Path of Dragons 13 - Chapter 77 - The Little Things

The ground shook with the force of each landed blow as a cloud of yellow spores surrounded the pair of titanic combatants.  For once, Elijah was shorter than his opponent, though not by as much as he would’ve been before his most recent advancements.  He was still much heavier than Vhalor, though.  And he used that added weight to lend power to his attacks.

In some ways, he felt like a heavyweight boxer, though one equipped with a club-like tail that functioned as a much better weapon than even his fists.  Each landed assault sent reverberations through the earth and shockwaves tearing across the terrain.  He could feel the sound – a deep, ringing gong – in his bones.

That wasn’t to say that Vhalor took the beating lying down.  He gave as good as he got, though Elijah’s fungal flesh was built to absorb such impacts.  The difference was stark.  When Elijah punched the Emerald Tyrant, it was like hitting a rock formation.  When Vhalor attacked Elijah, it was like punching a spongey mattress.

All the while, Elijah continuously cast Nature’s Claim, sending deadly spores to take root within his enemy’s body.  The crack in Vhalor’s armor was already full of sprouting mushrooms, many of which were coated in nearly black blood. 

But the Emerald Tyrant showed no signs of slowing down.

As befit a late-stage demi-god, his attributes were massive, and killing him would be no quick endeavor.  It was a good thing then, that Elijah was well-accustomed to long, drawn-out battles.  Such was the nature of his most dangerous abilities that he was better at whittling enemies down than ending them quickly. 

One thing was certain – Elijah felt more than confident if it came down to a battle of attrition, if only because of how efficient his mind cultivation had become.  It wasn’t capable of keeping pace with his furious casting speed at the beginning of the fight, but now that he’d settled in, he gained a little ethera with every passing moment.  Soon, his core would refill, and he’d bring some of his more powerful abilities to bear.

In addition to that singular benefit, his tier-five mind also made it much easier to maintain focus.  To do so, he cycled his concentration through multiple leaves.  At the same time, he kept the pain that inevitably came with any such fight quarantined in another cluster.  He rotated those leaves as well, discarding and regrowing them so that he’d never become overwhelmed.

As the battle went on, he also attempted to weaponize his Mantle of Authority.  However, the armor shielded Vhalor from that avenue of attack just as it protected him from physical blows.  It was one of the only times Elijah had seen it fail so completely.

But then, even as the fight continued, Elijah began to realize something extremely important.  He wasn’t using the mantle to its full potential.  So, as the battle wore on, he concocted a simple plan.  Enacting it would require quite a bit of ethera, so he didn’t embark upon that path until his core was nearly full.

During that time, the fight raged across the continent.  Landed blows often sent one or the other tumbling away.  Like that, they covered miles until, at last, Elijah felt confident he was ready to put his plan into action.

He didn’t immediately go full-tilt, though.  Instead, he ramped it up, as much because he needed practice to perfect his technique as because he wanted to test it out.

The plan itself wasn’t complicated, but it hinged on incredible control.  Ever since upgrading his soul, Elijah had acquired the capability of concentrating his mantle of authority into an area the size of a single finger.  Before, he’d used that to carve runes into the Cyst or his trilithons.  Doing so had required a bit of build-up.  A few seconds to focus his soul. 

He wanted to speed that up.

In most ways, the punch was no different than any other he’d bestowed upon Vhalor over the past few hours.  It was hard and fast – a jab by anyone’s reckoning.  But with no small degree of effort, Elijah narrowed his Mantle of Authority down to his fist.  As the punch scorched its way through the air, the atmosphere wavered under the immense power of Elijah’s soul.

And then, he connected.

Vhalor grunted in surprise as a sound like breaking glass bounced off nearby boulders.  When Elijah pulled away, he saw that the Emerald Tyrant’s armor looked no different than before.  Soul of the Wild told a similar tale.  However, buried deep inside the gemstone-like structure was a misaligned ethereal matrix. 

The enchantment was microscopic.  Elijah could scarcely even feel it, and then, only if he focused intently.  But that tiny flaw was like a siren’s call to Soul of the Wild.  An announcement that his plan would work.

Elijah took a deep breath. 

Then, he waded back into battle, his shoulders hunched like a heavyweight boxer.  Vhalor advanced to meet him, and the fight continued. 

Elijah couldn’t use his mantle with every punch.  Doing so would drain his entire core in the space of a minute, and he suspected it would take quite a lot more to sunder the integrity of the armor.  So, he only used it with every tenth attack.  Mostly, it came at the end of his fist, but there were a few occasions when he used his tail as a medium for his Mantle of Authority.

At first, he kept the power level low.  They were probing attacks.  A means by which he could narrow his focus and perfect the technique.  But as Elijah continued to fight, he slowly ramped the power until his fist glistened with a green haze of energy that looked a good deal like a heat shimmer.

But it was more meaningful than that.  As if the ideal of Elijah’s soul had been distilled down to a single point.

Vhalor seemed to understand the danger of it, because he increased the already-furious pace of his attacks.  He knew he was on borrowed time.

For his part, Elijah maintained perfect control.  Every part of his mind remained in balance, while Vhalor continued to grow more erratic with every passing moment.  It was especially noticeable when the second crack appeared on his breastplate. 

Vhalor let out a scream of rage, then bulled ahead.  He briefly stunned Elijah, throwing him off-balance.  His fists fell like hammers, sending shockwaves through Elijah’s entire body.  Even with his fungal flesh absorbing some of the damage, his bones creaked with the strain.

And the Emerald Tyrant didn’t stop.

In fact, he sped up.  His attacks came faster.  Harder.  And black energy began to leak from the cracks in his armor.  It smelled of corruption mixed with ethera.  Like the man had become a powerful abomination. 

