The Forsaken Hero

The explosions of white and gold devoured a space in the sky larger than Blacksand Spire. I braced myself, waiting for a shockwave that would surely leave me unconscious, but it never came. The power dispersed long before it should have, lost in the barrier of twisted space.

Gradually, as I blinked the blurry sunspots from my eyes, the writhing currents of mana faded, and the starlit sky reappeared. The lava dragon had curled tightly in a ball to reduce the surface area the attack impacted, and despite its ninth-level defensive technique, it was laced with cuts deep enough to fit entire buildings. A polished silver blight frosted its scales, preventing its natural regeneration from healing its wounds.

”He’s gotten weaker,” Emlica muttered.

”You all have,” Haven said.

”Weaker?” I mumbled.

The dragon uncoiled with a roar, mustering mana to its claws. Jasrin floated a thousand feet overhead, but that distance was shorter than the dragon was long. It arrived in an instant, bringing a claw ten times longer than the remnant down in a vicious arc.

The dragon’s claw froze a few scant feet from the remnant, a shiver running up its arm and down its back. A sharp, metallic clang, like the ring of a broken bell, resounded through the realm, and the dragon was thrown back several hundred feet.

With the monstrous claw out of the way, I made out Gathrin’s armored form hovering above Jasrin, sword still upraised. There was a deep notch in the dragon’s claw where it had met his blade.

Before the other remnant had turned the dragon aside, Jasrin had already nocked another arrow. He let out an excited whoop and released it, followed by another dozen in less than a second. Every arrow was like a shooting star streaking across the sky, leaving a long, graceful trail of gold and silver in its wake.

”He stopped it?” I asked, covering my mouth in shock. ”But it’s...but he’s...”

”Size only matters in bed, child,” Emlica said with a wry chuckle.

I blushed, furiously shaking my head. ”No, it’s a dragon! Elaine couldn’t do that if she had a minute to gather mana, but he did it in a second!”

Haven patted my head soothingly. ”Hush, don’t overexert yourself. Dragons may have an innate advantage, but it’s not insurmountable. Remember, the chasm between the strongest and the weakest Ninth-level beings is larger than that between the first and eighth.”

Emlica nodded. ”This dragon is in the early stages of ninth level, far above what a mortal can achieve in a few hundred years. Hence the reason it took a party of them to seal this beast away before. However, any individual of any species that attains a higher degree of power can easily match or surpass a superior species of a lower one.

”Are you really that strong?” I asked.

She shrugged. ”Some of us are, some aren’t. But the gap here isn’t one of power but experience. There are few worlds remaining that even existed when I attained this realm, much less one of the older remnants like Gathrin. Compared to that, even the wisest and most ancient dragon is but a hatchling. Its world was not even conceived at that point.”

”So you’re saying they’re not stronger than the dragon, just better at fighting?” I asked.

”They are stronger, but not significantly so. The rest is correct.”

I nodded and turned my gaze back to the fight. After watching the dragon fight Elaine and the rest of our mortal group, seeing a new battle was almost refreshing. If it weren’t for the anxiety I felt for my companions in Enusia, or the damage being done to my realm, watching the graceful combat style of the remnants, or even the sheer, bestial force of the dragon would have been interesting, if not enjoyable.

A series of explosions marked the dragon’s side as Jasrin launched a volley of arrows. The monster roared as it tumbled back a few hundred feet, falling on Gathrin’s sword. The blade released a blast of golden light that shattered its scales, punching through its entire torso and coming out the other side. Blood erupted from the gaping hole, painting a small island in molten lava.

”Perhaps you should step in now?” I asked tentatively.

Emlica tilted her head. ”They seem to have it on the ropes. I doubt they would appreciate–ah, I see. This should be interesting.

The lava dragon breathed a gout of fire into empty space, diving headlong into it before the flames burned away. The fire clung to it like a second skin, seeping into every crack and flaw in its scales.

”Berserk, you called it?” Emlica asked.

