Every beat of Valentean’s heart sent pulsing waves of heat spreading throughout his body. It was as though his heart itself were ablaze, and flames sprang forth from it, filling him, fulfilling him, and urging him onward. The general looked so small as he scratched at his eyes, rubbing red and raw skin that began to blister over the scarred section of his face. How had someone so inconsequential ever caused him any level of discomfort or anxiety? His armor may as well have been made from parchment. His fists could have been slowly falling, fat snowflakes for all the care Valentean gave them.
Zouka’s eyes focused in on Valentean as he drew closer. The Rosinanti’s eyesight was sharp as a hawk’s now, and he could actually note the dilation of the general’s pupils from several meters away. The chaos born of his heart of flame was the single most glorious sensation his body had ever experienced. It was life, not death as he had always feared, and it gave him a startling clarity of mind. He was better than them—the mortal fools who sat in dumbfounded fascination, their fear creating a palpable haze of chaos that he drank in through the air and used to empower the flames once more.
How had he ever been so weak, so infuriatingly simple? The world was flimsy to one such as he. Anything he wanted could be his; all he need do was reach out, grab it, and burn anyone who got in his way. A flickering pulse tingled along his brain, and his head snapped toward the east. It was as though he could see through the arena’s walls, through the mountains that surrounded the Karminian capital, across the Imperial lands, and beyond the churning sea. He felt her with such profound strength that it was as though she had been standing right beside him.
Sera…he thought, noting the panic he could sense, the desperation, the pain. She was in danger. Kayden had arrived, and his princess was combating the darkness alone. Kayden was daring to lay hands upon his chosen charge, the woman he loved. Valentean decided that he had played around for long enough. The animus threw his arms out to the side, tossing his swords away, the flames that danced along their blades dissipating as they hit the dirt.
Zouka screamed in fury as he drew closer, charging with his titanic blade held overhead. Valentean took a stuttered step forward and raised one arm toward the falling blade as it shot downward. Zouka bore down with all of his strength, probably hoping to chop right through Valentean’s arm. As it struck the bones in his forearm, the stone sword instantly shattered like glass. Zouka gasped in alarm and jumped back, likely expecting an immediate counterattack. Valentean lowered his arm slowly, content that this display of strength had been sufficient to finally prove the enormity of the gap between them.
He felt a slow, soft trickle of blood dripping down his arm, and he let the red rivulets terminate at his fingertips, dripping onto the dirt and crumbled remnants of the general’s weapon. Valentean drew that same arm back quickly, which startled the general and sent him tripping backward. Valentean was deeply satisfied to note fear in the Gorram’s orange sunburst eyes. He continued to hold the arm aloft, making sure Zouka could see the dripping gash he had carved. Then, Valentean commanded the energy of chaos within his body to cauterize the wound, stopping the flow of blood and causing Zouka to gape in awe.
The general’s jaw clenched until his chin actually trembled. Valentean could see fear mixed in with his rage, and he knew the Gorram now understood that he could not win. Before ending this farcical encounter though, Valentean wanted to make sure Zouka could hold on to no excuse, no ego-driven, fanciful notions of “what if” that he might dredge up to justify the loss.
“Transform,” he commanded, and the general’s jaw dropped open in shock.
Seraphina’s momentary distraction was all the black dragon needed to get back into the fight. Kayden exploded up to his feet and bounded forward like a battering ram, determined to smash Seraphina into a paste of blue scales and blood against the crumbling tunnel walls.
Seraphina leapt back and, in her desperation, fired off another burst of blue energy at her incoming foe. The attack struck Kayden in the chest, but the explosion it caused gave way to further cracks along the tunnel’s wall and ceiling, and larger chunks of stone began to fall around them.
Kayden was up once more and resumed the chase as Seraphina turned to flee. She was fast but hesitant. She did not know the layout of these tunnels and feared running into a dead end. Furthermore, she had to continuously alter her course to avoid the cascading debris. Kayden, all bulk and power, simply let the chunks of rock smash against him while also using his unique skills to alter the course of those in Seraphina’s path, causing them to veer off and fly at her head.
