“Oh that's not good. The city is surrounded by a high tier stasis spell.” Ander said as he arrived shortly with a confused Lin and Nicole, while Volain sat down an unconscious Midas at a marked stone slab.
“Great. Everyone’s here. Ander, do you want to do me a solid and punch that doppelganger's lights out? They fight like me and seem to love holding back almost as much as you.”
Ander turned towards the Crimson-haired woman with a very familiar face. He then looked at Nicole and seemed to decide that he loved living. “I’ll let the girls handle it.”
“Why?”Kyrion tilted my head curiously.
“I’m sure they have their own frustrations to beat out whoever that is. I think it will be therapeutic in a way.” Ander waved his hand in their direction. Looking at the blue storm of blue flames with apparent bloodlust.
“Oi. Kyrie. I don’t have time to make a body here so let's try something. You drive the body while I command the magic.” Kyrion said to Kyrie.
Kyrie raised an eyebrow. “You're going to fight a storm?”
“Do you think I’m gonna sit here and let that transformation sequence finish?” Kyrion answered with a question.
“Why don’t you let him reach his full power that way we get to see what they have to offer?”
“Kyrie. Thats stupid and I’m disappointed in your tactics. Now drive.” Kyrion stated as they flew towards the storm a barrier of wind and fire mana prepared to protect his body from the storm's power. Looking down he saw a four-legged creature with scales darker than black and a tail with blades that radiated a blue flame. Its eyes were serpentine and a deep yellow. Wings that drowned out all light grew as fire flowed into them like light does a singularity.
“A bloody dragon?” Kyrion muttered through his connection with Kyrie as he noticed the resemblance in general shape to Ceres and scowled.
“Yeah thats not good. Thats an Endbringer. You don’t want to fight a mature verion of that.” Kyrie muttered.
“That doesn’t sound fun.” Kyrion replied said as Kyrie drew their blade and began the process of flying downwards towards the large lizard.
As he got within 5 feet of the creature, black flames shot out and began to fill his body with high levels of pain flowing into his skin, and felt as though it was being torn to shreds at a cellular level. And yet It didn’t stop Kyrion. No, he continued downward and with a large crack stabbed the draconic creature in its spine only managing to crack a scale and no blood was drawn. The tornado of blue flame did stop, however. The dragon’s transformation was incomplete.
The tornado of blue fire faded revealing Milo’s true form to the world. Where the flames faded the land was barren as though all life it touched had been erased, leaving behind barren land where a patch of forest had once been.
“You bastard!” The dragon yelled as it looked at Kyrion. “For what reason do you have to take things this far?"
Kyrion pondered answering the question before a wild smirk took over his face.
"A king such as I suffers no fools. If I’m fighting you it means your evil." Kyrie answered with an arrogant tone.
"Oi. Kyrie, I may not be able to go all out, so be careful, and if we enter a full manifestation then it will be hard not to do any." Kyrion whispered through their connection.
"What are you bloody talking about? All this mana and you're not going to use it to overwhelm but instead outlast?" Kyrie's eyes twitched.
"If we have too. Remember we aren't alone although I expect plants won't be helpful here."
"Endbringers are dragons that are said to eliminate all life in an area. Some stories talk about how adults eat continents, and the oldest can swallow planets whole. I’m trying to make one of those look weak and your talking about using stall tactics?"
“What deal are you talking about?” The tree within Kyrion’s core asked.
“The conversation I had with the goddess, for that powerful non resurrection ability I ended up with.”
“Give me ten minuets to search through your memories for that conversation.”
“What?” Kyrion yelled as his metal defenses shattered.
“Ahhhgg!” Kyrie let out a bestial howl as pain went through his brain as it was roughly dug threw while he was trying to focus on the fight at hand.
Ander flew next to Kyrie soon after. “Whats wrong?”
“I’ll need your help for a bit.” Kyrie gripped his skull as though trying to keep something in.
“Right!” Ander summoned his spear as he hovered next to his captain.
“Good. First off we need to get the dragon away from Midas and the girls, otherwise they could get caught in the crossfire. From there we’ll need to limit it’s movement. Those wings are we…Move!” Kyrie pushed Ander away and used the momentum to fly in the opposite direction as a blast of blue fire shot from Milo’s mouth and into the sky before exploding in the clouds. A giant hole could be seen as the moisture in a perfectly spherical shape was erased.
Ander looked at the blast radius and then at the dragon. Deciding that he would stay far away from his mouth.
