Domains were the manifestation of a Transcendent’s will and power. These powerful abilities set Transcendents apart from non-Transcendents, and were the real reason why most non-Transcendents could not fight Transcendents even if the level gap was minimal. Domains functioned by saturating an area around the wielder with certain laws that sometimes twisted the very fabrics of reality.
Domains came in thousands of varieties, but they could be broken down into five major categories: Elemental, Physical, Mental, Cosmological, and Unique. Elemental Domains contained traces of fire, wind etc. Physical Domains augmented either the wielder, their allies, or both, and sometimes debilitated enemies. Mental domains dealt with illusions and other mental attacks, and Cosmological dealt with higher concepts like space, time, and gravity. Finally, Unique Domains comprised some special domains that didn’t fall into the major four.
The worst part of fighting a domain user was not knowing the rules that governed the domain. Without that information, it was very easy to fall into an abyssal trap without ever knowing it. This was even worse when facing someone with a Unique Domain.
Kashi’s brows furrowed as Alia kicked off the boulder, and launched straight at him. He jumped back, intending to put some distance between them until he figured out her abilities, but he suddenly felt something strike his chest. The impact was almost negligible, like a soft tap with a finger. On a normal day, Kashi might not have even noticed it, but his nerves were on full alert, so he was instantly alarmed.
Every warrior hated an invisible and undetectable attack!
Kashi was even more determined to increase his distance, but Alia pulled her arm back, and he felt a force tug him through the air towards her. Alia smiled as she kicked out at the stunned draconian.
Kashi quickly blocked the kicked with his arms but he crashed into the ground. The draconian gasped as several breaths escaped his body. Still suspended in the air, Alia followed up with a downward kick, aiming for his chest.
Whoosh! Alia aborted the attack at the last second. She pulled with her right hand and she inexplicably shot upward just as a tree root shot past her previous location. The young woman licked her lips and suddenly tumbled mid-air. The strange movement allowed her to dodge Sonic who suddenly appeared in front of her, swinging for her throat.
After dodging the fatal strike, Alia completed her tumble and delivered an overhead kick to the stunned Sonic. Within a second of appearing, the kafu guildmaster was in danger of having his head split open!
Sonic reacted quickly. He rapidly disappeared, and appeared next to a blade he kept elsewhere. Chills ran down the kafu’s spine as he thought back to that brief exchange. Alia had reacted too quickly back then! Not only did she dodge his carefully planned ambush, but she also counterattacked in the same motion. What kind of reflexes were those?
“Damn it!” Kashi cursed as he felt something tug him off the ground again before he could recover. The force sent him flying toward the airborne Alia. “Not again!” Kashi roared as arrows appeared within the draconian fingers. With a shout, he launched the arrows at Alia.
The daeben queen did not look perturbed by the sudden strike. She twisted and spun like she had predicted the attack. The harmlessly zipped past her, then she raised her arms, and winked at Kashi. “My turn.”
The daeben queen pulled her arms together and two floating boulders suddenly zipped toward Kashi. Bang!
Despite being off balance, Kashi swiftly punched out in both directions. Massive ki blasts shot out of his fists and shattered the boulders before they got close.
Above, Alia pointed her arms downward and ‘pulled’ up. Kashi, expecting to get tugged again, braced for impact, but he was stunned to see Alia blast toward him like she had been shot out of a cannon!
Bang! Alia crashed into Kashi just as several vines entwined at her previous location. Boom! The earth cracked as the duo smashed into the ground at an insane velocity. Kashi hit the ground first with his back, inadvertently aiding Alia, who used him as a cushion to break her fall.
Kashi revealed an angry smirk as he looked at the daeben sprawled above him. “I’m beginning to think you have a grudge against me!” Kashi growled as he grabbed Alia’s shoulder to keep her in place and then threw a harsh punch at her face.
Alia bent her head to the side, revealing a sultry smile as Kashi’s fist blew past her cheek. Kashi’s fist instantly turned to a claw and clamped down toward her neck. Alia sensed the threat. She pushed against Kashi’s shoulder, pushing herself backward until the claw just about missed. She then kicked off the ground, and somersaulted over the draconian’s head.
Kashi wouldn’t let her go so easily though. He spun around, so he was on all fours and then sprung at the daeben queen who was still in a headstand. “Ngh!” Kashi cursed when his right foot struck something, causing him to trip and lose his momentum.
