The Novel's Draft

The illusions disappeared, and nothing happened for a while.

Incus and Steinen watched with caution.

The king hadn’t muttered a single word so far when it came to casting magic.

But this time he did.

’Meteorite.’

I recalled to when one of the demons Incus fought in the water kingdom of Febritust summoned a giant cube of earth.

Looking over at Steinen, something started to slowly appear on his chest that had the color of red.

...He’s going to die soon.

But that shouldn’t be possible, he’s the novel’s main side character.

The story wouldn’t just kill someone off like that.

Unless it’s a story plot point where he actually manages to live.

Maybe it’s just a ploy to make the readers curl their toes.

That must be it.

Looking up at the sky, a meteor tore through the clouds.

Along with it came a flood of water falling down.

Incus got ready to jump up and destroy the meteor.

But Steinen grabbed her by the shoulder.

"I will deal with this, you focus on the demon king. You are our only hope in saving this doomed world... please, your highness."

Incus hesitated before giving a shaky nod.

"Don’t die on me."

"I won’t."

With that, Steinen squatted down before jumping all the way up in the air.

While he was soaring higher into the sky, multiple dragon scales with a red tint started flying towards him.

The dragon scales turned into a drill.

Making impact with the meteorite, a bright flash exploded throughout the demon domain.

The meteorite started showing cracks.

In the next moment the large rock that broke through the sky shattered into debris.

Incus showed a faint smile on his face.

But it was quickly broken when the demon king clasped his hands together once more.

"Meteorite–"

Incus tried stopping him from opening his mouth but multiple pillars stopped her in her tracks.

And the demon king wasn’t done yet, as he continued to chant:

"Meteorite, solar eclipse."

While Steinen was still in the air, something that had the potential to destroy this planet appeared.

An even bigger meteorite ripped through the clouds, it had about the same size as the giant dead dragon who left nothing behind but its bones.

Meaning the demon king had the power to kill all of us with just a sentence.

The red dragon scales cloaked around Steinen.

The amount of scales far exceeded any amount I’ve ever seen.

Turning into a shape of wings, Steinen flew up towards the meteorite–no, the world ender.

When he reached the ender, the dragon scales turned into a giant blade, its length nearly reaching the ground.

With strained movements, Steinen swung the blade.

An even brighter flash from before illuminated a light over the demon territory.

The ender exploded.

As Steinen was still in the air, he commanded the dragon scales to destroy the debris, making sure that the army and Incus would be safe.

Falling to the ground, he barely slowed down his descent with a few scales.

Crashing down, Steinen coughed.

His armor had been torn and his right arm was completely torn off.

Running over to his side, Incus got on his knees.

Making me call back to when I did the same to when Alleus... wasn’t well.

"Don’t die on me, just hold on for a little longer. I’ll end this soon." Incus helped Steinen sit up, "How did you do that? Where did you get those dragon scales?"

"One question at a time madam, it’s rude to bambard an injured man with questions. But if you really want to know, these scales come from red wyverns... since it’s not the scale of a dragon, it’s durability is quite weak."

Steinen held up one of the wyvern scales and crushed it with his bare hands.

Hah, I thought it was scales that belonged to Dragonborn or Draan.

What an incredible bait.

Standing up, Steinen caught himself from falling over.

"Careful–" Incus reached out but was stopped by Steinen who grabbed her hand.

"Incus, can you do something for me..?"

"Sure, what is it–?"

"Take off my helmet."

Incus stood there completely shocked.

"Stop talking like that, it’s almost as if you’re telling me that you’re going to die here." Incus forced a chuckle to escape her breath.

"That’s exactly why I need you to do it... please Incus, just do this for me."

Clenching her teeth, Incus hesitated.

Reaching for his helmet, Steinen jolted before relaxing.

Grabbing Steinen’s helmet, Incus slowly took it off his head.

The first thing I saw was a set of blonde hair.

When the helmet was taken off, a scar ruined face stared at Incus with grayish green eyes.

The life from his eyes looked like it was fading away with each breath drawn.

His face looked distorted, as if someone ripped off the face of a sculpture while it was still drying.

"Ugly aren’t I..? I’m sorry for not being up to your standards–"

Incus suddenly leaned in and pulled Steinen to her face.

They kissed.

Their lips lingered for quite a long time.

Pulling back, Incus gently smiled.

"You’re not ugly."

"Really..?"

"Really."

Reaching for his mouth, Steinen looked as if he was looking for something in his mouth.

Steinen pulled out a glowing red shard from his teeth.

"Take this... it’s an item I received after killing a boss demon. I didn’t consume it just in case something like this would occur... eat this and the potency of the skill it grants will become much more powerful."

Putting it inside Incus’ mouth, Steinen’s hand dropped.

Incus was about to catch him both he rolled off of her arms and fell to the ground.

"Pfft." The demon king stopped himself from laughing.

Swallowing the crystal shard, Incus dropped her sword.

Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she staggered.

"Uuurgh..." Incus stumbled around.

"How idiotic. You should know that a person cannot have more than one unique skill, it’s just suicide." The demon king