Kairos 61: Blazing Sea

The Foresight chased after the giant dragon, and Agron’s fingers brushed against his fiery axe.

This was his moment.

He could feel it deep within his bones, like a searing flame burning inside him. After all these years of slaughtering his way across the world in search of a worthy [Legend] to steal, here was the creature that would kindle the furnace of his myth.

The Foresight leapt from destroyed house to house, while the monstrous Triton ravaged his previous capital’s streets in search of food. The dragon’s palmed feet trampled buildings like sandcastles, making the seafloor tremble with every step.

Both the Cetae and the surviving Orichalcian soldiers fled at the larger beast’s approach, much to Agron’s disdain. The minotaur could understand feigning retreat to launch an ambush, but he would rather die on his feet than live as a coward.

Only the brave could ever hope to become a [Hero].

The mermaid rogue which Kairos had freshly recruited climbed her way onto the dragon’s back with an obsidian spear, though the beast didn’t even notice her presence. She was no more than a tick on a hound’s back, annoying, but beneath notice.

Kairos and his griffin flew above the dragon, preparing to strike from above, while Cassandra barked orders to the crew. “Archers and fire rods to the left! You too, Andromache! Tiberius, you take the ballista!”

It had been many years since Agron had served on a ship, rather than commanding his vessel. The minotaur had always been unruly ever since he was a calf, and his father usually beat him bloody to teach him obedience. His father never liked to hear his son talking back to him, especially after too many drinks. Agron had once heard other children whisper that his mother had perished during a drunken argument, and the minotaur had grown to believe it.

More than once Agron had dreamed of taking one of the tools in the family forge to hasten his inheritance. The taboo of patricide, and the sight of the forge’s fire, had always made him reconsider.

Something in the flames soothed the minotaur’s soul. He couldn’t explain why, but they made him feel… happy. Fulfilled.

Eventually, Agron hadn’t grown content with watching fires and learned how to start them. He had almost ended up burning the family house at twelve, and his father had beaten him hard enough to break a tooth as a birthday present.

Afterward, Agron couldn’t take the abuse anymore and joined the first ship that would have him, the Deathbringer. Its crew had a well-deserved reputation for violence, but the minotaur couldn’t care less. He just wanted to escape.

In the end, though he had been a human, old captain Periphetes had been more of a mentor to Agron than his minotaur father ever was; teaching him how to fight, how to kill for a living, and even how to read using old world poems.

Most importantly, old Periphetes had taught Agron that he needed to be more than strong to thrive, he needed to be smart. That the young minotaur should use violence not as an outlet for his frustration, but to spread a message, to build a reputation. That he needed to be selective in his rampages if he wanted to keep burning cities in his old age rather than perish young. That he should master his anger and his love of fire, rather than let them rule him.

Agron had been devastated when Periphetes died from an arrow to the gut during a Thessalan raid, and still relished the memory of hacking the murderer into mincemeat. To this day, the minotaur still kept the old man’s poetry scrolls as a memento, and honored him with every prose he spoke. One day, Agron’s works would join the same pantheon of poets honored by scholars across the world.

After his mentor’s death, the minotaur had taken over his ship—though he had to kill two challengers first—and renamed it Bridgeburner. Agron had never come back home afterward, instead pillaging his way across the Sunset Sea.

Under his command, the Bridgeburner became synonymous with arson and terror. Agron had grown cannier with age, never picking a target he hadn’t thoroughly studied first, cultivating a reputation as a powerful but implacable mercenary, and investing in equipment rather than waste money on whores and booze. He even convinced a magician to forge his fiery axe as payment for mercenary work, and never parted ways with it since.

Agron had always aspired to become more than a mere pirate captain though. He wanted to do more than start fires. He wanted to become a flame, to transcend his weak flesh and ascend as a living inferno. Then, he would be happy forever, burning and singing in his own private furnace.

But to achieve that dream, he needed a [Legend]. To take power the same way the New Gods did when they cast down the Olympians.

Agron could have taken a Quest and followed the path set by Fate… but he refused to. Power, real power, was taken by force. That was how the minotaur god Asterius had become the lord of all forges, and Agron would follow in his footsteps.

That’s just the way the world works, the warrior thought, as he checked the ropes keeping him attached to the Foresight. Either you eat and get stronger like this ship, or you get eaten yourself.

Or at least, that was what he had believed for years, until he met a certain would-be Travian king.

