Chapter 62: Book 2 Chapter 16 – Fhesiah – Champion of Greed

Fhesiah was on the ground the moment the teleportation was completed, despite previously floating an inch or two off of the ground like she usually did. She had already flooded her body with Qi, and immediately took to the air with amazing speed, with several chains bouncing off of the barrier Ophelia had cast onto her.

She landed a distance away, and while she may have been able to dodge them all without the barrier, she wasn’t sure that none of them would have wrapped around her extremities. While they had been surprised by the trap, their preparations couldn’t have been much better.

She spotted the enemy champion, who was already rushing at her: a drakan warrior. This species was known as an evolution of kobolds, with only those that advanced their dragon bloodline being able to reach that level. They looked like a muscular lizard in the shape of a man standing up, but he was wearing plate armor. She sent a wave of flames at him and danced away, testing the waters with her foe.

She found that they barely slowed down, but she was still faster, Qi-infused as she was. She took to the air once again, and the warrior gave up on trying to take her by surprise. She took the moment to take in her connection with Jake, and found him thinking furiously about the recent happening. She decided to reassure him that she was not to be worried about in the long list of things he was already concerned about.

“Don’t worry, Jake. I will kill this Drakan and you can call me quickly. We’ll kill that caster and then we can practice that spear thrust we talked about.”

She felt the mental eye-roll, but a mixture of happiness and pride had come across his emotions, too. She guessed that if she was connected, Ophelia was too. That meant that Jake would be safe, most likely, and she just needed to focus on the enemy in front of her.

She scanned her foe with Divine Sense and found that the drakan male was covered in armor that did not really protect him against dragon flames, but was sturdy and powerful nonetheless. They had barely flinched from her wave of flames, but she had not even sent the flame of her bloodline at him. When fighting with her [Dance of the Sun and Moon], she rarely used her bloodline flames, as they were a limited resource. She could use fire as long as she had Qi, but she could not use dragon fire for more than about half of her overall energy.

She guessed that the drakan was confident in the ability to handle her flames, otherwise, he wouldn’t have challenged her at all. She received a prompt from the framework.

 

She decided to check her other quest and found that it had in fact updated there to be 4 champions that they were now facing. She knew that Bloodberri now faced the fourth, and was glad that they had managed to harm her so. She knew that the spider, or whatever she was, was absolutely shocked that her party had reacted and struck her with such force, speed, and with no hesitation, and she knew there was no way the enemy champion came out of that unscathed; she was controlling her flames to harm her to the core as much as possible, after all.

She had read about Greed, and knew that they were an evil god of theft and plunder.

“Are you done? Come down here so that I can take everything from you.”

“You can speak, but you say something so boorish? It would have made you appear more intelligent if you had kept your mouth shut.”

“You think you are the first dragon I’ve killed? Apophis was very generous, letting us know there was a Tier 1 Dragon running about without its parents protecting it. I will take your flames, and thanks to you, I will go on to kill and consume even more powerful dragons. If you refuse to come to me, I will make you.”

While her pride said that she should try to fight him with her dragon flames, she pushed down the urge. The multiverse was vast, but while dragons were at the apex, they were not alone at the peak. The mere fact that this dragonling had defeated others, meant that it was quite proficient, perhaps even specialized at it.

For her, this was an opportunity to try her might with her Dark Kitsune flames, and more importantly: do it while Jake wasn’t watching. It would spoil her surprise for him if he was around, after all, and while she wouldn’t risk her life over that, this death match was going along with her desires. She couldn’t help but feel thankful.

Her mind entered the spiritual palace that she had created with Jake when she entered [Foundation Establishment]. It had started out as a room, but now it mirrored most of their refuge, with some small alterations. Outside the palace was a blazing sun, a well of Yang energy that shone over the palace, lighting the bricks, the mosaics made of her draconic bloodline fire ablaze. She willed the sun to set, and she landed a short distance away from the drakan, who was filling his body with draconic flames.

