The dragon clambered out of the molten hole in the cliffside, its powerful claws digging into the rocks as it clung to the wall. Flames burned in its eyes, flickering with power and excitement.

  They were beautiful, Zoe thought, losing herself in them for just a moment. Each eye appeared like a window to another world that had been set aflame. A translucent layer of skin slid across them from the side as the dragon blinked. First the left eye, then the right as it stayed, staring at her.

  Long, dark red spikes adorned its scaly head, with two protruding scaled ears on each side — four in total. Two that faced forward, and two more on the back of its head. Along its back were smaller, lighter red spikes, trailing down its large body towards the tail that twitched to and fro along the cliffside wall. The feather like scales at the end of it digging deep grooves in the rocks as it shook much like a cat's tail.

  Each of its four limbs were powerful, the scales bent and rippled by the muscles beneath flexing on the cliffside wall. Four black claws stuck out of the front of each its paws, with a scaly appendage hanging off the back of each it seemed to use for digging in to the wall for extra grip. Two massive red wings were folded up on its side, the tips twitching back and forth every few seconds as the dragon seemed to consider its next move.

  Zoe tried to Identify the dragon, but it was still too far away.

  "Hello!" She waved to the dragon.

  The dragon quivered for a moment, its gaze unfaltering.

  "Whatever you're doing kind of hurts actually! I'd like to be friends!" Zoe looked at the corner of her vision at her health draining by one every few seconds as the burning needles tore through her body. Just its gaze was enough to overwhelm her natural regeneration.

  The dragon quivered again, climbing up the wall some more to a space a little less melted.

  "Do you... speak?" Zoe tilted her head at the dragon. Any time she'd read any books about dragons, they always seemed intelligent. They were greedy, prideful, gluttonous creatures with intelligence far surpassing any mere mortal.

  But this dragon didn't seem all that wise. She'd expected it to at least have attacked by now, its pride not letting a mere ant like her step to its home. Or if it recognized her power, to have struck a bargain.

  This dragon was nothing like what she'd expected. Rather than some prideful god, it seemed as if it was little more than a wild beast. A wild beast with more power than any should have, but a wild beast none the less. It was wary, it was cautious, and it prioritized itself.

  "Hmmm," Zoe hummed to herself. "I still want to be friends, though."

  She summoned the gift she'd prepared for the dragon — a gaudy golden crate covered in jewels and gems, with an expanded space inside that was filled with even more gaudy creations and shimmering coins.

  "I have a gift!" Zoe shouted out to it as she drifted down, holding the crate out in front of her in as peaceful a gesture as she could try to make it. "Do you want a gift?"

  The dragon's eyes watched her descend, its claws clambering against the wall as rock after rock melted away.

  Zoe's eyes shot open as she got closed enough to use Identify. At level 513, with an Identify of level 817 she should be able to see anything up to 1330. Yet the dragon exceeded even that, letting her see the pale green marks that had been little more than a distant memory for centuries.

  Her Empathy was flooded at around the same time as the dragon's emotions wracked through her mind. Caution, fear, excitement, anxiety, greed. Emotion after emotion ripping through her as the dragon's painful gaze continued to linger on her.

  Zoe flinched for just a moment as the arsenal of emotions bombarded her, and the dragon took its chance. It leapt from the wall, leaving a crater of crumbling rock and lava in its wake as it propelled towards Zoe.

  In an instant, it was upon her, the intense heat radiating from the dragon's body baring its full force on her. The smell of burnt skin, hair and fabric overwhelmed her sense of smell for just a moment, before even her ability to smell was burned away. The frost she was using for flight exploded in a cloud of scalding hot steam, obscuring the claw racing through the sky towards her.

  The ornate crate fell as Zoe turned all her focus towards teleporting a hundred meters above. The claws raked across the space she was at, sending a wave of burning air spiralling through the sky. The dragon's four scaly ears twitched for a moment before its head shot up to look at her again.

  Zoe gasped, breathing in fresh cool air as the pleasant warmth of Restoration tried to mend her burnt skin. But a moment later, the dragon was next to her again. Its powerful limbs striking at her with sharp, blazing claws.

  She teleported again, further this time. Several hundred meters away. This time, the dragon almost seemed to follow along with her. The blazing winds left behind in its wake as it chased her down at incredible speed shaking the forest far below.

  Again, she teleported even further. Several kilometers into the sky, only for the dragon to catch up to her a fraction of a second later. Barely even enough time to get her bearings before she was forced to teleport several kilometers away again. The heat that bore down on her each time was intense, stripping the oxygen from her lungs. Searing her skin, scorching every hair on her body that managed to regrow in the short moments she had.

  Several teleports later at the edge of the planet's comfortable atmosphere, the dragon stopped pursuing her. It hovered several kilometers below, where the air was still somewhat dense, flying back and forth at the edge of where it could reach, its eyes staring at her with an unwavering hunger.

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  "You can't breathe in space, buddy?" Zoe called out to it between gasping breaths as Restoration healed up the damage she'd taken and formed a small frost platform to support herself on before she fell back down to the terrifying beast.

  She wasn't sure if it could hear her. Given the lack of matter for her voice to travel through she doubted it would even be able to reach regardless.

  "Tsk," Zoe clicked her tongue, looking down at what little remnants remained of her clothes. A couple metal clasps that melted onto her ankles and lower shins where the boots once were, some rubberlike material that had turned to tar and clung to her knees from some part of the dress. "I liked that dress, too."

  The frost platform drifted at Zoe's command through the sky, with the dragon following along beneath. Pacing back and forth through the sky, waiting for her to get tired and return but never ascending any higher.

