Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 67 - A Personal Hand (Patreon)

The storm was uncontrollable.

Elijah couldn’t even guide it.  Not really.  Instead, he simply provided the power and nudged it in one direction or the other.  His conjured hornets had taken on a life of their own, while the clouds roiled with dense vitality, fungi, and some intangible something Elijah could only think of as the spirit of the storm. 

It didn’t have a body, a soul, or a mind.  But the storm felt as much like a living creature as anything else he’d ever created.  That was Fungee’s influence.  Those spores weren’t just methods of delivering a fungal infection, but rather, a peek into the depths of life itself.

Elijah didn’t understand it.  Not completely.  But he could feel them in ways he couldn’t really explain. 

He floated above it all, a tiny storm frog struggling to direct the typhoon he’d created.  He wasn’t entirely successful, but thankfully, he didn’t need to be.  There were dragons everywhere.  Each time lightning struck, it found scales.  The hornets barely had to leave the storm to swarm one enemy or another.  And Cloud of Decay?  It was absolutely everywhere. 

It sank into the dragons’ bodies and attacked their souls. 

Of course, they were all still deities, and no matter how powerful a storm Elijah summoned, it wasn’t enough to kill them off.  Even the big defender who’d become the storm’s first victim hadn’t immediately died.  He probably wished he had, with conjured hornets crawling into his mouth and nose, stinging him from the inside out.  Each attack carried with it the hornets’ natural venom, but there was a tinge of fungi in there as well. 

The result was unmitigated, intolerable pain so potent that the dragon had been beset by a seizure.  That made him far more vulnerable to other attacks – a reality which the orcs were more than willing to take advantage of. 

He died minutes later, peppered with cannon shots and crawling with orcs who weren’t shy about hacking and slashing into his dense scales. 

It was like watching a horde of ants taking down a wasp.

Elijah wanted to take a more direct hand in the resistance, but he knew good and well that wasn’t his role.  Instead, he was there to set the stage and create an untenable environment for the dragons.  Through that, he could exert massive influence over the battle. 

The other participants were meant to take advantage of that.  Like the orcs, with their thousands upon thousands of ships.  Or the Vengeance, with its cannons.  People like Miguel, who darted in and out of the battle on Trevor’s back.  Gunnar, who’d set up a sniper’s nest three dozen miles away where he could steadily pepper the dragons with massively damaging shots.

Were they winning?

It was difficult to tell.  But in the chaos that came with Elijah’s storm, the tide felt like it was beginning to turn.  Either way, they were much better off now than when Elijah had first arrived.

He just needed to keep up the pressure.

Unfortunately, the circumstances were uncooperative.  Within a few minutes of unleashing the storm, Elijah felt someone coming for him.  They cut through the outer edges of the cyclone to burst free of the clouds. 

It was, predictably, a dragon.

White scales tinged in grey.  Wings like shaped clouds.  And eyes full of rage.

Even from more than a quarter of a mile away, Elijah could see their expression as clearly as if he was standing within a few feet.  Because the dragon, like most others, was enormous.  Just shy of half a mile long, if Elijah’s estimates were correct. 

“A storm frog?” he bellowed.

Elijah didn’t answer.  Instead, he harnessed what control he could muster and sent a column of decay, hornets, and fungi at his enemy.  Miraculously, the dragon summoned a mighty gust of wind that threw it off course.  To Elijah, that was evidence enough that his opponent was a serious threat.

And just as obviously, he knew he couldn’t combat the dragon as the Avatar of Storms.  Not while trying to keep his creation under control, at least.  So, even as the dragon spread its wings like cloudy sails, Elijah initiated the transformation into the Shape of the Reaver.

Using Cloud Step, he launched himself forward, leading the way with Tyrant’s Edge.  The bone-like blade extended further from his arm than ever before, and it glistened with fungal spores.  The white-scaled dragon’s eyes widened in surprise.  He tried to evade the missile Elijah had become, but he was far too large and much too lumbering.

A close-quarters combatant, he was obviously not.

Elijah hit him in what should have been a glancing blow.  However, instead of skipping off the dragon’s massive shoulder, he used Absolute Grasp to establish his footing.  He leveraged that grip and, using every ounce of strength he possessed, plunged Tyrant’s Edge deep into the dragon’s flesh.

When he ripped the jagged blade free, it unleashed a geyser of blood and glimmering green spores.  That was nothing compared to what it left behind, though.  Elijah could feel them burrowing into the dragon’s muscles, multiplying with every passing instant. 

What’s more, they flooded him with stolen vitality.

A necessity, because the dragon wasn’t going to watch idly while Elijah ripped into its body.  A bevy of wind blades descended, scraping across those white scales with only an inch to spare.  Elijah had no choice but to either release his grip or endure whatever damage they inflicted.

He chose the latter.

Because that was the Shape of the Reaver’s true strength.  Certainly, it came with the ability to connect to and manipulate fungi.  However, that was as much a part of Elijah as it was the form itself.  But what came solely from the shape was the vitality drain that bolstered his already outsized regeneration.

The blades of wind hit him like a blender at the head of a locomotive, cutting and pushing at the same time.  They very nearly overcame the effect of Absolute Grasp, but Elijah managed to anchor himself by ramming Tyrant’s Edge between the dragon’s white scales. 

Like that, he endured.

Even as the wind blades ripped the fungal flesh from his bones, he hunkered down, ducked his head, and hoped for a quick end to the pain.

It didn’t come.

Instead, Elijah discovered something that should have been obvious – the dragon was no slouch when it came to endurance.  A high deity, maybe.  And as such, he had ethera to spare.  Unfortunately for the dragon, Elijah was well-versed in endurance as well. 