Still smiling, Alia pushed against the ground with her hands so she ‘hopped’ just a few centimeters off the ground. That done, she ‘pulled’ the air, catapulting several meters away just as Sonic appeared next to her.
Although he missed his ambush, Sonic, also, had no desire to lose this chance where Alia was off-balance. He abandoned teleportation and sped toward Alia, determined to slice her head off.
Sonic used his blistering pace to close the distance in the blink of an eye. He stabbed at Alia’s exposed abdomen, intending to inflict a terrible injury to start. But just as he tasted victory, the kafu ran into ‘something.’ He could not understand what happened as something sticky pulled him back at the last second, preventing him from completing the attack.
A light flashed through Alia’s eyes during Sonic’s attack. She righted herself and then pulled toward a floating boulder. She landed and the structure and then smiled at Kashi and Sonic. “What’s the matter boys? Do you feel a little stuck?”
Kashi groaned as he pushed to his feet. “Well, that took a while, but I think I’ve figured out the gist of your domain.” The draconian dusted off his chest and pants before smirking at the daeben queen. “Unique Domains really are annoying.”
Under the daeben queen’s skeptical gaze, Kashi channeled mana into his eyes. Kashi’s view of the world instantly changed as he activated [Elder Dragon’s Eyes]. Blue mist took over most of Kashi’s view as Oni Hills overwhelming mana clouded his sight. He also thick mana and ki overlapping everyone – especially Alia who looked like she had thick blue armor surrounding her. The woman clearly had excellent mana control, but the density of her leaking mana was enough to reveal she was a true powerhouse.
“As I thought.” Kashi’s attention, however, was drawn to hundreds of thin mana lines that crisscrossed around the area. Some stretched between boulders, while others connected the boulders to the ground. Some connected to protruding rocks barely a few centimeters off the ground, while others were as high as a dozen meters in the air.
More importantly, Kashi looked down at his chest, and traced a thin mana line that connected him to Alia’s right hand. The draconian smirked and understanding dawned. “So, you can change your mana’s properties, making it adhesive?”
“Impressive, that was faster than I expected.” Alia praised with a small smile. “You truly are worthy of being our organization’s number one target.”
“Haha, I really wish you wouldn’t give me that much attention.” Kashi just wanted to keep a low profile as he went about doing his business. He did not know why all these bigshots kept putting him in the limelight. “Besides, I wouldn’t have figured it out without their help.” Kashi thumbed at Brilith and Sonic. “You made it a bit too obvious when you dodged their attacks. You just can’t maneuver in the air like that, especially without air-stepping. You couldn’t have dodged Brilith’s vines with air-stepping. She blocked off all escape routes.”
“Indeed.” Alia stated matter-of-factly as she sat on the boulder and crossed her legs. “You are in my domain: [Web of Shadows]. As you have figured, I can alter the properties of every mana in this domain. I can make them solid or adhesive. Furthermore, every movement that passes a mana string alerts me to your presence.”
“Like a spider’s web,” Kashi muttered. “Ingenious.”
“It is indeed good to work with intelligent people,” Alia casually swung her leg as she replied. “What do you say? You know you’ve already lost. I can trap you all anytime I wish. Why not just give up, and save yourself the humiliation.”
“Conquerors are men of action, not words.”
“What?”
Kashi chuckled. “It’s something I heard in a previous life. If you had the ability to trap us, you would have done so long ago. You don’t seem the narcissistic type, so I do not think you would toy with us just to inflate your ego.” The draconian’s eyes sparkled. “It’s not that you don’t want to trap us, but that you can’t .”
Ignoring Alia’s darkening expression, the draconian crossed his arms and continued, “If my guess is correct, you haven’t perfected your domain yet. Yes, you probably only recently became a Transcendent. You are unable to truly make this a ‘webbed world,’ or we would have gotten trapped immediately the fight started. No. You can only manipulate a few mana strings at a time, can’t you?”
On the surface, Alia maintained a good poker expression, but her fluctuating mana did not escape Kashi’s draconian eyes. “Hehe, pretty clever. Since you can perfectly track our movements, any attempt to ambush you is bound to fail. Furthermore, you can solidify any mana string when you get overwhelmed to push off pressure. You can easily stall as long as we kept trying to ambush you with surprises, but what if we changed strategies?”
