In reality, their so-called fearlessness stemmed mostly from the fact that they had nothing to lose.

At the very least, that was the case for Onean, and as for Erwin, he simply didn't want Onean to face the ice dragon on her own.

Despite his apparent lack of fear and hesitation, how could he not be fearful in the face of such an enormous ice dragon and such a ferocious storm?

The two of them adopted different approaches to warding off the oncoming storm.

Onean conjured up a fiery tornado around herself to oppose the ferocious storm, and the sparkling particles of azure light immediately clashed violently with the scorching flames. As Onean increased her magic power output, the storms of fire and wind continued to rage incessantly, and neither side was able to gain the upper hand.

As for Erwin, as soon he flew into the storm, he immediately conjured up his light shield to protect himself. The countless azure particles of light around him began to assault the outer wall of his light shield in an irregular fashion, and Erwin discovered that not only was the storm extremely fierce and powerful, the particles of azure light were also quite remarkable.

Upon closer inspection, he was shocked to discover that time inside these particles of light was completely still as well, which meant that they were essentially countless minuscule light shields. 

Could it be that the magic beasts in these mountain ranges also know how to use time and space magic? But that's impossible! On top of that, I can only use my light shield to defend myself, whereas this ice dragon is using them to attack me. How is it able to accomplish this? 

As a result of this observation, a series of questions began to flash through Erwin's mind.

The ice dragon could see that Erwin and Onean had become trapped in the storm that it had just unleashed, but it wasn't in a hurry to go after them. Instead, it merely left the two of them to contend with the storm while it flew directly toward the airship. In contrast with these two humans, the airship was far more interesting in its eyes.

"The ice dragon is coming!" Christine's father hurriedly cautioned.

Christine's attention had been focused on the situation unfolding inside the storm, so she failed to notice that the ice dragon was already flying toward them.

Thankfully, Christine was able to react just in the nick of time, and right as the ice dragon took a swipe at the airship with its gigantic paw, she hurriedly pushed a lever on the control panel. A plume of black smoke billowed out of the blast furnace, following which the airship performed a rapid dip before passing by under the wing of the dragon.

Everyone on the airship's deck heaved a collective sigh of relief upon seeing this. They had thought that they were about to die.

Sherry wanted to rush to Erwin's side to assist him in escaping the storm, but he was stopped by Lanyon.

"If you go to Master Erwin now, not only will you not be able to help him, you'll only be an extra hindrance to him. Look at the power of the storm, it's clearly not something that we can contend with. If we rush in recklessly, Master Erwin will have to divert his attention to protect us, and that would only place him in even greater peril," Lanyon said.

After a moment of contemplation, Sherry realized that Lanyon was right. Thus, he abandoned his original plan and continued to watch with an urgent expression.

Having shed its suit of armor plating, the airship was far faster than the ice dragon when traveling at full speed.

The giant ice dragon didn't want to see its prey escape, and it was letting loose one powerful breath after another in a frustrated manner. Bursts of blue dragon's breath flashed through the air beneath the overcast sky, then exploded into clouds of mist and flurries of ice crystals around the airship.

Thankfully, Christine was an extremely proficient pilot, able to maneuver the airship to perfection to dodge the attacks, and not even a single one of the dragon's powerful breaths was able to strike the airship.

Despite this, Christine's brows were still furrowed with concern. With the airship's speed, she could easily divert the ice dragon away. However, how were Erwin and Onean supposed to track down the airship after they dealt with that storm? There was no way that she would be willing to leave Erwin behind in this vast and extremely perilous mountain range, but if they were to linger here any longer, the airship would be forced to slow down, thereby squandering the precious momentum that it had built up, and it would be very difficult to escape from the ice dragon then.

Her father could tell what she was thinking, and he asked, "Are you going to wait for them?"

Christine turned to him with a solemn expression before nodding in response.

After that, she brought the airship to a gradual deceleration, and the ice dragon was quickly able to catch up to it.

It was overjoyed to see its prey so close before it, and it let loose a joyful roar as it flapped its wings in a triumphant manner.

Its enormous shadow began to glide over the airship, and in comparison with its gigantic stature, the airship was made to look like a speck of dust.

With just a casual swoop, the ice dragon would be able to easily destroy the airship.

Sherry and the others had already raised their crossbows, and they immediately let loose volleys of arrows at the ice dragon's belly. However, the arrows weren't even able to scrape off the layer of frost that had gathered on the dragon's scales, so there was a very good chance that it didn't even feel the arrows at all.

Meanwhile, Lanyon and the magicians were also firing off barrages of spells at the dragon's belly. The balls of fire and bolts of lightning exploded upon the dragon's scales, sending plumes of black smoke drifting through the air, but once the dust settled, it was revealed that the ice dragon was still completely unscathed.

The ice dragon opened its cavernous mouth and let loose a mocking roar, as if it were laughing at everyone for how pitifully weak their attacks were.

Right as the ice dragon was about to destroy the airship, a long streak of crimson flames suddenly arrived.

However, the dragon paid no heed to the attack, thinking that it was just another pitiful spell that wasn't even going to be able to leave a scratch on its body.

Thus, the streak of fire was allowed to directly strike the dragon on the tail, upon which it immediately let loose a howl of agony. It then flapped its giant wings frantically a few times, and it almost fell out of the sky.

It turned around with an incredulous expression to inspect its tail, and it discovered that a section of its tail had been severed by the crimson fire!

The severed section of its tail was as large as a horse-drawn carriage, and it fell out of the sky with a dull thump, sending snow and ice erupting in all directions.

