Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 72 - Control and Dominance (Patreon)

Elijah leaped free of the empty eye socket, dodging a wild swipe from the dragon’s claws.  He kicked off a Cloud Step, then dove between the boundaries of a rift and into the void.  His skin immediately began to boil, but he ignored the agony, shoving it into its own leaf while he cast Wellspring.  His spell reached out to the Well of Life, forming a connection through which it dragged a vast river of vitality.  It flooded his body, and though he couldn’t spare the mental bandwidth to direct it, the sheer volume went a long way to repairing the ongoing damage that came from the void’s caustic atmosphere.

He didn’t intend to stay long, though.

He spotted another rift leading back into Orveth Kaal, then used another instance of Cloud Step to throw himself through the opening.  The planet’s atmosphere came as a balm to his injuries, but he barely paid it any mind. Instead, he used every point of strength to kick off another Cloud Step and throw himself towards another dragon.

His arrival came as a complete surprise to the dragon, who never even raised a defense before Elijah slammed his spear into the enemy’s eye.  It ruptured, the same as the last one, and he wasted no time before carving his way to the brain.  Once again, he used Thorn’s activated ability, Fungal Growth, to saturate the brain cavity with virile spores.

The exit went much as the last, with him retreating into the relative safety of the void, only to leave by a different rift that gave him a straight shot to his next target.  Meanwhile, Gunnar continued to distract the dragons with a bevy of powerful sniper shots from afar.  None of them were particularly damaging, but the fact that none of the dragons could identify the origin pushed them close to panic.

And that kept them from focusing on Elijah’s tiny form as he methodically infected one dragon after another.  As he did so, he continued to build charges for Seed of Embers, eventually getting to the limit of two hundred.

It was just in time, too.  Because by that point, he’d infected twenty of the thirty or so remaining dragons.  And the remaining foes had finally taken note of his presence.  They turned to him as one, then let loose with a dozen powerful attacks ranging from conjured blade dervishes, spinning like tornados, to more conventional streams of fire or ice.

Elijah knew he couldn’t dodge.

So, he let loose with Herald of Regrowth.  However, he didn’t do so as he normally would.  That ability was powerful enough, sending his attributes skyrocketing.  Yet, he didn’t believe that would be enough.  So, as he’d built each charge of Seed of Embers, he had infused them with a wisp of his soul.  Now, he just needed to connect all those threads.

Thankfully, Elijah had spent years practicing something similar with Fungee, and he had furthered the method when he’d healed Makit.  That training bore fruit when all two hundred seeds snapped together so he could envelop them with a thin web of his soul. 

It happened in less than a second, and it was only possible because of the increased reaction speed that came from his buffs and his equipment.  That presented itself almost like slowed time, giving him plenty of leeway to do what needed to be done.

The ability activated, though Elijah wasn’t satisfied.  He infused it with more of his soul, so when it finally took hold, it did so with explosive potential.  Elijah stumbled in mid-air, which was the only thing that kept him from taking a dozen attacks directly in the face.

He fell forward, his body singing with power.

He’d experienced inflated attributes before, but this was something different.  Something new.  It wasn’t just a few extra stats.  Instead, it was like he’d advanced an entire tier in cultivation. 

Fortunately, he had plenty of experience adjusting to influxes of attributes, what with his various forms, so he regained his composure just in time to get clipped by a few attacks.  His skin sizzled and froze in quick succession, but Wellspring quickly took care of that.

When he threw himself at his enemies, he did so with the speed of a true deity.  He hit the first like a bullet, ramming Thorn into the dragon’s scales.  They broke beneath the blow, but Elijah didn’t stop there.  Instead, he leaped, redirected himself with Cloud Step, and once again plunged into his enemy’s eye.

The dragon howled.

Elijah didn’t care.

He had a plan.  A job to do.  And he would not be deterred.  This time, he barely slowed on his path to the brain, and when he spewed Fungee’s spores, he managed to saturate it within a few seconds. 

Then, he was back outside and targeting another dragon.

Even those deities seemed to move in slow motion, his reflexes were so horribly enhanced.  That gave him a level of perspective rarely seen at his tier.  He saw the spatial rifts creeping across the atmosphere.  He witnessed the clash of wyrms and Illska finally plunging herself into that battle.

She was outmatched and ignored.

Which likely only served to infuriate her. 

Elijah saw another dragon’s side explode in slow motion as one of Gunnar’s shots connected.  Its scream came out in a quivering basso that reverberated through Elijah’s spine. 

He hit the dragon’s eye like a torpedo, accomplishing his task with the kind of alacrity that should not have been possible. 

Then, he was on his way, his body vibrating with attributes it could barely handle. 

Even as he attacked another dragon, the ones he’d already infected spasmed under the growing power of the fungal infection.  Their wings jerked and seized, their legs twisting in unnatural positions.  Some screamed.  Some bore the torture in silence.  A few even activated abilities meant to combat the infection.

However, Elijah soon realized something they did not.

He and Fungee were connected, never more potently than through the spores he could conjure with Thorn.  Normally, that only meant a vague sense of what was going on around them.  However, in this case, they siphoned some power through his increased attributes.  They didn’t become more potent, but instead, they were more enduring than ever before. 

In short, they survived whatever defensive measures the dragons managed to deploy.

So, when Elijah finally completed his task and Herald of Regrowth faded, the stage was set for him to put his plan into motion.  Still, he hesitated, largely because he knew that he was crossing a line.  If it got out – and he knew it would – he’d be ostracized among other dragons. 

They would see it as the ultimate violation.  Evidence that he was exactly what they believed him to be.

