As the dragon neared Allen, it didn't even try to dodge the kid's incoming attacks and let itself take the brunt of them.
However, Allen already predicted it beforehand and moved away from his current location by initiating Shadow Steps.
In the first place, the said technique was for dodging, but coupled with the energy coming from the (Erchian Dagger), it broke through its limitations and now also became a movement technique for continuous motion.
-rumble-
When the huge body of the dragon landed, craters formed under its claws while dust and rocks flew around the surroundings.
-whoosh-
The tail rushed forward towards Allen, this time, it was much faster than before after the dragon transformed earlier.
However, he was also different now than his earlier self. The kid dodged the tail, and the said body part was plunged to the ground, taking this chance, he slashed with his weapon, cutting off the end of the tail!
The tail was twice, if not, thrice as tough as a magical weapon, but the Erchian Dagger pierced through it like it was non-existent!
The beast recalled its tail back, suddenly, flesh regenerated back on the end of the said body part.
"Die...!", the dragon roared as it flew back to the air, it took in a deep breath, created light winds that were going towards its mouth.
It was going to breathe fire again!
Taking this chance, Allen sent out multiple dagger flashes towards the dragon, wounding the beast. However, the wounds instantly disappeared because of the monster's regenerative abilities!
"Damn regeneration ability!", Allen cursed as he immediately moved much farther away from the beast.
The dragon finally stopped breathing in air, and breathe out green fire towards Allen. The range of the fire increased and the flames became even more dangerous after the dragon transformed! Coupled with it's wings fanning towards the kid's direction, the speed of the flame increased!
"Dragons are a cheat in this world.", Allen angrily commented as he ran much faster than before. He wasn't wrong, since their only predators in this world, the titans, had gone extinct a long time ago, the dragons prospered and even became arrogant to the point that they provoked the Celestial in the world that time, which was also the cause of the near extinction of their kind.
Allen knew that he couldn't outrun the fire any longer, luckily, he already roughly thought of a plan.
'Firm Fists.', Allen initiated the said skill. With the boost of the energy coming from the Erchian Dagger, not only the kid's fists became tougher, but also his whole arms like the fight with the barbarian.
As the fire was about to hit him, Allen stopped running away and quickly turned around; after which, he punched out with his arm!
-boom-
A sonic boom could be heard as the fire was sent back a distance away from the kid. It might just be a distance away, nevertheless, it was enough that the fire won't hit him anymore even if he kept standing on his current position, because the dragon already stopped breathing out fire.
"Hehehe...", Allen chuckled like a crazy man as his surroundings shook, if the chamber wasn't probably wide or wasn't probably a tough dragon's lair, it would've already collapsed on them due to the magnitude of their battle.
The dragon was caught off guard by what Allen just did.
'This kid also knows techniques on temporarily strengthening one's body?', the dragon inwardly said. Probably if Allen didn't know about Firm Fists, he would have become a fried meal by the dragon.
The beast knew that it was also running out of combat attacks that could take Allen off guard and kill him. Initially, it thought that even with the kid's weapon boosting him, it wouldn't even take that long for it to kill him.
The dragon roared again and almost a hundred of green fire spears appeared on the air around it, and launched them one at a time towards Allen at a very fast rate.
"An increase in the spears' range too? This should be fun, hehehe...", Allen chuckled.
Meanwhile, from far away, Kate slowly regained her consciousness. The first thing she saw was Drake's body lying on the ground, as she was about to stand to check on him, she heard the dragon's roar.
She was startled and thought she was about to get eaten, making her close her eyes, but feeling nothing happen afterwards, she opened them again and looked towards where the roar came from, and saw a humongous dragon fighting against a familiar figure.
"Allen?", Kate narrowed her eyes to check if she was being deceived, but she found out wasn't. There, from far away, she saw that Allen kept dodging the green fire spears that were launching towards him in every second. Every time the spears hit the ground, the area around it was engulfed in green fire!
Suddenly, Allen charged towards the dragon. The latter also charged forward and engaged in close combat!
Allen dodged every single claw and tail of attacks the dragon while sending out dagger flashes, always wounding its large body!
The dragon's humongous, and intimidating body was now its own weakness against the kid!
"Die! Die! Die! Die...!", Allen repeatedly shouted as he made a large cut with the Erchian Dagger under the dragon's body!
The Erchian Dagger easily sliced through the dragon's body. After which, Allen got out from under the beast's body.
"Huh? The wound can't heal?", the dragon noticed that the large wound under its enormous body couldn't heal, then it looked towards the dagger that Allen was holding. Not just that, it could also feel that his suppose to be bountiful undead force was being drained at a very fast pace!
Earlier, when Allen has cut off the end of the dragon's tail, the undead force on the tail was being sucked out, however, the wound was just too little for the suction of the undead force, and so, the regeneration overpowered the suction and fully healed the tail.
Seeing that the wound can't heal, Allen took the initiative and sliced through the dragon's claws! In a few seconds, two of the dragon's claws were already cut off from the main body!
Allen then aimed his sights towards the body of the dragon where it's undead core was suppose to be resting. He had read from one of the books back at the house that the undead has what they call 'undead core' where all the undead life force was being stored.
The dragon seemed to had weaken from the continuous draining of its undead life force, and so, Allen immediately went towards the location where he saw something glowing green inside the beast's body.
"Die... hahahaha...!", Allen stabbed the Erchian Dagger through it.
However, Allen's smile became stiff as the dragon slowly disappeared.
"An illusion?!", Allen shouted in anger.
"Ahhh...", a shriek sounded out which originated far away from his location.
Allen turned around towards the source of the shrill scream, and saw the dragon flying towards Kate, the large wound on the beast's body was still there, but its claws were all intact. It then launched its tail towards Kate!
Allen ran towards Kate with everything he could, but he knew that he won't be able to make it in time.
Kate still couldn't move her body due to the injury she got from the dragon when the whole chamber was still pitch black. She could only close her eyes and wait for the tail to stab her.
However, the said scenario never happened.
Kate opened her eyes again, and saw Allen standing some distance in front of her looking towards her, while the end of the dragon's tail was piercing through his chest.
'See kid, I can be reasonable at times. Trading the remaining time to freely use the Erchian Dagger for a long-range teleport. Hahaha...', the devil's cackle echoed inside Allen's thoughts.
The kid's red eyes and the Erchian Dagger he was holding slowly dematerialized and disappeared.
Allen made a stiff smile towards Kate while the upper half of his head was being covered by his hair.
Allen puked out blood and felt his consciousness became blurrier and blurrier.
The boy tried to move his body but wasn't able to, and so, the dragon pulled its tail back along with Allen.
"Allen!", Kate shouted as she watched the boy being snatched away.