Magma Dragon's Heir

47th of Season of Fire, Year 1197 AL

With dawn came madness. The unnatural revulsion built up until even the exalts grew nauseous, and when the three outer gods came into view, the imperials and cultists charged towards the defenders like the lunatics that they were.

High above them, the mile-wide rift had shrunk to the size of three wide tree trunks bound into a trefoil. The flames hissed and sizzled fighting against the invisible logs, slowly but surely burning through them.

Magmin knew the invisible cords connecting the outer gods to their avatars stood there, and knew that once they severed them, they would be rid of the greatest danger. Until the otherworldly abominations arrived, they needed to handle the enemy exalts flying straight for Newt.

“Stop them!” Magmin roared, and flew to meet them, as did the rest of the forces they had. Whatever happened, they couldn’t reach Newt and disturb him before his work was done.

***

Greenthorn was cursing his luck. He could have been born during the tenth or eleventh cycle, grown powerful and fought in the conflict like a man, not like a scuttler and one of the weakest exalts on the battlefield.

The cultists and imperials had obviously culled those at his level from their ranks, and with the outer gods zipping towards them, he couldn’t expect mercy. The Thundertitan he had fought before flew straight at him, the calculating coldness of his gaze gone, replaced by the insane cruelty of someone who knew that whatever stood before him, a greater terror lurked behind, all too happy to devour him for his betrayal.

“Die!” the Thundertitan bellowed, swinging his staff.

Greenthorn evaded the simple, near-mindless attack. While powerful, it lacked finesse. The Thundertitan swung again and again, driving Greenthorn back, then, instead of attacking Greenthorn, he shot towards Newstar instead.

He wasn’t the only one, six more had pushed their opponents far enough to create an opening and fly at Newstar when a wave of golden fire engulfed them. The exalts flew back, and Newstar’s dragon stood between them and his master.

Greenthorn and others used the chance and flew at them, paradoxically, facing towards Newstar and the dragon while the exalts that wanted to attack Newstar had their backs turned to him.

The dragon was about to attack and start clearing the enemies, when a man in golden robes flew straight at it.

The former emperor blazed with an aura no less overwhelming than the dragon’s. The two clashed, but Greenthorn had his own enemy to watch out for. The Thundertitan was more powerful than Greenthorn, that much was true, but the difference wasn’t like between Newstar and the ones he fought. Yes, the Thundertitan pressed him and pushed him back, but that was all he could do.

Without exposing himself to a potentially lethal counterattack, he would have to slowly exhaust Greenthorn, and that would take hours or days, giving Newstar more than enough time to seal the rift.

***

The Flameax-Alabaster family fought as one unit. They were at the seventh realm, the weakest of the combatants present, but the fact that there were five of them and that they fought conservatively meant they could survive even against the eighth realm cultist attacking them.

Lord Flameax and Lady Alabaster were past their prime, looking like they were in their sixties. They still had plenty of power, and their experience made them more powerful than their children, but their twilight years were near.

Lady Alabaster didn’t worry about that. If they survived the battle, she would laugh every day of those twilight years. So far, the cultist they were fighting failed to find any openings, the Cult of Flesh the easiest combatant for them to fight.

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He seemed to have swooped over at them, seeking weaklings to fuel his arts, but like most people underestimating Lady Alabaster, he bit stone where he expected soft flesh.

He moved faster, he was stronger, and obviously younger, but his skill was lacking compared to those five hundred years his seniors.

He smashed another fist at Searingpebble only to strike solid white rock. His fist still punched through it, exiting on the other side looking like a drill made of muscle, but Searingpebble had had enough time and withdrew from his reach.

Granite struck from the side with his hammer, but the cultist caught the hammer’s head in his hand. A clawed arm sprouted from the one with which he had caught Granite’s weapon and swept to slash her son’s torso, but a jet of flame hit the cultist’s back, burning him and sending him stumbling forwards.

He rolled, charred flesh squirming and knitting itself back together, but that was fine, it wasn’t the first time he had done that. Ground beneath the cultist’s feet erupted, and like the last time, he somersaulted back. Unlike last time, Lady Alabaster expected it. Another spike of jagged rock shot up from the ground, spearing the cultist’s chest.

He smashed apart the rock, but Granite sent a wave of stone at him, swallowing him up. Had Granite been alone, the cultist would have escaped immediately, but he had family. Where the prison cracked, Lady Alabaster reinforced it, then fire surged into the rocks crushing the cultist inside.

The five of them buried the cultist in fire and earth, sending him underground until, ten minutes later, his defenses finally let up and he was cooked alive.

“That’s about all the mana I had,” Granite fell on his ass.

Lady Alabaster would’ve done that too, but she had her image to maintain in front of her children.

“Us handling an eighth realm should be our fair contribution to the battle.”

Lord Flameax winced, and a moment later, Lady Alabaster realized it too. She just jinxed them.

***

Magmin was doing his best, but despite his reduced form, his energy was draining fast. The only good news was that his opponent wasn’t having a better time either. Neither had suffered an injury yet, but at their level, injuries weren’t what killed you. Lapse in judgement, a slow reaction, or dwindling mana killed you, and he was fast approaching the last one.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t get to be the biggest problem. The outer gods were upon them, and there was no stopping them.

“Newt!” Magmin roared, his opponent lunging for the opening.

The dragon took the hit to the chest, then coiled around the imperial. Got you.

The man surrounded himself with a shield, but his arms were bound, and all his mana focused on defense. Magmin had forced him to invest all he had into staying alive, and Magmin would solve that issue.

He clawed and bit and squeezed. For those outside, a second had passed, but in their perception of time, it was closer to fifteen minutes before the exalt’s shell finally cracked. In a burst of blood and gore, the nearly dead Magmin unleashed the dead human, letting him fall.

He soared up towards Newt, his immaterial body flickering as he struggled to keep its integrity. The crack was smaller, but there were still two thirds of the way before Newt completely severed the trefoil. The crack pulsed, not with gold, not anymore, but with blue and two shades of black, clearly the energies of the outer gods fighting against Newt’s.

***

The Thundertitan madman lunged, completely open at Greenthorn. It was a suicidal attack, and instead of dying to inflict the wound, Greenthorn fled. He proved too slow. The staff slammed into Greenthorn’s sword, pushing it away and forcing an opening.

I’m dead. Greenthorn realized even before the Thundertitan started his attack.

He was wide open, out of balance, his mana in chaos, he was dead in one move or in three, but he was dead. He glared at the former king’s insane eyes.

Why? Why did you have to kill me?

He hated him. He hated the madman with every fiber of his being. The staff came crashing down like lightning, but the man was exposed. Greenthorn’s sword cleaved into his flank. Agony flashed across the Thundertitan’s face, but he grit his teeth.

Before the staff could hit him, Greenthorn screamed and exploded in fire and lightning.

***

“Listen, Greenthorn, I’m about to teach you my last resort technique,” Lady Dreadwalker, a grandmaster and the disciplinary chaplain of Explorer’s Gate, told her sixth realm student.

“Is it an escape technique?” he asked with hope in his eyes.

A smidgeon of disappointment crawled under Lady Dreadwalker’s skin. She didn’t let it show, but she dearly wished someone as talented as the youth before her wasn’t a coward.

“No, if you can escape your enemy, that means you have other options, and you’re not forced to use your final technique,” she explained slowly and calmly. “I call it Spite, and to use it, you…”

She wondered why she was teaching a coward a suicide explosion spell. It wasn’t like he would ever use it. Still, extra knowledge has never hurt anyone.