BOOK 9: CHAPTER 74: DIAMONDS IN THE SKY

Elijah turned his back, sheltering the dogs as best he could as they were pelted by hundreds of thousands of sharp crystal shards. They cut through his armor, embedding themselves in his muscles, but they didn’t stop there. Instead, they burrowed deeper, ripping through his flesh with every vibration.

He knew he couldn’t endure it for much longer. So, even as he cast his heals, he focused three facets of his mind on the task of warring against what turned out to be shards of solid air-attuned ethera. Reversing their course wasn’t easy, and in the end, he was forced to use his mantle of authority to render them inert.

The pack’s collective whimper rose above the howling wind, telling him that his mantle hadn’t only affected the storm of shards, but it was a price he needed to pay. Regardless, he knew it wasn’t a permanent solution. He only needed to weather the storm until the next part of his plan came into play.

His heals completed, and his efforts succeeded in banishing the foreign ethera. That gave him just enough time to shift into the Shape of the Sea. The idea was simple. With its large and durable shell, it would let the pack recover and brace for whatever else was on the way.

Because ethera continued to build where the sky titan had just exploded. The thing might have been destroyed, but it was not dead. Not yet.

Once he had assumed his chelinoid form, he awkwardly planted himself in front of the dogs. It wasn’t a perfect plan, largely because he lost a chunk of constitution outside of water, but it accomplished his goal nonetheless.

Thankfully, the dogs were on the ball with their own abilities. Jackson and Sophie stacked their shields before Elijah, blocking all but the worst of the shards. The rest were at least slowed enough that they didn’t dig too far into Elijah’s leathery shell. From there, it was only a matter of willpower to keep them from digging deeper.

But as he’d already established, it was no permanent solution.

Then, everything changed when the larger crystals – one of which was where they’d taken shelter – started moving. One slammed into another, which in turn rammed a different crystal. Before long, Elijah and the pack were clinging to their perch amidst a storm while the crystals played bumper cars with one another.

It was like being on the world’s worst fair ride, jerking them back and forth as they were sandblasted by wind-driven splinters of air.

And if that wasn’t disorienting enough, the monster’s head soon roared with its own burst of ethera and began to shoot more lightning in every direction. There was no discernable pattern to it. No real rhyme or reason. Just pure bedlam that only added to the chaos of the storm.

Elijah only survived through the dint of his Mantle of the Chimera, combined with an extremely high constitution and Aegis of the Elements. The dogs, in turn, managed to avoid being ripped to shreds through the shelter provided by Elijah’s massive form.

But it was not sustainable.

Thankfully, it didn’t need to be. Over the cacophony, Oscar shouted, “On my mark, attack! I’ll keep the dogs safe!”

Elijah knew better than to question his tactics. If he said he could protect his pack, then he could. That freed Elijah to act as more than a glorified windbreak. So, when Oscar shouted it was time, he didn’t waste a moment in hesitation before shifting forms. This time, he let Shape of the Sea fall way, replacing it with the Shape of Thorn. Immediately, he was pelted by the power of the storm, and even in the space of the second it took for the transformation to take hold, he was ripped to shreds.

Fortunately, he only need to survive for a couple more seconds before he activated Unchecked Growth, then Domain of Vines before he leaped at one of the careening crystal chunks. He absorbed the lightning that came with it, forcing his muscles to work amidst the involuntary contractions that came with being electrocuted.

He bounded from one crystal to the next, with one goal in mind. At the same time, Domain of Vines worked overtime to wrap roots around each subsequent crystal and drag them behind him. The weight dragged against him as they attempted to pull him off target. But a quick use of Bestial Charge kept him on track.

Then, at last, he hit the head crystal.

The merest touch sent millions of volts of electricity coursing through his body, but he combatted it with Unchecked Growth. The ability sent his regeneration attribute skyrocketing, so all he needed to do was add a little willpower to mix, and he banished the foreign ethera.

In the meantime, the crystals slammed into his back, one after another. He continued to wrap the crystals in dense vines, binding them in place. Then, he squeezed with every ounce of might he could muster.

It wasn’t enough, though.

Elijah knew it.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He could feel himself flagging beneath the dense bolts of electricity coursing through him. Against that, even Unchecked Growth was insufficient. His outer scales melted, his every muscle contracted, and his mind went into overdrive as he tried to keep himself from losing consciousness.

Then, suddenly, heat bloomed from a different source.

It was like being submerged in lava all over again, and Elijah cried out in immense pain. That was when he did lose consciousness – and thankfully so – because an enormous fireball enveloped the entire clump of crystal only a second later. He blacked out before he could find out more.

When he awoke, he was falling.

Or rather, his cocoon of crystal was.

Then, he felt one of the dogs flash into his awareness. Then another. Jackson and Sophie rocketed toward the falling crystal, hitting it like a pair of furry missiles. They rebounded, flipping backward through the air. The crystal – and Elijah within it – smashed into the silver bridge only a second later. It bounced across the surface, only coming to rest a foot from the edge.