Kyrie scowled. “Ten bloody minuets. Kyrion, can you fight?”
“Yes, although that was rough, it was as though my mental defenses were dropped and some amature started doing brain surgery. Now that their end and my defenses are back they can work and I can somewhat focus.” Kyrion stated.
“Then why do I still have a headache?”
“Hmm… Oh… We can’t regenerate, and excess mana isn’t passively leaving my body as it does usually. Looks like I can’t heal either. We might suffer some brain damage. Issac, can you assist that tree?”
“Aye, probably should have thought of that.” Issac soon flew after the tree spirit within Kyrion’s brain, although their movements were unnoticed.
“Looks like all we have access to are earth, wind, and fire. I’ll have to make it work.” Behind their back, a halo of flame began to form as stone shot up from the ground and molded into an extra set of arms growing from his back. Under his feet, the wind began to flow and build as though waiting to boost his speed when the fighting began.
“Alright. Now going full speed!” Kyrie yelled as he moved faster than sound albeit mostly uncontrolled due to a miscommunication.
So when Kyrion could finally be seen, he had planted himself in between Milo’s eyes, slamming into his skull and stopping as his blade only managed to leave behind a small knick of the dragon’s large scales.
“You’re dead!” Milo opened his maw again and pointed it at Kyrion as a blue fire began to build up in what appeared to be a special organ.
Kyrion took time to memorize the inner workings of dragon anatomy and noticed that it wasn’t fully magical. But some sort of internal chemical reaction. “Interesting. The lungs filter out some sort of green air that is heavily compressed within its body to the point where it condenses and then focused as green air becomes blue, from there it's shaped through another strange organ that seems to be highly malleable and released.
While Kyrion pondered, Kyrie flew backward barely dodging the bite that followed before Milo reopened his mouth to let out another blast of mana.
“We goota go!”
“Your right, we need to go in there.”
“What?!” Kyrie got out as Kyrion pushed them into the dragon’s maw and past the gathering blue flames before stopping right next to the lungs.
“What are you thinking you psycho?!” Kyrie added as he began to panic.
“That we should learn a bit more about dragon anatomy. The last time I was this deep in a dragon was Ceres, back when I had to pull her wisdom tooth out. We just need to avoid tringering vomit, and avoid digestive acids."
“First, I don’t know who that is, second phasing, thirdly you pulled out her bones?”
“Teeth aren’t bones silly. Now then if you fine something weird and dangling that means we’re goi ng too far up and if you see a pond at the bottom thats stomach acid and you need to get far far away before it attempts to turn us into nutrients.” Kyrion said as he opened his domain, and began dropping an absurd amount of powders and strange concoctions.
Kyire watched as the walls tightened and the dragon began to cough. Earthen arms attached to Kyrion’s back and grabbed hold of the trachea doorway as the dragon was forced to let out a powerful breath attack upwards.
Kyrion then pulled onto the doors with the might of two sets of arms, causing the dragon to feel something clawing at his throat as something was torn out of his insides before getting dropped into his stomach.
“I see.” Kyrie began to follow along as he began punching and kicking the dragon internally, pushing the beast through the air from the inside.
----------------------------------------
Outside the dragon, Ander had floated behind Milo, having not yet gotten its attention, his skin covered in black stripes, his green hair full of static, and his expression ravenous as he waited for a chance to strike.
When Milo looked up to fire, a breath attack Ander moved in at high speeds as he passed the creature in a blur of light, thrusting his magnetic spearhead into the dragon’s exposed neck and forcing the heads to separate.
As a gout of blood left the dragon's neck, Milo brought his head down into Ander in response, sending him into the ground with a force that crushed bones.
As Ander struggled to get to his feet, the dragon stomped on him and locked him in place as his legs were pinned. The dragon then began to summon a blast of blue flame when its head jerked upwards and the dragon let out a screech as it was forced to fire that blast in the wrong direction. Moments later a series of poundings knocked the dragon on its side giving Adner some useful time to move.
As Ander flew backward he noticed that with one hit, his left arm and leg had been shattered despite his training and endurance. Withdrawing a blue potion he watched as his body slowly began to repair itself, using the mana in his body. He’d be slightly stronger as his body was reinforced. That was a secondary effect of the potion that caused those who consumed it to gain extra durability. Ander needed all the endurance he could get, although he would need to evade for a bit as his body healed.
