Noctis had clear that he needed to finish the mission by himslef, without help. As he sent two of his subordinates to a more than obvious execution, and seeing that the third will not return, he prepared himself to complete his task that same night.

His main objective was double. To hunt dragons with powerful gifts and remove the giftmark from them, and to take down three specifical objectives, the two headmasters of the College of Wyynhaist, and the great mayor from the village he was in.

His weapon was a draconical gift, and he will use it to kill dragons. "Form" was the name of the gift. The function of it was simple: To remember the form of an object first, and then project is as a concentrarion of energy, made matter, on his hand.

The object he chose for that hunting night was a light crossbow. A weapon that combined the safety of a bow, with the mobility of a singlehanded sword. The only disadvantage is that, in the worst case scenario, he would only have a single shot, but there was the grace. The draconical gifts like this one are meant to bypass every single scale, and Form was not the exception. That was what made so easy for those foolish monkeys to get rid of the great mayor´s son.

The night was plain above Aurusuval, name of both the village and the lake nearby it, which Olivia was using as a temporay homeplace. The wyrm finished her classes for the day, and she was disposed to eat alone for the seventh time that week. Kaldoria said that she was going away to attend an urgency at Jorhalt, as he recieved a letter that same morning, but at her return, she will authorize Mercedes to eat alongside her once in a while. Olivia was asking for that since she joined the College, but the wyvern insisted in doing the things her own way.

And, of course, by seeing an armored stranger getting suspiciously close to the college, carrying a crossbow that emitted a faint blood-red glow, Olivia went scared and screamed out loud, calling the attention of that suspicious kindfolk immediately. 

By seeing her, Noctis tought that wyrm would be a great warm-up, so he got near her. He wanted to be face to face with his opponent before fighting. Olivia, moving out of water, did also get near to the suspect, moving her almost five tons of weight with ease. Despite she never fought, she wasn´t the kind of wyrm that would allow an armed kindfolk to get near the College, as her sister and friends were there.

Noctis´s mind and heart filled themselves with the inner fire he felt before every battle. That fight was, easily, the hardest one he would have up to that moment, or that will be if he hadn't a grace shot.

The projectile flew at full speed tho the desired prey. Giving it hardly any time to react. The blood colored arrow stuck into one side of the dam, piercing the scales and a thick layer of muscle and fat, about 40 centimeters, before stopping on contact with the fin bone. 

— Let´s fight. — Noctis said.

That's right, he could have taken the easy way, but pointed to the fin, instead of the chest, neck or head. Olivia was puzzled. Partly because she was damaged and partly because she survived. With a weapon as powerful as that, that Kindfolk could have killed her, instead, he preferred to hurt her and challenge her to a fight. 

I was not sure what the stranger was up to, but I was sure he would not let him go. 

Noctis, for his part, had chosen to take from his belt a pair of daggers that he had made himself with the scales of his previous prey. Seeing them, Olivia was horrified. And not without reason. The mere existence of those daggers meant that a dragon had been killed by a Kindfolk. 

So it was that Olivia, who had never fought in his life, rushed at full speed jumping and jumping towards the Kindfolk, covering the few meters that separated them in a matter of a couple of seconds. Even so, his movements were clumsy and were, therefore, easy to dodge for the Kindfolk, which only took a touch with the tip of a fin. 

Olivia was clearly scared, and angry. She could not let that guy go anymore. As soon as she realized that he had dodged her, she turned to see him again. And she was surprised to see that not only was she behind her. The intruder was beginning to climb up one of her sides! He tried to knock him off, but that was out of her reach. So she did the first thing that came to mind, and rolled on the ground. 

Both made a big mistake.

Noctis, seeing that the Wyrm reacted as expected, decided to leave his daggers stuck and jump back to escape danger. This caused the daggers to dig deeper and leave a couple of long wounds to be dragged by Olivia's own weight. On the other hand, now Noctis had run out of the weapons he intended to use to win that fight with his own means. The daggers were driven so deep that it would be impossible to get them out, not with his opponent still alive. 

The wyrm was still casting a long moan over the cuts, while on the other hand, the kindfolk used his gift once more, this time, to create two blood-colored daggers, with which to continue the assault. 

But he trusted himself too much. Noctis had been fooled, thinking that his prey was off guard approached, only to be surprised with a big bang from behind. Although he got to see it coming, he did not have the speed to dodge it in time. And so the lizard was knocked down. While he was still standing, the Wyrm put one of its front fins on him, leaning with enough force to immobilize him, but not to crush him into his armor, which she could have done. 

In a last desperate movement, Noctis waited to be able to use Form again to create a sword that wounded the fin that kept him on the ground, hoping that it would make it yield. Even though Olivia recoiled a bit from the pain, it was not enough to escape, and as a result, when Olivia leaned back, she overdid it, denting her adversary's armor and crushing him slightly, slightly breaking his arm. 

Olivia felt that arm break under her weight. And she regretted it. 

— I'm sorry. I can't allow you to get near my friends.

— Hehe. Go ahead, girl, kill me.

— No.

Olivia was in her right to do so, but despite all what happened, she refused to kill him.

— you were supposed to be nothing more than a simple warm-up... tonight i was meant to... kill three. — He said as he writhed in pain over his arm and the dents of his armor, the metal of which was driven into his skin. — And you saw my daggers. They would not have been the first.

— And why? — Olivia asked.

That was the question that Noctis most feared, but at that moment, an appropriate response occurred to him. — A hunter must hunt, and a warrior will always be a warrior.

Olivia was not satisfied with that. So she kept talking.