Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 4 - Holding the Line (Patreon)

Bogoni’s injuries were far more severe than he was prepared to admit.  Pain coursed through him, pulsing with every beat of his wings.  The other dragon’s attack hadn’t been limited to physical damage. Instead, it seemed that their power was tied to inflicting as much pain as possible.

A sadistic ability that made him wonder at what sort of Legacy might award such a thing.  It was undeniably effective, though.  When he’d used Sacrifice to switch places with Palikina, he’d done so with the shaky belief that he could stand up to whatever they could throw at him.

He was wrong, and on two counts.

The first was that his shield had immediately begun to break, then compress.  Once it reached his actual body, his bones had started to fracture.  Even in that short span, he’d sustained numerous injuries that would require a Healer’s direct attention to repair. 

But the second error came from the belief that that was where it would end.  It wasn’t, and even as the other dragon’s claws enveloped him, so too did a blanket of pure agony wrap itself around him.  The shield didn’t even slow it down, and soon enough, it had seeped into every vein, where it ran amok through his system.

It still was, too.

Even as he flew towards the distant Vengeance, he could think of little else but the pain.  Overriding it all was the simple directive to which he’d always adhered – protect his comrades.

To that end, he pushed the pain aside and focused on fighting a running battle.  Doing so wasn’t easy, largely because of how dangerous his enemies were.  As a demigod, the thought that he could stand up to one deity, let alone three, was laughable.  He should never have even tried.  However, he had little choice but to do what was necessary, because if he didn’t fight, then he and his companions would surely die ignoble deaths. 

The aim wasn’t necessarily to win.  In fact, Bogoni recognized the impossibility of such a goal.  Instead, he only wanted to defend his companions while making his way back to the Vengeance.  And if he succeeded in that first part while failing the second, he was more than willing to accept the trade.

There was nothing more noble than to give one’s life in defense of those who needed his protection.  So it had been for his inspiration, Morin es Castori.  And so it would forever be for Bogoni, who’d always considered that dragon his grandfather. 

The tradition of sacrifice would remain strong, at least for one more generation.

In service of that goal, Bogoni used every ability he had available.  From Rising Shield to Roar of the Dragon, he cycled through them all.  And despite his efforts, he gained no ground.  The gap between him and his pursuing enemies remained much as it had been since the very beginning – too close for comfort.

However, there was one silver lining through it all.  His companions had drawn further ahead.  Of course, Fiona remained in one of his claws, but she was not idle.  Instead, she continuously cast healing spells.  None of them worked very quickly, but they sent a continuous stream of vitality echoing through Bogoni’s body.

Without that, he never would have survived as long as he had, because despite his efforts, he failed to avoid every attack.  And the pursuing dragons were deities, meaning that when their abilities landed, they did so with thunderous power.

But Bogoni endured.

Because that was what he always did.

                          *

“She’s flagging!” shouted Imal over the wind of Furyo’s flight. 

The Engineer didn’t respond.  He didn’t need to be reminded of Palikina’s precarious state. Instead, he pushed himself to the limits of his physical power.  He was a non-combatant, though.  And even if he’d been working on his body cultivation, he still lacked the raw attributes to compete with physical-based classes.  Especially when they were deities.

The only reason they hadn’t already been caught was because of Bogoni, who remained a stalwart wall beyond which the other dragons simply could not pass.  But oh, how they tried.

The punishment had already begun to pile up, and Imal couldn’t help but wonder if he’d make it.  Yet, she knew better than to interrupt him.  Not only would he never thank her for it, but it would foul Bogoni’s sacrifice. He’d taken a world of pain upon his shoulders, and it was up to her and the others to make it worthwhile.

Going back to help him would run counter to that.

So, she focused on the problems she could solve.  Like sending streams of water to disrupt the dragons from afar.  Meanwhile, as Imal clutched one of the spines on Furyo’s back, Palikina remained unconscious in her arms.  In her humanoid form, the assassin felt extraordinarily small, and not just because quite a few of her bones were broken.

