Vaelor watched the approaching flames with a grim look. Rather than continue maintaining the sphere, he swung a foreclaw at Seraphina’s massive claw above him.

The difference in size didn’t make his counterattack any less effective.

Vaelor slid his claw along hers and pushed it sideways, borrowing her own momentum to redirect the attack. The maneuver forced Seraphina to adjust her body and finally take the smaller dragon seriously.

At the same time, her dragonfire collided with the blood-red sphere that had absorbed the waterspouts.

Flames rolled outward as steam expanded violently at the point of impact. Thick white mist engulfed the sky, while the resulting shock wave swept every loose shard of ice from below.

Only now did the battle between the two dragons truly begin.

Seraphina lowered herself farther and continued increasing the pressure behind her claw. At the same time, she spread her wings and blasted Vaelor with a powerful gust, using the wind to add even more force to her attack.

Vaelor could no longer redirect it.

Her claw drove him down into the ice.

Boom!

He smashed through the frozen surface, throwing chunks of ice into the air.

Vaelor didn’t stay in the crater. His wings spread, and he shot away with his body skimming over the ice. Energy began gathering between his horns once more.

If physical strength wasn’t enough, he would make up the difference with energy.

Seraphina stomped down after him, but her claw struck only the afterimage he left behind. The impact sank the entire ice sheet, causing its existing cracks to spread rapidly.

In the distance, Elowen and Namyanna raised their hands at the same time.

Ice energy flowed into the fractures and rejoined the broken sections. But every time Seraphina brought down a claw, she created more cracks. The two could only keep repairing the damage, growing more exhausted by the second.

Seraphina took another step forward.

Her heavy claw bore down on the ice, sending a broad fissure racing after Vaelor in a straight line. She used the force of the stomp to launch herself into the sky, then folded her wings and dove toward him.

Energy continued building between Vaelor’s horns.

The sea split open again. Waterspouts rose around him, their swirling currents forming multiple layers of protection.

Seraphina ignored the elaborate defense.

She reached for Vaelor and swatted straight at him. But the moment her claw entered the waterspouts, the rotating currents pushed against her forelimb and diverted the attack.

Her claw missed Vaelor and slammed into the ice, covering its smooth surface in a fresh web of cracks.

Vaelor was right beside it.

The energy gathered between his horns had reached its peak. Two spheres fired at once, striking Seraphina at point-blank range.

The impact sent both dragons tumbling into the sea.

Vaelor’s energy spheres grazed Seraphina’s body and continued into the distance before exploding at the far edge of the sea. A towering wave rose from the blast, followed moments later by a muffled boom.

The spectators on the ice stared blankly.

This didn’t look like a fight to the death at all.

Were the two dragons playing?

Beneath the surface, Seraphina quickly discovered how badly the water hindered her.

Every swing of her claws lost some of its force to the surrounding sea. Her enormous body faced far more resistance underwater, leaving her much slower than she had been in the air.

For Vaelor, it was the exact opposite.

Water slid between his red-and-blue scales, making his body even more agile. When he saw that Seraphina could no longer use her normal speed, a hint of delight entered his eyes.

He was about to attack again when he stopped without warning.

Vaelor hung motionless in the water. The light faded from his eyes as he stared silently ahead.

Seraphina assumed he’d suddenly gone stupid.

She raised a claw and swung it at what she considered her "fastest" underwater speed.

The blow struck Vaelor and launched him all the way from the depths into the air above the sea. Seraphina burst from the water after him, beating her wings to hover before twisting from side to side and shaking the seawater from her scales.

The others thought she had gotten even stronger. She had adapted to fighting underwater with incredible speed.

Only Elowen watched Vaelor’s unresponsive body with pity.

"His soul dispersed."

She studied his lifeless eyes.

"Vaelor died a while ago."

Seraphina immediately stopped shaking off the water.

He’d been dead for a while?

Then had she spent all that time fighting a corpse?

Everyone slowly released the breath they had been holding. No matter how strange the fight had been, Vaelor was dead. That meant it was finally over.

Then the ice beneath them began shaking violently.

Jagged cracks appeared around their feet and spread across the frozen surface. Before Elowen and Namyanna could repair them, the entire ice sheet shattered.

Huge slabs broke apart and drifted away from one another.

Only then did everyone spot the culprit.

A small shark had sunk its teeth into the underside of the ice and was thrashing from side to side, its jaws locked firmly in place.

Crunch!

The ice broke apart in its mouth.

Instead of stopping, the shark swam to another floating slab and began gnawing on that one. It moved from piece to piece, crushing the ice with such intense concentration that it clearly had to be sharpening its teeth.

Namyanna silently watched the shark. She could have sworn she’d seen it somewhere before.

Her gaze shifted to the top of its head.

Where was the creature that was supposed to be riding there?

The shark noticed everyone staring. It turned its head and showed them a row of gleaming white teeth, then bit into another chunk of ice and went right back to work.

At that moment, the mantis shrimp was hiding inside a dark cave far away.

It braced its left arm against a reef to steady its aim while slowly drawing back its right. Power gathered beneath its shell and concentrated around the joint. The moment a target entered range, it would fire.

Back on the surface, everyone continued watching the shark.

Honestly, it was pretty cute.

Too bad it had picked the wrong people to mess with.