[Ambushed]

It wasnt more than 20 minutes that Dawn started to sleep, her senses felt danger and she instantly got up, drawing her sword and slashing forward.

Cling.

Dawn slashed an arrow, she looked to the direction the arrow came from and saw an elf that was 30 meters away from her standing on a tree branch.

"..It has been so long, hasnt it? You even found a dragon, it seems rather young aswell." The elf started to move branch from branch, repositionating himself for a better angle. He had an evil grin and a long bow, he was holding 5 arrows in the same hand he was holding the bow and had no quiver, as it would slow him down.

Dawn eyes suddenly widened as if she was seeing a ghost and then looked at the broken arrow on the ground, it seemed to be wet in some sort of substance wich was probably poison. "B-but i saw you-"

"Die? After you abandoned me and the rest of the exploration team on that damned cave, i couldnt stop of thinking of the day i would take my revange.." The elf was quite far away, but both of them were Full Aura warriors, they could hear things from over 500 meters away casually. The elf raised his hand and goblins surged out of the shadows, there could be seen some faint white lines over their head, like a puppet in a marionete show. They surrounded both Dawn and the drowsy Emilia.

Emilia was slowly waking up because of the comotion, it was the 2nd time just tonight that she couldnt get proper sleep!

"You have fallen! Why would you, out of all people, absorb the darkness?!" The shout coming from Dawn fully awakened Emilia. Dawn knew what he was doing to the goblins, afterall, that is a common ability for those that walk the path of darkness. The strings constantly dain the vital force of living beings while also taking their freedom of thinking, they become just mindless slaves feeding their master more power.

"To survive. And to get my revenge." He drawed another arrow in his bow, lightning spikes surged while the goblins charged in.

"Draining the vital force of people and destroying their souls, is revenge worth all of this?" Dawn shouted once more, defending herself from the goblins while keeping a close eye to that lightning arrow.

"What is going on?" Emilia was confused, she had just woken up and now there was a battle happening around her.

A gobling suddenly charged an attack from behind Emilia, but before he could hit her, Emilia swinged her tail and the poor goblin got flung away, splattering into blood once it hit a tree. "Close call.." Emilia said in relief, what if the goblin got her scales dirty? That was all the worries Emilia had. After all in what world a goblin would be able to hurt a dragon?

Dawn saw Emilia being able to hold herself sighed in relief, well it was expected afterall there was no way a mighty dragon would lose to goblins. The elf on the other hand decided to plant the seed of chaos.

"Do not help that useless reptile! She is just using you for her own benefit!" Distrust, something that could make ally's turn into enemy's in an instant. Emilia glanced at both and swinged her paw, causing a air slash to form cutting 2 goblins in half. She wasnt going to listen to someone who just dared to disturb her sleep.

Emilia kept killing goblins with ease using her air slashes, wich until now she didnt know she could use, 'This is quite fun.' And as it is the nature of a dragon, they love seeing things get destroyed, whether it is buildings or flesh bodys.

"That foul reptile left people to die! She ran away the moment we needed her! What stops her from doing the same to you?" The elf shouted once more trying to stop Emilia. Emilia glanced back at Dawn, 'I might have some questions for later, though i do consider her my friend i have also seen a lot of people getting fooled by 'friends' and getting into a slave contracts on the job market.'

Seeing that his try to cause chaos was useless, he released the lightining arrow wich was almost as fast as light.

Dawn had been expecting that attack and ducked down barely dodging. Though the goblin infront of her wasnt so lucky, he got his brains blown by the arrow.

Though there was something weird.. It didnt look like he was aiming for the kill with that arrow?

It was at this moment, Dawn eyes widened as she saw a short thread almost invisible close to the arrow.. "Tha-"

Kabooom!

..Grand Elemental Spiders, those spiders that have atleast 20 meters in hight and hide deep into the Great West Labyrinth and use mainly the Earth and Fire element. Their threads are made of highly explosive material, though they only detonate it when death is certain, if someone happens to kill them instantly they could harvest such threads, 20 Centimeters of thread is enought to send a small building skyhight and thus it is Illegal to have such things into city's.

As the dust cloud slowly set down, Dawn bleed nonstop, almost all the scales of the left side of her body have been blown into bits and her left eye seemed to be completely blind aswell.

"You strenghtened your flesh to be able to withstand the impact using the earth element, but since you knew there wouldnt be enought time to fully cover your body you also mainly focused on your vitals, i have to praise you for that." The elf drew another arrow.

"But can you survive it twice?" A wide smile appeard on the elf's face, he charged his arrow with lightining once again.

"Tsk." They were surrounded by goblins and half of her body had just becomed useless, Emilia was capable of protecting her and most of the goblins were still stunned by the explosion, the elf charged this arrow faster than before. Thus seeing that she had no choice, Dawn threw her sword. Dawn main use of aura was through physical enhancments and weapon augmentations, she wasnt a caster like the elf that could summon elements outside of his body, thus she had no long range attacks. The elf easily dodged the sword and looked back at Dawn with a mocking gaze, she now was unarmed and surrounded. "What a great day today is!"

Emilia sensed danger coming from the tree, she had been focusing on the goblins to help dawn but the elf managed to mask his presence very well. Because of that she failed to realize about the first lightining arrow and explosion, the dustcloud that came after the explosion blinded her while the explosion itself did no harm to Emilia incredibly sturdy body.