Elijah flexed, his recovery completed due to the ongoing Unchecked Growth, but it didn’t work. The crystal had fused to his scales and encapsulated him in a crystalline prison. He couldn’t move a muscle.

So, he shifted once again, taking on the much smaller form of the cindrandir. It was painful, but the vestiges of Unchecked Growth worked with Wild Resurgence to heal the damage of having his skin ripped from his body. Then, he used what little room he had to build a little momentum. It took four punches before the crystal shattered.

Elijah sprawled on the silver bridge, surrounded by inert crystal shards. At the same time, he worked to purge himself of the foreign ethera. It would not be a short process.

Distracted by that, he didn’t realize two very important factors.

The first was that he’d gotten no experience for killing the sky titan. The second was that the shards of crystal weren’t quite as inert as he’d first supposed. Indeed, they inched closer together until they formed a roughly human-sized version of the sky titan. It stood over him, many-jointed arms poised to attack.

Digby came from nowhere, appearing out of thin air and hitting the thing hard enough that it once again shattered. This time, Elijah did feel a huge surge of experience that pushed him all the way to one-ninety. More importantly, it meant that they’d completed the trial, as evidenced by the notification that he had been awarded with the mark of the air, which added a piece to the brand he’d gained from the previous two challenges.

It was only a moment later that the rest of the pack thudded down beside him. Oscar knelt next to Elijah and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Just resting my eyes,” Elijah muttered, his heart still beating abnormally fast. Over the next few minutes, he pushed the bulk of the foreign ethera out of his system, but he knew it would take quite a while before he was completely finished with that particular task. Weeks, at least.

Still, when Jackson started licking him in the face, he had recovered well enough to push the dog away and sit up. The scene that greeted him was both wondrous and terrifying.

The entire sky had grown completely dark – an abnormality, given that the area seemed to have been frozen in time at mid-afternoon. Moreover, the shards of crystal that had once been part of the storm now hung suspended in mid-air, looking like glittering diamonds in the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathed, resting his forearms on his knees.

Nearby, Oscar sat cross-legged with Escobar in his lap. For once, the hyperactive chihuahua sat still. Meanwhile, Sophie’s head rested on top of the smaller animal. The other dogs lay nearby. Close enough to protect their pack leader, but far enough away to feel independent.

The lone detractor was Jackson, who’d chosen to bother Elijah. He scratched the dog behind the ears, eliciting a slight snort as Oscar turned his attention in his direction.

“That was closer than expected. I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t predict the severity of the last phase.”

“It worked out,” Elijah said. “In my experience, you can’t plan for everything.”

“I…I don’t believe that. A bad plan just means that the leader didn’t gather the right information. I will do better next time. I owe you all that much.”

Elijah sighed. He could recognize a losing battle when he saw one, and Oscar’s insistence on taking the blame for their close call was exactly that. So, he decided to change the subject, pulling a couple of stored meals from his Arcane Loop. “You hungry?” he asked. Hefting one, he said, “This is whale steak.” Raising the other, he said, “Enchiladas. I’m told they don’t taste quite right. My sister-in-law says that the local Cooks in Ironshore don’t make them as well as her mother. I maintain it’s because the ingredients are so different. Plus, I’m not an enchilada snob like her.”

“Enchilada snob?”

“Even a bad enchilada is still good. Words to live by, so you should jot that down.”

“I don’t have paper. Or a pen,” Oscar said, spreading his hands.

“Just an expression, man.”

“Oh. I…I don’t always understand those,” he admitted. Then, he looked away. As he stared into the distance, he added, “It wasn’t always like that. I…I was normal, once.”

“I don’t think normal exists anymore. Maybe it never did,” Elijah argued.

“Maybe,” Oscar agreed after choosing the whale steak. As he dug in, Elijah did the same, and the enchiladas were just as tasty as he’d expected. After a while, Oscar broke the silence by asking, “Did you know that dogs are very literal creatures? They don’t really understand sarcasm or idioms. What they say, they mean. It’s a quirk of our means of communication. It’s not mind reading, but it’s not not that either. There’s no room for figures of speech.”

And considering that Oscar had spent most of the past few years – maybe since Earth had changed – with only a pack of shelter dogs for company, it didn’t take a leap of logic to understand why he was the way he was.

Of course, Elijah didn’t judge him for it. In fact, he quite enjoyed the man’s straightforward nature. It was a lot better than trying to work with people like Nico or Isaiah, both of whom woke up with a new scheme in mind and lies on their lips.

As Elijah scratched Jackson’s ears, he gave the whole situation quite a lot of thought. In the meantime, he continuously purged the foreign ethera, digging down deep for the most stubborn bits. It wasn’t easy, and what’s more, he didn’t have time to truly devote himself to the process.

Because when the sky began to lighten, he knew it was time to go.

So, without much more deliberation, they set off across the system of silver bridges so they could retrace their steps back to the broken tower. Elijah knew he had a very important notification waiting on him, but he refused to give it more than a cursory inspection. Not until he had the time to give it the attention it deserved.