TS6 - Chapter 10

Akira, who had been battling in her giant form, tore an arm from one of the dragon guard, throwing his body back into his companions, before suddenly shrinking down and flashing towards Mina.

"This isn't working," she said. "I need to be more."

Mina, who didn't quite understand what Akira was saying, and was in the middle of casting a spell, could only nod. Seeing her nod, Akira's face lit up with excitement, and she darted away, slipping between the defenders and the attacking dragonkin as she made her way towards the breach atop the city wall.

In the sky above the city, Thorn felt a thread of power seep out of him, transferred through the bond in his soul into Akira. This wasn't the first time he had transferred power to Akira through their bond, but it still caught him off guard, causing him to suffer a nasty slash on his arm. He had no attention to spare for his battle pet, and as he fought fiercely against Moriphon, he could only hope that she would be safe.

On the city wall down below, Akira could feel the power of united force surging through her. Her mind seemed to come alive, as the world transformed into endless possibilities. Fierce flame began to spread from her fur, and her body trembled as her tails began to collapse into each other, overlapping and layering together until it appeared as if all seven elements had been unified into a single stream.

"All the fireballs!"

As Akira shouted, the flames on her body exploded outward, transforming into thousands of tongues of fire, which flew through the air to attack the dragonkin on the wall, forcing them back. Akira, still small, launched an attack against one of the dragon guard, and the thousands of tongues of flames on the wall transformed into claws that attacked along with her, tearing at the domains of the dragon guard. She followed up her slash with a bite, and once again, the flames transformed into spectral mouths with sharp teeth that bit the dragon guard deeply. With a shiver, the single tail behind Akira exploded into innumerable tails made of fire, as each of the tongues of flame transformed into another copy of the Ailuridae.

"This is my wall," she declared, as thousands of Akiras began to attack the dragonkin, biting and slashing and unleashing fierce flames with their tails.

Each copy of Akira had the same crown marking on its forehead, and its strength seemed to be no less than that of Akira herself. The dragon guard fought back, hacking and cutting at the copies Akira had summoned, but no sooner had one fallen than another rose up to take its place, and each death only seemed to infuriate Akira even more. With waving tails and biting flames, thousands of Akiras threw the enemy lines into chaos, as they tore apart the dragon guard. The tide of battle swiftly began to turn as the dragon guard were completely occupied fighting the fluffy little fireball, freeing Mina to concentrate her efforts and focus on eliminating the dragon guard, rather than simply defending against them.

In the air above the battlefield, Thorn and Moriphon exchanged blows, their fighting growing fiercer and fiercer. At first, Thorn found it a challenge to keep up with Moriphon in his condensed domain form, but as he focused on extracting every ounce of strength and speed from his body, he found his strength flowing faster and smoother. It was strange to think that his body had contained so much power that he had never before accessed. It wasn't even as if that power had been sealed away. Instead, it was almost as if Thorn had simply never chosen to acknowledge it.

Each of his blows tore apart the air, causing deadly swirls of wind to emanate, crashing against the fierce lightning coming off of Moriphon. As the battle raged on below, the two warriors ripped and tore at each other, leaving terrible wounds.

When he had first condensed his domain, Moriphon swiftly gained the upper hand. However, as the fight dragged on, it became increasingly difficult for him to maintain his advantage. Thorn seemed indifferent to the fact that his body was being torn to shreds. On many occasions, Moriphon was forced to completely abandon an attack to avoid receiving a mortal wound in return.

By this point, a sense of fear, born early in the fight, had been firmly planted in Moriphon's heart. His fighting style had slowly changed from aggressive and domineering to more defensive, showing the intent to retreat. Thorn didn't let him go though and pressed Moriphon all the harder. Dodging past a flailing axe strike, Thorn stabbed at Moriphon's chest while simultaneously unleashing a heavy kick aimed at crushing Moriphon's knee.

