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Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 85 - Overwhelmed

Marus pulled himself out of the water and onto the beach, frustrated beyond belief.  Nearby, the other soldiers he’d brought with him waded ashore.  No one – aside from Brifik, who’d succumbed to the wounds inflicted by the wood-clad fighter – had died.  Miraculously so, considering that the last few hours had been an exercise in constant battle. 

“Were those giant crabs?” asked the mage, Forta.  She wrung the salty water from her hair. 

�...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 84 - Stutters and Stops

Elijah and his companions landed upon the disc, ready to finish the fight.  The instant their feet touched the silver ground, the world shifted.  Thousands of silver rings – delicate and ephemeral, yet still solid – manifested around the disc. Before anyone could react, they started spinning, reminding Elijah of a gyroscope.  Or an armillary sphere, though with many times more concentric rings that never stopped moving. 

Within seconds, those rings had become a s...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 83 - Paying Attention

The air disappeared.

Elijah fell to his knees, gasping ineffectually as his lungs rapidly expanded, then burst.  Panicked, he pushed every ounce of ethera he could manage into his Mantle of Authority.  It scorched its way through the branches of his soul, blisteringly hot as it erupted from his body. 

The mantle went to war against the pervasive domain of nothingness.  For long seconds, the two forces fought to a standstill until, at last, Elijah’s side won o...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 82 - In Miniature

Etkatiran hovered in the center of the disc, surrounded by whirling silver rings that emitted pulses of dense ethera with every passing second.  He looked much like every other djinn they’d seen, though with a couple of obvious differences.  The first was that he was at least a dozen feet tall, and he looked even more imposing than that height implied.  Largely, that was because of his oppressive aura, which suffused the very atmosphere with crackling energy.

Then there...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 81 - Conduits

Tendrils of corruption flailed as Elijah rammed the lattice of corruption at full speed.  The shockwave from the impact of a twenty-ton dragon hitting the dome at more than four-hundred miles an hour was like a bomb going off.  The force vaporized the black tendrils of corruption for dozens of yards all around, but the shield held. 

The same could not be said for Elijah’s body.

Thankfully, during the run-up, he’d built a massive Nature’s Bloom within his chest...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 79 - Holding On

Trevor’s hooves thudded into the beach, kicking up gravel and sand until he and his rider had reached the tree line.  Miguel finally slumped against the stag’s back, his breathing labored as dozens of toxins flowed through his veins.  He’d already done what he could, but he needed help if he was going to survive.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Trevor bore him through the forest even faster than normal, and soon enough, they reached Biggle’s enclave.  Trevor...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 80 - Varied Enemies

The black knight charged in, though his path was hindered by a persistent wind that had worn the current disc perfectly smooth.  He struggled against it, his massive axe gleaming with red ethera.  Inch by inch, he drew closer until, at last, he reached his destination – the densely inscribed pillar at the center of the disc.

He swung.

The mighty effort sent the axe blistering through the air, leaving a string of red afterimages.  Then, the blade clanged against th...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 78 - A Big Mistake

“I can’t!” shouted Miguel in frustration.  He took a deep breath, realizing he’d overstepped.  Before she could say anything, he looked at Hope before saying, “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t yell.  I just…I just can’t afford to abandon the grove.  Not with Elijah gone.”

He clenched his fists as he gazed across the strait.  Ironshore’s walls held – so far.  According to the reports he’d been given, the infiltrators had either fled or ...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 77 - Altars

“What is it?” asked Elijah, kneeling next to Hu Shui.  He had some ideas of his own, though he wanted an expert’s opinion before he reached any conclusions. 

“Altars,” came a voice from a dozen feet away.  Elijah didn’t need to look up to know that it belonged to Benedict, who’d remained characteristically silent for the past couple of days. 

Upon arriving, Elijah had wanted to immediately move on – after all, he had every incentive to complete ...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 76 - Seething Resentment

“Remove that thing from my presence!” spat Nico Song, his fists clutched in frustration.  When the necromancer didn’t respond quickly enough, he aimed a backhand at the pitiful man.  The elder, little more than skin and bones, went sprawling to the ground, where he remained for a few moments.  With a tired sigh, Nico rolled his eyes and ordered another underling to drag the offender from the cabin.  As they complied with his orders, he paced back and forth, annoyance...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 75 - Broken Road

A thousand streams of light, each one a different hue, extended upward.  They coalesced into a single, rainbow beam that didn’t stop even after hitting the ceiling miles above.  Their twins descended into the gaping abyss below the shattered pieces of the disc, their light disappearing after only a few feet. 