Even amidst the pain of having his body ripped apart, Elijah managed to keep his wits enough to subtly guide the fungal spores through the dragon’s body.  They didn’t work quickly, but Elijah had a bit of an advantage in that those same spores had come to encompass the entire battlefield.

On top of that, the swirling fog that came from Cloud of Decay had also infected the dragon, scouring his soul in a way that couldn’t have been pleasant. 

In short, Elijah might’ve been in pain.  He might have been outmatched on an individual level.  However, he managed to hold his own because of setting and sheer grit.  Or maybe Elijah was just more accustomed to persisting through the pain.

Either way, the dragon’s attacks quickly intensified, as if the only solution to the problem was to do more of the same.  And it hurt.  Elijah would never deny that.  It wasn’t enough to distract him from his purpose, though.  Instead, he pushed the torturous agony into its own leaf, then used the rest of his mind to govern the task at hand.

Holding on was the priority, but directing the spores was the other.  Eventually, Elijah had no choice but to activate Bracken Crown.  That brought him closer to the fungi in ways he couldn’t really explain.  Even as his body exploded with sharp stroma, he sank deeper into his bond with the spores.

The infection spread, aided in no small part by the massive cloud of spores that had formed around him.  Each time an attack landed, more were added, filling the air with their ocher hue. 

The dragon faltered.

Elijah only grew stronger.

Winds attempted to disperse the spores, but Elijah continued to add more with every passing moment.  At the same time, he carved his way into the dragon, though it wasn’t long before he hit a bit of an impasse.  For the first time ever, he found his way blocked by an internal shield. 

At first, Elijah had no idea what to make of it, but each time he slammed Tyrant’s Edge into the shield, the barrier managed to stymie the impact.  Was it some skill?  A trait of body cultivation of which he was unaware?  He had no clue.

But what was clear was that he wasn’t going to be killing this dragon from the inside out.  Not directly, at least.  For whatever reason, the spores had no real difficulty getting through the shield.  Were they too small?  Or was it some innate characteristic of fungal infections at work?

Whatever the answer, Elijah was willing to lean on it.

That wasn’t to say he stopped carving.  He didn’t.  He just didn’t bother trying to go too deep.  Instead, he cut a wide swath across the dragon’s body, effectively skinning the creature. 

Ironically, if the dragon had simply shifted into his humanoid form, Elijah’s strategy would have been rendered obsolete.  However, the dragon seemed too proud to do that. 

Elijah was glad for the idiotic pride so characteristic of dragons, for it allowed him to further his strategy.  Such as it was, at least. 

It eventually became clear that the dragon’s pride was not misplaced, though.  Elijah soon realized that he wouldn’t easily finish the job.  In fact, it would likely require days of effort to slowly whittle the enemy’s defenses down.  By then, the battle would have already been lost.

Though most of his attention remained on task, Elijah was vaguely aware of the battle far below.  His storm had given the Earth expedition some hope, but the dragons had managed to regroup.  The orcs added to the chaos, but aside from Ok’tarik, who was fighting a massive grey dragon, they did little more than that.

They wouldn’t win the battle.

In fact, it became increasingly clear that unless something drastic changed, victory could very well prove impossible.  For the dragons, defeating the people from Earth would prove costly, but still possible.  For humanity?

The hill was too steep to climb.

Even as Elijah considered the possibility of true retreat, everything changed.

Suddenly, a massive, blue shape burst through the clouds.  Even from afar, Elijah could see the creature’s wild eyes.  And he could feel something wild and familiar.  It only took a few moments for him to realize what it was.

The sapling.

He’d almost forgotten the wanton destruction around the gate to the plane of nature.  Now, it all came back to him in a rush.  The anger he’d felt.  The fury at the unnecessary damage. 

At the time, he’d thought it the work of some animal.  But seeing the blue dragon – no, the blue wyrm – before him, he recognized the truth.  It almost made him forget about his current opponent altogether.

Fortunately, with the massive blue wyrm bearing down on them, the white dragon’s attention shifted away from Elijah as well. 

Until that moment, Elijah had wondered if there truly was a difference between a dragon and a wyrm.  In the back of his mind, he’d considered the possibility that it was all just propaganda.  Dragons trying to justify their own place in the world while denigrating people who’d made different choices.

But now?

Looking into those wild eyes?

Elijah knew the truth.  Wyrms truly were different.  Not insane, as he’d let himself believe.  Not misunderstood.  Wild in a way that the system and reality itself recognized.  What’s more, the wyrm – monster, beast, or dragon – was coming right for them. 

One moment, it was more than a mile away, and the next, it was right on top of them, claws bearing down on the white dragon.

Elijah let go, throwing himself free.  A shockwave from the collision between dragon and wyrm sent him rocketing away at hundreds of miles an hour.  He turned that into flight by shifting back into the Shape of Withering and using Ride the Wind to gain altitude.  When he banked around, he saw something he didn’t expect.

A whole chunk of the white dragon’s side was simply gone.  Not ripped free.  Not bitten off.  Just gone.  As if that bit had simply been excised.  The white dragon reeled in pain as the blue wyrm attacked like a rabid beast, its head darting out like a striking snake as its claws raked its enemy’s once-durable scales.

Perhaps the attacks wouldn’t have been nearly as successful had Elijah not spent quite a lot of time and effort infecting the creature with fungi.  But now?  The white dragon’s defenses were much weakened, making it a ripe target for the new entrant into the battle.

The result was a slow-motion massacre that eventually saw a draconic carcass with white scales plummeting toward the core.

That was when the blue wyrm finally remembered that Elijah was there.

It turned its attention on him, and the second those eyes found him, Elijah knew there would be no escaping the coming battle.