Path of Dragons 13 - Chapter 76 - Overwhelming

Elijah rushed in, narrowly avoiding the descending blade of Vhalor’s sword.  It skipped across his shoulder, carving a slice from his scales.  He grunted in acknowledgement of the pain before ramming into the man and knocking him off balance.  The stumble only lasted for a split second, but that was all Elijah needed to latch onto the Emerald Tyrant, wrapping his claws around his enlarged chest and pinning the man’s arms to his body.

Then, he leaped, bounding off a Cloud Step to throw himself higher into the sky.  He flapped his wings to gain even more altitude until, with a surge of strength, Vhalor burst free.  Elijah grabbed him again, but not before his foe managed to ram his sword into Elijah’s joint.

The blow hit a nerve, sending a spasm through Elijah’s claws.  The man wrested himself free, then plummeted to the ground.

Frustrated, Elijah continued his ascent until he reached an altitude of nearly a thousand feet.  Then, he tipped himself over and dove.

He hit the Emerald Tyrant like a falling meteor, cratering the ground and creating a shockwave that uprooted trees.  It barely stunned the man, and Elijah earned a few more stabs for his trouble.

None of them went deeper than a foot, but every wound diverted more vitality from the all-important task of rebuilding his organs.  In turn, that only increased the amount of ethera it would take to return him to full health. 

And his supply was finite.

Even with his mind funneling vast quantities of ethera into his cultivation system, he couldn’t keep up with the expenditure.  Soon, he would run dry.

He just needed a little more, though.  A few more minutes, and he would be entirely healed.  Once he reached that threshold, he would shift his strategy to something more appropriate for the task at hand.

Eternal Plague and Nature’s Claim had long since petered out, so the only source of damage came from Elijah’s claws and teeth.  And the sheer strength contained in his massive body.

The Emerald Tyrant took each blow, never wavering.  His armor was as high of quality as any Elijah had ever seen, and it served to protect his demi-god body to such a degree that Elijah wasn’t even certain he was hurting the man at all.

Perhaps it was indestructible, which would necessitate other tactics that didn’t include pummeling the man into submission. 

But all of that would have to wait until Elijah finished healing.

With that in mind, he continued the brawl, keeping Vhalor on the back foot.  He didn’t do much damage, but so long as he kept the pressure up, the Emerald Tyrant couldn’t turn the tables.

Until he did.

The attack took Elijah by surprise, but he still managed to react just quickly enough that he avoided having his entire chest caved in.  Instead, he took more of a glancing blow backed by some sort of skill that increased its power.  The sword still split Elijah’s chest, shattering scales, parting flesh, and revealing bone.  More, it sent Elijah flying backward, end over end until he hit something solid. 

It shattered, revealing that the Mirror Saint had rejoined the battle.  Thousands of reflections – both large and small – leaped free of the reflective shards.  The bigger ones attacked Elijah with mundane attacks, while the smaller ones burrowed into his wounds and began to wreak havoc.

To counter them, Elijah used a torrent of precious ethera to send the branches of his soul out wide.  His Mantle of Authority ripped through the conjured reflections, turning them to motes of ethera that soon drifted away. 

And the Mirror Saint let out a gurgling scream.  It only took a quick look at Soul of the Wild for Elijah to establish that Zek had once again shown his worth, and he was busy sawing at her throat. 

That was all Elijah saw before the Emerald Tyrant covered the ground between them and resumed his attacks.

“Why.  Won’t.  You.  Die?!” screamed Vhalor as he repeatedly rammed his sword into Elijah’s side. 

Elijah bore each attack with a grunt, twisting so that none of attacks reached anything vital. 

Finally, his organs were mended.

Elijah cast his healing spells one more time before initiating another transformation.  This time, he returned to the Shape of Embers.

Vhalor managed to score another couple of hits before shapeshift completed, but soon enough, Elijah managed to use Cloud Step to affect an escape. 

The Emerald Tyrant chased him as he sprang away.  The man barreled through trees, and each step from his enormous feet sent shivers through the earth.  But he couldn’t catch Elijah.

Of course, Elijah had never intended to get away.

He was just resetting the fight.

Once he’d managed to do so, he let himself fall to the ground.  He hit with a roll that took him back to his feet just in time for him to see a massive sword coming his way.  With the advantage of his enhanced reflexes, Elijah dodged it with ease.

Indeed, he leaped, tapped his foot against the blade, and slammed his flame-wreathed hand into the Emerald Tyrant’s faceplate.  The armor held firm, but the power behind the blow rocked the man’s head backward, stunning him just enough to allow Elijah to spring away.

He landed lightly, his Cloak of Embers swirling around him.  The ashes clung to the Emerald Tyrant’s armor, drifting into the seams and slowing him down.  Not by much.  But enough to make a difference.

Meanwhile, Elijah waited nonchalantly, his hands by his side. 

That enraged Vhalor.

When he charged, his movements were a little sloppier.  His attacks uncontrolled.  Elijah maintained his own peace by embracing the full breadth of his rebuilt mind.  The beast.  The man.  And the dragon.  They all came together in a way they never had before, and in that fusion, he knew peace.

Blows fit to cleave mountains missed Elijah by mere inches.  He only moved as much as he needed to move.  No wasted motion.  No unnecessary flourishes.  Just a sway.  A leap backward.  A duck. 