Through it all, Kalyn maintained a steady stream of conjured bolts that she sent streaming toward the other dragons.  Together, their efforts combined with Bogoni’s stubborn defense to keep the deity dragons at bay.

Barely.

However, they all knew that couldn’t last.  The deities were too strong and far too fast.  That Imal and her group had managed to remain free was a minor miracle, but one she was willing to exploit to the utmost. 

Like that, they soared through the skies of Orveth Kaal, passing multiple landmasses along the way.  Some were huge and domineering, and they played host to powerful beasts who thankfully didn’t add themselves to the mix.  That would have made things much more complicated.

Other landmasses were positively tiny.  Barely large enough to qualify as anything but a floating boulder.  Beasts lived on those as well, and usually the solitary, aggressive sort.  It was while passing one such tiny sky island that Imal saw a hulking beast break free.  It was huge, with leathery wings that it had wrapped around the entire sky island.  Once it pulled away, the landmass’s size seemed to halve. 

Otherwise, the creature was more than a hundred feet long with a wingspan at least thrice that length. 

It was going to be a problem.  She knew it the second she laid eyes on it, largely because she had seen its like before.  It wasn’t exactly a bottom-feeder, but more of an opportunist.  Among beasts that had been driven to aggression by the cyclical phases of Orveth Kaal, it was one of the few that remained in control of its wits.

At least enough to choose its targets.

And in the running battle, it had clearly picked the weaker party.  That meant that when it launched itself from the sky island and ascended to attack, it aimed itself at Furyo.

The Engineer was a lot of things, but a skilled combatant wasn’t one of them.  He could hold his own so long as he had his devices handy, but that just wasn’t the case when he was in his dragon form.  It was one of the reasons his kind were taken less seriously among dragonkind and that most Engineers and their like were serpentors or drakes.

Wrapping any part of their combat potential in outside sources was anathema to most dragons’ sense of self.

Furyo wasn’t like that.  He was endlessly fascinated by all the things he could create.  However, in a combat scenario where he was forced into his dragon form, he was a decided liability.

Imal aimed to fill the role he couldn’t.  To that end, she summoned Water Weaving, which allowed her to see past the ambient ethera and into the dense flows of water that lived within the atmosphere.  She grabbed hold of them, twisting them so thoroughly that they transformed into a spell.

Most mages thought up fancy names for their creations.  Imal never cared about that.  Nobody else needed to know what they were called.  But even she had to admit that there was probably a better name than Water Wheel. 

A globe of water coalesced at her command, only to be sent toward the flying behemoth.  Before it hit, the ball of liquid exploded into a thousand sharp and spinning blades.  When it impacted the beast, it did so with catastrophic results, cutting into the thing’s leathery hide with ease that shouldn’t have been possible.

Not for a demigod attacking a deity-tier beast.

The only reasoning that made sense to Imal was that her constant efforts had combined with Elijah’s influence to push her higher than she’d ever dreamed possible.  Though she hadn’t quite reached the point of evolving into a deity, she was close enough that she could display a not-insignificant degree of power. 

The beast reeled at the impact, though one spell, regardless of how impressive it may have been, wasn’t nearly enough to take it out.  That was why Imal sent out three more in rapid succession. 

The creature’s screams of pain echoed through Orveth Kaal, a warning to any other creatures that might think the fleeing dragons were an easy target.  They were not, as the beast quickly discovered.  Unfortunately, it was far too durable to take out so quickly.  Yet, Imal had known that the entire time.  Her goal hadn’t been to kill it, but rather, dissuade pursuit.

In that endeavor, she was more than successful.  It turned away, gliding back to its perch to await more vulnerable prey.

With that, Imal turned her attention back to the pursuing dragons, then fired off a jet of water to intercept an attack meant for Bogoni.  It didn’t stop the blow from landing, but it threw the dragon off by just enough that the defender could endure it. 