Kashi raised his hand which was coated in mana and swiped downward. Physical objects could not interfere with mana, but it was child’s play to tear mana with mana. Especially when the former was thin and feeble in nature.
Snip! The mana string connected to Kashi’s chest dissolved into the aether after Kashi tore it in half. The daeben smiled and then called out, “Brilith, we don’t know each other very well, but I need you to trust me.”
Brilith frowned. She did not like the idea of relying on someone else, but she knew they were working on a deadline. Kashi’s summon would not stay indefinitely. They needed to get him to Skyrm before Belrug returned. With this reasoning, she buried her unease and asked, “What do you need?”
“Thirty meters sphere radius from where I’m standing. Coat your vines with thin mana and cause as move havoc as you can. Forget about friendly fire. Just whip as much as you can. Can you do that?”
Brilith’s brows furrowed. Surrounding such a large radius with vines was already severely mana draining, but also coating the vines with mana would leave her a husk. She could maintain such a state for a minute at most before being left utterly defenseless. Even if they won, could she really trust Kashi and Sonic not to take the opportunity to eliminate a potential enemy.
As if sensing Brilith’s distrust, Kashi turned to look at her. He sent a toothy grin her way as he flashed a thumbs-up. “Trust me.”
Brilith’s heart skipped a beat as Kashi’s smile overlapped over a distant memory. A child no more than seven years old said those same words as he stretched his hand towards her. She often wondered, if she had not taken that hand back then, would things have turned out differently?
Perhaps it was because of that distant memory, or maybe due to Kashi’s reputation, Brilith only took a moment before nodding grimly.
“Great!” Kashi laughed and then turned to Sonic. “I hope your instincts are as fast as your speed. We’re going for direct assault this time.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Don’t you worry about me.” Sonic twirled a pair of daggers and softly spat out a thistle. “Direct assault, is it? I’ll take point.”
“Are you finished strategizing?” If Alia was disturbed by Kashi’s revelation, she did a perfect job of hiding it. Instead, she smiled as she slipped on a pair of gem-encrusted gloves. “I suppose it is time I took this seriously.” With those words, Alia kicked off the boulder and zoomed toward Kashi.
“Brilith!”
Gugugugu! Thousands of vines suddenly shot up from the ground. Kashi and Sonic were forced to dodge as the vines began thrashing about without rhyme or reason, sending rocks and pebbles flying.
Meanwhile, in Kashi’s world, his eyes shone as he saw the vines rip apart several web connections. Of course, this would never have worked if Alia had a few more weeks to strengthen her domain. At the moment however, Alia’s feeble mana connections could not withstand the vines’ onslaught.
For her part, Alia was not fazed by her crumbling domain. The daeben queen zipped through the crashing vines with impossible acrobatic ease. She just spun around a vine and then kicked upward.
Clang! Alia’s boots crashed against Sonic’s daggers. Sparks flew as her metallic spurs rebuffed the kafu’s daggers. Pa! Pa! Pa! Sonic air-stepped three times in quick succession to reposition to her right and once again unleashed a flurry of blows.
Alia twisted in the air, and met the kafu’s stabs with a flurry of punches. She rapidly traded blow for blow, before suddenly raising her right hand in the air.
Despite the clear opening, Sonic cursed as he air-stepped to the side, barely dodging a vine that thrashed past.
Meanwhile, Alia latched onto an overhead vine that sent her flying upward. However, she quickly released that mana string and twisted in the air.
A pair of lightning bolts zipped past the daeben queen as she turned to face Kashi, who zipped through the air with his wings outstretched. The daeben’s left hand burned with blue flames, while green lightning sparked around his right.
“An Elemental!” Alia instantly recognized that Kashi was not utilizing conventional magic. He was directly producing the flames and electricity from his own mana. Only Elementals could do that. “So it is true that you are a minor god.”
According to ancient texts, Ferulic was the greatest Elemental. Only someone with unlimited control over all elements could create stable worlds. It only made sense that his successor had to be an elemental to create their own world.
“Dimensional Artist.” Alia smiled as the approaching draconian. “Has anyone told you that your so-called class is the biggest scam of all?”
