BOOK 11: CHAPTER 60: HOLLOW VICTORY

The wind whistled in Elijah’s ears as he rocketed toward the vespiran. For the briefest of instants, the creature didn’t react. Then, his eyes widened. That moment of surprise was the only opening Elijah needed, and the Verdant Fang sank deep into the thing’s chest. Elijah kicked free, spinning into a backflip as he ripped the blade of his scythe from the creature’s torso.

He landed only a second before he was showered in ichor.

The vespiran still hadn’t moved.

He hadn’t cried out. Aside from that brief widening of his arrogant eyes, he hadn’t reacted in any way. Then, suddenly, he let out a full-throated laugh. Elijah’s grip tightened on the Verdant Fang.

“Is that the extent of your power, little dragon?” he chuckled, his free hand rising to the wound. It was already closing. “I admit that you are stronger than most of your level. But you are still a mere ascendent. You are a gnat buzzing around –”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What?”

“You heard me, you overgrown insect. You want to fight? Let’s fight. You think you can kill me? Good fucking luck. But before this is done, I’m going to wipe that haughty expression off your face.”

With every word, the vespiran’s face turned pinker until his complexion nearly matched its carapace. Only then did he growl, “Insolent lizard.” He stepped forward, his wings fluttering. “You will regret your words.”

“Maybe. Probably not, though.”

Then, the wasp-man launched himself at Elijah. His spear glistened with ethera, and a blanket of energy surrounded him in a variation of Charge. He moved almost too fast for Elijah to track.

But he didn’t move faster than the speed of thought.

Elijah activated a hundred-charge Child of Fire.

Child of Fire

Feed your flamewrought body via Heart of Fire, increasing all physical attributes. Potency of enhancement dependent on number of charges of Heart of Fire. Duration determined by Core cultivation. Current: 32 seconds. Only usable under the effects of Shape of the Master (or its direct evolutions). Cooldown: 9 days.

His body briefly trembled beneath the flood of attributes. It wasn’t quite as potent as it was when he’d first gotten the form, but an additional three-hundred-plus points was enough to bridge the gap between him and the demi-god. He dodged the attack, dipping low enough to skid beneath its feet. He punched, his every point of strength focused into his tiny fist.

The creature’s carapace cracked under the blow, but the wasp-man’s momentum took him past Elijah in only a moment. The thing’s stinger darted in, but Elijah rolled away just in time to avoid the venomous attack. The vespiran demi-god hit the ground, shattering stone and cratering the earth.

Elijah rolled to his feet, then sprang at the monstrous vespiran’s back. Along the way, he was once again forced to dodge his foe’s stringer, but with all of his advantages, he had no difficulty. Once he reached the wasp-man’s back, he hefted his scythe, then brought it down in a sledgehammer attack. The blade bit deep, slicing through the carapace without issue.

He ripped it free in a shower of gore, then repeated the attack.

Elijah moved so quickly that there was no way even the demi-god could respond before he hit the carapace two more times. And even then, all he needed to worry about was the creature’s darting stinger, which moved with a mind of its own. After a couple more attacks, which dug a massive hole in the vespiran’s carapace, Elijah turned his attention to the creature’s fluttering wings. R̃ἈNОᛒÈⱾ

Severing them brought the reaction he sought.

The vespiran screamed, then activated some ability. A wave of force exploded from within the wasp-man’s body, but Elijah countered it with a hastily extended Mantle of Authority so he could continue his assault. The vespiran reversed his spear and attacked blind. The first thrust very nearly impaled Elijah, but that was just because he wasn’t expecting it. Now that he was prepared, the next few never stood a chance.

He continued his gruesome work, using the Verdant Fang like a pickaxe as he dug through gooey flesh, looking for something important. He was vaguely aware of insect anatomy, but it quickly became apparent that his knowledge simply didn’t apply to fifteen-foot-long wasp-men.

And his time was slowly ticking down.

Child of Fire only lasted a little more than half a minute. He’d already used most of that, and he hadn’t made any appreciable progress. Sure, the hole in the creature’s carapace looked impressive enough, but Elijah could feel the thing’s immense regeneration already at work. It would take a while to heal, but heal it would.

Elijah needed to affect more permanent damage.

So, with his time ticking down, he abandoned his nascent hole and attacked the wasp-man’s torso.

