Magma Dragon's Heir

17th of Season of Fire, Year 1197 AL

During eleven months, Newt had gently convinced thirty-one saurians to join his cause. Besides Magminion, who often served as a translator, he now had thirty-one ninth-realm saurians in his entourage to serve as liaisons with their respective exalts.

“Thirty-two others have decided to help when the time comes,” Newt told a beautiful azure raptor with shiny feathers on her clawed arms.

She stood only six feet tall, but no less lethal than the other exalts he had met. Most had started as first or second realm manabeasts, and based on what he could see from her aura, the raptor belonged to the latter, less talented group.

The raptor glanced at the swarm of ninth realm saurians trailing behind Newt, her vertical pupils narrowing.

“They would all die if they attacked without landing a single blow, and they know it,” Newt said as if reading her mind.

“Why don’t order attack me?” Newt caught the gist of her meaning before Magminion provided a more fluent translation that basically meant the same thing with extra words.

“Why would I?” Newt hissed back, and there was no need for translation. “You can’t hurt me either. I have no wish to become your master, and I can’t be bothered with it either. All I want from you is help in stopping them from destroying the world.”

“The world is too big. Exalt can’t hope to destroy it.”

She was the nineteenth to raise that argument. All of them used nearly identical words, to the point that Newt had learned the phrases in five different saurian languages. The other thirteen attacked without listening to Newt’s words, thus failing to contribute to his vocabulary.

“You must have sensed the wrongness more than twelve hundred summers ago? That was one of those entities—”

The night sky above them darkened as stars lost their shine, and the moon dimmed. Then, a sudden blaze of golden light came from the west.

Newt and the raptor exalt stopped talking and looked up, a giant golden crack obscuring the firmament.

A giant wave of water crashed through it, inspiring dread, but the nightmare was just starting. In the wave’s wake, a vaguely centipede-shaped rockslide of obsidian scuttled through the crack, followed by a mass of squirming tentacles that formed an outline that could have been human, if humans lacked bones and had more limbs.

Unlike with the crone, the crack persisted. It gaped in the heavens as a wound in reality, and the world shuddered, mana crying in agony.

“Help!” it screamed. “They tear at me and feed! There’s no time; you must seal the breach!”

The childlike voice begged, “I fed and nurtured you. Without me, you will die. You will all die. Help me.”

“I’ll help you,” Newt said to the world.

“Help,” the voice grew weaker, “Moon and a half—”

The plea was cut off, strangled.

Newt looked at the raptor. He opened his mouth to speak, but she spoke first.

“I will join you.” Then she said something he didn’t understand, but Magminion translated.

“She will gather her spawn at the eighth and ninth realm and bring them together with her.”

That’s thirty-three. He was tempted to tell the raptor to gather the seventh realms as well, but it would take too long, and while the force wasn’t negligible, it moved too slowly, and they only had a moon and a half.

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“Gather as many as you can at the seventh realm, and transport them inside your realm. The eighth realms too, we don’t have time to waste on them flying.”

Newt then turned towards the rest of his ninth-realm followers.

“Go to your exalts with all haste and deliver the same orders, we will meet up in my domain and attack like a single force.” Magminion had already explained to each of them where they had come from, and they all knew how to reach Shimmer’s part of the jungle.

Blessing Magminion for his competence was a passing thought as he and Newt went straight for Soaring Freedom.

“We will need thirteen days to return home,” Magminion told Newt, which meant they would have a bit over one moon to prepare for the battle.

No, we will have one moon to win the battle. It might drag on for days, and there are three creatures like that twisted crone out there, guarding the breach I need to seal somehow.

Everything was falling apart. Newt thought that with a few years, they would have the force to deal with the cultists and imperials, but now, they were weaker, and they had to deal with three outer gods.

Blast them, and their relaxed manner of talking about us having time. Is one of them a traitor?

Newt wondered, but the Grand Scholar had weeded out the imperial agents, and none of them were at the ninth or tenth realm.

We need a plan, a distraction, or a way to move the outer gods away from the crack. Newt remembered something they were bound to investigate, even if they had other priorities.

“Raptor!” Newt imbued mana into his hiss so it would carry. “Just follow this direction. You have to arrive in twenty-four days at most, and you should be able to make the trip in ten days at most.”

The raptor exalt called out in acknowledgement.

Thirty-three and a hundred and fifty at the ninth realm. Some of those can rival weaker human exalts, or at least have the ability to stall them. If only Magminion could endure in my realm without dying.

“Magminion, you fly straight home and leave an obvious trail for the raptor to follow. We have two more exalts more or less along the way that I will try to recruit. I should make it back before you do, but if you return home first, assure them I’m coming along and bringing as many reinforcements as I can. Tell them they have to be ready to move three days before the solstice.”

Newt hissed the instructions for other saurians heading for their respective exalts, telling them about the deadline. He had formed an embryo of a plan. It wasn’t much, but he had more than ten days to refine it and discuss the details with Magmin.

“Come on, get out, you lazy snake.” Newt manifested Magmin. “You’ve seen and heard everything. What do you think? Are we just putting up a desperate struggle?”

“I can’t read your thoughts that easily unless you’re thinking slowly and deliberately, and your mind was a storm, and still was before you kicked me out into the world.” Magmin looked up at the golden crack in the sky. “It looks a mile wide.”

Newt nodded. “I was thinking of undergoing my baptism a day’s worth of fast flight away from the crack. The disturbance should attract at least one of the outer gods, hopefully all of them, since the mana I receive is as pure if not purer than what Dandelion and the outer god unleashed that day when they died.”

Magmin wasn’t convinced. “Why would they come, though?”

“Greed, curiosity, fear?” Newt offered. “Some thought it was a sign of a treasure being formed, and they wouldn’t want the treasure to fall into their enemy’s hands? I don’t know. Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” Magmin hissed, “but your plan is full of holes and full of risk.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Newt tried to sound confident despite the grim situation. “Let’s see what might happen and how to tackle it. First of all, let’s assume they don’t make a move. What do we lose by giving my idea a try?”

Magmin considered it, but they didn’t really lose anything. They had enough time to try.

“Next, I won’t head for the crack in a straight line, since I expect the outer gods will chase after me in a straight line. There’s no reason for them to take the longer way, right? So, first let’s assume only one of them comes…”

Newt and Magmin then argued hypothetical scenarios, some of which included ambushing the outer gods of unknown strength out in the open. Magmin ended that one with one simple argument - “What if they are all like you, a realm or two stronger, but instead of being at the tenth, they are at the eleventh?”

Newt had wanted to ambush the outer gods with all their forces, but if Magmin’s hypothetical estimate of their power was correct, it would result in a slaughter only Newt might survive. If that happened, any hope of defeating them was gone, and the world was doomed.

Removing as many unknowns as possible was the first step towards victory. If all three outer gods took the bait, victory was possible, with Newt being the deciding factor. If even one remained, it could tie up Newt, and things grew grim.

We can only hope they are cautious enough to come together at once, or distrusting of one another or unwilling to miss out on devouring me…

As Newt thought about it, he found more and more reasons why either all or none would move. He was going to gamble the future of the world with him as bait and no knowledge of his opponents.

He hated it.