Black Pearl was certain the Rat King had only one strike in him. She decided to risk trading blows, folded her Dragon Wings, and plunged down with the force of a storm!
A terrifying shriek tore through the air, the kind that would wake anyone who faced it from their sleep for nights to come.
The Rat King watched the Black Dragon draw closer. He shattered the paving stones beneath his feet as dark-green veins snaked over his bulging muscles. In his hands, a gate weighing more than ten tons became a hammerhead without a handle, and he swung it at the diving Black Pearl!
A rusty, blood-scented gust rushed toward her, but cunning flashed through Black Pearl's dragon eyes. With forty or fifty meters still between her and the ground, she abruptly spread her Dragon Wings. The gate swept past her horns by a hair's breadth.
She had just drawn a deep breath when "Annan's" voice slipped into her ears again from the sidelines:
"I, Annan Reeves, will give you all my wealth! I'll even put Free City in your name and make you the richest Black Dragon in Allen World!"
Black Pearl knew perfectly well that wasn't Annan Reeves, yet she still lost focus for an instant. At that very moment, the Rat King bent his knees and leaped. His steel-corded claws caught her tail, and he swung her toward the ground like a whip!
Boom!
The two behemoths, each weighing dozens of tons, crashed down. Dust exploded outward, pelting the stands like bullets.
The spectators were still ducking when the ground began to shake beneath them. The battered Blood Arena, riddled with cracks, could bear no more. With a deafening rumble, it slid down to the layer below, taking every spectator with it.
The fight between the