Magma Dragon's Heir-Chapter 225 - Spiritual Conundrums
43rd of Season of Water, 82nd year of the 32nd cycle
The beast snarled, swiping with its wounded arm. Next met the strike with his glaive. The rock cracked, but the defense held long enough for the longclaw to send Newt flying. The myst closed in, and the saurian vanished, its pained roar drowned by the supernatural silence.
Newt ran to the side and sensed the longclaw rush through the myst in the direction in which Newt had flown. The saurian ran past Newt, neither seeing the other, but Newt gave chase.
The monster appeared, Newt stabbing his glaive at its side. Flames burst beneath his feet, and Newt jumped, driven by a sudden flare of phantom pain in his midsection.
The longclaw’s tail swept where Newt had stood a moment ago, but he was already jumping over the saurian. He drove his glaive into its back. The rock cracked, and the monster screamed in pain as blood fountained from the gaping wound.
The longclaw buckled. Whether it was due to pain or maiming, Newt couldn’t tell. The wound was large, bleeding profusely, but a layer of rock closed it too.
Newt landed on the gravel, and the saurian steadied itself. Newt fled into the myst. The longclaw chased, but didn’t react quickly enough.
This could work.
Ambushing the longclaw and looking for an opportunity. While the wounds he had inflicted were massive, lethal or crippling against normal saurians, the crust of rock stopped the bleeding.
Some of it must be pooling in its body.
Unfortunately, awakened physiques of saurians were so ridiculous that even a barrel of blood sloshing in its body wouldn’t make much of a difference.
No, I need to kill or cripple it with a decisive blow; the death of a thousand cuts doesn’t work at this realm.
Newt sensed the longclaw draw closer, and Newt veered left, opening up distance and setting up another ambush.
Where to hit? The legs are well fortified, and if it has half a brain, its neck should be impenetrable.
Newt realized there was one place with weaker defenses.
He blazed out of the fog, glaive ready. Once more, the longclaw sensed him and tried to slap him with its meaty tail. Newt ducked under it, then slashed where it was bent the most. Blood splashed the ground, two-thirds of the massive tail thumping meatily against the gravel.
The longclaw toppled face-first, suddenly out of balance. Newt jumped, not giving it a moment to recover. His glaive bit into the saurian’s nape, slashing through rock, scale, flesh and bone. The longclaw gurgled, its body spasming, and Newt pulled out his bloodied weapon.
He jumped away, waiting for the monster’s body to go still before he moved in to finish the job.
I really don’t see how this will help me advance my danger sense.
Newt finished off the longclaw, opened its chest in search of a core, and naturally found none.
“Of course,” he grumbled, then continued into the myst.
***
Whatever inspiration he was supposed to find in the myst, Newt failed to find it that year. And the next, and the next. For four years, each year he had wasted a week wandering the Valley of the Lost, until he finally sculpted the entirety of his fourth realm and was ready to step into the fifth.
He stood in his realm, looking at the realm barrier. Magmin hadn’t manifested once, or if did, he did so outside Newt’s perception. Given the realm’s size, it wasn’t a difficult task. Newt stared at his realm barrier. Once upon a time it was new and shimmering and full of colors, but now he recognized it as a reflection of all worldly and otherworldly flames mixed with everything the earth element had to offer.
Stolen novel; please .
Newt admired the beauty of shifting sands or perhaps dancing flames, realization dawning.
“You’re not just the barrier between my realms. You are the barrier between me and the universe, aren’t you?”
The ever-changing dome didn’t respond. Not even a quiver at his insight.
“Does that mean I can break the barrier in some other way? In a way that would make me closer to the universe, and not just advance my realm?” An insane idea struck him. “What would happen if I advanced my realm during heavenly punishment, when the world’s energy torrents through me?”
The barrier gave no hint regarding its thoughts.
“I’ll consult the star charts, but I think I’ll have another chance in less than half a century. For now, let’s do it the way I always did it.”
