Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)-11-77. Ancient Enemy
Elijah – in the body of the young dragon Asharain – braced himself as six platforms rose to the surface to reveal half a dozen vespirans. Their wings buzzed in unison, emitting a collective sound that could rival a jumbo jet. But they remained rooted to the ground.
Each of them wore the same haughty expressions with which Elijah had become intimately familiar, but they were each massive. At least three times the size of any he’d encountered in the Broken Crown. Moreover, their every defining detail – from the angular nature of their faces to the jagged chitin ripping through their flesh – looked even more savage.
The implication was clear. Either they were higher level than any of the others Elijah had fought, or they were an older version of the race. Proto-vespirans. Whatever the case, they were clearly powerful, and to a degree that sent a chill up his long, serpentine spine.
Clearly, the strongest among them was the female, though. Unlike the Druid Elijah had killed in the Broken Crown, this woman was no non-combatant. Her muscles bulged with savage need. In one hand, she clutched a giant harpoon made of bone, and in the other, a shield that had once been a reptilian skull.
Her blood-red chitin clashed with the milky white of her fleshy skin, setting her further apart from the other five, who were arrayed on either side of her. By comparison, their chitin was a more familiar black, with green highlights, and their human-like skin a more natural shade of tan.
None of them had hair. Instead, they sported slashes of chitin upon their skulls. The female’s had grown to resemble jagged and sweeping horns.
“A lone vespiran is weak. Barely worth noticing,” the announce intoned. The vespirans snarled at that characterization. “But together, they are a true terror that can threaten even the mightiest dragon. Even their progeny pose a danger to any who come into contact with those hateful larvae. Mind-control is the worst they can inflict upon an enemy, but it is not the limit of their detestable deeds. They can poison the mind and body alike, while sending enormous swarms to tear their enemies apart. They do not care for one another. They will gladly sacrifice their allies in pursuit of their goals. They are alien and abominable.”
Elijah heard the announcer’s description, but he barely listened to the details. He’d experienced everything the vespirans had to offer. He’d felt larvae bore through his skull in an attempt to poison his mind. He’d seen similar larvae transform into wasps and burst free of his allies’ chests in a shower of gore.
Even more troublingly, he’d seen the aftermath. The battlefields full of dead dragons. The mind-controlled draconic slaves. The sheer horror they could inflict upon their enemies.
And he hated them.
Back in the Broken Crown, he could push that aside in service of his own goals, but right now, in an unfamiliar body and with an entire arena of dragons looking down on him, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore his instinctive abhorrence.
He wanted to rush them immediately, but something held him back. Only then did he recognize the invisible shackles on his legs. He flapped his wings, but he remained rooted to the ground.
“Be easy, young Asharain,” said the announcer. “We are more than just mighty. We are controlled. We maintain our –”
A guttural, yet feminine voice cut in, even louder than the announcer’s, as it said, “You are bestial tyrants who should be –”
“Enough!” the announcer spat, slapping the female vespiran down with his voice alone. She nearly collapsed under the utterance of that single word. The other vespirans trembled, both in fear and anger. “You do not speak, insect. You fight. And if you win, we will set you free. That is the bargain. If it displeases you, you can go back to the Shimmering Mountains and live what’s left of your life in the agony of captivity.”
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his tone had returned to normal. Like a loving uncle crossed with a carnival barker. He said, “Control, Asharain. We are mighty, yes. But might unconstrained is tyranny. Power unguided is chaos. A dragon without self-control is no better than a beast.”
This time, Elijah did listen, and the words cut through him like a knife. For so long, he’d acted on instinct. Or at least, he’d thought that was what he was doing. However, even in the Broken Crown, he’d practiced self-control. Otherwise, he would have fought a war without end, slaughtering vespirans until he was finally overcome.
“But might unused is nothing but lost potential. You must strike a balance, young Asharain. You must learn through experience. To that end, defeat the enemy and prove your strength.”
Suddenly, Elijah felt the shackles give way. Freed, he took a step forward, though he didn’t rush. The vespirans didn’t either. Instead, they immediately threw themselves into the sky. As one, they sought their freedom, only to slam into an invisible barrier a little more than five-hundred feet above the surface.
Or at least that was Elijah’s estimate, but that was based on his current size. He had no real context for true scale. For all he knew, he was a thousand feet long, and everything else had been sized to fit.
The male vespirans aimed one attack after another at the invisible barrier, but the female remained aloof. She hovered in place, looking down on Elijah as the untouchable crowd roared. She barked some command, and the other vespirans ceased their futile attacks against the unassailable shield. In moments, they were hovering beside her in a familiar fighting formation.
Stolen from NovelFire, this story should be ed if encountered on Amazon.
She was at the vanguard, while the others spread out to either side.
She thrust her spear at Elijah, and they dove. With a roar, Elijah leaped, flapped his wings, and ascended to meet them. A wind blade came in, hard and fast. Elijah banked, twisting into a barrel roll right before he slammed into one of the vespirans. He’d initially aimed for the female, but the dodge had thrown him off course.
That was fine, though.
Elijah intended to kill them all, and it didn’t matter which one came first.
As his claws wrapped around the massive wasp-man, more wind blades glanced off his emerald scales. At the same time, his victim lashed out, his spear jabbing into Elijah’s less protected underbelly. He stabbed a dozen times in a second, but the wounds were nothing compared to what Elijah had already experienced.