That was a mistake, as Elijah found when it managed to twist around, grab him by the waist, and squeeze. His cindrandir body was flexible as well as durable, but beneath the focused power of a demi-god, it was found wanting.

And the second Child of Fire faded, he would be crushed.

Elijah abandoned the Shape of the Master, already embracing something much larger. Even as the Shape of the Sea took hold, the wasp-man maintained his vice-like grip. However, where his fingers had once wrapped around Elijah’s entire waist, now, he could barely grasp one of the ridges on the edge of his shell.

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And the increased weight was quite a surprise.

It wasn’t enough to crush the vespiran, but the demi-god’s instincts took over, and it heaved Elijah away. Flying through the air as a fifty-foot turtle was quite an experience, and it was a testament to the wasp-man’s strength – especially when Elijah estimated that the form weighed at least a hundred-and-fifty tons.

The vespiran tossed him aside like he weighed no more than a basketball, sending him on an arc that would cover hundreds of yards. Elijah didn’t allow that. Instead, he transformed into the Shape of the Sky, flapped his wings to gain altitude and control, then banked to return to the fight.

Child of Fire might’ve expired, but he had a lot more tricks up his sleeve.

He dove, already transforming. This time, he took on the Shape of Thorn. His wings retracted, and vines sprouted from his shoulders as he reformed himself into the familiar humanoid crocodile-plant creature. As he descended, he used two abilities. The first was Bestial Charge, which increased the pace of his descent by no small degree. He hit with the force of a bomb just as his second ability took hold.

Lightning arced out, briefly flashing with Thunder Clap. By itself, the stunning attack likely would have been ineffective, but combined with the impact of his fall, it was enough to briefly daze the vespiran. Elijah used that to his advantage, activating Nature’s Claim. Even as spores took hold within the wasp-man, Elijah flared Heart of the Tempest, increasing his attributes significantly.

His tail darted out like the needle of a sewing machine, puncturing the vespiran a hundred times with every passing second. His claws ripped into the creature’s flesh, and his jaws snapped out with bone-crushing force. At the same time, the spores rapidly grew to fruition, and a dozen mushrooms burst free of the wasp-man’s back.

Elijah didn’t stop there, either. He also activated Thornbound Legion, and a thousand mites leaped free of his body only to burrow into his enemy’s torso. There, they infected the vespiran with a mild toxin that would sap his ethera and regeneration.

It should have been a debilitating combination.

Usually, it was.

But he didn’t make a habit of fighting demi-gods, either. The second the creature regained his wits, he ripped into Elijah, piercing his bark-like flesh with his spear while activating some sort of ability that duplicated every attack.

The Shape of Thorn was durable, but it simply wasn’t equipped to deal with that kind of barrage. Elijah countered it with Wild Resurgence, knowing that every second he lasted was in his favor.

He made it fifteen seconds before the monstrously powerful vespiran ripped his right arm from its socket. Elijah lost his grip on the vespiran, but despite the pain, he maintained his wits enough to activate Unchecked Growth. His arm was still close enough that his massively increased regeneration guided tendrils of rapidly growing flesh from the stump to the severed arm, snatching it back into place.

Whole, Elijah resumed his attacks, activating Domain of Vines as well. In seconds, roots and vines erupted from the ground and wrapped the creature in a cocoon. Meanwhile, Elijah continued his ferocious attacks. The vespiran ripped free of the first wave. Then the second. The third after that. The vines kept coming, an overwhelming force of nature with which even a demi-god couldn’t contend.

Elijah thought he was winning.

Especially when he heard the deafening sound of cracking carapace as the vines constricted and writhed, their thorns cutting through the demi-god like the teeth of a chainsaw.

But Elijah quickly discovered the difference between an ascendent and a demi-god when Domain of Vines faded, and the creature was whole. Not uninjured, certainly. The vespiran looked like he’d been chewed up, spit out, then chewed up again. And his regeneration wasn’t up to the task of mending those wounds quickly, easily, or perhaps even at all.

He was still standing, though.

And he was incredibly angry, as evidenced by the unrestrained flurry of attacks he aimed at Elijah. Screaming the entire time, he riddled Elijah was so many spear-wounds that even his massively buffed regeneration struggled to keep up.

