The fourth vision was even harder than the second. Strands of Fate repelled each other like magnets, leaving stranded in my soul space, surrounded by a chaotic, tangled ss of scenes. Every ti I tried to force them together, my soul quivered under the strain, weakened from the stress of the last vision.
Finally, I cobbled together a few, gaining so montum. The rest of the weave snapped into place, giving a glimpse of the battle raging above the spire.
The sun kissed the horizon, half-obscured by the caldera’s distant wall. Walls of ash smothered the oncoming twilight, the stars hidden by billowing smoke. Fires roared into the night, forming pillars of fla hundreds of feet tall. A few souls scurried around the upper reaches of the spire, a scant handful compared to the thousands who populated it the day before.
I shifted to the top of the spire and was nearly blasted from the vision by a powerful shockwave. A thought sent so distance away, allowing to take in the battle safely.
Two dragons flew through the sky without wings, moving like serpents slithering across a lake. They reminded of Fyren, in a way, and the other fire demons. Their scales were igneous black, with the seams between them glowing with lava. Fire dripped from every angle of their body, and their claws and teeth were jagged and long. Their eyes held none of the wisdom eastern dragons were supposedly revered for, instead filled with demon-like hunger and cruelty.
"Sealed for four hundred years," I whispered, absently tracing the lines the slave crest had once burned across my chest.
To a dragon, was that a long or a short ti? Were they justified in such anger?
The question struck hard, setting my tail curling. I didn’t want to empathize with these monsters, but I couldn’t help it. How would I feel if I had been chained for hundreds of years and the ones responsible had built an empire over ? Would I be angry to learn they used my power to warm hot springs, or nad their nation after ?
We weren’t so different, after all. There were too many parallels to my story.
But that didn’t an I had to let them burn everything I loved. Even if their rage was born from hurt, they were at fault for allowing it to control them. They didn’t have to lash out any more than I did.
In the end, the answer was simple. If they were re monsters, it was their nature, and we had to stop them. And if it was their choice? That was even easier. They were the aggressor here and could leave at any ti. Until they did, it was a contest of ideals, and I would fight to the end to ensure mine were the ones left standing.
A red dot rose from the spire, streaking toward one of the dragons. I shifted closer, enduring the dragon’s aura, just in ti to see Elaine smash into the dragon’s head. She trailed mana like a cot, her sword cleaving a wound a dozen feet deep. The dragon roared in pain and swatted at her, but she kicked off its scales, repositioning to land another heavy blow near its armpit.
The other dragon, hearing the cries of its ally, slithered up to it and bathed the dragon in fire. Instead of dodging, the wounded creature allowed the flas to enshroud it. Its wounds drew in the fire like it was life magic, knitting together until only a faint scar remained.
Elaine’s scream filled the air as she blasted off, plumting to the ground. Her impact caused a crater fifty feet deep, kicking up another cloud of dust to join the endless smog obscuring the sky.
Elaine staggered out of the ashes, holding her side, scorched black. She doubled over coughing, spitting a mouthful of blood. The blood hissed and evaporated, reduced to coarse powder by the ti it hit the ground.
A blast of lightning cracked across the sky, accompanied by roaring thunder. It struck the second dragon in the side, sending it careening into the first. Arcs of lightning flowed between them, eliciting pained roars.
Avant unleashed a flurry of fifth and sixth-level spells, casting a dozen a second, but the dragons ignored most of them, disentangling their coils and turning their smoldering gaze at the mage below. He had just enough ti to summon a ward before the two unleashed another fire breath.
In the precious seconds bought by Avant, Elaine managed to stabilize, using her mana to nd her wounds. She attacked again but was batted aside with a vicious tail strike, crashing back down. As Avant prepared to save her again, one of the dragons dove directly at him, slamming its claw into his barrier with an eighth-level magical technique.
It was absurd. Just one of the dragon’s claws was longer than the mage was tall. And, no matter how fiercely I wished otherwise, exactly what I expected to happen happened.
Avant’s magic, stretched thin protecting the city below, shattered. There wasn’t ti to scream as the dragon’s claw landed atop him. When its montum carried it by, nothing but ashes remained.
Elaine fell soon after, succumbing to another twin dragon breath. As it descended on her, her sword slipped from her hand. She gazed upward, looking past at the obscured sky.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, though the sound never made it to .
The vision froze, cracking with static. As it faded, I flared the Oracle of Eternity, willing it back. After so hesitation, it reford.
This ti, I saw the sa battle. Only this ti, Avant and Elaine fought side by side, attacking the sa dragon in concert. They survived almost two minutes longer yet died in an equally decisive defeat.
"Again!" I whispered, pulling the vision together. There had to be a way. There had to be!
Ti and ti again, I watched the battle play out. Every ti was different, yet the outco was the sa. Sotis, Elaine died first, and the dragons’ combined wrath overca Avant’s barriers. Other tis, Avant’s magic failed, and Elaine was forced to sacrifice herself to buy the city below a few more precious seconds to evacuate.
I saw myself participating in almost every fight, but the dragons’ sheer power always overwheld whatever spells I could cast. Even if I was immune to most of their fire, the small, simple things brought about my end. The most obvious were physical attacks. The mont one broke my wards, the ensuing storm of shockwave, ash, and the physical heat of fire instantly killed .
Other thods exploited the weaknesses in my defenses. Once, a dragon liquefied an entire ridge, letting it flow down and engulf my shield. Adaptive Resistance stole the mana from the rock, leading to it rapidly cooling, freezing in a small bubble of solid rock. I was then helpless to see or anticipate any attacks and was crushed soon after.
Other souls ca and went, with Fyren and Fable being the most common. The Empire had many powerful warriors co, but few could survive the dragon’s combined aura, much less its attacks. Most seed occupied in the city, fighting a threat I only glimpsed. R’lissea led the battle there, fighting darkness and filth, reminding the wisps of aura I detected similar to that of the Undead Dragon.
The burden on my soul mounted every ti I started anew, and soon, the visions began to blur together. How many tis had I seen Fable sliced in half by a massive claw? How often had Elaine been killed by a fire breath? Just how many tis was I going to die today? Was there really a point to it all? Maybe I should just open a portal to Haven and hide there.
No, I already tried that—at least a hundred tis. The dragons seed particularly attracted to that magic. Once, when I’d summoned it in the slave quarters, it had dug down to find . Even when I managed to escape in ti, the vision ended imdiately. Haven had too many protections built into it. Not even my eyes could pierce the weave of fate within when I was without.
More visions, more death, more darkness. I was tired, so very tired. My soul form was heavy, every thought taking literal seconds to lead anywhere. How many visions had I seen? Hundreds? Thousands? More?
At last, my mind broke from the weight of what I had seen. The sa mont replayed ten thousand tis, none of which led to a future where we won. t was now clear why it had taken an entire team of ninth-level fighters to seal the twin dragons. Their strength, teamwork, and abilities were beyond contention, overwhelming anything we managed to throw at them.
I slipped from my soul space, defeated. There was simply no way we could defeat the twin dragons. I
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