A success, but a small one.  It would need to be one of many if they were going to make it back to the Vengeance.

                          *

Carmen shouted, “Pick up that hammer, or I’ll shove it up your –”

The other Blacksmith paled, but he didn’t hesitate to follow her orders.  As was proper.  What good was an apprentice if he failed to do as he was told?  The man was only ascended, which meant that he couldn’t venture out into the ancestral world.  Still, he was more than capable of enduring the heat within the forge that had been built into the Vengeance. 

Otherwise, he would be truly useless.

Most of them were, if Carmen was honest with her assessment.  Of course, they all had talent, after a fashion.  They could all forge metal.  But the majority lacked that indescribable quality that had seen Earth’s first generation of survivors through the planet’s transformation. 

People who’d made it through that were just built differently than the ones born into a settled world.  That was Earth’s next great test.  They’d gained a foothold in the multiverse.  Small, inconsequential, and, on a grand scale, mostly powerless.  But they weren’t easy pickings for the scavengers that often took advantage of freshly integrated worlds. 

Now, they needed to figure out whether or not they could take the next step and prepare future generations for the harsh realities of living in the multiverse.  Some had never even known hardship, much less had to work under the constant pressure that came with the knowledge that if they failed, everyone they knew would die. 

It was easier for the combat classes.  They dealt with life-and-death situations every day.  But for non-combatants?  Merchants and Tradesmen, Scholars and Administrators – they were safer.  With that safety came a much slower rise to real power.  It also meant that many were never prepared for when things turned truly difficult. 

“Next thing, I’m going to start shaking my fist at clouds and blaming kids for everything,” she muttered to herself as she scanned the smithy.  It had become a well-oiled machine, with everything in its place.  Four forges.  A half dozen anvils.  More hammers than any of them knew what to do with.  And a host of other tools with extremely narrow purposes. 

Carmen loved those little tools.  They were specific in their intention.  Good at only one thing, but in that, they were unmatched. 

She had never been like that.  Instead, she’d dabbled in battle, forging, and administration.  Her Forgemaster class was evidence of that, as, despite its name, focused as much on fighting as it did administration or smithing. 

Carmen was self-aware enough to recognize that as a good thing, because while she wasn’t one to seek out a fight, she definitely couldn’t sit on the sidelines.  Sure, she often claimed that she wished she could just sit in her smithy and hammer out weapons, but she would never be happy with that. 

As Anupriya always said, she was a Warrior in a Blacksmith’s class. 

Annoyingly, she was right.  Like always.

It was just as Carmen was going to shout at another apprentice – a silly girl who’d somehow made it to demigod – that something shook the entirety of the Vengeance.  The familiar klaxon of an alarm announced that it wasn’t due to environmental factors, either.

It was an attack.

And she couldn’t help but smile as she summoned her armor, encasing herself in dense plates of wild steel.  It had been discovered in one of the mines Carissa ran, and it grew in vines like an actual plant.  It was also incredibly receptive to enchantment, and Carmen had taken the first batch to create her new armor set.

Her hammer, as well.

As the plates manifested around her, she rushed out of the forge and into the halls.  There, she found hundreds of others already dashing toward battle stations.  Carmen ignored them, reaching one of the exits after only a minute or so.  There, she found a host of other frontline fighters – deities and demigods alike – who all nodded at her in respect.

She did the same, asking if anyone knew what it was.

They didn’t.

Soon, the port opened, and none other than Imal stumbled through, shouting for a Healer.  She was carrying a smaller woman that Carmen didn’t recognize, but she immediately saw that she was holding on by a thread. 

Thankfully, someone had already set up a triage unit nearby. 

Along with the other frontliners, Carmen stepped through the gate, ready for a good fight.  Only when she was fully outside did she summon her hammer.  Mostly because it was so large that it would’ve crowded everyone else out of the entryway. 

Which was perfect.  As far as she was concerned, size definitely mattered.