BOOK 11: CHAPTER 67: ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

Elijah was exhausted.

He’d been at it for four days, constantly attacking the abyssal monster. He’d poured everything he could into the prolonged battle, and, at long last, it had gotten fed up with his attacks. With thundering steps, it followed him onto the chain.

And very nearly got ahold of Elijah in the process. His exhaustion, the monotony of the task at hand, and sheer surprise meant that the creature’s sudden movement had caught him unaware. Thankfully, he was in his cindrandir form, which allowed him to see the danger at the very last second.

He bounded away, using a charge of Cloud Step to gain some distance.

The monster hesitated, clearly at odds with its decision to follow. Elijah let loose with an Incinerate he’d been saving, bathing the creature in dense flames. It was already charred from the most recent one, and Elijah had begun to hope that he’d finally managed to overcome its vitality.

It was a fruitless hope.

He’d barely made a dent in the thing’s life force, and he suspected it would take months to fully whittle the thing down to the point where he stood even a slim chance of finishing it off.

It was not just a demi-god level creature. It was well into that tier, and it displayed the kind of power Elijah couldn’t hope to match. Not yet, at least.

It was strong and fast, but neither to an extent that could overwhelm Elijah. Where the thing truly excelled was its ability to take damage and regenerate from any wound. Elijah had lost track of just how many times he’d used his most damaging abilities against it. Dozens of Incinerates. More instances of Eternal Plague than he could count. His various fungal abilities as well as thousands of stacks of his afflictions.

And yet, it stayed upright, weathering a storm that could have killed entire cities a hundred times over. The only reason Elijah kept going was because he had a plan.

Now, that plan had borne fruit. He just needed to keep it up for a few more days as he led the monster across the chains. The first time he’d crossed the distance, Elijah had come to a decent estimate of just long the chain was. And when he thought of that –hundreds of miles – he couldn’t help but feel the pit of hopelessness in his belly begin to fester.

He didn’t allow himself to give it any attention.

Instead, he focused on his chosen task, and gradually, he led the monster across the chains. Now that it had committed to its pursuit, it didn’t hesitate nearly as often. It had already abandoned its post, and it seemed entirely steadfast in its resolution to finish Elijah off.

That meant he never got any respite. He couldn’t just retreat a few miles and give himself a break. The creature might not have been as fast as its lofty designation as a demi-god might have suggested, but it was still more than quick enough to catch Elijah if he failed to maintain his focus.

The thing still needed some encouragement to keep coming, though. Periodically, Elijah was forced to circle back and resume his attacks. Mostly, it was to keep the monster engaged, but it was also because he wanted to maintain some pressure on its vitality. Draining that life energy was key if he wanted to eventually defeat the thing.

Perhaps he was driven by hubris, but Elijah felt certain that, in the right circumstances, he could win the battle. Maybe that was why he hadn’t simply sprinted past it and hoped the desire to stay at its post would overwhelm its instinct to chase him. He’d considered it, but in the end, he’d chosen a different route.

Hopefully, it would pay off.

If not, he had already proven he could outpace it. So long as he maintained concentration, he felt he would be okay.

To that end, he reaffirmed his focus, and slowly, he led the creature – inch by stubborn inch – across the massive chain. Each link was more than a mile long and teeming with ethera, but he couldn’t help but notice that the degradation and corrosion had continued.

The links were so rusted that Elijah questioned how they were able to hold the pieces of the broken planet together.

As usual, the answer was magic – and a transcendent’s spell at that. Elijah had no idea if such a being actually existed or if it was just a story for the Primal Realm. But he expected that it was at least based on reality. Holding an entire planet together while shielding it from the abyss – mostly, at least – was an impressive feat of strength.

The least he could do was appreciate it.

Days passed as Elijah led the monster across those chains, and he’d barely reached the halfway mark. A worrying pace, but he kept on nonetheless. On the twelfth day, Elijah caught sight of the end of the chain. More importantly, he saw the massing army of vespirans. 𐍂аƝ𝘰BÈ𝙎

They saw him too.

