It was just that, although the Lacrima's melting speed had been significantly suppressed, Shane's cold, hard expression did not ease in the slightest.
Partly because the outermost layer of the crystal had already melted by nearly half, and the magic that had spilled out could no longer be recovered.
But even more because…
The sky had suddenly gone dark.
Along with a suffocating, oppressive pressure, a familiar and enormous shadow completely blocked out the sunlight over the plaza.
That steel colossus—the one they had briefly encountered in Rune—was now violently tearing through the thick clouds, lowering its cold, hideous dragon head.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The moment his evil-dragon counterpart descended, an intense resonance swept through Shane's entire body.
Shane pressed a hand hard against his chest. His chaotic heartbeat kept stimulating the dragonization tendencies inside him, his blood vessels pulsing wildly.
Fortunately, he was currently in Lancer's state, and his control over his body far exceeded normal. Combined with the experience he had gained from his previous loss of control and escape, he barely managed to suppress the restlessness in his blood.
"Hah…"
Shane exhaled a turbid breath, lifted off the ground, and rose straight into the sky.
Black wings spread wide. He stopped among the clouds, level with the evil dragon's enormous bell-like eyes.
"Facing someone so similar to you… what do you feel right now?"
Shane held his spear level and asked in a low voice.
But the evil dragon completely ignored the question.
It only opened its nostrils greedily, inhaling great mouthfuls of the sweet magic that had spilled into the air from the melting crystal.
Then, seemingly dissatisfied by such thin feeding, it shifted its greedy attention directly to the alluring cluster of Lacrima crystals below. It extended a thick dragon claw large enough to blot out the sky and grabbed straight down.
"You really know what you want."
Seeing that the other party was completely ignoring him, Shane narrowed his eyes slightly. His figure instantly turned into an afterimage, arriving later yet reaching first, blocking the space above the crystal.
"Sorry. This thing isn't your dinner."
Shane shouted low, raising his black-blue twin spears with both hands and directly blocking that dragon claw, enormous as a house.
Boom!
The instant they collided, a terrifying and irresistible force surged through the spear shaft like a collapsing mountain and raging sea.
Shane felt both arms sink. His entire body was forced downward through the air, his feet carving two visible white waves in the void before he barely dispersed that brute force.
"That really is exaggerated strength worthy of that body size."
Shane shook out his aching wrists.
However… while dispersing the force in flight just now, he had also discovered the other party's weakness.
That enormous dragon body had been magically forged by his counterpart through self-refinement. In essence, it leaned more toward machinery and dead matter.
Its shell was sturdy, but against Lancer's black-blue great spears, it clearly wasn't enough.
Shane's eyes sharpened. Before the dragon claw could withdraw, his figure flashed like lightning.
Finding the seam between the metallic scales, he drove both spears into the gap and shot upward with all his strength, prying hard.
Screeech—!
Along with an ear-grating tearing sound, half of the enormous mechanical dragon claw was cleanly sliced away and crashed heavily into an empty area of the plaza.
There was no blood spraying from the severed part. Instead, it exposed cold, gleaming steel cross-sections and complex magical circuits inside.
And yet, after this slash, the huge dragon body merely sank slightly in symbolic fashion before falling into absolute stillness.
It did not let out a roar of pain, nor did it tremble or retreat.
It simply maintained its original greedy reaching posture, like a lifeless exhibit, completely indifferent to the loss of part of its body.
"No reaction at all? It can't even feel pain?"
Shane hovered not far away, studying it in confusion.
Only then did the evil dragon whose half claw had been severed seem to finally notice the annoying fly buzzing around it.
Its emotionless gaze swept coldly over Shane.
The evil dragon slowly opened its huge mouth. The surrounding atmosphere was instantly pushed aside and distorted.
Whoooosh—!
A pillar of dragon-fire breath so hot it warped the air erupted without warning.
Shane's eyelid twitched. He beat his wings and shifted sideways, nimbly avoiding the direct blast.
But when he looked back—
the dragon breath that had missed him struck the grand palace complex behind him, yet produced no explosive roar.
The entire palace melted silently in the flames like fresh snow beneath the blazing sun, leaving only a massive smooth-edged cavity, crystallized like glass.
But what shocked Shane was not that exaggerated destructive power.
It was the evil dragon's severed claw.
In the brief time it had taken to breathe that fire, strands of materialized magic had surged at the severed part.
