The Forsaken Hero

Shockwaves crashed against the hull of the Azure Wing as Captain Esvit ordered the crew to advance. Ahead, several other skyships had emerged from their hiding places in the mountains and were now cutting across the plains, remaining close to the ground. But they couldn’t escape the Risen dragon’s attention. Its jaws stretched wide, and dark magic gathered in its maw. With a roar that shook the heavens, it shot a beam of pure black light at a small ship just over the city wall.

A brilliant green sphere sprang up around the skyship just in time. The beam struck it hard, triggering an explosion of fetid light that consumed the ship entirely. My heart skipped a beat as I watched, gripping my staff tightly. The ship burst through the cloud, its shields cracked but holding, and I let out a heavy breath. Thank the gods that had been Selena’s ship. None of the other strike forces had powerful enough spells to withstand a technique like that, let alone the mana to sustain them.

The dragon screeched in fury and sheathed its claws in mana, diving at its prey. It moved so quickly that it drew a blurred line across the sky, the gap between them vanishing before my chest could tighten. I could imagine Selena bracing herself, pushing every bit of mana she could spare into the shield, but I never had the chance to see if it would hold. For in the moment before it struck, Fable arrived.

Fable’s howl rose to challenge the dragon’s roar as he lunged forward, expanding as he moved. His aura exploded as he swelled to ten times his size, dwarfing both Selena’s slender skyship and even the Azure Wing. Two hundred feet and thousands of tons of angry teeth and silver fur slammed into the dragon’s side. Both monsters screeched as they plummeted from the air, clawing and snapping at each other. The dragon dwarfed the Fable by a factor of ten, but his weight was immense compared to the half-rotted Risen, dragging them both down.

Fable’s claws burned gold as he raked them across the dragon’s neck, dragging himself up its body with every slash. His pawn punctured its rub cage entirely, punching through rotting flesh like it was rotting wood. Black ichor spurted from the wound, dousing Fable’s forelimb and chest. The blood hissed and boiled, and he let out a yelp, jerking away.

As the wolf lost his balance, the dragon’s body coiled in a great arc, slashing at him with its hind talons. One, half as long as the wolf himself, caught his flank, tearing a jagged gash in his fur. Crimson blood rained from the sky, splattering across the city walls. Black Mist invaded the wound, but his starlit aura was too thick, dissolving it before the rot could take hold.

The wound he’d taken was great, but Fable had arrived just in time. Selena’s skyship slipped beneath the behemoth, successfully entering the city. Beyond them, the other skyships made it as well. My prayers went with them, but my focus returned to the battle as the rest of our strike force arrived. As the dragon clawed Fable again, finally tearing him from his side, Borealis dove at its head, also in his true form. The dragon roared, its serpentine head twisting away at an unnatural angle, but the demon’s talons struck true. It wheeled away, leaving blood scores along its neck.

Luke arrived in that exact moment, narrowly avoiding Fable as he tumbled past him. Luke’s blade stabbed deep into the dragon’s scaly hide, sinking to the hilt. With a deft flip, he planted his feet against its leathery flesh, clinging like a burr as the beast thrashed wildly, trying to dislodge him. His soul erupted with mana, the Aura of Curses surging through his blade and into the dragon’s corrupted body.

Though the sword was a mere prick to so massive a monster, the scales around his weapon lost their shadowy depth across almost a quarter of its back, turning a dull, lifeless gray and beginning to peel away like parchment. The curse woven throughout the black mist that comprised its form flowed toward him, drawn inexorably to the wound like blood to an open sore. Luke’s soul began to brighten as he absorbed the power, but before he could gain a stronger foothold, the Risen dragon roared.

Luke went rigid as undead mana surged beneath his feet, throwing himself from the dragon’s back just as it detonated just under its scales. The blast ruptured its armored hide in a geyser of black energy that stretched to the clouds above. The force of the explosion sent Luke reeling backward, hurtling thousands of feet through the air. He vanished somewhere out of my sight, swallowed by the roiling clouds.