“There are more coming,” said Hu Shui, his swords at the ready.  “From all around.”

Without looking away from the spectacle, Elijah uttered, “...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 74 - Knight

Elijah whirled like an Olympic hammer thrower, tossing the automaton with enough force that when it hit its squid-like ally, it did so with the sound of a car crash.  Metal twisted as both seemed to hang suspended in the air.  Benedict hit it with a kamikaze imp that exploded.  Both automatons were so damaged that they didn’t even have the remaining energy to explode. 

For his part, Elijah paid them no mind.  Instead, he turned his focus on the remaining enemi...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 73 - Seed of Ash

Elijah didn’t really have time to note his appearance, though he couldn’t ignore the ash-white scales nor the increased height.  More importantly, he could feel the ashen cloak billowing from his shoulders, almost like it was another appendage.  He sensed the fire down below, as well, though that was cloaked in a thin membrane that he attributed to the imps’ influence.  To Elijah, it felt like plunging his hand into a serene pond, only to find that it was covered in a thi...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 72 - Small

Hu Shui was accustomed to making do with inferior characteristics.  He’d spent much of his life – almost twenty years – as a paraplegic, so he knew precisely how to adapt to less than favorable circumstances.  He had persevered, carving out a life for himself.  He’d married a wonderful woman who didn’t care that he was half a man, and he’d managed to become one of the world’s leading experts in his field. 

He had been happy, even before the world had be...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 71 - Infiltration

A pleasant summer breeze flitted through the open window, bringing with it the sound of chittering insects and the calls of the birds who hunted them.  Layered beneath that familiar cacophony were the unmistakable sounds of the city.  For Ramik, the combination was more than comforting.  It felt like home.

Because it was.

He’d been in Ironshore for years, and yet, it wasn’t until recently that it had begun to truly feel like he belonged.  Part of that came ...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 70 - The Importance of Context

The choices were a little more muddled than usual.  In addition to the normal, cryptic descriptions that gave him very little real information, the impending evolution lacked much of the context usually provided by his instincts.  That just made the decision even more difficult. 

Elijah knew that couldn’t matter, a point punctuated by another explosion in the distance.  The ground shook as one of the buildings collapsed.  It wasn’t near his position, but it ...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 69 - Freedom and Enslavement

For a moment, silence reigned over the square.  Elijah stood at the bottom of the inverted pyramid, looking up at the enemies surrounding him.  The automatons were all but identical to the ones he’d fought in the maze, but they differed in a couple of key ways.  The first was that they were slightly larger, measuring closer to twenty feet tall than fifteen.  With that additional height came breadth, and to carry the extra weight, they sported a third leg similar to the g...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 68 - Threads of Truth

Elijah refused to touch the food laid out before him.

Not because it didn’t look delicious.  It certainly did, with platters of glistening meat, crisp vegetables, and doughy bread filling the long table.  Neither Benedict nor Hu Shui had any issues with it, and they’d both dug in the second they’d laid eyes on it.

But Elijah knew the truth that they refused to believe.  Everything was made of djinn.  All the meat.  All the produce.  The bread.&n...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 67 - Tainted Paradise

Elijah watched as the rays sliced gracefully through the air, each one leaving a glittering trail of blue ethera in their wake.  They weren’t natural creatures.  In fact, they didn’t feel like animals at all.  Rather, they were conjured entities whose sole purpose was to act as a means of conveyance. 

That made them no less beautiful, though.

It was especially poignant when held against the backdrop of the city, which looked like nothing so much as a carbon...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 66 - Looming Danger

Greffyn Cornelius was restless.

He paced back and forth, barely noticing the primitive architecture.  More than anything else, he just wanted to go home, to see his wives and ensure that his children were doing everything they could to maximize their potential.  But here he was on some backwater planet that had yet to even escape the threat of excisement. 

