62 (II)

Dragons [III]

A tide of force rippled from his body as he accelerated faster than ever before. Six other Dragons-Knights were in the area. Only two managed a response to Shiv. The first was a rival Biomancer bearing a great shield. Shiv felt them shape a spell—only to be swatted from the air as a badly wounded Jealousy carrying a group of Weaveresses on its head exploded out from the darkness, smashing into a squad of dragons and swatting them from the sky. The other was the hammer-wielding wind dragon that had first intercepted Shiv.

It rushed him with a roar and brought its hammer down. This time, however, Shiv was pissed. He accelerated himself with Gravitic Wrestler, compounded the effect with his Biomancy, then poured all his anger into the former through Master of Rage. He struck the hammer with an explosive uppercut, ignoring how the impact fractured one of his collarbones and his shoulder. The dragon’s eyes widened as Shiv’s armored fist made contact with the weapon—and caused it to shatter with a cataclysmic detonation of mana. Lightning lashed at Shiv. Can Hu cried out—but ordered Shiv to keep going. And he did.

So fast, the lance-bearing Dragon-Knight didn’t see him coming.

Momentum Core > 82

Shiv met the dragon Dynamancer with his elbow, and its emerald armor cracked and shattered. It was like a falling boulder impacting a plate. The knight went tumbling head over tail, blood spraying from its mouth as it lost hold of its lance. All the rage drained out of Shiv right after, but then he saw Adam—felt Adam’s condition with his Biomancy field, and cold terror rushed through him.

Every wound sustained by a clone would be inflicted on the original Adam, and the lightning had seared all of them at once before he’d had the chance to dismiss them. The man inside the armor was more like a smoking lump of flesh. Most of his organs were—his skin and bones were—his heart wasn’t beating.

“No,” Shiv growled. He launched himself toward Adam—a warning from Can Hu let him twist out of the way just in time for a javelin made from pure force to only cut Shiv’s left leg to the bone instead of putting a hole through his torso. The Deathless didn’t even notice the pain. He activated his Song of the Vigilant and barely dove under the next javelin before it could skewer him.

More spells and skills crashed against him. A massive arrow impacted his side and sent him twisting through the air, away from Adam.

“Support!” Shiv cried. “I need support! Adam’s hurt! I need—”

“Shiv! Psychomancy wave incoming! Get your Magebreaker ready!” At Uva’s cry, a mind spell flashed in the distance, and Shiv saw the Jealousy’s body outlined in mystical light. Two dragons had their blades locked inside the Greater Demon. Shiv had no idea how Uva was sustaining her mind-binding spell with the Jealousy—how she could focus with so much mental noise, not to mention the attacks of the enemy Psychomancer. Maybe the Jealousy’s power helped, but he remembered her facing Harkness, and knew this was all her.

She would drop dead before she ever let her spell break.

A rippling tide of Psychomancy exploded across the sky. The dragons attacking her clutched their heads and shrieked. A protective barrier was unleashed by another dragon—its scales glittering like shards of purest white. A pocket of safety expanded to shield the dragon Psychomancer and three other knights, but everyone else was caught in the psionic tide. The entire battlefield went silent for a moment, and Shiv took the opportunity to clear the last bit of distance between himself and Adam, immediately channeling a wyrm into the Young Lord. “You’re not dead! You don’t get to die, you shit! Come on!” Shiv cried. He couldn’t allow this—he wouldn’t accept this. Adam wasn’t going to die. He fed his new rage into his Woundeater Skill, and the crimson mana radiating from the Young Lord’s insides swelled. “Come on! You don’t get to die on me, you piece of—”

The Woundeater feasted. It rushed through Adam’s fried insides, consuming his melted skin and still-burning muscles. The Young Lord inhaled violently, and Shiv felt relief break inside him, just as they crashed on the ground.

“Behind! Intercepting!” Can Hu declared. Two drones crashed into the eyes of a dragon that was trying to chase them, and it tumbled with a roar of outrage before crashing hard against the ground. Shiv launched a dozen drills at the dragon before it could recover. They bounced off the beast’s armor but pierced through its scales. It cried out and teleported, causing the final three drills to miss.

They were momentarily safe. Shiv held Adam up. The adrenaline dump nearly made the Deathless want to drop dead. Shiv looked at Adam as he extracted his Woundeater, its body radiant with countless crystallized wounds. The Young Lord was hyperventilating, his eyes were wide with terror, and Shiv could feel that his courage was cracked.

For a few seconds, Adam had been as close to death as one could be.

“I—you…” Adam tried to swallow and coughed. His rapier was nowhere to be seen, but Tran’s stellarite sword was still in his hand.

“It’s okay,” Shiv kept him on his feet as he looked about. Overhead, Uva let out a cry of effort as a dense mass of shadows spread around the Jealousy. She was breaking away from the enemies—and in the corner of his vision, he saw another Dragon-Knight tumbling down from the sky. Blood sprayed from its open throat, and there was a Weaveress riding it all the way down. “I got you. You’re okay. You’re alive. You’re alive. Holy shit….”

