Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 42: Dragon-waking

Red aether pierced into the muscled tissue that floated in front of him, and the Wyrm-Heart erupted with a geyser of purple draconic energy.

Alex felt his soul projected blasted backward, his soulspace practically filling with enraged purple essence, washing over his fragmented mage core, and Obby’s illusion body, attacking anything within range with predatory ferocity.

Time wasn’t real inside his soulspace, at least not the same way outside of it. Instantly, the area was filled with the Wyrm-Heart’s wrath, Alex mentally having to wrangle and control the near-never-ending stream of essence that the heart was producing.

Meanwhile, outside in the real world, the prince’s attack was reaching its zenith and about to fire off.

Who… wakes… the Dragon?!

Alex heard the rumbling voice once again, shaking his entire soulchasm end to end. It felt aimless, searching for a threat where none was.

The draconic essence began thrashing about, the fragments of his mage core pummeled by the purple energy and sending agonizing, painful lances through Alex's entire being. He might have woken it up, but he needed to figure out how to actually use the energy too. Currently, it was just a storm, angry and wrathful as it battered his soul from the inside.

Yet, wrath and anger, those were things Alex had been learning to master for a long time now. Wrath was practically a weapon to him at this point.

Alex decided to use that. He pulled at the energy, coaxing it into his soulgate that led to his body.

The moment a trickle transferred out of his soul, the rest followed in a deluge, emptying out into his physical form, his skin illuminating with an inner purple glow before thick reptilian scales burst through his skin all over his neck, arms, and chest. His pupils elongated into slits, the sclera turning a dark void-black.

His muscles swelled right after, the draconic energy filling his body to near bursting with power and wrath.

Wrath, he could harness wrath.

And there was at least one part of his constitution that he did know how to use consciously.

The blood from Alex’s wounds rose from the platform around him and streamed out of the open punctures in his body, the purple essence moving along with it. His Wyrm-blood, altered by the ritual he had performed with the Wyvern-blood, collected together and erected itself in front of him in a crude wall shape just in time for the prince’s attack.

The dozens of beams found no angle to approach that wasn’t impeded by the bloody purple defense, and potent as the air aether that the prince had used may be, the acidic Wyrm-blood ate through its aether like a starving savage beast, draining it of any power upon contact.

Everything happened in a single moment.

Alex coaxed awake the damned Wyrm-heart. The Prince released his second volley of attacks. The eruption of blood and energy blocked and drained everything that came his way.

It ended with Alex standing with his wall of wyrm-blood in front of him, unscathed as the prince looked down at him in utter shock. It was like a scene from an old action holovid back on Earth. Alex idly thought the Prince would spit up blood in disbelief and anger.

Instead, the man remained rather calm despite his wide-eyed stare.“This is new,” the prince said from above Alex.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he replied.

Alex might not have an elemental affinity anymore, as he was now relegated to using only pure aether for his spells. But with his training, Sylvaris’ scroll, his understanding of his many spell’s previous aether patterns, and having watching Eric and Holly train and fight for extended periods of time… Well, he knew a thing or two about air aether.

Now he was standing before a wall of dragon blood that had just swallowed and eaten a vast amount of potent air aether, and it was his for the taking.

He raised his hand, and the blood wall broke apart to rearrange itself, taking shape with the help of the spell pattern he remembered from [Wind Lance], upgraded now to [Energy Spear], added even further to with knowledge he had so far of [Asura’s Armament]. The end result wasn’t a [Technique], not by any stretch, but it let him achieve his goal.

Five spears of crimson colored and heavily potent power formed themselves in front of him. Alex reached forward, grasping one around its haft as the other four floated.

His gaze lifted to meet the Prince’s, and he grinned maniacally.

“I don’t know what you’re doing flesh-boy, but you won’t be able to hold that for long. Your body is… not looking good,” Obby warned him.

Alex was aware. He had lost a lot of blood. The backlash to [Descending Demon Fist] was lessened, but not eradicated. And his [Vita-Surge Cloak] was still active; the moment it ended, he would be hit with another huge backlash from the spell itself.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

But he didn’t need very long.

He pulled at the rest of the aether stores in his body, forming it into a precise [Aether Burst] below his feet.

Just before he released it, Alex sent the four floating spears rocketing forward towards the prince in the air, each coming from a different side, left, right, above, and below, to the best of his ability.

As the spears were screaming through the air, Alex watched the prince’s feathered cloak flap frantically, and he began to dodge, Obby highlighting his movement in Alex’s vision. Alex released his [Aether Burst] and he careened up and forward to intercept.

His timing was just a tiny bit off, but not very much.

Alex reached the prince before he could change direction. The spear in his hand shot out, catching the prince in the lower abdomen and piercing completely through armor, skin, muscle and organs.

Two figures fell to the platform as four crimson spears exploded in the air, launching them both down even faster than gravity’s grasp alone.

Alex landed on top of the prince, his knees buckling and giving out as he hit the metal.

He still held the spear that impaled the prince, looming over the man and staring into his eyes through the holes in the mask.

“I will say it again…” Alex huffed, breathing deeply. He held on to his [Vita-Surge Cloak], knowing once he deactivated the spell he’d most likely pass out. “I’m not responsible for what happened… at the summit.”

