The scale of battle at the precipice of existence is nearly impossible to comprehend for the mortal mind. The higher beings had long stopped hosting their skirmishes within the confines of physical realms after a single clash left a dozen universes bereft of life. This was before The Tree established The System, but old treaties held firm even in the face of the Grand Connection and the change which came with it.
Cavarix did not remember how she used to fight when she was as powerful as a god, nor was her current form the phase in her life she would have chosen for a battle. The transitionary period between life and death had left her mindless for the most part, and even now she felt her mind fracturing into pure aggression and rage. As a fragment of information within The Tree’s collection, she had retained faculties which were frustratingly slipping away.
Every moment of her new life cemented the decisions of the first. They had been righteous, she knew, to strike out at the usurper of fate. That Cavarix would be used by the very System which she abhorred was exactly why she had gazed upon the stars as they died and cursed the devourer. Those who rebelled against this twisting of destiny were branded heretical and cast to the very fringe of The Tree’s light. It was those “heretical” prayers which Mortsesax had heard.
The warband Mortesax had gathered was legendary. Their names continued to slip from Cavarix’ mind as she clashed over and over with the humanoid. A tickle of nostalgia brushed against her failing mind as magic ignited the air and the boy’s skin lit up. A name, and then another, crashing like waves before ebbing away into the black sea of her mind. Galvanox. Stormborn. Like the names of her comrades, they faded into the darkness, too.
Darkness is a friend, an insidious voice whispered in her own voice. “Not that darkness,” she wanted to respond. Instead, she sank into it. She became a weapon of the System, no memory of her pride or rebellion. All she knew now was the threat of the dragon in human form challenging her. Only vaguely aware of her impending ego death, Cavarix’ body attacked as her mind gathered the last wisps of consciousness and tried desperately to cling to one single thread. The thickest strand was clutched in her claws and she wouldn’t let go.
The System is the enemy, she told herself even as words lost meaning. Strike out at the Great Connection, she urged her alien body. Pain lanced through her body as the powerful humanoid struck her skull hard. Her thoughts tumbled through the imagined grip she had on them. With her mightiest roar, Cavarix the Rot Dragon degenerated completely into the wild beast which had terrorised the planet of her birth.
Cavarix the Dracolich shot forth.
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“You pissed it off!” Morris screamed at me from below. “Why?!” I ignored his frantic questions in favour of staying alive. He wasn’t wrong, the last attack had changed something within the monster. I wasn’t sure whether it was for the worst yet as I wove through the wind, just on the edge of its attacks. Though I rejected the comparison inherently, I floated on the wind like an insect being swatted. Bobbing around the first swipe, I let gravity take me out of the way of the next.
Miniboss - Cavarix the Dracolich - Level 80
Its name changed midfight? What is this, its second phase? I released a pair of Blasts, two pillars of light pushing me to the ground and punching into the zombie dragon nicely. It was knocked off its downward course and crashed into the swampy ground with a crunch. “You did it!” Morris shouted, and I winced as I landed from his wording.
“Why would that fool tempt fate so obviously?” In the sudden quiet, I heard Hassian’s complaint even as I thought the same thing. Reminding myself that the dragon definitely would have got up whether Morris had jinxed it or not, I just shook my head and cracked my neck. It had been a long time since I felt my mana pool so empty, and I took a steadying breath. It cost more to activate Infusion than to keep it running, so I didn’t release my buffing skills just yet.
A grisly regeneration was taking place, far more magical in nature than simple healing. When Naea used mana to heal my wounds, she was just giving the area energy to recover as it normally would. In contrast, an aura exploded from the dragon before sucking back in quickly, taking bone shards and more back with it. Those pieces of broken dragon bits were sucked back into place like chunks of broken plate. There were obvious portions missing, powdered into dust or lost some other way, but in a few seconds, the undead dragon was turning around to look for me.
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“Over here, ugly!” I shouted, casting my Dao forward to act as a lure. I wasn’t sure how well this thing could see without eyes, but as its snout snapped in my direction, I knew it sensed me somehow. “Good,” I reminded myself, “that’s good.” Now it would come after me and not Morris. The man was dealing with the gale force Dao bursts very well considering, having only passed out twice. The tunnel of air created by the Dao of Tempests kept him stable and upright regardless.
I grit my teeth to stop myself yelling in fear as I reversed my trajectory and aimed for the dragon once more. All I could do was keep battling, though the lack of any obvious damage on the dracolich was sanding away my resolve. At least this should work, I told myself as I braced and dodged the snapping arm length teeth by a hair’s length. My fingers traced the papery scales and bones as we passed each other and I activated the skill I knew could deal with this.
