Just because the fight was seemingly impossible did not mean they had the option of giving up. The objective was clear. Irwyn kept firing through his rain of stars as he put the rest of his attention on retreating. Whatever was going to happen next, distance would be to his benefit. The dragon seemed briefly stunned after its sudden transformation, which let both him and Elizabeth land another second of uninterrupted attacks. Unsure what else to do, Irwyn kept popping the new eyes, while Elizabeth used a similar strategy to stab deeper into the body - apparently the new armor did not spread beneath them.Then Irwyn felt half his barriers shatter. He realized that much through the severing links, rather than actually seeing anything happen. In a way, it would have been reassuring if that had been all the damage of withstanding a Domain. Which wasn’t the case. The damn monster still had yet to use even a shred of magic. Instead, it had physically slammed claw first into a dozen layers of protections - that had withstood other monsters at the peak of Conception without issue - and pierced right through.The monster seemed likewise surprised by being slowed at all, causing it to pause again. That was becoming a pattern - confusion gifting the mages openings. If the creature had been moving at that speed constantly, Irwyn doubted he could have caused a hundredth of the already limited damage. Which he was still trying to inflict, pouring everything he had into the still ongoing offensive spell, while simultaneously re-erecting his barriers and retreating further away. The dragon briefly glanced down at its claw, pierced halfway through one of said protections that teetered at the brink of collapse, then it breathed in.Irwyn did not burn. But reality did.The sheer cataclysmic heat of the dragon’s breath erased his spells so utterly, Irwyn couldn’t even feel the connection sever. Magic itself burned to metaphoric ash. (...)