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Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 31 - Sticking it Out

“This is a great treasure, my friends,” said Atticus, staring at the Seed of the Whistling Wind with an awestruck expression.  “Truly a miraculous reward.  Where did you get it?”

Elijah answered, “It was the reward for defeating one of the challenges.”

Briefly, he had considered keeping that information to himself – and clearly, Sadie preferred that route, judging by the look on her face – but he trusted Atticus as much as anyone else in the Trial.  ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 30 - In Service of the Greater Good

Elijah forced himself to watch, but all the while, he found himself wishing he hadn’t.  Still, he didn’t look away while Sadie cut the woman to pieces.  She started small, just removing a single finger, but over the course of the next few hours, the wounds grew steadily worse until the woman had become a mass of wounds, the sight of which finally forced Elijah to look away.

“Interesting,” Sadie said.

“What?” Elijah asked, feeling sick to his stomach.  He...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 29 - Complications

Elijah looked at the silver box hovering over the remains of the egg and asked, “Who wants to do the honors?”

Dat glanced at Sadie.  So did Kurik.  It made sense, given that she was the one who’d hold onto the reward, at least until they could have it identified.  Hopefully, Atticus could take care of that.  Either way, Elijah gave the armored woman a nod before saying, “Go ahead.”

Sadie squared her shoulders, then approached the box.  Or chest, ...

Chapter 527 - Aid

Talia bent her back to the task of dragging the wagon along the uneven path.  Once, it might have been well-preserved, but it had fallen into disrepair.  Likely that had coincided with the fall of its host kingdom.  Adontis might’ve been populated with monsters-in-human-skin, but they were well-versed in management.  It was amazing how well a government functioned when they had little oversight and weren’t beholden to morality.  Slavery made maintenance so much ea...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 28 - The Egg

“Is this true?” Sadie asked.

Elijah looked away and rubbed the back of his neck.  The sight of the battlefield didn’t make him feel any better.  There were hundreds of corpses littering that stretch of the forest, and there were even more that had fallen prey to Kurik’s traps.  The dwarf had revealed that he’d gotten four levels during the fight, which was an unheard-of degree of progression.  Everyone else had leveled at least once, including Elijah, who w...

Chapter 526 - The Journey

Talia ducked under the sweeping sword strike, then leaped high into the air in order to avoid another.  She landed in a roll that took her just out of reach of a descending axe.  However, she could do nothing to avoid the stabbing spear from the fourth armored foe.  It took her in the shoulder, lancing through flesh and bone before erupting out the other side in a shower of pale flesh. 

“Undead filth!” cried the man.  His armor was clearly high-quality, thou...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 27 - Battle of the Beasts

Even at the best of times, landing was the most difficult part of flying, and Elijah had still yet to master it.  So, trying to land with Sadie clutched in his talons was a recipe for disaster.  That was why he didn’t even bother.  Instead, when he reached Kurik’s Killin’ Field, he used Shape of the Guardian, shifting his form in mid-air while transferring Sadie’s unconscious form from his talons to his arms.  By the time he hit the ground in an eruption of dirt, s...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 26 - Aerial Battle

Elijah broke through the canopy and into bright sunlight, only to see a dozen golden eagles barreling toward him.  But he only had eyes for the one flying in the other direction.  The huge bird had Sadie’s unconscious form clutched in its talons, and it flew further away with every passing second. 

He tilted his wings, banking just out of reach of one of the smaller oncoming creatures, snapping out with his long neck and crushing its delicate wing bones.  That open...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 25 - Protector

A wraith bounced off Sadie’s ethereal barrier, its forward momentum sending it skipping off the surface.  It landed just past her, and though the gangly creature was dazed, Elijah and his other companions recognized the danger it still represented.  So, they all focused their fire – Dat with his crossbow, Kurik leaping onto the thing with his hatchets, and Elijah with a hastily cast Storm’s Fury. 

Miraculously, the durable monster survived that first volley of attac...

Chapter 525 - Finding a Friend

Talia stared at the man’s body, watching as it slowly lost its shape.  It had been almost an hour since she’d killed Micayne, and even as his corpse dissolved into a mass of unrecognizable goo, she still had yet receive any kill energy.  And that could only mean that he was still alive. 

It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d cheated death.

