I stepped back from the arch drawing Talth and stared at the ancient blade. The symbol for dark kyn was glowing brightly as the sword sensed the thick dark energy so close to us, but it wasn't what I was looking at, I knew there were dark kyn here. I scanned every single other rune and as I suspected would be the case, there was only one other alight. That of the Dragon, that meant there was still hope, though the rune barely flickered, it meant that the dragon's soul had yet to pass on but it wasn't long for this world.
I stepped back and with all my might I drove Talth into the gold like metal beneath me and the blade sank into a quarter of its length. Then I drew a small spherical object from my left hip pouch and handed it to Zehal.
"This is an Auz Hur, it aids us in channeling together. Hold it in both hands for a moment and you'll start to feel it grow warm as it attempts to draw energy from you, into it. As you feel that, focus on expanding that feeling and pour as much energy into it as you can, but if it starts to hurt at any point, put it down immediately, understand?" She nodded and closed her eyes.
I took my helmet off the clasp on my hip and put it back on, bringing the world around me into great detail again. Then I reached out and my two gauntleted hands encased her much smaller ones as I began to channel my energy through her to the Auz Hur. I could feel the potency of her energy throbbing within the Auz Hur as I to began to channel into it, it was already holding considerable energy.
Opening my eyes I now reached out my left hand and touched the rune for dragon and using Talth's ability to sense the creature I began to channel energy towards it. To my relief it took but a moment for the stream to locate and instead of rejecting it, like I feared it may, the dragon accepted the flow and began to take it in. Now with a stream established I began to channel a great deal of energy through the flow, more and more. As I began to truly draw upon the Auz Hur and the energy Zehal was putting into it I found to my surprise she was channeling more and more energy into it. I began to truly be amazed, she was channeling enough energy for a full Offarion in armor and even as I thought it she continued to channel more.
The quantity kept increasing and I felt the flow of energy burning through me with a fire I had never felt before. I began to feel concern for Zehal as I did not know if she could sustain this output.
What had been a small stream soon became a mighty one, slowly forming into a river, pulsating with might. Talth's length now began to glow, a slow pale red at first before becoming so hot as to be like an iron, fresh from the fire. The river had now become a flood, so much energy I feared the Auz Hur might not be able to contain what Zehal was unleashing.
Suddenly the rune of the dragon woke upon the blade of Talth, it no longer flickered at all but began to glow more and more brightly, steadily and in utter defiance of the forces which sought its destruction. I felt the energy Zehal and I channeled being drawn upon, being used now with direction. I felt the very shape of it, the dragon was no longer using it to strengthen and nourish itself, but... for something else entirely.
In that moment I felt my mind pushed to the brink as the energy coursing through me began to overwhelm my senses and in that moment my minds eye stared freely upon the ethereal world. I saw the empties, hollowed husks of the people, I saw their desires, their hatreds and lusts, I saw Sagrith, an angry red tumor, growing and devouring all around him. I saw his plan for all the people present, I saw the empty promises he'd given them and how the final sacrifice here was going to be him draining the thousands of people here of all their life energy to bring his plan to fruition, but above and beyond it all, I sensed the Dragon.
In that moment, I saw what was coming and in that moment I knew I could break the link and stop what was about to happen from happening. I chose not to.
I felt the dragon break free, the energy coursing through Talth abruptly stopped and Zehal and I gasped with the suddenness of it as the energy coursing through us, no longer with a place to go, built up dangerous for a moment before I reigned it in and poured it into the Auz Hur. Zehal sagged down next to and I deftly caught the Auz before it could drop from Zehal's exhausted hands.
Then I looked up at Sagrith as he continued to stand upon his floating pillar, hands still in the air when he finally sensed something was amiss, he looked upwards, no doubt towards the very fortress that was above us and towards the very dragon which had just broken free of its age long imprisonment there. I saw a look of utter shock on his face and that look quickly turned to one of horror. I turned my attention back towards the will of the Dragon and the reason for his horror quickly became abundant to me.
Though the energy flow we'd been sending to the dragon was now severed our link through Talth was still active and I could feel its vast intellect, its pain, its weariness of the world, and deeply within it I felt its utter fury at those who had tortured it for so long but most of all I felt its approach. I knew that a dragon in physical form was a force beyond the reckoning of armies, maybe even Offarion armies, one in ethereal form however, I didn't know with surety just how deadly that would be but I knew it'd be best not to find out.
I drew Talth from the metal and it came away easily, rivulets molten metal flowing from Talth's tip and in so doing fully severed the link to the dragon. I turned to Zehal and shook her by the shoulder. "We have to go!" I yelled. "We have to go Zehal! Now! Do you understand?"
She gazed at me for a moment before shaking her head and staring at me somewhat more lucidly. "Did we do it?" She asked.
"Oh yes, we did it, now we have to escape before the fruits of our labor kill us!" I placed the Auz Hur back in its pouch and then yanked Zehal to her feet.
"You mean the dark kyn?" She asked.
I had only enough time to shake my head before every person in the chamber became completely silent, no more beating drums, no more laughing, screaming or chanting, they all just looked up and stared in confusion and after all that noise the silence seemed almost deafening. Sagrith himself was now trying to do something that from this distance I could not discern, I guessed he was trying to somehow exert control over the dragon again, but now that it was free that simply was not possible I knew, apparently he didn't.