Agron had joined up with Kairos after learning of him hatching a phoenix, mostly because he hoped to see the creature himself. The minotaur imagined it as the most beautiful, radiant thing in the world, a vibrant flying flame. The incarnation of his dream.

If this fiery messenger had shown favor to Kairos, then the young man had a great and terrible destiny ahead of him. Those who followed Kairos would reap a harvest in blood and glory, and those who opposed him would perish.

So Agron had fallen in line, and following events only reinforced his conviction. Cassandra had gained a [Legend], then Thales followed shortly afterward. After so many years of wandering without ever finding a challenge worthy of his axe, the minotaur had finally found his path to success.

And yet… and yet instead of conquering his way across the Sunsea as Agron had expected, Kairos had chosen a different path. He had raided cities, but raised others from the dirt too. He had made friends out of people Agron would rather have killed. And somehow, it worked out for him.

It got Agron thinking, and he had wondered if there were other ways to live than through killing.

Though he didn’t entirely believe in the man’s dream of a peaceful and prosperous Travia, the Bridgeburner’s captain couldn’t help but respect Kairos. Maybe the would-be king would succeed in changing their nation, maybe not. But he was the only one brave enough to try, and Agron wanted to see what waited at the end of his dream.

Maybe that was why Fate had seen it wise to give him the [Lyre of Orpheus]. To show Agron that he could choose another path than the eternal flames.

At long last, the Foresight caught up to the sea dragon in the ruins of an underwater park. The creature was gorging itself on a whale transporting terrified merfolk merchants, the animal’s tail sticking out of the giant monster’s toothy maw. The storm had uprooted the seagrass and algae trees, leaving nothing but a muddy wasteland behind.

The sheer size of the dragon made the crewmates flinch. The beast towered over the Foresight like an adult over a young child.

“If you have a song, oh my bull, now is the time,” brave Nessus said, as he readied his bow for the kill.

Agron had one. The original musician wrote it as an hymn to the old gods, but the [Skald] had adapted the lyrics to the modern day. The minotaur kept his axe around his belt, grabbed the [Lyre of Orpheus], and sang. His bellowing voice carried over the deck, as deep as the ocean’s abyss.

“Dwellers on the unconquered land, the time of victory is at hand,” the minotaur sang, his eyes glancing at the hydra flag atop the Foresight’s mast. “The royal flag forward goes, the silver spear glows!”

As his voice rose in pitch, so did the men’s courage. The crew who had wavered before this colossal beast found its bravery again. The war machine that successfully fended off the Argonauts in Achlys finally returned to life, as the Foresight crawled to the dragon’s left side.

Your song temporarily raised your allies’ [Strength] and [Charisma] by one stage!

“Fire!” Cassandra ordered, her voice carrying over Agron’s own war song.

The Foresight let out a fearsome roar, and its crew a volley of projectiles. Fireballs flew over Orichalcos’ ruins, alongside golden arrows and ballista bolts. A rain of flames and steel hit the trident dragon from the side by surprise, blasting his scales and piercing one of his pitch-black eyes. The sight of all these fireballs filled Agron with a quiet, blissful sense of contentment.

The surprised beast stumbled to its right, its feet drawing a trench in the seafloor as they moved. The monster spit back the half-devoured whale in its main mouth, while the half a dozen other jaws on its joints and chest shrieked in fury. The beast’s eye shed pale red blood, while Kairos and Rook fell down from above. Spears and claws cut through the forehead’s scales, before retreating as the dragon raised its hand.

“On the holy altar, fire consumes flesh and tar!” Agron kept singing, as charbroiled scales and burnt blood fell down from the beast’s side. “The smoke rises to the skies, where our glory lies!”

The dragon glared down at the Foresight. “Uh oh,” Nessus said so eloquently.

The giant monster roared, and chased after the Foresight. The living ship, thrice smaller, immediately escaped through Orichalcos’ devastated streets, stomping rubble, dead fish, and helpless merfolk as it did. Its crablike legs clinked as it raced faster than any horse, drawing upon its inhuman strength and endurance. The slower dragon chased after them, its mighty tail shattering seastone pyramids and casting broken spires to earth.

“The banner of conquest we raise!” Agron chanted, as the dragon’s wounds began to heal as fast as a hydra’s heads, while Kairos chased after it and Nausicaa climbed its back. The beast opened its mouth, blue light surging within it. “The golden voice blends with songs of praise!”

A torrent of cold water and ice poured out of the dragon’s main maw, the pressure intense enough to crack stone and shatter bones. The Foresight leapt like a spider atop the ruins of a pearl house to dodge the bombardment, the movement so abrupt that the crew would have been tossed overboard if not for the ropes holding them to the deck.

