Wild Era, Ch 23: Poison Drake

The drake was not pleased that they were eating the wraith shards right in front of it. They were basically shards of its own mana, so it saw it as an affront to its dignity.

It roared at them again, its jaws open like an emerald cavern, and a poisonous wind swept across the arena like a storm, whipping the air into a frenzy. 

Bits of grass and moss that were still living down there were caught up in it and withered away, turning to brittle twisted things that shattered to dust.

Kelin didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

“We’re aiming for the wraiths first,” he said to the team as he laid out the battle concept.

His attention turned to Serai. 

“Burn them down as quickly as you can,” he told her. “I’ll set up a new ward formation just inside the range in the arena, and we can attack from there. We need to draw them toward us in a line, so that we can kill as many as possible before they reach us.”

There was more to the plan, but they’d already gone over it, so he didn’t lay it out again.

While she was doing that, he would take out the Hesen casters and then join her in killing the wraiths. Maro and Galin’s job would be to stay in front of the wards and hit the wraiths and drake as they approached with everything they had. 

Their job was to intercept the drake and draw it away, mostly in a running battle. Without a dedicated healer, the time they could stand against it was limited. 

Galin’s job would be to shield both of them as much as possible. Gaius would also help by slowing the drake down as much as he could.

If the drake didn’t follow them, it would be up to Kelin and Serai to run instead. 

If they had to, they would try to get some distance on the wraiths and kite them like they had on the road, while casting as much as possible, and the others would attack the drake from behind. 

That wasn’t likely to go well, so hopefully Maro and Galin managed to draw it away. Then they could rely on the wards to block the wraiths while they kept casting.

Serai’s poison resistance had stayed at Basic, so hopefully she would never enter the melee. She needed to keep enough mana in reserve for her mana shield too.

“Maro and Galin, once we thin the wraiths out,” he added, “whatever you do, don’t get into the middle of the field. Give me clear space and I’ll take care of the Hesen chieftain and the others, including the drake if it’s still there.” 

If he didn’t have a clear field, he couldn’t use Wildfire. He’d have to use soul arrows two at a time. It would still work, but it would be a lot slower, especially on the chieftain, which was also Elite.

“Ready when you are,” Maro replied as he gripped his axes. Beside him, Galin raised his axe and shield as well.

“Let’s do it,” Serai agreed. She had a frozen blue staff in her hand that looked like it was carved from ice and a wind of crystalline snowflakes was blowing around her. 

It was a condensed spell she’d spent time preparing while they waited. 

Kelin nodded at them and then he grabbed the Soulfire Sigil out of the air. It would burn on the quartz disk for another hour, so he could save the mana on starting a new one. He just needed to carry it along.

It was too bad he couldn’t create a ward here and move it along, but that was the domain of mana shields, not wards. Part of why they were more efficient on mana was their stability.

He checked on the others, and they gave him a nod.

With that, he started running forward, leading the way.

As soon as he entered the arena, the drake let out another furious roar and slammed its claw into the ground. The foundation of the arena shook, sending geysers of green mist into the air from cracks across the area.

It drew in a deep breath and then a storm of poisonous wind blew across the distance again, heading straight for them. Some of the wraiths above its wings merged into the storm, flying in their direction. 

The Hesen mages and shamans also began to cast.

Kelin came to a halt just inside the arena and his staff carved a fiery circle on the ground. New wards sprang up around him and he tossed the Soulfire Sigil into the air to reinforce them.

Maro and Galin stopped inside the ward, waiting for the drake to make a move, and beside Kelin, Seria was already casting.

“Breath of Winter!” Her voice rang out as her shout merged into the wind around her. The snowstorm around her intensified and expanded, turning into a blizzard that rushed forward into the arena.

It was much smaller than the drake’s storm at first, but then Serai raised the staff she’d created and hurled it ahead.

“Heart of Ice, raise the storm!”

The staff spun end over end, dissolving into the wind, and as it did, the winds picked up, turning into a roaring gale. Their size doubled and then doubled again, drawing on the condensed ice mana that the staff was made of.