“I was felling dead,” Adam choked. He gripped Shiv’s shoulder tightly. “I thought—”

“I know, I should have come—”

Adam clung to him, and this close, Shiv could feel the raw fear still coursing through Adam.

“Come on, Young Lord. You’re alright. I won’t let them kill you. I won’t.” Shiv winced as Adam shook. The Deathless applied his paltry Psychomancy and poured calmness into Adam’s mind. As much as he could. It worked to some level. Adam’s breath slowed, and he looked at Shiv. His face was still pale—but that was better than burned.

“Let—let go of my asshole

?” Adam asked.

“What?” Shiv said.

“I heard you say that—w-when I was being… Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?” Adam wheezed. He was still shaking. He started laughing, and it bordered on manic.

“Yeah, you must’ve misheard,” Shiv replied. He looked up at the sky as a flash of fire painted the forms of descending dragons. He counted two squads. Six. Too many for him. Definitely too many up close for Adam. They needed to move.

“I did not mishear,” Adam said. “You… Think about what you’re saying next time.”

“Mock me later, we got enemies incoming.” He was about to call out to Uva, but the Jealousy burst into existence above them. For a moment, Shiv expected that she was going to pick them up, but the Greater Demon crashed against the ground instead. Shiv’s insides plunged once more. A Psychomancy spell broke inside the Jealousy’s head as Uva was launched out from its field.

Shiv blasted across the ground and caught her in his arms. Her armor looked intact, but she was spasmingviolently. He snarled and pulled off her helmet as he cast another wyrm into her. It consumed the vessels ruptured inside her brain, as she stopped shaking immediately. Her sharp features were coated by streaks of blood leaking from her eyes, and she groaned as she clutched her head.

“It’s okay,” Shiv said. “I have you. You’re—”

A massive shape slammed down atop the Jealousy, making the now mind-dead Greater Demon bounce slightly. It was the Dynamancer from before. The dragon wasn’t holding its lance anymore. Instead, it pulled a long pike out from the Jealousy’s body. A pike that vibratedin the same way Shiv’s gauntlet did.

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“Shit,” Shiv muttered.

There was always a consequence when a spell broke, and a bastard dragon driving an inertium pike into the Jealousy was probably more than enough to kill whatever Psychomancy was binding Uva to its mind.

The Dynamancer’s armor was still broken, but the dragon itself was healed. The blood it had coughed still painted the front of its armor, but it glared down at him with the vitality of a warrior prepared to finish a downed foe.

“W-what…” Uva shot up, but Shiv held her close. “What—the Jealousy, I—” And then eight more dragons landed around them, including the kukri asshole, who teleported behind them.

Shiv helped Uva to her feet, and Adam staggered close behind him.

“Well,” the Young Lord breathed. “Valor did say the tainted bastards would be good.”

“They’re alright,” Shiv grunted.

“We have very different metrics for ‘alright,’” Adam grumbled.

“Three,” the dragon Dynamancer said. Its voice was the sound of a collapsing mountain. “Killed three of my brothers and sisters. Three. Why? Who are you?”

Shiv felt the dragon Biomancer slam its power against his, and he grunted with discomfort. They were stronger. Not significantly, but the difference was there. “Can Hu,” Shiv said. “Got any ideas?”

The automaton crackled slightly as it responded. “A few. Most of them relate to finishing a poem before we are killed. One has me driving the final few drones into our midst and triggering their smoke bomb function and hoping we survive the chaos.”

“Sounds nice,” Shiv said. “Let’s go with the second one first.”

“Valor is also attempting something,” Can Hu said. It projected an image in the corner of Shiv’s vision, and he saw the skull hovering over a dead dragon with a few Weaveresses, casting some kind of complex Necromancy spell. Shiv cast those memories to his companions. “We’re not beat yet.”

“Right,” Adam said, his near-death still burdening his mind. “Not beaten until we… we are truly dead.”

One of the Dragon-Knights moved, but the Dynamancer held up a hand.

“That’s the commander,” Uva said. She began shaping a Psychomancy spell, pushing through a flood of agony to complete it. “I can re-bind myself to the Jealousy. I just need a moment. An opening.”

“The dragon commander has an Inertium pike,” Shiv replied. “It’s how your spell got broken. But that also means he doesn’t have Magical Resistance. Adam? Any cunning plans?”

“I’m… I’m thinking…” the Young Lord swallowed. “I fear I dropped the rapier somewhere behind. I still have the new saber you gave me, though. That’s bound.”

“Good,” Shiv said. “Try to find the rapier—”

“I found the fragment!” Adam declared. Shiv awkwardly sifted through the Young Lord’s senses to avoid burdening Uva. He saw what Adam was looking at—and found himself stunned. “And… There are our Aviary agents. In the flesh. The very dead flesh.”

