[Fsh] Chapter 59: Winged Serpent

They emerged into a dark, frozen world. Towering mountains that eclipsed the Verscallian Peaks could be glimpsed in the far distance.

Thunderclouds filled the skies above her, and cobalt lightning flitted in their midst, accompanied by whispers of thunder. The rumble of the thunder was soft, as if reluctant to break the peace of this place.

A single, cerulean moon gleamed in the distant horizon, casting its light across the plains of frost.

Their quarry was framed by dark, cerulean moonlight and the flashes of cobalt lightning across dark skies.

A name that she had glimpsed at the very beginning of her journey, prior to her entry into the Dreadwood. Supplied by Idriel, the Singer when she had first awoken.

Salastraza [legendary]

A dragon of frost, fallen to Insanity’s grip.

Salastraza differed both in size and shape from the image of the red dragon that Valeric Brimstone had embodied.

She eclipsed his form, as grand as it had been – the red dragon that neared the size of a small manor.

A writhing, sinuous mass half the size of the city of Brimstone twitched where it floated in the air in the distance, framed by flashes of cobalt lightning in dark skies.

Salastraza was a serpentile dragon, long and sinuous. While her movements may have once been graceful and elegant, the dragon that hung in the air around them pulsed at odd intervals, moving erratically in a way that jarringly contradicted her breathtaking form. Hundreds of thousands of gleaming scales of midnight blue covered her serpentine body.

Although no wings sprouted from the dragon’s immense, sinuous frame, Salastraza curled in midair, high above the sweeping, empty plains of frost.

Shiver stared at the twitching figure in the distance where she hung impossibly in the sky, the cerulean moonlight alighting on her beautiful scales, lightning across scales of midnight.

A [legendary] guide, fallen to Insanity’s grip.

Is this the fate that all guides are destined to?

Will Icey fall to Insanity as well?

Will I?

Then, the battle began in truth.

[Frostglide of the spiritfox]

Shiver skated forwards, darting across the frozen plains towards her target.

At this pace, I’m going to leave Vivienne in the dus-

“Do keep up, Shiver.”

She gaped as she watched Vivienne effortlessly skate at her side, before picking up pace and accelerating. No matter how hard she pumped her legs, she could not keep up with the guide as Vivienne pressed the advance.

That’s right… my invocations were derived from the Fear of a spirit fox.

One that was far lesser than Vivienne.

As Salastraza continued to twitch in mid-air, Shiver and Vivienne adopted the approach they had discussed.

[Shard of the frostwolf]

The very basest of Shiver’s invocations. Calling the shards, and even shaping them into mirrors for her to leap through, barely drained her Alarum.

The fact that it did this time, spoke to the scope of the Trepidation she called.

Hundreds of hanging shards of ice grew into existence in the air surrounding the dragon, where curled into itself, hanging suspended above the plains.

Vivienne singular tail split into two, and the spirit fox guide called foxfire into being around Salastraza. The guide had not opposed their approach, or reacted to the shards that hung suspended above it.

“Now, Shiver.”

Shiver sent the shards hurtling towards Salastraza and watched as Vivienne’s foxfire blossomed, with their approach. The shards that hurtled towards her duplicated fourfold, and a veritable sea of shards surged towards the dragon.

The foxfire did not duplicate the shards in truth, merely conjuring an illusion to ensure that Salastraza did not evade or deflect the true shards hidden in their midst.

Hundreds of ice shards, each capable of parting skin with ease, thundered harmlessly across Salastraza’s scales.

“The attack would have wounded her had she not been twisted. Her scales have strengthened.”

All their attack did was provoke her.

Salastraza roared, and cobalt lightning spidered outwards in response, covering the dark horizon of this isolated world of frost. Cobalt lightning soared across the furthest reaches of the dark sky.

Then, she summoned the bolts down upon them.

Lightning struck the ground around them. As the bolts made contact with the ground, what had been flashes of electricity and light materialised into sliver-thin sculptures of artistry.

The lightning strikes left sculptures of frost in their wake, towering up to the point of their origin in the dark skies above.

Immortalising their presence in the eerie landscape of frost.

Shiver watched as she brushed up against one of the sculptures and saw her skin bleed, coming away at its touch.

Shiver watched as lightning flashed directly above her.

“Shi-“

[Parry of the bladefrog]

Shiver’s Phobia intercepted the path of the oncoming lightning that glanced off her blade. As she skated forwards, leaving it in her wake, she saw that the frozen sculpture of the lightning had splintered off to the side, spiralling in the direction she had parried it.

“Don’t rely solely on your Phobia. You aren’t a Fearshaper of blades, capable of delivering an endless string of parries.”

