The wind whipped past Emily, causing her clothes to flap against her skin. Her gown fluttered around her like the train of a wedding dress as she continued ascending into the heavens in the mouth of the Wyrm. Blood now protected her hands and feet from the teeth closing in on all sides.
The tips of her boots pressed against the base fangs as she gripped the top ones, the sky facing her back. If she weren’t currently panicked, she might have found the position amusing. They continued to ascend but Emilt had had enough.
Pointing a bolt down its throat, she shot it into the creature and had it expand like a snowflake, stabbing into its throat and surrounding walls. Sadly she hadn’t made the attack big enough that she could block its airways, and when she was suddenly thrust violently into the air she lost sight of the blood.
It would remain there, but it wouldn’t choke on something that size. To beast this large it was more like taking a pill it couldn’t swallow properly.
Emily grinned as she was released from the young Wyrm's crushing jaws and flung out to free fall as the creature sprung away from her.
Emily turned over as the momentum she had gathered began to bleed off and gravity reasserted its control.
She was surprised by how high up they’d gone before she was released. Though she hadn’t reached the clouds, she was high enough to see the entire island stretched out below, with glimpses of the lake beyond. From this height, the land looked like a vast disk, surrounded by a glittering ocean dotted with rocky outcrops, like fingers poking through the water’s surface. Water streamed down from mountain peaks and flowed over the island’s edges in a cascade of waterfalls. She knew that beyond those falls more mountains awaited, but up here it felt like an entire world onto itself.
Emily pulled her mind from the breathtaking sights and refocused on the battle at hand.
The Wyrm had flown around to build up speed in an attempt to ram her in midair, but Emily wasn’t going to just let it do what it wanted. She pulled her limbs in and had her gown settle against her back.
The wind ripped past as her speed increased—not quite terminal velocity, but she was halfway there, and the young Wyrm was closing in. It intended to strike her from the side using its hind legs, having learned its lesson from before.
Emily was in a full nosedive when the Wyrm arrived, its claws open and ready to rend. But at the last second, she opened her arms outward, forming her blood into a sheet that connected her hands to her feet, creating makeshift wings like a flying squirrel’s. The sudden change caused her to catch an updraft, and the Wyrm hurtled past her, misjudging her change in speed.
Of course, she could have just flown from the beginning, but she knew she definitely couldn't outrun this air predator right now and didn’t want to waste the energy until she had to. When the beast realized it had missed, it let out a vicious roar that stung Emily's eardrums.
Ignoring its frustration, Emily dropped back into a dive, dodging the snap of fangs and talons. She created two more spears and launched one of them at its chest again, going for the same spot she’d hit earlier.
The Wyrm whined like a kicked puppy, its shirl cry of agony tearing the space at the same time its scales did. Emily grunted in success when she punched through its armor but continued to fall towards the ground. One more solid hit was all she needed to end this.
She angled her descent toward the mother Wyrm to stay at least in its general vicinity, but this only seemed to anger the younger beast even more. It shook itself and dropped into a nosedive after her, using its wings to propel itself faster than she could fall.
Emily glanced over her shoulder, to see it was now directly behind her, and recognized what was happening when the ‘little’ creature opened its mouth and began to inhale.
“Oh, fuck you! Don’t you dare!” she shouted, her voice lost in the rushing air around them.
Heat blossomed behind Emily and if she tried to throw up a wall of blood it would only be crushed by the falling beast.
So she instead wrapped her blood around herself and triggered her Vital shell. It wasn’t enough, she knew this, but if she wanted to keep falling it was the only option.
The warmth she had felt seconds ago, climbed to a spluttering inferno of yellow. Emily’s outer casing of blood baked within seconds but it insulated her from the worst of the flames as it did so. Vital shell worked to keep the majority of the heat out but it was on the verge of breaking so Emily recharged it. She just kept moving straight down.
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As life would have it, Emily had pissed Wyrm off enough that it maintained its nosedive behind her, spitting flames on her the entire way down.
Soon enough her skin began to sizzle and blister, as the worst sunburn one could imagine began to cook her from the inside out.
Blood popped and boiled around Emily as she continued to fall. The ground approached rapidly, and she had mere seconds to decide her next move. The blood in the Wyrm's throat was already in its stomach and was of no use to her, while any connection she might have had with it was clouded by its rage for daring to come near its mother.
She was out of options; it was time to react.
Flipping herself so her feet pointed downward, she gathered the flakes of dried blood and reformed them into a shield, hurling it toward the beast's mouth. The shield carbonized in seconds, but it bought her just enough time to slow her descent. When she crashed to the ground, both her ankles shattered and she dropped to her knees.
