Page 168 of The White King's Favorite

“...A bit big,” grumbled Tessandra.

“His real owner’s d-dead,” nodded Cessilia. “He c-can’t grow more, b-but...”

“Yeah. Still fucking big...”

Cessilia grimaced. Despite her poor choice of language, Tessandra was expressing both their thoughts. Fighting an enemy dragon was completely unexpected, and neither of them knew how they’d do that. The creature suddenly stopped growling, and seemed to be breathing in, preparing to breathe out. Tessandra swung her sword wide to keep the enemies at bay, and did just the same.

Both her and the dragon breathed out a large plume of fire at the same moment. Their flames hit each other, creating a massive heat wave in the cave. Dust fell from the walls and ceiling, making everyone cough and blink, but at least, Tessandra had countered the dragon’s fire for now. It was bigger than hers, but with the distance, all they noticed was a strong smell of something burning and the temperature jumping up. The men under the area where the fires had collided were far less lucky. Others were still on fire, running before throwing themselves to the ground, and rolling in the sand to try and extinguish the flames. Tessandra was out of breath, though, and glaring at the beast that was growling back.

“How cute,” chuckled Jisel. “You think you’ll be able to keep my dragon at bay, Princesses? For how long? All you have is a sword, a useless Dorosef girl, and little to no energy left.”

“Just you watch,” grunted Tessandra. “We’re saving you for last!”

Just as she said this, she kept fighting, pearls of sweat appearing on her forehead. The heat in the cave was less responsible for that than the monstrous amount of energy she put into her fight. She seemed a bit tired, but comparatively, the men fighting her in the cave, even as they tried to relay each other, were clearly unable to best her. Next to her, Cessilia was moving just as vividly, her green eyes going all over the place to try and find a solution. They were stuck between the cave’s wall, the lake Jisel was standing on the other side of, and a large sea of men in front of them, with a dragon standing right in the middle of the cave entrance. They were slowly clearing their way, but the fact that Ashen couldn’t move was keeping them from truly escaping this place. With the underwater passage being a huge no, they were basically stuck, unless they found a way to get rid of all their opponents...

“Useless?”

Unknown to the two cousins, Naptunie had been glaring at Jisel. She could endure a lot for her friends’ sake, but being called useless was too much for her. Suddenly, her little, black eyes circled the cave too, but her way of thinking was miles away from Cessilia’s. After a short moment, Nana pulled over two large, flat rocks with her leg, and quickly swapped them with her hands to put pressure on the King’s chest. Just as she had calculated, the weight was almost the same as what she had been applying all along. She then quickly moved to rinse her hands in the water, and ran toward Tessandra and Cessilia.

“Nana, what are you doing?! Get back!”

However, for once, Naptunie was not going to listen. In fact, she barely heard Tessandra at all. She was frowning, and gathering some stones around her, grinding them together quickly to create a little mound on a larger, flat stone.

“Useless, she says. How dare she call me useless?! She can call me a bookworm, weak, library rat, pedant, bookish, even brainish, but how dare that wretched vixen of a woman call me useless?! You’ll see if I am useless!”

She then got back on her feet, carrying her little mountain of freshly ground dust, and walked toward Tessandra.

“Prepare to fire!” she shouted.

Before Tessandra could even answer, Naptunie suddenly threw her dust in a large and wide arc, in front of them. Immediately grasping what was going on, Tessandra spat fire.

The reaction was much bigger than she had expected. From the small fire she had put out, as soon as it reached Nana’s dust, it spread in a wave of sparks and explosions, blowing exponentially bigger on their enemies. The deflagration was so progressive and large even Cessilia and Tessandra had to jump back to avoid getting injured themselves. The cave was suddenly filled with small booms, cracks appearing everywhere and the force shaking the surroundings. Some stalactites even fell down, injuring more people. The damage done was considerable, and a bit frightening too. Once the smoke and dust began to clear, they saw the terrible injuries inflicted on their opponents, some had full body parts burned, or the flesh exposed in long bloody patches.

“Dang, Nana. ...You should get mad more often,” scoffed Tessandra.

“Just because I can’t wield a weapon doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” grumbled the young woman. “Sorry I didn’t notice before we had all the elements and conditions for a dust explosion. I knew the principles, but I never created one in real life.”

“Don’t apologize for being the smart one, Nana. I’m mind-blown!”

“C-can you do th-that again?”

“Not so soon.” Nana shook her head. “It’s dangerous, as it consumes the air and makes it harder to breathe. We might get intoxicated if we don’t wait a bit...”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Tessandra. “You already helped us a ton...”

She was telling the truth. In front of them, out of the dozens of fighters they had been facing, only a few had been spared by the explosions. If some only had minor injuries, their burns still seemed to be incredibly painful, and none were in a hurry to get back to fighting those women. Perhaps they also feared another wave of explosions, and they were not looking forward to running to the front line. It didn’t solve their problem, though. Cessilia glanced back. Ashen seemed stable from there, but there was no telling when his heart would give up from the blood loss. Only a few minutes had passed since they had emerged from the lake, but it wasn’t enough.

“...I need t-to take c-care of him,” she muttered to Tessandra.

She couldn’t focus on taking care of the King while she was busy fighting. Tessandra nodded. Naptunie’s attack had done quite enough damage, but Jinn the dragon had gotten out unscathed, and quite mad too. That thing was getting closer and closer and soon, it’d be the bigger problem at hand. Even if she could stand a few minutes against a dragon this size, Tessandra knew the fighters would stab her the second she turned her back on them to focus on the beast.

“...You think the big guy could show up now, by any chance?”

“I d-don’t know... Krai!” Cessilia called out, as loud as she could. “K-Krai!”

Her voice echoed in the cave, but there was no telling how far out it had gone. They had left the dragon outside the Outer Wall, and there was no indication of how long it would take for Krai to get down there, if it even realized something was wrong. It wasn’t bound to Cessilia, but to her father, which meant it could only know of what happened to her if it was close enough to smell or see it. Now, it would only be a matter of minutes before they knew whether the Black Dragon was coming to their rescue or not.

Meanwhile, they had no choice but to resume fighting. Nana stepped back, leaving the two Princesses to fight, but it did not look good for them. There were still too many fighters left, and for many, their injuries seemed to ignite even more desire to get rid of the women who had caused them. Some shouted something about their pride as Yekara, which explained a lot and, if needed, confirmed their identities. The dragon was getting closer too. Twice, it exchanged firepower with Tessandra, and the second time, her arm got burned, immediately covered in green scales. She grimaced, shaking her arm as if to get rid of the pain.

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