Failing time and again to inflict any real harm, the bone dragon suddenly twisted its massive body, its flame-wreathed tail lashing toward Glenn with blinding speed. He evaded effortlessly, but just as he prepared to close the distance again, the creature’s vast wings flared with fire, propelling it skyward. “Damn it!” he hissed, already sensing what was to come. He leapt aside with all the speed he could muster.

  Boom—! A blinding inferno engulfed the spot where he had just stood. Flames erupted, and the scorched earth melted into a molten pool of lava. The sheer heat warped the air itself, twisting it like glass.

  The dragon’s breath tried to track Glenn’s movements, but his speed was beyond its reckoning. A single turn of its skull, and he was gone. The monster’s inner fire was not infinite—soon it faltered, pausing to gather its strength.

  In that moment, Glenn struck. Leaping from an unseen vantage, he landed upon the dragon’s spine and raked his claws across its back in a furious assault. The bone dragon lacked the living scales of its kind, its defenses weaker for it—but the skeletal armor was still monstrously hard. His claws left only shallow scars upon the pale bone.

  To feel such desecration—an inferior creature upon its sacred spine—drove the dragon into a frenzy. Its flames roared wildly as it dove, crashing into the ground, rolling and grinding forward with Glenn still clinging to its back.

  Yet even this agony could not make him let go. His claws dug in like iron hooks. Then, abruptly, the dragon craned its skull backward, impossibly twisting to bite down on his shoulder. The fangs pierced hide and flesh alike, sinking deep.

  Black smoke gushed from the wound. Pain flared—and with it, Glenn’s strength grew ever more violent. The dragon coughed on the smoke but refused to release him. With a brutal jerk, it tore him free from its back.

  Its head whipped left and right, slamming his body against the earth again and again, trying to shred the stubborn prey that refused to die. At last, Glenn’s claw shot out, gripping the beast’s long neck. The muscles along his arm bulged and tightened, constricting like a living vise.

  The pressure mounted to a dreadful peak. The dragon’s entire body shuddered, the phantom veins glowing through its skeleton as it convulsed in pain. It could still feel pain. It released him and pressed its forelimbs upon his body, wrenching its head upward to break free of his grasp.

  But that wolf’s hand—corded with muscle, unwavering—refused to yield. Enraged, the dragon summoned its flames to full fury. Fire surged along its neck, blazing so hot that Glenn felt his own flesh begin to melt. He wrenched free just in time.

  The creature’s flames dimmed after the effort, its once-blazing form now a fraction of its former glory. Glenn noticed—but had no time to rejoice. Hunger clawed at his insides, a gnawing, maddening emptiness.

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  He was reaching his limit. His tongue brushed the golden fruit wedged between his teeth, nudging it down his throat. He swallowed.

  Almost at once, the agony of hunger began to fade. The bone dragon lunged again; Glenn sidestepped, eyes locked on its abdomen.

  When the dragon’s phantom veins had appeared earlier, he had seen it—its heart. Not in the chest, but low within the belly, pulsing between the seams of bone.

  Yet the path to it was sealed beneath thick, armor-like plates. To reach the heart, he would first have to shatter that shell.

  A stream of dragonfire erupted—he dodged again, barely. The dragon lunged, jaws gaping.

  His right arm swelled with power. He struck. Five black streaks of cursed energy tore across its white skull, leaving smoldering scars. Twisting, he locked both arms around its neck and heaved—

  The titanic dragon slammed to the ground with a crash, its flames dimming further. Without its master, its strength was fading, Glenn realized. But he did not stop.

  Before the creature could rise, he clambered onto its abdomen, gripping one great bone plate with both hands. Planting his feet against the dragon’s belly, he strained with every fiber of muscle—

  Roar—! With a sound like cracking stone, the plate snapped free, molten ichor splattering like lava across the ground.

  A hoarse, furious roar—pain, rage, humiliation—shook the battlefield. The dragon tried to rise again, but faltered. Glenn slammed into it, forcing it back down.

  Like a savage dismantling a toy, he tore away another plate—then another. Piece by piece, the armor of its abdomen came apart, until at last that ghostly, pulsing heart lay exposed to the air.

  The dragon now was little more than a skeletal husk, its fire nearly extinguished—yet it still moved. Glenn seized the heart in his claw and crushed it.

  Then—something impossible. The dim flames suddenly flared bright, fiercer than ever before, blazing beyond their former peak.

  A terrible suction gripped his arm. Alarmed, Glenn tried to pull free, but molten filaments clung to him, stretching like living webs between his claws and the dragon’s burning form. He tore at them with his other hand—only for that one to be caught as well.

  The threads were alive. What in the—?!

  He was about to bite through his own arms when the fire ahead of him stirred. Two whirling vortices formed within it, spinning like twin suns. The dragon’s body was gone—only the fiery maelstroms remained, and their centers were bound to the threads linking him.

  Before he could move, the twin vortices surged forward, engulfing him whole.

  There was no pain—only light. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing where he had been before. The bone dragon was gone, not a trace of it left.

  But his arms—his arms now bore bracers of dark, demonic metal, each one fused to his flesh, extending into razor-sharp claws that gleamed with infernal brilliance.

  In his mind, a voice spoke—a deep, resonant utterance in a tongue he somehow understood: “The Fangs of Flame shall belong only to the victor. The curse is eternal.”

  It was a voice of terrible majesty, belonging to a being beyond mortal reckoning.

  Glenn raised his arms. The steel claws shimmered in the sunlight, power surging through his veins. Unable to resist, he slashed the air.

  A flash of white light tore forth—five molten claw marks scorched into the earth, each one radiating heat, identical to the breath of the bone dragon itself.