Shiver was inclined to agree with the guide’s words. She knew that if the invocation would likely fail if she attempted to call it back to back, even if her timing and precision was perfect.

“We’re going to have to ground her the other way. Plan B. I swear Vivy, if I end up a stain on the ground…”

“You’ll what? Complain to your dead parents?”

For a moment, Shiver’s thoughts of the battle before her were interrupted, as she stared incredulously at the white fox that skated beside her.

“Word gets around the Dreadwood. Go.”

“I feel sorry for whoever your Fearshaper was.”

Shiver felt a chill run down her spine as she saw Vivy conjure a mirror before them. Unlike her own, it was untarnished, free of any dirt and grime, and near invisible, save for the slightest distortion around its edges.

That’s going to be tough to spot.

Weaving around more errant bolts of lightning that Salastraza summoned in their path, Shiver and Vivienne surged through the mirror, the calm of the plains disappearing.

They emerged in the howling wind.

Shiver tumbled through the air as she struggled to right herself. Vivienne simply called another mirror into existence and immediately corrected Shiver’s trajectory.

They fell straight towards Salastraza, positioned high above her and the ground below them. Shiver had to rely upon Vivienne’s mirrors, as the guide was capable of calling them at a range that she wasn’t capable of.

“Shards, now!”

Shiver called her Trepidation, and manifested a myriad of thin planes of ice shards that overlapped with one another. Shiver grinned as she watched as Salastraza’s lightning strikes were foiled by the haze of frost shards that acted as a makeshift, layered shield as they fell.

Why deflect the lightning when you could disperse it?

Then the floating dragon twisted in their direction and exhaled.

[Shield of the frostwolf]

Shiver learned from her application of the frost shards, calling multiple shields around herself. When she turned towards the falling Vivienne to assess if the fox needed her own protection, she watched as a third tail leapt from Vivienne’s pair, and the spirit fox began to burn with foxfire.

The breath attack slammed into them, and Shiver winced as she felt two layers of shields burst, the third, bearing the brunt of the remainder of the attack. Vivienne emerged unscathed.

If her shards were ineffective against the creature’s scales, that only left her with a single option.

Her Phobia.

Her gleaming blade of frost materialised in her hands, and hung outstretched behind her as she surged through the air like one of her shards, straight towards the dragon.

Salastraza twitched at the last moment to face her.

Finally, Shiver glimpsed Salastraza’s face.

Two eyes of midnight blue with vertical slits of blinding cerulean stared back at her.

Beneath them were another two eyes, that had sprouted beneath her others like tumorous growths.

Familiar black blood trailed from them.

The dragon’s jaws widened to reveal elegant fangs that curled into themselves, piercing the dragon’s skin. Abscessed teeth that leaked black blood rushed to meet her.

Before the dragon could consume her whole, Vivienne intervened.

A fourth tail blurred forth from her third, and the spirit fox exerted its mastery over motion, to slow their movements. The instant that she did, Shiver called another plane of ice beside her, then kicked off it.

Vivienne released her hold on their motion, and Shiver accelerated rapidly-

Shooting straight past Salastraza’s gaping maw.

[Intuition of the bladefrog]

[Slash of the bladefrog]

Shiver felt her Alarum burn as she stretched her Fear, and felt her blade grow more comfortable in her hands.

She slashed outwards at the empty air, trusting the [legendary] guide’s words.

Shiver’s blade, guided by the force of her invocations and her momentum as she carved past the monstrosity at the speed of an arrow, severed the gargantuan, feathered wing that blinked into existence the moment her Phobia came into contact with it.

The dragon had found a way to conceal her wings by distorting the light around them.

A similar application to what Vivienne managed with her immaculate mirrors, just curved around the creature’s skin.

Shiver shattered the thin sheen of frost that the dragon had layered over its wing to bend the light around it shattered with the force of Shiver’s blow.

The dark grey wing that eclipsed her in size fell slowly to the ground below.

---

“You’re telling me that she’s flying on invisible wings?”

“Yes. But once we reveal our knowledge of them, Salastraza is likely to go on the offensive. She’ll take it easy until that point, knowing that her mobility is unimpeded. If a predator has the ability to see through her trick, she’ll know that she’s in trouble.”

Shiver stared at the spirit fox.

“What will she do?”

Vivienne’s eyes darkened.

---

Salastraza delivered her answer to Shiver’s question.

She made the thunder clouds that had greeted them upon their initial entry to the Inheritance look like a tranquil summer’s day.

