"[That's the last one...]" Stabbing a spike made of dragon armor through the chest of an Ashling, which promptly scatters into smoke and dust, I remark with a sigh. I look up into the sky, which has been dark ever since the battle against Felgar. Back then it was because Tahiri summoned a mass of thunderclouds, followed by the eruption of the volcano and a huge amount of ash being expelled into the sky, but the current darkness stems from the fact that night has fallen.
"[Really? That was it?]" Korenga dusts herself off and returns to her normal skin tone, looking completely unharmed. She was in the thick of it more than anyone else, but it's testament to her might that she was able to go through it all with fun and laughter - and not a hint of worry. "[Hey Tahiri, let's go for a round. I wanna make Roamukao come back out one more time.]"
What is this madwoman saying?!
"[He didn't come out because of our battle with Felgar. A firebird may possess the powers of a god, but he was not one of our kind.]" Waving off the Black God's dumb suggestion, Tahiri turns to me and explains. I don't really get what's classified as a god and what isn't, especially since many consider me one solely based on the powers I've shown. Then again, maybe a firebird is just like a sea witch, and considered as a separate kind of supernatural being.
"[So it must mean the God King controls Roamukao after all.]" Tokomaha chimes in on our conversation. She looks exhausted, and sweat and rain are glistening all over her body. I hold myself back from licking my lips at the sight, since the conversation is an important one; I can always pull her aside later, when we figure things out.
"[Ranking Roamukao, how powerful is he?]" I do have a pretty good idea, considering the fact that it took our combined effort to bring him and his huge number of aspects down. But I need confirmation for the fact that he's considered one of the most powerful gods in existence. I'd rather not hear that there are several more just like him out there.
"[The God of Destruction is a living force of nature. He may have been given a name, but I wonder whether he even has reason or not.]" Tahiri states with a look at the volcano, her expression grim. "[He has existed since long before I was born. Many gods consider him to be something apart from us, because nobody knows when he gained his powers and where his limits lie. He may very well be on the same level as Mataku, the Primordial Terror.]"
Well, that does give me a little reassurance. At least she didn't say that he's the weakest among a group of several massive elemental-like gods whom we'll have to eventually face one after another - or even all at the same time. In either case, it seems that Roamukao won't show up again for now. If he was literally able to control the entire molten core of the planet, he wouldn't be defeated - even if only temporarily - by his extension above ground getting destroyed. So at least there is a way to stop him for a while.
"[How far is it to the capital?]" I turn around and ask Mereana, who has been staring at me, Tahiri and Korenga in absolute awe. While Tokomaha and Awhina's powers were nothing to scoff at either, we three were the ones who were able to defeat a living volcano somehow. And she did see me transform into a giant cannon that could seemingly effortlessly blast apart something the size of a village.
She knows that Tahiri is the God of Storm, and she understands that Korenga is powerful from her display in the castle - even though she could have never fathomed the extent of her power - but I haven't shown anything on that level before. When she attacked Aoranam village with the slave troops, I only used a few of the weapons within my ever-growing arsenal, so she hadn't been able to tell back then. I'm sure a part of her is wondering why I didn't use that back then and suppressing a shiver running down her spine; if I had, her entire army would have been completely annihilated.
"[It should take us another fifteen days. There are four cities along the way where we can resupply.]" She responds to my inquiry, unable to tear her eyes away from me. Even though she's almost the same height as I am, she seems so much smaller right now. Is she unconsciously lowering herself to not stand out?
"[We should hurry, before Roamukao can regain his strength and come out again.]" I don't know how long his recuperation period lasts, but I'd rather not give him time to be back at full power when we're fighting this God King, and allow him to join in on the battle when we least need it.
"[I tried to call the horses, but they must have either run very far away, or been killed by the Ashlings.]" Awhina walks up to us and shakes her head. Her clothes have been singed in several places by flying embers and hot ashes and she has soot all over her body, but she's unhurt. Yet, out of everyone who actively fought in the battle, she's the one who shows the most signs of it. After all, Tahiri was never even hit, Korenga is simply indestructible - even though her clothes have been completely burned away - and I just fill out any wounds with fresh mass so it doesn't show on the surface. And Tokomaha didn't use her main body to fight, and while she is quite tired from creating so many clones, she only has some soot on her.
I did lose quite a bit of mass in this battle, but I should still have more to work with than I had when I fought in the academy and got thrown to the moon. I'll get it back whenever I have the time to go hunting, though I won't have the time to do so if we want to hurry up.
"[Aww...]" The twins hang their heads in dejection; I know they wanted to taste horse meat and were looking forward to eating the ones they rode when we reached our destination.
"[No need to be sad, we can get new ones from the next city. It is two days away.]" Mereana consoles them, but I cut in.
"[No, we will fly to save time.]" Turning to Uten and Saten, I add something in our language. "I'll get you new ones after all of this is over, so don't worry." Their expressions light up and they seem eager to continue the journey.
