Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Unleashed

It was probably a bit mad, walking towards a draconic army. Even with solar energy flowing through her and the boost of Pin’s music, challenging multiple Dragons at once was usually something only deities did. All the same, the paycheque she’d get if it worked was more than worth it.

Plus, she had always wanted a chance to fully unleash the various forbidden bits of magic she’d collected. Who better to go all out on than the first born of the divine, Dragons themselves?

So, she started her chant, pulling on the threads of solar magic potential, the sheer force of it all generating an energy based magical circle around her. Gragya stood to her side, ready in case the surrounding army noticed Illyxa before her spell was ready.

Luckily for them, the gap between the forest and the actual army was wide enough that a Goblin and Gorc was easily missed. Even with the slightly odd light effects. 

At first.

The spell was growing, causing an ever greater contrast in light for the region around her. Soon enough that caught the eye of the nearby forces, though there was a moment of confusion among them. The Kobold forces had no clue what they were facing down, and she hoped the Dragons had little more familiarity with solar magic. If there were any present that did, well, then she might be in trouble.

Whatever the case, confusion bought her enough time to finish the incantation, the power running through and around her being almost beyond her ability to control. She then shifted her footing, aiming the magical power towards the largest cluster of dragons she saw.

“Taeva Iha!” she shouted, releasing the magical blast with enough force to send herself sprawling backwards.

Knocked back as she was, she still saw the flash of the spell. The bright flair of Heaven’s Wrath itself. The shockwave hit a moment later, with enough force it likely would have knocked her from her feet if she’d been on them. 

Scrambling back to something approaching a standing position, she saw Gragya standing ready in a firm stance beside her. And then, across the clearing, to wear the blast had been aimed, she saw a great towering plume of smoke above a fresh crater.

There was a moment of quiet afterwards, everyone present staring in shock and confusion at what the little Goblin sorceress had just done.

Then all pandemonium broke out. The Kobolds shrieked with panic, the most easily scared making a break for it. Seeing their allies flee sent ripples of confusion through the others, and began to see many of them join in the unruly retreat. Dragons began shouting orders to stand and to attack the new arrivals, but there was too much chaos for the Kobolds to rally.

“My turn!” Gragya said, before charging forward.

She was used to fighting larger opponents. The Dragons she was attacking, meanwhile, were apparently not used to battling so much smaller of an opponent. Especially one that could move with as much speed and hit with as much force as Gragya could with her solar magic boost unleashed.

“I’ll admit,” Gragya shouted, while jumping from a Black Dragon to a White one, “this is at least a fun crime to be sentenced to death for!”

Illyxa flashed her cousin a smile that surely wasn’t visible from their current distance, while focusing on lobbing smaller blasts of solar magic at any Dragon that got too close to her. She had better things to do than be executed when all of this ended, assuming she survived the fight. Which was why she was planning to make a run for it as soon as the city’s defenders charged out to take advantage of the damage she and Gragya had done to the besieging force.

If she managed to break things down that far. Dragons were tough to fight. Even with booster solar magic.

She soon found herself having to run out of range of Pin’s music, to escape the poison or ice blasts of the various Dragons chasing her. A Goblin flight spell launched her to safety with rather more force than usual. It took quick thinking to keep that escape from being dangerous to her health. 

Landing with a bounce, she then spun to hit the nearest White Dragon with a solar flare spell. The impossible heat of it did prove rather effective against those icy drakes, the Dragon slamming motionless to the ground. Illyxa then dove behind the body for shelter from the rush of poison blasted out by the Black Dragons following her.

Eventually, however, even Dragons needed to inhale, and she was able to use that moment to peek above the slain Dragon to blast its allies.

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It really was fun. That was Gragya’s impression as she rushed between the legs of a Gold Dragon. She spun her stance and applied a boosted kick to the ankle of the enormous beast. Flush with solar magic, there was a burst of energy when each of her blows hit. The Golden Dragon let out a shriek of pain at the blow, Gragya barely escaping as it began to fall.

She then had to dodge an incoming blast of ice. Then a blast of poison.