She glanced away, less awed now by the devastation of Zeke’s skill.  The city was still in ruins – what was...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 24 - Killin' Field

“I want to go on record as saying that this is a stupid plan,” Sadie said, looking up at Elijah.  “You’re going to end up dead.”

“Aww.  I didn’t know you cared,” he said, stretching like he was getting ready to run a marathon.  He didn’t really need it.  As far as he could tell, he physically couldn’t pull a muscle.  But it was more the principle of the thing. 

“If you die, it will make completing the task more difficult,” she ...

Chapter 524 - The Nature of Persistence

Abraham Micayne, destroyer of an entire realm, looked down on his greatest creation, wishing for everything he was worth that he could simply grab hold of her and enforce his Will.  However, the girl who’d once been Talia Nightingale was beyond his reach. Undead though she was, she’d become infused with pesky vitality, even a speck of which would fight his control.  And with as much life as she had flowing through her, he couldn’t even get a foothold. 

No - she was ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 23 - Cenote

“You have to see this, bro.”

Elijah didn’t look up from the hunk of wood he’d been whittling.  It had yet to take shape, and even though he’d originally set out to carve a facsimile of his old dog, it had turned out looking more like a child’s depiction of a camel.  Since leaving Earth, he’d discovered that the carving skills he’d developed had now deserted him.  He still knew his way around a knife and a block of wood, but there was no artistry or depth t...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 22 - The Peak

The wind whipped against Elijah’s body, threatening to rip him from the cliff face and send him sailing to the ground far, far below.  Only an hour or so before, he’d made the mistake of looking down, which resulted in a wave of vertigo that nearly caused him to lose his grip.  Their initial impression – that the peak was a mile or so up – had been a gross underestimation, and when Elijah looked down, he was reminded of those videos he’d once seen where people skydived fro...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 21 - The Good Things

Sadie stared at the Druid with unbelieving eyes.  That disbelief was partially clouded by the man’s gruesome injuries.  Despite spending more than an hour constantly healing, one of Elijah’s legs had still been quite crooked, so he’d had to re-break it before setting it properly.  That had not been a pretty scene, and Sadie was certain that the sound of the man’s bones breaking would haunt her nightmares.

In addition, he’d been forced to remove his ...

Chapter 523 - Unexpected Consequences

The black sun imploded, and the world shattered into a thousand pieces.

Even though he’d made it a few hundred yards away, Zeke screamed as his body followed suit.  It wasn’t the endless abyss waiting for him, though.  Instead, he briefly saw past the construct of reality, only to witness an all-seeing eye staring back at him.  It was like a black hole, a sun, and the eye of a true god, all rolled into one.  And Zeke couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.

...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 20 - Dangling

Desperately hanging by his fingertips, Elijah looked down, where he saw Kurik and Dat dangling in the air.  The rope barely held, swaying back and forth as a giant, golden-feathered eagle swooped in, raking its talons across Dat’s hastily upraised arm.  The Witch Hunter let out a scream as the razor-sharp claws tore through his leather sleeve, biting deep into his forearm and sending a spray of blood misting into the air.  Elijah clenched his free hand into a fist, casting St...

Chapter 522 - The Power of the Clutch

Jasper drummed his fingers against his belt, and the army of kobolds were enveloped by the power of his skill.  Mana suffused them, speeding their reactions and pushing them to new heights of strength.  He hummed, adding a wordless melody to the bass, enhancing their natural regeneration.  Finally, the periodical clang of his sword and parrying dagger sent a wave of high-pitched and discordant sound to wash over the battlefield, tearing through the rotting giant’s decaying fl...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 19 - The Wind

Elijah’s sense of danger, born from One with Nature as well as other, more mundane senses, screamed at him, and he’d experienced enough that he wouldn’t even considering ignoring them.  So, even as the screech echoed off the cave walls, he used Shape of the Guardian.  As he transformed, something hit him like a bullet, carving a hole right through his thick scales and burying itself in his shoulder.  It would have been his chest, but he’d flinched away at the last insta...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 18 - The Climb

“It occurs to me that I’m not invincible,” said Elijah, looking up at the massive Singing Cliffs.  Then, he glanced at Kurik and asked, “Do you ever feel that way?”

“All the damn time.  Like a normal person,” the dwarf grumbled. 

“Oh.”

“Don’t you dare tell me you ain’t never considered it,” Kurik said.