Lightning cut ceaselessly through the air at the falling figures. Shiver gasped as she saw a trail of black blood emanate from the dragon’s wound, where Shiver’s strike had found resistance.

Shiver grinned as Vivienne leapt through a mirror to alight on her back.

“Get ready.”

Salastraza’s scream made the cobalt lightning dance in the sky above her.

Then Shiver watched in awe as the gargantuan dragon’s curling, serpentine body that had merely twitched at odd intervals, unbothered by their presence in her domain…

Began to unravel.

The serpentine body, covered with hundreds of thousands of scales of midnight blue began to flash in the lightning storm with Salastraza’s sudden acceleration.

The circumference of her body is the size of the lower circle’s Feardamned city squa-

“Watch out!”

Shiver cursed as said mass lunged towards her, the dragon whipping its tail to swat the gnat that plagued it.

[Shard of the frost wolf]

[Mirrordance of the spirit fox]

Shiver slipped into the mirror, just as the dragon’s immense serpentine body erased it.

Shiver blinked into existence from another plane of ice higher up in the air, as far as she could stretch herself. Lightning danced around her as she desperately tried to avoid it, with Vivienne clinging to her back.

She watched as the dragon’s erratic movements spurred by the threats to its wings, ended up revealing them, as the wings brushed upon its body, and the delicate surface of ice on her wings were shattered.

Salastraza, the winged serpent fixed her gaze upon Shiver, who continued her freefall at a higher altitude.  

---

“Alright. So we sever the first wing. What’s our next tactic?”

“Hmm… there is an expression you elves have… give me a moment.”

Vivienne stared into the distance for a short while, as the blizzard curled around them in Iltheria’s heart. Then, the spirit fox began to idly flick its tail, and twitched her ear.

Shiver’s eyes narrowed.

“Is it relevant to the explanation?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well… you’re certainly thinking hard.”

“Ah! I’ve got it. You “pray to Avalkin!” Whoever that is. You elves have such elegant phrases.”

---

Shiver blinked and watched as the enormous beast that she had distanced herself from shot towards her.

Having severed one of Salastraza’s eight wings

Two options came to Shiver.

Her first was to ground her flight. That would involve calling a mirror parallel to the ground, and surrounding herself in multiple layers of [shield of the frostwolf]. The previous time she had tried that at a fraction of the speed she now carried, she had ended up with a bloody nose and had almost lost her front teeth. Shiver categorically ruled the first option out.

The second option was to attempt to sever another one of her wings. To mirrordance into the air adjacent to the serpent, and to rally her Alarum for another [slash of the bladefrog]. That option was likely to result in her final end as a smear on Salastraza’s immaculate scales, given the serpentile dragon’s erratic movements.

Shiver decided to choose a third option. Only made possible with the help of a certain spirit fox.

The way of the lordling.

Here we go.

Salastraza shot towards her.

Lightning flashed as she approached, blinding bolts of cobalt hurtling through the air around her. The lightning harmlessly glanced off her deep blue scales as she carved her path through the air.

In the span of seconds, the enormous serpent had closed the distance them, her maw widening to encompass the creature that sought to hunt and injure her.

She swallowed Shiver whole.

---

“When do you think she’s going to notice?”

The lordling gambit, as she would now term it, had succeeded.

Vivienne emerged from behind her, where they were crouched, on top of the serpent’s vast body. Six tails unfurled behind Vivienne, and the fox had timed an illusion with the blinding lightning strikes, such that Shiver disappeared, while her illusion approached some distance beneath her.

Then, it was a simple matter of calling into existence a mirror above the serpent’s body, in the opposite direction of Shiver’s movement. With any luck, their motion would align, and Shiver wouldn’t be explode into a fine spray of blood and gore in midair.

Shiver wiped away blood from a crushed nose that had been inflicted by her tumble onto the creature’s scales.

They had succeeded in that regard, somewhat.

“What do we do now?”

Vivienne’s eyes gleamed, and Shiver stared as all of Vivienne’s tails blurred into existence before her.

All nine of her tails blazed into existence and a haze of foxfire surrounded the [legendary] guide, equal to the vast dragon they fought.

Matching the motion of the serpent, Vivienne focused, and mirrors appeared, hovering over every single one of the Salastraza’s remaining wings.

Then, she opened created a single mirror in front of Shiver. She couldn’t help but spare a moment to pout.

“This didn’t work for me when I tried to do it.”

“That’s because the nature of your Fear isn’t one of reflection and illusion. You borrow from my domain, Icewing.”

[Slash of the baldefrog]

[Intuition of the bladefrog]

Shiver called her Trepidation, and severed all of Salastraza’s wings with a single strike of her gleaming Phobia.