He tucked his wings and dove.
The other five vespirans followed, harrying him with more wind blades. A wave of sluggishness swept through Elijah’s body, emanating from the wasp-man’s repeated stabs. He ignored it. He didn’t need full strength to enact his plan, which was as simple as it was effective.
He slammed into the sandy ground, crushing the vespiran fighter under his feet. He felt the impact in his joints, but it was nothing compared to the pain inflicted upon the wasp-man. The sound of cracking carapace and shattering bones joined the creature’s agonized scream to create a combined chorus that was music to Elijah’s ears.
Wasting no time, he snapped out like a striking snake. His long neck was like an organic whip, and his jaws closed on the wasp-man’s torso with enough force to crumple steel. Once. Twice. Each instance came with rent flesh and spurts of blood. Three times.
After the fourth, which left the wasp-man’s torso entirely unrecognizable as humanoid, Elijah felt a pang of danger. He dashed away, faster than his enormous body should’ve been capable of moving.
But it wasn’t fast enough.
Four wind blades cut through him like his scales were no harder than flesh. His own blood arced through the air, accompanied by the crowd’s gasp.
Elijah was no stranger to pain, though. He would never let a few wounds distract him from the task at hand.
He dashed to the side, narrowly avoiding another barrage as he pivoted to face his enemies. They were already charging, spears held in front of them. Elijah met them with a charge of his own. The spears went deep, cutting between his scales and severing his muscles.
But in the clash between vespirans and dragon, the dragon won.
He trampled them, his claws cutting through carapace, flesh, or delicate wings as they rolled beneath him. Spear shafts broke, and Elijah’s maw once again darted out, tearing chunks out of the wasp-men in passing. When his charge ended and he pivoted around for another go, he saw the wake of carnage he’d left behind.
Carapace had been crushed. Flesh had been torn. Bones had been broken. The creatures picked themselves up, though not without some difficulty. They could scarcely support their own weight, and yet, they stood firm. Unyielding and with hatred powering their defiance.
Elijah could respect that, at least.
The only vespiran who’d been spared his wrath was the female, who, at some point, had separated from the rest of the group. Currently, she hovered above the battlefield. Aloof. Protected by distance. And waiting to strike.
Elijah wanted nothing more than to go up there and tear her to pieces. But that was a mistake. The second he targeted her, the others would attack. And they had enough strength left to make it count. However, if he went after the males to finish them off, the most powerful among them would attack.
It was a conundrum, and in that was a lesson to be learned.
No one ever fought a single vespiran. Elijah had learned that first-hand after defeating his first demi-god. No sooner had he claimed victory than some unknown demi-god subjected him to a Mantle of Authority and knocked him unconscious.
So it was with his current situation. He had no doubt he could defeat either group. But doing so would expose him to the other’s attacks.
The only answer was to hold back. To let them come to him. Without the distraction of attacking, he was free to respond to their assaults.
And so he did.
The vespirans fell victim to the very lesson he was meant to learn. They couldn’t contain their own hatred, and once they realized that he could easily dodge their wind blades, they charged.
The five injured males went down without issue, leaving Elijah to face off against the still-hovering female. She landed only a few dozen feet away. Elijah paced back and forth like a cornered animal, though it was just an act. He was no beast. He was firmly in control of his own actions.
She attacked, throwing herself into a charge by using the combined power of her legs and wings. The sound was deafening, but Elijah held his ground. When she reached him, he dipped low, barely dodging the oncoming spear. She barreled into him, knocking him backward before she climbed onto his back.
Elijah twisted, attempting to dislodge her, but he failed. In the meantime, she brought her stinger to bear, repeatedly stabbing into him and injecting potent venom.
In response, he rolled. The maneuver surprised the wasp-woman, though she was quick enough to leap free before she was crushed. However, one of her legs briefly caught under the weight of Elijah’s body, and he was rewarded by the sound of snapping chitin.
She yanked it free, and she managed to leap away before the rest of her body followed suit.
When Elijah rose, he saw that the injured leg had been rendered useless.
One down. Three more to go.
And now, it was time to take the battle to her. Her eyes widened in surprise, either at the change in tactics or the sheer rapidity of his charge, but she quickly adjusted. Still, she couldn’t avoid Elijah’s snapping jaws. Largely, that was because she’d assumed he was going for her legs. Instead, he attacked her wings.
His thick fangs shredded the delicate things before she could react.
That infuriated the wasp-woman, and she launched a barrage of wind blades and spear thrusts in his direction. Elijah took them head-on, trusting in the natural defense of his massive body and durable scales to keep him safe.
Instead, he took out two other legs, effectively stranding her in place. From then on, the battle was all but decided. He circled her like a predatory cat. Cautious but aggressive. She tried to twist and fight back, but with only one good leg, she could barely move her bulbous backside.
Still, she was dangerous.
Elijah took great care in picking her apart. Or perhaps it was joy in her suffering that drove his gradual pace. The two blended together until, at last, he emerged victorious.
The announcer congratulated him on his win, but to Elijah’s surprise, he revealed that there was one more challenge to overcome before he would be considered a true dragon. Battered and bloody, his scales bearing a multitude of deep wounds, Elijah braced himself for what was to come.
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11-77. Ancient Enemy
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