The prince seemed dazed, but Alex was certain he could still hear him. He continued.

“The royal family… turned Kailin into a bomb. They have… a leyline… beneath the capital.” Darkness was creeping into the sides of his vision now. He didn’t have much time. He sucked in another gasp of air. “Pull back your… army. Or they will… all be obliterated.”

Alex heard the pop of the arena’s dome bursting and a flurry of people came towards them. He had won, so he could let go now. He released the spear, and it melted into blood once more, pouring over the prince with a hiss of acidic burn.

Then Alex released his augmentor spell and fell onto his back.

***

“That was crazy impressive, Alex. I thought you couldn’t use you constitution on demand, what happened?” Holly asked him.

They were all back in the rest area again, long after the day’s fights had ended. Alex had been relegated to rest throughout the rest of the day’s events, but practically the entire team had met up to discuss what happened.

“He his Dragon! He can do anything!” Tom-Tom shouted, jumping up and down on light feet, causing his cooking pot helmet and ladles to clatter where they were clipped to his back.

“You did say you couldn’t use it on your own yet,” Kate interjected sternly. The kobold whimpered slightly and moved a step closer to Alex where he sat. “You’ve been practicing. Has Amnios woken back up already?” He eyes narrowed in suspicion at the last line. Alex still held on to the orb containing the Hydra’s soul, and he had promised to tell Kate the moment it looked like the arcane beast was waking up again.

“I bet he devoured the Hydra orb and added it to his soulspace. Alex is crazy like that,” Lance said with a laugh.

Alex looked at him like he was the looney one. Consuming the orb had never even crossed his mind, He didn’t even think he could.

“Well, actually, you might be able to. I wonder what effect it might have. We should do some tests.” Obby’s illusiory body floated in front of him, invisible to everyone else.

Alex shook his head. “No,” he said, answering everyone at once.

“Amnios isn’t awake, and I didn’t eat him, nor will I,” he shook his head once more, aggressively, and sighed. “I just, you know, poked the Wyrm-heart a bit to wake it up.”

“Poke how?” Kate asked.

“He challenged it to a duel, winner gets control of his body forever,” Ghrukk called out, flexing his muscles all the while. Myrae slapped his arm and made a shushing noise, the ork frowned and deflated.

“Okay, but how did you do it really? Do I need to learn how to do some kind of soul surgery stuff to fix you?” Allie asked, annoyed.

“Nothing super crazy, okay. I don’t have a dragon in control of my body, and I didn’t damage my soul… anymore than it already is. I just, sort of, stabbed the heart to get it awake.”

Everyone stared at him a moment, then Garret burst into a deep belly laughter.

“Fucking Alex, man. Nothing crazy. We should just assume he’s always lying whenever he says that,” Garret wiped at his eyes, removing tears.

“Hey! Come on, its not that insane.”

“Alex,” Holly rested a hand on his arm gently. “It is.”

“But—“

“Pretty sure that stabbing a sleeping dragon to wake it up, is squarely in the “totally crazy” category, Alex.” Peter interrupted him.

“Right next to, jumping inside a monster’s mouth to attack it from the inside. Or, putting a spatial ring inside a spatial ring to conjure a portal to the outer-void and suck in the big bad evil thing. Insane,” Garret said.

“Fine, fine, it was crazy. But it worked. So I need you all to get all the way off my back, okay?” Alex said through clenched teeth. “I won, let’s move on.”

“Speaking of moving on,” Devon entered the conversation at last. I asked around, Prince Irieth seemed to have sent an emergency message back home. The Aeralith army is retreating from Terraxum as fast as possible.”

“So he believed me after all?”

“I don’t know what you said to him, but yeah, sure. The war looks to be over. Though some buzz is happening among the Urhara Empire’s Arcanuum. Think the cat is out of the bag on the whole magic nuke thing,” Devon tsk’d loudly. “Would have loved to study how they were doing it though.”

“Best to leave all that behind. We aren’t Sage’s, shouldn’t be leveling cities quite yet,” Alex said. “What else have I missed?”

“Everyone is talking about you, of course. All the factions seem really worried about your martial style. It looks like that the nickname “Demon” really is sticking. They keep calling you Demonstrider, now.” Peter said.

“And your constitution has them interested. You only showed the blood part, so they think you have a poison constitution, some are thinking Wyvern, naturally, but they haven’t figured anything else out.” Holly added.

Alex nodded to himself. Good, that’s good. The less they know for now…

“But there are things you need to attend to,” Holly squeezed him arm a bit now as she spoke. “I’ve held them off so far saying you were unconscious and recovering. But you have a few people demanding to see you. Lady Xhiu for one, then some weird old guy in a suit, and a couple other representatives from different factions.

“Suit guy is Erich’s servant,” Alex said. “Lady Xhiu will need to be first, we still are under here protection. Who are the other factions?”

“Someone from the Urhara Empire, naturally. Then the Coiling Dragon Martial Sect, a fighter sect from the closest continent across the sea. And one more, who is actually rather strange.”

“Who?”

“They say they are from the church of “Beldia’s Light?”

Alex didn’t know the church, or the name at all, so he didn’t react a bit to the information.

But inside his soulspace, in the corner where Obby’s bond tethered to him, he felt the sentient rock began to fill with a deep, unbridled hot anger.