Each narrow miss served to fuel Vhalor’s frustrations, which soon became a roiling rage that was almost visible to the naked eye. 

Every time Elijah dodged an attack, he added another charge to his Seed of Ashes.  At ten, the fires within him simmered.  At twenty-five, his inner landscape began to boil.  At a hundred, he felt like a volcano ready to burst.  And at two hundred, he became a sun at the end of its life cycle. 

Finally, he poured that energy into Herald of Regrowth.

His attributes skyrocketed, but those numbers represented only a fraction of his increased power.  If, before, he could lift mountains, then now, he could move entire planets.  He moved suddenly, his first step breaking the sound barrier with a massive shockwave.

His fist rammed into Vhalor’s armored leg.  The blow rang like a bell, the sound so deep and loud that it could have turned a mortal’s innards to jelly.  But to Elijah’s immense surprise, the armor remained entirely unblemished.

He only caught sight of it for the merest second before Vhalor was upended and sent cartwheeling across the landscape.  The momentum took him more than a hundred yards before he started to slow down, but Elijah remained fast on his heels.  The second the enemy came to a rest, Elijah pounced atop him and went to work.

His fists fell like sledgehammers, though with hundreds of thousands of pounds of force behind them.  He smashed him into the ground, each attack sending dirt and rock spraying into the air.  The sound was deafening.  And by all rights, Elijah’s hands should have shattered.

But the influx of attributes combined with his silver tier body kept him going.

Over and over, he slammed his fists against the same spot.  Vhalor attempted to fend him off, but his efforts were ineffectual.  However, Elijah’s attacks were equally ineffective.  Even with all the power coursing through him, combined with Wildfire wreathing his hands, the armor held firm.

By the time Elijah felt Herald of Regrowth begin to tick down, he’d started to think of what might come next.  If he couldn’t destroy the armor, then he would have to find another way to kill the Emerald Tyrant.

Perhaps the monsters in the upper atmosphere would succeed where Elijah had failed.  Or the ones in the deepest parts of the ocean.  Maybe he could simply keep him submerged until he suffocated, however long that might take.

Elijah had options, though exercising them would take every ounce of power he could muster.  Because the second Herald of Regrowth ran its course, he would likely find himself at a disadvantage.  Not an egregious one, but Vhalor’s armor was durable in a way he’d never expected.

And then, with only twenty seconds left on Herald of Regrowth, a crack appeared.  It was barely a hairline fracture, but it was enough to make Elijah’s heart race.  Moreover, it guided his next attacks, which he aimed with unerring precision.  Even though Vhalor continued to squirm – or perhaps seize, given the amount of blunt-force trauma that had been inflicted upon him – Elijah managed to hit the same spot a dozen times over the next second.

The crack widened.

Elijah continued to smash his fists into it, moving faster and faster with every passing second.  When there was only five seconds left, the crack spiderwebbed.  Elijah hit it another dozen times.  Then another.  With one second left, the crack went all the way through. 

That was when Herald of Regrowth dissipated.

Elijah’s next blow went wide of the mark as a wave of vertigo came in the wake of the buff’s cessation.  That gave Vhalor an opening, and he heaved himself upright, the movement sending the slightly stunned Elijah flying backward.  He hit the edge of the crater, then flipped across the ground before ramming into a tree.

He coughed up blood.

But a quick cast of Wild Resurgence cleared his head just in time for him to see the Emerald Tyrant climb free of the six-foot-deep crater. 

Elijah found his feet a moment later.

“Impressive,” the man growled, rolling his shoulders as ethera swirled within him.  “But not enough.”

As Elijah transformed, he said, “I’m just getting started.”

Then, in the Shape of Spores, he stomped forward.  Vhalor charged as well, and the resulting collision sent out a massive shockwave that toppled any surviving trees in the area.  Elijah hammered the man with fists, his horned head, and his club-like tail.  Meanwhile, Vhalor had lost his sword, so he had no choice but to bring his own armored fists to bear.

They slugged it out with one another, hitting with the titanic force only a pair of powerful demi-gods could manage. 

But Elijah wasn’t just launching haymakers.  That had never been his intention.  Instead, he’d adopted his most durable form not because of its massive regeneration, but rather, so that he could utilize the tail as a pummeling weapon. 

To do so, he danced in a way the fungal guardian was never meant to move.  Always shuffling sideways.  Always trying to get a good shot at the spiderweb of cracks on Vhalor’s armor. 

Of course, the Emerald Tyrant wasn’t amenable to Elijah’s plan.  Whether he knew his armor was cracked was a mystery, but no fighter would allow his enemy a free shot at his back.  Not on purpose, at least.

The resulting fight was both brutal and oddly balletic, with Elijah only managing his goal on a few occasions.  However, when he did slam his tail into the monstrous demi-god’s back, it came with the sweet sound of a shattering gem.

Over and over, for more than half an hour until, at last, Elijah sensed that the opening had widened enough to give him what he needed.

With that in mind, he cast Nature’s Claim.  The spores slid through the narrow crack and settled into his skin.  When they took hold, Vhalor stumbled.

“Wha-”

Mushrooms burst free of his back, and though they were constrained by the armor, a wisp of yellow spores misted free of the crack.

“Only a matter of time, now,” Elijah growled, once again hammering into the massive demi-god.  “Only a matter of time.”