Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 73 - The Line (Patreon)

Elijah regretted his statement the moment he uttered those words.  The dragons were dead, and thus, they had no emotions.  However, it still felt dismissive and incredibly disrespectful to refer to their hijacked bodies as toys. 

It was one more step toward monstrosity, and one that was completely avoidable.  The act itself was necessary.  Elijah accepted that.  However, making quips about their corpses was a step too far.

The words had already left his mouth, though.  He couldn’t pull them back.  So, once he’d made certain that a transport ship had a clear line to the crash site, he set off to create a distraction. 

After all, there were a lot more dragons out there, and most of them would do everything they could to foul the retreat.  With thirty-two mind-controlled dragons in tow, Elijah set off. 

And he immediately discovered two problems.

The first should have been obvious.  Their minds had been taken over by fungi, and while they retained basic motor skills, the fungal thralls’ flight was much clumsier than normal.  Oddly, ethera still flowed through their bodies, meaning that they maintained much of the same raw power that they had in life.  Though, just like the hornets, their movements were jerky and prone to sudden bursts of speed.

The overall effect was incredibly disconcerting and more than a little unnerving.

In addition, Elijah could still feel the echoes of their identities.  Not enough to identify them.  Certainly not enough that he thought they were still in there, trapped in bodies they couldn’t control.  But rather, it was like looking at a hazy and discolored old photograph, where everything had begun to bleed together. 

If Elijah had let himself dwell on those distorted memories, he might have faltered.  Yet, he pushed them aside and sequestered them in the same place he usually sent his pain – emotional or physical.  He was well-versed in ignoring everything in those leaves.

The second issue was more distressing, in that his fungal thralls had no sense of self-preservation.  Normally, that wouldn’t have been such a problem, but in a world full of spatial rifts, it became one.

The dragons were so large that most of them were entirely incapable of avoiding the rifts.  Nor did they really try.  Instead, they plowed right into them, and to disastrous effect.  Their wings were the first victims, with huge chunks being sliced free, but their bodies didn’t escape unscathed.

By the time they reached Elijah’s destination, they truly looked like a flight of zombified dragons.

Which, in a lot of ways, they were.  Elijah hadn’t used necromantic magic, but functionally, it wasn’t so different than if he had.  The big difference was that he’d based his control on natural processes.  Fungi hijacking and controlling hosts was nothing new, even back on Earth.  So, it didn’t come with that feeling of wrongness that true undead usually elicited from his instincts.

At first, the other dragons didn’t recognize what had happened.  They were too busy dealing with the fractured atmosphere while keeping an eye on the Vengeance, which had stalled at the edge of spatial field.  Its engines still ran, and at full speed, but the gravitational pull of the fight between the two wyrms prevented full escape.

Elijah felt it too, but the dragon upon which he rode – in the form of the fungal reaver – was more than capable of overcoming that pull. 

When Elijah was only a few miles away, the first signs of panic wove through the remaining dragons.  Almost as one, they turned to behold the gruesome scene.  Elijah was too far away to see their expressions, but he could imagine the horror all the same. 

After shifting into the Avatar of Storms, he reached out and used what control he’d managed to maintain over the storm he’d created.  It had weakened significantly, with many of the mutated hornets having dissipated into motes of ethera, but there were enough left to meet his needs. 

Columns of mist, Cloud of Decay, hornets, and lightning reached out, slamming into the gathered dragons.  At the same time, Elijah used his soul to push his fungal thralls to full speed.  They rammed into the other dragons, and the battle began.

One-on-one, the thralls were entirely incapable of standing up to the other dragons.  They possessed none of the skills, spells, or abilities they’d had in life, and could only exhibit a fraction of their true strength.  However, there was something to be said for the power of shock.

It swept over the living dragons, causing a moment of hesitation that made them perfect targets for Elijah’s gruesome strategy.  The thralls hit at the same time as the storm columns.

And thus, the battle of distraction began.

For his part, Elijah leaped free of his thrall’s back, resumed the Shape of the Reaver, and summoned Tyrant’s Edge.  It grew out of his arm, jagged and bone-like.  He slammed into one of the stunned dragons, ramming the blade-like protrusion into the creature’s neck.  It did very little damage, but he wasn’t concerned with that. 

That wasn’t the Shape of the Reaver’s purpose, as he’d discovered since evolving the ability.  It was about control.  Persistence.  Regeneration.  That didn’t mean it wasn’t lethal in its own way, but if he wanted pure damage, he had much better options. 

For now, he was content to be a distraction.

To that end, he used Mycelial Army.

A dozen mushrooms sprouted in a circle around him, then quickly grew arms and legs.  In seconds, their height had reached Elijah’s waist.  That was when their arms erupted with stroma not unlike Tyrant’s Edge, though with four or five growing from each arm. 

They let out a collective screech, then attacked.

At first, their assault was entirely inconsequential.  But then, the dragon responded.  Elijah had no idea what attunement she possessed, and her scales were a mottled collection of a half dozen colors.  Either way, she wasted no time in sending sweeping walls of ethera to scour her scales of mushroom men.  They slammed together, crushing Elijah’s minions.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what he wanted.

When those walls retracted, the clouds of spores doubled in volume and reconstituted their humanoid forms.  This time, they were a third larger and much deadlier.  Their attacks only paused for long enough for them to reform, and then they resumed their assault.