The dragonkin dodged backwards, hurling his axe at Thorn to prevent him from following. The axe, imbued with all the fury of Moriphon's lightning domain, tore at the air around Thorn, forcing him to lift his halberd and deflect it away, which prevented him from chasing after the dragonkin. With a gesture, Moriphon pulled the axe back toward him. For a moment, the two warriors stood there, each bleeding from a dozen wounds as they stared at each other.

A moment later, Quetzalten appeared next to Moriphon, her gaze wary as she stared at Thorn. Not seeing Governor Orson, Thorn frowned and swept the battlefield, worried that Quetzalten may have killed the older warrior. When he saw him close to the city wall, Thorn felt a spark of relief.

"Moriphon, we need to retreat," Quetzalten said.

Though nearly blind with rage at his inability to kill Thorn, Moriphon swallowed his anger and nodded, not even asking Quetzalten why.

Though he was loath to let them go, Thorn's awareness had already picked up the situation below. The dragonkin army had retreated as the dragon guard had been driven off the city wall by Akira. Close to fifty of their number had fallen as Akira's endless clones swarmed over them. But the thing that had truly forced them back was the arrival of the city's reinforcements.

Teleporting in through the dimensional gate in waves, already there were two hundred more tenth-level warriors, most of them from the Temple of Man, along with four ascendants. They had rushed to the city's wall to join the fight, quickly clearing it and forcing the enemy to retreat. With the sides more balanced, the dragonkin could no longer afford to simply throw themselves at the defenders, and so the entire enemy force had retreated, pulling back to their camp. In the air above the city, Moriphon saw the sharp gazes of the other ascendants. After spitting a bit of blood to the side, he glared at Thorn.

"You're lucky," he said.

In response, Thorn teleported across the distance and punched him in the chest. Moriphon barely got his axes up in time, and the blow knocked him flying. Quetzalten responded by trying to attack Thorn, but his halberd tore through her strands of cloth, severing a dozen of them and forcing her into a rapid retreat.

As Moriphon stabilized himself, Thorn lifted his halberd as if he was going to attack again, but Quetzalten grabbed Moriphon and fled, transforming into a streak as she shot back toward their camp. Thorn, who was completely exhausted, didn't give chase. Instead, he slowly lowered his halberd and watched them go, his expression unreadable. Only when they had vanished into their camp did he turn and make his way back toward the city, where he was met by Mina and Akira.

"Master, did you see that?" Akira asked, suddenly splitting into three copies of herself. They climbed up onto Thorn's body, one perching on his right shoulder, another on his left, and the last on his head. All three copies of Akira poked and prodded at Thorn's head.

"Look at this. Look at what I can do."

"That's a cool trick," Thorn said, trying in vain to ward her off.

Every time he would grab her, she would split into another copy that would run up his arm, until, with a sigh, he resigned himself to his fate.

"Well done with the defense," he said to Mina, who was watching Akira with considerable amusement.

"It wouldn't have been possible if you hadn't dealt with the general," Mina said. "Since when did you level up again?"

Chuckling, Thorn shook his head.

"I didn't. I'm just on a little bit of a different path than everyone else."

"Oh, I know," Mina said. "I've been aware of that for a long time. Come on, the commanders are getting together with the leaders of the reinforcements that just came."

Fetching a treat for Akira from his pouch, Thorn followed Mina towards the city gate, where the ascendants had gathered around Governor Orson and Keely. He didn't recognize any of them, but it was clear that they all knew who he was. The looks he was getting were almost amusing, and contained awe, disbelief, and a healthy amount of fear.

"That was quite the impressive fight," one of the ascendants said, stepping forward and greeting Thorn with a bow. "I'm Ascendant Corbin, dispatched by the temple to assist with the defense. A larger force will be heading this direction soon to provide more permanent defenses, but until they get here, we're your reinforcements. This is Ascendant Vor, Ascendant Telslian, and Ascendant Gareth. Each of us commands 50 temple guard."

Following Corbin's gesture, Thorn saw a group of powerful-looking temple warriors, all in the 10th tier. None of them appeared to be in the condensation stage, but they would be a great help to fight against the dragon guard, completely evening out the odds when the city's defenses were taken into consideration.