“I mean, obviously I have,” Elijah admitted.  He’d spent far too much time – especially right before the world had ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 17 - The Singing Cliffs

Elijah slammed the butt of his staff into a wraith’s skull, using Storm’s Fury to finish it off.  The creature absorbed some of the ethera from the spell, but it was incapable of completely negating it. 

Because, as with all things, their ability to drain ethera had limits.  The key to beating them – aside from physical damage, at least – was to overload them to the point where they could no longer take any more energy.  After that, any spells aimed in their ...

Chapter 521 - Dominoes

The thing Zeke had learned about fighting massive monsters was that they often had difficulty dealing with anything smaller than a mountain.  Most could manage it, though not without significant issues.  However, the gargantuan abomination-turned-necromantic vessel was far clumsier than any real creature.  Instead, it was like trying to pick up a needle with a puppet – theoretically possible, assuming the thing was equipped with the right articulable digits, but a practical i...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 16 - Very Different Circumstances

“Paradise.  That’s what he said,” Sadie spat.  “He’s been living on some island sipping mojitos while we’ve been fighting for our lives against nightmare monsters!”

“I don’t think that’s the whole story, bro,” said Dat, adjusting a harness that held a brace of throwing knives.  Concealed beneath his long, leather coat was an arsenal of weapons for every occasion, and impressively, he knew how to employ each and every one of them to great effect. ...

Chapter 520 - Playing a Role

Talia raced through the empty streets, her horror at what she’d just seen having overwhelmed any emotional distance she’d managed to maintain.  It didn’t matter if she had heartsblood singing through her veins.  Even if she hadn’t, the blanket that normally covered her feelings would have been completely insufficient to smother the emotions she experienced after seeing the bulk of Darukar’s population having been turned into unthinking zombies. 

But...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 15 - A Life of Battle

“How did you find me?” asked Delilah, sitting atop one of the buildings within the Nexus.  Her toned legs dangled off the edge as she peered out at the people gathered around the market.  Elijah couldn’t help but notice the long, puckered scar that ran from beneath her armored skirt – called a pteruges, if Elijah remembered his history – past her knee, and well into her calf. 

“I found Isaak first,” he said, settling in beside her.  He glanced up at the...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 14 - Guard Duty

As Miguel walked beside the laden wagon, he couldn’t keep himself from gaping at his surroundings.  Mountains, larger than any had been before the world’s transformation, towered all around, reaching toward the blue sky and piercing the clouds.  A gentle wind blew, carrying with it the unmistakable chill of late winter, which was exacerbated by the heightened elevation. 

A few dwarves sat on the wagon, which was pulled by beasts of burden that before his recent stint ...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 13 - Meetings and Plans

As Elijah followed Kurik from the amphitheater, he caught sight of one of the men he’d healed in the infirmary.  Normally, when he engaged in mass healing as he had alongside Rob, the patients’ identities tended to devolve into blurs.  However, he remembered this man for two reasons.  First, he was painfully handsome, with almost pale, elven features framed by black ringlets that spilled down to his shoulders.  Upon seeing him, Elijah’s first thought was that he woul...

Chapter 519 - The Brink of the Abyss

The monster was bigger than the cyclops had been, and Zeke knew it was far more dangerous.  Death-attuned mana wafted off of it like heat from the sun, visible as whirling mists of aquamarine.  The flesh abomination itself was only humanoid in the most basic sense of the world.  It had all the appropriate pieces – two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head – but that was where the suitability of that descriptor ended.  The misshapen limbs were all wrong, and they bulged i...

Path of Dragons 5 - Chapter 12 - Packs and Demons

Benedict was nervous, and rightly so.  For whatever reason, when he’d been transported into the Trial of Primacy, his newly summoned Malicious Guard had been left behind.  He had no idea why that was the case, and he feared what such a creature would do, having been freed of his control.  However, he’d had very little time to worry about such things, mostly because he’d been plopped down in the middle of a godforsaken jungle.  And deprived of the focus of his class, ...

Chapter 518 - Battle

Zeke ducked beneath a fist the size of a compact car, then between its owner’s legs, rolling to his feet a moment later.  Normally, he wouldn’t engage in such acrobatics; indeed, he usually preferred to stand his ground and trade momentous blows with his opponents.  However, in this case, he knew that was an inadvisable path, largely because of the size disparity.  In his Titan form, Zeke was more than twenty feet tall, but the flesh giants towered over him like buildings.<...