She observed him with divine sense and could not help but be surprised; he was using the flames in a way that was very different from how she used them. To empower himself that much, she knew she had to ramp up her own Qi empowerment to keep up for when he charged. And it wasn’t a moment too soon, as they sped towards her so fast with a wide swipe that she barely had enough time to duck under and sidestep the attack, and enter the second stance in her technique: [Dance of the Setting Sun].

The drakan followed her closely, moving at a speed that belied his bulkiness. They swung with a right hook, fist open with their claws out. She formed her hand into a claw, then infused them with her bloodline and her Dao to meet theirs. Her hand hardened, and they formed into the claws of a dragon.

The two attacks struck one another, and at first, she thought she was stronger, but the drakan bulked themselves up further with dragon fire and pushed her easily back. The drakan was quite aggressive and followed with another vicious slash of his claws with his left, and she flung a small amount of dragon flame at them with a wave of her fan and retreated further.

The drakan sucked the flames in, and she felt like even the flames within her body that she hadn’t used were being pulled on. If she didn’t wrestle control over them with her Dao, they’d have been stolen even from within, like she had opened the gate by using it. The drakan now had a shit-eating grin on his face, and she couldn’t wait to wash it off of it.

The man was breathing heavily, and she couldn’t help but feel a little grossed out. He said, “Your flames are so delicious, I want them so badly. It’s early, but I don’t think I can wait any longer. I know that we cannot allow you to make it to the next world; you must fall here. I call upon the god Greed. Grant me the power of the gods, and help me plunder from this prideful dragon.”

His body began to grow, and as she viewed him with her divine sense, she couldn’t help but feel quite worried. She urged the setting of the sun, but she knew she would need to buy some more time. Her husband's preparations which were so farfetched at the time would make this fight a lot less painful for her. She took out many mana crystals and a spell scroll into one of her hands and began to activate it, and a wave of frost smashed into the drakan just as they thundered toward her.

Originally, it would take her a considerable amount of time to activate a spell scroll. But she found by using Jake’s energy sharing to provide herself with trace amounts of Jake’s mana, less than he would even notice missing, she could more easily extract and use the mana within the mana crystals and use it to activate the spell scroll. What used to take several seconds, now took but a mere moment, perhaps activating it only slightly slower than Jake himself could activate one.

She had used [Scroll of Cone of Cold], and she had a lot more where that came from, that was for sure. Steam rose from the drakan’s body, but she could tell that it had only a slight effect as they slashed toward her once again. This time, the slash was too fast for her to completely dodge, but she was able to meet it in a cross-armed block as she activated yet another scroll of the same.

Their claws were that of a dragon’s too, and they ended up being too strong for her armor and claws. They slashed deeply into her arms, a splash of her blood landing on the vicious drakan’s face. Another cone of cold slammed into the drakan, and he was cooled even further, with ice refreezing and added to the melted ice.

“What the? I’m not sure what you are doing, but that merely tickled me. You would need a hundred of those scrolls to do anything to me.”

She smirked at the thought, while she didn’t have a hundred [Scroll of Cone of Colds], she had a lot more scrolls than that! She activated two more, and she could see the Drakan was starting to get quite pissed, but he was actually slowing down, somewhat. She spent several mana crystals to activate a more powerful scroll, now that the opponent’s body had cooled. This one was [Scroll of Ring of Frost], which meant to freeze the ground up to an opponent’s knees, locking them in place.

The wave of ice slammed into the drakan locking them in place, and the drakan filled themselves even more with flames. They released a massive amount of steam, blocking her from view, while she could easily observe the drakan with her divine sense. She activated her final scroll within her plans, [Scroll of Misty Field]. A spell of a lower grade, she knew she would need extra moisture in the air to have any chance of it having any sort of effect. On top of that, she wanted the drakan not to think very clearly. After all, there were only a handful of hiding spots in the cavern, and it would only take but a few seconds to check them all.