"A pleasure to meet you all," Thorn said, bowing to each of the four ascendants in turn. "I'm glad you're here."

"I don't know," Ascendant Gareth quipped. "You seem to have the fight well in hand."

Thorn just grinned in response before turning his attention to Governor Orson, who was looking rather worse for wear, though he appeared to be unwounded.

"I'm impressed with how well you were able to keep up with Quetzalten," Thorn said, causing the governor to grimace.

"I wouldn't say keep up," Governor Orson said, "but I can survive. Come, they won’t attack for a while, so let’s move this conversation somewhere more comfortable."

“And maybe get something to eat,” Thorn added, “I’m starving.”

At the governor’s direction a meal was served in the guard house closest to the city wall and for the next two hours a stream of servants carried tray after tray of food in for Thorn and Akira. As the others watched with incredulous expressions, Thorn put away enough food to feed a small army, the whole time managing to carry on a conversation with the Governor and the new Ascendants who had arrived in the city.

“So you’re saying we will have to hold for at least two weeks before we get more reinforcements?” Thorn asked, tearing a roast chicken in half and inhaling an entire chicken breast in a single bite.

Watching as Thorn carefully cut a pie into four pieces and put all of them on his plate, Ascendant Corbin nodded.

“Yes. A new defense force, including two hundred thousand troops, and a group of one hundred tenth tier warriors are being deployed on a permanent assignment. But it takes time to move that many people and we shouldn’t anticipate their arrival for two weeks.”

“That’s too long,” Mina muttered.

“I agree,” Thorn said, eating a quarter of the pie in two bites. “We should have left already, but we’ve lost a day to the dragonkin army. Two more weeks is too long for us to wait. We need an option that will allow us to end the fight sooner.”

“What do you mean two weeks is too long?” Ascendant Corbin asked, looking between Thorn and Mina.

Giving Akira a skewer of beef to replace the one she had just finished, Mina looked at Thorn as if she wanted him to answer, which he did after finishing the last quarter of the pie and drinking a full pitcher of juice.

“We are on a tight time table. We need to get to the capital as soon as possible so we can mount a rescue for a friend of ours who was captured by some god beasts. We have reason to suspect that he was taken to their capital.”

“I’m sorry, what? You want to mount a rescue attempt in god beast territory?”

“First we want to try diplomatic means,” Thorn said. “We thought that going to the capital city would be the best place to start with that.”

Sharing a glance with the other ascendants, Corbin shook his head.

“If your friend was captured by the god beasts, it’s unlikely that there is anything you can do to get him back. Especially if he is in their capital city.”

“That’s not an option,” Thorn said calmly, shoveling the contents of a bowl of grilled vegetables onto his plate. “We will be rescuing him.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Ascendant Vor said, leaning forward, her forearms resting on the table. “They have Aspects guarding the city.”

Grinning, Thorn speared a vegetable with his fork and brought it to his mouth.

“Be that as it may, we are rescuing him.”

“I can’t deny that you have considerable strength, Ascendant Thorn,” Orson said, “but you should understand that Aspects are different. They are god beasts who have already grown to the very limit of power. If you even approach the city, you and anyone you are with will die. A single look from an Aspect is enough to crush you, body and soul. A breath, and you will simply cease to exist. Aspects can bring the power of the world to bear in a way that no mortal can resist.”

Taking a deep breath, Thorn looked around the table, his gaze serious.

“I understand and appreciate your concern for me, but right now, it isn’t important if I will survive in my attempt to rescue my friend. Instead, what we should be discussing is how to end this current predicament as fast as possible. Does anyone have any ideas?”

It was clear to everyone that Thorn hadn’t been dissuaded from his death wish, but rather than harp on it, the others considered the problem at hand.

“Well,” Governor Orson said slowly, “the fastest way would be to eliminate the leaders of the enemy army. Dragonkin don’t fight well without a leader to tell them what to do, so when we fight the dragon empire, we normally focus on killing them. However, both of their generals are in the Condensation stage so that is out of the question.”

“Actually,” Mina said, drawing everyone’s attention. “I might have an idea for that.”