“I know! I totally agree!” Kashi laughed, but he did not hold back at all. Lightning and flames burst out of his fists. Contrary to his smile, the bolts held only malice as they smashed toward the daeben queen.
Alia quickly webbed a nearby vine which sent her flying in another direction. She then spun around a thick vine and launched herself back at the daeben. The young woman’s gloved fists glowed white as she poured mana into the embedded gemstones.
“ [Icicle Storm] !” Alia punched the air several times, and over a dozen two-meter icicles shot towards Kashi.
“Magic!? Spidey will be disappointed!” The draconian joked and tucked his wings as he weaved through or punched the icicles.
“What are you talking about!?” Alia shouted as she punched at Kashi, who emerged from the fog.
Kashi met her punch with one of his. BANG! The draconian winced as a sharp pain shot up his palm. Aside from the cold that threatened to seep into his blood, he was more so shocked by her strength.
Kashi was not the boasting-type, but he was confident in his own strength – especially in his draconian form. Even orcs could not beat him in a raw strength contest, but the pain in his arm alerted him of an alarming fact: Alia was stronger than him!
Fortunately, Kashi was not alone in his shock. Alia was equally stunned by the draconian’s strength. What in the dragon was this bullshit strength!? Furthermore, she needed to pour vast amounts of mana into her arm to eliminate the electricity that threatened to numb it.
“You wouldn’t understand!” Kashi jokingly roared back as a flaming dragon shot out of his left hand toward Alia’s face.
Despite her shock, Alia reacted accordingly. With her free hand, she webbed the ground and pulled herself down. Once below, she shook off the numbness off her right hand, webbed Kashi’s boot, and then attempted to pull him down.
VWoosh! Flames burst out of Kashi’s feet, incinerating the mana string. They did not stop there however. The greedy sparks rapidly traveled down the mana string toward the daeben queen.
Alia decisively released that mana string, and subsequently pulled herself away as Sonic appeared by her side.
Sonic chased after the daeben queen with a series of air-steps, eventually clashing amongst several clashing vines. Sonic smiled through the flying sparks as he attacked from different directions in quick succession. “What’s with all this flying about? Why don’t we fight on the ground? A true man should stand his ground.”
“I am not a man, though.” Alia snorted. Only an idiot would fight Sonic on the ground. At least, in the air, he could not accelerate as much as he would like.
Alia quickly grew used to the kafu’s tempo. She was just about to retaliate when she felt Kashi flying towards the sky. Alia quickly attached herself to a passing vine, allowed it to catapult her skyward.
Kashi dodged several thrashing vines, and almost cleared the thirty-meter-strike zone when his scales suddenly rattled. Kashi instantly obeyed his instincts. He rapped his wings around himself and quickly fell into a freefall.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Kashi’s heart thumped as hundreds of little rock spikes suddenly shot down from boulders hanging in the sky. Fortunately, most of the spikes struck the thrashing vines. However, a few broke through, some even smashing against the falling daeben.
Fortunately, Kashi’s wings protected him from the worst impacts. Unfortunately, blood rained down as the spires tore several holes through his wings. With his mana in an overdrive state, Kashi knew it would take some time for the injury to heal. This meant he had effectively lost access to flight for a short time.
Kashi’s eyes turned grim as he spun around and glared at Alia, who was shooting up toward him. “You really set all kinds of traps, didn’t you?”
“That just shows how much I respect your strength,” joked Alia as she once again clashed with the draconian.
“I really don’t want your respect, though! I would rather you underestimate me!” Kashi angrily grumbled as he tussled with the annoyingly slippery daeben. It was so difficult to fight someone like this in a 3-D space. Alia could yoink herself in any direction to alter the angle of her defense or attack, which made her a nightmare to battle.
Even when Sonic joined the attack, Alia easily weathered their attacks. The daeben queen knew she lacked the core strength to easily defeat the three cheat-like guildmasters. She might be a Transcendent, but she only just broke that barrier. Fortunately, this was a battle to stall time, not win. She only had to make sure Kashi did not reach Gunder before the latter finished the Gate. Defeating Kashi would come at a later date.
The daeben queen never forgot her mission. Razznik’s return trumped any and all personal glory she could obtain from defeating Kashi.