Agron looked up at the dragon, his eyes locking with the giant beast’s. The monster’s eyeball had regenerated enough to spit out Nessus’ arrow, so the minotaur attempted an unconventional approach. He looked up at the monster while singing, and activated his helmet’s ability.

You couldn’t overcome [Triton the Kin-Eater]’s [Sleep] Immunity.

Curses! Why were common status ailments always useless against powerful opponents?!

“Regeneration?” Cassandra said as the dragon’s wounds closed. The flying Kairos breathed a cloud of purple miasma on the charbroiled scale, interrupting the beast’s icy bombardment. Even the venom didn’t stop the dragon’s healing process, and only slowed it down. “Nessus, you said the trident was in control of the creature?”

“Thankfully, dear Cass,” the satyr replied, once again aiming for the creature’s eyes with his magical bow and golden arrows. “That thing has tremendous power, but not the intellect to make good use of it.”

Agron couldn’t help but wonder how the satyr knew that piece of information. The minotaur couldn’t put his finger on why, but Nessus always struck him as wearing lies and secrets like armor. Mayhaps he hid wounds of his own.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Cassandra replied, focusing on the golden metal shard sticking out of the creature’s forehead. Nausicaa had almost climbed her way to it, soaking herself in a shroud of water to propel herself upward. “Everyone, prepare for the next volley! Target the forehead!”

The trident dragon didn’t give them the time to breathe. After running out of water to spew, the beast let out a moan of pain, its voice echoing with magic. Black clouds formed in the skies above the cyclone drying up Orichalcos’ capital, and soon a downpour rained down onto the seafloor.

[Triton the Kin-Eater] changed the weather to [Heavy Rainfall]!

[Triton the Kin-Eater] activated [Rainskin] and [Rainscale] Skill! His [Agility] stat increased, and [Fire] attacks will be Resisted!

Cassandra immediately understood the danger. She had grown into her own since her days as Kairos’ first mate, and Agron knew she would grow into a fearsome general one day. “Andromache, change the weather at once!”

“I will,” the Scylla replied as she raised her staff and bent the skies to her will. She was skilled in magic, and Kairos redirected winds to blow away the raincloud, but they were mere [Heroes] struggling against a [Demigod]. The clouds moved back and forth, but more water covered the seafloor.

Within minutes, the water level rose up enough to create ponds for the dried fish. Many had already perished from asphyxia, but some merfolk seemed to regain their strength.

The Cetae had already beaten the royal army into submission and secured the city, but Agron noticed the swirling winds keeping the sea away slowing down. The ritual had linked the earth and the sky, but with water blocking the way...

The dragon made a beeline for the Foresight, the rainwater gliding off its scales as if it were a shark on the hunt. It quickly gained ground on the ship, pursuing it back to the palace’s ruins, and opened its jaws wide.

“Fire!” Cassandra shouted, this time contributing to the volley with ghostly flames.

However, the fireballs half dissipated from the rainwater before they could even reach their target, with only embers reaching the beast. Arrows and bolts bounced off its regenerated scales.

“Shit,” Cassandra cursed, before holding her breath upon noticing Nausicaa reaching the beast’s forehead. The mermaid [Rogue] struck the forehead with her spear, probably trying to unearth the trident shard hidden beneath the scales. “Yes!”

Not even noticing the mermaid, the dragon’s head lunged at the Foresight with a snake’s speed. The movement was so abrupt that Nausicaa’s spear snapped in half from the movement and the [Rogue] was propelled away like a flying fish.

Only the Foresight’s incredible reflexes allowed the ship to leap away at the last second, the dragon’s jaws closing on nothing but air. However, though the ship landed on the palace’s walls, some ropes holding the crew snapped from the abrupt motion. Three soldiers fell overboard and one human broke his neck against the deck.

Kairos dived down to catch Nausicaa by the hand before she crashed to her death, but had to fly away as the dragon tried to eat him too. The beast’s forehead kept glowing, the source of its power out of reach.

… or maybe not.

“How strong is the ballista?” Agron asked, an idea forming in his mind. “How much weight can it launch?”

Cassandra immediately understood, as the minotaur put his lyre around his belt and seized his fiery favorite weapon in one hand and a throwing axe in the other. “This is madness, Agron.”

“Only in the method chosen,” Andromache replied, raising a tentacle. “I can throw him.”

