Greed God chapter 128

February 27th 2016 Gemworld 2:00 PM EDT

Cesare  was, to my absolute lack of surprise, a smarmy arrogant dickbag. To be  fair, I was at least two of those things on any given day, but I was  rarely all three, so I figured I had a good reason to hate the guy. When  he stepped down the first thing he did was look around at my town and  sneer. "Ah, what a..." He trailed off, noticing that I had an arm around  Amy, his eyes narrowed a bit but he pasted on a greasy smile. "Quaint  little town. I take it you are the owner of this hamlet?" His tone was  probably supposed to be charming, but to me he was just broadcasting 'I  am an asshole, punch me in the dick' with every word.

I  didn't show my annoyance on my face. I'd been around dickheads my whole  life, and learning not to snarl at them was an important skill for  anyone. Revenge was best taken when you could utterly destroy someone.  Unless you could just kill them and not have to take it at all, but that  wasn't the case here. I gave him an affable smile. "I am. My name is  Nicholas Lord, welcome to Lord Town, how may I help you, Sir....?" I  trailed off, looking politely puzzled, as if I didn't know who he was.

Cocky  assholes like Cesare don't like being unknown. He was here in a  carriage pulled by a fucking D rank beast, it was obvious he was putting  on a show, though I suspected that was just his natural disposition  rather than any specifically aimed provocation. Still he wasn't the type  to take being dismissed well, and he would see this as a dismissal more  than anything else. Amy was here, and he would assume I would have  asked her about him. He could assume that she didn't know him, but that  would hurt his pride even worse, so he would probably just blame it on  me.

His greasy smile became strained. "Cesare of Emerald.  Your current overseer. Seeing as this is Emerald territory I came to   see exactly who was building such a settlement and taking away members  of other villages in the area. As a subject of Emerald, you would  naturally be expected to come to Verdigris to pay your respects to Lord  Emerald. Since you are a recent arrival however, and in light of your  impressive showing as a landowner, I was sent to give you a...gentle  reminder, to attend the royal court and present yourself."

Yup.  There it was. It was the only smart call here. Theoretically unless Amy  wanted to start a war there was no hard counter to this tactic. This  WAS Emerald territory, and she couldn't interfere in that under normal  circumstances. Even with our obvious connection if she tried to stop  them from taking me away it would be considered interference in another  domain and wouldn't be taken well. Chances were they would pressure me  into giving up what the Amethyst kingdom wanted and if I didn't cave  maybe disappear me into a dark hole and claim I left.

Unfortunately  for this asshat, we were aware of that possibility, hence the crazy  spur of the moment proposal. She seemed to take great pleasure in  pulling me against her as she smiled up at him. "Ah, I'm afraid that  won't be possible. My betrothed and I are under orders from my mother to  spend as much time together as possible. We need to become better  acquainted before the wedding. I'm sure you understand." Her own voice  dripped the same cloying sweetness his had contained, though it was  actually kind of cute on her.

Cesare's jaw dropped, which I  enjoyed immensely. "I...I wasn't aware that you had been betrothed to  anyone." I swear I heard the click as it fell into place that this  little trip was completely above his pay grade. "I must offer my  congratulations on the happy occasion. That said, this is still Emerald  dominion, it isn't proper for a subject not to pay respects to his Lord.  Perhaps you might accompany him?" I could tell he didn't want that  either, but it was literally the best option he had.

Amy,  bless her heart, decided to play the spoiled princess, which was an  excellent counter. "I can't spare the time unfortunately." She pouted  cutely, then lit up as if she'd had a good idea. "Oh, what if we invite  Emmy down to speak to him in person! I haven't seen her in ages, and I'm  sure as Lord Emerald's daughter she would be within her rights to  assess whether he might be an asset to the kingdom." Cesare's eye  twitched and I saw his gaze slide back to where Roderick was looming  behind us.

He cleared his throat. "I...that is, my lady  I'm afraid I can't leave without at least attempting to convince your  betrothed to come with me. I must obey my orders." I was pretty sure he  just wanted to make sure he was beat up enough to convince his bosses  he'd tried so he could shove the fault off on Amy, but that played into  our hand so I didn't really care too much. His gaze flashed to me, and I  saw his jaw tighten. "How about a friendly wager? We can have a  sparring match, and should your betrothed prevail I can represent the  kingdom to waive the requirement and invite the princess down to see  you."

I wasn't entirely sure I understood the  undercurrents there, but it seemed like there was some based on the way  Amy's eyes narrowed. If I had to guess it was probably some kind of  challenge to her authority. She shot me a worried look, and I just  winked at her. "If he wants to spar I'm open to it. Since I don't have a  beast of my own however, I request we leave any supplementary forces  out of this." I shot him a sly grin. "Unless that's a problem, in which  case I can ask Amaya to borrow Roderick for the fight to act as my own  support."