Emilia eyes slowly adjusted themselfes over time to the point that the dust cloud was not a problem. 'Ends up that dragons in this world can adapt incredibly fast.' Emilia thought while she slowly opened her eyes and saw the elf releasing the lightning arrow!

Time slowed down as Emilia brain went overdrive. 'Shit.' She had to think of a way to deflect that arrow and get them out of this situation, as she thought over it, she realized something.. 'Oh, how can i be so dumb? Cant i just stop time and throw the arrow back at him?'

As soon as she thought that, a strange energy reinforced her body, something that she was familiar with then everything stopped. The arrow was 4 centimeters away from Dawn head.

A sigh of relief escaped her mouth, 'I have managed to do it in time.' Emilia slowly walked over to dawn and looked at the elf, he was way bigger than both of them, about 190-193ish centimeters tall.

Emilia stood up and grabbed the arrow then threw back with full force at the direction of the elf, she then looked at the explosive thread. It was nearly invisible for Dawn, but Emilia could see it clearly, dragons had a superior vision afterall. Emilia felt weirded out as she stood with only 2 of her paws, though she didnt forget how to walk with only 2 of them it felt incredibly weird, so she went back on 4 since that was more comfortable for dragons.

"..The lightning element also doesnt seem to move, so can i be considerated faster than light like this?" While Emilia was thinking about how fast she actually is in this state, something deep within her seemed to have ignited.

Emilia expression changed to one with pain, as she felt a burning sensation coming from her chest, more specifically, her heart. It was as if a flame grew and with it, she also felt her power growing. It was horrible, not that being strong was bad but the pain that came with it was horrible.

After 2 minutes of constant pain, Emilia was on the brink of fainting but the pain suddenly stopped, her body grew stronger, her pure white scales together with the yellow-ish pattern grew bright for a few seconds before returning to normal.

"I dont want to experience this ever again!" Needless to say, she hated it.

Emilia took one final glance at the arrow, she decided to move infront of Dawn just in case that arrow blasts off at the speed of light.

After a few more seconds, time resumed.

Boom!

The arrow was launched at an unprecedent speed, the shockwave created by it uprooted tree's and destroyed the ground, thankfully Dawn was safe as Emilia served as a shield, the arrow pierced the elf's head and there was no face anymore, just a gaping hole with bits of brains coming out.

Dawn stood still, stunned. She didnt understand what or how it happened, but she knew Emilia saved her somehow. The shockwave also made her eardrumbs explode, it was horrible pain.

"gh.." After a few seconds, Dawn colapsed. The only thing that made her keep standing was her will power, her body had long reached the limit. Emilia hurriedly looked at her, she was in a worse situation than a few second before before.

"D-did i do this?" Emilia looked at Dawn, she was bleeding more than before.

...

Guilt is something all living beings will feel one day, whether it is by accidently hurting your friend or killing someone. Guilt is a good emotion, afterall what would be the world if nobody would ever feel guilty of their actions? But excessive guilt can also destroy one's mind.

Emilia never have dealt with such distressing situation thus, "D-Dawn- Oh what should i do-" She was completely helpless, she felt guilty. Perhaps she should have not thrown that arrow back with full force, perhaps she should have just changed the position it was and killed that elf with her own claws, perhaps...

Thoughts of what she could have done better kept popping up in her mind and only came back after looking at the dying Dawn infront of her. And for the first time since she got into this weird place, she felt despair. Despair paired with guilty will cause confusion, and Emilia was crying at the thought of losing her very first friend in this world, 'Y-you cant die on me! I-i wont let you- I-..'

'..Think! How can i save her! There must be a way!' The feeling of despair and guilt coupled with fear, it makes one irracional.

Dawn was bleeding out and Emilia didnt know what to do, until a thought surged in her mind, a crazy idea perhaps. 'I could rewind her before her body got messed up right? It should work, right?'

Since there wasnt much options and mainly because Emilia was desperatated to see results, she started to canalize her magic in a small sphere, wich soon expanded into a circular dome of 7 meters radius, time was being rewinded inside that dome.

Dawn wasnt changing at all, it didnt seem to work. Emilia could only watch Dawn slowly dying.

But though it looked that at the start it wasnt working, suddenly all of Dawn scales came back and even her eye that had lost sight due to the explosion came back to normal, it all happened in an instant. The dome shattered and Emilia Hugged dawn really tightly with her scaly paws.

Dawn suddenly jolted up. "Wah! Where is Hizen?" She quickly tried to get up, but Emilia was hugging her tightly.

"Chrono ar you okay? O-oh are you crying? Did something happened?" Dawn looked worriedly at Emilia. She decied to hug back, maybe she would feel better if she hugged her back.

"Im sorry.." Emilia mumbled something but Dawn could hear it clearly.

"For what?" Dawn was confused, just now Hizen, the elf, was about to release his first lightning arrow.

"Y-you dont remember?" Emilia asked.

"Remember what?" Now Dawn was feeling like she forgot something. There is no way she could remember anyway, she got rewinded before she suffered any damage.

Emilia slowly let go, she wiped her tears and slowly started to explain what happened..