“Just what is our captain planning?” Ander muttered as he watched the dragon shake itself off as blood turned the ground red.
----------------------------------------
Lin watched as her opponent evaded a series of ice lances that tracked her movement, by teleporting and reappearing in a completely different area. This aspect of the fight was the second most annoying.
“Gates of the abyss open and let out your guardian!” A three-headed dog-human hybrid came running out of a gateway covered in purple flames and instead of running toward their common enemy, it was running toward Lin.
Dodging to the side with a cartwheel. Lin froze the ground with a sheet of ice that she used to skid far away from the creature.
“This is madness Nicole!” Lin yelled as the zig-zagged through trees, evading the balls of fire that followed.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“My love, there is no madness when fighting for true love! Kill this homewrecker, and then we can go somewhere!” The red-haired woman said in a tone eerily similar to Kyrion’s natural tenor.
On closer expression, their appearances were so uncanny that they could have been twins, and it was driving Lin mad. The person was using some trick to manipulate Nicole, and it wasn’t even magic.
“Yes my Kyrion.” Nicole’s pupils appeared in the shape of hearts, and Lin was highly concerned.
The forest became a hellscape as fire clashed with ice, and trees were either frozen or burned. Roaming monsters ran for their lives, innocent woodland critters died, and the ecosystem was shattered as Lin formed a new plan.
“Oi. Nicole! That can’t be Kyrion, not that I know about my teams previous captain, but I at least know that he was male!”
“He’s in disguise, it’s a simple trick, he’s probably hiding from the people who tried to grab him.” Nicole said.
Lin sighed as that made some sense, sadly she knew the real one was hiding in plain sight right over… “Where’d he run off to?” Lin blinked twice as a dragon seemed to be clawing at its chest. As though trying to rip something out.
“Die!” The red-haired woman moved to stab Lin in the back with an overly flexed hand with sharpened claws extending from her nails.
“Lin was stuned briefly as she noticed that she was unable to move out of the way.”
Just before the claws could connect, however, a streak of black and white intercepted as a lariat connected with their neck, sending them flying to the ground.
“Darn. Guess this isn’t the famous Drisil captain then.” Volain stood over his quarry with a bored expression.
“What have you done!” Nicole raced towards Volain.
Lin turned the ground to ice which caused the focused Nicole to slip, sliding herself out of the fight.
The red-haired woman got back to her feet and looked towards Volain. "I am Kyra of clan Lemure, slayer of hearts, breaker of wind, Master of Soul Blocking! You are nothing native of this pathetic world.”
“Hah!” A laugh not bellowing to the dragon, echoed out of its mouth and bellowed despite the speaker not being in earshot.
“How is he spying from that distance?” Lin muttered as she looked around, and sighed as she realized that they were still in a living part of the forest.
“So what you’re really good at passing gas? Do you want a cookie or something? Ah you’re part of a clan, maybe your after another star for being good.” Volain said in a confused yet serious tone.
“I’ll rip out your heart and feed it to you!” Kyra swiftly moved towards Volain’s heart, her right-hand inches from his chest.
“Sadly I saw that already.” Volain spun into a roundhouse kick aimed at behind where he’d been standing, as he kicked a startled Kyra through the brush.
“Go, help Rion, I can take it from here,” Lin stated.
“Two against one isn’t fair.”
“Neither is three. Now go.” Lin drew pulled an ornament out of her hair and dropped it, the area around her dropped eighty degrees, and anything under practitioner rank had flash frozen.
“Aye.” Volain took that as a warning and decided that a dragon was indeed better game.
Lin failed to protect Rion due to not having prepared enough and suffered from a spirit break, now she wasn’t holding back. “Invoke Ma, Fox of the eternal winter all, enemies in my territory shall become freeze.” A silver tiara formed in Lin’s hair as a scepter made of ice appeared in her left hand.
Kyra looked about as walls of ice trapped her within, as her ability to move quickly, was suppressed. As she looked at Lin her heart dropped out of her chest as something occurred to her.
----------------------------------------
As Kyrion continued to inject various drugs and chemicals into the dragon’s bloodstream, Kyrie held on to the creature's uvula for dear life as his main counterpart experimented on the dragon.
“I thought you didn't do things like this.”
“I’m not cutting him open, just testing things I wouldn’t dare risk this on a friend and hoping for the worst. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Bad news.” Kyrie didn’t like this game that they were playing inside the dragon's body.
