The blood of a legendary dragon held savage magical power.
Renato could no longer feel anything else. His vision blurred, his hearing vanished, and only one sensation remained-
His body was burning.
As though immersed in molten lead, he could feel the crimson liquid seeping through the gaps in his Mithral Gauntlet, into his skin and his veins.
Renato believed that if he stopped using Touch of Dakoul, the symptoms would ease immediately.
Yet, inexplicably, he did not pull his right hand out. Instead, he pushed it deeper. His arm sank into the dragon's skull, his fingertips touching warm brain tissue that still pulsed.
Countless strands of shadow energy seemed to gather around his ears, whispering and murmuring, surging in like a tide-
Kill it, drain it dry, enslave it...
As Renato thrust almost his entire arm into the dragon's skull, the Deep Dragon instinctively began shaking its head like mad.
Its enormous head thrashed up and down, swinging from side to side. Renato's feet lost their hold on its scales, leaving his entire body suspended in midair, hanging solely by the arm embedded in its skull.
The violent shaking interrupted Renato's Touch of Dakoul. To keep himself from being flung away, he instinctively seized the Black Arrow before him as a handhold.
The negative energy coiling around the shaft stabbed into his palm, bringing a bone-deep chill that actually cleared his head a little.
The Deep Dragon's violent movements snapped many of the tentacles clinging to its body. The flesh-colored tubes tore apart under the strain.
A trace of life returned to the dragon's formerly vacant eyes.
The Deep Dragon seemed half-paralyzed. One side of its body obeyed the Elder Brain, trying to return to the Brain Pool and reconnect with the tentacles, while the other dragged itself outward,