Chapter 168: Fire and Brimstone

Mercury felt a storm crash upon his fur.

No, even calling it a storm would have been inadequate.

Mercury was a friend of the . The air, quite literally, would shy away from him. Try to keep him safe. Despite that, the simple act of Zyl throwing a punch created winds so strong he saw rocks as large as him be blown away and smashed to bits, far down below.

The falling stones shattering down below sounded like rain, except instead of raindrops each impact echoed and was like thunder.

In Mercury's mind, time was ticking slowly, though.

His feet were firmly planted on the ground, claws digging into the stone as he held on. His muscle density was increased to the maximum, making him much heavier than he aught to be, and still he had to hold on.

And still, he was expressionless.

Long since the start of the conflict, Mercury had split his mind in two. He’d tried to analyze both Trinya and Berthorn with his Zeyjn. Now one of them laid on the floor, bleeding out.

The weapon had entirely thrown him off.

It was a sphere. Looked like some kind of small-ish snowglobe. Then it straight up ripped reality apart and instantly incapacitated a dragon.

Mercury could still hear the noise gnawing at his mind. The ray of light searing his eyes, leaving behind a faint, discoloured trail wherever he turned to look. And Zyl extended his hand and blocked that, just for him.

Was Trinya dead? He didn’t think so, no, she was most likely still alive. He really couldn’t imagine someone as meticulous as her dying to a single shot. But if so, would she willingly remain on the floor?

Never.

He might not know a lot about the lady, but if he knew anything, it was her ambition. She was obsessed with power to the point of sacrificing both her sons for it. Unless there was some kind of plan, she would not lay down by choice.

So he had to think. Act like he was frozen and petrified. Simply standing still, as a bystander. Zyl blocked the attack for him and got injured, and for a moment, Mercury could feel his blood boil.

But he had . The fury disappeared like dust in the wind. Some part of him also triggered , hoping to simply be ignored by Berthorn as he came up with a plan.

That wasn’t what happened.

All of it was within the blink of an eye. Zyl punched. Berthorn recoiled for a moment, rocketing backwards as though he’d been hit by a freight train, but his feet remained on the floor. The movement stopped when his back was arched, as though he’d hit an invisible wall.

That moment, Mercury activated . But it was different from each time before. Instead of ignoring him, Berthorn’s head snapped around. His eyes narrowed.

There was a part of Mercury that had a moment of curiosity. Why did Berthorn snap around like that, he wondered. Why was it that this man, unlike anyone before, would look at him when he activates his ability to hide?

Of course, most of him didn’t think that. Most of his thoughts were focused on finding a way to survive.

Berthorn simply waved his hand, and in the blink of an eye, noxious mist swept forth. Mercury could hardly understand how much mana that one movement would have taken, as the bubbling greenish-purple smoke was enough to engulf half the mountaintop. It spilled over the rocks ground, hissing as the stones dissolved.

It was not simply poisonous, but acidic, too, and entirely capable of dissolving Mercury. His instincts kicked into gear before he could think. activated almost entirely on its own.

The Skill was strange. It had always had something to do with a “path”, sure, but only vaguely. Usually, it meant clearing his way, and yes, this was true now as well. He could see the mist begin to faintly part. But wherever it moved aside, more simply spilled in. Only to be parted by the Skill again.

But the sheer volume of gas was so overwhelming, that instead of trying to clear a path, it instead shower Mercury one. Down the side of the mountain. It wanted him to simply run.

Then he understood that it wasn’t the Skill. The fear was all him. He wondered when he’d become such a coward.

Mercury took a deep of the remaining clean air, and felt ihn’ar set in. He made a request, very politely, asking the wind to shift and blow from behind him.

It hesitated for a moment, then obliged.

A gust picked up, blowing the fog away.

And yet more spilled it.

There had been another three thundercracks since Berthorn’s attack. Zyl was entirely furious with the attack, striking his brother’s face with all the force he could muster, but Berthorn remained entirely calm, a placid smile on his face.

“Ah,” he said, after reeling back from an attack. “I truly do apologize. I forgot to tell you the name of my move. This is my . Please, Mercury, do appraise it.” A smile still caressed his lips, even when trickles of blood flowed down his cheeks.

