Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 45: Royalty

Elijah didn’t bother with stealth.

It wouldn’t have done much good, given that he needed hands – or more importantly, opposable thumbs – to open the door. Besides, it wasn’t as if the royals on the other side could have missed the commotion of his previous battle. So, if the door suddenly opened and nothing stepped through, the likelihood that he would be detected skyrocketed.

It was better to simply push through while prepared for whatever lay on the other side. With that in mind, he entered in his guardian form, using Iron Scales to mitigate the effects of any attack he might be forced to endure. His preparation was fortunate, because the moment he stepped into the next room, he was beset with a flurry of invisible attacks coming from every direction. It took him a moment to recognize that they were blades of pressurized water, and they cut right through his defenses, gouging shallow grooves in his scales.

That told him his opponents – which he spied across the room – had at least a little power. However, it would take a lot more of that to actually hurt him. His scales were thick, his Constitution attribute was massive, and Iron Scales was scarcely taxed. No – he’d come looking for a challenge, but it seemed that he would be leaving the royal quarters unsatisfied.

The pair of alaken were almost identical in appearance, with the only nod to gender being that one of them had a few rainbow stripes along its shoulders. Elijah had no idea as to their genders, so he had no way of differentiating between which one was the king or queen.

Not that it mattered.

He was tasked with killing them both. So, still in his lamellar ape form, Elijah bounded forward, the near weightlessness giving his gait an odd feeling. More, the water worked against him, slowing his not-very-aquadynamic form slightly. Even though it wasn’t as useless underwater as his old mist panther form, the guardian shape was never meant to fight in such an environment. Still, Elijah decided to make do by relying on his incredible attributes to make up the difference.

Bubbles churned as he rocketed forward, and the pair of alaken scrambled to react. They both held tridents, but they were so surprised by the ineffectiveness of their previous attack that they were slow to bring them to bear. Unfortunately, Elijah could only hit one at a time, so he chose the colorful one as his first target.

He hit the creature like a torpedo, but to his surprise, just before he made contact, the water condensed into something akin to gelatin, shielding the creature from the brunt of the impact. Momentum dictated that it still went flying backward, but when it hit the wall on the other side of the room, it bounced rather than broke.

Unfortunately, the second alaken used Elijah’s brief focus on its mate to enable a viciously quick stab with its trident. The weapon’s tines dug deep, bypassing Elijah’s thick scales and ignoring his defensive ability. It scored one of his ribs, then exploded with power. Blades of water swirled beneath Elijah’s flesh, ripping the muscles on his side to ribbons.

He’d been through worse.

But that didn’t mean he could simply ignore the gaping hole in his side. Nor did he want to. Instead, he tore free of the trident, then used Bestial Charge. The ability was powered by ethera and stamina, so it didn’t concern itself with the environment. The laws of physics weren’t really applicable, which meant that Elijah launched himself through the water – trialing blood and flesh the whole way – with blistering speed. He hit the alaken with his shoulder, and this time, he didn’t have to worry about some odd shield to block the impact.

The creature crumpled beneath his charge as it was slammed into the wall. A second later, a wave of water followed, slamming into Elijah’s back and shoving him against his foe. Elijah’s side screamed in protest, but he ignored it. Instead, the second he recovered from the disorienting feeling of being battered by the wave, he brought his claws to bear. He ripped and tore, and to his immense surprise, the creature resisted. Its rubbery skin fouled Elijah’s every lacerating blow. So, he switched tactics and started battering the creature with blunt force.

Whatever ability it used reduced the effectiveness of each attack, but Elijah knew it couldn’t keep it up for long. Every ability had a cost, and he was determined to find the limits of the creature’s reserves. So, he continued his barrage until, a few seconds later, he felt something lance into his back.

It only pierced his flesh by three or four inches, but it wasn’t alone. An instant after the first attack landed, ten more needled into him. Elijah let out a roar of frustration, grabbed the battered but unbroken creature beneath him, whipped around, and tossed it through the water. With so much Strength at his disposal, Elijah managed to do so with quite a bit of velocity. The living projectile bubbled with its passage before slamming into the now-recovered second alaken.

Seeing that his guardian form wasn’t doing the trick, Elijah let it fall away. Even as his human shape reasserted itself, the creatures untangled themselves from one another. But it gave him a moment to cast Soothe and Nature’s Bloom before using Shape of Venom.

As the comparatively small – to the guardian form, at least – shape took over, Elijah threw himself to the side in an attempt to avoid the latest barrage of water blades. His body transformed, and he became a blight dragon. The Shape of Venom was far more adept than the lamellar ape at moving through the water. In that way, it was capable of cutting through the water like a caiman, and Elijah used his thick tail to propel him forward with unprecedented speed.

The changing scope of the battle clearly shocked the two alaken, which allowed him to close the distance. Without the protection of concealment afforded by Guise of the Unseen, he was vulnerable to attack, but he was also much more dexterous. That translated to an ability to move quickly, contorting his body to avoid the alaken pair’s increasingly desperate attempts to kill him. He twisted and changed direction before darting in to bite the rainbow-scaled creature.

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His fangs sank deep, and his venom went even deeper.

It screamed, the sound coming out high-pitched and bubbling. Elijah ignored it, slithering through the water and latching his fangs onto the other alaken. The creature lashed out, spearing him through with its trident. And without the durable hide – or Iron Scales – that came with the Shape of the Guardian, Elijah only had his Constitution to mitigate the damage.

