I Want To Go Home - 16

Champion

After a short nap, and barely any time to talk to Aara or Sukura, I found myself being sent into the sewers of the new city once more. Uké’el was leading me through the dark tunnels, well away from the old city where the others were.

“The goal is simple enough,” she explained, in hushed tones. “You distract them as best as you can, and then we’ll send a messenger out. Down to the imperial forces in the eastern valleys. If they find out there’s still survivors they’ll come and help us.”

I started to nod, before realising I was both behind her and it was nearly pitch black in here. So I gave a vocal confirmation.

“How long do you need?” I asked.

“Ten minutes at the very least,” Uké’el replied. “That’s long enough for one of our bird-shifters to get out of the city.”

“I’ll see what I can do, then.”

Though, first, I had to keep following her. There were still a few dozen more metres of awkward crouch walking before we were far enough that she deemed it a safe distance from the old city.

“Should I try to avoid property damage?” I asked, remembering that the rest of the city was still their city, even if it was under occupation.

I could just barely make out Uké’el shrugging. “There’s probably going to be ghouls hiding in most of the buildings to make retaking the city a headache anyway. Blowing up a few buildings just gives them fewer chances to ambush our rescuers.”

“Understood,” I replied, before lifting up the manhole cover.

It was a different part of the city than I’d been in before, but the architecture was similar enough. Very square and solid buildings, which I felt was surely very dwarven.

I crawled out of the sewer quietly, before walking down the small street and spreading my wings while stretching my arms. It felt nice to have room to breath.

After a block or two, however, it seemed no one was responding to my presence. So it seemed time to make some noise.

“HELLO!?” I shouted. “ANYONE THERE!?”

Silence.

“IF YOU DON’T COME OUT I’LL START BLOWING THINGS UP!!” I bellowed.

Still the streets remained silent.

Walking a bit further, I decided it was time to make good on my threat. Though I started by tossing a small sphere of magic into the air, letting it burst like a small firework a few metres above my head.

I heard shuffling noises. The sounds of beings in the buildings around, but nothing came out at that point. Apparently whatever intelligence the ghouls and zombies operated on was enough to suspect a trap right now.

Looking at the buildings around me, with the craftsmanship and effort that obviously had gone into them, I felt bad about what I was going to do… but I needed to get the message across.

So I pulled together a much larger sphere of mana, and gave it the best baseball pitch I could manage. Which, well… wasn’t very controlled. I’d never been amazing at sports. Thankfully the power I had as a goddess let me throw it hard enough to smash through the wall of the nearest building.

And then through the other side of it, judging by the light I saw.

Then the mana ball exploded, causing rather larger of an explosion than I’d been expecting. I was peppered by rubble from the building in front of me, and had to shield my face due to the force of the blast.

When the rubble landed, and the dust began to clear, there was another bit of silence, and I wondered if maybe I’d wandered into an empty part of town by mistake. Then the horns and drums began. They were faster this time, compared with when we’d first entered the town. They weren’t an alert to trespassers, but to a threat.

Ghouls and zombies poured out of the buildings, weapons drawn and ready as they charged my way. I called out another bout of mana, whipping my wrist to transform it into an energy blade. Then it was a matter of slicing through the floods of undead beasts that had gotten closest. Too close for me to feel confident about lobbing magicka blasts their way.

So utterly surrounded, there wasn’t really much form to my swordwork at that point. It was mostly a matter of spinning around, slashing through whatever got close. I was sure Sukura would be disappointed in me, but these were just ghouls and zombies. The grunts. They didn’t need much skill.

I was surprised that, as I fought, the magicka blade in my hand seemed to grow longer, providing me with ever more reach, and letting me clear a larger and larger area around myself.

Adrenaline running and muscle memory taking over over conscious thought, I found myself managing to toss smaller blasts of mana out whenever I made a bit of space between myself and the encroaching swarm. A swarm that still consisted of only ghouls and zombies…

As I realised it, I also noticed an odd energy. Something was—but from which direction…

All of them.

I let my blade shatter, raising a magical shield around me.

It proved just in time. A wave of magic blasted into me from every angle, slicing through the disposable swarm around me. My mana shield held, but I still felt like I was being crushed. As if I was wrapped in a net that was being tightened. The pressure and pain increased, pushing and pushing until I all but lost my ability to concentrate. My ability to maintain the shield.

Just as I was reaching my limit, though, the attack broke. The mana dispersed.

I found myself standing in the middle of a circle of destruction. A dozen human liches surrounded me, all wearing dark blue and green cloaks, nothing within their circle standing. Apart from me.

Flexing my wings, I turned to look at one just to my left. His eyes, though dark with glowing red irises, still managed to show that they filled with fear just before I launched myself towards him. As I flew his way, I extended an arm, summoning a magicka blade to slice through him.

He fizzled to ashen dust with the slice, and I turned to strike the next one in a clockwise rotation. There were more chaotic blasts of magic at that point, but I responded by raising a shield to defend my right side, while wielding the magicka blade in my left hand. The blasts fizzled uselessly against my shield as I rushed ahead, slicing through the dark mages.