Within seconds, the storm was as large as what the drake had summoned, its winds howling in twisting currents of blue and white as ice shards formed within its embrace. It raged across the arena, colliding with the poisonous wind in a screaming impact that formed twisting whirlwinds of blue and green.

The tornadoes flung poisonous mist and ice in every direction, raining down on the wraiths and the Hesen, as well as the drake. Spears of ice sliced through them, making a rolling thunder.

Their movements slowed as well, restrained under the freezing cold of the storm and the pressure of the wind.

Wraiths began to dissipate under the impact and the drake’s scales showed white scars as it raised its head and roared again.

Serai’s hands were raised and rivers of ice mana spun around her, feeding the storm, but she had probably used half of her mana in that single spell.

At the same time as Serai’s storm was raging across the field, Kelin finished the ward and two soul arrows appeared in his hands. 

He targeted the two Hesen shamans first, sending an arrow at each of them, and a second later, he threw two more at the Hesen mages. He felt when each one struck and their souls began to burn.

There were only two of each type.

He ignored the chieftain and the melee Hesen for now, since it would take them a moment to run across the field. He turned his attention to the wraiths, which were the main problem.

He had Soulfire Inferno, which was his second best area spell right now besides Wildfire, but it was based on a set area and couldn't follow the wraiths as they flew forward, so soulfire bolts would have to do.

He wove a web of mana to intensify Soulfire Bolt and make each one as large as possible, stressing his ability to compress mana into spells. Then he began chain casting bolts one after the other, as rapidly as he could.

With the new advancements from his body refinement, soulfire moved through his meridians more swiftly than ever.

Soulfire Bolts that were six inches across roared out of his hands and shot across the distance. 

Each bolt of them took twelve mana and the spell structure could barely handle it. It was twice as much mana as he’d been to compress into them before, but his increased Intelligence and class abilities held them together.

The bolts came at two every second, making his meridians burn with the force of channeling them that quickly.

They looked like a rain of meteors as they tore into the cloud of wraiths. 

His mana dropped like a rock, but the impact was incredible. 

Massive golden bolts ripped through the formation like ballista bolts through infantry. As they struck, they exploded into even wider columns of fire. They pierced through the ones in front and then continued through the ones behind them as well, tearing through half a dozen and more wraiths at once.

Massive holes appeared in their ranks, each of them an eye-searing ring of bright golden flame as the mist and the wraiths inside disintegrated.

Combined with the ice storm from Serai, the wraiths began to disappear en masse. She was doing almost as much damage as he was.

Ten seconds later, 240 points of his mana had disappeared. Combined with the 20 it took to raise the ward circle, he was already down to 35%. He grabbed one of his last mana potions and drank it, sending his reserves back up 50 points. 

The drake and the Hesen hadn’t been idle as they attacked the wraiths. 

The drake’s claws tore apart the field and its wings were unfurled as it raced toward them. It had been slowed slightly by Serai’s storm, but now it was closing in on the ward circle. Thirty or so of the wraiths were left, swirling around it as it opened its mouth. 

A column of green mist gathered around its jaws and then blasted forward from the drake’s mouth. It was a compressed column of poisonous gas that barreled toward the wards.

Maro and Galin leapt forward to the edge of the ward circle and attacked. Two flaming axes shot ahead from Maro, flying to meet the poison breath, while Galin braced his shield just in front of the wards and a wave of force erupted.

The axes split down the center of the drake’s breath attack, leaving blazing lines behind in the middle of it, but they weren’t enough to break the overall structure. The column continued on and struck Galin’s force wave, which slowed it down as the attack compressed on itself.

Galin let out a huff of air as he braced himself behind his shield. His entire body glowed with earthen energy as he held against the impact.

The breath attack exploded into a billowing wall of gas to either side, filling the air.

Maro and Galin both ignored the mist as they leapt forward. 

Maro’s axes led the way as his flames soared up around his body, burning away the mist around him, and he slashed at the drake’s face, aiming for its eyes.

Right behind him, Galin’s legs hammered at the earth as he raised his own axe. The dwarf leapt forward, his axe shimmering with force as it was overlaid with a much larger axe made of pure earth energy. 