It was thrilling. Unlike so many recent fights, she knew there was no moving up from this. Her tattoos were already unwrapped, the rush of power she’d felt when Illyxa had first finished them fully released. It was amazing. Even if she did feel like she was running a little hot.

The only downside to this fun, she thought as she bounded out a White Dragon’s knee with a somewhat impressive crunching noise, was that she would end up dead however it ended. If they lost, the Dragons would probably fry them. If they won, the Moon Goddess would send them to an executioner. 

Long term thinking really put a damper on things, so Gragya did her best to shut off the non-essential parts of her brain. She’d just dedicate everything up there to fighting thoughts.

Which meant dodging a tail swing from the Golden Dragon, which was now back on its feet (though limping slightly). Then grabbing one of the larger sticky-outy scales, so she could throw herself onto the Dragon’s back. The large beast began to squirm, trying to shake her off, but she was too trained in responding to moving footing to be dislodged. Instead, she managed to scramble up the wing, before punching one of the long and delicate finger-y bits that supported it. 

The Dragon shrieked again, and this time was able to throw her off with the flap of its wing. 

Twisting through the air, she managed to land on the head of a nearby Black Dragon. 

The head was a good place to land. There were eyes and temples and other fragile bits. If she’d been letting herself use more of her brain she might have felt a bit bad about what she did to the Dragon. She wasn’t, though, so she simply moved onto the next target when that one was down and broken.

It was a White Dragon, and she was about to go for the throat, just at the base of the jaw, when the Dragon was bashed out of the way by an impressively large Red Dragon. 

“YOU ARE MINE!” he bellowed, before, to Gragya’s surprise, compressing down to person size.

If the ‘person’ in question were a particularly tall Orc. Though a thin one. So, short Troll might have been a better comparison.

He rolled his neck, an impressive mane of red hair behind his head. “I’ll have some fun, beating you into a paste. Then I’ll get vengeance on your cousin.”

A brief wonder about whether she knew who this Dragon was passed through her brain, but it failed to find any secure footing in her otherwise shut down upper—uh, thinking places. She didn’t know the names of them at the best of times. Right now she just wanted to start punching this guy. 

She charged, opening with a barrage of punches, meant to wear down her new opponent. The Dragon blocked each blow, proving far better at matching her attacks than a full sized Dragon.

“You little insects are so hard to keep track of when we’re our actual sizes,” the Dragon said, wearing a sneer, “but, when we’re your size?”

The sneer shifted into a full grin and the Dragon threw a tight punch into Gragya’s gut. The blow hit with the all the force of strike from a full Dragon, sending Gragya flying. She crashed into the dirt a few metres away, coughing as she tried to regain her breath.

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So, mental note: don’t let a Dragon punch her. 

She probably should have realised that already. Oh well, she could still stand. 

For now. A few more blows like that would change that.

And the Dragon was on her already. She had to fight carefully, blocking and dodging, being patient as she hunted for openings. 

The Dragon was saying something as they fought. Rambling about something that involved ‘vengeance’ and ‘satisfaction’ and a bunch of other things that really weren’t relevant to the fight at hand. So, Gragya ignored the rambling words.

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Gasping for breath, Illyxa felt her mana running drained. Making demands of the universe itself got tiring. Even she only had so much willpower to draw upon. Especially when one added all the running around she was having to do.

The Dragons were thinning, though. Through casualties and deserters, ageless apex predators frequently not being risk takers. 

Illyxa could take some satisfaction from that, even with those still fighting being busy trying to kill her. Only the younger and dumber ones were trying to pick a fight with her now, the wiser of their group deciding to hold back and wait for exhaustion to hit her. They weren’t going to be the ones to die weakening her. They planned to be the ones to get the kill in the end.

Which was looking more and more likely to happen. Were the defenders of the Moon Palace really going to just sit behind their walls and let her die? 

Weren’t they going to come out and help while she had the besieging army in chaos?

Dodging the lightning breath of a small Golden Dragon, Illyxa threw a blast of solar magic at its face. Enough to blind but not enough to kill. If the Moon Goddess was really just going to have her army city in her palace and let Illyxa and Gragya die out here before acting then they were going to have to retreat. 

