The Duel

Akamori Shinjo drifted into the frigid void focused on Keimut and his approaching horde. The debris strewn battlespace of Anazi Prime’s outer solar system sparkled like a dash of silver glitter spilled on black satin framing the backdrop for the coming confrontation. Angered by the defeat of his treacherous allies, Keimut has come to try and finish off the gang once and for all. This was it. No more pretenses were necessary in Anazi Prime’s solar system.

Keimut reared back and bellowed a challenging roar that rippled across space, knocking dust free of an asteroid field, and shifting the path of a great hydrogen storm on a nearby gas giant that would have taken it centuries to shift into on its own power. Draconic eyes locked on to Akamori with electrical hatred.

Nonplussed, Akamori used some of his remaining pool of magic to channel his own imitation of the Dragon’s Roar, a move he’d learned from training with his father and modifying it to his own purposes. Only when he let loose his own, an opaque mirage of Bahumet’s head appeared behind him menacingly.

Keimut’s charge faltered for a moment against the mirage of the Void Wyrm. His face twisted with rage. Foolishness and misunderstanding warped his interpretation of the gesture from knowing it to be a territorial challenge and posture, to that of trying to win with a cheap trick.

“You dare! To slay our kin, and then use our likeness to justify your heresy!”

Akamori sighed exhaustedly. The small puff of frozen fading like gas from a maneuver jet. His body ached for rest and he felt like he’d been bouncing from one disaster to the next with no end in sight.

“Look, I’m over explaining myself to you. The fact is, I’m already beyond your gaze. You just haven’t been able to see past your own snout to realize it yet. I’m not playing games here, this is serious. Stand down now and you might just walk away from this in more than one piece. But push the issue? And I will end you. I’ve got a war to fight and I don’t have time for side quests like you.”

You mean to duel this fool? Thanaton, his sentient spell blade rumbled.

“He’s not giving me much choice. And if I have to fight, I’d rather do it on my terms instead of his. In a duel we can keep things contained. A large battle would just put everyone else at risk. This is essentially my mess. It’s time to start cleaning house.”

How uncharacteristically mature for you.

“Yeah well, don’t get too used to it. He just caught me in a bad mood, that’s all.”

“Are...Are you talking to yourself?” Keimut asked, slight confusion settling into his voice.

“No?” Akamori said in a pitch high enough to sound like a question. “I’m talking to my sword. Technically there’s a difference.”

A bolt of lightning lanced by Akamori but he made no move to dodge, simply swatting the spell aside like an annoying fruit fly.

“So here’s my proposal. We duel. One on one. You finally get to put your scales into the ring to back up all this painful preening you’ve been doing. If you win? You get my head. If I win? I get yours. Simple enough.”

A gravely laugh purred from the dragon as it grinned the spell soldier turned void reaper turned demigod.

“Your terms are acceptable little mage. Prepare yourself.”

“Bitch, I came ready.”

Thanaton’s edge twirled, glinting in the sunlight. A promise of pain to come. By contrast, Keimut morphed into his humanoid form. An elegantly dressed draconic humanoid. Wings, a tail and wavy white hair that billowed like a shampoo ad from his back in a perpetual breeze. His way too handsome face made Akamori huff in disgust. Why were they always so good looking? It was just weird.

Keimut extended a hand and summoned a long blade of solid air. Light and razor sharp. Akamori was certain Keimut’s blade could cleave atoms if the aim was accurate enough. A notion he had no intention of testing.

The two warriors began their duel with a flurry. Akamori ducked and weaved, parried and jabbed with Thanaton. His foe was fast as lightning, the air around him crackling with electricity as he moved. Keimut seemed to be everywhere at once, his strikes coming from all sides in a dizzying array of feints and ripostes.

But Akamori was no slouch either. He kept up with the dragon’s speed, using Thanaton’s unique properties to manipulate the surrounding air currents and redirect his foe’s blows away from him. The fight quickly became one of attrition, both sides looking for an opening in each other’s defense that they could exploit before they ran out of steam. Keimut hurled a bolt of lightning at Akamori with a snarl. Akamori caught the bolt in one hand and allowed the energy to wind up his arm, across his back to the opposite arm and redirect the blast back at Keimut. The spell blasted the humanoid dragon in the stomach, darkening white and sky blue scales.

Keimut’s face twisted into a hate filled scowl, small dagger like teeth bared. “You treasonous wretch! We should have devoured you the moment you revealed yourself.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Why, because I didn’t just roll over and let one of your kind end me unopposed? No. We both know that’s not how your kind work. And I have the soul of Bahumet coursing through me.”