But they were probably much more worried about the abyssal monster on his tail. Currently, he was in his scourgedrake form, so he didn’t even hesitate before pushing his speed to its limit. The army of wasp-men and their allies braced for impact, but Elijah had no intention of fighting them. Instead, the second he leaped free of the last link, he used Cloud Step to vault over the army.

A couple of attacks still clipped him, but the resulting damage was nothing Wild Resurgence couldn’t handle. He used Cloud Step again, bounding past the army and onto one of the nearby skyscrapers’ expansive balconies. He was inside before any of the vespirans could follow.

The second he was out of sight, he used Guise of the Unseen.

Finally, he relaxed.

That lasted right up until he felt a thousand surges of ethera, followed by a gurgling roar he recognized as coming from the abyssal monster. Then came the screams. Some originated with the monster – its faces never stopped screeching in pain – but most of them came from the vespiran army.

Stolen story; please report.

Elijah crept to another balcony only to see an epic battle unfold. When he fought the wasp armies, he only managed to survive because he was a relatively small target. That, combined with his speed, let him avoid most of the army’s damage. The abyssal monster had no such advantage. Instead, it simply took the attacks head-on, trusting in its regeneration to see it through.

But for all of Elijah’s firepower, he couldn’t hold a candle to the army’s output. There were specialized demi-gods among them, and they bathed the monster in wind blades, venom, and fire. And given how much Elijah had taxed the thing’s vitality, some of those wounds were meant to last.

The problem was that once the monster was among the wasps, they had almost no defense against its attacks. Its tentacles lashed out, slicing through ascendant and demi-god alike. With its many other limbs, it grabbed and squeezed, and to Elijah’s eternal horror, it fed.

Any wasp unlucky enough to find itself snared by the monster’s barbed claws ended up being shoved into its gaping maw. Their screams cut off only a second after that.

The message was clear. As powerful as the army was, they weren’t capable of killing the abyssal monster. Not without Elijah putting his finger on the scale, at least. To that end, he shifted back into his human form and summoned Eternal Plague. He didn’t direct it at the wasps though. Rather, he sent his venomous blue dragonflies directly at the creature.

Tens of thousands of them manifested in only a minute, but Elijah wasn’t happy until he’d loaded it up with every single affliction he could manage. Some of the wasps attacked his swarm, but only at first. When they realized they weren’t the target, they resumed their attacks on the monster.

But Elijah wasn’t finished.

Instead, he also threw Nature’s Claim at the thing. Over and over, until its back was nothing more than bloody wounds and a mass of yellow mushrooms. The combination served to further sap the monster’s vitality, and slowly, wounds that would have normally healed in seconds persisted for minutes. Some didn’t heal at all.

They were winning.

Elijah knew it wouldn’t be so easy. With every passing second, the wasp swarm further succumbed to the monster’s fury. Whole swaths of their force fell with every passing minute. Elijah didn’t grieve them, though. They were just tools. If it wasn’t for the situation, he’d have been killing them himself.

After a while – Elijah wasn’t certain how long, exactly – he recognized that his swarm could do no more good. The creature was loaded with so many afflictions that keeping Eternal Plague going for any longer would be a waste of ethera. So, Elijah let it lapse, then returned to Shape of the Scourge. After dipping inside to break line of sight, he took on the Guise of the Unseen, then leaped back into battle.

With the creature distracted by the sheer volume of attacks coming its way, Elijah had free rein to inflict multiple instances of Ethereal Sepsis and Spreading Blight upon the monster. The only caveat was that he was forced to dodge the wasp’s incoming attacks.

That was no small matter, either. By that point, only the strongest among the army remained. So every single attack had the capacity to severely injure him. He could heal, but that would distract him from his primary purpose – loading the monster up with even more afflictions.

Along the way, Elijah also managed to rip gaping wounds in the monster’s back. Most of the flesh he tore away was corrupted by his afflictions and under the effect of so much fungal rot that it was barely even recognizable as living tissue. It was also much weaker than normal, which gave Elijah plenty of opportunities to add melee wounds to the growing list of afflictions.