The drakan escaped their icy prison in a rage, and they waved their hands back and forth, trying to swipe the mist away. She hid behind a rock, and the sun had finally set in her spiritual palace, and the moon began to rise. The yin flames in her spiritual palace lit ablaze, as the dragon bloodline was finally asleep. Her body changed, as her dark kitsune bloodline awoke and as she used her [Bloodline Transformation] ability.

Fur grew on nearly every inch of her body as at this point she had only been able to work on it so much, removing the fur from around her feet and human-like hands. Fox's ears grew on the top of her head, as her elfin ears receded. Her dragon horns remained, but her tail changed to that of a fox, and her wings receded into her body as well.

Her hands and feet had been the focus of her work, as she did not want to fight like a beast. Her body was slightly hunched over, but she was mostly humanoid after much of her work. This was why she hadn’t wanted Jake to see this form yet: she knew Jake was only interested in a one or a two on the furry scale, and she was at a solid four now.

It had taken nearly 15 seconds of her being wracked in pain as her bones aligned and her body changed, and she hoped that the next fight she used this technique she would be done with making her changes, or very close. The less her body had to change, the faster and easier it would be, after all. By the time she created her [Cultivator Core], she should be able to change race at will and in but a mere moment, and she just couldn’t wait to show Jake her surprise. She had no idea this would be possible, but found that [The Framework] helped her with granting her a skill, so why not use it?  

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The drakan had finally blown the mist away and dashed towards her hiding position. With a smile, she reversed her fan and moved to the next stance of her technique: Dance of the Rising Moon. She released and fanned the purple flames into the air, creating an illusion of her appearing as the dragon demoness that she was before, and breathing her flames at him after leaping from behind her rock, and moving to the next one.

She saw him try to suck them in but was confused when the flames washed over him instead, and nothing happened. She used his brief confusion to pour one of her health potions over her wounded arms. Finally, she was more or less at her full strength, but she knew that the drakan could not hold the power of their god forever. They had already wasted the better part of a minute swinging ineffectually.

She infused her Qi into her foxfire, and several flames floated around her. She exited from behind the rock, the drakan was startled by her new appearance. The angry and confused drakan shouted in rage, “What? Just what are you?!” She did her best to smile at him, but she couldn’t respond with words.

Her face and mouth were that of a fox now, after all. But she did not need words to tell him what she was, as he would feel it first hand. She shot her foxfires at the drakan like arrows, and they slammed into him, knocking him back and setting him slightly aflame.

When he didn’t suck in the flames, she was glad she took the gamble that they would be so specialized. There was no way in her mind that someone could actually consume all flames and have them empower them, without there being a significant cost like those exploding demons at this Tier. In this case, they could only absorb dragon flames. Even if he could somehow consume her Kitsune flames, she felt that the illusions would be more effective for facing a foe that relied so heavily on their strength and speed.

She spread her fox flame over the drakan, and he screamed in pain and charged her. But she danced around his attacks with ease, continuing to add more foxfire’s floating into the air and swiping at him with her own dragon claw. She left small rents in his armor, drawing blood with each slash.

Just when the drakan thought he was going to land a solid hit, he would find that her body was an illusion and receive a claw to his back or sides. She could tell his god flames were dwindling, and he got desperate. He roared and surrounded himself with flames, and breathed them in a wide arc. Just as they were about to find purchase on her, the moon in her spiritual palace reached the apex and she entered the next phase of her Technique: Dance of the Full Moon.

While the dance of the rising moon was about the ephemeral nature of darkness and light during the night and illusions, the full moon was about a reflection of the nature of the sun, its opposite. The sun was positive energy, and the moon negative. Her yang dragon flames could destroy to lead to Creation, while her yin kitsune flames would destroy and lead to Ruin. She waved her fan of the moon, sending a large amount of cursed kitsune flames at the drakan’s fiery breath.

