The snort of confident disdain that Mydraig unleashes causes me to giggle further. I’m in no way going to go anywhere near all out on this doofus. I’m not even going to use *any* of my actual resources. I just have to not oversell it by saying something stupid like, “Oh gosh, it seems you really do have me beat, please spare me mister Hareslayer,” or anything else as over-the-top.
This one’s just going to be fun. I begin streaming a long lightning bolt breath past Mydraig, intentionally missing him, but only just barely. He can’t help it, can he? The fool calls out, “Hah, missed me!” as I equip number four from my Q C R while floating slightly closer to Mydraig, continuing to breathe lightning just past him. My blinding flash of lightning keeps him from seeing the fact that the Worldstorm is pounding me with lightning, charging me up.
Sure enough, the bolt of lightning breath curves slightly as it’s summoned directly in reverse towards me. Better yet, as I’d hoped, Mydraig is shocked in two ways. One, he gets the crap blasted out of his right wing and part of his tail as it’s whipping side to side. Two, he did not see that coming. It doesn’t quite confirm whether he needs to see it coming or not though. Mydraig lifts a good fifty feet upwards from his current position in response to the blast, oddly.
The lack of confirmation on the precise nature of his counter ability is mostly because there’s too many variables to account for. It could still be that it was that he can’t counter any tangential attack, or that he can’t counter cursed objects, or natural hazards. Any of them is fine for my purpose. I want him to counter my Latent when I use it on him.
Alright Reggie, don’t oversell it. First, Q C R back to number five. Start off sounding pissed and impressed, “Hm, seems like I might actually have to consider you a threat after all. I guess I should be using more than thirty percent of my power on an ancient. Alright, I’ll show you that much respect, and go all out to finish it!”
Hehe. I’m only using fractions of a percent of my powers. Though, to be fair, that was about thirty percent of a random lightning breath, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Still, alright Reggie, ramp it up, try to hit him directly with the lightning and see how he counters it. I begin exhaling a more potent blast of lightning directly at Mydraig. Just as it’s about to hit him, it turns into a massive jet of water, and reverses directions. Holding my breath, I raise my shield up to block the watery blast. The torrent strikes my shield dead on, and it sends me flying ridiculously far away.
The effect ends up appearing as if the blast of water struck me with far more force than it did, and as if I’m bedraggled, and hurt, by my own breath that did nothing more than move me around a tiny bit. Floating back towards Mydraig, huffing, panting, and wheezing, I make sure that my telekinetic grip on myself bobs and falters. My grip also veers side to side as if I were drunk, or losing my balance and wits.
Grinning evilly, my foe queries, “Looks like your breath weapon does pack a bit of a punch after all, but can you not see? It’ll only ever hurt you, not me. So, about that conceding of victory you were going to give me. Are you about there yet? Ready to give up, Hero of the Onyx Dawn?”
Ah, the idiot doesn’t even realize it was my breath weapon that struck him from the rear. He must think that the Worldstorm randomly shot lightning up towards him. So that’s why he flew up. Hah. Okay, phew, keep up the act Reggie.
Calling out to Mydraig, I respond, “I’m, huff, not even close to through with you yet. You’re going huff, down Hareslayer! You won’t set a claw inside my mountain! Your own ability to turn breath weapons back on me will work against you, you’ll see. Huff. You’ve just made me more powerful, that’s all.”
Snirk. Careful Reggie, don’t overplay. Anyway, I float back as close to him as he’ll allow me to get. He does begin backing away after a certain point, upwards away from me and the Worldstorm. I continue meeting his gaze with a wild-eyed stare, as if I’m desperately searching for an advantage, looking like I’m hoping a plan I’ve thought up will actually work. I begin inhaling once again, cooling the area between us, and part of Mydraig’s face.
The inhalation, my cold breath, is met with the same response, fire coming my way, but I make as if I’m eating it, swallowing more and more flames. Mydraig does pause slightly, curious about what I’m up to, so he flaps sideways a bit to be able to get a look at what I’m doing around the brightness of the flames. Good, he can see me “eating” them. My foe furrows his brow, trying to determine if I might have any tricks he didn’t consider. These dragonforces are friggin’ perfect to get someone like this to underestimate me.
After a long moment, I begin spewing flame directly from my mouth, igniting my gas before sending it out, making it look like the breath is a much more ramped up version of my fire. It does look as if I’m recycling the fire that I just inhaled. It does however hurt the hell out of my throat. I’m *near* immune to thermal damage, not entirely, and my own, when ignited too early, is some of the hottest stuff around below Lil’s flames.
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Mydraig doesn’t dodge, because of course he wouldn’t, a more powerful fire breath is just going to result in a more powerful icy retaliation. The flames begin to near those coppery, iridescent scales, each one is large and domed, overlapping with the one beside it, providing excellent protection to his likely much-more vulnerable flesh beneath. The scales are also intricately patterned, with wavy ridges that follow the contours of Mydraig's body, giving it a sense of fluidity even when the dippy-dimwit is flapping here. The scales on his back are slightly larger than those on his belly, and they curve slightly upward towards his spine, further enhancing his spine’s ridged dorsal ridge’s appearance.