The axe slammed down onto one of the drake’s wings, tearing a gash through the membrane. It didn’t stop there. Bands of earth mana leapt outward, wrapping over the drake’s wing and half of its body. Then a layer of force descended, trying to press the drake down to the ground.

The drake let out a roar as it shook its wings, snapping half of the earthen bands in a single movement. Its scales rippled with a poisonous miasma as it lifted its legs, pulling against the others, and the bands began to corrode away.

Maro didn’t waste the opportunity. A dozen slashes of burning flame fell on the drake as it was temporarily held. The berserker looked like a dervish as his axes rose and fell, moving so quickly that his form was barely visible between one attack and the next.

Scales flew away from the drake’s neck, front legs, and side, and rents appeared in its still intact wing, making both of them look like tattered sails. Blazing lines appeared on its face as well, shattering scales around its eyes and nose as it ducked its head to protect them.

“Move it away,” Kelin shouted to remind them. Then he turned back to his own work.

He sent another half dozen soulfire bolts at the wraiths, tearing through half of those that still accompanied the drake, which sent his mana plummeting to 120 left.

He drank his last mana potion and his mana rebounded to 170 as he shifted to the staff in his hand. 

Acid bolts roared out of the staff, peppering the remaining wraiths as fast as he could channel them. The staff’s bolts weren’t as effective as soulfire, but at basically point blank range, it was hard to miss. 

He forced his own mana into the staff, disabling the rune structure that governed its rate of fire, and the runes on the staff blazed so brightly from the released mana that the staff began to smoke in his hand.

There had been 22 charges in the staff to start and he’d used a few on the road. It took him four seconds to empty the remaining 19 into the wraiths. 

The acid rained down onto the drake below as the acid consumed their core shards and the wraiths disintegrated. 

On the final charge, he overloaded the staff with an infusion of soulfire and hurled it at the few wraiths that remained. The staff exploded into a sphere of flames and acid right above the drake’s head.

At that moment, the drake let out a roar of anger as it snapped the remaining force bands that Galin had used on it. Its claws and wings lashed out, slamming into Maro and Galin.

The force was so great that both the man and the dwarf were lifted off the ground and hurled away. They flew through the air and through the ward behind them, while the drake’s wing slammed into the barrier.

The impact shuddered through the ward and cracks covered the surface, each of them blazing with golden light as the Soulfire Sigil inside the ward reinforced the structure.

Kelin’s mana dropped by twenty points with the single hit. 

Maro and Galin landed thirty feet away, where they rolled to dissipate the impact, but the plan to move the drake away wasn’t working, so Kelin decided it was time to move.

He grabbed Serai’s arm and then he triggered the ward.

The barrier separated into eight bladed sections and exploded outward. The edges sliced through the drake’s claws, part of its shoulder, and its wings, as well as the few remaining wraiths that were the closest.

Then Kelin had to roll across the ground as the drake’s wing cut through the air over his head. He pulled Serai with him, sending them both tumbling, and then they were up. 

She was more agile than him and already knew what to do as she sprinted away, trying to put some distance between her and the drake. The green poison clung around her, pressing against her mana barrier.

Kelin was right behind her, but the drake was in hot pursuit.

At that moment, currents of stone rose up from the ground as Gaius moved, climbing around the drake’s feet and rooting it in place.

At Level 46, the elemental was powerful and the stone turned into dense columns as it wrapped around the drake’s limbs, sealing three of its claws in place.

The drake let out a roar of anger as it tried to lift its feet from the ground and failed. It turned its head, its breath gathering in lungs, and it blasted the columns of stone with a point-blank wave of poison.

The stone began to corrode under its influence, rotting away as black holes appeared across it, and the drake ripped its front claw free, leaving just its rear feet sealed to the earth.

Gaius took the opportunity to summon a series of massive earthen spikes that stabbed upwards into the drake’s stomach. 

The impact was so hard that the drake was lifted into the air with a sound like a landslide. Its bones rattled as its feet were held down by the columns. 

Three stone spires pierced through its stomach and green blood poured down them. 