Around the hip of a colossal, axe-wielding dragon swayed a string of unmoving bodies. Their faces were masked by representations of ravens, crows, and other birds. At the center of the dead agents was a limb shaped from black crystal, with mithril enamel lining its length and the dim, corrosive glow of Necromancy leaking from its palm.

“Seems like the dragons are twice the traitors,” Shiv thought with a chuckle.

“Saves us from bloody fighting the agents too,” Adam sighed. “But that… is a big damned dragon. It’s practically the size of the Jealousy.”

“Bit smaller. I look forward to bullying it.”

Adam scoffed weakly. He paused as he took in the other dragons. All of them bore skill and spell to bear, and the Young Lord grimaced. “Shiv.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for not letting me die and… not being like the people who birthed you. I am… glad you are the way you are. I wish I was better than who I was. I wish I was stronger than my bitterness and hate—”

“Adam. Shut up. We’re not doing this shit now. You wanna have this emotional shit? Fine. We do it after we kill these dragons. Over food. If you die, you can’t eat.”

The Young Lord stared at him and nodded. “Well. I suppose it’s settled then. We have to win.”

Uva laughed too—listening to their conversation. Then, her brows furrowed. “I… might actually have a cunning plan.”

“Three!” the dragon Dynamancer roared suddenly. The world shook from the sheer volume of his voice. Both Uva and Adam flinched. Shiv just sneered.

“Yeah. Were they Pathbearers?” Shiv asked.

“They were,” the Dynamancer replied, sounding confused.

“Then welcome to life.” Shiv scoffed. “Did the birds you guys betrayed and killed have this little outburst with you? After you betrayed the Descenders with them?”

“Lies!” the wind dragon shouted. “You—”

“Shut up, whelp,” Shiv laughed. The blue dragon fumed with anger, and the winds began to scream. “I want to talk to someone that doesn’t break their hammer hitting a target the size of their finger.”

The wind dragon almost snapped. He stepped toward Shiv, but he was held in place by the Dynamancer.

The dragon commander growled at his subordinate knight. “Sir Michaels. Control yourself. Do not be goaded by this… mercenary.” He drew in a deep breath. “You are with Weave? Trying to take the fragment of Valor Thann for yourself, then? Is that it?”

“Three,” Shiv just replied. “At least three of you are dead. You give us that arm and that number will stay three.”

Dread Aura > 71

Silver Tongue > 16

The dragon didn’t respond with outrage or anger. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and observed Shiv. “You wear the visage. You are a Necrotech?”

“No. Just someone who’s got close relations with death.”

The Dragon-Knight commander grunted. “Then, let us dispense with the pointless chatter. You and your comrades have fought hard. You have slain some of our number, and Sir Tarlow has asked me to spare you specifically.”

Shiv paused and looked at the kukri-wielding dragon. She was eyeing him—was closer to him and his companions than all the other dragons. She was the biggest danger here. He had nothing to answer her speed right now if she wished to kill either Adam or Uva. That, and she could probably still manifest right behind him and drive the blade into his back.

“Just me?” Shiv asked.

“We cannot abide a Psychomancer. Or a surfacer.” The Dynamancer spat in the direction of Adam.

“Drone on approach,” Can Hu said. “Twenty seconds.”

Shiv let out a breath. This was going to be ugly.

“Adam. Get a spatial arrow ready for you and Uva. You two clear out first and come back for the Jealousy afterward. I’ll try to distract them.”

A burst of worry came from both of them, but Uva imposed her control on their collective emotions. Focus reigned. Everything else vanished into the background. “My plan,” Uva said, reminding Shiv, “is simple. They’re vulnerable to a Psychomancer. They rely on speed and constant attacks, but Psychomancy stuns them badly. Kill the Psychomancer if you can, Shiv. The white dragon. We can still break them.”

“We will break them,” he replied. “Valor’s doing something too. We got more than a chance.”

“Twelve seconds,” Can Hu declared.

“I’ll try to shoot the damned arm off the back of that dragon. If we can finish the Quest, we can—I can get Dimensionality—I’ll be a partial Jump Mage. It’ll give us an advantage, and—”

“Get the rapier first,” Shiv replied, trying to focus the Young Lord. “Keep moving, Adam. I don’t want to scream about my asshole again.”

“You bastard! I knew you said it!”

“Six seconds,” Can Hu whispered.

“No deal,” Shiv said, replying to the commander. He cracked his neck. “But I might let Tarlow live if you give me the arm.”

The dragon scoffed. “Ah. Unreasonable and arrogant even to the end. Shame. But good warriors die—”

The drone whistled as it dropped from the sky and detonated. Several dragons launched attacks upward, doing nothing to prevent the dense, black smoke from blanketing them.

Shiv blasted toward the Dynamancer. Adam forged a watery hand and held onto Uva as he fired a teleportation arrow. They vanished. Two dragons teleported after them. The other dragons closed in on Shiv. And a dagger was driven into Shiv’s back before he got anywhere close to the dragon commander. “For fuck’s sake!”

Then, they were on him, and beneath the falling blades of the Dragon-Knights, Shiv learned new flavors of pain.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep