Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 56 - Earth's Might (Patreon)

Gunnar fired.

The rifle kicked like a mule, and if anyone without his unique combination of strength, body cultivation, and the singular Recoil Management skill had tried to use it, they would have been thrown backward.  Or had their shoulder crushed.  That was if they could squeeze the trigger in the first place, which would not have been possible.

The weapon – called Silent Death – was bound to him, meaning it was unusable by anyone else.  At nearly seven feet long, from butt to the tip of the muzzle, it was also incredibly unwieldy.  But he wouldn’t have traded it for any other firearm.

Part of that attachment came from how difficult it had been to get the materials used in its construction.  Gunnar had worked for more than three years hunting just the right monsters for the inner workings.  The ore for the barrel, he’d bought, but only after doing a few assassination jobs for less-than-upright people. 

His targets were equally horrible, so he could at least justify it beyond the obvious desire to get something he wanted.

Still, that had taken more than six months to complete that final job, largely because the target had retreated off-world and holed up in a fortress.  Gunnar had been forced to wait nearly four weeks for the detestable man to poke his head out of a window, probably to get a breath of fresh air.

Gunnar’s shot, taken from more than ten miles away, had completely destroyed the man’s head.

The wood for the stock was purchased from the Hartwood Grove.  Ironically, given the grove’s reputation, that was the easiest material to acquire, and it only took a few promises to the caretaker – Nerthus – to get what he needed.

Construction of the weapon was a joint project between three of Seattle’s best Gunsmiths.  They spared no effort in creating what they collectively referred to as their masterpiece.

It still wasn’t good enough, though.  No rifle would be.

Not without Gunnar’s signature ability, gained at level four-ninety.  He expected another at five hundred, but he didn’t think it would be nearly as impactful on his road going forward.  Powerful, sure.  But Unbreakable Bond was sure to become the core of who he would be as he progressed into the deity tier.

Unbreakable Bond

Single use ability that forms a bond between the Shadow Sniper and his preferred weapon.  Bonding a weapon transforms the item into a growth item.

Limit: 1 Bonded Weapon per stage

Strength of Bond determined by soul and core cultivation.

Weapon Potential determined by starting tier and ethera attribute.

That ability had firmed his path in a way that nothing else had.  Tying himself to his weapon was a confirmation that he would remain a sniper, and in every sense of the word.

And for the first time in a while, he was at peace with his identity.  Without that all-important choice looming over him, he could focus on what was important.  At times, that was trying to connect with Palikina.  But right now? 

He was busy shooting dragons.

Not killing them.  He wasn’t quite strong enough for that, but he could definitely punch above his weight class and cause plenty of havoc.  The fact that he could do so from his hiding spot dozens of miles away just made it worse for the dragons.  And if he got a few good shots in a row?

Well, killing them was suddenly back on the table.

Just as he fired another shot – almost entirely unenhanced, save for his use of Distracting Shot, which would make everyone think it came from a different direction – he saw a fleet of planes emerge from the hangar.

At the center was the Comet.

“Bringing it out already?” he wondered aloud.

Even as he let those words leave his mouth, Gunnar saw a giant brown dragon plant itself in their path.  The smaller Z-14s broke away from the Comet to hound the dragon, but it was immediately clear that they had no real chance of hurting the creature.

Not unless they did something drastic.

Gunnar recognized the squad by the blue starburst pattern on their wings, so he knew exactly who was in charge.  So, when Orin Farrow lined his Z-14 up with the dragon’s mouth, Gunnar knew what was coming. 

And he also knew it wouldn’t work.

The maneuver – affectionately known as chirping – was a modified kamikaze strategy that harnessed the Z-14s oversized engines and modified shields to turn the aircraft into a huge bullet. 

It usually worked, too. 

But Gunnar could see, even from afar, that the dragon was a Warrior archetype.  Probably a defender, given its lack of ranged attacks.  It would take more than a single chirp to kill that thing – even in optimal circumstances.

Gunnar immediately activated Ethereal Bombardment, sending energy surging through Silent Death.  The weapon drank it in, letting it fill nine separate reservoirs before it was satisfied.  He kept the energy at bay, activating Sundered Defenses.  Crippling Shot.  And then, at last, Assassinate. 

The entire process took less than a second, but it drained a full third of his core.  He forced more ethera into each ability until the rifle began to shake in his hands.  Only then did he settle his sights on the brown dragon’s head.  He took a deep, steadying breath.  Then, on the exhale, he squeezed the trigger.