The corrosive effect of the blood was even more intense than the drake’s breath and the spikes began to dissolve immediately.

While it was held there, Maro and Galin charged back toward the drake and renewed their assault. Their axes slammed down onto the drake’s restrained limbs, slicing through the scales.

At the same time, the drake’s blood splattered across them and their skin began to smoke. Their faces turned pale, but they didn’t stop. Their resistances would hold out for a while, but it wasn’t clear how long.

Galin joined in on summoning more earth spikes to stab up into the drake, while waves of force radiated out from him, knocking the monster from side to side as he tried to interrupt its attacks.

Maro’s axes dug trenches through the drake’s scales, sending rivers of green blood in every direction that hissed in the air and as it struck the stones of the arena.

They were the size of two cats facing down a griffin, but they were bold.

The drake’s breath bubbled around it, turning the area into a fog of poison, and its tail came around like a whip, slamming into Galin’s shield.

The force of the hit was so strong that the shield buckled and the drake’s claws pierced through the other side, tearing into the dwarf’s armor above his stomach and hurling the dwarf backward.

Immediately after, its other claw smashed through Maro’s crossed axes. Each claw was nearly a foot long and they were as sharp as blades. The tips of three claws sank into his chest and nearly tore his arm from his shoulder.

Then Maro was flying through the air as well. His blood poured out of the wounds and mixed with the drake’s that covered him in streams of red and green, as a mixture of both rained onto the arena floor.

Before the drake could lunge after them, the earth at the drake’s feet rose upward again, climbing higher around its body as Gaius reinforced the stone bonds holding it in place.

Maro hit the ground and rolled, leaving a trail of blood behind, but then he staggered back to his feet. He blazed with a red light that was brighter than even before.

He only had one axe now, but he ignored his injury as he sent a flaming axe ahead of him and ran back toward the drake. His eyes were pure red like flaming rubies, and it wasn’t clear if he still had any control over himself.

It wasn’t pretty, but they were holding the drake for now, so Kelin rolled to his feet and turned toward the Hesen. 

A sphere of rainbow light formed in his hand. Its surface flared with reds and yellows in an ethereal storm that mixed other colors.

“Get some distance from me,” he shouted at Serai as it left his hand. “Focus on slowing the drake.”

She heard the shout and spun in place, sprinting toward the edge of the arena. Ice magic gathered around her and when she got some distance, she turned toward the drake and began unleashing bolts of chilling frost at it.

They struck the drake’s limbs and wings, and everywhere they touched, white frost spread out, covering its scales and the ground. The spell combined with the stone bonds from Gaius, slowing the corrosion of the stone from the drake’s blood and breath, but it wasn’t likely to last for long.

Serai was already staggering as her mana ran out, and she swiftly drank a potion to buffer it.

Kelin’s mana dropped to barely 100 remaining as he finished forming the Wildfire sphere and threw it at the Hesen warriors that were running toward him.

Serai’s storm had slowed their advance enough that they were only three quarters of the way across the field. 

The Wildfire covered the distance in a trail of ethereal flames and struck the Hesen Warrior that was in the lead, where it exploded. 

Streams of wildfire sank into the warrior’s soul and washed over the ones behind it. 

There was a moment where the flames seemed illusory and the Hesen staggered, trying to adjust to the impact they had felt. 

Then streams of ethereal smoke erupted from the leading warrior’s mouth and eyes, which took on a rainbow light as the Wildfire caught on its soul and tore it to shreds for kindling. 

An instant later, its body exploded, its limbs and head dissolving as its torso turned to ash. A flood of rainbow soul flames turned into an ethereal shockwave that expanded in a ring around it.

The three Hesen behind it exploded a moment later, accelerating the flames as they added their own shockwaves. Kelin poured mana into the spell, fueling the expansion.

Sparks of red and yellow flame flared across the field, spreading within streams of rainbow light as they reached for new targets.

Wildfire blazed as it washed over another Hesen warrior and a berserker, and then into one of the Hesen officers, followed by a bodyguard that was closer to the chieftain at the rear.

The chieftain was a giant among his race, head and shoulders taller than the guards around him, and he had a massive axe in his hand with a double blade. 

As he saw the flames approaching, he swung the axe at them, trying to cleave through them. A blast of golden stamina spread out from him with the blow. The force was great enough that it was like a whirlwind, sending stones and dirt flying.

Normal flames might have bent under the force or even torn apart, but the soul flames didn’t even ripple under the impact. They existed on a different level.

A moment later, the second rank of Hesen exploded into shockwaves and the Wildfire spread farther, washing over the remaining officer and bodyguards, as well as the chieftain.

The chieftain’s Elite status gave him a certain amount of resistance, but the wall of soul flames that swept over him didn’t care. It was like a tide washing over a rock on the shore.

The Wildfire storm was twelve feet tall and the flames were so dense they were twisting into columns of soulfire and sending flares even higher. 

The chieftain was swallowed up in the force of it.

A moment later, he exploded into a column of twisting Wildfire himself, sending a shockwave out even farther than his subordinates had.

Kelin seized control of the spell, making the storm curve around as he looked for the drake. His soul was burning with the backlash from the Hesen, but it wasn’t enough to interrupt him. 

Just then, he felt Gaius’s warning flare in his mind and he threw himself to the ground.

The drake’s claw slashed through the space where his head had been and smashed into the ground. Its wing came around right behind it, slamming into Kelin’s back.

It struck his mana shield first, which buckled under the force before it shattered to pieces. The drake’s wing continued through, landing like a red-hot bar against Kelin’s back.

The Necklace of Warding around his neck chimed as one of its charges disappeared, but he still felt the impact as he flew through the air.

Gaius’s awareness filled in what he’d missed. 

While he’d been controlling the Wildfire, the drake broke free from the stone and ice that were holding it. It sent Maro and Galin flying in a rage, and then it locked onto the main threat on the field that was killing its subordinates.

It ignored Serai’s spells that tried to hold it as it charged directly for Kelin.

The rest was self-explanatory.

Kelin gathered Gaius’s presence back into the soul chamber while he was flying through the air and yellow runes blazed across his skin. Stone formed layers around his body, buffering the impact as he hit the ground and rolled.

As he levered himself to his feet, the drake turned in place and charged at him again. 

Two soul arrows appeared in his hand and he hurled them at the drake, followed by another two as quickly as he could summon them.

The mana shield had cost him twenty mana and now his mana was running low. Spreading the Wildfire had cost him 27, which left him at 73. The mana shield dropped it to 53, and then to 30 after the four soul arrows.

There was no time to prepare Soul Star, and the drake was too far away for the remnants of Wildfire to catch it. He would have to use simpler methods instead.

The drake closed the distance between them and Kelin didn’t flinch, he only summoned another set of soul arrows and hurled them straight at the beast’s head. 

They sank into its eyes and disappeared.

Its soul was like striking wet clay, dense and slow and burned. The arrows flamed as they tried to ignite the surface, but there was a lot of resistance.

The drake slammed into Kelin with its shoulder, sending him flying backward. The stone covering his body shattered in layers, shedding one part after another.

When he hit the ground, it was forty feet away and he rolled to absorb the impact.

Another chime in his mind told him a second charge from the necklace had just disappeared.

He had Gaius throw him back to his feet, not bothering to focus on it himself, as two more soul arrows appeared in his hands and he hurled them at the drake.

13 mana left.

He could feel its soul warming up, but it was taking some time.

It charged at him again, its jaws open as a column of poisonous mist gathered in its mouth. Now that he could see it clearly, it was obvious how battered it was. 

Its wings were little more than broken bones, its scales were ripped apart from dozens of cuts across its body, and it was covered with rivers of green blood and hissing poisonous gas.

But that wasn’t stopping it.

Its breath exploded out of its jaws as it closed in on Kelin.

A column of concentrated poison blasted over Kelin, turning everything into a world of green mist like the bottom of a swamp. It was so large that it covered him from head to toe.

The stoneskin sizzled under the impact, its surface melting even as earthen runes shimmered across it. Spikes of pain stabbed through the cracks, making Kelin’s skin burn.

