Chapter 35: Chapter 34: The attack

[City of Salin]

About a two weeks later a group of about twenty humanoids stood just outside Salin. Their eyes were fixed on the giant black whirlwind hanging in the sky, covering nearly the entire city.

“That doesn't look good.” A women said after a few seconds.

“And whose fault is that?” Another snapped back, causing the first one to look down in guilt.

“Averyla, you know that it isn't her fault. Without her we would have arrived earlier, yes, but we collectively decided to take her along.” Vagha said to her. This made her click her tongue in annoyance.

“It will be alright.” Darganth said to the women, the transformed Jennia.

Back when they had arrived at the elven city, she had started to learn transformation magic as soon as she got the book for it. But despite receiving Darganth's help, she didn't manage to learn it until the day before. This had forced them to slow their travel considerably, as even together the dragons couldn't carry her. While they were all far larger than her, being high tier dragons nearing their hundredth birthday, it would be too much of a strain to fly with her.

This had forced them to decide whether to slow down for her or fly to the capital by themselves. After some discussion they decided to slow down, mainly as they doubted that two or three weeks would make a difference. The newcomers also wanted to delay a bit as Darganth had left them of easy when they arrived, but he only delayed till they freed Siurin.

“Can you really breach these walls?” Averyla asked Darganth after calming down a bit. They were currently all walking closer to the city, allowing her to get a better view of them with every step.

“Yes. While this move would be ineffective against moving targets, ripping open a crudely enchanted wall isn't a problem.” He replied with a smile. Deciding to place her trust in him, she simply nodded.

Soon they reached about ten kilometers from the wall. Seeing Darganth stop abruptly, the rest also came to a halt. After motioning for the rest to wait, he again walked closer to the city.

Coming to a halt about fifty meters away from them, he stated focusing. Slowly the his true form materialized behind him as an illusion, looking into the sky. Following its gaze, the others raised their heads and stared wide eyed at the sky.

Forming above them was a spiral of glowing silver and azure green, winding in the form of a hurricane and reaching down form the sky. Making its ways downwards, the bottom edge slowly started converging towards Darganth. Just as it hang about a hundred meters above him, it stopped.

Now winding around each other, the two colors formed a ring in the sky. After just a moment of pause, the space in the ring was suddenly replaced by pure darkness. Looking at the hole that seemed to devour everything, they all stared at it in marvel.

While the elves that had accompanied them had no idea what it was and only were entranced by its strange beauty, the others soon realized what they found before their eyes. The black void that was filled only with strange flowing rivers of the same color that formed the hurricane was hardly to mistake.

Allaire who had already seen the void managed to recognize it the earliest and also managed to stop staring at it the fastest. Suddenly an object dropped out of the void, encased in a hue of the same colors as the edge of the portal and leaving a trail in its wake.

Landing next to Darganth, she saw him picking up the spear like weapon that had fallen from the void. Its design matched the weapon he had used against Norton nearly completely, but compared to the hastily made one this spear excluded a sense of majesty.

As soon as Darganth touched it, the entire length of the shaft started to glow in the same pattern as his scales. This allowed her to clearly see it to be made from Darganth's scales. Not even a moment later the glow fully encompassed the spear, with only the bladed tip not being covered in the pattern.

“A true draconic weapon.” Vagha said in astonishment once he saw the spear.

As if on command, the manifestation of Darganth's true form slowly started to grow. While slow at the beginning, it soon reached nearly a kilometer long, stopping only when it had reached beyond five. By now the soldiers on the walls were already running around, trying to mount a hastily defense, though it would be futile.

Changing the spear into the throwing grip with one swift motion, Darganth drew back his arm. Taking aim for a second, he threw the spear with all his might. As soon as it left his hand, the manifestation of his true form moved forwards, flying alongside the spear.

After crossing the first kilometer, the spear became covered in flames, though their color was the same ones that formed the spears pattern. Then these flames started encasing the illusionary dragon, slowly spreading over its entire body until they fully covered its form. Not even a second later it impacted on the walls.

During this time the guards barely managed to organize a defense. Standing on the wall with the flaming form of a dragon flying towards them, the commander started to loose hope and forgot to give orders. When one of the archers let loose his arrow, they all followed his example and let an unorganized rain of arrows fly towards the attack.

Without waiting for their superiors order, archers and mages let loose everything they had on the nearing flames. They knew that it would barely be two seconds before it would strike them, so they held back nothing. And upon seeing the mass of projectiles making their way towards the flaming dragon, some started to regain their hope.

But this hope was quickly crushed when the impact occurred. Or more precise the lack of one, as their attacks simply vanished as soon as the met the flames. Watching this in horror, the men didn't even have the time to scream before the meeting the same fate. Some who stood further away already breathed in relieve, when the dragon spread its wings.