Before I could finish, though, a detachment of orges rushed out from the side streets, swarming me. My magical blade sliced through them nearly as easily as through ghouls or mages, but with their longer arms and larger weapons, they had enough reach that I had to put effort into dodging their strikes. As such it took rather longer to fight through the wave of them.

Especially as further ogres arrived, seeming determined to bring me down through exhaustion if nothing else.

I was fairly certain it had been close to ten minutes by now, though… as such, it was best to retreat back towards the sewers.

Only… spun around, fighting ghouls, mages, and ogres… I didn’t actually remember which way the entrance had been. There’d been enough damage to the surrounding buildings to leave me unable to regain my bearings, as well. I needed to get into the air, to get a better perspective on the situation.

The best option seemed to be to rush into a building, to get away from the swinging ogre weapons. I then scrambled up the stairs as the ogres smashed their way in through the wall. Taking stairs two at a time, letting my wings flap for added balance if my footing failed me, I continued to climb.

The stairs were quickly giving out due to the weight of the ogres trying to chase me, but it seemed they figured it out as I reached the third floor. Instead, they switched to a sort of human pyramid… only, well, with ogres. Which meant they were getting a lot higher than a human pyramid would, and a lot faster.

Clearly if we ever needed to find peaceful careers for ogres they should try being cheerleaders.

I did think there was just enough space between me and them to make stopping and lobbing a mana ball down at them practical. It knocked a few over, though I didn’t think it would stop them for good. Which meant it was time to get back to climbing. There were only a couple more floors, then I’d be on the roof.

Then I could hop into the air, and find my way back to—

A metres across pillar of magic sliced into the building, forcing me to raise a shield with the split second of notice I had.

The force of it blasted me backwards, smashing through the wall behind me, and flying into the air above the street outside. Well, being in the air had been my goal in the first place, so I flapped my wings, glad the wind was calmer than the other day.

Fluttering in surprise, however, I watched in terror as the entire block in front of me collapsed into a massive heap of rubble. Then, as the dust cleared, I found myself staring down at a massive, terrifying, and half mummified looking draconic beast.

It was easily as large as any of the buildings around, surely as large as a whale or the largest dinosaurs. It was the same darkly grey colour as Nemza’s liches, small eyes glowing a dark red as they watched me. Those eyes narrowed, before its mouth opened and a glow of dark magic began to build in its throat.

I was not running from this thing. Not for a lack of desire to, but the simple fact that I had its attention and was unlikely to escape it no matter what I tried.

So, with no better plan, I threw myself towards it, summoning as large a sphere of mana as I could manage in the time it took me to cross the distance.

The dragon unleashed its breath blast of mana, and I responded by letting myself drop like a rock, gravity proving fast enough to pull me out of the blast of the dragon. I then lobbed the mana ball I’d created.

I hit the ground hard barely a second before the mana ball crashed into the dragon. The mana then exploded, the blast of my own magic not hurting as it flooded over me.

The rubble that blast sent flying, though… that hurt, and was enough to send me flying, a boulder slamming me through enough walls that I lost count of how many it was.

I decided to take a little breather, pinned by the boulder in a pile of rubble. If that hadn’t worked, I was probably going to need a new strategy to fight the undead dragon…

Letting out a groan, I decided that had been enough of a break, and pulled myself out of the debris. Blinking, I saw my mana blast had left something of a crater and had flattened more of the city than I cared to try to estimate at that point.

The dragon was nowhere to be seen, which led to me breathing out a sigh of relief. At least until I noticed a large pile of rubble moving. Letting out a sigh very much not of relief after spotting that, I leapt into the air and made my way over by gliding.

Thankfully, the dragon seemed rather worse for wear as it pulled itself out of the rubble, and did not, at first, notice me. I dropped to the ground and ran the last dozen of so metres towards it, before drawing forth as large a magicka blade as I could manage.

The result was longer than I was tall, and needed two hands for me to wield. It wasn’t heavy, per say, but there was a momentum to it that was awkward to manage one handed.

The dragon spun, attempting to attack me with teeth and claws. I was left quite thankful for Sukura’s sword training then. Unlike the ghouls or mages, the dragon took proper skill to fend off. I had to be light on my feet to dodge its strikes, and even quicker with my blade to get in any attacks of my own.

Finally, there was a moment where I manage to get in a proper swing, and managed to take off one of the fore-feet of the great beast. It let out a shriek of surprise or pain, and was distracted enough for me to slip under its torso, thrusting up with the blade to pierce where I guessed its heart to be. I drove extra mana into the blade then, extending it to a length more like a pike than a sword, and the dragon let out another ear piercing shriek, before it began to crumble into dust.

I let my magicka blade disperse, my arms falling to my sides as I took another very needed breather. That had been a lot.

“Very good work, Vezehr… and I’m glad to know the intelligence was accurate, that you were here in Tenzo.”

I blinked, a shiver running down my spine.

I knew that voice.

Turning, I cursed under my breath as I saw the demonic elf who had killed Chem. He was standing a few metres away, accompanied by a dozen or so cloaked figures. All had discordance blades drawn at their sides.