More and more boulder-sized projectiles began to tear free from the walls and flung themselves at her, heeding the call of their master. A jagged falling shard had nearly impaled her, and Seraphina had to leap off to one side to avoid it. Kayden took such an opportunity to clamp his jaws around her finned tail, eliciting a roaring screech from the dragon queen.
Seraphina felt blazing, throbbing tendrils of pain spread through her body like a lightning storm, but the more she jerked, the more Kayden’s fangs tore into her flesh.
The black dragon gave a mighty shake of its head, slamming Seraphina into the walls, floor, and ceiling like a toy. One more massive fling of Kayden’s neck preceded the release of his clamping bite, which threw Seraphina into one of the tunnel walls with such force that it shattered against her weight. The blue dragon rolled painfully into a large chamber, bare and with ample room for both dragons to fit comfortably. Kayden slammed his body into the hole Seraphina had created, shouldering his way inside, widening the gap and shaking dust and debris from his scales.
Seraphina’s tail was limp and paralyzed, and her body was ravaged with pain. As she tried to slowly stand, Kayden fired off another purple beam from his maw that struck the blue dragon full on. Seraphina was blown back by the concussive heat of Kayden’s assault. The Ice Queen could hear a sound like glass shattering, and a sudden wave of weakness overcame her. She slammed back into the ground and rolled, completely disoriented.
As the world reformed along the plane of her vision, Seraphina noted long, brown hair cascading down to the ground in front of her and a hand of pale white flesh with thin, long-nailed fingers grasping at the floor. Then, as she tried to rise, the molten pain in her hip made one thing suddenly and abundantly clear—her transformation had broken. She was a human once more. One lone human, one tiny inconsequential queen, alone against a monster.
Seraphina looked up as Kayden loomed over her, standing tall and proud, his wings spread impressively out to either side. She had no tricks left up her sleeve. Even the power of order seemed useless in this situation, as they were so far cut off from any large body of water. The inconsequential amount of fluid she could pull from the atoms of the air would matter nothing to the great beast that was set to end her life.
I’m sorry, Val, she thought to herself as she closed her eyes and braced for the inevitable.
“Kayden!” A voice rang out, strong and forceful as it echoed throughout the chamber. The dragon turned, startled by this new presence, and Seraphina’s eyes snapped open. Standing on the other side of the ebony monster was Vahn Burai, hands out to his sides as he looked imploringly up at his transformed son. “Kayden, listen to me! You must stop this! This is not you, son! Please!”
A low growl died upon the dragon’s lips quickly, and silence filled the cavern. Seraphina’s hands shook as her heart beat in a frenzied wave of anxious dread. Would Kayden kill the old warrior? Could Vahn actually talk sense into his son?
“You have allowed this witch to twist you, to turn you from me, from your home! Kayden, I know that it is hard, and I know that you have lost your way. But together, son, we can find it again. I know we can!”
The dragon faltered momentarily, the tension vanishing from its rippling muscles. Even its long tail settled upon the ground with a resounding thud. Seraphina could feel the emotions wafting off the creature, the chaotic turmoil churning in the black void of its heart.
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Kayden was wrestling with himself, the uncertainty clouding his mind, drawing his focus. It was then that Seraphina realized she could sense Kayden’s emotions once more, and he was no longer guarding his faculties against her.
“Now, Seraphina!” The voice of Aqua echoed through her mind, and Seraphina reached out one hand to touch the mind of the dragon. She shredded through his meager mental defenses and grabbed a tight hold on to the raw emotion pouring out of him. Kayden roared and thrashed, reeling up on his back legs before crashing down again on all fours.
Vahn dove off to the side as Kayden spun to face her, roaring and bellowing in rage and panic. But it was too late now.
Seraphina had sunk her mental claws in deep, and she was not letting go. She rode the wave of powerful feelings through the mind of the dragon like a wild spinning airship. She bore her will down upon him, her eyes erupting in blue light, and soon she knew that she had him; he was in her control.
A twist of her mind bathed the room in purple light, and the dragon was suddenly Kayden once more, just a man clutching at the sides of his head as he thrashed upon the ground. Seraphina dug deeper and seized Kayden’s psyche with all that she was.