"[Can you find the way from the air?]" Returning the topic to flying the rest of the way, I ask Mereana. Since there are no satellite images and people don't usually see the land from the sky, it'll most likely be hard for her to navigate while up there. We could always just follow the roads anyway, but I'd rather go in the most direct line.
"[I have never seen the lay of the land from above, but I can try.]" She does show some apprehension at the mention of flying again, but it's only to be expected of humans in this world. While mages seem to be able to levitate using wind magic, generally people live their whole lives without ever seeing the world from a bird's perspective. Least of all while riding on a dragon, which are considered dangerous.
If she could just tell me the direction, I could fly through the night and they would be able to sleep on my back, to save even more time. Then again, Korenga's snoring would keep them awake in such close proximity. Well, I can just grab her with the dragon feet and carry her like that while she's asleep, then put her back on top when it nears her waking time, so that she doesn't notice. Not like she'd really complain about having a direct view of the land below when I sell it to her as a VIP seat.
Actually, maybe now's the time to try something new.
"[Then let me practice a bit first. Flying in dragon form was only a stopgap measure.]" I want to test out changing into a Chaos Warhead form which could carry people on the inside, without actually swallowing them like I did with Hestia back then. Then we could travel much faster and potentially reach the capital in less than a day, rather than in fifteen.
Walking away while the others begin to set up a temporary camp and repair their clothes, I find a stretch of open land where the trees have completely burned down, and transform into the organic-looking mecha form I employed in my battle against Felgar. This is the most useful form I can change into and is most likely also the best in a straight up fight when it comes down to versatility. It somewhat reminds me of a certain red and gold suit of high-tech armor.
Then I expand in size and become a giant version of it. At this size people could stand on my palms, so I think this should be enough if I hollow myself out and let them ride inside me. But since I'm still limited to the same kind of wind spells, I should become more aerodynamic, which would be much better in the rocket-like shape I take when I become the Chaos Warhead. But that form doesn't have arms or legs, so I'd simply fall over if I directly turned into that.
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"Woah, what is that?!" I hear Uten and Saten shout from down below and turn my head. They're looking up at me with sparkling eyes. I guess no matter the time period or the world, boys will be boys and fawn over giant robots. Even if this one looks more like a certain living mecha born from a human's genetic material fused with matter gained from a transforming alien race in deep space.
"Step back." My voice sounds strangely deep and reverberating while I'm in this form, since I have much larger vocal chords. Actually, it sounds pretty impressive.
They do as they're told and I finally begin my transformation process. I feel like a certain robotic race from space which can copy machines from Earth by scanning them. Within moments, I turn from a humanoid into something like a plane. Since I don't know anything about proper aerodynamics and how large wings need to be to generate enough lift to stay in the air, I overshoot things a little just to be safe. I've seen enough plane models to know the overall size, after all.
Now, planes use turbines to pull air from the front, pressurize it into a smaller opening and push it out in the back. I don't think I can actually recreate the speeds necessary for it, so I'll go with the same method as I have before, using wind magic shot into parabolic forms to emulate boosters. Since I can just multiply the amounts of casts for spells like I first found out with the spirit spears, I've been doing the same for the one used to propel myself in Chaos Warhead mode and my mecha form. But for this size, I'll need far more than I've ever tried before.
So, how do I take off? Planes need a long runway, but I don't have that here. I could burn away a patch of the land with a plasma breath, but even then I can't effectively simulate wheels with low friction for rolling across the airstrip. Then maybe vertical liftoff is the way to go?
Creating boosters under the wings, I channel the wind magic into them. The resulting storm of dust and ash being blown all around me billows all the way over my children and towards the camp the others are setting up. And I haven't even lifted off yet!
I need to increase the thrust, so I put my mind into doubling the power. Of course, the blast causes even more dust to be blown away around me. I can hear Awhina and Tokomaha complaining, though I'm not able to make out what exactly they're saying, since the wind magic is really loud; it's almost as loud as a real plane engine.
Finally, I feel myself lifting into the air slowly but steadily.
Then I lose control and I flip over, landing straight on my plane nose before crashing onto my back.
Well, that was the most worthless effort I've made in a long time. If only I had studied aeronautics in my previous life...
Consolidating my mass back into my human form, I scratch my head and look around. I've created a small crater around me due to the strength of the wind magic, but that's the extent of what I achieved here just now. I guess there's no way around it but carrying them on my back in my dragon form, then. It's just going to be more uncomfortable for them, since I'll be swaying up and down from time to time because I need to beat my wings to maintain altitude
Thinking back to it, I should have gone to the library in the academy for self-study more. Levitation spells with my output should have allowed me to lift a much larger mass than just a human body and maybe even achieve higher speeds, too. Then at least it'd be similar to hovering in a hot air balloon or something... like... that...
