The Forsaken Hero

The fourth vision was even harder than the second. Strands of Fate repelled each other like magnets, leaving me stranded in my soul space, surrounded by a chaotic, tangled mess of scenes. Every time I tried to force them together, my soul quivered under the strain, weakened from the stress of the last vision.

Finally, I cobbled together a few, gaining some momentum. The rest of the weave snapped into place, giving me a glimpse of the battle raging above the spire.

The sun kissed the horizon, half-obscured by the caldera’s distant wall. Walls of ash smothered the oncoming twilight, the stars hidden by billowing smoke. Fires roared into the night, forming pillars of flame hundreds of feet tall. A few souls scurried around the upper reaches of the spire, a scant handful compared to the thousands who populated it the day before.

I shifted to the top of the spire and was nearly blasted from the vision by a powerful shockwave. A thought sent me some distance away, allowing me to take in the battle safely.

Two dragons flew through the sky without wings, moving like serpents slithering across a lake. They reminded me of Fyren, in a way, and the other fire demons. Their scales were igneous black, with the seams between them glowing with lava. Fire dripped from every angle of their body, and their claws and teeth were jagged and long. Their eyes held none of the wisdom eastern dragons were supposedly revered for, instead filled with demon-like hunger and cruelty.

”Sealed for four hundred years,” I whispered, absently tracing the lines the slave crest had once burned across my chest.

To a dragon, was that a long or a short time? Were they justified in such anger?

The question struck me hard, setting my tail curling. I didn’t want to empathize with these monsters, but I couldn’t help it. How would I feel if I had been chained for hundreds of years and the ones responsible had built an empire over me? Would I be angry to learn they used my power to warm hot springs, or named their nation after me?

We weren’t so different, after all. There were too many parallels to my story.

But that didn’t mean I had to let them burn everything I loved. Even if their rage was born from hurt, they were at fault for allowing it to control them. They didn’t have to lash out any more than I did.

In the end, the answer was simple. If they were mere monsters, it was their nature, and we had to stop them. And if it was their choice? That was even easier. They were the aggressor here and could leave at any time. Until they did, it was a contest of ideals, and I would fight to the end to ensure mine were the ones left standing.

A red dot rose from the spire, streaking toward one of the dragons. I shifted closer, enduring the dragon’s aura, just in time to see Elaine smash into the dragon’s head. She trailed mana like a comet, her sword cleaving a wound a dozen feet deep. The dragon roared in pain and swatted at her, but she kicked off its scales, repositioning to land another heavy blow near its armpit.

The other dragon, hearing the cries of its ally, slithered up to it and bathed the dragon in fire. Instead of dodging, the wounded creature allowed the flames to enshroud it. Its wounds drew in the fire like it was life magic, knitting together until only a faint scar remained.

Elaine’s scream filled the air as she blasted off, plummeting to the ground. Her impact caused a crater fifty feet deep, kicking up another cloud of dust to join the endless smog obscuring the sky.

Elaine staggered out of the ashes, holding her side, scorched black. She doubled over coughing, spitting a mouthful of blood. The blood hissed and evaporated, reduced to coarse powder by the time it hit the ground.

A blast of lightning cracked across the sky, accompanied by roaring thunder. It struck the second dragon in the side, sending it careening into the first. Arcs of lightning flowed between them, eliciting pained roars.

Avant unleashed a flurry of fifth and sixth-level spells, casting a dozen a second, but the dragons ignored most of them, disentangling their coils and turning their smoldering gaze at the mage below. He had just enough time to summon a ward before the two unleashed another fire breath.

In the precious seconds bought by Avant, Elaine managed to stabilize, using her mana to mend her wounds. She attacked again but was batted aside with a vicious tail strike, crashing back down. As Avant prepared to save her again, one of the dragons dove directly at him, slamming its claw into his barrier with an eighth-level magical technique.

It was absurd. Just one of the dragon’s claws was longer than the mage was tall. And, no matter how fiercely I wished otherwise, exactly what I expected to happen happened.

Avant’s magic, stretched thin protecting the city below, shattered. There wasn’t time to scream as the dragon’s claw landed atop him. When its momentum carried it by, nothing but ashes remained.

Elaine fell soon after, succumbing to another twin dragon breath. As it descended on her, her sword slipped from her hand. She gazed upward, looking past me at the obscured sky.

”I’m sorry,” she whispered, though the sound never made it to me.

The vision froze, cracking with static. As it faded, I flared the Oracle of Eternity, willing it back. After some hesitation, it reformed.

This time, I saw the same battle. Only this time, Avant and Elaine fought side by side, attacking the same dragon in concert. They survived almost two minutes longer yet died in an equally decisive defeat.

”Again!” I whispered, pulling the vision together. There had to be a way. There had to be!

Time and time again, I watched the battle play out. Every time was different, yet the outcome was the same. Sometimes, Elaine died first, and the dragons’ combined wrath overcame Avant’s barriers. Other times, Avant’s magic failed, and Elaine was forced to sacrifice herself to buy the city below a few more precious seconds to evacuate.

I saw myself participating in almost every fight, but the dragons’ sheer power always overwhelmed whatever spells I could cast. Even if I was immune to most of their fire, the small, simple things brought about my end. The most obvious were physical attacks. The moment one broke my wards, the ensuing storm of shockwave, ash, and the physical heat of fire instantly killed me.

Other methods exploited the weaknesses in my defenses. Once, a dragon liquefied an entire ridge, letting it flow down and engulf my shield. Adaptive Resistance stole the mana from the rock, leading to it rapidly cooling, freezing me in a small bubble of solid rock. I was then helpless to see or anticipate any attacks and was crushed soon after.

Other souls came and went, with Fyren and Fable being the most common. The Empire had many powerful warriors come, but few could survive the dragon’s combined aura, much less its attacks. Most seemed occupied in the city, fighting a threat I only glimpsed. R’lissea led the battle there, fighting darkness and filth, reminding the wisps of aura I detected similar to that of the Undead Dragon.

The burden on my soul mounted every time I started anew, and soon, the visions began to blur together. How many times had I seen Fable sliced in half by a massive claw? How often had Elaine been killed by a fire breath? Just how many times was I going to die today? Was there really a point to it all? Maybe I should just open a portal to Haven and hide there.

No, I already tried that—at least a hundred times. The dragons seemed particularly attracted to that magic. Once, when I’d summoned it in the slave quarters, it had dug down to find me. Even when I managed to escape in time, the vision ended immediately. Haven had too many protections built into it. Not even my eyes could pierce the weave of fate within when I was without.

More visions, more death, more darkness. I was tired, so very tired. My soul form was heavy, every thought taking literal seconds to lead anywhere. How many visions had I seen? Hundreds? Thousands? More?

At last, my mind broke from the weight of what I had seen. The same moment replayed ten thousand times, none of which led to a future where we won. t was now clear why it had taken an entire team of ninth-level fighters to seal the twin dragons. Their strength, teamwork, and abilities were beyond contention, overwhelming anything we managed to throw at them.

I slipped from my soul space, defeated. There was simply no way we could defeat the twin dragons. I