“The dragon has a severe case of munchies and may resort ti eating anything and everything, including us.”
“Ok, now the good news.”
“This dragon is higher than Almira and Icaron.”
“That is good news.” Kyrie was surprised.
“Yup and in aproximently two minutes he’ll either die or be severely weakened.”
“Even better.”
“Sadly, there is another piece of us here along with another expert.”
“That is really bad.”
“Oh, Volain’s coming. We should kill him now.”
“Volain or the dragon?”
Kyrion scowled, “The dragon, Volain is here to hel…”
Rion passed through his domain and landed on the ground next to Volain as the dragon began to spit stomach acid on the ground.
“Snacks?” Milo’s right eye looked directly at Volain before moving towards Rion.
Ander flew down from above and plunged his spear into the dragon’s head managing to get it stuck.
“Lightning fortress!” Ander yelled as countless small metal bits protruding from the dragon began to glow.
“No!” Kyrie saw the dragon open its mouth as Ander yelled before clamping it down on the small spear wielder.
The spell didn’t end, however, as the world began to smell of static and the nodes grew brighter and brighter. The dragon, distracted by the light show, didn’t notice as a beam in the sky came down on it engulfing the beast in white hot light and cooked it from the outside while Ander fried it from the inside with the remainder of his useable mana.
As the light faded, Milo fell forward and was unable to move. Silence engulfed the battlefield as Kyra noticed the scene.
“Impossible. You shouldn’t have been able to get past his defenses.” Kyra’s said distracted.
Pillars of Ice shout out from the ground and wrapped around Lin, locking her in place as a hand covered in purple flames wrapped around her neck.
“You can’t be him. Impostor.” Nicole said from behind Kyra, her heart eyes gone as she broke free of the strange effect.
"Rion, told be you were one of the smartest people he knew. Really not setting the bar high on his ability to judge character." Lin said with a deadpan.
"I do not see where that braggart Rion would get such notions. We haven't interacted once." Nicole responded, not catching the hint Lin gave.
“Do you really believe you’ve won? You may have gotten past me, but we aren’t alone. White Fox! Gamodren! I summon thee!” Kyra shouted and waves of mana erupted from her bracelet and traveled outward.
A white-haired kid appeared in a haze of purple smoke with a toy bear with red fur and stitch marks its right arm had been replaced, along with its left leg. A familiar eyepatch covered the creature's right eye. The kid seemed to have been holding said toy when he was called and wasn’t happy.
“Oi! What do you want! Growing kids need sleep.” The kid said with no fear or hesitation. He even yawned before looking about with squint eyes.
“Milo, has been defeated. Where’s Gamodren?”
“You don’t know?” The kid asked with a skeptical expression.
The hands placed around Kyra’s neck fell back as Nicole had fallen unconscious, a snake bite on her neck, putting he to sleep.
“Assasin!” Lin yelled as she looked around.
The kid looked at Lin and then back at Milo's corpse with a bored expression as though it wasn't that surprising. “I’m not fighting you ms... I hate fighting. But I do have a job to do, please don’t interfere.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Sirbastian, of the winter fox clan.” The kid turned and began running toward the unmoving dragon.
“Stop!”
“You should be more worried about yourself.”Hissed a voice from behind her.
A wall of ice intercepted and froze a swarm of vipers that had sprung towards her back.
Lin looked around only to watch as Kyra began to run off as well.
“No!” Lin froze Kyra’s leg from the inside causing her blood to expand and burst outward from her leg and removing the limb.
Kyra fell, letting loose a string of swears and aimed toward Lin that she wouldn’t feel comfortable repeating.
“Oh those are new.” Sirbastian stated as he stood behind Kyrion.
“Whoa! Where did you come from?”
“Ah, well since your busy, Ms.Kyra, summoned me and Gamodren.”
“Gamodren and I, you mean?” Volain stated.
“Is your name Me?” Kyrion asked the child.
“Sure! Now then, I’m going to wake that dragon up. You are going to fight it and probably die a gruesome death but hey, isn't that the point. I doubt you have it in you to kill a child that won’t fight back so this is how things are going to go.”
“I could pick you up and carry you back to the city. Why are you with the Beastblood Empire?” Kyrion asked, not making a move to attack.
“Reason’s, I’m doing this for someone important to me, some things still need to happen.” Sirbastian began to walk toward the dragon.