Looking at the completely missing part of the wall, they resigned themselves to their fate as the part of the wall they stood on became encased in flames. Some of the defense formations at the edge still manged to flicker to live for a split second, but they didn't delay the inevitable for long. Soon nearly twenty kilometers of the wall were wiped out, stone, enchantment and men, all gone.

Despite this already massive destruction, the flaming dragon didn't stop. Flying onwards while sometimes barely gracing the ground, it made its way to the walls around the kings castle. The civilians in its path weren't spared, having the bad luck of living under a king who enraged dragons.

Upon contact with the castle walls, the scene from the city walls repeated itself. With their smaller size the flames ripped down nearly a third of them despite the dragon not even extending its wings fully. Just as those in the palace were already screaming in fear, the flames vanished a few meters before impacting it.

Watching Darganth's attack carve a path of destruction through the largest city on the peninsula, the others looked at him in awe. Even the dragons did, despite all having witnessed even grander displays of power but these were all from dragons far older.

Only when Darganth fell to his knee in exhaustion did they come out of their stupor.

“Everything alright?” Allaire asked, running to him and helping him back up. Nodding weakly, Darganth used her shoulders as support.

“So that is the power of a true draconic weapon?” Averyla asked in amazement.

“Yes, though don't expect a result this extreme should you create one. This case is special as that spear was crafted by me at my peak.”

“Yeah, it would be hard to replicate this situation and wouldn't even serve an effect. Still, maybe I should make my own.” Vagha analyzed, realizing that Darganth was only able to create such an attack by borrowing the remains of his past power remaining in the spear. And even that was vastly limited by what his body could endure.

Nodding in agreement, Darganth turned towards the city. Holding out his free hand, he waited for a few seconds until his spear shot back into his grip, still partially burning with the strange colored flames.

“So that are the flames of destruction up close.” One of the dragons whispered to himself.

Calming the remainder of the flames that clung to it, Darganth waited until its power fully ran out before throwing it up. As soon as the spear left his hand, it shot back into the void and he closed the portal behind it. This action brought the attention of the others back to the task at hand.

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Slowly making their way towards the city, walked through the portal that formed before them. Arriving quite deep in the city, they looked at the destruction to their left and right with some of the elves even stumbling due to their shock.

“What even is a true draconic weapon and how can it display such a power?” One of them asked in disbelieve.

“A weapon crafted from a dragons own body.” Darganth said, shocking them greatly. While the other dragons already knew of this, even Allaire and Jennia were surprised by this revelation.

Without waiting for them to recover from their shock, the group of dragons made their way towards the castle one after another. Following after them with Allaire and Jennia, Darganth kept searching the area to prevent the demon that may be present from ambushing them.

When they walked through the ruined remains of the palace wall, they searched through the castle. All dragons of their group frowned nearly simultaneously, finding their vision obstructed by a massive amount of demonic mana in the castle.

“It seems we have to go the old fashioned way.” Darganth said in annoyance, a sentiment that was mirrored by the others.

“Well, at least I have a reason to trash this place.” Averyla said and dashed forwards before anyone could stop her.

Looking after her for a few moments, the others looked at each other questioningly before shrugging. She could watch out for herself and it wasn't as if anyone could still stop her. At most Darganth had a chance, but to use dragons authority for such a minor thing wasn't something he would do.

“As we are searching for an ominous demonic ritual, I propose starting in the basement.” Allaire said, eliciting agreement from the rest.

“Besides I doubt that the parts of the castle that are above ground will exist much longer.” She added, pointing towards Averyla who had just identified a load-bearing wall. Before anyone could voice their agreement, she had already destroyed the wall and by extension caused nearly a tenth of the entire structure to cave in.

“Lets hurry before the entrances are all covered in rubble.” Vagha said before running ahead.

Following after him, they soon found themselves just outside the former buildings walls. From the corner of their eyes they could already notice the guards stationed at the parts of the noble district that wasn't destroyed closing in on them. While it were comparatively few as they were slowed by the wall around the royal palace, their numbers increased rather quick.

Additionally the time also was enough for the archers and mages on said wall to reorganize themselves and rain fire on their position. Despite its far smaller size compared to the outer one, barely standing at twenty meters high, the wall gave them an advantageous position. The only factor that worked for Darganth's group was that it was designed to fire outwards as it was assumed that an enemy that reached this far had already brought it under control.

Weaving trough these attacks towards them, Darganth took care to use as little of his already very depleted mana and dodged them. Allaire and Jennia followed this example while the dragons simply shrugged these attacks of. The elves were the only ones that decided to defend themselves with mana, erecting mana shields and other barriers.

“How do we find anything in this chaos?” One of the dragons asked.

The rest agreed to this assessment, though letting their gazes wander around nonetheless. Seeing nothing but rubble and dead bodies, they regretted not stopping Averyla. Some of them started walking around, in the hopes of finding better results though it proved useless.