  Zoe teleported a few dozen kilometers into the distance and watched with awe as the dragon crossed the same distance in moments. Its powerful wings launching it thousands of meters with each beat, landing it below Zoe at the invisible wall it couldn't seem to pass quick enough to almost pass as teleportation itself.

  She shook her head at the thought of the last dragon she saw being fast. That one must have been out for the equivalent of a leisurely stroll. This one was out for blood.

  "Alright, buddy. It was nice knowing you but I've really gotta leave now, alright?" She cupped her hands as she yelled down to the dragon. It wouldn't reach, but it was the thought that counts.

  Zoe turned and looked off to the distance then teleported hundreds of kilometers away. Far beyond the edge of the valleys, deep above the wilderness of the peaks and back within the comforting atmosphere of Abyllan. She took a moment to look through her outfits for something to replace what she'd lost, and then felt the telltale sign of burning needles in her back.

  Mana surged through her as she teleported back far above the planet's atmosphere. The dragon drew a path of devastation behind in its wake, the forests burned and the edge of the desert turned to glass beneath its intense heat.

  "Damn," Zoe grimaced. "You won't leave me alone, huh?"

  "PLEASE!" She shouted. "I don't want you to eat me and also I still want to be able to stay here on Abyllan. I think Jeff and Tom will be very confused right about now."

  The dragon didn't respond, circling around below her as its beautiful eyes stayed locked on to her even from so far away.

  A dozen spikes of black stone formed next to Zoe, and she flashed one of her prepared Enchanted Mirrors onto each of them. A combination of Archery, Elemental Arsenal, Wind, Shadow Bow and Shadow Bombardment. The most destructive enchantment she could make without using up too much mana.

  A pulse of mana shot through each of the projectiles, firing them off all at once. They screamed through the air, with the dragon dodging most of them. Two managed to find purchase amidst the chaos, one piercing into its right hind leg and the other in its left wing.

  Both exploded into tendrils of shadows that scraped along the dragon's scales to little effect. The dragon let out a painful roar as the black rocks melted away, leaving small holes behind where they managed to just pierce through the hardened scales.

  Zoe felt the wave of heat from the roar almost instantly, burning away the hair she'd worked so hard to restore again.

  What Zoe assumed to be blood dripped from the dragon's wounds, like burning oil dropped from a castle gate. A flash of flame raced across the dragon's body, mending its wounds as it turned back up towards Zoe.

  Flames gathered in its mouth, licking at its face between the sharp, gnarly fangs.

  "Oh, no. No thank you!" Zoe shouted down, teleporting several kilometers further into the sky.

  Flames erupted from the dragon's mouth, blanketing the sky in a deep dark red. The flames stretched past the planet's atmosphere for just a few hundred meters before dying out from the lack of oxygen.

  Zoe grinned, and summoned several dozen more of the black projectiles. Mana rushed from her body as she flashed her enchantment onto each of them, then launched them at the dragon. Its incredible speed let it dodge most of them, but the sheer number of projectiles Zoe could launch overwhelmed it — as long as it wanted to stay below her, at least.

  Spike after spike embedded itself into the dragon, lashing out with dense tendrils of shadow only for the damage to be repaired seconds later by the flames that crawled along the dragon's body.

  She doubted she was even coming close to overwhelming its ability to heal, but the dragon clearly felt the impacts. Each time the projectiles pierced the dragon's body, it flinched just the slightest bit.

  The dragon let out several more of its own attacks too, each one dying out as the flames left the atmosphere. After several minutes of a back and forth with neither party making any real headway, the dragon left. One moment it was circling around below her and the next it was a speck of red far in the distance, blazing gusts of wind following behind it.

  Zoe stayed, waiting for another hour, staring into the distance where the dragon had gone but it didn't return. She drifted, slowly, back down towards the atmosphere as she watched for its return, but still nothing came.

  Mana flashed through her as she teleported far into space, well beyond the atmosphere. And then again several times as she circled around the planet, then back down to hovering just above the atmosphere somewhere far away from where the battle took place. She wasn't sure if the dragon could follow her teleports, but if it could she would rather they be somewhere it couldn't reach.

  She didn't even want to think about what would have happened if the dragon had been able to leave the atmosphere. Maybe she could have gotten away, if she pushed all of her mana into teleporting, again and again, fleeing deep into space beyond where the dragon would still want to pursue.

  But maybe the dragon liked to eat powerful beasts — and few came close to her power. Maybe she was a tasty morsel it only saw every few thousand years, and would stop at nothing to chase her down if it could.

  An earthen platform formed below her, along with a chair and a desk that she sat down at. A paper and pencil appeared in front of her and she wrote out a note.

  Hey, I'm sorry. Turns out I brought you to the dragon's home and it didn't seem very happy. It is definitely still very dangerous so I am going to just spend a few days making sure it's not still following me then I'll come pick you up again. For now just wait around in Foizo I guess. And get a Sending skill. You need one.

  Mana flashed across the note as she urged the system to send it to Tom.

  The next few days felt like an eternity as Zoe floated above the planet's atmosphere, with her head on a swivel staring off into the distance for that red speck to return. Her jaw was clenched, her eyes sore and her breaths uneven.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It would be okay, she told herself. The dragon wasn't going to continue pursuing her. She had not just escaped from it but even hurt it. She showed it that she wasn't prey, even if she wasn't an equal. It would be a waste of time for it to still be hunting her. It might not even remember she existed anymore, off hunting whatever hydras it could find down in the valleys instead.

  It was okay, she told herself. She could go back to Foizo. It wouldn't follow her. If it wanted to attack cities, there would be more stories about it attacking cities.

  Almost an hour more passed before she felt comfortable enough to head back home. Mana rushed through her form as she teleported back out to space, and then back to her home in Foizo.

  Tom and Jeff could wait another few minutes, she thought as she collapsed onto her soft bed.

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