As deafening as the silence was in that moment, what came afterwards was something that was far more so.
I now no longer needed the Energetic Crystalis to see it and as glorious as the dragon had been to behold before in its guardianship of the fortress above, now every rift in its hide was closed, and its hide itself was glimmering, great golden light that hurt my eyes, even behind the lenses of my helmet to see. Apparently the dark kyn thought so too or merely they cried out in terror as they realized their imminent destruction because as one they began to scream, many attempting to flee, some even casting themselves from the great heights of balconies or floating isles of rock where they had beat their drums to the depths below. I even saw a dark kyn creature like the one we'd faced raise its foul sword in defiance before the dragon passed directly through it. After it passed by there was nothing left upon the jagged edifice of rock, everyone upon it had been burned to cinders within the essence of the dragon.
But in that moment, the moment when the awe of seeing such a magnificent creature so close to its greatest glory broke, instead of fleeing I felt a wave of puzzlement come over me. The dragon wasn't attacking everyone; it was actually totally ignoring them. Instead it flew still every downwards, directly towards the bottom of the spherical room. I watched it until it began to pass out of sight, its form sliding seamlessly into the solid rock, a last flicker of golden light disappearing as its tail vanished.
Feeling very confused at this point I looked up towards Sagrith, but he showed no sign of puzzlement. Instead he showed even greater panic, no longer attempting to exert control over the dragon again he now was attempting to guide the pillar upon which he stood through the streams of energy, but it was slow and cumbersome and was making painfully slow headway.
Then I heard it, a rumbling, cracking sound. I looked back down towards the bottom of the chamber, seeing the great stone floor was beginning to be rent in twain. Cracks formed, widened and grew longer, traveling ever upwards and destroying any of the balconies they encountered, sending hundreds of corrupted dark souls plummeting to their deaths.
I realized the dragon must be destroying the chamber from below, but how odd was that? It would have been so much more effective to destroy it from above, bring down the massive amounts of rock and stone above us upon the chamber, effectively killing everything within, from below it would no doubt lose all the energy we had given it before it could achieve a fraction of the damage it could have achieved from above. Perhaps it was simply no longer sane, having been tortured far past the point of its sanity and it was now thoughtlessly lashing out?
I turned to go, taking Zehal's arm to drag her after me if necessary as she seemed bent on staying and watching this unfold. Then she yanked on me, snapping her head around to look at me. "What's going on?"
"I've no time to explain." I said, then I heard the sound of crumbling as the bottom of the spherical room completely gave way and collapsed. I stopped, not knowing what I had just seen. The floor had just collapsed downwards, into a chamber below. 'Below?'
Then the shock of it hit me as I realized what was down there, for among all the creatures that had ever graced the land, the dragons had been by far the most feared, most hated and most awe inspiring and now far too late I realized that the ethereal form of the dragon had not been blindly lashing out.
From the hole in the floor of the chamber I heard a rumble, a low growl that shook me to my bones and it stilled the cries of everyone in the room.
There was a thud of air that knocked me off my feet; I landed on my back, Zehal hitting the floor next to me. I tried to scramble back to my feet but yet another blast of air slammed into me, knocking me back down. This time bracing myself I managed to absorb the next beat of air, I rose and stared once more, seeing the hole in the bottom of the chamber, and now finally, seeing the being within emerging.
Every scale upon its body glowed as its ethereal form had, golden. So brightly as to hurt the eyes yet I could not tear them away. Its head was still the size of the castle gate, at least seventy feet in height, hundreds of feet in length, its neck far longer. It rose with each beat of its massive wings, every second more of its body coming into view. Never in my whole life had I ever seen such a being, never had I dreamt of seeing such a thing and not ever had I dreamed of being the one to once again unleash such a creature upon the world, not to mention one so utterly vast, so old and so powerful that the ancient powers that had seen fit to fight it had buried it rather then kill it.
Once the ancient creature rose fully into the chamber knocking several of the floating isles of rock from the air with its massive form like a child's playthings I felt it cast its gaze around the room, eyes passing over thousands upon thousands of cowering people, before its eyes fell upon me.
I felt myself rooted to the spot, unable to move. I felt as though every single part of my body and even soul was being scrutinized, analyzed and examined in that one fraction of a moment that it locked eyes with me. Then with slow, deliberate effect it closed its eyes and bowed its head to me and in that moment a mind that felt cosmically vast brushed against mine and I physically staggered from the sense of vertigo that brief contact gave me.
Then it opened its eyes once more and turned its head searching and finally its eyes laid themselves upon Sagrith, who was still trying to get the pillar to move amongst the currents to safety. Both he and the pillar froze in place as soon as the dragon's gaze fell upon him and he slowly looked back. He locked eyes with the dragon and in that moment I realized what was about to happen.
I turned, breaking from my stupefied trance and grabbed Zehal, and then I wrenched her to her feet and despite the continuing gusts of air hitting us with each beat of the dragon's wings I hauled her into my arms, kept my balance and ran headlong away from what was about to become a complete inferno. One thing dragons were known for above all was what they caused by far the most destruction, their fire.
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