The only solace came from the fact that at least the atmosphere wasn’t as thin as he had been led to expect.&...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 65 - Timing

Hu Shui spread his fingers in a signal, sending Elijah sprawling to the surface of the bridge.  The other two followed suit, narrowly avoiding the blender of ethereal blades that had manifested above them.  Together, the trio crawled forward for fifteen feet until Hu Shui signaled for them to rise. 

Elijah didn’t hesitate to follow the man’s directions.  After twenty more feet, the Arcane Duelist told them to leap over another set of conjured blades that would ha...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 64 - Enforced Stillness

Elijah awoke to pain.

As he sat up, he clutched his side and muttered, “Reminds me of the old days.”

Back then, he’d taken weeks to heal even relatively minor injuries, so he’d undertaken the first few tower runs accompanied by constant pain.  More than anything, he wished he could just cast Wild Resurgence and deal with his current injuries, but he supposed he should have been satisfied that his regeneration had kept him from bleeding out. 

If either of th...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 63 - Death and Birth

Glass orbs, each one glittering with potent ethera, orbited the golden columns, casting everything in azure light.  Elijah strode forward, his every muscle rigid with tension.  The columns themselves were more than fifty yards wide, and upon closer inspection, seemed to be made of layer after layer of spiraling ribbons of gold.  Each of those strips bore evidence of dense engravings. 

But as interesting as the columns were, Elijah was more concerned with the slowly r...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 62 - A Question of Morality

“Saving the world?”

“Of course,” the blue-skinned djinn answered, their expressionless face somehow conveying sincerity.  They cocked their head to the side, asking, “Why are you here?”

Elijah frowned, then looked around.  The stakes to which they’d been tethered were not arranged in neat lines or symmetrical rings.  Instead, they formed a complex lattice that Elijah now saw for what it was – an ethereal matrix meant to harness the energy drained fro...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 61 - Prisoners

Elijah’s small fist slammed into the musclebound creature, sending it skidding backward until it hit the others it had outpaced.  The three-foot-tall things looked a little like what he’d imagine a leprechaun with a pituitary problem might look – all bulging muscles and disproportionate limbs, clad in green jumpsuits and wearing matching hats. 

Of course, that impression was ruined by the fact that their skin was like marble, and they lacked even a semblance of facial fe...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 60 - Variation

Elijah fell.

His heart leaped into his throat as he caromed off the walls of the vertical shaft.  The fall didn’t end for more than thirty seconds, when he slammed into the floor.  A moment later, Hu Shui, then Benedict fell atop him. 

“Ow,” he groaned, already casting Nature’s Bloom on his companions.  While he could easily survive a fall at terminal velocity, and without ill effect, the same could not be said for Hu Shui and Benedict.  After all,...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 59 - Expertise

Quick note - I've noticed a lot less comments on recent chapters, and I'm not sure whether to attribute that to a lack of engagement with the content or just the chapters not eliciting a lot of discussion. Either way, I tend to look at number of comments to determine whether something is working, so I'd love to know why some habitual commentors might not be discussion these latest chapters. Let me know!

In her past life, Carmen was no artist.&...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 58 - A Nightmare of Shadow

Elijah completed his transformation into the Shape of Spores just in time to intercept the skittering creature.  It moved through the air, using the shadows like a spider’s web as it launched itself at him.  The beast’s multitude of legs were nearly ten feet long apiece, meaning that it was more than large enough to envelop Elijah completely.

It hit with the thud followed by a sound like crumpling paper, latching onto him and biting him with a mantis-like mouth.  The ...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 57 - Shapes in the Dark

Elijah watched the roiling energy play across the ceiling in an awe-inspiring display that sent multi-colored lights arcing across the surface.  That storm of ethera pulsed with enough power that he knew that most people back on Earth would faint just from being so close.  For his part, he only felt mildly uncomfortable.

“We should move on,” said Hu Shui.  “There is nothing more we can learn here.”

Elijah sighed.  He hadn’t learned anything.  Not...

Path of Dragons 12 - Chapter 56 - Closing In

“Do you feel that?”

Elijah narrowed his eyes, concentrating on Soul of the Wild.  However, no matter how much he focused on his senses, he couldn’t feel anything.  Or rather, he felt far too much.  It was like trying to feel the rain while submerged in a lake.  Intellectually, he could know it existed, but he couldn’t really feel it. 

So, he just shook his head, saying, “Still no.”

Hu Shui said, “It’s beneath us.”

Then, he kne...