Chapter 91: The Final Battle (Part 4)
I flew into the air and aimed a claw swipe for the Ragnarok's tail. There wasn't much of an effect except a small scratch mark and it's tail slapped me into a building. It collapsed into dust, but I got away from the falling debris. I grasped the Archaeion and focused my energy on it. "Hurricane!" I roared and let fly arrow after arrow. I managed to hit the exact same spot on one of the Ragnarok's legs with about 10 arrows before an energy beam flew towards me and threw my aim off. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. "The spell's starting to wear off! Earlier than expected too......" the Demon Dragon said. Better hurry up and finish it off then...... but how?
Alexis slapped the Ragnarok's head repeatedly with her tail to no effect. It merely flung her off and fired an energy beam at her. Suddenly, I spotted her clutching her chest, probably in pain. "Faster!" the Demon Dragon urged me on and I activated Hurricane again. Alexis grabbed her golden longsword and flew on top of the Ragnarok. It looked mildly amused. "You think that piece of metal can do anything to me?" it c0cked its head to one side.
The look on the Ragnarok's face vanished after Alexis stabbed it in the back with her sword. She managed to pierce its scales! It immediatly flung Alexis off itself and grabbed its wound. "Heal." it breathed. Nothing happened. "Any wound made by the sword can never be healed with magic." said Alexis. She had a serious look on her face. "Brandish!" she raced towards the Ragnarok and cut a leg off in the blink of an eye, then turned around and slashed another leg off. Black blood shot from the wounds as it howled in pain.
"I've never seen Alexis like that......" I gaped as Alexis went crazy on the Ragnarok. "The power of the sword, most probably. It's been known to increase the user's powers significantly. It's devastating in the hands of a warrior." the Demon Dragon remarked. I primed another Hurricane and let fly at the wound on the Ragnarok's back. About 10 direct hits, each splitting the previous arrow in half. The wound deepened a few inches. "Sharp Eyes." I clasped my claws together and closed my eyes. I felt a mystical power flowing into my eyes and when I opened them again, my eyesight improved radically. I could see something pulsing black deep inside the wound!
The heart? Must be it! My left leg started to feel strange. When I looked at it, it seemed to be ethereal! "Hurry!" the Demon Dragon shouted. I launched quite a few more arrows at the wound. Now, the Ragnarok was thrashing around, so it was harder to hit the wound. However, every arrow that landed around the wound seemed to do more damage than usual. That was obvious because its scales cracked once for every hit. Eventually, I managed to enlarge the wound until I could fire a shot directly through it and into the heart. "I think the sword somehow weakened the surrounding scales." the Demon Dragon mumbled. Alexis's tail was turning ethereal. Must hurry!
"IVAN!" Alexis suddenly yelled. I looked towards her to find her sword spiraling through the air towards me. I grabbed it by the hilt and looked at her, surprised. She was locking the Ragnarok down to the ground, preventing it from moving. She pointed at the wound. I nodded and a small indent appeared in the hilt of the sword. My shoulder turned ethereal. I knew I only had one shot. If I missed, I wouldn't have enough time for Alexis to throw the sword up for me to shoot again. I blinked a bead of sweat from my eyelid, nocked the sword to the string, pulled back and released.
Time seemed to pass by at a snail's pace as the sword flew towards the wound on the back of the Ragnarok. The sword trailed airstreams as it flew and I felt my hands go numb. My hands fell uselessly to my side and I could only watch as Ragnarok thrashed around, trying to throw off Alexis's firm grip on it. The sword reached the mouth of the wound...... Alexis flew back. Ragnarok quietened down and seemed to be muttering something.
......
"Ivan?"
"Yeah?"
"It's time to say goodbye to the world."
"I know. Goodbye, mother, father......"
"Ivan...... I hope we meet again in the afterlife."
"I'm sure we will."
"Goodbye, world."
......
A direct hit. The sword pierced straight through the heart and Ragnarok let out a tremendous roar at the exact same time my body started to flake away. Alexis's body, riddled with wounds, also started to flake. In the last few seconds of my life, I grabbed the Archaeion with my ethereal hands and threw it up into the sky, in the hopes that it would never be used for evil purposes. Alexis pulled her sword out of the Ragnarok's heart and flung it into the sky, straight into the path of the Archaeion. Both collided in mid-air and there was a flash of light. Both weapons disappeared. The Ragnarok fell silent and dissolved into a million particles, blowing away into the sky, following the path of the wind, eventually disintegrating.
Two small explosions appeared in the place of Ivan's and Alexis's bodies, consuming them in the blink of an eye. Roy wiped away tears as a rift appeared behind him and he jumped in. "They sacrificed themselves to save the world...... Why did it have to end this way!?" he banged his fist on the walls of the dimensional transfer tunnel. When he reached the world of MapleStory, he was greeted by the rest of the gang, waiting anxiously. Keichii, with his Rigol sword resting on his back, Fielda, with her Devil's Sunrise sheathed, Daniel, with his Golden Arund in his quiver and Lynx with her Heaven's Gate in her sheath.
Roy shook his head and Fielda burst into tears. Daniel patted her on the back softly while tears flowed out of Lynx's eyes. Behind them, in the house, a small flash of light engulfed the book of Inner Beasts and it was gone the next second. The egg produced by Ivan and Alexis wobbled slightly and disappeared. The rest of the populace in the city attacked by Ragnarok stepped out of their shelters to stare at the sky, at the words "Live on in peace and never be bothered again, Ivan and Alexis." Rain started to fall. Silfa and DeathLord held each other's hands and disappeared in a flash of light.
The End.
Epilogue
The broken half of an eggshell floated on the surface of a lake towards a house. There was a crying baby inside. A man and a woman walked out of the house, just wanting to go out. They heard the sound of the crying baby and ran towards the eggshell. The woman picked up the baby and stared at the eggshell which it had come drifting on. The eggshell was white and a small wing was visible on that half. "Ivan" was somehow written on the wing.