Path of Dragons 14 - Chapter 17 - Tearing it All Down

“By order of the Adjudicators, stand down!” came an echoing shout.

Elijah looked up to see a severe-looking man staring at him, sword drawn and silver armor shining in the flickering light of the casino.  Even from a few hundred feet away, Elijah could see that the man was an elf, though one with a slightly more approachable face.  His ears were still pointed, but not so severely as most elves Elijah had met.

Elijah’s foot descended in a stomp that crushed a man’s skull like a watermelon.  Blood, brains, and bits of shattered bone exploded from the point of impact, awarding a trickle of experience that barely moved the needle.  That confirmed that he wasn’t particularly high level, but the fact that he’d survived Eternal Plague indicated that he either had a particularly sturdy constitution or an ability that mitigated the effect of toxins.

It would have been impressive if the man hadn’t been one of the Meridian Lux’s guards.  His status as a participant in the tragedy that was its existence was enough to overwhelm any other feelings Elijah might’ve felt. 

“No,” he told the Adjudicator.  “If you want to help out, there might be a few survivors around here.  Feel free to take the experience for yourself.”

“Experience?!” the elf blurted.  “You killed them for experience?  That is a violation of the –”

“I killed them because they crossed me,” Elijah corrected.  He’d barely gotten a level out of it anyway, and that was just because there’d been a couple of demi-gods among them.  “And because they deserved it.”

“You had no right!”

“And did they have a right to enslave so many people?  Were they justified when they destroyed a peaceful community, just so they could loot their grove and use their powers to grow better crops?” Elijah demanded, stepping forward. 

“They paid reparations for their crimes,” the Adjudicator stated evenly.

“Really?” Elijah asked, incredulous at the blatant corruption.  He whipped his finger in the vague direction of the fleeing staff.  “Those people you passed along the way, half of them are branded or collared.  And that’s not considering what’s going on in the city.”

In the couple of days he’d spent out there, he’d heard stories of young men and women who’d been forced to take Courtesan classes.  People whose futures had been upended so that their masters could use them up and earn a little profit along the way. 

Now, their paths were all but set.  To change them would require extraordinary circumstances. 

The nature-attuned were treated even worse, at least by Elijah’s subjective standards.  They’d had their attunements exploited and confined as they were forced to become Farmers.  It was a violation on par with anything the Courtesans had endured.  At least to Elijah, who knew what that attunement offered.  He had tasted the freedom.  He had felt the pull of true nature. 

They never would.

It was a tragedy he had no intention of tolerating, especially now that he’d cut the head from the snake.  His job was not finished, though.  He wasn’t even halfway done.

He stepped forward and pushed past the sputtering Adjudicator.  Elijah had no desire to hear the man’s justifications.  Nothing he could say would abdicate him from guilt implied by his tolerance.

“Stop.”

Ethera stirred around Elijah, then coalesced into shackles.  They latched onto his arms and legs, stopping him in his footsteps.  He turned, asking, “Do you really want to do this?”

“By the order of the Adjudicators, I take you into custody,” he announced.

“Think really hard about whether you want to say another word,” Elijah warned.  “I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you keep going.”

Elijah could feel those shackles tightening, but he wasn’t worried about them.  By all rights, he could have simply broken the bindings and ignored the Adjudicator.  However, that would not send the message he wanted to send. 

And besides, the Adjudicator knew what was going on in and around Meridian Lux.  Judging by how quickly he’d arrived, he was stationed somewhere in the city.  Likely, he took advantage of some of the very same corruption Elijah found so repulsive.

Was he complicit?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

But he was close enough to it that Elijah was willing to assume his guilt.  And as such, he wasn’t going to just let him go.  Not after he’d unwaveringly established himself as an enemy.

The elf seemed to have regained some of his confidence, and he stepped forward, announcing, “You will remain motionless as I –”

Elijah flexed his Mantle of Authority.  Incredibly, the shackles held for almost a second before they shattered into motes of drifting ethera.  And then, he was moving.  Using the same technique he’d used to sunder Vhalor’s armor, he rammed his fist into the elf’s chestplate.  It cracked on the first strike, and the momentum of the blow sent the man skipping across the casino floor.  He crushed a roulette table, not stopping until he hit a load-bearing column.

Rolling his shoulders, Elijah leaped toward the crumpled elf.  Reaching down, he gripped the split pieces of his armor and tore it apart like an aluminum can. 

“No,” came a rattling breath as the Adjudicator used his last bit of strength to try to ram a hastily drawn dagger into Elijah’s side.  It didn’t get past Nature’s Shell, once again proving the worth of his newly acquired armor. 

“I did warn you,” Elijah said.  Then, he hit the elf again.  This time, he used the full weight of his Mantle of Authority, concentrated into a blade-like extension from his fist.  The man’s sternum shattered under the impact, but the true damage came from Elijah’s mantle. 

It hit something solid inside the man’s chest.  Something simultaneously both physical and ephemeral, but somehow more than either.  It was the elf’s core.

Elijah’s mantle shuddered, nearly coming to a stop.  But he countered by flooding it with ethera.  It flared, and the core flexed inward.  Then, it burst.

An explosion rocked the casino floor, and if Elijah hadn’t used Absolute Grasp, it would have been powerful enough to send him skipping backward.  As it was, he bore the brunt of the explosion, which blistered his exposed skin.  A quick cast of Wild Resurgence mended the damage.

In the aftermath, Elijah looked down on the fallen Adjudicator.

