The dragon’s body starts to glow. Yijun suddenly feels the eerie silence again then the forest exploded. Before he can run for cover, showers of leaves and wood flew around him so he has no choice but cover himself where he is. Then the ground shakes and erupts beneath him. He screams as his body is thrown. Mid-air, he reaches his arms out to grab for balance. Then his back makes contact with the ground and he yelps. His body skids to a stop but the explosion is still going on around him so he ducks beneath the shelter of a fallen log, curled up like a baby and wailing like one.

 After a time, the explosion calms a little and he pokes his head out. His hair is filed with wood chips and leaves and his face is full of cuts but he does not care. What previously was a forest has become a sheared mountainside, giving him a great view of the three gods fighting below.

 The dragon is in his true form, tangling and twisting in the air to fend off the snake’s whips and the tiger’s lunges. The tiger and snake are the size of hills, and as the tiger lands, the ground shakes. As the snake whips its tail, a sonic wave occurs and shears off the treetops. The tiger roars, blasting everything in front of him but the dragon also whips its tail to form a water barrier in front of him and absorb the shock waves. He flicks it to send the water into slicing blades. The tiger’s fur shimmers and the blades bounce off its hide like water drops on a hot pan.

 The dragon perhaps has the advantage of flight but he seems unwilling to use it. Or unable to, as vines shot at him when he tries to ascend. The snake whips its tail back and forth to distract him with its sonic waves while the tiger stamps his paws and rock pillars grew to skewer the dragon from below. The dragon weaves between them gracefully like an otter swimming in water and he even uses the cover of the pillars to mount a sneak attack and attempt to swipe at the tiger below with his claws. The tiger twists away, snarling at him. The dragon ducks as the snake lunges at his body, then twists in midair to sink its fangs on the snake’s neck. The snake twists and turns, trying to get the dragon off its back and it coils its tail on the dragon’s body, intending to suffocate it. As the two tangles, the tiger  watches them carefully, biding his chance. Then it lunges.

 Its teeth manages to catch the snake’s tail and with its claws digging into the flesh, pulls it down. Both the snake and dragon fall to the ground and earth grows over the three of them. Baring fangs shining like silver, the tiger bites onto the dragon’s back, intending to break his spine while the snake thrashes about, thrashing the three of them.

 Before the earth completely covers them, the dragon’s body lights up and a blinding light breaks from the hole. Then a deafening roar as thunder crashes down. Smoke bursts from the mound and the air is permeated with the smell of burnt flesh and fur.  

 From the ruined cairn, the tiger stumbles out, its once beautiful orange fur falling out in black clumps. It whimpers, its tail between his legs as it crawls away from the site of the blast. It is lucky to still be alive, as the snake takes the brunt of the damage. The neck below the head is burnt and the head itself is splayed on the side, its eyes and mouth wide open as if in disbelief at Heaven. From the smoke, the dragon emerges, the snake’s tail uncoiling from his body. It stalks after the tiger, its eyes red with murder.

 The tiger snarls at him, his front low and ears pinned back. Blood and flesh drops from its belly splattering the ground beneath. They both stare at each other for a moment, then the tiger swipes at it. The dragon draws his head back, and his body back curls in the air. His tail whips out quickly underneath him, its tip connecting with the underside of the tiger’s chin. The tiger is caught and it flips in the air. The dragon flips back around, his mouth shining.

 The light flashes and then a shrill sound rips through the landscape. The tiger is shot to the opposite mountain, where it lands with great impact. The mountain behind him shatters. Boulders and soil falls down  to cover the tiger’s inert body.

 The dragon watches where the tiger landed and when the mound did not move, it stops hovering. He falls to the ground. Great clouds of dust billows around him.

 Yijun watches all this safely in the ruined mountain as the fight moved away from their original location. When everything goes quiet, he stretches and forces his legs to work. It became stiff during the fight like it had died from fright. As he staggers down the slope, his eyes are on the dragon below, who is lying down, not moving.

 He reached the crater where the body of the snake and dragon was. The ruined land stretches out in a desolate expanse. It was once a fertile and vibrant forest, but now it lies barren and broken, the signs of its former glory scattered like ghosts across the landscape. The earth is cracked and parched, deep fissures running through the dry, dusty soil. In some places, the ground had crumbled away entirely, and Yijun picks his way between the  jagged chasms that yawns ominously underfoot until he reaches the dragon’s body.

 Sideways, his body is as tall as the tree tops. Blood oozes from the tiger’s bites on his back, dripping along his hair to the ground,  and there were gashes on the side of his body where the tiger ‘s claws raked it. His silver scales lost their luster, exposing the black veins underneath. His ribs expand in labored and uneven breaths.

 Yijun puzzles what to do as he couldn’t expect to move him.  As he watches the dragon breath weakly with its eyes closed, Yijun thinks about his options.

 As the dragon said earlier, he is the harbinger of the apocalyse. Shouldn’t it be a good thing to leave him to die? While he may not be the cause of his village’s demise, he did destroy a village and perhaps many more before that. Shouldn’t he pay for his crimes? If he dies, more villages might be saved.

His head and his conscience is telling him to leave him but something deep inside him is binding him to the dragon, rooting him where he stands so he is unable to walk away. Like a child, clinging on to his parent's body.

 He looks the the dragon’s beautiful body marred by the battle and he remembers the dragon’s image from the night before. Resting on the water, with his head tilted back, his silver hair flowing behind him and his eyes closed with his face turned to the shining moon as if pleading for mercy. He never saw such beauty before and he never will again, if he lets him to die here now. 

Or so that is how he explains his bond with him.

 He scratches his head and walks toward the dragon. The dragon must have put a powerful geass on him, he thinks, that makes him unable to leave him.

 Yijun couldn’t leave his body here. As he has witnessed earlier, beasts sense injured animals and may wait for the end of the battle to eat them. Though the battle was intense to drive anyone away, some Great Beast might think this is an opportunity to eat the weakened victor or get some of the spoils.

 Yijun approaches the dragons head until he stands in front of its snout. “My lord? Are you well?”

 The dragon does not respond, his eyes still closed.

 Yijun puts his hand on his snout. His whiskers were cool and soft to the touch as if he were touching the clouds themselves.  

 “My Lord, we can’t stay here. Other Great Beasts might return and…”

 Eat you but he could not bring himself to say such blasphemous things.

 “If you can transform into a human, I can carry you and take you away from here,” he whispers.

 The dragon does not respond. He waited for his answer but the dragon is silent as usual. The sky is turning dark rapidly and animal noises roar in the distance. He couldn’t stay here; the dragon’s blood will attract beasts to feast on the dragon’s body and he might as well end up as a snack along with him.

 He put his head beside his hand. He breathes in the cool, clean scent flowing from the dragon, like the air from the peaks of mountains.  

 If the dragon dies, he will be stuck and had to make his way alone back to his village. Which is something he’s alright with.

 His only regret was that despite his wish to do the right thing and knowing the dragon is not benevolent he thought he was, he regrets that he couldn’t travel longer with him.

 The dragon stirs and with a sigh, his great body dissolves and compress into a human form.

 Yijun looks at the body in front of him. The dragon’s robes were wet with blood from the gashes all over his body and the black veins were more prominent on his exposed skin. His face look pained, no doubt from the combination of his illness and his injuries.

 What a bad way to die, dying all alone, with no kind soul around you, Yijun thinks.

 The growls behind him grew louder with the coming darkness and Yijun makes his choice.