Chapter 54 - Dragon Heart (Patreon)

“You’ve never been to the city before,” Nigel began. He gestured at Scarlet. “That’s what she said.”

“Never.”

“We know this area like the backs of our hands,” said Alexander. He balanced a massive two-handed sword over his shoulders as if it were a walking stick. “We’ll lead the way.”

“We’ll each have a deployment of six soldiers. The troops at the gate will open up a path,” Remi continued. She stared at me. “Once inside, we’ll rescue who we can and secure the general area around the rift. Any questions?”

“How fast are the monsters coming out that we have to keep fighting them back like this?” I asked.

“Every hour, thirty monsters come out,” Nigel answered. “Twenty-one weak ones like the skeletons. Nine stronger ones—big horned soldiers. Then either a one-eyed giant or a poisonous snake creature with a woman’s top half. We haven’t been watching for enough time to know if there is additional variety.”

“It’s been two hours since the last clear-out of the town,” Alexander said.

“Meaning over sixty new monsters,” I noted. 

“If we don’t push in soon, there’ll be more. If their numbers reach over one hundred, the city will likely be lost,” Remi concluded.

I opened my codex, shoved my hand inside, and pulled out a rapier. “Then we shouldn’t waste any time.”

“Look at you, getting all commanding.” Scarlet nudged me. “You’ve stepped up.”

“Do you need any armor?” Remi asked Scarlet.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

Doubt filled Remi’s eyes.

“She’ll be fine,” I said.

“Besides, it’s best if you all lead the charge. I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” She lied. “You’ll all be fine!” she added with absolute confidence.

Nigel looked between everyone, then nodded once. “Let’s stop wasting time, then.” He turned to the eighteen troops nearby. “Prepare to move out!”

Activity surged through the camp. People picked up armor, weapons, and packs. They were preparing to go to war. Studying their expressions, it was clear how nervous they were. Why wouldn’t they be? We were up against monsters. Very few people knew how to use mana. Most had lived their whole lives with marks guiding them. Martial styles gave them techniques. Eye colors categorized them.

Now, everyone was the same.

Only effort and luck would produce results.

And death.

“We’ll create a hole with the troops on the southwestern bridge.” Scarlet began pushing me in that direction.

“I’ll follow,” Remi said.

“If you wish,” Scarlet replied curtly. A look of worry passed over her face, but it dissipated quickly.

We walked quietly past rushing troop deployments on the way to the bridge. It made me uncomfortable. Apparently, Scarlet felt the same way, because she started chatting about irrelevant nonsense.

“Eden’s a dragon.” Scarlet pointed at me, drawing Remi’s vacant stare. “Cool, huh?”

Remi peered at me briefly. “Explains the eyes. They look very blue from a distance.” She squinted. “More like shattered starlight with a black tear through them up close.” She rested her face. “Does being a dragon do anything to help us?,” she asked, as if mocking the notion.

I made a face. “Why wouldn’t it?”

“I’ve never met a dragon before. Only heard the legends. You’ll forgive me for my disbelief,” said Remi. “Are you from here? This country?”

“Born and raised.”

“Well, kind of,” Scarlet quipped. “That’s a complex answer.”

“Then don’t bring it up,” I retorted.

“Sorry.”

“You’re clearly sisters.” Remi pointed between the two of us. “Why is only one of you a dragon?”

“She got picked to be one, and I didn’t,” Scarlet said. “That’s all there is to it.”

“I see.” Remi didn’t ask any further questions. I’m sure she had more, but it wasn’t really the time. She looked straight ahead and kept walking toward our goal.

I slowed my steps, and Scarlet matched me. “Not a chatterbox, is she?”

“She seems like the type that takes a while to warm up to someone,” Scarlet said. She said it like she knew the girl.

We arrived at the edge of the southwestern bridge and grouped behind the soldiers defending the position. Arrows whizzed past us, narrowly missing our heads. None of us flinched. We couldn’t be bothered.

“How are the men?” Remi asked an older soldier who was giving out orders.

“Stressed, but ready to push forward.”

“Then prepare to push.”

“Not so fast.” Scarlet stepped between everyone. “Eden’s got this.”

“I do?” I whispered.

“You do.” Scarlet grabbed my shoulders. “Put into practice what I’ve taught you. You’ll do fine. When you kill something, note how it makes you feel compared to how you felt in the past. How it affects your heart.” She spun me, slapped my butt, and shoved me past the fortified lines. “Knock ’em dead!”

“Bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

An arrow came straight at my head.

