Spellheart 9: Chapter 10 (Patreon)

The dragon appeared suddenly, its deep brown scales catching the light of the nearest sun. To call this dragon massive would be like calling a boulder a mountain. It was a world unto itself. I had thought it would wield gravity magic like me, but as I looked up at the beast whose wings stretched from horizon to horizon, I realized I was staring at something truly otherworldly.

Rivers, forests, and storms adorned the dragon’s scales, crossing the ruddy brown in lines of blue and green. Clouds passed over them like the dragon was a living, breathing planet. Its size defied all expectations, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it consumed entire worlds to sustain itself. Perhaps that was why it was here.

As I looked upon the clouds, I saw flickering figures drifting around them, each one a miniature version of the massive dragon that was their home world. Millions of smaller dragons darted and flitted about, some meandering and scouring the terrain of their homeland, but many others had turned their eyes toward us. The sight was overwhelming, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread as I saw the sheer number of them. There had to be millions of the creatures, and all of them were headed for us."Looks like an earth dragon. No wonder it’s so big." Sam shaded his eyes as we both stared up at it. “As big as it is, it probably has the mass of something ten times larger. It needs to if it’s keeping those continents in place without magic. Though I suspect there’s some sort of space manipulation on its scales. Watch out for gravity attacks.”

As though Sam’s words were a prophecy, the dragon opened its maw, and I felt a tingle run across my entire body.

“Now that you mention it, I think I feel a little lighter than I should...” I frowned as I bounced on my heels.

“That would be its gravitational field. Dragons of that size can lift things right off the surface of a planet and draw them into its maw. If we weren’t here, it would probably sweep that field over every major settlement it found, swallowing up millions of elves.”

I grimaced. “Every true mage of mine has either a flying sword. And everyone below that has an earth golem to work with. Between the two, nobody should fall for some petty gravity trick.”

“The Planetary Defense Array should activate any moment now. Besides the extra gravity, we shouldn’t have to deal with that big girl at all,” Dean added.

We waited patiently while the air around us began crackling and shaking. The sky darkened, and black clouds roiled above us like an angry storm. As they grew closer and darker still, it became clear they were being sucked toward the sky by the giant dragon’s pull.

“Brace yourselves!” I yelled to my women and Comela behind me.

The sky above me twisted and writhed, as if in agony, forming a vortex that soared upward. Like water rushing down a drain, the dragon was devouring the very air around us. But that was only the beginning. The tingling sensation that ran up and down my body grew stronger, and the vortex overhead intensified. It reached the ground and sucked up dirt, trees, and even some of our people.

I watched in horror as several elves were caught in the dragon’s pull and swept off their feet. The Hearthwood Clan, with our abundance of flying swords, could keep themselves aloft, but others were not so lucky. I saw the banner of Deania flapping wildly in the wind, and I knew that Tivana’s warriors were in grave danger. So I called upon my magic, summoning the spell I used for my Sword Storm ability to levitate large rocks toward them. They grasped at the makeshift lifelines, and I could pull them back to safety.

But not everyone was so fortunate. I saw members of the Silver-Haired demigod’s faction disappear into the dragon’s maw, and I knew there was nothing I could do to save them. I had to stay at my post to protect my people. My heart heavy, I turned my gaze away, hoping that the Planetary Defense Array would activate in time to save them.

Perhaps if the fall killed them instead of the dragons, their wisps would have the chance to form new bodies again.

The sky above us erupted in a symphony of light and magic as the Planetary Defense Array activated. That ancient network of magic and technology, left behind by the old Elven Star Dominion, came to life all at once. Constellations formed in the sky, sketching strange patterns across the darkness. Beams of light shot up from the ground, and I saw more than one coming from the Hearthwood Forest.

The beams of light struck the massive dragon-like lances, cleaving through the landmasses on its hide and bearing deep into its flesh. The dragon roared in fury, its massive tail whipping through space behind it. But that only caused more weapons to activate as they orbited the world and opened fire on it with automated spells, one after another. Any one of those attacks would have smitten a sorcerer in an instant, but the dragon was taking thousands of them with little more than a roar of fury.

I spotted hundreds of tiny whirring things darting back and forth. They were so small from this distance, but they were probably massive up close. Squinting at them, I could just barely make out a humanoid shape. Instead, every one of those figures was a Planetary Defense Golem, just like my daughter Argona had taken control of. The Planetary Defense Array sent thousands of them to land on the gargantuan dragon’s back and attack in force.

But the massive dragon would not lie down and die. It cut off its gravity beam attacking us and unleashed a wave of fire that swept over the incoming golems. Thousands were destroyed in that one attack, but the Planetary Defense Array didn’t care. It kept attacking. It was clear that this was a fight far beyond our level.

Fortunately, we didn’t need to fight it. All we had to deal with were the millions of lesser dragons, along with those five big ones Sam and Dean had spotted earlier. Hopefully the demigods could hold their own against them, because even from this distance, I could sense their power.

I would only be responsible for battling the millions of smaller dragons headed our way and keeping as many of our people alive as I could while we did it.