Drawn by the magic, the metal rapidly proliferated and reorganized as if alive. In the blink of an eye, it had returned to its original state.
"It can repair itself?"
Shane's brows locked tight.
From the looks of it, ordinary physical damage was useless. Did he have to erase it completely in one go?
Or find the magic-storage core hidden inside its body?
All kinds of tactical ideas flashed rapidly through his mind.
Unfortunately, the other party clearly did not leave him any quiet time to think.
"Roar!"
Dragon breath came in repeated blasts, and claws carrying violent winds swept out again and again.
Shane could only focus, dodging nimbly through the storm of attacks.
Perhaps because both sides were consciously or unconsciously avoiding the target below—the Lacrima array—the battlefield continued to rise and shift as they clashed. Sometimes they rushed into the clouds, sometimes they plunged toward the ground.
Before long, the man and dragon had already battled from the center of the royal capital to its outskirts.
Rumble—!
The evil dragon merely performed a low-altitude dive, yet its enormous body and the violent winds it stirred up caused huge numbers of houses on the outskirts, along with the blockade towers meant to defend against the Exceeds, to collapse in sheets like fragile blocks, turning into ruins.
Amid the flying dust, Shane kept searching for chances to counterattack. His black-blue twin spears accurately cut open the other party's steel scales and flesh again and again.
But under the evil dragon's almost cheating rapid regeneration ability, those wounds often healed as soon as they appeared, closing completely amid the surge of magic. Nearly all his attacks failed to produce any substantial effect.
"As long as its stored magic doesn't run out, this thing absolutely won't fall. No wonder it's obsessed with magic like a lunatic."
The more Shane fought, the more irritated he became.
With the other party's absurd recovery speed, even if he drew Arondight now, he might not be able to reduce this monster to ash in a single strike.
If this dragged on, it would absolutely become a war of attrition.
It would come down to whether the evil dragon's magic reserves ran dry first, or whether Shane's number of Noble Phantasm uses was exhausted first.
Shane absolutely hated battles where victory was not completely in his hands. It made him feel deeply unsafe.
"Tch. Against this kind of thick-skinned bastard, it would be great if I could use Genesis Swordcraft…"
While dodging the sweep of the dragon tail, Shane cursed inwardly.
As long as he could pull the evil dragon into his inner world, he would have all the time he needed to analyze it slowly, then forge the Tsumukari Muramasa that could completely sever and destroy it in a single strike.
Unfortunately, that ability required an enormous amount of magic to support.
Without the [Dragon Reactor Core], in this magicless world, he could not use the Noble Phantasms of other Heroic Spirits at all.
"I should've asked Mystogan earlier if he had any extra unused medicine…"
Shane felt somewhat annoyed.
But on second thought, that prototype medicine only lasted a few short minutes. Even if he took it, it probably wouldn't maintain the Reality Marble for long, so it wouldn't mean much.
At that thought, Shane used the recoil of a collision to quickly pull back and attempted one last communication.
"Hey!"
He shouted toward the evil dragon.
"Collecting magic in this barren place must be exhausting, right? Want to stop for a moment and make a deal? I can take you to another world with ridiculously abundant magic. You can eat your fill there!"
However, his "temptation" plan had no effect whatsoever.
Perhaps as the battle went on, the other party gradually sensed the similarity between them.
The response he received was a dazzling blast of dragon breath faster and hotter than before.
"So it really is just a mad beast. How the hell did Faust reach a tacit understanding with something like this?"
Shane shot upward at high speed, barely avoiding the lethal strike.
But before he could catch his breath, the other party's enormous shadow pressed in again, sharp claws descending over his head.
Looking at this steel monster that couldn't be communicated with and kept pushing forward with its absurd durability, Shane had never fought such a frustrating, awkward battle since his debut.
Especially because he clearly had a solution, yet was unable to use it due to the environment.
"I don't know what's going to happen next!"
Finally, the repeated dodging and entanglement exhausted all his patience. A nameless fire surged straight to his head, and Shane simply clenched his teeth.
"Fuck it. I'm blowing this wide open!"
With that decisive thought, his mind instantly sank down to the depths of his consciousness.
In the palace of his soul, he grabbed the faintly glowing bookmark tucked between the pages of the Book of Heroic Spirits—
and without the slightest hesitation, tore it free with force.
Lancer's fourth vision—
unfold!