Newt willed it, and the realm barrier shattered like glass, revealing a larger world beyond.
He watched it for a while, contemplating, then turned back towards the volcanic peak. It stood in the distance, the mountain already seeming bigger than the Dragon’s Rest mountain.
“So, are you ready to talk?” Newt asked.
“No, but I guess we should.” Magmin plunged towards Newt and landed on the ground.
Something he hadn’t done ever since he had first appeared in Newt’s realm, his glorious wings fully sprouted. Newt took it as an act of defiance, to show that he wasn’t the sharpbeak’s shadow, but his own self. Even if the sharpbeak was in reality the shadow of Magmin.
“Have you figured out what you want to do?”
“Nothing changed there,” Magmin mumbled.
“All right… What changed?”
“Nothing.”
“Magmin, work with me. We both want you out of my realm, preferably alive, powerful, and happy.”
The winged lindworm stared at Newt. “You really mean that?”
“I don’t know about how you feel, but you’re my friend, and I owe you one lifesaving grace. It would be good if the resulting life was as great as possible.” Newt flashed a grin.
Magmin’s tense body relaxed, then he released a throaty vibration, too low to be called a sound. Newt recognized it as a show of happiness.
“I owe you one,” Magmin fixed his gaze on Newt, burning the moment into his memory. “While you say you owe me a lifesaving grace, we both know that’s not the case. You passed a trial my other self had made, and you somehow drew a portion of my soul with you, nurturing it until I became close to real. I still don’t understand everything involved, I’ll probably need to rouse more of my intelligence. But I do know I wish to leave your realm and see the real world again.”
Realm, real, is there a connection?
Newt shelved the thought, focusing on Magmin.
“Do you think you can contribute to leaving my realm? To me, it looks like it’s all on me, but you might know something I don’t.”
“I’ve been considering the matter.” Magmin tensed again. “I don’t think we’ll be able to permanently sever our bond. Something tells me the best you’ll be able to do is make a vessel for me to roam the real world for a time before we have to do it again.”
Magmin paused, then realized his hisses had turned low and grim. “Not that I would mind something like that. Even in life, I must have spent years or decades bound to a single place, not doing much. There’s little difference whether I’m guarding a natural treasure or sleeping in your realm.”
Magmin revealed several things in his ramblings. While he was without a body in Newt’s realm, he was asleep at least a part of the time. And since he recalled guarding natural treasures, that meant he was slowly but certainly gathering the original Magmin’s memories.
Newt naturally refrained from commenting. “Do you have any idea what resources we would need or how do we go about summoning you?”
Magmin’s face strained. He looked like a man trying to recall something he had overheard once years ago. An impossible task, yet the information was there, somewhere.
Finally, Magmin shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe after we visit the realm again. What I do know is that you won’t be able to manifest me while your realm is lower than mine.”
That made sense to Newt. While his mana was very pure for his realm, and his control over it matching someone a realm beyond him, Newt simply didn’t have enough of it. And summoning a dragon of his realm sounded like it should exhaust all his mana, even if it lasted only a handful of minutes.
“How long do you think you would be able to stay outside my realm?”
“Depends,” Magmin said with certainty. “You would infuse my body with energy, and I would dissipate once that energy ran out.”
“And how do you know that?”
Magmin shrugged. “I just do.”
“What if we used treasures or raw manarium when summoning you? Would that help?”
Another shrug. “There’s no need to speculate now. The next thing you need to do is visit my realm once you’re certain you can defeat the guardian. It will expand your realm and perhaps give me more insight into the matter of summoning.”
Newt nodded. He would need a moon or two to hone his skills and spells, perhaps finally get some formal training with the glaive, and then he would be off, back to his ancestral home, the first fifth realm mageknight since Blaze IV, his great-grandfather’s great-grandfather’s father.
Newt grinned.
Oh, I have to send a long, humble letter to Dad.
Chapter 225 - Spiritual Conundrums
Comments