by Aaron Oster
“What’s going on out here?” Katherine asked as she stepped through after her. “Where did the sun go?”
“It’s not supposed to be nighttime here,” Grace said, stepping through after her.
They both froze as they noticed they were surrounded, the thousands of warriors flanking the meeting area awaiting their orders to attack.
“Surround the portal!” Shedra yelled, not one to lose an advantage.
He was likely surprised by Elyssa’s return but wasn’t about to allow them to escape again. He held the advantage here, and they had just walked right into his trap.
His troops rushed forward at his command, and seeing as Nathan was in the process of stepping through, their group couldn’t exactly run back through the portal.
“What the hell?!” Nathan exclaimed as Katherine yanked him back, retreating with Grace and Elyssa to join the others who’d been trapped here.
“You’re alive!” Ragnar exclaimed, completely ignoring their precarious situation and sweeping Elyssa into the air in a crushing hug.
“Hey! Take it easy!” Elyssa complained, squirming in the man’s arms. “I’m still injured!”
“Sorry,” Ragnar said, releasing her and looking sheepish, only to have Gilderon crash into her a moment later.
“I thought you were dead!” the elf cried, nearly beside himself with joy.
“We all did,” Malachi said, walking over to join them.
His eyes, unlike those of the others, were locked squarely on Shedra.
“Well, I suppose we can all award that honor to the gnomes,” Elyssa said, extricating herself from Gilderon’s grip. “But I can see that they’ve already shown their hand.”
One of the gnome Councilors, Nava, stepped forward, her wrinkled face twisting into a self-satisfied grin.
“It seems that the little elf bitch somehow survived. Not to worry, though. We’ll make sure you all end up dead this time. You…ack!”
The gnome’s eyes went wide as Shedra walked up to her, then thrust a dagger right into her chest.
The other gnome Councilors cried out in shock as Nava staggered back, clutching at the dagger and staring at Shedra in horror, blood beginning to leak from the corners of her lips.
“How dare you attack a Councilor?!” Tibsmith yelled. “You will answer for this, Shedra!”
“No, I don’t believe I will,” Shedra said, making a motion with his hand.
More of his forces streamed away from the line, moving to surround the remaining Council members.
“I’ve never fancied myself as a gnome who enjoyed sharing,” Shedra said, turning to address the others. “So, you will all die here. Tragic deaths, of course, wrought by the foul humans who so conveniently opened a portal right in our midst. With you all out of the way, I can wage war and claim the human lands for myself, in addition to that of Faeland. It really is so kind of you to deliver yourselves to me on a silver platter!”
“So, what do we do now?” Katherine asked, looking back to the portal.
It was only wide enough to allow a single fighter through at a time, and while she knew that Le’vine would likely try fighting her way through, they would probably have a hard enough time just defending the portal to keep any of the gnome forces from breaking into the Five Kingdoms.
“I guess we should try and escape,” Elyssa said, looking up to the sky. “Believe it or not, the gnomes aren’t our biggest concern right now.”
“She’s right,” Ragnar said. “Breaker, the Elder Dragon of Greed, is on his way here now. He’s a World Beast of immense power and more than strong enough to wipe us all out.”
“Our best chance would be the portal, in that case,” Katherine said, looking to the portal, which was currently being held by some two-dozen fighters.
“Go back to the human lands?” Malachi asked. “Is that wise?”
“It’s only thanks to the humans that I managed to live through the assassination attempts of the gnomes and their allies,” Elyssa said, giving Katherine a smile. “We can trust that they are on our side.”
“What about the trolls and the gnome Council?” Malachi asked.
“The trolls have always been on the side of the gnomes,” Elyssa said, looking to the troll leaders who were looking to the Council in shock. “I’m almost positive that they were complicit in the attempt on my life. However, I do not think they were aware of what the gnomes were planning here. So, we’ll let them choose. When we rush for the portal, they will either come to join us, or they will try and break through on their own.
“If they join us, we can talk terms. If they do not, we leave them to their fates.”
“And the Council?” Ragnar asked, surprised by the air of command and strength his niece was projecting.
Elyssa’s eyes hardened at the mention of the Council, and she turned to look them over with scorn.
“They knew what was coming and personally called for me to be killed. A friend of mine lost her life in the attack, as did the man I was supposed to marry. They’ve dug their own graves. Now they can lie in them!”
“Have you all finished making your little plans?” Shedra called.
He was mocking them. It was clear that he felt so assured of his victory that he was allowing them to converse and plan. All they needed was a distraction or a moment of hesitation on the part of the soldiers for them to strike.
There were thirty fighters among them, not including the trolls. If they joined, they would have six more. There were several thousand fighters on the gnome’s side, which made Elyssa wonder how they could have all met up and planned without anyone noticing. She could clearly see the marks of Strangler on many of them and figured that this was a joint effort on the parts of Shedra and the World Beast.
The only question was why Breaker was coming here, and not the serpent herself. They could figure that out later, after they escaped the approaching wrath of the Elder Dragon.
Before Elyssa, or anyone else for that matter, could do anything, the entire world began to tremble.