Thinking it through didn’t make my job any easier, but it was too late to back out.

A dragon the size of a skyscraper was headed right towards us. I planned to meet it head-on. The ground trembled beneath me with every beat of its wings, and I sensed some of the elves nearby shy back in fright. But at the same time, others rose up to return this fearsome beast’s gaze.

Behind me, I sensed Amisra, Tivana, Comela, and Nela all standing strong. Comela’s Wyvern Queen looked diminutive compared to its larger cousins nearby, but beneath my daughter’s heels, it stayed steady.

Mature Sunwing Dragon (Sorcerer)

This fire-breathing dragon exudes solar zeal from its scales and can scorch the land beneath its wings. Beware its sweeping area of effect attacks.

It opened its wings wide, and I knew what was coming. I threw all of my power against the dragon, ready for the fight of my life.

I pulled it closer to the ground with gravity manipulation, forcing it to heel. I gestured wide, calling upon my iron-tipped Sword Storm blades resting around me.

It opened its maw, and I sensed my opportunity to strike. I used what I’d been practicing in the Primordial World. I focused, channeling my will and all the power of my very being.

The saliva within the dragon’s maw wasn’t saliva. It was C4 Plastic Explosive.

The moment I convinced myself of that fact, the dragon’s mouth exploded in a fountain of blood and gore. Teeth as large as my entire body went flying in all directions, and I flung some of the Stone Obelisks I’d conjured over the surrounding terrain in their direction to block the collateral damage.

“Father, you slew it with a single spell!” Comela laughed in jubilant excitement. “These dragons don’t stand a chance!”

But I shook my head. “Hold the celebration, Comela. I don’t think it’s dead yet.”

My surprise attack had nearly knocked the dragon out of the air, but now it swept its wings out and caught itself. Blood dripped from its shredded maw, and it locked eyes with me. The dragon’s gaze was filled with hatred and a burning desire for revenge.

I knew this dragon wouldn’t go down without a fight. So I pulled Spell Eater into my hand, ready for battle. Fire, space, light, and stone all rose to meet the dragon, battering its already ragged form. But it didn’t let up its hate-filled stare as it flew towards me.

I had tried my new trick again, but it proved futile now that the dragon was focused on me. It wasn’t as good as the Timeweaver Queen, but here outside of the Primordial World, that trick I’d just pulled had put a lot of strain on me. I wasn’t ready to do it again, even if this thing would not fight me over it.

With my spear in hand, I fought the dragon. Its teeth met my steel, and its eyes met my glare. Its scales held at first, but my unstoppable barrage of thrusts shattered them to dust. Each of those blows would have sundered a mountainside, but they were enough to slay this dragon.

The battle was fierce, and I felt the dragon’s rage and hatred as it fought me with everything it had.

With my spear in hand, I fought the dragon. Its teeth met my steel, and its eyes met my glare. Its scales held at first, but my unstoppable barrage of thrusts shattered them to dust. Each of those blows would have sundered a mountainside, but they were barely enough to slay this dragon.

I landed among my friends, lovers, and family once again. I turned, seeing a dozen more dragons heading toward us like the first. “One dragon down. Only about a million more to go.”

***

The fighting was long and bloody, and the dragons were relentless. We were spread out across a good chunk of the continent, so even with superhuman speed, it took a while for reinforcements from one group to reach another. The Hearthwood held the abandoned city we’d found. Its towering spires proved good cover for our lower-level fighters to duck and hide from dragonfire.

Though the modern inhabitants of this continent had been reduced to a primitive state, their ancestors knew their earth magic. I was shocked to see how durable the ruins were. Even dragonfire couldn’t crack the stone or topple the towers with anything short of a direct hit.

Deania was stationed nearby, with each clan spread across the area in defense of certain sectors and Tivana holding the center with the bulk of the royal family’s forces. Deania lost more wizards than they had fighting against the orcs and even more true mages and mage acolytes.

The dragons were relentless. They breathed beams of fire, lightning, death, and annihilation down on us from all directions. But the elves of the Hearthwood fought bravely. I was more than a little biased, but I would have sworn that we killed more dragons than any of the demigod factions.

We had more wizards than any other clan on the field, and Argona had her Planetary Defense Golem with her, which effectively gave us a second sorcerer.

With the human and elven demigods locked in furious combat against the dragon demigods, that meant sorcerers were the strongest fighters on the field, and our group was able to take them down.

Assyrus fought like a demon possessed. Whenever water magic flared across the battlefield, I knew her sword was cleaving down another foe. Few elves could take a direct swipe from a wizard-level dragon’s tail either, but she was one of them. Her ability to redirect force was second to none, and every dragon that hit her only ended up hurting itself.

The only other wizard-level fighter that could take a blow from a dragon and live was Yorik. Her body cultivation made her a difficult foe under ordinary circumstances, and one unfortunate dragon who thought he’d swallowed a hapless elf found my fearsome orc warrioress cutting herself free from inside its belly.

The dragon could count itself lucky because if Yorik hadn’t cut herself free so quickly, I would have given that dragon a piece of my mind, and its end would have been much more painful.