During this time Jennia also backtracked a few meters, having decided to delay the incoming guards. As soon as she reached about half way to them, she had returned to her true form and stood still for a bit. In contrast to her transformed state, she had nothing to fear from the attacks when in her true form. While not as durable as dragons, hydras were far from easily wounded.

After a few seconds she returned to them in her human form, seemingly having done nothing. Only Darganth and Allaire understood the situation, Jennia's sadistic smile being a clear giveaway. Throwing a glance towards the guards, they noticed some falling into sudden pitfalls or be hit with all manner of traps. Jennia just commented this with an innocent smile.

After a few more minutes of search, Vagha snapped. Shouting for the rest to take some distance, he rose into the air. Taking about half a second, he reached ten meters high and stopped. By now a red energy in humanoid form that resembled him had formed all around him. His body remained floating in the figures chest.

This was an aura avatar, the unique ability of the third order aura expert. Compared the first orders ability to crate constructs from aura and the second orders one to materialize the elements, this avatar was far more powerful but also had stricter limits. While materialization could be used to create nearly everything, it lacked offensive power. While creating weapons this way was done commonly, the ability mainly excelled at forming defenses around oneself.

The second order one was different in that regard, allowing to enhance ones offensive power greatly by conjuring the element that was used in the current aura, but this was less versatile. The elements could only be created on surfaces enhanced by the users aura, tough they added quite a lot of power to the object. And due to the process being similar to how mages conjure the elements, it holds similar traits which means that it doesn't simply fade away once the mana supply is cut off. Instead it fully becomes the natural, manaless form of the element.

The aura avatar was a mix of the two. It contained terrifying power, scaling the enhancement of the physical capabilities with its size. Additionally it served as a great shield, protecting the user with a constantly regenerating mass of aura around them. On the flip side is its high mana cost and form limitation. The avatar is only capable of replicating the user and objects he carries, making its form unchangeable.

In addition the size to power scaling also served as a weakness, as limiting the space limited its power. While higher mana quality increase the power at each size, it is still a weakness that is easily exploited.

Now encased in such and avatar, Vagha drew his fist back and pointed it to the ground. While his body remained unmoving, the avatar acted as if it was his body. Making sure that no one from his group was close, he punched down with all his might.

This rattled the entire area with an earthquake. While the group had already prepared themselves, the nearing guards weren't as luck. Jennia's traps had already slowed and terrorized them, so the sudden earthquake made chaos erupt among their ranks.

Getting up, Vagha looked down at the effect of his punch. With him at its center, a spiderweb of crack spread through the ground for dozens of meters. At the point where his fist had impacted, the ground was lowered into a crater nearly ten meters deep. Despite this he was unhappy. He had expected to break through immediately, though the unusually hard ground that stopped him also made this likely to be the correct spot.

Balling his fists once more, he threw punch after punch at the spot, each deepening the hole by a good bit.

Around five hits later, his punch broke through the last bit of rock. Drawing it back with a smile, he let his avatar dissolve while waiting for the rest. When just a few seconds later quite a bit of demonic mana came out of the hole, he became quite sure that they had found the right spot.

When they finally arrived, they gathered around the hole and peered down into it. Seeing nothing but darkness, they had no idea what to expect.

“Now its do or don't” One of the dragons said after a few moments. Not waiting for a reaction, he took a step forwards and let himself fall down the hole. Soon they heard the sound of rock breaking coming from about twenty meters under them.

“Everything alright.” The dragons shouted to them. Hearing this they stopped hesitating and followed him.

Arriving on the ground, they found themselves in a small cave with three stairs. While two lead back up, the last one went further down. Each of them capable of magic let a small ball of light appear over their hand, while the few elves that only knew aura stayed close to one of the others.

Slowly walking towards stairway downwards, they slowly crept downwards. Every step they took was careful to the end as they had to account for traps. For the dragons besides Darganth this was a first, the experience of not being able to rely on their eyes to scout ahead nearly perfectly something new. While such cases were rare, they acknowledged that it was a good idea to learn not to solely rely on their eyes in the future.

After a bit over five minutes they reached the end of the stairs. While they encountered the occasional trap, it was rare. Now they stood on an elevated balcony overlooking a giant hall, one that should be far too large to exist underground. Down int the room lay Siurin, his limbs bound by massive chains that were anchored to different sections of the rooms wall and ground.

Below him there stretched a gigantic magic circle that made his body seem small in comparison. The claw marks all around him made it clear that he had tried to get free, but without success. Currently he stared at a spot in the circles center with hatred. Focusing on that spot they found a group of seven standing there, looking barely larger than ants from this high.

Soon after Darganth arrived, having gone down last. Following the gazes of the others, his gaze also fell onto the magic circle. Recognizing it, he burst out into laughter.

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