The god empowered dragon flames clashed with hers, and while the dragon flames were more powerful, hers were more concentrated, attacking her enemy directly. Hers blew away the almost lazy breath attack, and engulfed the dragonling. He screamed as his armor’s integrity and his skin was burned away, but he roared once again, purging the flames from their body.

She sent more fans of flames as she danced towards the drakan, and now it was the drakan that was trying to dodge, now on the back foot. She continued fanning more gouts of flames at the drakan as she got closer, and the drakan still continued to evade. But fire was her domain and just because it went past or missed the drakan, did not mean it was outside of her control.

The flames that had previously missed circled around and converged, and were then added to yet another fan of her flames. In a distressed effort the drakan tried to counter the attack with an empowered breath attack, but it was too little, too late. Their breath of flames were met with a large amount of her cursed flame, and their armor was nearly completely seared away, along with much of their skin as their god empowered flames were extinguished.

The drakan hadn’t noticed, but she had been pushing the drakan in a certain direction. Their feet now landed not very far from where she had originally entered the room. Before they could react, she wrapped the chains that had missed her before around their arms, and linked them with some chains of her own. She smiled as she realized the toy she purchased for the bedroom now served a different purpose.

The drakan was now panicked and trying to free themselves, but they could not call upon their magical strength, the shackles removing their ability to use magic. “No! What are you doing? This is impossible!”

Now, they were little more than a bound giant kobold: something that she was little afraid of. She continued until she had four of the chains around them, deciding that they were limited enough.

The moon set, and the sun began to rise. Her body shifted, and after a minute, she was a dragon demoness once more, the process not hurting her nearly as much when she took her time. “You asked me what I was. Why, I’m a demoness, of course. Now, you showed me two interesting things, and for that I thank you. You showed me how to empower myself physically with my dragon flames, which, while crude, can be quite useful. But then you showed me how to steal dragon flames and make them yours, and I couldn’t help but wonder. If a Tier 1 wanna-be dragon could do it, why can’t an actual dragon?”

The drakan screamed, but could do little to nothing to stop her from doing to him what he sought to do to her. Without their god energy to empower their flames, they were easy to rip out of them, restricted as the drakan was from the magical chains. It was likely that within the domain created by her dao of dragon flames, this would have allowed her to take his flames from the beginning, but empowered by his god she didn’t like her chances.

The champion hardly gave her a chance to try it herself, after all, summoning his god only moments after she saw the technique through her divine sense. Still, his being unable to move or fight back made it much easier to experiment.

After a few attempts to replicate the ability with a small amount of Jake’s mana and some mana crystals, she consumed his flames and the champion of Greed died, the magical dragon flames a part of their very being, their soul. She filtered the evil dragon flames through her hearth, and the dragon mosaic in her spiritual palace became all the brighter. The Divine Spark entered her hearth as well, likely for the Goddess to make use of, but what about this? There were fragments of the dragon’s souls that were stolen by the evil Champion. Perhaps, she can make use of them somehow?

Fhesiah confirmed the success of her quest and looted her foe, as damaged as their equipment was. She sat to recuperate as she waited for Jake to have need of her and use [Call Summon]. It appeared his battle was coming to its inevitable conclusion. She reviewed her status screen. 

 

 

 

 

 

She was satisfied that the things she learned from this fight now appeared on her status screen. The [Draconic Empowerment] and [Draconic Fire Plunder] would require mana for now, until she got enough practice or formed the technique using Qi. She would also see what she could do about that gross bulking up that the ugly kobold man was doing.

For now, she would have to rely on Jake’s [Energy Sharing] ability to get mana to use. She would practice them, and soon the idea of stealing her flames would be a joke that she could laugh at.

 

 

 

 

She smiled at how she was able to move a few skills to a sort of ‘hidden’ status sheet. Jake could ‘unhide’ it if he looked at the menu in detail, and she hoped if he kept clicking through it, he would leave it alone. She would hate her surprises for him to be spoiled, after all.

Fhesiah couldn’t help but feel that this Fortress Assault was profitable, as she smirked at her reward prompt.

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