The impact created a small crater, but it was about to expand as the young Wyrm attempted to land on her. With no time to spare, Emily seized her own blood and flung herself aside, hurtling out of the way with enough force to snap her spine—a lesson she had learned the hard way. The almost impossible maneuver caused the Wyrm to scream in frustration as it landed, crashing into the ground at full speed.
As Emily slid along the ground, she repaired her ankles, ignoring the crippling spikes of pain shooting up her calves. A frantic laugh escaped her throat as she watched the Wyrm shake itself and rise, barely worse for wear despite its fall.
“Well, aren't you just a resilient little shit?” she growled, flicking the spear that had been hovering over her shoulder. The Wyrm reacted with lightning-fast reflexes, batting the spear out of the air with a claw. Then it began to charge toward her.
Cursing, Emily tried to back up, but a wall of flesh blocked her escape as she collided against the unmoving mother Wyrm. Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks, and instinct kicked in.
She charged the beast.
As the Wyrm lunged, she dropped into a slide, narrowly avoiding a claw that skimmed overhead. Clearing the creature's body she gathered her legs under her to run, but before she could rise, a tail struck her left side, shattering her ribs. Emily yelped, tumbling into the dirt as her lungs struggled and then collapsed, forcing blood into her throat.
Things only worsened as the Wyrm turned and stomped on her freshly healed legs, pulverizing her bones in one swift movement. Emily screamed in agony, the world around her fading to white. Desperate to regain focus, she saw the beast looming over her, its head rearing back to strike.
Then came the hissing sound, and the world ignited. The damned lizard was trying to burn her alive. That thought ignited her will to fight, and she sent blood flooding out from every pore in her body. It was the only reason she wasn’t thoroughly cooked alive.
However, the blood alone couldn't stop a full-force attack at this range. Most of it vaporized or hardened on impact, and the left side of her face was exposed for less than a second. All the skin from her cheekbone to her ear melted away like wax, the smell of burnt hair filling the air. She was certain she’d suffered third-degree burns, if not worse.
That thought, strangely, brought the world back into focus. With fresh determination, she took the remaining blood she had created and jammed it into the Wyrm's chest. The flames sputtered out the moment she did, and the spiral of blood twisted into the wound, burrowing through its scales and flesh.
When she reached its lungs, she crushed them as it had done to her, then targeted its two hearts, slicing them apart. The Wyrm tried to bring down its other claw, but Emily created a second wave of blood as large as the first and pushed it aside. Using the new blood, she held its claw in place, then sent more of her blood into its body, tearing through its innards.
At some point, the Wyrm stopped moving, unable even to whimper. Emily only ceased her assault when she felt the last flicker of light leave its eyes. Once it breathed its last, she reabsorbed most of her blood, but she remained covered from head to toe in the sticky red substance. Not a single patch or crevice was free from it.
The adrenaline faded almost immediately, and the burning pain struck her all at once. Her mind trembled, and even the air resting on her skin sent fresh waves of agony through her body. Emily couldn’t even pant—her lungs were only just beginning to rebuild. Instead, she clung to the Wyrm’s vitality, breathing it in like a balm.
She absorbed every drop her title allowed, knowing she’d burned through twenty lives' worth of energy, not counting what she’d reabsorbed from her blood. Her wounds would likely take another five lives to heal, given their severity. The power flowed endlessly until she’d gained close to forty-five lives’ worth. When the young Wyrm’s hollow corpse hit the ground, so did Emily.
Ecstasy and pain fought for control as tremors gripped her arms and legs. She felt as if she were dying—she was dying—and then, slowly, she wasn’t. The mind-racking pain finally began to subside as her body repaired itself.
She’d almost died. But 'almost' wasn’t good enough, and she was stronger now because of it, though she needed a moment to rise from the ground. Her physical wounds healed long before her mental ones. Emily took a shaky breath, trying to steady herself as she locked away the memory of her skin cooking off. Each searing pop and crackle of flesh went into the quarantine zone in her mind, where it would stay—too raw to remember, too dangerous to forget.
When she climbed to her feet, her ear and the skin on her face were all but healed. Sadly, hair was far more difficult to replace, so Emily had to let it grow back naturally. She’d forgotten to get a handheld mirror while she was in town but she imagined she could make it work. Half of her head was now bereft of hair, but she was pretty sure that if she wore a Viking braid it would still look good when it grew out a little. Because right now it shone in the mid-morning light.
The only solace Emily had was that the culprit was very much dead, that was until she caught sight of her other prize. Glancing over her shoulder Emily grinned at the titanic mother lizard.
“Alright big girl, please don’t have kicked the bucket yet,” Emily said as she began hobbling over to the creature with a ravenous crimson light in her eyes.