The fog poured over his face, the pressure of it making his breath catch in his throat as it flooded his eyes and nose, and tried to work its way down into his lungs. 

Everything burned and the stench of the gas was nauseating, making his stomach roil as he nearly doubled over to vomit.

His vision was nothing but green and he had to rely on his other senses as he summoned two more soul arrows and threw them at the drake’s soul. 

Then the necklace chimed a third time as the drake’s jaws closed on his body. Long spear-like fangs shattered the stone armor as they bit down, stabbing into his skin.

The necklace’s ward kept them from stabbing too deeply, but it couldn’t overcome all of the impacts at once. Spikes drove through Kelin’s shoulder, hip, and stomach. Another stabbed into his lung as his ribs cracked.

Still, the necklace did its best and deflected most of the blow, turning it into a glancing bite. Its protection made the fangs slide off as Kelin went flying through the air.

Gaius worked as swiftly as he could to rebuild the stoneskin as he flew, and then Kelin hit the ground. Nothing buffered this impact, but the stoneskin took the brunt of it.

He rolled across the ground and the fog of mana exhaustion hit him.

He had 3 mana remaining, not even enough for a single soul arrow.

He rolled to his feet as he gathered the mana into a soulfire bolt.

The drake was racing toward him again and he targeted its right eye.

The distance between them closed and he focused the spell, narrowing it to a beam before he released it. It shot forward, slamming into the drake’s eye.

The impact tore a wound deep into the beast’s eye, leaving a burning crater behind, but it wasn’t enough to stop it.

Gaius wrapped Kelin in earthen mana and a field of stone spears erupted from the ground in front of him, stabbing upward like massive blades at the drake’s chest and head.

The drake slammed into them, impaling itself on the spikes as it lunged for Kelin. It no longer cared about preserving its own life. All of its rage was fixed on the mage.

The stone spears buckled under its weight, shattering into shards. They stabbed into it at the same time, piercing through its chest and stomach as it plowed through them, but they didn’t stop it.

The drake’s jaws opened in a roar as its fangs descended, turning the world into an expanse of green scales and teeth as it blocked the sky.

Kelin looked up at it without flinching.

He was out of mana, but a flare of soul energy gathered around him, and he raised his hand, preparing to shock the drake’s soul. At this range, he might be able to paralyze it and then roll out of the way again. 

At that moment, a blur of magic slammed into the drake’s head, smashing it away from Kelin and off to the side.

The impact was so hard that the drake’s neck snapped down. Its head bent and its body followed, making it stagger away.

The energy that had struck it resolved into a flaming axe and a steel shield infused with earthen light, as well as an icy blue haze.

Then the other three were there, staggering on their last legs as they gathered on Kelin. Maro had thrown his axe and Galin had hurled his shield, while Serai blasted the drake with an ice bolt.

It was enough to move it.

As the drake tried to recover its balance, Kelin poured soul energy into the arrows he’d embedded in its soul. There were ten of them, each one still burning fiercely against its resistance.

His mana was tapped out, but he still had plenty of soul energy, and now he put it to use. He flooded the connection with soul flames, making the arrows leap with blazing rainbow light.

The drake shuddered as it felt the impact.

Kelin didn’t let up. 

He unleashed everything he had at the soul arrows, forcing them to burn more brightly.

Rainbow smoke began to rise from the drake’s wounds and pour out of its mouth. It tried to turn toward them, but it slipped, its claws losing purchase on the stones.

It swung its body around, its tail flailing at them, but it was a blind attack and the massive bar of scales slammed into the ground ten feet away.

Then its eyes turned to rainbow hues and ethereal smoke began to billow out of its mouth. 

It coughed and a green mist mixed with the rainbow smoke, and it swung its head to stare at Kelin. Its one remaining eye was no longer green, just a wash of bright soul flames.

Its claw rose as it tried to step forward, but halfway through the movement, it froze in the air.

Then it fell.

Smoke flooded out of its mouth and drifted from its eyes as the massive beast struck the ground. It had to weigh at least a few thousand pounds and the impact made the arena floor shake.

A moment later, notifications from the Path began to ring in Kelin’s mind.

The dungeon was clear.