The Gamer Chapter 1528 – The Fog [Metra POV] (Patreon)

A cascade of unrefined power blocked Liakan’s form from Metra’s sight. There was only the torrent of raw power, exploding outwards like the sparks flying off a lit mixture of gunpowder and metal. Spraying high into the air and low to the ground equally, the chaotic wave of raw arcane projectiles soon became more than a distant display of power.

The green dots of Metra’s eyes darted around, looking for the gaps in the bullet hell that descended on her. She turned and ran, outpacing the rain of carpet bombs for as long as she could, before finally the devastation reached her.

It was loud. The magical energies distorted natural sounds into something synthetic and almost musical. The sheer cacophony made the establishment of any harmony in the sound useless. Like the sound, the physical world around Metra was basked in an oversaturation of arcane, exploding, overlapping, and crashing into itself.

As best she could, she remained on her feet. At times, the shockwaves were enough to rip even her off her soles. She rolled with little coordination down a crater, only to be blasted upwards by another explosion that turned the ground behind her into a half-glassed, half-crystallized crater.

Rex Magnar appeared once more in her hand, letting her vault over the impact site of another attack. The mess of it all made the next attack unpredictable. The chaos, it was… beautiful.

Metra landed on her feet. Under the helmet that currently was her exterior, what existed of her lips in the underlying mesh of magic, metal, and god stuff twisted into a wide grin. Her tail wagged, as she slapped aside a descending projectile with Rex Magnar, then caught another in her hand, shattering it with the might worthy of a royal guard.

For just a few seconds, the constant drums of war went quiet and infrequent. Liakan’s form remained obscured by erratically flickering lights, hundreds of metres between them. There was no room to bridge that distance easily, just as there was no safe place to stand. What goes up must come down, after all.

The parts of the unleashing spray of energy that had been catapulted high up had passed the highest point of their arcs and now descended in a second hail of hellish cacophony. “Bring it,” Metra hissed, letting rage and Fury go to even further heights.

All that mattered was that she moved of her own accord. Charging forwards, for there was no better direction to go, she trampled over dirt so soaked in the ambient energies that it crackled under every step. She crushed crystal and glass under her metal boots into unsteady grains, as apocalyptic mage-fire exploded all around her.

Leaping through, cutting in twain, catching and shattering the raw arcane energies, Metra advanced. Her only focus was the next step, to keep up and down straight as the crater-scape around her was levelled, then pock-marked all over again. Rex Magnar was never idle. Eerily quiet, the weapon created only the sounds of air whispering over its unfathomably sharp edge.

The veil of arcane energies turned from omnipresent into a thick fog of dispersed energies. Black intermingled with purple and blue, swallowing the light at an alarming rate. It was a fog of war, created by a clash between two individuals mightier than entire armies.

One projectile descended at an unusual speed, absorbing others around it into its plasmatic body through arcs of chaotic energy. Its presence cut a hole through the descending ceiling. That was all Metra needed.

Swinging Rex Magnar in a triumphant arc, she cut open a portal and dropped in. One moment she was under the final wave of the barrage, the next she was high in the sky above – and descending on her enemy from a clear sky. In the middle of her fall, she drew back her throwing arm and waited for her opening.

Liakan’s lightning-wreathed chrysalis trembled, then broke open. The exterior unfolded into a myriad of wings, too many to count in a flash. Not that it would have done Metra any good to start. The discordant array was as unsteady in its size as before, having only gained firmness in its presence, shifting from ethereal blue to a firm mixture of purple and black. The wings appeared on her lower back and streamed up the ridge of her long spine, disappearing near the elongated neck of the arcane elemental’s new form.

The previous gangly nature of her limbs had only been emphasized. Arms that reached the knees of her double-jointed legs ended in thin fingers. The legs themselves were nearly twice as long as her serpentine torso, which extended on one end into a tail of sand and metal plates and into a draconic head covered in scales of pure arcane energy on the other. The coral-like horns had spread out further. Individually they were perfect fractals, reaching three levels of predictable forking, yet as a mass they were placed without rhyme or reason.

The daughter of chaos opened her eyes, revealing pearls of black split by a lilac pupil. Her attention snapped to Metra. Rearing her head, she prepared another breath attack, her four-way parted maw splitting to show the swirl of black and purple mana within. Metra threw Rex Magnar with all her might. Eyes widening, the mixture of arcane desert, metal and dragon that was her opponent curved out of the way.

The halberd’s enchantments turned its impact into its own cataclysmic delivery of explosive force. Electricity showed the constant discharges of arcane lightning what true thunder looked like, booming in the air with the honesty of a thunderstrike, while the earth was ravaged, ripping the footing away from Liakan.