My heart pulsed at my will. Instantly, energy flooded out of it, through my veins, and into my body. My skin hardened, my muscles fortified, and I felt lighter. My senses became hyper-focused to an insane degree.

The arrow looked like it was moving in slow motion.

I grabbed it out of the air effortlessly, broke it, and dropped it beside me.

People behind me gasped.

I felt power bleeding off me in waves. Strength. Speed. Defense. A coating of power gave me all of it.

It was an ability called Battle Aura, as Scarlet dubbed it. It was the Warring, Heavenly, and Chaos styles all rolled into one—the way they were meant to be.

To the people watching me, it must have awakened something in them. I could feel hundreds of eyes on me from the shore and the fortifications. It was a feeling I was desperately aware of.

Hope.

I darted forward across the bridge. My initial step cracked the concrete. The rest spun up dust and debris. My body blurred, though I could still track my own movement.

Arrows came flying at me. The skeletons sensed I was a threat and tried to end me, to no avail.

I weaved between the danger, my senses perceiving each attempt as it entered within a certain range of me. It was like the power coming from my heart radiated a field capable of detecting danger.

Each step brought me closer to the wall.

Demonic screams echoed in my direction. They were clearly some kind of warning to the others. Not that it would help. All it meant was that reinforcements would be close by.

The gate and wall came into view. The skeletons could barely hit me once I was underneath them.

I jumped.

Made it halfway up the wall.

Kicked against it.

Surged up.

And then I was above it, looking down, rapier in hand.

Use what she taught you, I thought. You’re more powerful than you know.

I aimed my free hand at the skeletons. There were a dozen on the walls and more farther along at the other gates.

My heart pulsed.

A separate wave of energy coursed through me. It moved at the beckoning of my mind, shaping within me and appearing in my hand.

A black ball of energy formed.

I splashed it out.

Twelve tendrils lashed around the skeletons.

I pointed my sword behind me.

My heart pulsed again.

White energy flooded into my sword, pooled at the tip, and fired.

I flew forward from the recoil.

The skeletons jerked with me.

I twisted in midair, shifted my tendril-infused hand, and slammed them toward the ground right behind the gate.

The skeletons flew past me. They hit the cobblestone hard, shattering and cracking on impact.

I landed with a huff along the wall, wiping sweat from my forehead. Shock ran through me as I analyzed what I had just done.

“Atta girl!” I heard Scarlet chime with my heightened senses. “Use what I taught yah!”

“Is that what a Dragon Heart does?” I muttered. “It’s that powerful?”

Over the past year, Scarlet—back when she was using the name Remi—had trained me to use my heart. It was the source of all power, the force that fueled the energy moving through a person’s veins. It was hard to conceptualize at first. It was like telling myself to pump more blood. But with practice, it clicked.

It wasn’t so much about controlling the heart as it was imbuing a will into it. I had to believe the heart had the power Scarlet said it did, and it responded.

The heart had a limited capacity for power. Even as a Chosen, I only had as much power as my heart could contain. Scarlet said I had a Chosen Heart, which was the purest kind one could have. That meant it could process mana at a two-to-one conversion when I absorbed energy from the air, food, or drink.

A regular heart had a ten-to-one conversion. It was slower and stored less power. A Warrior’s Heart, which signified a honed body and mind, could manage six-to-one. The only level above mine was a Noble Heart, which had a four-to-one conversion rate.

In practice, the speed blitz I’d used with my Chosen Heart in prior training would have left me slightly winded once the power faded, and it would have taken me a few seconds to recover, like I was catching my breath. Likewise, whenever I’d tried to use Creation or Destruction magic in the past, it had felt like I’d done ten pull-ups all at once for each cast.

The way Scarlet explained it, someone with a Noble Heart who used that same speed skill would feel as if they had run a mile at full sprint. A Warrior’s Heart would equate to two miles. A regular heart? Essentially attempting to sprint a half-marathon.

One could strengthen the heart through deeds, knowledge, killing, and practice. Killing, in particular, added special reserves and amplifiers that benefited one’s heart. At least, that was what Scarlet said. She hadn’t told me the specifics. She’d only told me to figure it out myself when the time came.

So how did my Dragon Heart compare?

The conversion and energy were essentially one-to-one. I didn’t even feel the blitz. It would take an insane amount of effort for me to feel the effects of mana usage. At the very least, blitzes and small-scale Destruction and Creation spells didn’t affect me in the slightest. They were the equivalent of walking on a cool morning by the water—negligible and easy.

While I was lost in thought, Remi and her company opened the gates behind me and passed through. Nigel and Alexander, along with their soldiers, were right on their heels. 