“If you miss, he will die—”

“I won’t fail,” Andromache insisted.

“You heard her,” Agron replied with snort, before cutting the rope anchoring him to the deck with his fire axe. “No glory for the meek.”

Andromache’s tentacle coiled around his chest, while the witch remained focused on dissipating the magical weather. “You didn’t even argue,” the Scylla said with an amused look on her face.

“We both knew it would end this way,” Agron answered with a shrug. They had found common ground in convincing Kairos to raze this city in the first place. The minotaur and the Scylla had the most in common among the Foresight’s motley crew, as the same rage fueled them both. “You didn’t ask me if I felt confident.”

“No.” The witch grinned ear to ear. “Because as you said once... you do not have hope, you have certainty.”

Agron promised to talk with her more often, after he had committed dragoncide. He had the feeling they might become good friends.

Unfortunately, by now the cyclone around the capital had slowed down enough for seawater to leak from the wind walls, threatening to flood the city once again. Andromache had cast [Water Breathing] and [Water Resistance] spells on the crew before the attack, specifically to help them survive this scenario… but the Foresight instinctively started to raise its protective membrane over the deck, to better protect the crew.

It was now or never.

“Now!” Agron shouted, Andromache lifting him like a feather.

Agron ground his teeth as the Scylla swirled, and swirled, the world becoming a blur. The minotaur ground his teeth, and he thanked the New Gods that he had enough wits not to eat before the battle.

And then, the Scylla threw him at the dragon.

It was true what the priests of Persephone said. As Agron flew across the skies like an arrow to his death, he saw his entire life flashing before his eyes. The raindrops falling down on his fur and the [Nemean Cloak] covering him blurred into a forge’s embers, the city beneath him into smoke and screams. Agron couldn’t hear, couldn’t taste, couldn’t see where he went, and for the first time since his childhood he feared for his life.

Time slowed down, the forge’s flames dissipating into two enormous black eyes looking up at the minotaur. A golden light reflecting on glistening blue scales blinded him.

Agron raised his axes in midair, and did the only thing he could.

He roared.

Agron landed right onto the dragon’s left eye, stabbing it with his axes as if they were climbing gear.

The beast’s following roar made the minotaur’s bones vibrate beneath his skin, and an atrocious agony coursed through his brain. For a moment, Agron thought his head would explode, and the world suddenly snapped from strident noise to pain and silence.

You have been [Deafened]!

Agron’s ears bled, but it only enraged him further. The minotaur raised an axe and stabbed at the eyeball’s thin coating above his head, lifting himself up.

The dragon shook its head in an attempt to throw the minotaur off, but Agron’s weapons were of better quality than an obsidian spear. Though his feet dangled into the void, the warrior continued to climb until he reached the eyelid, and then the forehead.

A metal shard no larger than a spear’s tip glowed between two scales, embedded in the beast’s flesh. Its light almost blinded the minotaur, forcing him to squint.

The kindling of my flame, Agron thought with triumph as he climbed his way to the shard one wound at a time. He could barely see his own hands with the downpour, and his fire axe’s flames turned to steam, but he persevered. A shadow briefly loomed over Agron, but the minotaur only had eyes for the blinding light.

He quickly reached the shard, and started hacking at the soft flesh around it. One strike after another, he unburied the treasure, blood pouring out of the dragon’s wounds. At long last, Agron oversaw a crater of flesh, and the little secret beneath.

A merfolk boy’s eyes looked up at Agron from beneath the scales, its coral hands and mouth melded with the tip of a golden, shining trident’s pointed end. These small, pitiful eyeballs observed the minotaur with terror, and filled the warrior with rage.

I suffered all of my life to get here, Agron thought with bitter envy. To earn the power of a god… while you, a weakling, had it handed over like a toy!

“Mine!” Agron snapped, but no sound seemed to come out of his throat. He tossed away his throwing axe and only kept his fiery one, using his free hand to clutch the shard. But the coral child wouldn’t let it let go. “Your [Legend] is mine!”

The shadow above the minotaur grew darker, and the minotaur noticed that the rain no longer fell down on his back. He briefly peeked over his shoulders, and gasped upon seeing scales falling down on him.

The dragon’s hand slapped its forehead, smashing Agron like an insect.

The minotaur’s ribs snapped inside his chest, as did his knees. The [Nemean Cloak] and his armor absorbed some of the blow’s impact, but the shock made the minotaur spit blood and shattered his right horn in two.

But beneath the pain burnt the anger.