”I...heard Soltair call it that once. I think it’s something from his original world.”

The dragon let loose a bellow that penetrated Haven’s sphere of expanded space, ringing in my ears. The flames molted off its body like an insect shedding a cocoon. Its scales had lost the dull black of igneous rock and now glowed a blistering orange. Every part of its body looked to be the same, transformed from flesh to raw, magic power in the form of molten rock.

”It’s almost like an elemental,” Emlica said, tapping her lower lip with her finger. ”A most curious ability.”

”This is more like it!” Jasrin shouted from the skies.

The remnant drew his bowstring back, pouring his mana into the glowing arrow that materialized upon it.

”Take this!”

The arrow streaked through the air faster than I could follow, plunging into the dragon’s forehead. It emerged out its lower jaw, streaking away into the vastness of Haven’s skies. A thick trail of lava spurted from the exit wound, but the dragon didn’t roar or flail about. Its mana barely reacted at all.

Jasrin’s cocky grin faltered as the dragon sped toward him, trailing dripping lava like a comet’s tail. His form blurred as he fired over a dozen arrows in the blink of an eye, but they all pierced straight through the dragon without detonating or slowing it in the slightest.

”It’s gone incorporeal!” he shouted.

Gathrin appeared before him, summoning a shield larger than he was tall. It bore a gold star emblazoned on the front, surrounded by six smaller stars.

”One for each of his companions,” Emlica muttered.

I gasped. ”Is that a–”

She nodded. ”His heroic weapon. Bastion of the Past.”

”Not much of a weapon,” Haven said softly, earning a glare from Emlica.

The dragon’s claw came down on the pair of remnants, releasing a shockwave that made my tail tingle. Gathrin went flying away from the impact, his shield smoking. A fine, almost imperceptible line drew from one side to the other, where the dragon’s claw had bit into the gleaming steel.

Emlica straightened, taking on a frightening expression I knew all too well. It was the same look she wore when I showed her Celestial Grace.

”It damaged his shield? This ’berserk’ condition is better than you made it sound!”

”Isn’t that bad?” I asked. ”That means it’ll be able to break through.”

Before she answered, the dragon spun about, bringing its tail down on Gathrin. He raised his shield and was sent flying yet again, crashing into an island this time. Fragments of earth and stone scattered beneath the impact, obscuring him in a heavy debris field.

Jasrin retreated, snapping arrows at the dragon. His mana fluctuated slightly, giving the streams of energy a strange, translucent quality. When they struck the dragon, it recoiled in pain, roaring at the ranger.

”He can hurt it?”

That wasn’t possible. Nothing Elaine, Avant, or Fyren had done could hurt the dragon once it went berserk. That was the single greatest reason we had lost every fight. No matter how much damage we caused or how long we survived, everything ultimately came to an end with this phase.

”Incorporeal enemies are powerful but far from invincible,” Haven explained. ”With the right frequency of mana, one can strike them as if they were solid flesh. Even summoned spirits can be destroyed, as can things like ghosts and creatures formed from wind currents.

”Ghosts?”

Haven chuckled as my tail curled tighter around his arm.

”You’re not usually afraid of monsters,” he said.

I shivered. ”There aren’t any ghosts in Enusia.”

”Yet,” Emlica said sharply. ”There aren’t any ghosts yet. But you have an undead hero, remember? Remind me to show you how to manipulate your mana to defend against them.”

I nodded, once again grateful for Haven’s strong grip. There was nothing more terrifying to me than being helpless, but that was the nature of incorporeal creatures. Normal attacks passed right through them, and so, too, did they pass through normal defenses. None of my wards hindered them in the slightest, not even taking damage as the dragon’s claws passed right through and killed me.

”How did Gathrin’s shield stop it?” I asked.

”How does your staff connect to this realm?”

I bit my lip, wincing as Jasrin narrowly dodged a gout of fire breath. ”It, um, just does? ”

She gave me a pointed look. ”Exactly”