Then it touched Mercury, and his fur began to dissolve.

- - - - - -

Berthorn had a smile on his face, but his eyes were calm. Entirely devoid of emotion.

He just didn’t understand how. How did that meager beast keep being such a thorn in his side? Day after day it foiled his plans. Now the time had come to make use of it.

Of course Zyl would protect the furball. That was precisely why Berthorn targeted him. Fighting with someone to protect was almost as bad as having a hand behind your back, in some senses even worse.

And despite that. Despite the fact that the little creature should have been only an obstacle, somehow, Berthorn’s Skills activated.

It was a sudden shift. There was always a dim halo of unpredictability around the thing, of a minor danger. Yet that seemed treacherous now, and he already paid the monster much more respect. But despite that, despite his genuine admiration for the beast’s tenacity and craftiness, the warnings around it still shifted.

They dimmed. All of Berthorn’s Skills suddenly told him the thing was less dangerous, all except one. His core Skill, the one that had allowed him to survive all the way up until now, rang warning bells in his mind.

.

It was such a wonderfully unassuming Skill, and he truly loved that about it. In truth, by itself didn’t really do that much. It simply allowed one to consider unlikely possibilities. Ideas which would be outrageous might become feasible and be properly evaluated.

Essentially, the more complicated something was to figure out, the more deeply hidden a mystery was, the greater the effect of the Skill on the situation. And when suddenly each and every one of his Skill told him that this mopaaw, the thing of his nightmares, was not dangerous? That was something that stuck out like a sore thumb to .

All his senses told Berthorn that there was nothing truly there, nothing to worry about, simply a bit of the background, but he knew, absolutely knew to trust himself. Without hesitation, he spent a great chunk of his mana on an attack. So much mana, it would take him days to refill it all. Perhaps longer.

was one of his most cruel Skills. It wasn’t simply poison or acid. It was decay distilled down into its purest form, an everlasting hunger to consume and consume and consume.

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To some degree, calling it everlasting was an exaggeration. Of course there were ways to stop the attack. The easiest would be to simply overwhelm it with mana so dense that it could not continue to assimilate it.

The misama could be disassembled, blown somewhere without anything for it to consume, so on and so forth. But that wasn’t the scenario.

Right now, it was heading towards a target. It could eat through stone and multiply. Rip the rock apart into its barest bits of essence and construct more miasma from doing so. And it would happen over and over and over again.

And still, despite it all, Berthorn was paranoid. He knew that it wasn’t enough to kill the thing. That the little monster would somehow simply walk through the cloud, reappear on the other side, and stare him down.

Just thinking of that made his scar ache.

Well, not as much as the next moment when another punch impacted his face. Blood spewed from his nose, but his smile didn’t waver. His brother had always been stronger. Every moment he had spent in Zyl’s shadow, sometimes more happily than others.

Now, thought?

The punches just didn’t properly hurt.

Sure, sure, a few bones in his face were broken. He’d have a black eye, a few fractures, maybe even a handful of nasty shards of calcium in his face. But it was all nothing.

If this were Zyl, truly the Zyl he’d always looked up to, the punches wouldn’t be breaking bone. His skin would evaporate before there was even physical contact.

Berthorn spat out some blood into Zyl’s face and a tooth came along with it as he stumbled backwards. Despite it all, he laughed. “Jijijiji, Zyl! Why are you being so cold, brother? Do you feel I am treating you unjustly?”

He saw the jaw of the other man clench. Zyl moved slowly, deliberately. He had to, because he was running out of steam, and Berthorn knew. He was mocking his flame for not showing its true radiance. And the irony of that was that he was stealing the spark.

What a poetic little injustice.

A moment later, Zyl had wiped the blood off his face. “I’ll make you pay,” he said.

Berthorn felt a hint of fear at that. Well, a lot of fear, rather, but he had felt so much more over his life, this was nothing. No, no, what he was instead worrying about was not the dragon in front of him.

Zyl was powerful, yes, but he was predictable. He would kick and punch and use fire. But in the back of his head, was still whispering. The mopaaw was alive. How? Why? It didn’t matter. Immediately, he changed the structure of .