As Gragya had said, there was no point earning a fortune if they were dead. Even if they’d both been more worried about the executioner’s ax than the Dragons.

She decided to rush towards the Dragons chasing her, releasing a spread of smokey fireballs to screen her movements more than to actually attack the Dragons. Scrambling under legs and flapping wings, she made her way towards where Gragya had been heading. It was time to tell her cousin they had to retreat. 

“And THAT’s for ruining my efforts in Mezora!” a booming voice shouted from the middle of a circle of Dragons. 

Illyxa wanted to see what was going on, especially as she swore she recognised the voice. So she scurried under the bulk of the nearest dragon in the circle. She was small enough to have plenty of space under its bulk and it provided a good bit of cover from the other Dragons who were now looking around for her. Slipping forward, she managed to get a look at what had attracted the audience.

There was a Red Dragon in humanoid form fighting with Gragya. Her cousin was doing surprisingly well, considering the massive gap in strength and experience between her and a surely centuries old Dragon, but… well, ‘surprisingly well’ in this circumstance meant ‘still breathing’. Her stance was shaky and blows kept sneaking past her defences, especially when the transformed Red Dragon’s fiery breath forced her to backpedal. Watching Gragya be tossed into the air like a cheap cloth doll was painful. 

The growl of Dragons around her told Illyxa that they’d realised where she was, however. And that they were about to start attacking her.

She needed a plan, and quickly, as she scrambled under the next drake to her left. She could only use the various enemies as meat shields from the other’s breath weapons for so long, but it would buy her some time. 

Whatever she did (she backpedaled to barely avoid a blast of ice) was going to have to pace a punch. That Red Dragon (she clambered up a Golden Dragon’s back, the drake squirming to try to shake her) had survived a heaven’s wrath spell to the face back in Mezora.

Well (her dagger was able to slip between the Gold Dragon’s scales, giving her something a handhold as it dodged others trying to swat her with little regard for its safety) a heaven’s wrath spell without the boosting power of her unleashed tattoos.

The spell was so long… then again… she didn’t technically need her mouth to run. She let the Golden Dragon fling her off and began to chant the incantation. Landing on the ground with a roll, she felt the beginnings of the ancient spell building around her, but knew she had to be careful with her words. A few more syllables and messing up the spell could cause the solar magic to erupt from within her heart… even her tattoos wouldn’t be able to defend her if that happened.

“You know,” the humanoid Red Dragon bellowed, apparently ignoring the chaos Illyxa was causing running around the fight, “this would be far more satisfying if I got the impression you actually recognised me.”

Glancing over, Illyxa saw the fiery haired foe had lifted Gragya by the neck. Not good.

“I… really don’t,” Gragya managed to cough.

“In Mazora? The Prince had nearly turned to our side when you and your cousin blew the palace up!” the Dragon snarled.

Illyxa was struggling to maintain the incantation, starting to run out of breath. She barely dodged a blast of lightning breath from a Gold Dragon… only for that blast to be interrupted, the Red Dragon shrieking an order in Draconic.

While Illyxa’s Draconic was a bit rusty, she was able to recognise ‘stop!’ and ‘explode!’ as the Red Dragon looked to her with fear. He could see the way the light around her was bending now, the spell charging up.

Illyxa would have flashed a smile, but she had to continue the incantation.

The Red Dragon swung Gragya between him and Illyxa, ready to use her as a shield.

“You wouldn’t dare! Not while I’m holding her!”

Illyxa responded by planting her feet and increasing the volume of the last few syllables of the incantation. The last message to the chaos beneath existence of her intention, the argument to make it act with her desire.

She knew her only hope to get Gragya out of this alive, as her cousin’s breathing was rasping and weak, was to bluff. To make the Red Dragon think she was ready to hit Gragya point blank.

And it worked. The Red Dragon’s eyes filled with fear as the spell began to crystalize around Illyxa. He flung Gragya aside and turned, reverting to his Draconic form to begin to flee. He was still closer than Illyxa would have liked when she reached the end of the spell, but she was fairly certain her and Gragya’s tattoos would protect them. 

As such, she let out a yell of the final words of the spell.

Only to faint as soon as the magic left her fingers, her mental fortitude utterly used up.