A cold sweat broke out on Elyssa’s brow as a massive presence loomed in the sky above. The power was intense, all-consuming, and seemed to both press down on her and fill her with hope.
“Holy shit,” Katherine whispered, looking up to the sky, her eyes wide. “It’s Morgan!”
“Morgan? But that’s…” Elyssa trailed off.
She was about to say that it was impossible, but was it really? Was it really impossible for Morgan to have escaped the wrath of the gods, just as she and the others had escaped through an impossible path to safety?
Of course, she’d never imagined that anyone, mortal or otherwise, could contain this level of power. The sheer overwhelming might poured off of him. She couldn’t use her Aura Sense here in Faeland, Morgan had warned her of that, but even so, she tried to open it. Blinding pain shot through her senses the moment she did, but in her field of vision, she could see it.
A shadow towered nearly a thousand feet tall and stood above the force of gnomes and Cultists as though in judgment.
The cries of alarm that spread through the enemy forces snapped Elyssa back to the present. They had the perfect opportunity, provided by a man she’d believed to be dead. Somehow, Morgan had survived that attack and had come back as a living god. He was now a monster so powerful that very presence blotted out the sky.
“Now!” she yelled, making a run for the portal, where the gnomes were cringing in terror.
It took the others a few seconds to catch on, by which time she’d covered a good dozen yards, but they joined her soon enough. She reached for the earth surrounding the gnomes, using her Liquid Stone to pull them aside.
The way was clear now. They had an open path!
Elyssa charged headlong toward the portal, fully intent on diving through headfirst. However, something grabbed her by the back of her shirt, jerking her downward and slamming her into the ground.
A beam of pure blue light tore through the air where she’d been
about to step. It ripped through the clearing, slamming into the bank of trees on the opposite side and shearing straight through them.
“Damn, you’re quick! It figures that a filthy human would get in my way!”
Elyssa turned and saw Shedra standing just a few feet away, a look of annoyance on his face. Next to him stood a dozen mages, all with their hands wrapped tightly around the protruding bars of a mana cannon. It seemed the gnomes had more than one of the devastating weapons, but seeing as Elyssa didn’t see any others being leveled at them, she hoped that this was the only other one they had.
“Are you alright?”
Elyssa turned back to see Katherine, lying on the ground next to her. The others had stumbled to a halt behind them, shocked at the power of the cannon.
“Yeah,” she said, slowly getting back to her feet. “Thanks to you.”
“Hey, what are friends for?” Katherine said, flashing her a wide smile. “Now, what do you say we clear those assholes away and open ourselves a path again?”
“What about the cannon?” Elyssa asked as the gnome forces, now over their shock, were streaming to block off the portal.
“Oh, I think we can let them handle that,” Katherine said, pointing back over her shoulder.
Elyssa looked back just in time to see Tork, the troll chieftain, charging across the intervening distance between them and the gnomes. His massive battle club was hoisted in the air, and judging by the blazing anger in his eyes, it was clear who he was going to attack.
It seemed that the trolls had made their choice, and Elyssa was more than a little happy to have those monsters as her allies.
“Well, we wouldn’t want to leave them to do all the work, would we?” Elyssa said, reaching for her core and activating one of her skills. “I say we show that bastard Shedra what happens to traitors!”
Their force, small as it was, all echoed with cries of agreement. Then, as one, they charged the portal.
73
Morgan watched as Breaker came into view, his fist wrapped tightly around the haft of the silver spear and Sarah standing by his side. Wind whipped all around him, trying to tear him from his perch high atop the wall bordering the dwarven lands. Up here, over a thousand feet in the air, he could feel the power of that wind howling around him.
He remained firm, standing just a foot from the edge, the world seeming to stretch out before him.
It was a beautiful sight – even he could admit that. The landscape was lit by the unnatural moonlight, spreading out as far as the eye could see. And yet, his eyes were fixed on a single point, the massive Elder Dragon approaching, its form growing larger by the second.
When Morgan had first seen Breaker, the dragon had been huge but not so large that he was awed by his size. Now though, the dragon seemed to have grown somehow. Even from here, hundreds of yards away, Morgan could clearly make out the beast’s features.
Glittering golden scales covered his entire body, reflecting the moonlight in a stunning pattern. His body was large and bulky, covered in sinewy muscle that rippled across his frame. The whumping sound of those gigantic wings beating at the air came in time with the flicking of his long tail that seemed to act as a rudder, helping him steer as he flew.
A pair of gleaming red eyes shone through the darkness, different than he’d been expecting. Normally, with beasts who had a supermage ability, one saw purple. This beast seemed to be different. A set of massive, hornlike protrusions flared out above the eyes, curving impressively into sharp points.
The beast’s snout didn’t narrow much, forming a shallow, triangular shape. A mouth filled with massive teeth opened momentarily, and a puff of black fire, tinged with a dark crimson, flowed back over the beast. At the bottom of his chin, another triangle of gold formed, flaring out wide, then coming down to a sharp point.
All in all, this creature was the most frightening thing Morgan had ever seen. It wasn’t a mix of many beasts, as most Pinnacle creatures were. It was a single, gigantic, flying lizard with the ability to breathe fire and change the fabric of the world! However, none of that was the most terrifying thing about Breaker. That honor belonged to his sheer size.