The agonizing pain from its injury completely set it off, and it thrashed about violently as it let loose one ferocious breath after another, as if it were trying to vent its glacial wrath. The blue color of its massive eyes gradually darkened, then quickly took on a purple hue, and at the same time, the azure light glowing from its wings became darker as well, to the extent that its wings almost appeared black in color.

It cast its gaze toward the direction where the streak of crimson fire had come from with a murderous expression, and it was greeted by the sight of Onean emerging from the storm.

Some of the azure specks of light were interspersed throughout her silver hair, and she dusted them off with a casual flick of her hair.

The ice dragon was glowering at Onean with a furious expression, looking as if it couldn't wait to devour her whole.

Onean took a glance at the severed section of its tail that had fallen onto the ground, and a derisive sneer appeared on her face. "I didn't think you were so fragile."

The dragon seemed to be able to understand Onean's taunt, and it became even more enraged.

It pointed one of its claws at Onean, then spread its wings as wide as they would go, and the dark energy from its wings quickly converged toward the tip of its claw.

In the blink of an eye, a pillar of dark purple light descended from above, and Onean found herself trapped within it.

Onean stared at the pillar of light around her with a stunned expression, wondering how it had struck her so quickly. As soon as she tried to release her magic power to ward off the pillar of light, she discovered that her own magic power was seeping away at an alarming rate.

The ice dragon chortled with glee at the sight of Onean's alarmed expression, and the sound of its laughter echoed throughout heaven and earth as it bared its mouthful of sharp fangs.

It then pointed its claw forward once again, and a bloodcurdling howl immediately erupted from within the pillar of light as Onean completely curled up into a ball, while her entire body was trembling uncontrollably.

At this point, Erwin finally managed to ward off the specks of light outside his light shield, and he instantly arrived beside the pillar of purple light with his space split technique. Inside the pillar of light, Onean's head was buried against her knees, and her face was deathly pale. Her eyes were tightly shut while sweat was pouring down profusely from her forehead, and Erwin's brows furrowed tightly at the sight of Onean's agonized display.

The way that all of those minuscule light shields attacked their target was by absorbing the elemental matter in the surrounding area, then unleashing it as a burst of energy to strike the target. This meant that every single tiny light shield was a burst of complex energy, and that was why Erwin was unable to control them. At the moment, he was only able to conjure up light shields as a defensive measure to protect him, and he was still unable to harness isolated and matterless spaces that were outside of his control.

Thus, Erwin attempted to use his magic power to blast the particles of azure light away, but that resulted in the genesis of space-time rifts from all of the minuscule light shields. One or two of those space-time rifts wouldn't have been a problem, but with so many of them popping up at once, his magic attacks were completely drawn away into the space-time rifts, thereby unable to produce any effect.

As a result, Erwin could only adopt a slower and more methodical approach, absorbing these pesky particle light shields with his own light shield bit by bit before he was able to escape from the storm. It seemed that the Onean's casual hair flick to get rid of the azure light particles in her hair was a simple gesture that anyone could pull off, but in reality, it was only possible for a magician of her caliber.

However, even for someone as powerful as Onean, she was completely helpless in the face of this strange pillar of light, unable to do anything to save herself.

Erwin couldn't help but feel a little panicked at the sight of her agonized expression.

He carefully observed the exterior and interior of the pillar of light, then pressed his palm against the pillar's external wall, and just as he anticipated, the pillar of light worked the same way as his light shield, which meant that it also contained a space in which time stood completely still.

Erwin was more familiar with this type of magic than anyone else, and he knew that there would be no way to break through this pillar of light without some type of extremely powerful external force. What was very concerning to him was that he could sense that it was Onean's magic power that was supporting the pillar of light. If he couldn't rescue her from the pillar of light in time, then she would suffer the same fate that he had almost suffered during his first match in the Pillow Sword Tournament, which was either death by magic power overexertion, or death from being overwhelmed by the energy surging in from the outside world.

What was even more unsettling to him was that the density of the space within the pillar of light was clearly abnormal. It was quite apparent from the excruciating look on Onean's face that she was enduring great pain, and she wouldn't be in so much pain if she were only suffering from magic power and stamina overexertion. Furthermore, she didn't appear to have sustained any magic damage, either, so the only thing that he could think of that would inflict so much pain on her was an abnormality in the space within the pillar of light.

At this point, he was already convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this ice dragon really was capable of using time and space magic.

The ice dragon wasn't in a hurry to attack Erwin because it thoroughly enjoyed seeing the stress and urgency on his face.

If the density of space inside and outside of the pillar of light is different, then doesn't that mean that space can actually be warped and compressed? Erwin thought to himself. If that's the case, then why does there not exist any magic capable of compressing space? Could it be that space can only be altered in this way in an environment where time is standing still? That doesn't make sense, either, considering those particle light shields in that storm weren't in a space where time was standing still. Hold on, what if the storm is a space where time is standing still?

With that in mind, Erwin had a rough idea of what was happening. However, there was no time for him to analyze the situation any further. If he were to continue to stand by idly and think about his theory for much longer, he was worried that Onean would end up dead. Unfortunately, due to the recent events that had transpired, he hadn't dedicated much time to studying "Laws of Time and Space", so he didn't know if his theory corresponded with the content of one of the book's chapters.

He cast his gaze toward Onean with tightly furrowed brows, and he desperately wanted to save her.

He thought back to the experiences they had shared, to everything that they had been through together, and looking at the agonized and helpless state that she was in, he was struck by an unprecedentedly powerful urge to protect her.