And remarkably, he was still alive.  Tears fell down his cheeks, presumably from the pain.  But there was something missing within him, and it didn’t take Elijah long to recognize what it was.

His core was gone.

Shattered.  Burst.  Entirely dissipated.

A wave of pity swept through Elijah, and he heeded its call by putting the elf out of his misery.  Killing a person was one thing.  Destroying their core was something else altogether.

Better to end him and spare him that misery.

Shaking his head at the waste, Elijah left the casino and retraced his steps on his way outside.  His Eternal Plague had killed almost every enemy combatant in the fortress, and he had no intention of hunting down the rest.  After all, he needed people to spread the word of what had happened.

A few, at least.

Along the way, he found himself stopping and healing a few surviving civilians.  Most who’d fallen had been trampled – no great loss, as far as Elijah was concerned – but his actions were calculated.  Dealing death with one hand, life with the other. 

Despite stopping a dozen or so times, it wasn’t long before he found his way outside.  There, he was confronted by the bulk of Olaf’s remaining warband.  They were identifiable by the small lion’s crest on their chests, though Elijah needed no such indicator.  If they were there, they were the enemy.

“Thank you,” Elijah said as he stepped through the exit.  He was already casting a spell.  “You’ve saved me the trouble of hunting you all down.”

The most powerful among them began to speak, but his words cut off a second later when a clump of yellow mushrooms erupted from his back.  The fungal explosion came with a shower of gore and a mist of ochre spores that quickly spread to his closest five allies. 

Of course, Elijah didn’t limit his casting to a single instance.  Instead, he cast Nature’s Claim rapid-fire, alternating between the closest and the furthest among the army.  In seconds, blood-curdling screams joined the blood and spores as people toppled over.  To speed things along, Elijah also cast Eternal Plague.

When people started to run, he cast Lightning Domain, sending hundreds into spasms.  As they seized, the toxin-bearing flies and spores reached them.  They didn’t last much longer after that.

In less than thirty seconds, the entire army was dead or dying.

And Elijah hadn’t taken more than a step outside the fortress-like building.  He wasn’t proud of it, though.  He didn’t revel in the obvious power discrepancy any more than he would have felt satisfaction at stomping a cockroach.  It was just something that needed to be done.  A necessary action, devoid of pleasure. 

They had never had a chance. 

In the wake of the slaughter, Elijah didn’t bother looting the corpses.  Instead, he finally shifted into his dragon form.  So far, he’d refrained, mostly because he wanted people to know who had destroyed the abomination that was Meridian Lux.  Now that they did, he intended to deepen their understanding of what that meant.

He threw himself into the air, flapped his wings a couple of times, and landed atop the massive fortress.  From there, he raised his voice, declaring, “Meridian Lux is now closed.  Those of you who were enslaved, come to me, and I will free you.  Everyone else, I expect this city to be evacuated before the end of tomorrow.  If you remain here after that, your life will be forfeit.”

His voice echoed across the city, powered by his draconic lungs and his massive attributes.  He watched as the city erupted into motion.  Word of the slaughter had already reached the entire populace.  What’s more, the only reason most of the remaining people even bothered staying was because of the guards.

With Eyes of the Eagle, Elijah watched as the city emptied.

A couple of times, he was forced to act as he saw men or women trying to assert authority of the slaves he intended to free.  The first time it happened, Elijah had swooped in, grabbed the offender, and ascended a few thousand feet into the air.  Only then did he spin around and whip his prey through the air.

Even if they survived the fall, they would be so far away that it wouldn’t matter.

It only took two more instances before the slave masters got the picture and abandoned their supposed property.

That only served to assure the slaves of his good intentions, and after that, they came to him in droves.  Thousands of them, all wearing collars or sporting runic brands. 

The former were easy to break.  Just a quick pulse of his Mantle of Authority, and the enchantment shattered.  The collars came apart, freeing their wearers.  However, the brands were a little more difficult to destroy, and doing so required quite a bit more focus.  He managed it, though.  If he could cleanse children of the taint of corruption, he could destroy a brand.

And he did.

Hundreds, then thousands of times.  Each instance saw the slaves’ appreciation grow, and they pitched in by organizing the process or supporting those who’d already been freed.  It was a display of community that warmed Elijah’s heart.  Especially after the messiness that preceded it.

In the end, that process took two full days. 

When they were all freed, Elijah escorted them to the Conclave Spires himself.  Then, he paid the terrified Space Mage to transport them to Ironshore, where they were meant to seek out Nara, who would no doubt know how to deal with them.  After all, she’d once been a refugee.  Doubtless, she would know what to do with the freed slaves.

Especially the nature-attuned ones.

With that done, Elijah returned to his labor.

The city was mostly empty, with only a few opportunists remaining.  Elijah announced his intentions one more time, giving them two hours to vacate.  They scurried away until, at last, the city was empty.

That was when Elijah let loose.

Powered by his frustration and anger – and not just with the situation in Meridian Lux – he destroyed the city.  He didn’t use fancy abilities.  Instead, he used the strength of his body to tear it all down.

The main fortress was stubborn, and it took a couple of days to finish the task.  However, Elijah clung to his anger.  He latched onto his frustrations with his homecoming.  The lack of belonging.  The knowledge that everyone had moved on without him.  The realization that the world had all but forgotten him.

Neither the fortress nor the city could stand before his fury.

Three full days after the fortress had fallen, his tantrum ended with him standing in the rubble of a city.  It hadn’t helped.

So, he was in no fit state of mind to answer when he heard a familiar voice ask, “Elijah?  What did you do?”