Drain.
“Brave little thing,” a female voice whispered in my ear. Though, with the icy pain which came next, I wasn’t sure whether I was hallucinating or not. The Dracolich’s roar was loud enough to shake my eyes in their sockets, but the sound was dampened by the rigid and frozen mana in my veins. I fell and as I fell, I coughed. A cloud of thick, black mana tumbled from my mouth and I almost spat it away. No, I told myself, you did the hard work already.
Instead of casting the mana into the air, I crushed it into a point. With my hands, the caustic energy transformed due to the pressure. A tiny gap opened in my hand, and the lance shot forth. The technique’s base was Blast, but with an arrowhead of pure death. The ominous idea of the attack improved its efficacy as it shot forward and ripped open the Dracolich’s throat. I shook my head to remove the haze. “Damn,” I moaned, “still sucks.”
Absorbing and using the death flavoured mana was both painful and disorientating, but it was all I had. Each physical clash was a risk, and showed no momentum leaning my way. As I expended the zombie dragon’s own energy to attack it, I could feel a visible change in the energy of the boss room. It worked. I found my resolve tested but this was not a fight I could afford to lose.
None of them were, I was beginning to realise. “Losing” in Londimin, even if it was my choice not to fight back, had led to this entire situation. Anything less than a win here, and in the rooms to come, would mean not just my own death. While it maybe wasn’t healthy for me to place the weight of humanity on my back, I had done it all the same. My people, at least, would fall if I did. Naea would die. Whatever wavering my resolve had been doing ceased. It didn’t matter that it hurt.
I had to win. Drawn by anger, the scent of magic and pure primal. My hands moved through the air, stealing colour as they went. Drain activated to a level I had not yet allowed it to touch for fear it would take too much. There was no such thing as too much here. Only not enough. I braced my mental barriers and again strafed the dragon’s massive body, stealing power and more as I went.
It wasn’t until the world turned dark and everything disappeared that I realised I fucked up. “Oh yes,” that female voice purred before the tidal wave crashed into me, “you’ll do nicely.” I fell into my own consciousness as another, heavier, ancient soul muscled its way into the space around my core. I sank, even as I fought back for control of my body. In a horrified moment I realised why the sensation felt so familiar. This wasn’t the first time a dragon had taken over my body.
A shudder went through my very soul, and the swaddling shadow around my core chuckled. “Struggle away, little puppet. The strings are all already here, why do you care who pulls them?” Falling heavily from the sky alongside the body of the gigantic beast, both of us were deadweight. We crashed down together and the terror of my out-of-body experience intensified.
Out of my control, my body stood. My hands flexed, bones cracking underneath the skin as too much strength was used. “Did you… do it?” Morris asked. I wanted to scream that I had lost, but instead my body dusted itself off awkwardly and nodded without speaking. Morris hesitated at a distance and I could have cheered him. “What’s your name?” He asked.
I felt irritation in the miasma surrounding my core. The rotten soul of Cavarix started to reach for my mana, and I knew Morris was about to face his death if I didn’t fight back. “Wrong choice,” I snarled to myself in the darkness. My physical attributes were staggering compared to the others, and if the dragon had just launched forward with my muscles alone, it would have slaughtered everyone.
But mana? That was my speciality. There had been no purchase for me to fight back, left adrift and forced to watch the dragon get used to my body. However, when Cavarix connected to the mana in my core, I struck like a viper. If I couldn’t control my body, I would have to control something else. If I hadn’t followed the path I had, I couldn’t have responded, but I had a ready-made persona ready to face the overwhelming darkness above me. Deep within the very core of my being, a rising growl became a howl, and then a roar.
The Dao Avatar of the Dragon rose from within, lighting up the darkness. I felt Cavarix flinch away from my power as I started to push back against her foul grasp. On the outside, poor Morris was forced to face the Dao without my protection. He responded admirably, but I couldn’t focus on him. The battle for my soul was all I could focus on. The Dragon Slayer title seemed to still be working, along with another, perhaps more important achievement for this specific moment.
It was time for me to earn the title for real. Time for me to slay a dragon.
Achievement - Dao Breaker
Just as the cultivator becomes stronger by grasping the Dao, when that understanding is shattered, the path is severed.
Effect: Greater Resistance to Dao Influences
Greater Dao Influence Upon Others