Elijah couldn’t stand up to that level of fury.

He tried to mitigate the damage as much as possible, turning with the punches and protecting his vital spots.  In addition, he kept Wild Resurgence going the entire time.  However, he knew that if he didn’t do something soon, even that wouldn’t be enough to counter Vhalor’s ramping power.

Elijah stomped on the ground, using Shockwave. 

Vhalor’s body seized, and he tripped over his own feet.  Elijah hit him with a massive uppercut that took him in the jaw.  With that blow came the full weight of his soul.  The man’s helmet shattered before he flipped backward, sailing away in an arc that didn’t end until he slammed into the ground nearly a hundred yards away.

Elijah raced across the intervening distance, his pace powered by Bestial Charge.  The ground shook with his rapid, thudding steps, and he hit the Emerald Tyrant with a shoulder charge that knocked him even further away.  The impact was so violent that it separated Elijah’s shoulder, sending a lance of pain and up and down his arm.

Wild Resurgence took care of that.

With Bestial Charge ticking down, Elijah used the last vestiges of the ability to follow Vhalor.  It ran its course before he’d covered half the distance, so when he finally reached his destination, the Emerald Tyrant had regained his feet.

And he definitely looked worse for wear.

The crack slashing through his breastplate had widened, exposing a tiny bit of his back.  However, Elijah was more focused on his head.  Vhalor’s helmet had been split in two, with half falling away to reveal his face.

And what a face it was.

Once upon a time, Vhalor might have been a handsome man.  The echoes of that aesthetic remained in the form of a strong jaw, straight nose, and high cheekbones.  But the entire effect was ruined by patches of rough, black corruption.  His eyes had gone pure white, and his hair had been replaced by thin, writhing tentacles.

But more than anything, Elijah couldn’t ignore just how old and withered he appeared.  Like a man on his death bed.

Or rather, like a man who’d already died and been embalmed.

“So, you see my shame.  If there was any hope of letting you live, it is now gone,” he panted, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“There was never any hope of that, and we both know it,” Elijah responded.

“Yes.  We do.  Know that I will remember you when you’re dead.”

“You’re just another monster to me.”

With a violent stomp, Vhalor charged.  He moved faster than ever before, almost too quickly to track.  But Elijah was ready.

He tightened his fist, using Hand of Nature.

The rarely-used ability was tied to his Handguards of the Wild Revenant.  The fact was that Elijah simply didn’t have much need for it.  But now?  It was perfect to break Vhalor’s momentum.

The massive hand, comprised of rock, mud, and writhing vines, erupted from the ground beneath the Emerald Tyrant’s feet.  It closed around one of his legs, sending him into a brief stumble before he ripped free. 

That single moment of hesitation was all Elijah needed to activate Throne of Spores.

Fungal tendrils exploded from the ground, wrapping around Vhalor’s legs.  He tore free of them with relative ease, but they were soon replaced by more.  Those too were torn asunder, but each time Vhalor destroyed one, another two took its place.  At the same time, each ruptured tendril exploded with yellow spores that worked toward countering his attributes.

His face grew even more gaunt, evidence that whatever ability he’d used to increase his power came with a significant price.  Elijah could feel the vitality draining from him with every passing moment.  Those black patches of skin spread, and his eyes blazed with the hungering need to consume.

He only made it a few more feet before he fell to his knees.

Elijah used Thornbound Legion, and a thousand tiny mites crawled free of his body, leaped across the intervening distance, and crawled into the cracks of his armor.  Elijah felt them burrowing into the man’s flesh, further destroying his foundations of power. 

Vhalor gasped, still struggling against the tendrils.

Elijah just watched from afar as the spores continued to work.  Minutes passed, and when Throne of Spores finally ended and the tendrils dissipated into motes of ethera, Vhalor could scarcely stand.

Elijah approached, already transforming.

By the time he reached the Emerald Tyrant, he’d resumed his human form.  Next to Vhalor’s massive size, Elijah felt incredibly small.  The man’s head was almost as large as Elijah’s whole torso.

The Emerald Tyrant spat an insult at Elijah, but it came out as nothing but an inarticulate growl.  Like a monster’s utterance. 

By that point, his entire face had gone completely black, and a new set of misshapen tentacles had joined the ones on his head.  He was on the verge of complete corruption.

Elijah reached out and laid his hand on Vhalor’s forehead.

And then, he used his Mantle of Authority the same way he’d utilized it with the children he’d cleansed back in M’yakein. 

Vhalor screamed in pain and rage.

Elijah never wavered.

Closing his eyes, he pushed vast quantities of ethera through his soul and into the Emerald Tyrant.  And miraculously, the black patches began to recede.  The tentacles withered and fell free.  His eyes returned to a more natural color. 

They were blue.

An hour passed.  Then two.  Three.  Elijah kept going, dragging an immense volume of ethera from the atmosphere to fuel his mantle. 

And then, Elijah felt that the job was done.  Finally, he opened his eyes to see an entirely different person. 

At some point, Vhalor had returned to a more normal size.  His armor had degraded, with great hunks of emerald cleaving from the main structure.  But Elijah was more concerned with the Emerald Tyrant’s face. 

His skin was like burnished gold, his hair white.

But he was also on the verge of death. 

Elijah had expected as much.  He knew he couldn’t cleanse adults – not without killing them.  The corruption was too integrated.  And with Vhalor, it was even worse.  His survival had always been impossible.

“Thank you,” the man breathed.  He couldn’t move.  He could scarcely breathe.  Even uttering those two words taxed him beyond his capability.

“I wish I could do more.”

“Y-you did enough…”

And then, before Elijah could respond, the last member of the Luminarch Synod of the Ninefold Grace died.  The Emerald Tyrant was no more.