Scarlet came with them, beaming proudly. She peered between Remi, Nigel, and Alexander. “Who needs a plan when you’ve got her? Did it all by herself.” She walked forward and hugged me. “That’s my sister!”

So that’s what we’re going with, I thought. We really can’t explain why we look the same otherwise, so I get it. We’ll have to come up with a backstory when this is all over. Unless she’s already made one up without my permission.

Nigel brushed past me, performing a blitz of his own while brandishing his sword.

A spear came flying at me.

He deflected it, sending it into a nearby building where it lodged in the side.

Scarlet released me, grinning at Nigel. “My tips really worked, huh? Fast learner. Knew you would be.”

“We’d already kind of figured out mana a while ago,” Alexander said, brushing past us with a swing of his sword. “The tips just made it clearer. We’re good.”

“And we will clear the way,” Remi added.

The three of them stood guard before us.

Scarlet watched them with a look I’d never seen from her before, and I couldn’t quite describe it. Nostalgia, perhaps. But it looked sad, too. I didn’t get it.

Beyond them, farther in town, more skeletons were already aiming bows in our direction.

There were also wide, tall figures clad in scratched plate armor. They looked human in shape, like men who had spent their entire lives working out, but their skin gave them away—green, red, or dark blue. Two glowing horns jutted from each of their heads, surging with power. Their eyes were all iris, bright red and brimming with anger. They brandished large swords and spears as if they weighed nothing.

There was one giant snake, much larger than a human being. Its skin was a sickly gray with black diamonds across it. Where its head should have been rose the upper torso of a woman, completely naked. She had pitch-black, snake-like eyes and long, dark hair. Her mouth was wider than a typical human’s, full of fangs. Poison slipped past her lips like drool.

Lumbering taller than all of them was a monster with one eye and a sharp horn jutting from the center of its forehead. Its body was rotund and swollen like it was fat, but the veins bulging from its stomach, arms, and legs made it clear that “fat” was really just muscle. It wore a single cloth at its waist, and its tongue drooped lazily out of its toothless mouth. It looked too stupid to think, let alone fight.

But its gaze was trained on me.

It knew I was a threat.

There was something in there after all.

“You take the big thing,” Nigel ordered. “I’ll handle the snake. Alexander and Remi, the horned soldiers. Everyone else—skeletons. Are you ready?!”

“Huraaah!”

“Charge!”

Bold of him to assign me that target, I thought. But the right call.

Scarlet waved at us as we sprinted toward our targets. “Good luuuuuck!”

My heart pulsed with energy, activating my Battle Aura. I blitzed forward at immense speed, far surpassing Remi, Nigel, and Alexander, who were using effectively the same skill.

The mana my heart produces is stronger, too, I noticed. Even if we used the same spells and techniques, mine would always be stronger. A Dragon Heart must process mana differently. It feels denser.

The skeletons came into view. I thought about bypassing them, but then I thought of the soldiers who would soon have to fight them. All I knew was that Remi, Alexander, and Nigel knew how to use their hearts. I didn’t know if any of the soldiers could. It felt fair to even the odds.

I dodged the first arrow and closed the distance with ease.

Destruction magic turned my sword white, causing the metal to glow with power.

I swung.

The strike cleaved through the skeleton in front of me, several behind it at the angle I chose, and two of the horned soldiers beyond them before cracking the wall of a nearby building.

A normal army would have flinched at such an attack. The monsters were possessed with blind fury, however. Another arrow soared past my head, and the remaining horned warriors began charging in our direction.

Remi and Alexander slid past me, intercepting the first wave.

Alexander dodged one and sliced another before moving onto a third. His massive sword battered the horned soldiers around like they were playthings.

In contrast, Remi weaved between attacks with a single short sword and a dagger. She didn’t block or stab. She slipped between targets, slicing carefully at muscle and tendon to wear them down. No matter what the monsters tried, they couldn’t touch her. She was too quick. Her perception was far beyond that of a regular human. They didn’t stand a chance against her.

Nigel bolted past all of us and wedged his sword into the mouth of the snake-woman just as she nearly bit clean into the side of Alexander’s head.

That left only one creature: the lumbering monstrosity the size of a two-story building, charging in our direction to flatten us.

Just in time, the rest of the soldiers caught up and clashed with the remaining skeletons.

It was time for me to do my part.

I pointed the tip of my rapier straight at the monster’s eye. Power brimmed through my blade.

I released it.

Out the tip it went.

Right into its eye.

Out the back of its head.

The monster fell without ceremony, flattening two horned soldiers in its wake.