The fire becomes a glacier once again, from near Mydraig’s head, all the way into my throat. This could hurt a bit, if I wasn’t a digital Can’Z’aasian critterkin adjacent lifeform. As is, I just intend to take a bite of the ice, and everything that’s in my mouth or further inside of me is teleported to my nebulous digital organs. I try to wear an expression of terror upon my face as I glance at Mydraig’s big dumb head, avoiding looking him in the eyes. Hopefully it appears as if I’m almost afraid to meet his gaze. It’s a bit difficult to fight the smile, and harder to remember what fear should look like on my face, but hopefully I pull it off.
As for Mydraig's stupid head, his eyes are large and oval-shaped, with a deep amber hue with that unnatural glow behind them. His pupils are slitted and catlike, oddly enough. This ends up giving his long, pointed snout, filled with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth a bit of the vibe of a predatory fox or similar animal. Mydraig’s nostrils are large and flared, allowing him to take in large amounts of air. Also upon his dumb face is a malicious grin, as he seems to believe he’s got me cornered.
I begin frantically glancing around, attempting to appear panicked. Drawing Frostburn, I level it shakily towards Hareslayer, which causes him to chuckle heavily before quipping, “What ever happened to conceding defeat if your precious three elements didn’t work on me? Or does the word of a Hero mean nothing to the Onyx Dawn.”
Annoyingly, there are quite a number of spectators that had been watching from a side tunnel that I hadn’t noticed that leads up to the aerie. In fact, I think it’s new, and must be where Greggy and Revvy were getting the extra stone. Worse, it means people from the feasting hall can just walk up to the aerie, when normally only fliers could exit to the balcony-esque fixture above the Worldstorm.
This new development of course means that that idiot Leezahna is about to see me admit defeat, adding fuel to her flames. Hopefully Revvy doesn’t have walls up blocking his passive reception of my internal monologue, so that he’ll know my plans, and can start explaining it to the panic-stricken crowd gathered on the aerie.
I slump my shoulders and droop my head in shame, as I pretend to admit defeat, “You’re right, my word is my bond. I must allow you to eat me. Hopefully another hero will pick up my legendary blade to take up the mantle of hero after me.”
I casually chuck Frostburn down to the aerie, making sure to use telekinesis to drive it point-first into the stone near the crowd, so that even if someone is dumb enough and brave enough to try to help, it’ll take them at least a split second. I float myself dejectedly, resignedly towards Hareslayer’s snout. When I’m within range, he lunges, attempting to bite into me with his enormous teeth.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t anticipate this. I perform a T K S L directly forward towards Hareslayer’s throat. I perch in the roof of his mouth, causing him to ask, “Wha—?” before I begin activating my Latent, empowered by the Honoris Causa that I’ve had activated. Either his counter ability doesn’t work in here, in which case the vacuum of my power tears apart his throat and cranium from the inside, or, I become surrounded by crushing, incredibly dense mass, breaking his jaw to pieces, tearing open his throat, or, I become surrounded by the opposite of my implosion. That would of course be an explosion.
The gruesome shower of gore as Mydraig Hareslayer’s Latent tries to save his life, by reversing my Latent is one I’m grateful to not have seen from the outside. His jaw is blown clean off, and his throat torn open down to his chest. The sides of Mydraig’s skull are fractured, cracked, and exposed, as all the scales and flesh from his face has been violently expelled from within. The once glowing amber orbs of his eyes are missing, having been vigorously discharged from the force applied from beneath them on the inside.
I levitate Frostburn back to my hand, as Mydraig attempts to make sense of what just happened. I calmly explain, “I said I’d let you eat me if I went all out. I didn’t go anywhere near all out, but I did let you eat me anyway. I didn’t say I’d die from it, or even let you survive.”
For some reason, my brain decides to announce, “Itadakimasu. Oh, that more or less means thanks for the meal by the way. Sorta, kinda. Y’know, for your dragonforce that I’m about to consume, along with your heart. I have no idea why I said it, that was weird.”
If Mydraig still had eyes, I can sense the panic that would be displayed in them. Before he can make even a paltry attempt at fleeing, I T K S L towards a crack in his skull, and jab away at it ferociously until Frostburn will fit through it into his cranial cavity. One might be amazed at how little pressure it takes to insert an incredibly sharp, incredibly deadly object into someone’s brain. I simply float Frostburn into his skull and telekinetically thrust with it.
Mydraig the Hareslayer is no more, and his corpse plummets to the aerie. Thankfully Revvie did indeed hear my thought train, so he knew what was coming. He and Gresog carefully lower the incoming corpse to the aerie, and they peel away his chest scales, and chest tissue to allow access towards his heart flesh for me.