I didn't actually know if I could do that, but  clearly neither did he because he blanched.  He swallowed after glancing  at the big man before nodding. "Very well. Leaving behind my tamed  beast is acceptable. I am an accomplished duelist, and I think you'll  find me a challenging foe, even working alone." He raised an eyebrow and  smirked cockily at me, clearly trying to shake my confidence and not  doing a particularly good job of it.

Without any  hesitation, I gestured out to the open area near the village. It was a  large, flat plain at this point, because Waylon had been continuing to  clear the trees around here. I was pretty sure he'd been having the  bandits work on it too, because there was a lot of clear space, though  no bare patches so one of the Emeralds must have regrown the grass. It  made it easy to find an open space for combat, and Cesare followed  behind me as I led him away from town and to a wide open area.

Cesare  looked smug as hell as he came to a stop across from me, noble tunic  and breeches topped with a dark green velvet cloak. He sneered at me.  "Well boy, I'll let you have the first move." Apparently the simpering  was for Amy's benefit and he didn't see the need here. So I grinned at  him. Widely. And once my grin reached the edges of my face it kept going  as that face stretched and altered into the visage of a dragonkin as I  let the change steal over me like an oncoming storm. Scales rolled down  my limbs and over my face and neck as horns and wings emerged, and I  watched Cesare's eyes grow wide as he saw me transform.

Dragons  were considered fucking scary here, and I was pretty sure he wouldn't  have been so confident had he known what I was. Still, credit where it  was due, he was either too stubborn or prideful to fold. I admit, I was  curious to see what the Emerald bloodline could do in direct combat. He  had to be capable of something or he wouldn't have been so confident,  but I couldn't imagine how it would work. Oh well, the only way to find  out was to check.

I fell forward, letting my body draw  parallel to the ground once I was horizontal I kicked off, propelling  myself forward with wind bursts under my feet and body, using my horns  like a battering ram as I closed the distance, my wings cracking the air  to push me at him even faster. My bodily control was exceptional, so  moderating the charge to make sure I maximized my impact was simple. To  Cesare it probably looked like I fucking vanished for a second as I  dropped out of his sight line and he had to adjust.

To  my surprise, the cocky bastard reacted nearly instantly to the attack  once he noticed. Apparently his self congratulatory tone wasn't for  nothing, because as I approached he stomped down and a wave of roots  came smashing up from the ground to wrap around him each other into a  shield, halting my momentum as a met a tangled cage of living wood  imbued with E rank magic. I heard the crack of breaking wood as my horns  struck the defensive barrier, but unfortunately the magic just called  more roots from the ground to reinforce it.

I  wasn't sure where they had come from, until I remembered this whole  fucking plain used to be a sea of trees. I internally noted that I  should remind Waylon to be more thorough with his uprooting. I was  guessing some of the roots had broken off when he was pulling up the  trunks and stumps and he just hadn't bothered to deal with them. I  needed to get through the thing, so I flicked out my claws and slashed  at the barrier, honing the wind coming off the swipes to a razors edge  to try to open it up.

The  wood of the barrier WAS torn apart pretty deeply, but sadly that damage  was recovered soon enough. I needed something big to drop on him. After  my failed attack the snide noble stomped again and a second wave of  roots (fucking Waylon and the bandits were ABSOLUTELY going to dig this  whole fucking area up to look for stray root systems) flashed out to  grab a hold of me, aiming to restrain but sharp and magical enough that I  was pretty sure they would have carved me up more than a little, even  with my scales.

I  leapt back, spreading my wings and beating them a few times to get  altitude before calling vortexes of wind under my feet. Wings weren't  great for hovering, but they were fantastic at climbing up and gliding. I  looked down at Cesare as he started preparing some sort of secondary  root spell. From the look of it he was going to launch some kind of  ranged attack like a spear or a hand or something, and I needed to  prevent that from happening unless I wanted to lose this battle. I  wracked my brain for any sort of ability I might have, and trick I could  use, until finally something hit me, and I almost literally face  palmed. I opened my draconic mouth in a wide grin and reached down into  myself. I found the Vital Tempest inside me, powerful and deep, though  as I had seen not bottomless, and pulled. Instead of pulling pits of it  though, I yanked on the whole thing.

I poured the storm into my chest, condensing and compacting it,  focusing hard on the wind and lightning, making sure that the life force  only enhanced the damage potential of the attack, and when I'd drained a  solid quarter of the energy I had at my disposal, I opened my mouth all  the way and ROARED. The light was so bright it was hard to see, but  luckily I had good eyesight, so I got to see Cesare's terror as the  attack rained down on him. I couldn't blame him, not many people stay  calm when a dragonkin used his dragon breath. That sight was wiped away  it struck though, and the resulting explosions swallowed everything  nearby. Huh, maybe a quarter was too much.