As the dragon turned, baring its fangs, Fyren finally arrived. He was faster than Luke, though still slower than Fable or Borealis, yet he had chosen to strike last. He didn’t bother with a fancy technique, but just ignited, assuming his infernal form, transforming into a comet of white-hot flame. He struck the dragon’s forehead, between its cruel, twisting horns.

A flash of fire bloomed as the demon’s momentum carried him through the monster’s skull, erupting from the back of its head in a shower of blackened bone and liquid brain matter. A visible wave of concussive force blasted from the impact, striking the Azure Wing hard. I cried out, losing my footing as the deck pitched. Scarcely had I stumbled than Luxxa’s hand shot out, hooding under my stomach and lifting me into the air.

”I got you!” Luxxa held me until the ship stabilized again, gingerly setting me on my feet. I gasped for breath, giving her a grateful look, before remembering the source of the chaos.

By the time I returned my gaze, the dragon had fallen five hundred feet, the gaping hole in its head large enough for a skyship to pass through. But even as I watched, black mist flowed across its scales, pouring into the wounds my friends had inflicted like thick oil, transmuting into flesh and bone. When the mists receded, it looked just as it had before Fable’s claws rent its side, in perfect order again. If half-rotted and all dead were perfect.

”Stars take it,” I cursed, tail lashing.

That kind of wound would have destroyed the eighth-level dragon we’d fought last time. That it regenerated so easily, and using so little of the black mist to do so, could only mean I’d been wrong. It must have reclaimed some remnant of its living ability upon reaching the ninth level. At this rate, it would take a thousand more devastating attacks like Fyren’s to drain all of the power Connor had given it. Even if the dragon rolled over and surrendered, even Fable would tire and collapse long before he killed it.

But the others didn’t falter. As the dragon regenerated, Fable and Borealis attacked again, with Fyren slipping between the two behemoths to land another devastating attack on its flank. This time, the three succeeded in severing its hind limb entirely before it knocked them away with its tail. Fable yelped as his leg snapped, but Borealis caught him, using its mana to keep them flying while the wolf’s own healing kicked in.

A violet arc shot through the clouds, and I found Luke again. His presence eased the burden of the other three, but even with four of them, all but Borealis at the peak of eighth-level, they found little room to deal damage. The dragon’s power meant it possessed more intelligence than any of the other Risen we’d faced, and it proved capable of recognizing their patterns and individual strength. Our team quickly adapted, changing its tactics with every approach, but it was all they could do to hold the dragon’s attention and keep it from turning to the army or the skyships assaulting the city.

Minutes bled into one another as the battle raged above the city. Fable and Borealis had settled into a rhythm, their massive forms a whirlwind of silver fur and golden light against the dragon’s shadowy bulk. They used their tremendous size to draw the creature’s focus away from their smaller allies. The dragon’s claws often found purchase in Fable’s hide time and again as he darted around its body, but the wolf shook off the attacks with grim determination, his regeneration knitting torn flesh and broken bone just seconds after the wounds appeared. Borealis swooped and darted, keeping his shining feathers and starry light in the eyes of the dragon’s head, staying just ahead of its snapping jaws.

Meanwhile, Luke and Fyren changed tactics, abandoning direct confrontation for a more patient approach. Their size meant all but the strongest arts were meaningless, for even if Luke buried his blade to the hilt, it was little more than a mosquito bite to such an immense monster. Instead, they hovered at the edges of the battle, gathering mana and waiting for the opportunity to unleash it with devastating impact.

None of their blows did more than enrage the risen, but they weren’t in vain. Every claw severed, every fang cracked, and every tail torn was one less tool the dragon had to exert against them, a few precious seconds of reprieve for Fable and Borealis to heal. It was going as well as we could have hoped, given the circumstances.

That is, until Fyren’s thoughts rang in my soul.

”We can’t hold it for much longer. At this rate, it’s going to break through. I have a feeling you’re going to be its first target.”