And so, the trio battle for a few minutes. Alia kept Kashi and Sonic on the ropes, using the twisting vines as fulcrums to dodge or launch unpredictable attacks. Eventually, Alia noticed the vines quickly withering.
Alia glanced at a tree stump in the distance. She noticed that the stump had begun to break apart, signalling that Brilith, who hid within, had long surpassed her limits. The daeben queen’s lips spread as she then glanced at the sky.
The giant egg was glowing with a increasingly brighter, sinister black light. Alia could sense the Gate’s pulsating vitality. It only needed a minute or less before it would become complete.
Alia’s lips spread in a beautiful smile as she smirked at Kashi and Sonic. “Apologies, but it would appear this is my victory.”
Kashi looked at the pulsating Gate and then surprisingly looked at Alia with a bright grin. “Do you really think that?”
Alia frowned at Kashi’s confident smirk. She wanted to ask what it was about, but her heart suddenly palpitated with unimaginable fright! Alia quickly shot to the side, but the danger did not pass, so she rapidly wrapped herself in mana and hardened it!
Kiiiiin!
The mana shield tore apart one second later, and a thin red line formed around Alia’s throat. The daeben queen clutched her throat with fright and quickly looked at the source of the threat she felt.
In the distance, Alia saw a rapidly panting Hektor leaning against ChaosBringer. Thick sweat matted the young man’s forehead as he wearily gazed at the levitating daeben queen.
“What? How did you complete the ascension!? What are the Primates doi—”
Alia’s complaints froze in her throat as the vines rapidly rotted away, revealing a shocking scene. Several dozen primates lay dead on the ground. The survivors were fighting a desperate defensive battle. It was obvious none of them had the time to prevent Hektor from completing his ascension.
Alia was not so much shocked by the Primates’ defeat, as she was about how long it took. She had perfectly calculated the invading parties’ strength. It should have taken them at least two-three hours to win.
“Heh, as expected, Kashi always has the best battlefield.”
Alia’s brow twitched as she gazed at someone who should not be on the battlefield. “You. You are Stryke if I recall. How are you here?”
Stryke, who had separated from Hogosha, hoisted his sword on his shoulder and replied with a cheeky, toothy grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Indeed, upon close inspection, Stryke was not the only foreign party. Jade, Leila, Durst, Ragnar, Hogosha, Absalon, and Renark were all causing havoc on different parts of the battlefield.
How in the hell did these guys get to the top!?
Alia could feel that the teleportation restriction was still in place, so there was no way Kashi could have transported them with a hidden portal.
“Do you think that is all?”
Alia’s heart skipped a beat as she turned to look at Kashi. His grim look from earlier was gone, replaced with a snarky grin. “What do you mean?”
Kashi grinned and pointed at the sky. “That.”
GROOOOOAAR!
Color drained from Alia’s face as Gunder suddenly let out an earth-shattering roar. The Divine Dragon instantly transformed back into his dragon form as he writhed in unimaginable agony and terror.
Before everyone’s disbelieving gaze, columns of thick smoke began effusing from Gunder’s eyes, ears, mouth and nose. The dark clumps rapidly gathered in front of the dragon and took the shape of a smaller dragon missing its wings.
That dragon soul barely let out a cry before a gigantic ball of light crashed into it. The holy light rapidly purified the evil soul, destroying it for eternity.
Belrug retracted his hand, and then glanced at the still Divine Dragon.
The three seconds the Divine Dragon lay still was like an eternity to the onlookers.
“Hng.” Fortunately, the Divine Dragon stirred moments later. His eyes opened slowly, revealing a pair of beautiful, but bloody red eyes. Those eyes slowly scanned the area, before settling on a seemingly blank portion of the sky.
To everyone’s shock, tears welled up in the Divine Dragon’s eyes as Gunder… no, Skyrm spoke for the first time in several centuries. “My child… He really did not lie to me.”
While everyone tried to process what the hell was happening, Kashi signaled Queen Alia.
The daeben queen looked at Kashi with a pair of lifeless eyes. She could not believe that everything had failed at the last moment. All the sacrifices and planning. How could she have failed at the final juncture?
Where did she go wrong!?
Kashi smiled as he sensed the turmoil in Alia’s shaky gaze. Did she want an answer to why she failed? Well, he would oblige her. The daeben’s lips parted and softly mouthed two words:
Trump. Card.