Path of Dragons

The first of the stone statues – or golems, Elijah realized – was on him in less than a second. The thing moved so quickly that Elijah couldn’t even react before it slammed a fist into his chest. He flew backward, hitting another group of golems with so much force that the impact toppled the multi-ton things over. Elijah’s mind whirled as he struggled to wrap his mind around the situation.

He should have expected something. Even though he’d spent more than an hour scouring the site of the ruined temple, he should have anticipated that there would be some sort of response to his intrusion. It had happened in other ruins, and it wasn’t surprising that it had happened again.

This time, though, he had a plan for his escape. The only complication was how quickly everything had gone wrong. The golems were too fast for their bulk, and as he’d already discovered, they were far too strong to fight.

Before he could enact his plan, he needed to extract himself from the pile of living statues. So, he pushed one aside – it took all of his strength – before using Thunderclap. Lightning hit the creatures, but to Elijah’s surprise, the resultant stun was almost entirely ineffective. So was Debilitating Roar. The creatures were either too powerful to be affected or, more likely, they were simply resistant to lightning and fear.

That they were obviously creatures of earth probably explained the former, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that statues – no matter how mobile – were incapable of feeling fear.

In any case, Elijah was only afforded an instant of peace before the stun wore off. In that time, he’d already initiated his transformation into the Shape of the Sky. He’d also thrown himself into a roll that he hoped would free him from their clutches. Even as he changed shape, the ground rumbled with heavy footsteps, and when he came to a stop, he saw that every golem in the area had come alive.

They charged, moving far more quickly than their bulk should have allowed. Elijah knew he didn’t have any chance in a fight. They were made of solid stone, and even in the Shape of Venom, he had no hope of matching their speed. His only hope was escape, and for that, he would rely on flight.

His transformation completed just as the next golem reached him. With a mighty flap of his wings, he threw himself into the sky, but he just wasn’t quick enough. The creature had latched onto his leg with a grip that felt like iron. It pulled against him, and even with his powerful wings, he couldn’t extricate himself.

It pulled.

Elijah beat his wings with every ounce of Strength he could muster. He even activated Savage Might, but it was no good. Recognizing the dire situation for what it was, his mind spun with potential avenues of escape. Yet, they all hinged on him getting free of the creature’s powerful grip.

He had two choices before him.

One meant activating the ability associated with his Armor of the Boar King. It would grant him three seconds of invulnerability, but it was a one-time thing. After that, he could never use the ability again. And what would happen after three seconds? He would still be in the same situation. A shield wouldn’t free him from the creature’s grip.

The second option was worse, and he had no idea if it would even work. But given his lack of options – and time constraints, considering that it would be only a second until the other golems arrived and killed him – he knew he didn’t have a choice.

So, he used Lightning Rush.

As he’d hoped, the ability activated without issue, and he became a bolt of lightning streaking through the air towards the upper atmosphere. Unfortunately, the presence of the golem deactivated it only a moment later. It sputtered before reengaging, then came to a stop almost seventy miles above the surface of the planet.

Which was alarming for three reasons. First, people just weren’t meant to survive on the edge of space. Elijah felt his blood begin to boil and the air in his lungs started to expand. Fortunately, his Constitution seemed high enough that he didn’t immediately die. That, along with the clarity of thought that came with his Jade Mind, gave him enough time to enact a plan for survival.

He shifted out of the Shape of the Sky, pausing only long enough to cast Soothe and Nature’s Bloom before transforming into the Shape of the Guardian. That eased the burden on his tortured body and took care of the first issue.

More importantly, it let him deal with the second problem. The golem was still there, though in the near weightlessness of the current environment, it seemed to have lost some of its power. That allowed him to lever himself free and kick the thing away. It spun as it drifted downward, but Elijah couldn’t afford the attention to track its path. 𝙧âŊОＢƐ𝒮

Because he could finally see the true scope of Ka’arath’s excisement.

Above him, there was a dome of pure ethera, on the other side of which was the Abyss. Elijah had difficulty processing the horrors he witnessed. His previous experiences with the Abyss were limited to when he challenged Rifts, which had led him to the impression that it was something like a twisted version of the familiar. Yet, what he saw on the other side of that shield was so alien that he had no context through which he could understand it.

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It was easy to imagine that some people might have gone mad at the sight.

Elijah jerked his attention away, focusing on the world below. The shield stretched on, but it did not encompass the entire planet. Far from it. Instead, it only surrounded a single continent. The rest of Ka’arath had been overcome by the Abyss. Hulking monstrosities loomed larger than mountains, steadily slamming themselves against the dome of energy. And yet, it held.

Until that moment, Elijah had considered excisement a terrible but manageable turn of events. The world he’d found was dangerous, wild, and mostly unsettled, and yet, he and his companions had no trouble surviving the rigors it represented. However, getting a glimpse of the Abyss – and the monsters that came with it – elicited a fear unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

If something like that happened to Earth, it wouldn’t only kill him. It would spell the extinction of everything on the planet, and replacing it all with those nightmarish creatures Elijah could only scarcely comprehend.

