Chapter 53: REST
They rained down from the sky like a meteor shower, hundreds of them, a torrent of destruction that sought to drown Gabriel completely.
There was no way out.
Or so the dragon believed.
Gabriel looked up at the incoming barrage. His golden wings beat slowly, maintaining his position. The fireballs grew larger as they descended, their heat already scorching the white floor below, turning the marble-like surface to blackened glass.
But his expression was not one of fear.
It was one of disappointment literally.
Throughout this battle, he had noticed inconsistencies. The dragon’s movements, while powerful, lacked the fluid grace of a true ancient dragon. Its magic, while potent, carried a faint echo of artificiality—as if it had been copied, not learned. Its eyes, fierce as they were, held no spark of genuine draconic wisdom.
A pale copy, Gabriel realized. A replica nothing more, nothing less. The dungeon core cloned this creature from a memory, a fragment of a true dragon’s essence. It’s impressive, but it’s not real.
His disappointment deepened.
He had hoped for a worthy opponent. A true dragon, with centuries of experience, with pride and cunning and raw, untamed power. Instead, he faced a counterfeit—a masterpiece of mimicry, but a counterfeit nonetheless.
I don’t want to play anymore. It’s getting boring anyway.
His expression became serious.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
He reached deep into himself, past his mana, past his angelic essence, past the golden light that radiated from his very soul. He found the thread of temporal energy that had been woven into his being since his rebirth—the power to command time itself.
He willed it.
TIME STOP.
The effect was immediate and absolute.
Reality froze.
The thousands of fireballs, mid-descent, ceased their movement. They hung in the air like frozen stars, their heat still radiating, but their motion halted. The magic circles that had spawned them flickered and stilled, their sigils locked in place. The dragon itself—its maw still open, its eyes still gleaming with triumph—became a statue, suspended in mid-air, its wings frozen mid-beat.
The only sound was the soft rustle of Gabriel’s wings, the only motion his own.
He opened his eyes.
The world was a painting. A still life of destruction, frozen at the moment before impact. And Gabriel was the only one who could move.
He walked through the frozen inferno.
His feet found purchase on the solid air, each step carrying him forward with calm, deliberate purpose. He passed between the hanging fireballs, their heat brushing against his skin but unable to harm him. He climbed higher, rising past the frozen dragon’s wings, past its coiled tail, past its massive chest.
He hovered before the creature’s face.
The dragon’s sapphire eyes were locked in a triumphant glare, unaware that its victory had been stolen, unaware that time itself had betrayed it.
Gabriel raised his hand.
His index finger extended, and he tapped the dragon gently on its forehead—a small, almost affectionate gesture.
"REST," he said.
The word carried no malice. No anger. Just a quiet command, spoken with the authority of one who had been given dominion over life and death.
Immediately, all vitality vanished from the dragon’s body.
Its heart stopped. Its mana ceased to flow. The spark of consciousness that had animated this pale copy flickered and died. The dragon, in that frozen moment, became nothing more than a corpse—a husk of flesh and bone and crystal, devoid of life.
Gabriel pulled back his hand and turned away.
Time. Resume.
Time snapped back into motion.
The thousands of fireballs, no longer sustained by the dragon’s magic, dissolved into harmless motes of light that scattered across the sky like dying embers. The magic circles shattered, their sigils crumbling into nothing.
And the dragon’s body—massive, lifeless—plummeted to the ground.
KABOOOOOM!
The impact was cataclysmic. The white floor cracked, splintered, and buckled, forming a deep gash that stretched for hundreds of meters. Shards of marble-like stone erupted into the air, raining down across the plain. The dragon’s body lay at the center of the crater, its wings splayed, its neck twisted, its sapphire eyes—once fierce and alive—now dull and empty.
It was deader than dead.
Until the very end, the dragon had not understood how it died. One moment, it had been victorious, its fireballs raining down upon the golden intruder. The next, it was nothing. No pain. No final thought. Just absence.
Gabriel descended slowly, his wings folding behind him. He landed at the edge of the crater and looked down at the fallen beast.
"A shame," he murmured. "A true dragon would have been more fun to toy with, well I know how strong I’m, to some extent."
°°°
In its hidden chamber, the dungeon core felt everything.
It had been watching. It had been hoping. When the false dragon had summoned its magic circles, when the fireballs had rained down, the core had allowed itself a moment of desperate optimism.
Maybe this will work. Maybe they will fall.
Then Gabriel had stopped time.
The core had felt it—a lurch in the fabric of reality, a violation of the natural order that it could not comprehend. It had watched, frozen in its own perception, as the archangel walked through the inferno untouched. It had seen the gentle tap on the dragon’s forehead, the quiet command, the abrupt cessation of life.
And it had felt the dragon’s soul—its creation, its proudest achievement—extinguish like a candle snuffed out by a careless breath.
The core’s ancient consciousness trembled.
It had been scared before. It had been worried, concerned, anxious. But this was different. This was terror—pure, primal, all-consuming terror.
I cannot face them, it realized. I am nothing to them. My traps, my monsters, my copied dragons—they are toys. Playthings. They have been toying with me this entire time.
The core’s soul—if a dungeon could be said to have a soul—felt as if it were about to leave its physical vessel. It flickered, dimmed, nearly collapsed into oblivion.
But it held on. Desperately. Pathetically.
Perhaps... perhaps if I offer them something. Treasure. Power. Anything. Perhaps they will spare me.
It did not know. It could only hope.
And on the white floor above, Gabriel turned away from the fallen dragon and looked toward the distant location where Lilith fought her own copy.
One down, he thought. One to go.