I smack my forehead.
Why didn't I think of this before? I can easily turn myself into a huge hot air balloon. I have a free supply of fire using silent magic, and I can create boosters on its sides to fly against air currents or generally propel myself around. While it's not necessarily the fastest and also not a very cool design, the other option would be to walk for a day and then get on horseback to creep along, while the God King and others can prepare, like Felgar did in Uarapo.
"[What were you doing?]" Tahiri comes up to me and asks with a grin. She clearly watched me fail and is here to rub it in. But let's see her keep on grinning when she sees my next move.
"[Get back, I'm doing something else.]" Waving for her to go away with a derisive gesture, upon which she shrugs and floats backwards, I begin my mental preparations. This won't look great, but at least it should be practical.
From within my upper body I use a flame to blow it up into an ever-expanding bubble composed of fire-resistant dragon armor, but made as thinly as possible. I don't want to accidentally overshoot my fire magic and burn myself down in midair, while carrying people who can't fly and won't be able to survive a fall from high up. Since I have a lot of matter to work with and this is actually hollow, I can easily make this larger than the Godslayer Cannon. Don't know if this will be able to fly on just hot air alone, but I'll be able to experiment some.
Next up, I turn my lower body into a large gondola similar to those found on zeppelins rather than on hot air balloons. After all, it has to be big enough to fit at least four people, of whom three need to sleep, and of whom in turn one needs to be separated from the others by several walls. I use dragon bones to achieve this, since they're far lighter than their armor, and while they lack the same magic resistance, they're very durable, too.
And within that gondola, I create an avatar of myself, just like I did when I played with Aurelia inside my body, while we were on our way to the moon. As long as I use the ground or a lifeline to connect to the rest of the construct, I can perform separate actions this way, and properly interact with my passengers.
Now it's time for the flight test.
The hot air is already creating an uplifting sensation, but it seems that I don't have enough yet. The bubble isn't fully inflated anyway, so I increase the intensity of the fire inside me, causing the air to expand much faster. Really, if only I knew how to create a gas that could lift this form, I wouldn't have to worry about heating up the air all the time.
The gondola begins to leave the ground. At first only hovering less than my body's height, it begins to float up faster and faster. Since my body ignores the laws of physics, I can always just pull matter out of my interior to weigh myself down. And since I'll be carrying passengers - especially Korenga, who might turn into her Black God form at any moment - I need to factor that in, too.
For the next few minutes I begin adding more and more weight to the gondola, until I feel like it's about as heavy as all the people who will ride inside me are going to weigh. I'll tell Uten and Saten to be at their lightest, by hollowing themselves out for the time being, and Tahiri should just fly on the outside. Maybe I'll make her go back to Aoranam to get us some Oripiaw from Rangi, while making a status report and check on how they're doing.
I'm staying afloat, somewhere at the height of where Uarapo used to be. I can see that it has completely burned down, with some parts being covered by flowing lava. The once beautiful and colorful mountain-side city is now in irrecoverable ruins because of our fight. If I had come during peaceful times and without being an enemy of the state, it would most definitely have made for an interesting place for sightseeing.
I sigh.
Ever since coming to this world I haven't had that many opportunities to see much of every place's culture. The best time I had was when I traveled with Rolan and his party. But thinking of him causes anger to well up. He killed my mother, even if it was a team effort by the gods, and he was just a puppet in their plot. It's not like he or his sword could have had the power to achieve it on their own, but he knew that she was my mother, so when he swung it down, he understood what he was doing.
Damn, now my mood has turned sour.
I look down and see the camp the others have finished to set up. It feels bad to make them pack up again, but I'd like to get moving. They can just transfer everything onto the gondola and do the cooking inside or something. I'll have to consider how to deal with all kinds of waste, but I guess I'll either drop it to the ground below or just take it inside my body. After all this time I've lost any and all apprehension regarding that, since it's usually the first thing that happens with beings I swallow up inside me. In the end, it's all organic matter, and there's no such thing as disease for me...
Enough about toilet things.
I weigh myself down more and begin to descend again. Uten and Saten are looking up at me in awe, and I can see that the others are doing the same from the camp. Awhina's mouth is hanging open as she drops the firewood she was somehow able to collect from all these scorched surroundings. Mereana looks somewhat scared at the sheer size of me, while Korenga is laughing like a child. Tahiri, who made fun of me earlier, has her arms crossed and grins with a resigned expression.
"[Get on, everyone. We'll take off right away.]" Opening a door on my side, I let my avatar, which is connected to the ship through its feet, step into the doorway and wave at them to come over.
"[What is this, mama?]" My children are the first to run over with sparkling eyes and ask my avatar. "[What did you turn into?]"
"[This?]" With my arms spread out and gesturing at the rest of my body with grandeur, I announce theatrically. "[It's an airship.]"