It wasn’t enough.

The weapon’s tines went through his side, shattering ribs and piercing his vital organs. The alaken ripped it free with a bubbling snarl, but its eyes widened when, suddenly, Elijah’s wounds closed.

Nature’s Bloom had just bloomed, sending a wave of vitality through him. Accompanied by Soothe, it was enough to mend the damage wrought by the fancy pitchfork.

By that point, the first alaken Elijah had bitten began to wilt. Its flesh around the wound blackened with necrotizing flesh, and blood started to leak from the corners of its eyes. It threw another desperate flurry of water blades his way, but a recovered Elijah had no issues dodging around the vaguely defined forms. He felt them via One with Nature, rather than seeing them, which gave him just enough of an impression to avoid the spell.

Only a few seconds later, it fell backward. Its tail went limp, and convulsions rolled through its body. Even as that creature seized, its death throes were mirrored by the other alaken, only a few seconds later. The battle was won. Elijah knew it. He only had to avoid any last-minute attacks they might throw his way. So, he retreated, never stopping moving as the first creature succumbed, sending a wave of experience through Elijah. The second weakly attempted to pursue him, but even though it was in its native environment, the venom coursing through its veins prevented it from keeping up with him. Still, it proved far more durable than he would have expected, suggesting that it had a Constitution-based class. Perhaps a Warrior variant.

Or something akin to that. As far as Elijah knew, the system didn’t treat monsters, guardians, or beasts the same as it approached sapient races. The alaken seemed to qualify for the later treatment, but he knew the line between them tended to grow blurrier with progression.

For all he knew, they’d begun as something akin to dolphins. Intelligent, but lacking true sapience. But then again, Elijah wasn’t even sure how true his old assumptions about the difference even applied anymore.

Maybe there was nothing to truly separate any of the categories he used to describe the various creatures of the multi-verse. Just reactions to different circumstances.

Those musings flitted through Elijah’s mind as he watched the alaken die. It held on for almost a full minute before it collapsed. Even then, it didn’t succumb to death until Elijah approached and ripped its throat out. After that, it surrendered to the inevitable, leaving Elijah to sort through the confused feelings that came after every battle.

He liked fighting. And in a lot of ways, he enjoyed killing, too. There was something so visceral about overcoming an opponent in a life-or-death battle, and Elijah wasn’t immune to the influx of adrenaline that came with that situation. Those feelings were augmented by the bestial and draconic sides of his spirit, making them difficult to ignore. So, Elijah had given up on even trying. He understood that, if he was going to survive in the multi-verse, killing would need to be a part of his life. He had no choice but to accept and embrace it, lest he go insane with guilt.

Which was the other facet of the emotional aftermath of any battle. Killing might be necessary. He knew that. It was the natural order of the universe. Yet, more than thirty years of learned morality clashed with that assertion, lacing everything with a thin tendril of remorse.

He didn’t ignore that, either. It was part and parcel to being a human being, and to push it aside was to deny that part of his identity. Neither did he dwell on it. Instead, he acknowledged it, felt it fully, then moved on. He used the same strategy with the elation associated with that other, more savage part of his being. And like that, he would keep an even keel.

He hoped.

In the meantime, he was more interested in the silver box floating in the center of the room. After returning to his human form and casting his full suite of healing spells, Elijah approached the box and opened, receiving the expected notification:

You have conquered the Challenge of Niflara, The City of Toh.

Reward: Drop of the Ocean

As he’d already surmised, the reward was different than what Lamar and his group had been awarded. They’d gotten a powerful staff, and inside the box before Elijah was a simple blue gem the size of his thumb. It swirled with ethera, but otherwise, there was no indication what it was intended to do.

He slipped it into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel, then waited a few minutes to heal from his injuries. Despite the gruesome nature of having a hole ripped into his side, the wound wasn’t as severe as he’d first anticipated. Even without healing spells, he would have survived and recovered – albeit over the course of a few weeks – so it wasn’t exactly life-threatening. However, it seemed that the alarm hadn’t been raised, so he took the opportunity presented by the period of peace so he could convalesce.

After fifteen minutes, he was back to normal. So, he shifted into the Shape of Venom, adopted Guise of the Unseen, and swam out the way he’d come. His caution was warranted, because the palace was crawling with guards. Part of him wanted to kill them just for the experience, but he held back. As he’d previous noted, time was of the essence.

With that in mind, he avoided battle by remaining cloaked in Guise of the Unseen. Eventually, he left the palace behind and swam above the city. No one followed, and after a few more minutes, he exited the area associated with the challenge.

He didn’t relax until he reached the beach, though. When he was around a hundred yards out, he shifted back into his human form and approached his friends’ camp. As expected, Lamar and his people were still there taking advantage of Ron’s healing.

As Elijah stepped from the ocean, everyone looked up. “So? You’re already done?” asked Sadie.

Elijah shrugged. “Yeah. Kind of disappointing. We definitely need to make sure we get to the next ones first, though, because that was entirely unsatisfying,” he said.

Lamar and his group just stared at Elijah. Sadie shook her head in resignation, and Dat grinned. Kurik pretended he was napping, while Ron didn’t even look up from his work.

“Monster,” Lamar muttered under his breath in a ton Elijah felt certain he wasn’t meant to hear.

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