Rather than participating in the next attack with Fitzuki’s forces again, he gathered up the men who had fought as his primary team during this war — those of them who had not died. Fifteen cultivators with a mature purified core. All of them were experienced men who had fought as mercenaries in Fitzuki’s retinue, all of them had killed many men.

With this group as the core, another hundred cultivators gathered around to create a formation that would ward the emperor away from the dragons.

He was just one man, and he would be exhausted from his epic flight.

Perhaps this would be his chance to kill that murderous bastard.

Even though he was the emperor, Sesako was reasonably confident.

Sesako was well armed. He was surrounded by brilliant men, cultivators of great distinction and martial prowess. Further he had faced the emperor thrice in battle already, and while the man was powerful and brilliant, Sesako knew he could hold him, and perhaps even trap him if he was foolish enough to come in close.

And the emperor came.

As Fitzuki launched his new attack, the sound of a trumpet that was not a trumpet echoed in the air everywhere. A signal from the emperor to the men defending the island that their ruler was coming, and they must have heart and hope.

The defenders redoubled their efforts, and they hurled themselves at Fitzuki’s forces, many of them dying to win extra minutes in the position.

The emperor did not slow himself as he came. He hurtled at his terrible speed, nearly as fast as the dragons, into the center of the defensive formation.

He bore a massive spear, five times the length of a human body, which he whipped from side to side like a toy.

A net had been let out to tangle him up as he came through, and Sesako had infused it with red power.

He held his own spear ready to be thrown at the emperor, his sword and power ready to block him as he went for the net.

A feral grin crossed Sesako’s face. This was what he had lived for.

The bolts of the hundred cultivators supporting Sesako fired at the emperor, but though many hit, they had no effect on him. He glowed with a red nimbus.

And then, hurtling towards him at hundreds of miles an hour, the emperor struck directly at Sesako.

There was a crunch as Sesako’s spear was deflected aside.

Sesako desperately twisted to avoid the emperor’s blow.

His sword hacked at the emperor’s spear.

And then somehow, without quite knowing how Sesako found himself hurtling away.

His armor had been stabbed right through near the leg, but he couldn’t feel any pain.

He couldn’t control his flight. He spun and spun.

Three of the men who'd been next to him were falling to the ground, their bodies viciously hacked apart.

And the emperor had broken through the net.

Parts of the net were still tangled around him, glowing bright red in lines around his body, but somehow that did not slow him at all. He held the spear with one arm and worked to free that arm so it could move freely with his other hand, cutting the net apart with a glowing dagger.

Sesako spun again as he fell at a great speed, and he worked to stop himself.

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As he wildly spun around and around, he saw the emperor in frozen moments caught like a still painting.

The emperor’s hand and arm were free. The net torn from around his neck. The purified cores were reforming their formation to attack him again, but any of them that got close enough to him to do a suicide attack with their cores had already been ripped to shreds.

A bolt that had splattered harmlessly against the emperor’s armor was floating away.

Spinning away.

The beginning of pain.

Sesako slowed himself. He was grievously injured.

The emperor was completely free of the net. The spear now held with both hands.

Spinning once more.

The emperor in motion; accelerating.

The battle as Fitzuki desperately tried to gain control of the lip of the volcano. Several of the imperial purified cores tried to use suicide attacks to kill him. The remaining hurlers were waiting for a chance to send all of the stones straight down the throat.

The emperor was now facing Her. The matriarch of the dragon. His great spear being drawn back.

Another spin, Fitzuki’s men had fractured the formation defending the top of the volcano.

He now looked up again. The emperor’s spear. The matriarch. The runework couldn’t stop his spear.

Sesako felt a surge of desperation. He desperately tried to push himself upwards, to rejoin the fight. The spinning stopped.

He was lighter than he should be.

His leg. The emperor had cut his leg off above the knee.

The dragon’s scream.

Sesako now was steady, flying upwards. But he could not reach the emperor in time to do anything.

The emperor had stabbed his spear deep into the eye of the great matriarch, but in her violent jerk away, she’d pulled her head away from him, the spear still sticking fifteen feet out of the eye.

Everything was sluggish.

Sesako knew he was losing blood fast. The wound refused to heal and stop bleeding. The emperor’s magic left in the wound interfered with his own healing magic.

Blood sprayed out from his leg stump.

Most of his magical energy was being pulled from him to form more blood, while the other desperately pulled wisps of crimson power out of the fourth dantian to push the power left behind by the emperor out of the wound.

The emperor grabbed his spear again, pulling it from the dragon’s eye, and he unleashed a great spell that gripped the dragon’s massive head, to make it so she could not turn away from his next blow.

The ruined eye, bleeding vast gouts of golden blood.

Sesako had failed.

Time stood still, and the emperor looked into the dragon’s eye. Into the eye that he had not destroyed.

The dragon’s giant unblinking eye.

And the emperor seemed caught. He stared into the dragon’s face. His spear held in his arm, ready to strike again. Yet he did not move.

Sesako clawed closer and closer.

The purified cores uselessly tried to attack the emperor, but a pressure emanating from him stopped them from getting near enough to strike with any blow that might actually harm such a powerful cultivator.

And the emperor just stared into the dragon’s one remaining eye.

Sesako knew from long experience that he was engaged in mental communication with the dragon. It had that look about it.

He needed to kill the emperor now, while he could not defend himself.

BOOOOOOOM!

The world beneath them shook insanely.

A giant plume of superheated steam flushed through the battlefield, burning and leaving men screaming. Thousands of rocks thrown up by the force of the explosion hurtled through the army, mostly missing the combatants. Some of the thrown stones were blown apart by the runework on the dragons and a few killed unlucky cultivators.

The explosion was much smaller than the other had promised.

Half the cone of the volcano had collapsed inwards, and the center of the island had been shattered. But the island itself was clearly not destroyed.

The vast rock structure tilted, half of it rose from the surface of the sea. Part of the rocks fell off, as part of the island split off from the rest.

And then both parts slid quickly into the ocean.

A giant wave flooded over the piers of the city and was kept from drowning everyone who huddled near the shore by the efforts of the imperial cultivators quartered there.

The emperor looked down at his sinking island, and he looked back at the dragon, who still stared calmly and acceptingly at him.

He drew back his long spear to stab it again into the dragon’s half destroyed eye, and Sesako knew that this time it would penetrate all the way to the brain.

His own wounds were meaningless next to that.

And then the emperor tossed his spear aside. He flew down towards the battle shouting out commands that were charmed to only be understood by his men.

Sesako looked once more at the terrible wound in his leg, and he placed his hand over it to try to slow the bleeding.

His life fluid continued to bubble out, leaking over his hands.

Sesako closed his eyes, hardly knowing anything.

The island beneath him sank deeper and deeper, until only the top of the caved in volcanic cone stuck out of the ocean waters.

And then the men who still lived who had been with them gathered him up and returned him to the back of the great one. A healer quickly stitched the wound by hand, so he would bleed less while she pulled the emperor’s magic out.

The remains of Fitzuki’s attacking force, half of them dead, many from the explosive stones, returned to the dragons, and the emperor’s forces pulled back to let them retreat.

And then at a terribly fast speed, but one that was still less than half the speed with which they had rushed to this battle, the dragons set off in flight, returning again by a roundabout pathway to their home valley.