Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 35 - Born for It (Patreon)

There existed many types of power.  Physical might was the easiest to recognize.  After all, lifting a boulder or pounding an opponent’s face in came with a visceral aura that no one could ignore.  Then there was magic.  Commanding the elements was almost always flashy and usually very effective. 

Softer versions of power were a little more difficult to understand.  The strength that came with wealth or political influence were often just as impactful as the ability to split a mountain in two. 

Okar’s parents wielded such power, so he recognized it more easily than most others.  Still, he despised it.  As far as he was concerned, the only thing that really mattered was whether or not a man – or woman, he conceded in his own mind – could win a true battle.  The rest of it was just posturing that someone had long ago recognized as important.

He did not subscribe to that idea, even if he’d benefited from it for most of his life.

Which was one of the reasons he spent most days fighting against his nerves.  Not for his own sake.  Like most Warriors, he’d long since made peace with his own mortality.  Anyone who followed a martial path had no choice but to recognize the inevitability of death. 

Instead, his thoughts usually settled on Sara. 

In his mind, he could admit that he loved her.  He’d told her as well, just so there wasn’t any ambiguity about how he felt.  That moment – only two days after he’d first laid eyes on her – was the most important he’d ever experienced.  The years before seemed hollow by comparison. 

She wasn’t an object to acquire.  She wasn’t a goal to reach.  Rather, her mere existence gave his life a depth of meaning  he’d never even known existed.  Next to that, little else mattered, and for a long time, he was incapable of thinking of anything else.

His yearning for her presence still clung to most of his thoughts.  Even separated by years, she was just as much a part of him as when they’d parted ways.

However, he couldn’t help but dwell on darker notions.  Like the fact that, despite her status as a dragon, she was a non-combatant.  Her ability to defend herself wasn’t non-existent, but against anyone of her level, she would be nearly helpless.

Cyran had proven that when they were at the academy.

The moment Okar had learned of that event, he’d gone into a cold rage, setting out to kill the dragon.  Or more likely, die trying.  Because not only was he a Caelwyn scion who was usually surrounded by powerful guards, but he was also a capable combatant in his own right.

Okar knew himself well enough to recognize that if it came down to a battle, he would most likely end up on the losing end.  Never mind the consequences to his family.  They were rich and powerful, but they were still just serpentors.  No one would ever forget that, least of all the members of the Furo family.

They had some influence. A little power.  A fortune that could rival that of most great clans.  And yet, they would ever be considered lesser. 

Once, that reality had placed a very large chip on Okar’s shoulder.  But now?  He bore the weight of that unassailable truth as if it was nothing.  That was the only way to keep the bitterness at bay.

And he wouldn’t let that anger rule his life. 

In any case, Okar was very familiar with the various facets of power.  Even so, he was still shocked by what he saw spread before him.

The easiest target of awe was the orcish fleet.  It stretched across his entire field of vision, surrounding the Vengeance in its entirety.  Layer after layer, row after row – they filled the entire landscape.  Only an Administrator like Sara could ever hope to count the orcs manning those ships.

The grey-skinned berserkers leaped free of their ships in a massive, screaming wave.  Their collective roar was lost amidst the sound of firing cannons, thunder, and the falling deluge of rain.

Everywhere he looked, he saw lightning forking down from the sky to scorch through the rushing orcs.  Meanwhile, the entire ground was covered by mud and slithering tendrils.  He knew Elijah was in nominal control of those fungal growths, but he still briefly clutched his pendant in a tight fist.

It was supposed to offer protection.

Okar trusted that it would do just that, but he’d also seen what those tendrils could do to a person.  More importantly, he had seen mushrooms exploding from people’s backs.  He had watched as they stumbled and choked on spores that gradually took over their bodies.  When the fungi was done, it left those corpses unrecognizable as orcs.

It was a truly horrific way to die.

Okar took a deep breath, then released the pendant.  It clinked against the metal studs decorating his black leather jerkin.  Those bits of metal offered more than just structure or increased protection.  They also served to form an enchantment that increased the efficiency of his inward-facing abilities.

His armor represented the largest step forward he’d taken during the ancestral world, and he had Elijah to thank for it.  After receiving a fortune in materials, he’d had it made by the best Leatherworker among the trial participants, and he’d not been disappointed by the result.

He drew his twin swords, barely noticing the way the scant light reflected off the silvery surface of the metal.  Down the center, a black line zigzagged back and forth, looking like nothing so much as the lightning descending from dark clouds above.

It was a chaotic vision of a battle, both horrific and exhilarating to behold.

Okar bounced a little on the balls of his feet, barely even noticing the others behind him.  They were all drakes or serpentors.  The dragons would emerge from other hatches – as much because most of them intended to fight in their dragon forms as because they preferred segregation, even in battle.

That thought sent a bolt of anger through his mind, but he squashed it with the ruthlessness of a true Warrior.  His mind became a steel vault, each facet locked behind an impenetrable cage.  It was a foundation meant to protect him from mental intrusion, but like all mind cultivation, it also helped him to appropriately organize his thoughts.

His parents had stressed the necessity of that.  After all, they encountered subtle mind manipulation every single day.  Sometimes, at the hands of so-called Merchants.  Other times, from mind mages hiding in the shadows of other archetypes.  Their existence was an open secret.  Condemned openly, but accepted privately – so long as that mind mage fell under the control of someone with real power.

Because of all the descriptors appropriate for dragons and other citizens of the Empire of Scale, hypocrite was probably the most fitting.