When he realized that Unchecked Growth was about to run its course, he rolled with one attack, letting himself be sent tumbling away like a ragdoll. His influx of vitality faded only a moment after his wounds had completely healed.

He rose and once again faced off against his foe.

To an outsider, it probably looked like Elijah was winning. He was entirely uninjured, while his enemy had been ripped to shreds. His carapace hung off in ragged strips, his innards spilling from the gaping holes Elijah had inflicted upon him.

But Elijah knew just how deceptive that image was. He’d already played most of his cards, and he’d failed to kill the vespiran.

He only had one more form to try.

Thankfully, it was his most consistently damaging shape. He initiated the transformation, taking on the form of the scourgedrake.

It came with an influx of strength and dexterity, but at the cost of durability. Elijah knew that his margin of error was razor thin. He couldn’t afford to be hit.

He advanced cautiously, his scorpion-like tail waving with every step.

Then, the conjured phase spiders of Lurking Swarm pounced, briefly distracting the vespiran. Elijah followed suit, leaping back into battle like the velociraptor he resembled. His talons bit deep, adding to the creature’s wounds. Meanwhile, his tail stabbed the distracted vespiran in the eyes. Both attacks served to spread the form’s two most potent abilities – Spreading Blight and Ethereal Sepsis. The two toxins took hold even as the surviving phase spiders inflicted their own potent venom upon the creature. He used Phantom shift as well, and six semi-illusory scourgedrake’s mimicked his attacks.

That was when the reprisal came.

Elijah dodged, leaping high into the air, then springing off the recently recharged Cloud Step. Not upward, though. Instead, he used it to reverse course and send himself rocking back toward the wasp-man.

He bit and clawed, each attack loading the vespiran with one affliction after another. As he fought, he leaped between one phantom and the next in an effort to dodge the wasp-man’s attacks.

Vaguely, he was aware that the battle in the distance had ceased and that he should turn his attention to flight. But he knew he couldn’t escape.

Not without using Lightning Surge, and that could very well send him careening off the edge of the continent and into the abyss. He didn’t dare employ that ability.

So, he continued to fight, and the vespiran battled back. But he was too injured. The toxins were too potent. Still, he managed to hit Elijah a few times, and it was only through copious use of Wild Resurgence that he managed to survive.

Survive he did, though.

Even so, when Elijah had reached the limit of how many toxins he could inflict, the thing still stood. On wobbly feet, for certain. But the demi-god still lived.

Elijah shifted gears, returning to his human form. By that point, a swarm of smaller wasps had drawn close, ready to kill him. He lashed out with Lightning Domain, hitting everything in range. The wasps fried. Most were dead before they hit the ground, but the second wave of lightning finished off the rest.

More importantly, the surge of arcing electricity tipped the balance in the fight with the vespiran, and at last, he began to flag. He collapsed, but he didn’t die. Not even after Lightning Domain had run its course. So, Elijah once again cast Nature’s Claim, and using his newly advanced garnet mind to enable dual casting, he activated Eternal Plague as well.

In seconds, a massive swarm of glittering flies manifested, and it grew with every beat of Elijah’s heart. He dug deep into his core, funneling more ethera into the spell. He used his False Grove as well. Then, he activated Grove Conduit, blanketing the area in dense vitality and thick ethera. He drew it in, pushing more and more ethera into the spell.

The flies didn’t just target the vespiran demi-god. Indeed, they fell upon that falling creature, inflicting more afflictions with every bite. But once the thing was covered, he directed the rest toward the approaching horde of wasps, vespirans, and drachnids.

With every moment, they died. One swarm fought the other. And Elijah’s came out on top.

For a whole minute, Elijah thought he had a chance to win the battle. Especially when the demi-god finally succumbed, sending a wave of experience toward Elijah. That was when the High Army finally reached him.

Elijah tried to respond. He leaped, kicked off Cloud Step, and began his transformation into Shape of the Sky. But before it could truly begin, a presence slammed down on him with enough force that his ethera stilled.

It was the first time Elijah had ever experienced someone else’s Mantle of Authority, and even as he plummeted back to the ground, he regretted subjecting anyone to such an invasive feeling.

He didn’t have long to linger among his regret, because a second before he hit the ground the enemy’s Mantle of Authority sent him into unconsciousness.