Chapter 41 #3
Pain shot through him from everywhere at once. Blood burst into his mouth. He fell off the wall, landing on a knee and a hand.
He coughed up more blood. He couldn’t stand up.
His vision shifted. Once again, he saw himself in the space of white and red.
An invisible force cut him at the waist, decapitated him, and exploded his head.
He blinked, and it was gone, and Luna was at Verathras’s head, tearing off the central scale that had the rune there.
He shook his head. So, she could use it multiple times in a fight. She jumped off, landing on his arm before she hit the body again.
Alsen focused on the symbol on the floor. He gathered the spat-out blood, pushed his mana through, and moved the blood into the symbol. This symbol was once functional. He had seen the same symbol at the yeti mountain.
He could make it work.
As far as he understood, this was made to draw power from the Pellicle.
They really needed that right now. He pushed his power into the symbol, quickly reactivating it. He only needed to reach the external power.
The external energy manipulation perk would do the rest.
Verathras smirked faintly, snapping after Luna with his jaw. “Keep jumping around, little rat. It spreads the heat through the body faster.”
She slid around his head, dislodging a scale from his throat before moving on to the other side of his body.
“Your little toothpick does nothing to me.” Verathras swung his claw at her. “And my heat cannot be dodged. Your organs will boil in your own blood.”
Alsen coughed up more blood. He immediately worked it into the symbol, reaching through. Rituals were essentially a method to decrease casting costs. So, instead of that, he pushed in more power.
The symbol activated, lighting up with faint light.
For as long as Luna kept Verathras occupied, he could work on this.
Though, judging by the heat, that wasn’t going to be all that long.
He felt as if he stood among four open furnaces, his mouth dry, his eyes drying up, forcing him to constantly blink. The heat from Verathras already bled into his core.
But he couldn’t use a shield to avoid attracting attention to himself.
Luna dodged the next swing, two more too. Verathras summoned more fiery motes. They shot after Luna, curving through the air, exploding into balls of flame. She dodged them all, covering herself with his body when she couldn’t.
Alsen reached through the symbol. All the way in.
His power wavered as it pushed through the spiritual planes. He forced in more.
Unknowingly, he had worn the symbol of Alshaiel for his entire life. The least she could do, especially if she wanted him on her side, was to hand over some mana right about now.
Another energy met him. The Pellicle. He stabilized the connection and pulled on the energy.
Luna landed at the edge of the room. She bled from her mouth, eyes, and ears, her skin red from the heat. She bolted in, hiding behind its corner. In the dome, Verathras was taking a deep breath.
Alsen pulled into himself all the power he could. Cold power flooded his body, blinding his mind. He pushed some out.
Shield.
A massive blue wall appeared in the dome, completely separating the section with the sanctum from the rest of the wall. A white symbol of the spiral shone in its center.
Verathras released his breath. A torrent of flame hit the shield. The fire flooded the dome, melting the very stone that made it, incinerating the corpses by the wall, destroying everything it touched.
But the shield held.
The fire ran out. Verathras glared at the wall. “Alshaiel…” He spread his wings.
Too slow.
Alsen molded the power inside him while collapsing the energy in the shield inward. He joined them together and molded the result into one burst of energy. What was it?
Supremely Divine Lance of Complete Annihilation.
The energy speared forward.
It tore through Verathras’s body, completely annihilating its center. It continued on, piercing a hole into the sky.
Blood and scales rained over the dome. The dragon’s head and neck fell into the dome, no longer having any body to connect to. His claws remained caught on the dome’s edges.
Alsen exhaled, a wave of cold flooding all through him.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: MAJOR ENEMY DEFEATED – VERATHRAS – 1]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 37000]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 31]
Luna jumped from the wall and caught his shoulder. “We have to hide. Now.”
He tried to reply, but he couldn’t move his mouth. She pulled him out of the sanctum and to the corpses that lay by the wall on the side of the dome that his shield protected.
The edges of the pile already burned, though.
She moved the corpses and shoved him down under them.
Luna slipped there next to him, moving the corpses to cover them.
Alsen closed his eyes and pushed out one more spell. A cooling spell, which targeted Luna, especially her head. The brain needed to stay cool enough not to boil.
Funny how after all the times he had chosen the next adventure for her without consulting her, she ended up paying it back by deciding his side of the conflict between gods and dragons for him.
A streak of lightning hit the dome’s center.