The black-clad animus screamed, his voice starting as a bellow and then slowly weakened until it died into a low moan at the end of his breath. One more push and Kayden fell into unconsciousness.
Vahn rushed to his boy’s side and knelt there, cradling Kayden’s head in his lap. He looked back at his queen in shock, a silent question passing between them as to her well-being. She nodded to him while continuing to clamp her mental hold on Kayden, keeping him in a deep slumber.
She crawled to them, the father and brother of her beloved, hand outstretched and brow furrowed in concentration.
“What are we going to do with him?” Vahn asked as she reached his side, a hint of fear and dread mixing with his normally unwavering baritone.
“We go deeper,” Seraphina said, knowing now what she needed to do—for Vahn, for Val, and for Kayden himself. “We plunge further into his mind, and we bring him back.”
Zouka scoffed in shock. Was the Rosinanti really issuing him commands now? Was he truly demanding more power of him? Had he really fallen before his foe to such a level that any and all warrior’s respect the boy might have at one time showed him burned to nothingness amidst the flames of his awesome power?
“What?” Zouka demanded.
“You heard me,” Valentean replied, his voice hard and flat. “Make this something of a challenge.”
Zouka’s fist squeezed until his entire arm hurt. How dare this miserable whelp talk to him like that? He was Zouka of the Gorram, and this was not to be tolerated! “You’ve just submitted to oblivion, boy!” He spat the words back into Valentean’s face, determined to dredge up a veil of confidence to break the Rosinanti’s iron spirit. If transformation was what he desired, then it was what he would get. Zouka focused on the sleeping power within him and directed the flow of mana into his muscles. His skin slammed against his armor, erupting out with such force the metal cracked and broke free, leaving him standing in a black bodysuit.
His already considerable height increased until his shadow enveloped the patient animus warrior, who stood there watching as though he had not one care in all of Terra. Zouka’s arms and legs erupted through the bodysuit as his trapezius muscles formed around his head. He slammed one titanic foot upon the dirt, shaking the ground beneath them. He pointed an index finger as thick as a human leg at the boy and snarled.
“Impressed yet?” he bellowed, his voice deep and grated.
“No,” came Valentean’s simple reply.
The triumphant smile fell from Zouka’s face, and he stormed forward in fury, slamming a fist larger than Valentean’s torso into the young man’s chest. The boy was taken completely off his feet and soared back, his limp body striking the ground several times before he skidded to a stop. Zouka leapt after his prey, wrapping a mammoth hand around the prone animus warrior’s leg.
He cried out in triumphant glee as he easily lifted Valentean off the ground and slammed him face-first into the dirt. The goliath threw his arm back and flung his helpless foe once more into the ground. Then he repeated the maneuver again and again and again, cackling in victory as he watched the boy’s body smack into the ground over and over, cracking the stone beneath the dirt. Finally, Zouka hurled the limp figure, ready to leap upon him and finish him off when he landed.
Valentean’s body seemed to come alive as it soared through the air. His knees tucked to his chest, and he rolled into a controlled backflip through the momentum of Zouka’s throw. He gracefully and forcefully landed with both feet flat upon the ground, standing tall and straight, not one ounce of pain registering in his stoic face. Zouka, who had begun following, skidded to a shocked and terrified halt.
“What?” he bellowed into the air, completely dumbfounded by this insane turn of events. “How?”
Valentean continued to regard him with expressionless boredom through the haze of red that dominated his eyes. He spat a trickle of blood upon the ground and curled his lip at Zouka in disgust. “Is that really it?” he said, sounding disappointed.
Rage exploded in a blurry haze along Zouka’s field of vision. How dare he! How dare this pathetic creature speak that way to him! He screamed with enough power to shake the ground and charged toward Valentean with every ounce of speed his titanic legs could muster. The Rosinanti’s infuriating unblinking stare drew closer until it vanished from sight right before a powerful, slamming concussive sensation rocked Zouka’s midsection, stopping him dead in his tracks.