“Light work!” Scarlet shouted from a safe distance. “That’s my girl!”

Nigel was mid-decapitation of his snake enemy when she said that. Remi and Alexander were already finishing off the rest of the horned soldiers.

The troops who couldn’t use mana, though, were struggling. Many were being pushed back by the skeletons. Though they had taken down a handful, some died in the process.

Mana is the difference between life and death. I glanced at the enemies I had slain. I suppose if they were too powerful, the world would be doomed before the other Field invaded. This is supposed to train us. It can’t be a total massacre. Scattered people across the world can use their hearts. They’ll rise from the ashes of this ruined civilization to become leaders.

I darted toward the remaining skeletons with my sword, cleaving through them from behind. It became an effective pincer attack. Remi, Alexander, and Nigel joined me. In minutes, we had cleared out every monster that had come through the rift.

Remi took stock of the wounded quickly, but we didn’t have time to linger. More would come out of the portal if nothing were done. The city needed fortifying.

“You four go,” Scarlet said, strutting forward. She stood in the middle of the worn-out troops. “I’ll handle things here.”

“Can you fight?” Remi asked.

“She’s stronger than me,” I answered for Scarlet.

“Yet she did nothing.”

“You all needed the experience more than I did.” Scarlet tapped her chest with a finger. “How do your hearts feel after all that fighting?”

I had noticed it during the fight. That elated feeling I’d gotten from killing throughout my childhood was still there. Faintly, I felt the outline of a ring forming around my heart. It was barely visible, barely there, but it was forming.

“It’s called a Mana Ring,” Scarlet said after watching our expressions, showing we all felt something change within us. “They form around your heart through repeated experiences. Meaning the death of another being with mana. You’ll naturally leech it from them into your own heart. Do it enough to stronger and stronger enemies, and a ring will form around your heart, making you stronger.”

“How much stronger?” Nigel asked.

“Each ring sort of doubles your mana usage,” she answered. “All your spells are very localized to harming a few dozen people at a time, if most. Nothing like before the Fall. The heart alone can only do so much. It can produce more power and recover better depending on the kind of heart, but it will always be capped.”

“Different kinds of hearts?” Alexander muttered. Scarlet clearly hadn’t spent the time explaining that to them. Given the way the three of them were panting after their efforts, they all had Human Hearts.

“Rings form through experience in ending lives. The mana from another life attached to your life and circles around it, creating a sort of secondary heart to better process and absorb mana,” Scarlet explained. “Rings are best associated with a death toll for the strongest possible spell. That’s what you’ll use them for, anyway.” She smiled sarcastically. “One ring, a hundred lives. Two rings, a thousand. Three, a hundred thousand. Four, a million. Five?” She paused for dramatic effect. “You could destroy the planet if you wanted to. With the right heart, of course.” She winked at me knowingly.

I shivered, knowing what the Field challenges entailed. Getting five rings would make that easier.

But still...

“Just kill, kill, kill. The rings will form. It takes longer and greater kills the more rings you have to level up, so to speak.” She shrugged when she saw confusion wash over Alexander, Remi, and Nigel’s faces. “You’ll get enough practice in the coming years. Shouldn’t be a problem. You’ll either get stronger or die. There’s not much else to it.”

On that happy note, Scarlet turned her back to us and began tending to the soldiers. Her tone became sweet and caring, a far cry from the person I knew.

“You should lead the way,” Nigel said after a moment, looking at me.

“Brave of you,” I joked.

“You’re stronger than us. It makes more sense, as aggravating as that is,” Nigel said with a half-smile.

“Yeah, you killed the shit out of this thing.” Alexander stood by the one-eyed monster, nudging it with his foot. “Creepy.”

“I have no qualms,” Remi said. “I’ll watch your rear.”

“Me too,” Alexander joked. “Very closely.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “Okay.”

“Still creeping women out,” Remi muttered. She gently placed a hand on my back and started leading me toward the rift. “Ignore him. We all do.”

“Ouch,” Alexander said.

“You bring it upon yourself,” Nigel replied.

“What? By being funny?”

“Sure. By being funny.”

Soon, we were standing before the rift. It whipped wind and magic all around us. Debris from nearby swirled in its wake. My hair and gear fluttered against its pull.

“So we just walk right in?” I asked, pointing at the thing as I looked at Remi.

“Someone went in and came out already. It’s fine,” she replied. “That was in the initial phase. Our first party is missing, as you’re already aware.”

“Right, right.” I scratched the back of my head. “Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “Time to sack up.”

I stepped inside the rift.