269. Mt. Tai (IV) (Patreon)

There was a cannon built at the peak of Mt. Tai. It had been here long before the fortress was built, long before the dragons came to the dragonrealm. It was made by an ancient Godking of a foreign race. History had long brushed them away, scattering their traces to the wind. This was all that remained. It’d stood here, proud and solemn, since the dawn of recorded time, looking exactly as it always had.

It was the model from which all cannons were built. It was simple, unlike those jewel-studded braggarts lining his walls. This was just steel, without a speck of rust; clear, but not shiny. It was built with an ancient sensibility—it felt no need to proclaim its magnificence.

Its deeds did that well enough.

If Salas Godhunter was a name spoken with awe and fear, what would you say of the weapon that’d downed him?

Only it had been so long since it had last awoken that the myths had claimed its name, twisted it, made it stranger and bigger and smaller than it was, an object of much incredulity. Some said it was but an ordinary cannon. Some said that it’d never shot Salas at all.

After all, no one in living memory had seen its work. Not even Scraggletooth, however much he’d wished to wield it over the eons. He had no way to power it. It’d spat out his max-grade spirit stones. It’d bucked off anyone who dared aim it, to his great annoyance.

Until now.

The cannon sat on a pedestal on the fortress’s peak. Underneath it was a stone platform inscribed with an array formation which had taken Scraggletooth’s best scribes three days and three nights to carve. It took no Spirit Stones as its batteries; instead, chained to the base of the pedestal, was a slumped, bound, body.

A giant man. Thirteen feet tall, overgrown with shaggy hair, thick-skinned, thick-featured, eyes sealed shut. He exuded an aura so fearsome it instantly drew the eye, quickened the heart of even a Godking like Scraggletooth. You wouldn’t dare take your eyes off it, the way a man wouldn’t dare take his eyes off a sleeping bear.

This was not just any Godking. This was one of the greatest Godkings of the Multiverse in his time. The most infamous name in the history of the dragonrealm.

Salas Godhunter.

Reanimated against his will for one last hunt.

Scraggletooth stepped up to the cannon, took a shaky breath, and pressed a finger to its metal. Just one, tentatively, like he was testing to see just how hot it was. No reaction. Then he curled more fingers onto the handles and started to swing it around.   Until it was lined up that narrow path down the mountain, a straight shot between two cliffs of stone. No escape.

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream left Scraggletooth’s lips. There was much to be mad about on this hateful day. The invader had wrecked his traps. Panicked his men. And at this rate, left alone, he’d pose a serious threat to Scraggletooth’s throne. Yet for some ridiculous reason—and he knew it was ridiculous, but it was true—what really burned Scraggletooth was that he’d made Scraggletooth lose his composure. In front of all of his underlings, no less!

He was so used to wrapping himself in an attitude of cool, smug contempt, like a favorite cloak. Yet who would take him seriously anymore after this? No doubt the image of his shrill screaming would be carved indelibly into their minds; no doubt it’d be the first thing they thought of when they spoke of him! That was face he’d never get back.

Unless he did something so great and so terrible that it utterly overshadowed it.

He began to chant, and the array came alive below him.

***

Dorian nearly made it to the moat, and he was close to finished. He ached all over. He couldn’t tell if it was from the wounds or the exhaustion. Both, probably; his muscles burned, his skin burned, his wounds burned, every heaving breath felt like hot coals raking his lungs.

But he’d nearly made it! Finally! He could see the fortress up ahead, carved out black against a bright sky, swimming in his vision. The sight gave him a rush of strength.

A familiar aura seeped out of the fortress. It grounded him in place.

“Salas?” he whispered.

Then he felt very, very small. Like he was an insect, and there some great and urgent instinct that told him something huge was coming for him; he had to get out of the wa —now! He could see nothing as he stared up at the sky, but the aura radiating off the Fortress flared up suddenly, blanketing the Heavens like clouds before a thunderstorm. This was not like Pliny’s aura, or like the Auctioneer’s. He stood in the presence of a true power of the Multiverse.

