Merlin pulled some of the gems they gathered from the lower floor and sat beside the two, healing them just enough to stabilize and stop their bleeding.
As she made sure they were stable, Merlin dragged them toward the stairs as fast as she could, starting with Amber, who was in a far more critical condition than Arad.
When Merlin managed to drag both of them inside the stairs to avoid the searing heat of the desert, she finally started inspecting their wounds in detail.
As she expected, Amber had it far worse than Arad. She lost her left forearm up to the elbow, and the muscles of her upper arm had also burned, causing them to cease function. The leftover stem tip was burnt to a crisp, causing parts to start falling apart.
Looking above, Merlin could see cracks spreading from the burned arm up to Amber's left cheek and chest. The heat had rapidly spread across her veins and seared the muscles of her upper left side.
With a worried face, Merlin checked Amber's left eye only to find it white like those of cooked fish. "Blinded, I doubt any of the muscles of this side would even work,"
She checked inside her mouth, but luckily, her teeth seemed to have survived.
"If the heat spread through her veins, it might have damaged the heart since it's also leaning toward the left side." Merlin put her head on Amber's chest to listen to her pulse. ^Sounds normal to me, but I'm no healer.^ She pulled another gem and put it on Amber's chest, "I also fear your left lung might be burned, so this should be needed,"
Merlin started healing Amber's chest even though she couldn't see any visible injuries besides burns on the skin.
After that, she checked her lower side, finding the fire cracks spreading down to her hips and thighs. Just to be sure, she healed her there two.
"Hopefully you're stable now," She turned toward Arad, pulling two gems.
"You might be stuck in a human's body, but I doubt you will die as easily as one," She looked at his chest.
Arad's skin was falling apart in some places and remained intact in others. With a single touch, Merlin could see ribs at his side, which made her flinch.
"You're quite durable," She started healing him, "You're lucky the acid doesn't seem to have leaked into your body, or at least enough to kill you,"
Arad's skin quickly healed, and his wounds closed. "Now, a moment to clear the toxins from your blood," She cracked the second gem above him, starting a second healing.
"GAH!" Arad gasped, waking immediately as soon as the toxins left his blood, "What happened?" He looked around.
"Calm down, it's over," Merlin said, waving her hand for him to lie down. "The boss ate you."
At that moment, Arad's memories started to come back. Right after throwing Amber and Merlin away, he got swallowed by the massive boss worm.
Unlike how it appeared at first, Arad didn't immediately lose consciousness. As he trailed down the boss's throat, he used his tremor sense to locate the monster's heart and started unleashing his flame to reach it.
But that quickly backfired as it caused the mucus surrounding the boss's digestive system to evaporate and saturate what little air was there, increasing the toxin's concentration and knocking Arad immediately.
If he used anything besides fire, he might have killed the boss from the inside out.
Arad then turned aside, seeing Amber lying beside him.
"What happened to her?" He asked. His eyes panned around her burned arm and the wounds spreading across her body. "The boss did this?"
"No," Merlin replied, "It was her own magic," She stood and opened the door, showing Arad the large glass crater created by Amber's spell.
"She blasted the boss and seven worms, pulled you out of his stomach, and flew here all with one spell."
"She said we can't beat it," Arad gasped.
"Since she would end up ," Merlin looked at the unconscious Amber, "Forget about red dragons. She has the blood of a fire elemental. Those things are living flames. The heat they can generate surpasses all. Even their mere existence can cause the air around them to combust."
Dragons use their mana as fuel to ignite the fire, but elementals work the other way around. They use large amounts of mana to ignite a single spark that's hot enough to break down the moisture in the air into hydrogen and oxygen.
Those two elements then combust instantly, starting a horrid chain reaction that expands outward in a violent manner akin to an explosion. The elementals then use their ability to control fire to keep the blast under control and use it to attack their targets.
Water is a part of everything immune to fire or otherwise. Unless the target is a fire elemental, they won't survive a hit without getting burned. Even a fire dragon cannot resist the flames of an elemental.
Arad approached Amber, sitting by her side and staring at her arm.
"She's a human made of flesh and bones, water. Her body is like firewood to her flames." Merlin said, sitting beside Arad.
"Can't she control those flames?"
"Fire elementals are made of fire. That is why they are immune to their own flames. They never developed a way to protect themselves from their fire, and we humans don't have the high intelligence needed to survive such power unscathed." Merlin looked at Amber's arm.
"The fact she managed to exert so much control that she survived with only one arm missing is astounding. If she didn't, her whole body would have combusted alongside this whole layer, killing everyone and everything here."
"Those flames are hot," Arad said.
"They can burn fire dragons. I doubt that anything less than a being made of literal fire could survive what she smacked the boss with," Merlin sighed, "Having so much power is both a curse and a blessing,"
"I would say, any amount of abnormal power is a curse when you only have a human body." She looked at her hand.
Arad looked out the door at the glass formation, "So this is why she cast magic like a wizard and not as a sorcerer,"