[Berserker Rage] Skill activated! [Berserk] ailment!

[Mindfulness] Skill activated! Your mind is clear!

Agron might not have been the sharpest sword in the armory, but he had enough wits to carefully plan his class progression. The warrior felt rage coursing through his veins, empowering him, numbing his pain.

He thought back of his father, of the beatings, of the pain, of the wounds he took on his first raid, of all the scars and humiliations. He thought of all the enemies he had sworn to burn, of his silent wrath at seeing Thales gain a [Legend] while they had fought the same battle, of the envy he felt at Cassandra wielding the power of divine flames.

Agron’s fury gave him the strength to live.

And so, the minotaur started to push back. He extended his arms, and though the dragon’s palm weighed a mountain, his chest rose, and rose! The warrior’s muscles strained and his fingers clenched around his fire axe’s pommel. King Triton’s small eyes cried saltwater tears, while Agron’s own were droplets of blood. Freed from the rainwater, his fiery axe ignited and smoke filled the maddened minotaur’s nostrils.

Kairos would have hesitated. He would have tried to find another way, to save that child in spite of the consequences. If spared, that whelp would one day grow into a deadly foe, and Travia had enough of them already. The Sellsword King would have felt guilt and shame, for sure.

But Agron wasn’t paid to feel.

The minotaur brought down his fire axe, and stained his face with royal blood. He hacked once, then twice, his vision turning red while his free hand clutched the shard.

Then the water hit him.

A torrent of saltwater threw him off the screaming dragon’s head, as the wall of wind drying up Orichalcos finally collapsed. The sea reclaimed the city, and carried Agron away. His fingers clutched his axe and the shard, a sinister red light surging from within himself while he watched the dragon collapse. The pain returned, a blissful agony.

Agron could breathe water thanks to Andromache’s spell, but his broken ribs squeezed inside his chest from the oceanic pressure. His broken legs couldn’t carry him, and his hands were too busy clutching his axe and the shard to help him swim. The current carried him into the silent abyss, his vision turning dark.

I’m going to drown, Agron thought with bitterness. He had gained the power he had wanted all his life, and he would perish before he could make use of it. He had set the world on fire, and would perish swallowed by water.

He would have laughed if he had enough strength to.

Agron almost didn’t notice the strong white hands grabbing him by the shoulders, nor the darkness giving way to the dim light of the night sky. Air felt the same as water when his head emerged, and someone hauled him onto a bed of feathers.

The minotaur spit up blood, and he sensed something removing his helmet and putting something lighter in its place.

[Hydra Crown] granted you [Minor Regeneration]! You are no longer [Deafened]!

The pain vanished, and he felt his bones healing the best they could beneath his flesh. His vision acclimated to the pale moonlight, noticing Rook’s wings flapping to his left, as the griffin struggled to carry him and his master above the waves. Nausicaa swam beneath them, the sea tainted with dragon blood.

“That’s… your crown…” Agron rasped. He could hear himself again, though his voice sounded meek and raspy.

“But it will heal you,” Kairos replied. His eyes looked at his subordinate with respect, as did Nausicaa’s, before wandering off to the shard inside the minotaur’s hand. “You deserved it.”

No, he didn’t.

But the minotaur was thankful all the same.

You earned the Legend: [Kingslayer]!

You upgraded your Personal Rank from [Elite] to [Hero]. You can now progress past level 40, and your Vitality rank has been raised to B+ to A. You earned the Legendary Skill: [King’s Pyre].

You gained six levels (total 46) and 18 Skill points.

[King’s Pyre]: Legendary Skill, 3 Stars. Any foe you strike with a weapon must succeed a [Vitality] check or spontaneously combust. Individuals killed by your [Fire] attacks immediately turn to ash, and cannot be raised from the dead except by [Demigods] and above.

[Kingslayer].

Infamy was a reward of its own.

“Agron?” Kairos said, his voice breaking. “Was… Do you think there was ever a way to save him?”

“No,” Agron lied as easily as he breathed.

His king looked at the minotaur with skepticism, but didn’t argue.

At the end of the day, Kairos saw himself as a hero, with a little ‘h’. And heroes didn’t kill children. He couldn’t choose between the path of the diplomat or that of the conqueror, never committing to any side. He didn’t want to sully his hands with what had to be done.

So Agron would shoulder that burden for him.

Every king needs a rabid attack hound sometimes, the minotaur thought, as he closed his eyes and the darkness of slumber claimed him at last.

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A/N: Chapter made possible by you, dear patrons.