***

Scraggletooth couldn’t control it, and he knew it. He was shaking so hard he was worried his grip would slip; he wasn’t sure if there was an earthquake, or if the earthquake was within him. Sparks leapt off the array, crackling in the air. Below, Salas had sat up. His eyes snapped open, revealing two sockets of incandescent light.

“Just one shot,” whispered Scraggletooth. “Just one!”

Snarling, he poured in his own powers too.

The combined powers of two top Godkings sank into the depths of the cannon.

“FIRE!”

***

One moment Sun was humming along, eagerly nibbling a sausage as her armies rushed for the Fortress. There was nothing quite as satisfying as that feeling when things went exactly to plan. Not even a very good sausage.

The next, the world had ground to a halt. All eyes were fixed on a point atop the fortress. It was like they were glimpsing a sunrise—but there was already a sun in the sky.

What the hells?!

“RETREAT!” cried Sun, chucking the sausage in panic. “RETREA—”

The explosion cut her off.

***

The aura swelled, cresting, a great tsunami of qi, and he felt it coming a split second before it did. Dorian’s first instinct was to get the Hells out of the way.

But the whole army was behind him. And in front of him loomed the specter of the blast…

He was stuck.

If that thing struck there was a chance it could end him. If he jumped now maybe he could clear it.

But the rest would descend on Sun, and Gerard, and the rest. And he could not let that happen. There was no assault with them gone. He needed them; of course he did. Gerard for his knowledge, Sun for her soft skills. Without them this whole journey fell apart—and with it, the fate of the Multiverse, and more pertinently, his own fate. Really there was no logical choice but to take it head-on—

He caught himself, surprised. Why did it feel like he was trying to justify a choice he’d already made?

There was no time to think on it. The blast was upon him.

He reached for his core, deep within. Even he wasn’t sure how much qi he had—he only knew it was a Hell of a lot. He felt like a man shouting down a chasm and hearing the fading echo of his own voice. He was summoning something whose size even he couldn’t fathom.

I want it ALL.

GIVE IT TO ME!

[Shield of the Blood Moon!]

He wrapped his wings over him as qi poured in, faster and fiercer than he’d ever seen. There seemed no limit to how much his wings could store. There seemed no limit to how fast his qi flowed either. It just kept pouring in. He knew he’d need every drop of it.

It was then that Dorian realized where this Bloodline Technique got its name.

His wings, wrapped in a tight ball, shone a sanguine red. They were so bright they seemed to darken the rest of the world, a blood moon dragged to ground level.

When the blast came it caught Dorian’s wings directly. The instant it struck his first instinct was to flinch to unfurl, to get away, some primal instinct every creature has in the presence of a natural disaster. Two great wheels of qi met in a fury—one red, one white, spinning against one another. Holding each other mid-air.

His wings couldn’t handle such qi from the inside. There was well over a Godking’s worth coursing through them.

And the forces from the outside were far worse.

He realized, with growing horror, that he’d miscalculated. If it was merely his qi pitted against that blast, a battle of Techniques, he very well might’ve held.

But even a Torchdragon’s body could not withstand the combined stress of nearly four Godkings’ worth of qi. All at once.

For an instant two titans wrestled for dominance. Neither would give.

But his body did.

Can’t… hold… on!

Dorian screamed.

The world went white.

***

Salas Godhunter’s eyes burned out. The body slumped once more.

Scraggletooth collapsed to his knees, sizzling. Dimly he heard a crash, and the sky went white. Ears ringing, mouth so dry his tongue felt like it might fall out at the slightest provocation, he clambered to his feet. Even that felt hard. There was no power in him.

All of it had gone into that earthshattering blast.

Silence reigned on the battlefield.

Dead silence.

“It’s done…” croaked Scraggletooth, disbelieving. He began to laugh. “It’s DONE! Haha!”

***

“NO!” cried Mooontail, wrenching at the bars of her prison. “PRINCE! You can’t fall now! Please—please get up! You can do it!”

In a corner, Redfang just sighed.