The entire sky island shook with the discharge, sending dust and rock to billow all around him. The shockwave continued for twenty yards before dissipating.  From experience, Gunnar knew that the sound of the shot could be heard from almost a hundred miles away.

A wonder he wasn’t already deaf.

The surging ethera encased the bullet as it ripped across the atmosphere.  The air ignited, and it left a trail of fire that reminded Gunnar of tracer rounds.  The air rippled as the bullet went far past the speed of sound, covering the distance between him and the dragon in the blink of an eye.

The dragon’s maw yawned, the opening the size of an office building.  A shimmer of blue-and-brown ethera enveloped the creature in a protective shield. 

Then, Gunnar’s shot met that barrier.

For the briefest of instants, it wavered.  But just as Orin’s chirp maneuver reached its destination, the shield shattered.  He sliced through the remnants like they weren’t even there, only to erupt from the back of the dragon’s skull in a shower of brain matter and bits of skull. 

The battlefield paused.

Right up until a beam of fire enveloped what was left of Orin’s Z-14.  When the afterimages of those flames dissipated, nothing but a charred husk remained.  It fell right alongside the brown dragon to eventually disintegrate as it reached the core.

Gunnar took aim at the dragon who’d thrown that flame, but when he shot, it did almost no good. 

Shaking his head and thanking Orin for his sacrifice, Gunnar shifted his sights to more vulnerable targets.

In the meantime, the Comet advanced like a massive, disaster-bearing albatross.  Its shining wings glinted in the sky, a portent of the doom it would soon inflict upon the enemies of the Vengeance.

Gunnar once again shifted his focus from taking pot shots at deity dragons to helping clear the way for that massive aircraft.  He wasn’t entirely certain what it had in store, but he knew it would be impressively destructive. 

The Engineers all said so.

Whatever form it took, Gunnar would have a fantastic view.

                          *

Wendell jerked the lever, rerouting the conduit to avoid the damaged section.  That bit of plumbing still sparked dangerously, but it wouldn’t explode.  That was good enough for now.

“Section 4-D is busted!” he shouted into his communicator.  “Rerouted to 7-F.”

“Copy!” came Lara’s reply. 

She was the head Pilot aboard the Comet, and Wendell had to admit that she was his absolute hero.  Most of the Comet’s flight systems had been designed to her exacting specifications, meaning that when it came time to choose the captain of that aircraft, she was the only real option. 

And for her part?  She never seemed to have considered refusing the job.  In fact, she was drawn to the danger.

Both in terms of her work and her romantic life. 

Wendell knew he could never compare to the sorts of men – and sometimes women – to which she gravitated.  They were all dangerous people.  Warriors and Rangers, even a few of the crazier Sorcerers in the expedition.  She leaped from one bed to the next, never staying long.

Wendell desperately wished she’d choose him.  Or even notice that he existed.

That was why he’d signed up as a member of the Comet’s crew.  He imagined a future where he did something desperately heroic, garnered her attention, and…well, after that, things took a decidedly less family-friendly turn. 

Did it matter that he was young enough to be her son?

Not really.  Not to him, at least. 

The old adage that age was just a number was even more true now that people aged so slowly.  Lara looked the same now as she had when she was in her twenties – give or take a few scars, which only made her look better, in his infatuated opinion.

Whatever the case, aside from a brief thrill of excitement at hearing her voice, Wendell couldn’t focus on her.  Instead, he responded to another crisis brought on by a draconic attack.  This time, it was a whirlwind that cut a giant gash in the fuselage and ruined a whole bank of wiring.

Wendell went to work repairing that as another Engineer mended the hull.  Both were among the best at what they did, and it only took a few moments for them to get everything back to functional.

Just in time to respond to the next attack.

And the next after that.

Each one rocked the Comet, resulting in extreme turbulence that turned Wendell’s stomach.  For all that he’d chosen a path that saw him building increasingly advanced aircraft, he absolutely hated flying.  So long as he couldn’t see the drop, he was usually fine.  But that didn’t really apply when the Comet fell a few hundred feet in less than a second.  Or when everything in the plane rattled like it was going to fall apart.

It wouldn’t.

Rationally, he knew that, and better than most.  But knowledge didn’t equate to comfort, especially not for him. 

Still, he did his job.

He could barely hear explosions outside, but he did his best to ignore them.  Panic wouldn’t help anyone, and he needed the full breadth of his focus to do what needed to be done.  Otherwise, the ship truly would fall out of the sky.