His wingspan was close to half a mile across, and with each powerful beat of his wings, the trees, over a thousand feet below, bent and swayed under the power of the generated wind.
Massive forelimbs, containing claws the size of houses, pawed at the air, as though eager to start ripping him apart.
Here, facing down this beast that had to be over a mile from nose to tail, Morgan understood what a Pinnacle Beast of the highest order looked like.
And there were three others who were just as powerful, he thought, feeling his body trying to react to the towering beast closing in.
“Stay calm,” Sarah said, moving her translucent hand up to his shoulder. “You’ve faced plenty of challenges in the past, and remember, your goal here is to fight a goddess, a being far more deadly and powerful than this.”
Sarah spoke the truth, but here and now, seeing this monstrosity, Morgan had to wonder how true that truth really was. After all, if he could challenge a god, this beast most certainly should be able to do the same.
As the gigantic Elder Dragon neared, his body began to shrink, slowly at first, so that Morgan didn’t realize what was happening. By the time the dragon was just a few dozen yards out, he had shrunk down to just over a hundred feet long. He was still gigantic, but now, Morgan could at least face the beast.
Breaker drew closer, stopping just a dozen yards from the wall, massive wings beating at the air and body seeming to glow with the reflected moonlight. Twin spots of red blazed from deep sockets, and the snorting breaths expended so much heat that he could see the air shimmering.
Then, a massive pressure bore down on Morgan’s shoulders as the Elder Dragon fully unleashed his power. It was as though someone had dropped an entire mountain on him, and it was all Morgan could do to stop his knees from buckling.
Two can play at that game, he thought, then unleashed his own full might, allowing the power from within to blaze forth.
A brilliant violet aura, blazing with an almost silvery metallic sheen, encompassed his body, the stone beneath his feet cracking under the pressure of his presence. Standing became easier as his own power lent him the strength needed to resist Breaker’s might.
If the Elder Dragon was disturbed by Morgan’s show of force, he didn’t show it. Instead, his jaws cracked open, and a voice echoed from within his throat.
“What are you?”
The voice was deep and rumbled out like stones grinding over one another, making Morgan’s chest and the wall beneath vibrate under its force.
“The King of Eternity,” Morgan replied, tightening his fingers around the haft of the spear.
He was really hoping this beast wouldn’t try and fight him right now. He was almost out of time and needed to get the other Sarah there. He still had no idea how he was supposed to do that but knew that so long as Breaker was there, that fight wasn’t likely to happen.
The dragon’s nostrils flared again as he inhaled, and his hot breath washed over him as the breath was released, ruffling the clothes of the shaman that Morgan still wore.
“And what,” Breaker asked, “is that apparition standing by your side?”
Morgan was taken aback by that question. He was surprised that anyone aside from him was able to see Sarah, but apparently either Breaker was powerful enough to see her, or she was now strong enough to make herself visible to others.
“The reason for my existence,” Morgan replied.
“Aww,” Sarah said, burying her face in her hands, her cheeks tinting a darker silver.
“You are unnatural,” the World Beast said, sniffing again. “Dangerous.”
“I could say the same about you,” Morgan said.
A low growl echoed from the World Beast’s throat, his lips pulling back to reveal massive teeth.
“You dare insult one such as I?!” he roared
, his voice shaking the entire wall.
“No. Simply stating a fact,” Morgan responded.
Now that Breaker was close enough and he didn’t have any interference from Faeland in the way, he could clearly see what gave this beast such tremendous power, and it hadn’t all come from the fact that he was so strong in rank. There was a small spark, deep within the beast’s core, a spark of golden power that Morgan recognized. When he pulled up Breaker’s status, it all made a lot more sense.
Name: Breaker, Elder Dragon of Greed
Classification: World Beast
Rank - 100
Ability Type - Supermage
Breaker started off his life as nothing more than a common sand lizard. However, that all changed on the day when gods battled, and he tasted their blood for the first time. That small drop of divinity changed him, granting him cognitive thought and the ability to earn a Classification.
Classification: World Beast
A Classification is something gained by those who have grown so much in power that the world itself recognizes their right to rule. Typically, those who have earned a Classification are offered the ability to leave Somerset and transcend to a higher calling. Those who stay will be unmatched in might, except for by others who wield the same power.
Breaker sniffed again, showing more teeth. Small flames danced around his jaws, flickering in the darkness and threatening to leave in an explosive rush at any second. However, instead of attacking, Breaker suddenly turned his head. The glowing red eyes narrowed, and another growl – this one longer and deeper – radiated out from the gigantic beast’s chest.
Morgan wondered what he was looking at but only for a second. He sensed it, in the far distance — another World Beast, this one with a fiery core that seemed to blaze with the power of a thousand suns. Its presence was washing over Faeland, trying to contest Breaker’s own. But there was more.
He held back a curse as he felt a third World Beast burrowing beneath the ground. This one, unlike the other two, wasn’t actually affecting the world, but the rock-solid core, blazing with unrestrained power, was more than enough to make him nervous.