To punctuate his point, massive draconic wings made of void magic unfurled from his back. More display than function. But the point was made. Keimut trembled as he felt Bahumet’s aura radiating free of Akamori and the soul seal. The closer Akamori drifted towards divinity, the weaker it became as the need for it diminished. He could still vaguely the remember the white hot burning sensation that racked his body when his home world was attacked. Now he felt cold and frigid. Like the void itself.

He wondered if that was the result of his growth, or if he’d just gotten used to the power.

A little of both. Your body and soul has grown in strength to handle the surplus aether, and you’ve also grown used to the feeling of channeling power beyond your own capability. Our soul carries with a will that defies conventional wisdom and understanding. You are still in your divine infancy, however eventually your soul will overwhelm the seal. Until then you must learn to control and regulate your arua and soul.

Bahumet’s rumbling voice echoed in his mind, but it was a private conversation. Not one for the much younger dragon warrior’s ears. Akamori watched Keimut reign in his anxiety and recommit. Good. He wanted the cocky bastard back, not some whimpering wyrm.

Electricity crackled around the emboldened Keimut. It was time to put this wyrm to the test and see if he was truly fit to be the unofficial leader of the last dragonflight.

Akamori , Bahumet’s voice whispered in his mind. You must learn to control the flow of energy within you. When the aether swirls around us, it is both an ally and an enemy. You must learn to manipulate it so that it works for you, rather than against you.

Akamori nodded silently in agreement, preparing himself for battle. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to feel the aether around him like a second skin. He reached out with his soul, feeling its connection with the natural world and the power of Bahumet surging through him. He could even feel Frank’s power adding in as well.

Slowly but surely he began to direct the flow of energy, letting it move through him in waves as if he was part of an oceanic cycle. He felt his body grow stronger and more alive as he embraced this newfound sense of power and control. With each passing moment he could feel himself growing closer and closer to perfecting this newfound art of manipulation and understanding.

The two crashed into each other, this time with Akamori emerging as the superior bladesman. Keimut had some skill, but he’d leaned on his raw physical attributes above any technique with a blade. Where those came up short, it was clear he’d used political manipulation to further ascend. Akamori on the other hand had faced crucible after crucible. As though his life thus far was just one engineered trial after another.

Blades danced off each other with a discordant song of struck metal. Spells hammered into each other creating a shower of ambient aether. A resonant pressure began to build with the two warriors in the center. Akamori and Keimut’s auras crashed into each other. Their powerful wills pressing against each other. Keimut’s was refined and eloquent, where Akamori’s was raw and wild power untamed. Each daring the other to blink.

Akamori saw an opportunity when Keimut overextended himself during an aggressive strike and left himself exposed for a moment too long. With a quick thrust of his sword he drove Thanaton into the dragon’s abdomen, piercing it with deadly accuracy.

Keimut roared in pain, falling back to cradle his wound with both hands. Akamori took advantage of the opening and continued attacking relentlessly, his blade dancing around the dragon’s defenses as if they were not even there.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of dodging and parrying, Akamori landed a solid blow to Keimut’s neck with a powerful knife hand chop, sending him crashing to the hull of Theferis in a motionless heap.

Akamori hovered still for a moment, panting heavily. Each puff of air turned to frozen gas as it left his lungs in space. His lungs ached from exertion and sweat froze into tiny ice pellets that drifted free of his skin in the void. He had won. The consequences of the victory would completely alter the political landscape of the last dragonflight and dragon kind period.

Slowly he walked over to where Keimut lay motionless on the ground. He kneeled before the fallen creature and looked into its eyes. They were full of pain but also understanding as if Keimut knew why Akamori was forced to do what he did even if it didn’t agree with it.

For a brief moment Akamori felt sympathy for the man that lay before him but quickly buried the emotion under layers of steel determination as he made his final declaration.

“I won’t take your head in exchange for my own life. Instead, I want you to live knowing that I beat you. That an outrider beat you. As of this moment, I declare unfit to lead.” He said firmly as he withdrew Thanaton from its sheath and raised it high above his head for all to see. In one swift movement he brought down Thanaton one last time, sheathing the black blade swiftly.

It is unwise to let this one live. He has already cost you much. Do not leave an enemy at your back, Thanaton hissed.

“No. There’s been enough killing today. It’s time to get over shit and start looking at the real fight. Besides, I want him to feel this everytime he sees me.”

Keimut slowly rose, his air blade dissolved from his grip. A weary sigh easy past his lips. “I stand defeated...”

Matroness Azil arrived conveniently after hostilities settled with her smaller retinue. In one fluid beat of her wings she morphed from elegant elder dragon to smaller draconic humanoid form. The light blue silk of her robe billowed gently in the gravityless vacuum of the void. She cast a look at Keimut that almost settled on pity. Then to Akamori with something close to uncertainty.

“Matroness Azil. Good. We need to talk.” Akamori said with a look at Keimut.

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