Chapter 687: Incorporeal
The explosions of white and gold devoured a space in the sky larger than Blacksand Spire. I braced myself, waiting for a shockwave that would surely leave me unconscious, but it never came. The power dispersed long before it should have, lost in the barrier of twisted space.
Gradually, as I blinked the blurry sunspots from my eyes, the writhing currents of mana faded, and the starlit sky reappeared. The lava dragon had curled tightly in a ball to reduce the surface area the attack impacted, and despite its ninth-level defensive technique, it was laced with cuts deep enough to fit entire buildings. A polished silver blight frosted its scales, preventing its natural regeneration from healing its wounds.
"He’s gotten weaker," Emlica muttered.
"You all have," Haven said.
"Weaker?" I mumbled.
The dragon uncoiled with a roar, mustering mana to its claws. Jasrin floated a thousand feet overhead, but that distance was shorter than the dragon was long. It arrived in an instant, bringing a claw ten times longer than the remnant down in a vicious arc.
The dragon’s claw froze a few scant feet from the remnant, a shiver running up its arm and down its back. A sharp, metallic clang, like the ring of a broken bell, resounded through the realm, and the dragon was thrown back several hundred feet.
With the monstrous claw out of the way, I made out Gathrin’s armored form hovering above Jasrin, sword still upraised. There was a deep notch in the dragon’s claw where it had met his blade.
Before the other remnant had turned the dragon aside, Jasrin had already nocked another arrow. He let out an excited whoop and released it, followed by another dozen in less than a second. Every arrow was like a shooting star streaking across the sky, leaving a long, graceful trail of gold and silver in its wake.
"He stopped it?" I asked, covering my mouth in shock. "But it’s...but he’s..."
"Size only matters in bed, child," Emlica said with a wry chuckle.