Or explode.

Given the sheer amount of ethera coursing through the Comet – both liquid and gaseous – the latter was a distinct possibility that everyone would prefer to avoid.

Because obviously.

As they flew, everyone shouted their progress into their communicators.  Nearly a hundred men and women were stationed aboard the Comet, and each one of them had a job to do.  Some were gunners, manning the massive turrets attached to the bottom of the ship.  Others handled the munitions.  Still others were like Wendell, Engineers working desperately to keep the aircraft functional.

There were other pilots as well.  Three of them, hand-picked by Lara. 

The Comet represented an ideal.  It was the result of years of engineering advancements, built upon a hundred years of pre-system flight.  Nearly a century of knowledge since the World Tree touched Earth.  And almost a decade of focused development within Orveth Kaal. 

It wasn’t just an airplane.  It was a flying fortress.  A true dreadnought in every sense of the label.

They just needed to reach their destination.  When they did, the dragons would learn precisely what humanity did best.

Wendell wasn’t supposed to know the target.  No one but the pilots should have been made aware.  But even if that information hadn’t trickled down to everyone aboard the plane, they would’ve still been able to guess.

The dragons had established a massive fortress a little over three hundred miles away from the Vengeance.  Just out of range of the mountainous ship’s cannons.  There, they ran their little siege, secure that they were safe.

The Comet’s mission was to dispel that notion.

They just had to make it through mile after mile of deity dragons before they could deliver their payload.

Thankfully, the plane could cover a lot of ground very quickly, so it wasn’t long before the munitions team began their final preparations.  Wendell was a good Engineer, but even he had trouble understanding what those mad scientists had cooked up.  When he asked for an explanation, the munitions experts just grinned evilly and told him he’d see.

When pressed, they went on about fission and fusion, ethereal atoms, and a hundred other terms he didn’t really understand.  The bottom line was that Earth’s inhabitants had been building increasingly larger and more destructive bombs for centuries before the world changed.  What had started with exploding powder had turned into nuclear devices capable of ending entire civilizations.

And those lunatics had added ethera to those designs.

Partly because nuclear weapons no longer worked the way they did before the World Tree.  But also because that was the only viable path toward maintaining relevance.  After all, one could detonate a nuclear bomb in a deity’s face and do little more damage than a sunburn. 

But with ethera?

That changed things.

Wendell wasn’t sure what would happen, as those sorts of bombs had never been dropped before.  The materials were too rare and expensive, not to mention that only a few people had the expertise to design and assemble them properly. 

Most of the bombs in the hold were normal, but that one was the crown jewel of their armaments.  Wendell was both terrified and eager to see it deployed.

“Fifteen seconds,” came Lara’s commanding voice.  “Get it finished!”

“Copy!” came the munitions experts’ unified response as their fingers danced over that massive bomb.  It was fifteen feet across.  Thirty feet tall. 

Wendell kept working, rerouting wires and mending pipes as the barrage of attacks against the Comet intensified.  It dipped a few hundred feet, then climbed.  It banked, sending everyone shifting across the deck.  It would’ve been worse if it wasn’t for the inertia dampeners they’d built into the fuselage.

Even then, Wendell almost lost his balance on multiple occasions.

“Five seconds!”

The bomb bay doors opened, revealing a scene of utter chaos.  Dragons fought against other dragons in the far distance below, while Z-14s whipped across the aerial battlefield, peppering the enemy with guns and ethereal missiles. 

In those first two seconds, Wendell saw more explosions than he’d seen in the entirety of his life before that moment.

It was beautiful.

Impressive.

Terrifying.

All in equal measure.

Then, they were above the enemy stronghold.  It was a tower, at least a mile across and dozens of miles tall.  To Wendell, it looked like nothing else he’d ever witnessed, and it confirmed that dragons had a distinct style all their own.  There was nothing human about that tower.  Not its scope. Not its architectural design.  Nothing.

“Release!”

The bomb fell.

The doors didn’t close, but the Comet was going so fast that any glimpse of the target or the means of its destruction were soon lost to open air. 

No one had to wait long for the pregnant moment to burst, though.

It did so with a wave of pure kinetic energy that sent the Comet cartwheeling across the sky.  Wendell never even got to see the explosion. Nor could he do his job, as the inertial dampeners failed, and everyone aboard the Comet was sent to tumbling across the interior.