Then, he was falling.

As the atmosphere thickened, the only thing keeping Elijah from burning to a crisp was his enhanced durability that came from nearly two hundred Constitution and the vitality still singing through his veins. Even that only got him through the worst of it, though. He fell, and Soothe ran its course. A few seconds later, Nature’s Bloom did as well. The jolt of healing helped with the burns, but it was a temporary measure.

If he was going to survive, he needed two things. There was only one chance to repair the damage he knew he would endure before it was all said and done. He held his breath, ready to activate Guardian’s Renewal the second he passed the point where the very atmosphere would stop trying to kill him.

It came sooner rather than later, and he activated the ability. The ability warred with the damage wrought upon his body by his brief exposure to the mesosphere while struggling against the burns he’d endured. A few times in the past, Guardian’s Renewal had proven insufficient to the task of living up to its description. Elijah’s only explanation was that, like many other abilities, its potency was based on a variety of factors that weren’t mentioned in the spell’s explanation. Perhaps it could only heal so much damage before it ran out of steam. Or maybe it was percentage based. It could’ve even had something to do with him possessing a higher Constitution attribute than normal – at least in relation to other Animists. Whatever the case, Elijah knew that it wasn’t infallible.

Still, even though it wasn’t entirely effective, it did pull him through the worst of his injuries and allow him to enact the second part of his plan. He shifted back into the Shape of the Sky, then snapped his wings out before leveling off into a glide.

He found himself at a greater altitude than he’d ever experienced, which meant that he was exposed to greater dangers. There were no large airborne predators on Ka’arath, but there were plenty of wind spirits. They didn’t immediately attack. Instead, they seemed almost curious.

But then, they reacted to the intruder in their midst, cutting into him with vicious blades of air. Thankfully, he was moving so quickly that he soon began to outpace them. Not before they ripped him to shreds, but quickly enough that he didn’t think he was in danger of dying.

Still, a rain of blood accompanied his flight as he made his way to the jungle below, and he was grateful when, after only a few more minutes, he set down in a clearing he’d spied from above.

Immediately, Elijah shifted back to his human form and cast a series of heals that mended his lacerated body. There was still plenty of damage from his brief bout of space exploration as well, so it took a few hours before he found himself returned to full health. In that time, he considered what he’d witnessed.

And he merged that first-hand experience with the accounts he’d read since coming to the Trial. That allowed him to piece together a general idea of what had happened to Ka’arath. He still didn’t know why the planet had been excised, but he now knew that one continent had been shielded from the Abyss, probably through the Lightning Emperor’s efforts.

How powerful was Yloa that he could keep the Abyss at bay?

Elijah expected that he was a Transcendent, just like Kirlissa, though probably not quite on her level. But that assumption was likely based on personal bias rather than any verifiable facts. Either way, Yloa the Lightning Emperor was a fearsome being who Elijah very much hoped he would never have to face in person.

While he sat there, he looked at the shaft of crystal in his hand. Somehow, he’d managed to maintain his grip on the prize he’d earned. However, as he studied it, he couldn’t figure out a purpose. The hunk of crystal had clearly been made by a skilled crafter, with sharp edges and tapered tip that suggested it might’ve once been a blade. Remembering the Lament of the Fallen he’d read, he immediately thought of the weapon that had been broken into three pieces. Perhaps he’d found the first part.

Then, he remembered the fluted cylinder of crystal he’d recovered from the prison. It could have been a sword hilt. With trembling hands, he reached into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel and retrieved the piece. There was a space in the center that he thought might fit the blade’s tang. So, without further hesitation, he slotted it into place.

And nothing happened.

More, it clearly didn’t fit, because the blade just fell out the second he relieved the pressure holding it in place.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” he muttered to himself. Still, both items glowed with ethera, so they had to be valuable. Belatedly, he realized that he should’ve had Atticus identify the cylinder during one of his trips back to Nexus Town, but for whatever reason, he’d forgotten to do so.

He’d just have to remember to do that next time he was in the area. For now, though, he placed both items into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel and completed his convalescence. After another hour, he felt well enough to return to his companions. Which presented a bit of a problem. During his brief time in space, the planet had continued to rotate. Meanwhile, he’d remained stationary, which meant that in the space of a handful of seconds, he’d been thrown far off-course.

So, it took him another hour of flying around before he saw something familiar. That led him back to the site of the temple, and he was relieved to find that the golems had once again returned to their inert state. Once he’d established that they wouldn’t pose any danger to anyone else – so long as they weren’t disturbed by a thoughtless Druid – he retraced his original flight path and returned to camp.

“You look pretty bad, bro. Is that blood?”

Elijah shook his head. His face was entirely covered in blood that had leaked from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. More, he still wasn’t completely healed, so his entire body was covered in one huge bruise.

“You did something stupid again, didn’t you?” asked Sadie with a glare.

“Uh…no?”

Nobody believed him. So, after receiving Ron’s healing attentions, he once again retreated to a secluded area so he could clean himself up.

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