Chapter 41 #2
Only as Verathras landed on his feet, blood spraying out of him, did Alsen’s instinct-cast shield finally materialize.
With a massive shockwave filled with heat, Verathras exploded into his full form.
The shockwave hit before the heat.
Alsen pushed more power into the shield, but the shockwave, in spite of being indirect, still pressed him against the wall. The heat bled through, like when one opens an overheated oven and it smacks him in the face, except from everywhere at once.
The top and the far side of the dome exploded.
Verathras formed into his full glory, much larger than the dome.
His head peeked in, even larger than it felt in the city.
He held the dome’s rim with his massive claws, his wings stretched out far beyond the mountain, the rest of his body on its surface.
No time to discuss philosophy or cosmic alliances. He had to fight this out.
Luna grabbed her spear and walked into the dome. Her skin rippled, as if from the inside. Nothing about her changed, visually, but Alsen definitely saw the ripple.
Did she just use a spell?
Alsen’s vision shifted. In an instant, he saw himself in the empty space of white and red. Invisible force tore him apart, slashing his body into ribbons.
He blinked, and it was gone. Luna was already up in the air, about to land on Verathras’s eye. He wasn’t moving at all, stunned by a similar vision.
That worked on a dragon?
She landed on the eye, burying the spear into it all the way to the end of the shaft. She slid down. The spear tore through the dragon’s eye.
He finally came to his senses and blinked. His eyelid knocked her off. But she kicked herself off it, launching herself into his arm.
Alsen glanced at the wall behind him. He remembered the map, searing it into his mind.
Indirect missile. Times five.
Five motes of power burst from him and hit the wall with the map. They all exploded at once, destroying the wall, turning the map into a shower of fragments that his shield blocked.
Verathras turned his head, snapping his jaws at Luna.
She ducked under it, hiding on his own arm.
That exposed the other eye.
Alsen pulled on his power. He aimed at the other eye, raising his hand. Lance of Annihilation.
The energy hit the eye straight. It shattered into sparks, glancing off. Dozens of runes lit up on the dragon scales, revealing an intricate framework of an anti-magical ward.
Light.
Alsen formed dozens of motes of light and directed them toward the scales.
Luna already jumped from the dragon’s claw, landed on his side, and lodged her spear under one of the scales with an embedded rune. The dragon turned, sweeping at her with his arm.
She dislodged the scale. The dragon swiped at her with a claw. She jumped from its body. The claw missed, and as it did, she stabbed it with a spear, and sprang off of it, landing where the claw had just swept, stabbing underneath another runed scale.
Verathras grunted, and his entire body brightened. Heat burst from him.
Alsen reinforced his shield with the anti-heat pattern. It still bled through a bit, his mouth drying up.
All right, think!
Luna popped off another scale, moving to another one as he tried to shake her off, using the spear to hold herself onto him.
She was going to be fine for the moment. But… could they run?
No.
Verathras wouldn’t let them go. He had blown apart a chunk of the mountain with his transformation alone. He could easily tear through whatever obstacle they might put between themselves and him.
Luna got another scale, then dodged a jaw snap by jumping on his wing. He flapped the wing to get her off, but she held on by stabbing her spear into its frame. Even as it moved, she tore through the bit that had the rune.
Motes of flame formed around Verathras’s head. They burst toward Luna, but she kicked herself off the wing, landing on his body just as the motes exploded into a massive globe of fiery death where she had just stood.
He couldn’t hit her, for now. But she couldn’t kill him either. Even the eye she hit in the surprise attack still worked. Bleeding, half-covered by an eyelid, but it still tracked her movement.
He had to figure out how to wound it, and fast.
Not through the anti-magical lattice though.
He glanced around. The symbol on the sanctum’s floor. He pushed power into it, scanning it.
The pattern held, undisrupted, still carrying echoes of the magical energies that were once channeled through it.
Verathras raised his head, taking a deep breath.
Fuck.
Alsen pulled more of his power, forming two globes to his side. With his usable hand, he motioned them forward.
Twin Dawn of the Seventh Sun.
The orbs bolted to the dragon, coiled around each other twice, and hit the side of his neck. The rune lattice still lit up, but the orbs exploded anyway.
The shockwave shook the mountain, pushed Alsen a bit in spite of the shield, and jerked the dragon’s head to the side. He released his breath, and an apocalyptic torrent of flame just missed the dome.
The part of the mountain the breath touched melted in an instant, together with the edge of the dome it grazed. The released heat now bled through Alsen’s shields.
Meanwhile, Luna dislodged another scale. And two more.
The dragon motioned himself forward and, in an instant, turned into a man.
With his massive shape disappearing, it left a vacuum behind. The air drew into it, creating suction that lifted Alsen off his feet, sending him flying toward the dragon. So did Luna, with the support of his body gone, she flew toward him, drawn by the absence of everything.
Verathras smirked and shifted back. The instant expansion released a massive shockwave. It sent Luna crashing to the floor. She landed on her feet. Her shoes exploded, the shockwave sweeping her over the floor, and into the corpses by the wall, which cracked as she hit it.
Alsen got sent flying back. The force felt like being hit by a truck. It threw him into the sanctum. He hit the wall. His shield popped. His back smashed into the wall.