Looking down, he saw Valentean crouched, one fist buried into the mountain of muscle that covered his abdomen. Immediately, Zouka’s legs began to shake with the strain of remaining upright. He took a shuddering step back, completely incapable of drawing breath back into his lungs. It was as though this one single punch had sapped all his strength. His legs gave out, and he fell helplessly to his knees, eyes bulging and mouth agape while pain ate him alive from the inside. He could feel liquid welling up in his throat and spat a spray of blood onto the dirt at Valentean’s feet.
“This is all you are?” Valentean asked, his voice very quiet but reaching Zouka’s ears with a firm finality. “You believed yourself my equal. You thought I was your ultimate adversary, but now you see the truth. My greatest mistake was allowing these foolish notions to fester in that simplistic mind of yours. I was kind, I was merciful, and I never exposed you to the full fury of what I can do. And guess what, fool. I still haven’t.”
Zouka’s shaking eyes doubled in size. Was this true? Was The Rosintai still not fighting at full capacity against him? Zouka knew in this moment that his life had come to an end, and his warrior’s resolve took hold of his heart. He would accept his death like a true Gorram, absent of fear, never begging for mercy.
“You want me to kill you,” Valentean continued, looking him up and down. Even kneeling, Zouka still towered over this impossibly strong foe, but Valentean still stared at him as though he were some wounded animal. “All you’ve wanted since this began was for me to kill you. So that you could have meaning in your death. So that you could live up to the Gorram name. Well, Zouka…”—Valentean’s hand lit ablaze, the crimson flames dancing along his flesh as though they were a part of his body—“I’m not going to give you that honorable death.”
“Whaa…” was the only reply he could muster with the limited oxygen still in his lungs. He wasn’t going to kill him? This dragon was not possibly considering sparing him. This creature who had decimated him was being merciful? Zouka had hoped this flurry of power had abolished such weakness in Valentean, but he was still unwilling to do what must be done.
“Don’t misunderstand,” the boy continued as though reading his thoughts. “I would love to kill you. The souls of those you’ve murdered would rejoice in my doing so. However, death by the hand of a god is too good for you. Instead, you’re going to live with the
memory of this moment. You’re going to live with the shame. You’re going to run back to Aleksandra. You’re going to bow before her. And you’re going to tell her that death is coming for her and all who follow her. All except you, Zouka.”
It was cruelty of the most malicious sort. He was sparing him to torture him. It was so unlike the simple boy Zouka had watched grow up in Kackritta Castle. The boy who had tried to reason with him, who had shown him compassion, was a far cry from this demon that had so thrashed him. This could not be happening. It would not. Zouka needed to die at the hands of a Rosinanti. That was the ending he deserved, not to run off and lick his wounds and grovel at the feet of Aleksandra!
“But I will leave you something to remember this moment by,” Valentean said, raising his still flaming hand. The boy dashed forward and slammed his superheated palm into the unscarred side of Zouka’s face. The Gorram found the air to scream in agony as the red-hot flesh of Valentean’s hand melted skin and liquified bone. The hand sank into his face several centimeters before withdrawing completely. Before Zouka could even grasp at the smoking hole in his head, he saw Valentean’s balled up fist flying at his face, and then he saw blackness.
The general’s body thundered to the ground, the flesh upon his face still smoking and sizzling in the wake of Valentean’s final act of unrelenting cruelty. Valentean gazed down at the hulk of a man and spat upon his bruised flesh. Zouka’s body began to deflate like a balloon. Valentean watched the monster whither back into a man and turned his attention away from the fallen general, his existence no longer a concern.
Valentean turned his eyes instead upon the Karminian crowd, who had fallen silent as he thrashed the general. They now leapt to their feet in excitement. Over half of the gathered mass of mortality had fled the scene as he began to call upon the might of the flames, but those who remained showered him in unwanted adulation that made his skin crawl in disgust. These vile dregs were not his focus though. His vision traveled slowly up the slope of the arena until he spotted Tek clapping his long-fingered hands and cheering. The man made him sick. Terra would be a far better place were he to be wiped from existence.
Rosinanti_Rise of the Dragon Lord Page 15