He saw the edges of his attack be blown aside by the wind. He made it heavier. Turned it from a mist into a creeping fog, crawling along the floor. Made it turn almost invisible, too, by adding in even more mana and having it partially take on the properties of what it consumed. It would grow slower as it assimilated more of the rock, but it would grow heavier, immovable, essentially turning into a trap for anyone who stepped close.

Now, obviously, even someone like Berthorn couldn’t simply alter a Move at will like that. No, he’d meticulously prepared for this. Zyl was his greatest worry, of course, anything else would simply be folly. But he simply needed to outlast. His brother would eventually weaken.

But the beast? It needed to be stopped. He wanted to kill it, desperately, but even if the very system sent him the kill message, he was unsure whether he’d believe it by now. Every inch of was focused on the mopaaw, on knowing in the back of his mind that it was alive. That it would come from the fog to haunt him like the little monster it was.

Before he’d asked himself how it could do such things. Where had it come from? Why was it so attached to his brother?

Berthorn no longer asked those questions. They were irrelevant. He’d spent more time getting acquainted with the thing now. His body had been weakening from it. And for a while, so had his mind. Nightmare, lack of sleep, muscle atrophy. If he’d not already looked sickly before, he sure did now.

Another blow rocked his skull. This one had rolled off his shoulders into the side of his head. It scorched his suit, and left his skin burned black, and parts of his hair smoking and darkened.

He looked like shit by now, and despite it all, Berthorn smiled.

He smiled, because he was getting closer to victory.

- - - - - -

Zyl was panting. The air felt so thin up here, and his heart was pounding in his chest. Every muscle on his body screeched from exertion. He was like a starving man trying to run, and engine without gas.

All that power that he never wanted was gone, and the moment it disappeared he wished he could have it back.

He felt so angry he wanted to cry. Maybe he was. His face felt so hot he couldn’t have told whether there were tears running down it. None of his Moves triggered properly, none of his Skills enhanced his attacks like they should, and it felt horrible.

Despite it, Zyl continued to fight. He was forcing Berthorn back. Every attacked rocked the other man, hurt him, broke through his defenses, yet while usually his every swing would be more powerful than the previous one, such was not the case.

In his chest, there was no roaring dragonfire. There was not even a spark. There was an incomplete picture of sorrow and loss. There was a hole, a part of him that was taken away, that was being filled by a very huggable, lovely little furry idiot. There was no Mercury next to him to ligthen the load.

Zyl bit the inside of his lip until he tasted iron. He clenched his fists so hard they hurt and struck forward again. Berthorn dodged backwards, but he just wasn’t fast enough, and the blow struck true again. Zyl felt the resistance, then the give as his brother was flung away for all of half a moment.

The movement stopped a moment later. No deceleration, no moment of resistance, all the momentum gone as though it had never been there. Blow after blow went the same. He smashed through Berthorn’s defences, the moves he used to resist him, only to have all the momentum and force disappear a moment later.

Every muscle in his body ached. They moved nonetheless.

He slammed fist after fist into his brother, an effort in futility.

Was he really fighting to win?

Zyl blinked when he had that realization. Why… why was he doing this exactly?

The moment he doubted himself, Berthorn’s fist slammed into his face.

It was slick with blood, and coated in dust as it impacted Zyl, driving a sharp pain through his cheek into his nose and up towards his forehead. The hit stunned Zyl enough for Berthorn to smack him a second time, hitting the same spot but on the opposite side of Zyl’s face.

The red-haired dragon stumbled back a handful of steps. He was… bleeding. From his nose. Why was there so much blood coming from his nose?

Berthorn approached him, and he forced the shock down. Flames flickered to life again on his hands, throwing glowing sparks of blinding white around. In Zyl’s vision though, they faded away. Everything seemed blurry, interlaced with flecks of rainbow iridescence.

Zyl couldn’t tell why it was. Surely, exhaustion played a part in it. He was running on fumes. But then, Berthorn was also known for poison. He just… wanted to pass out so badly. Then he looked over at where Mercury - probably - was.

He couldn’t see the little fuzzball through all the fog. It was like… a coffin of brown mist. Something like a prison.