For Elijah’s part, he could only spare a sliver of attention for his immediate surroundings.  Instead, the vast majority of his focus remained on his fungal thralls.  Their fight – if it could even be called that – had devolved into animalistic slashes and bites.  The other dragons shouldn’t have had any issue fending them off, but their horror created a degree of hesitation that the thralls were more than capable of exploiting.

More importantly, Elijah trusted that they weren’t focused on the Comet or the rescue operation that had come underway.  They were too far away for him to sense, but he kept track via the constant stream of updates he received through his phone. 

The dragon continued to destroy the mushroom men, and they responded by growing stronger and larger until they stood twenty feet tall, with massive blades that finally managed to pierce the creature’s scales. 

Meanwhile, Elijah added his own damage to the mix.  His outsized regeneration helped him survive the same attacks that continuously destroyed his minions, but not without a significant amount of pain.  For all that he could survive those attacks and regrow the flesh, there was no escaping the agony of having his muscles torn free of his bones.

He quarantined that pain in the same cluster where he’d put his horror and disgust.

While he continued to hound the dragon, the rescue operation proceeded.  Miguel partnered with Gunnar and Bogoni’s team to fight against a few dragons who’d broken away from the main group, while the orcs continued to throw themselves at the pair of wyrms. 

Illska fought them as well, but her efforts were ineffective.  She did plenty of damage, but the two space-attuned wyrms kept teleporting her away.  So, she spent most of her time traveling – which must have been incredibly frustrating. 

Vaguely, Elijah was aware of Ok’tarik fighting another dragon somewhere in the distance.  Their battle wasn’t as bombastic as the one between the wyrms, but it still sent shockwaves across the atmosphere. 

In short, the world had devolved into fractured chaos. 

It continued to tremble, each quake vibrating the very air as Orveth Kaal barely held itself together.  That, as much as anything, reaffirmed Elijah’s resolution to send the others away. 

Then, he saw her.

Palikina suddenly appeared at the base of the dragon’s neck.  She reared back, her daggers held in a reverse grip.  Then, she brought them down in a dual attack that cut through her unsuspecting victim’s spine.  They sliced through the weakened scales like they weren’t even there, the sheer inertia of the twin blows exploding the dragon’s flesh and crushing her bones.

She went limp.

Elijah was already moving.  He raced along the falling dragon’s spine, the sound of his footsteps thudding with ever stride.  Then, he threw himself forward, tackling Palikina and shielding her with his back. 

It was just in time, too.

A second later, a massive shield appeared, falling toward them with all the force of a speeding comet.  It hit Elijah with an audible thump, breaking his bones and compressing his flesh so completely that the pressure burst through his scales like overfilled balloons. 

However, he managed to keep the bulk of that blow from touching Palikina.

Then, suddenly, the pressure disappeared.

A whipcrack echoed across the battlefield, and when Elijah looked up, he saw that a quarter of the dragon’s massive head had been replaced by a jagged crater. 

Gunnar’s work.

“Get out,” Elijah growled as Wellspring rebuilt his body.  The damage wasn’t as extensive as it could have been if the dragon hadn’t been so distracted by her sudden paralysis.  Or if Gunnar had waited any longer.  But it still took focused effort to regenerate so many broken bones.  “We’re retreating.”

“Are you?”

“Once everyone else is out,” Elijah lied.

He hadn’t quite realized it until that very moment, but he’d never intended to leave Orveth Kaal.  He wanted to ensure everyone else had the chance to retreat, but he would stay and fight.  If he lost, he lost.  That was the risk he took every single time he plunged headfirst into one dangerous situation or another.

But he’d once said that he was going to take Orveth Kaal, and he wouldn’t let himself renege on that promise.

Even if it fell apart all around him.

Not that he intended to let that happen.  So long as he lived, he would fight for the ancestral world he’d claimed.  And somehow, he’d figure out how to hold it together.

The first step in that process was to get rid of the two wyrms actively spreading spatial rifts across the planet.  Once that was done, he could figure something else out.

However, Elijah knew he couldn’t do it alone. 

Thankfully, he had two people who would help.  The first was obviously Illska, who’d never stopped fighting.  She was also the strongest person currently in Orveth Kaal.  Even the wyrms weren’t really her match, though they were powerful enough to frustrate her efforts.

Then there was Gunnar.

As much as Elijah wished the sniper would leave along with everyone else, Gunnar had made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere.  Elijah knew the man well enough not to try to convince him otherwise. Instead, he would work to use the sniper’s skills while doing everything he could to keep Gunnar alive.

Though he didn’t think that was entirely possible, given the circumstances.  He wasn’t even sure he could survive himself, much less save anyone else.

In the meantime, Elijah leaped free of the falling dragon, carrying Palikina in one arm.  When Elijah landed on another dragon, she disappeared into stealth.  After that, he felt her take on her dragon form and fly off.

Hopefully, she would do as she had been ordered.

Otherwise, Orveth Kaal would claim another casualty.

But Elijah couldn’t focus on that.  Not with the battle underway.  So, he turned his attention to the fight itself.  The dragons had begun to recover from their shock and had turned the tables on the thralls.  It wouldn’t be long before they destroyed their former comrades.

Elijah could only hope that, by that point, the Earth expedition’s forces would be well into their retreat.