Amongst the trembles, Metra landed at the feet of her opponent, now more than twice her size. Liakan lost no time swiping her thin limbs in wide arcs, claws extended several metres by sharp blades of black mana. The reason for the difference in colour, Metra was only vaguely familiar with. A change in frequency, manifesting in a shift on the colour spectrum. What truly mattered was the shift in its destructive capability.

The black mana slammed into Metra’s arm and shoulder. It broke on her Astrotium armour, but not without cutting deep trenches into her surface. All regenerated, but the attacks did not stop at a single swipe.

Metra’s attempted assault was stopped by a swarm of conjured shards of mana, each concentrated black. Mana refined to its most precise harming capacity.

One spell flowed into the next. An unpredictable array of all manners of black and purple swarmed Metra’s way, driving her further and further back into the fog with each blocked, taken, or neutralized hit. Liakan’s glowing form was swallowed by the mist, until she grabbed the veil upon this space itself and cloaked herself in it.

The chaos dragon was gone.

Metra howled in anger, rushing forwards to find her enemy once more. All she found was empty fog. The shrouding was complete and only grew thicker, swirling like a vortex around Metra, until even the sky was swallowed. All light that existed came from the mist itself.

Standing unarmed in the stirring fog, Metra stared. Eyes searched for any movement. Her wolf ears turned. There was no silence to be found, the constant humming and vibrating of oversaturated mana in the air robbing her of any certainty. Patterns emerged in the mist and she launched at them, only to find her claws dragging through nothing.

Then Liakan’s maw truly curved out of the wall of fog, opened wide, and delivered a devastating beam of purple and black before Metra could reposition. The attack cut and melted through her armour, sending droplets of Astrotium flying through the air and falling as slag. Metra felt the sting of pain in her interiors, the parts of her that could vaguely be called organs, before the attack ebbed away.

The Astrotium had no chance to knit itself back together, just as little as Metra had a chance to recover. Liakan’s head vanished back into the fog, only for a terribly potent sphere of arcane to slam into Metra’s back. An arc lance followed, an arcana ray of lesser make after that, throwing the First of Wrath around.

“Let me…” she growled, swiping aside a spell only for two others to penetrate her abdomen and emerge clear from the other side. The pain was real, hot and burning, but little more than an amber to the undying rage of the Breaker of Armies. “LET ME…!” she began to scream once again.

Ethereal projectiles peeled out of the eerie mist, swirling energies recycled into new spellwork that pelted Metra while she did her best to buy herself enough time for her regeneration to restore the integrity of her armour. Plates formed and knit themselves from the Astrotium taken from elsewhere on her body. It restored her outward appearance slowly, but did little to deal with her whittling down vitality. In her king’s terms: she was restoring her defences, not her HP.

“LET – ME…” Metra roared once more, as she waltzed between attacks. Her eyes dashed rapidly as she moved, leaving green streaks in this ocean of arcane. In a moment between two attacks, she relaxed her body, presenting the almost closed wound on her upper torso.

Liakan surged forward like a viper chasing a poisoned rodent. Jaws wide open, she was prepared to unleash one final energy attack. An attack to melt Metra’s shoulder off, arm and all, and end this fight.

“LET ME GUIDE YOU TO THE AFTERLIFE!” Metra’s helmet split open as she howled those words. Rage boiled to reach the threshold of what her body could contain. Rex Magnar manifested in her hand and screamed with glorious bloodlust. The weapon ignited, plasma bursting out from the thorn.

The axe blade moved in a prismatic blur, leaving a brilliant arc in its wake that belied the sheer brutality of the impact. Fusionals slammed into scales of hardened mana, shattering them into particles like glass in zero gravity. Liakan’s certain victory was broken like so many soldiers under the onslaught of Metra’s power.

“ANOTHER CONQUEST FOR MY MASTER’S REALM!” The head of the dragon slammed into the ground and Liakan screamed. The scales were broken, the grains and Mithril flew in chunks soaked in liquid mana, but her skull endured. Azure metal revealed under sand-skin bent and melted under the quivering blade of Rex Magnar, but did not break. The Extreme Plasma Burst was difficult to control. The entire weapon vibrated with delight at an obstacle it could not overcome.

The second the enchantment began to fizzle, Liakan swiped at Metra with black mana blade claws once again. All wrath urged her to keep up the hurt, but she was the mistress of her anger NOT the other way around. Dodging, Metra attempted to prevent the dragon from slinking back into the fog with Rip, but her hand only gripped tingling air.