The thought sent shivers down his spine. Thinking of his lovely partner once again stuck somewhere.

Zyl breathed. Deep in his chest, there was a hole. He’d torn it himself, he knew where it was and why it was there. And so close to the missing piece, he felt it resonate, seeking to return to him. Could he fall here?

No. He couldn’t.

Berthorn didn’t come in for another swing. The plasma around Zyl’s arms burned brighter. He quickly ducked low to the floor, swiping at Berthorn’s feet. He only managed to kick one out under him, but Zyl’s elbow still came crashing down on his brother’s chest all the same, sending the venomous bastard to the floor.

Zyl spat some blood. “Alright brother. Stop your games. I will kill you.”

From the crater, he heard a laugh. The rocks were splattered with blood. It was mostly red with specks of toxic green. The laugh lasted for too long. “Fine then, brother. Let us see who dies.”

For a moment, Zyl felt the world go silent. There was a pull at his soul, the very core of his being, a little point that Mercury had told him. Reflexively, he leaned to the right.

There was the horrible sound of reality ripping apart.

Where his head had just been, a beam arced through, soaring into the sky and annihilating the clouds for miles. The air hissed and burned, the water turned into vapor violently, only to cool down again.

It was silent for ten seconds, then hail began to fall.

Once again a laugh came from the crater. “Damn, I was so sure that would work!” Despite his apparent displeasure, Berthorn slowly rose from the hole, dusting himself off. His clothes were coated in blood, now, as was the floor. But he still got ready.

“Come at me, brother,” he said.

Zyl punched him in the face.

- - - - - -

“Why do people keep almost dying around me?” Irrithuriel cursed, quickly pulling out herbs.

Trinya didn’t reply. In fact, her eyes were still wide open, staring off into the sky. She was probably in shock. Her pupils were dilated to the fullest extent, and her breathing hardly even noticeable.

“Fuck me,” Irrithuriel kept cursing. Behind her, explosion after explosion rang out as she cast a few simple spells, then poured a couple potions over the other dragon. “Come on, Trinyakorie. Work with me here. If you want to live, you’ll have to shift.”

There was no reply. Maybe a small twitch, but it was so faint, Irrithuriel was unsure whether it was even an acknowledgement.

Instead of considering that, the old dragon pulled out more herbs, and began preparing some salves. Well, with most of them, others she just shoved into Trinya’s mouth, then cast minor spells to get the materials into the woman’s stomach.

Now, that still was a good path for them to take to the floor, which is what the salve was for. It only took a small bit to prepare, a minute or so at most, but it was more than enough time for multiple explosions behind her.

With practiced motions, she smeared it onto the bandage, then wrapped that around Trinya’s stomach, stemming the bleeding. The amount of blood was probably enough to fill a small pool by now, but that didn’t truly mean anything just yet.

The wound was so clean it was easy to dress, but at the same time, that also meant that it was hard for the healing to kickstart properly. Irrithuriel grimaced, and began lightly smacking Trinya’s cheeks.

“Come on you old hag, wake up and cooperate!”

Behind her, there was a crash and a crater appeared.

She poured more potions onto Trinya, dozens upon dozens of hours of painstaking work being used on someone she considered an enemy. Someone she did not consider worthy of death.

“Stop letting your life flash before your eyes and shift already!!!” Irrithuriel hissed into the woman’s ear.

Then, Trinya’s eyes twitched. Properly twitched, a full motion. Her pupils contracted at a moment’s notice, going from the size of her entire iris to being as small as pinholes in an instant. Then she screeched. It would have sounded like a banshee had she the air to support it for more than a moment.

Yet, despite her horrendous condition, the air stirred. The mana in the atmosphere shifted, gathering towards them. For dozens of miles, every speck of magic was drawn towards the mountaintop as Trinya’s body changed. Her bones cracked, reshaped, and moved. Her spine grew longer, wings erupting from her back. Her fingers melded into claws, and her entire skin was covered by scales.

Even Zyl and Berthorn had to look over from their battle. For the first time, the coward brother’s face fell. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kept all of focused on Mercury after all.

Now, there was a full sized dragon to contend with. And she was angry.