Ander proceeded to cut his hay out through the dragon’s chest confirming that they are much less durable from the inside. Although his body was charred to an unhealthy level as all his skin had severe burns while his piercings fuzed to his body in a rather sickening fashion. His left hand was completely gone while both of his eyes had been gravely damaged.
“No!” Kyrion began to move forward to apply some emergency healing.
Ander let out a raspy laugh. “I’m an inch taller, that was worth all the pain.”
Before Kyrion could catch Ander however, the currently bald, spear wielder fell to the ground and stopped moving.
“No. No, no. This can’t be happening.” Kyrie was panicking in Kyrion’s head.
“Stasis coffin him. We can’t help him now as we don’t have the time and space. If he survives he’ll remember this but he’ll also be stronger for it.” Kyrion summoned a coffin from his domain and dropped it next to Ander.
“Volain, help me out here.” Rion asked as they opened the coffin.
Volain moved the body inside and scowled. “He’s still alive. How can you survive something like that?”
“Ander’s always been a bit competitive. I doubt he’d let Brion outshow him in feats of endurance and vitality.” Rion stated as he closed the coffin.
“You act like you know more than you should. Given that your’re supposedly new.” Volain stated.
----------------------------------------
Kyrion sighed and took control of the body. “Simple really. I am Kyrion of Drisil. Those people we’re fighting tried and failed to kidnapp me a few months ago and I used that as a way to fake my death. I’m not suprrised they caused this chaotic turn of events. But now your an accomplice in stopping them and I assume you recived something for assisting us.”
“That I have. I have been told that you are a water spirit user, but I wasn’t told that you have the ability to create spirits.” Volain scowled.
Kyrion thought very loudly, “What?”, before giving Volain a flat look. “Versitillity is the name of the game with me. Now that…”
An azure light shot out of the ground and engulfed Milo’s draconic body before a barrier of magic surrounded it and absurd amounts of mana began to flow into the creature's corpse.
Kyrion moved forward to stop the spell when a snake shot out of the ground and attempted to bite his leg.
Kyrion jumped back to avoid the strike, only for a second snake to bite him in the arm as a fast-acting venom flowed into his system and nothing happened.
A third snake appeared and bit Kyrion in the hand, and the young man’s vision began to go blurry.
“I know this trick.” From his domain, Kyrion withdrew a syringe and plunged it into his stomach.
“Oi! Boss! There seems to be something coming in our direction. I’ll hold it back for as long as I can but that tree is having more trouble deciphering your memories. As it seems you have some serious focusing issues.”
“Great.” Kyrion plunged his fist into the earth and let out a wave of mana that collapsed all freshly dug tunnels and filled the area with molten heat. A series of muffled hisses came from the ground as a fourth snake dropped from a tree.
Volain moved forward and intercepted the stake with a punch that turned it into pulp.
“You seem to have too many powers.”
“Enough for two people or more you could say. These snakes are here to deley, where’s Lin?”
“With Nicole, and that Kyra girl.”
“Oh… Oh thats bad.” Kyrie muttered.
“Why is that bad?” Kyrion asked through their link.
“She’s one of us.”
“You didn’t realize when we we’re fighting her?” Kyrion scowled.
“I thought she was one of your sister’s counterparts and didn’t really care.”
“Why is it bad then?” Kyrion asked.
“Because with one touch she can force you to have a heart attack. In a one on one fight we’d be in trouble.”
“Do you not pay attention, Kyrie? I already fought her. She was clearly holding back yes but she isn’t stronger than the two of us combined, in fact I was stronger.”
“Yeah. But these snakes remind me of that master of yours.”
“Ah. That. I wouldn’t be able to fight her and Gamodren at once. Good thing I’m not alone.” Kyrion turned and began to run towards where he’d left Lin and Nicole to fight, Kyra.
“Oi! Shouldn’t we deal with the dragon?” Volain asked.
“Drink this and listen, we’re going to be fighting a somewhat experienced and powerful expert. I’d rather not lose anyone to one of my best friends. I also have a plan to take him down. Just need to listen to the bells.” Kyrion summoned a silver-furred fox with a bell-shaped collar around her neck it's jingle was imperceptible to an untrained ear.
Volain scowled, "You want me to follow something so small?"
Jala faded from sight and moved a great distance quickly, as she traveled in the space between.
Volain seemed to keep an eye on the fox despite being unable to see it with his eyes.
"Interesting, I need to avoid fighting you at this tournament." Kyrion scratched his chin.