Changing her grip on Rex Magnar to be close to the head, Metra moved rapidly. Anger coursed through her veins, drumming with an intensity she had not felt since her fight against Arkeidos. Spells whistled by her, an assault from all directions of the fog. The serpentine dragon revealed herself between barrages of attacks.

Liakan lashed out with her foot. Metra caught it and yanked her out of hiding, adding another wound to the dragon’s thigh by shanking the grainy sinews. Coiling around, Liakan delivered a short blast of a breath attack, sending Metra flying to another area of the dense fog.

Crystals glowed at her feet, unleashing a myriad of shards. They pelted her armour and she accepted the damage to raise her hand and catch a concentrated sphere and crush it between her palms. A single mana blade stabbed from the fog, penetrating Metra’s shoulder.

More spells covered the chaos dragon’s retreat. Metra bit back her need to give chase, concentrating instead on cutting and weaving through the barrage that followed. Arc strikes rained from above. The First of Wrath escaped their blast radius, while Liakan charged her with repeated assaults, emerging and melding with the fog like a shark in murky waters.

They reached a parity of movements. All consequential spells were cut down, all of Liakan’s assaults missed narrowly, all of Metra’s counterattacks found only empty air. The dragon surged past the First of Wrath, her jaws having caught nothing, and Metra did not turn around in time to capitalize.

Like this, back and forth, spells and violence were unleashed until, finally, something clicked.

The master of all arms caught Liakan mid-descent with a near vertical kick. A stunning blow, letting Metra twist into a roundhouse swing of her halberd. Liakan recovered just in time to meet the attack with a shield of purple energy – a massive scale covering her arm like a bracer. She swung the extended claws of her other hand. Metra swatted the gangly limb aside with her left.

Powerful, slow blows were exchanged like this, both parties aiming for a deciding strike repeatedly and getting blown back by their opponent’s defensive manoeuvres. The ripples evened the patterns in the mist, until the mist itself began to thin.

Just like Metra’s vitality, Liakan’s mana had to have a limit.

An overpowering swing sent the dragon flying. First from the impact of the attack, then by virtue of her discordantly beating wings, Liakan made for the geyser thinly visible through fog.

Metra strained her eyes, trying to retain sight on her target. The fog began to pull, to swirl, to consolidate in a single point. All was sucked into the geyser, clearing up the obstacles to her sight. Gripping Rex Magnar with both hands, the First of Wrath stood her ground and braced herself for what her opponent was preparing.

The one-woman army she was hunting had been cornered. Like so many before, Liakan would be broken by the first Metracana – desperate measures or not.

The geyser of power collapsed in a single instant into a new halberd, its shaft forged from frozen lightning, its head fog and crystal of black mana made manifest. The purple of the mist played around Liakan’s form, filling out her gangly silhouette with mass without a clear outline. Even as azure blood kept pouring out between her horns from the axe wound Metra had delivered, the eyes of Liakan remained wide awake and determined.

“Come, then, fellow wayward sister! Claim what you can!”

Liakan was the first to put a foot forward, an insult that Metra could not abide by. Walking, then jogging, then running, then sprinting, then charging, then clashing with enough force to create the deepest crater in the landscape yet, the two inheritors of Tiamat slammed into each other. Violence at its most quintessential ensued. Halberds whirled and clashed repeatedly, an azure dragon versus a grey war hound, both of them clad in armours of legendary might, denting, melting and splitting under their mutual blows.

And for all the damage she took, the winner was certain.

Metra surged ahead. First, their weapons met at the shaft, throwing Liakan’s defences wide open. Second, the metal wolf stepped in close, taking any range advantage Liakan had from her. Third, the First of Wrath dropped Rex Magnar and took complete advantage of the proximity

Three decisions was all it took to put the fight on the road to the end. Clawing and tearing, Metra was a beast of anger guided by the warrior’s will. Her fingers ripped chunks of crystal sand out of Liakan’s body. Her teeth found purchase around metal plates and shredded them. Every action caused liquid mana to bleed from the wounds she carved.

Liakan attempted to get away, of course. Stepping back did not help her, the First of Wrath was too fast. Attempting to fly did not work, the First of Wrath did not let go of her grip anymore and her strength was absolute. Counterattacks did not suffice, the First of Wrath too keen in her instinct to be overwhelmed by her enemy.

Victory for her king was the only acceptable end.

One mighty blow sent Liakan flying on her back. Before she could recover from her daze, Metra had torn open a portal and emerged behind the dragon’s head. Grabbing her by the horns, the First of Wrath began to twist and pull, every bit intent on continuing until Liakan either disappeared from this place or…

“I surrender,” the daughter of chaos declared.