Wings were of no use against Eltiana’s nimble moves. She leaped from dragon head to dragon head, skewering them with a long poisoned dagger right at the base of the skull. Her blade was a weapon custom designed for delivering one of Sava’s most deadly poisons, so whenever Eltiana could line up a stab between a set of scales, that dragon was doomed to die. Most fell from the sky without ever knowing what killed them.

Nela stood proudly with her spear in hand. She looked just like a sterner and more world-weary version of Comela, standing like that with a fierce glare in her eyes. More than one wizard had assumed Comela was her younger sister instead of her daughter, so fierce was their shared gaze.

Nela guarded our flank with implacable resolve. No matter how many foes battered our line, they were met with beams of golden light and one deadly thrust of her spear after another.

Melise and Korra stood back toward the rear. Melise thought her skills were better suited to fixing damage than to causing it, and her personal efforts were part of why the Hearthwood had so few casualties relative to other factions.

I was immensely pleased to see that she’d picked up some new tricks living in the Fateweaver Society. Now she knew the same trick that I’d found so frustrating coming from the Timeweaver Spiders. She could reverse the flow of time around an injury, healing it completely. Done quickly enough, she could even resurrect the recently deceased. Not that she was limited strictly to healing. When Mayatania took an injury to her side, and a dragon refused to let Melise heal her, that unfortunate dragon experienced the full might of Melise’s new and improved Starfire Crucible. It was a glorious sight to behold.

Korra clung to the shadows, working at the dragons like Eltiana, though on a lesser scale. She slipped between true mage dragons one after another, claws digging in and tearing free scales that left vulnerabilities for others to exploit. While not as flashy, her efforts drove off dragons before they truly committed to fighting us. More than one flew home with their tails tucked between their legs after feeling Korra tearing a few scales free.

Tivana split her time between helping us and protecting her subordinates in the wider Deanian Queendom. As the battle wore on, those forces moved closer and closer to us until most of their forces were within eyesight of us. The rest of Deania’s clans weren’t far behind. More than once, I caught a proud matriarch of one of our neighboring clans diving toward the Hearthwood Clan’s sector for cover.

Not that I minded. Thanks to Layered Durability, I covered most of our forces in a shield that would let them shrug off most forms of dragon fire. Only the sorcerer-level dragons could break through our defenses, and I fought those personally.

Besides Argona, Comela also made an excellent showing. Her Wyvern Queen took a bite to the neck and had to be sent back to the Hearthwood for care, but that didn’t stop Comela from jumping on the back of a true mage-level juvenile dragon and blasting it with every spell she had from right on top of its head.

I had to reign her in a few times because she started straying from the group more than once in pursuit of more dragons to kill. The other factions weren’t doing nearly as well as we were, and if not for me hauling her back to the Hearthwood’s region, she might have run off to help them.

This battle was going on with no sign of stopping, and pretty soon, we would have to start pulling people back to rest and recover. I wanted everyone on our side to be in top form just in case the unexpected happened. My kids were young, but if things went badly, they’d soon see the wisdom in what I said.

The fighting lasted hours, and as it did, the massive dragon in the sky drifted steadily across the horizon.

“Father, it looks like it’s leaving! You think we chased it off yet?” Comela pointed at the massive sky dragon.

I shook my head. “Not yet. And that dragon isn’t moving. The planet is rotating beneath her.”

Sam and Dean had given me a fairly extensive briefing as to how these fights went, and I had the Blackgorge Tribe’s records from a battle with a Dragonswarm just like this one. It might have even been this very swarm.

Yorik’s father had died fighting a battle just like this one, and facing it now, I could see why. When I thought of dragons, I thought of a giant gold-hungry beast with teeth, claws, hardened scales, and fire blowing from its maw. As scary as that might have been to an ordinary human, I didn’t fear teeth, claws, or any normal fire. An ordinary dragon was just one more monster to slay.

But the dragons in the Ten Thousand Worlds were on another level. The ferocious beasts shot beams of fire and ice that could stretch across kilometers, and the powerful among them were large enough to alter the gravity on the surface of a planet. The swarms coming our way seemed endless, and this wasn’t even all the dragons living on that world painted across the massive dragon’s scales. If we were to truly face the full might of this endless draconic hive, I doubted even the almighty Planetary Defense Array could save us.

But while the demigods had to continue their fight against the higher-level beasts, the approach of the smaller dragons slowed. With their matriarch growing further away, fewer were landing near us to attack.

I was worried about the other regions of the world for fear that the dragons were landing there instead, and word back from the Hearthwood was that they were spotting a few stragglers. But whatever fate magic Sam and the other Demigods had woven to confront them here was working, and we had a genuine reprieve from the fighting for a few hours.

The sun set, and I made sure everyone took some time to rest and recover. Even though few of us needed much sleep, we still had to recover zeal and heal our wounds. Tomorrow would be another long day of battle.

<Note>

Sorry for the delay! I accidentally scheduled this for tomorrow instead of today because I was working on it at midnight last night.