Elijah had always told himself that he didn’t care whether they accepted him or not, but deep down, that wasn’t entirely true.  Most of the time, it was.  He didn’t need their approval or acceptance.  But every now and again, he fantasized about being a true citizen of the Empire of Scale.

Technically, he was.

But the circumstances surrounding his transformation into a dragon meant that it didn’t go much further than that.  In reality, he was and always would be an outsider.  A foreigner.  An inferior.  A half-scale. 

They had made that abundantly clear.

War was already coming.  In a lot of ways, it had started years before.  The wheels were in motion well before Elijah had been born, much less when Kirlissa granted him the dragon core that had changed his entire life. 

He had already made his choice the second he’d decided to take Orveth Kaal.  Then, he had reaffirmed it a dozen times over the years.  Now, he just needed to cement his perceived villainy within the Empire of Scale.

Elijah hesitated only for a second before shifting out of the Shape of Embers and back into the Shape of the Reaver.  Most of his abilities were still on cooldown, but he didn’t need them for what he had planned.

He embraced his soul more fully than he ever had before, thrusting his Mantle of Authority out.  He didn’t let it grow uniformly, though.  Each branch snaked through the atmosphere with a specific goal in mind.  The path they took was already prescribed, and Elijah would not allow them to stray.

The first slammed into the closest infected dragon’s skull.  The moment it did, Elijah felt the spores come alive.  They agitated in place, vibrating with anticipation.  It was almost as if they knew exactly what he wanted.  He couldn’t hide the horror of his intentions from his own creations.

Nor did he want to.

That branch of his soul exploded into hundreds of limbs.  The spores leaped toward it with the eagerness of a creature meant to fulfill its purpose.  Then, he thrust ethera and that indefinable something he thought of as his spirit through his soul and into each spore.

They exploded in growth, multiplying a hundredfold. 

But that wasn’t the extent of their maturation.  They also evolved according to his wishes.  Using a similar technique to what he’d employed with his conjured hornets, Elijah guided them into something similar to cordyceps.  They adapted quickly to his plans, shifting their purpose to match his intentions.

It was a beautiful representation of magical evolution.

And it was horrifying as well.  The parts of his identity associated with the dragon he had become were terrified of what he saw, of what he felt.  Of what he intended.

He went ahead anyway.

The spores blossomed, sending mycelial hyphae throughout the dragon’s brain.  They overwhelmed the neurons and coopted the cells for their own use.  Outside, the dragon spasmed and began to fall, its mind going entirely blank.  Elijah felt it fight back, and with everything it had available.

But it had no real defense against a fungus purpose-built for domination.  First, of the planet.  And then, of hornets.  Now, dragons were the target.

Elijah sensed brief flashes of the dragon’s memories.  Her identity warred with Elijah’s spirit, entirely unequipped to win the battle he’d brought to its doorstep.  Elijah exploited that, overwhelming the dragon’s personality with brutal efficiency. 

He didn’t relish it.

No dragon could.

In fact, he felt dirty in ways he never thought possible.  However, as he’d already established, the situation was completely dire.  He had no real choice but to use every tool in his kit. 

And it just so happened that he’d developed a very potent tool, in some ways without even intending it.  He’d started off just trying to build something new.  Then, he’d grown attached to Fungee.  Rarely had he stopped to wonder if he was going too far.

He didn’t intend to start now, either.

He shoved those doubts away and focused on the task at hand.  By the time he’d completely eradicated that first dragon’s mind and hijacked her motor functions, the rest of his branches reached their targets. 

His soul lashed out, plunging deep within his victims’ minds.

The second dragon fell much more quickly than the first.  The third even quicker still.  By the time he got to the fifth, the process had become well-worn and powerful enough to shock even the most seasoned mind mages. 

He kept going, with each dominated dragon adding a massive burden to his mind. Whole clusters buckled under the pressure until he learned to spread the weight properly. 

Five became ten.  Ten became twenty.  And finally, when Elijah opened his eyes, he had thirty-two dragons under his control.  The fungal spores provided most of the impetus for the dominance, with Elijah focused on controlling the fungi.  It surrendered to his will like a child minding his parent.

In a way, that was more accurate than he wanted to admit.

He’d raised Fungee from a single spore.  He’d ushered him into becoming a powerful natural treasure and a unique organism.  Moreover, Elijah had established a bond not unlike the one he’d fostered with Treebie.  Or the one Miguel had developed with Trevor. 

They were partners.

Trust between them was absolute.

And through that medium, Elijah had taken control of more than thirty dragon deities.  For all intents and purposes, they were all dead.  With the extent of the fungal infection, recovery was all but impossible.  They no longer experienced thoughts of their own.

But if other dragons saw what he had done, they would have been horrified.  Not by the defeat.  That was odd enough, considering he remained a demigod.  However, there was a long history between dragons and vespirans, many of whom used similar techniques to destroy dragons’ identities and take them as their puppets.

Elijah had seen it in the Broken Crown.  He’d nearly fallen victim.

Perhaps that was where the idea had originated.

Whatever the case, that history had caused a cultural hatred for mind control, and to the point where succumbing to it was considered a character flaw of the highest order. 

That was what had happened to Kaela, and she had been exiled for it.

Now, Elijah had done the same to more than thirty of his enemies.

It disgusted him.

And he had to admit it also left him slightly drunk with power. 

He shook free and said into his phone, “The dragons are mine.  Collect the survivors from the Comet.”

A voice came through the phone, “What will you do?”

Elijah redirected his mind to the battle in the distance.  “I’m going to play with my new toys.”