Okar embraced Lightning Reflexes, feeling a surge of energy sweep through his body.  Next, he checked his self-buffs.  There were four of them, each one meant to enhance his speed and durability.  A subtle current of vitality coursed through him.  Not a true heal, but enough to keep him from falling after each flesh wound.

Ethera arced through his blades, reinforcing the metal while ensuring that when they hit, they would do so with increased force. 

With that, he was ready.

And it was just in time. 

Behind him, one of the Tacticians shouted for them to attack.  Even as the words fell upon Okar’s ears, he twitched with further increased speed.  It wasn’t as comfortable as his self-buffs, and it left him feeling jittery.  However, it only took Okar a few moments to adjust to the influx.

During that time, he shoved the hatch open and leaped through. 

The first thing that hit him was the smell.  Mud and rain, ozone and charred corpses were the most prevalent.  But there was an undercurrent of decay in there as well.  Something else, too.  An odor Okar could only identify as nature.

He ignored it as his feet splashed into the puddle of cold water.  He felt the mud ooze between his toes and the soles of his feet as his heel brush against something slimy just beneath the water’s surface.  He didn’t have time to recoil.  Instead, Okar focused on what was important – covering as much ground as he could.

As he sprinted across the surface of the vengeance, leaving a tail of water and mud in his wake, he studied the army arrayed before him.  Many of the lower-level orcs had already died, electrocuted to death by lightning.  Their bodies carped the ground beneath the ships, and many were already being dissolved within fungal cocoons formed by those slimy tendrils.

Okar ignored those, springing past them as he rushed into battle. 

The first orc he faced was a hulking figure at least four times his size and wielding a scimitar with an inexplicably serrated blade.  The creature swung at him, but Okar sprang over the intended blow and buried his shortsword into the orc’s squinting eye.  It met some resistance – even the monster’s eyelid was like treated leather armor – but Okar used the simply named Thrust ability to slip through the skin. 

It exploded through the eyeball a second later, jabbing deep into the orc’s brain. 

Okar continued his momentum, yanking the blade free as he flipped past his foe.  It should have been a killing blow, but he’d fought enough orcs to recognize the folly of that line of thought. 

He kicked off the next grey-skinned monster’s torso, then leaped free before it could close its arms around him.  His blade found the base of the first orc’s skull only a moment later.  It went a couple of inches deep before becoming embedded in the thing’s thick skull. 

The enraged creature whipped around, roaring as the motion slung blood in a wide arc that splattered on its fellows.  Okar ignored it, planting his feet on the orc’s shoulders and yanking his shortsword free.

Or that was the intention.

The reality was that the twisting motion had pinched the slim blade between to slivers of bone, trapping it in place.  No matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn’t come free. 

So, he used Sheathe.

Like most of Okar’s abilities, it wasn’t particularly flashy.  Its only purpose was to return his swords to their scabbards at his hips.  The idea – as his martial instructors had hammered into his head – wasn’t to save himself the motion of sheathing his swords.  Instead, it was an ability meant to help him recover lost weapons. 

The effective range was approximately fifty feet, and it had proven to be one of the most useful skills he had at his disposal.  That continued when his blade disappeared from where it had become lodged in the orc’s skull, only to reappear in his scabbard.

Okar paid it no attention because he was already leaping away from the enraged enemy.

He hit the ground in a roll that took him between the legs of another orc.  After that, he went on a spree of slashed tendons and muscles.  As he cut through the creatures, he left a wake of fallen orcs in his path.  And when they fell, the fungal tendrils wasted no time before wrapping their inexorable length around their prey.

At the same time, the rest of the dragons hit from different directions.  In the back of his mind, Okar acknowledged the various spells and attack patterns of his allies, but he didn’t let them dissuade his chosen strategy, which was a hit-and-run pattern meant to disrupt and soften the enemy so that others could finish them off.

And accompanying it all was the sound of rain, thunder, guttural screams, and cannon fire.

His blades sang as he severed limbs, punctured torsos, and sawed through throats.  It was music to his ears, almost hypnotic – especially as he wove his way through the horde of orcs. 

But it couldn’t last.

One thing Okar had known since his very first fight was that no one made it through battle unscathed.  So, it was unsurprising when he slipped on an algae-covered rock – only slightly, but enough that his next move came up a little bit short.  The orc’s metallic claws ripped through his shoulder, sheering bone away and nearly severing his arm as they destroyed multiple organs.

On instinct, Okar activated Perpetual Motion, which harnessed his existing momentum, combined it with no small amount of ethera, and kept him moving even as his body failed him. 

He ducked and dodged, rolled and leaped – no different than he’d been before what should have been a fatal injury.  But his body kept going, and faster than ever before. 

The orc who’d wounded him was incapable of keeping up, and Okar soon left the creature behind.  However, he knew his time was limited.  The second Perpetual Motion played out, he would die.

So, he did the only thing he could do – retreat to the hatch where he found a pair of unfamiliar Healers already tending to a dozen other wounded dragons, serpentors, and drakes.

The second he crossed the threshold of one of their domains, his body began to heal.  Not quickly, but enough to keep death at bay.  In the meantime, he collapsed in a boneless heap, his ability having finally run its course.

Okar wasn’t sure how long he lay there.  Maybe a few minutes.  Could have been an hour or two.  The domain kept him stable, but it did nothing for the pain.  Eventually, one of the Healers made it to him.  She was covered in blood, with red smears across her scaled face. 

She didn’t hesitate to heal his wounds, even if she wasn’t gentle about it.

Then, Okar was back on his feet and trotting toward the hatch.  Soon, he rejoined the battle.  For all that it had been ongoing for hours, they still hadn’t made a dent in the orcs’ numbers.