The amount of damage inflicted upon the monster was absolutely staggering. And yet, it was not enough. Multiple demi-gods, combined with countless ascended failed to put it down. Even with Elijah constantly putting pressure on its vitality – and doing plenty of damage with his claws and teeth – wasn’t going to cut it.

The first sign that they were losing came when one of the vespiran demi-gods fell. He’d come in bearing two swords, which he used to activate a barrage-like ability that ripped gaping holes in the creature’s chest. But when he went to retreat, he was a touch slow.

Fatigue had begun to take its toll.

A half-dozen tentacles descended upon him, wrapping around his wasp-like abdomen, and tearing through the tough chitin. Ichor and wasp-meat flew into the air like someone had shoved the vespiran into a blender. He screamed, adding to the ongoing cacophony.

A Healer on the back lines tried to mend the damage, pumping vast quantities of ethera into the effort. But Elijah could have told him it would do no good. The vespiran Warrior was too far gone. It was all just a waste of energy.

Could he have looked at it so clinically if it was his ally who was being torturously torn to pieces? What if it was Sadie? Or Kurik? Or Miguel? Elijah knew the answer.

Oddly, it was at that moment that Elijah made a connection in his mind. Until then, the vespirans were all just faceless enemies. And hated ones, at that. His instinctive revulsion played a large role in how he saw them. But now? The simple act of a Healer trying to save his comrade left Elijah with the uncomfortable knowledge that they were, in the end, just people.

And that made his hatred that much more difficult to maintain.

Still, they were at war. They were the enemy. And even if he acknowledged that they weren’t just faceless drones, that they likely had hopes and dreams and relationships with one another, he couldn’t afford to spare them. Doing so would just get him killed.

So, he filed that knowledge away until he could sort through his feelings at a more opportune time.

Eventually, Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Master – as much because it was his most damaging form as because he’d exhausted the potential of the Shape of the Scourge. Then, he went at the monster like a berserker. The damage it had taken had slowed it considerably. Suddenly, attacks that would have taxed Elijah’s abilities to dodge were easy to avoid.

And that meant he quickly built charges of Heart of Fire.

The second he’d gained a hundred charges, he let loose with Incinerate. This time, the thick flames were far more effective. The monster wasn’t capable of simply shrugging them off. Nor could it use its tentacles – many of which had been severed – to form an impromptu shield. Instead, it took the attack head-on.

And it lost.

Elijah watched as burned and rotted flesh dripped from the monster’s body like melted wax, exposing its bones. The skeleton was haphazard. To Elijah, it didn’t make biological sense at all. Some bones jutted in a direction only to end without connecting to anything else. Others twisted themselves into dizzyingly complex patterns.

And then there were the eyes, which covered the entire skeleton. They widened in shock. Or pain, perhaps.

Elijah couldn’t pay them any attention. Instead, he continued to fight, the blade of the Verdant Fang slicing through those weakened bones without issue. The monster still didn’t give up, though. It continued its attacks, adding more charges to Elijah’s Heart of Fire.

But they’d already tipped it over the edge.

The writing was on the wall, now. They only needed to keep up the pressure.

At some point, the remaining vespirans shifted their focus, targeting him at least as often as they aimed their abilities at the creature. Elijah ignored them, save to dodge.

He would deal with them when the time came.

Then, suddenly, the monster broke apart. Its flesh had long since been destroyed, and its bones simply lost their connection with whatever animating force had held them together. They clattered to the ground, almost anticlimactically.

And then, there was silence.

Still in the Shape of the Master, Elijah turned to face the remnant of the wasp army. There were still a few hundred left. The bodies of their slain – tens of thousands of them, many of whom were demi-gods – lay at their feet.

But there were still at least a handful of demi-gods left. They were exhausted. Their most powerful abilities were spent. But they were still demi-gods. And they now had nothing to distract them from the dragon in their midst.