Dragon Gods Reign

[High order territory]

Flying over the gap where the undead and monsters had broken through the high order's defenses, Darganth and Alicia flew across the desolate landscape with Jennia and Allaire on his back.

Marching below them were the stragglers that fell behind the spearhead of the army. Undead and monsters, mostly wounded ones, made their way through the ruined structures, occasionally pouncing on small groups of animals or humanoids that somehow survived the initial onslaught.

Watching this from high up in the sky, Alicia looked down with a saddened gaze. Most of those below were innocent civilians that were mutated into mindless monsters or reanimated as undead, having suffered and died due to the ambitions of a few high ranking nobles and other leaders.

And with the initial defenses broken, the armies could swarm out across the region largely unobstructed. What little resistance the meager forces that the high order could still send proved to be little more than a drop in a bucket, though it gave Alicia hope that the organization wasn’t rotten from the ground up. Maybe the removal of the seats would even benefit it in the long term.

This thought quickly spiraled into an internal debate about the consequences, something Alicia still hadn’t quite figured out. What she did know was that she wasn’t willing to let the entire world suffer for her revenge, though she had yet to find a stable and realistic solution apart from giving up her revenge.

Noticing this conflict, Allaire looked over at her with a reassuring smile.

“We’ll find a solution.” She said.

Nodding in response, Alicia was relieved by the reminder that she wasn’t alone in this. Absentmindedly letting her gaze wander across the ground in an attempt to clear her head somewhat, she suddenly noticed a breakaway from the usual sight in the form of flashes of magic.

Intrigued by the presence of any mana users besides bloodline sorcerers, she focused on the small group of mages. As as she did she noticed a few familiar faces among the group of fifteen, causing her eyes to widen in surprise.

“I remember some of them.” She exclaimed.

“Positively or negatively?” Darganth asked.

“Neither, they were just other students of Alorick.” Alicia answered.

Remembering the last time she saw her teacher, Alicia wasn’t sure whether that was an argument for helping them or not. She didn’t even know his fate after helping her so it was entirely possible that his students would blame it on her, seeing as she would certainly seem like an easier target than the seats.

“From what you told us he doesn’t seem like an unreasonable person, maybe his students are too. I would try my luck, but it's your decision.” Allaire said.

“Seeing as they seem to be protecting the village over there, I can only second that.” Jennia added.

Listening to their encouragement, Alicia quickly came to a decision. Just before she turned towards them, she looked over to Darganth questioningly.

“You do you, I’ll intervene when it gets too dangerous no matter what.” He said.

Smiling thankfully at his supportive behavior, she turned and dived straight for their location.

“Can’t let her have all the fun now, can we?” Jennia said a moment later, jumping off from Darganth’s back and following after Alicia.

Feeling Allaire following after them another moment later, Darganth was slightly surprised. Looking at her questioningly, he saw her shrug apologetically.

“I’ve got a few new tricks I want to try out. Besides, nobody stops you from participating in this little clean up, any one of us is already overkill, not to mention that Alicia won’t benefit from this fight either way.” Allaire said.

“Maybe your right, I’m probably just somewhat overprotective. I just don’t want her to have to learn any experiences in the future that she could have learned here where she is safe.” Darganth said with a sigh.

Waiting a few seconds until she saw him make his decision, Allaire dispelled the platform of solid light she was standing on. Falling towards the ground with Darganth diving down right behind her, she searched for a spot where she could land.

As the two were finishing up their short talk, Alicia arrived on the ground in her human form. Crashing into the nearest monster to the group like a meteor, she sent a Shockwave to travel through the ground which caused it to shake wildly.

Straightening her back, she stood up from her kneeling position and glanced back at the group of Alorick’s students. Seeing that her entrance only shocked them without having done any harm, she felt satisfied by it.

Having confirmed this, she formed a gravitational orbit around her that drew in small pieces of rock before turning back to the approaching enemies.

Without hesitation, she started sprinting at them while simultaneously shooting a small projectile ahead of her.

Seeing a wolf like monster that was close to her lunging, Alicia met its attack with a frontal strike of her own. Smiling as the creature's claws only tore through her shirt before bouncing off of her skin.

A moment later her fist connected with its head, crushing its bones and sending the monster flying. At the same time, Alicia already continued rushing ahead, barely even being slowed down by the exchange.

When she arrived before her second target not even a second later, the projectile she had shot ahead also impacted its target. Seemingly disappearing without an effect as it struck the zombie, its effect showed slowly as the monsters and undead nearby all started rising into the air due to the sudden reverse of gravity

Freeing herself from the localized reversion of gravity, Alicia became the only being in the spherical area that wasn’t dragged toward the sky.

Stretching her arms out to both sides and channeling her magic, she jerked them back. With this, thousands of zombies, skeletons, and monsters that had been in the path of her spell were flung toward her.

Without waiting for the result, Alicia punched out toward a remaining part of the horde. Shooting out from her fist came another projectile, this time one that possessed a strong gravitational attraction.

By the time it had reached the first of her enemies and started carving a path through them, she had already punched out with her other arm and shot another such attack.

As she did this, Jennia dropped from the skies and onto the first mass of gathered beings that these attacks had left behind. While most of these had survived being dragged there, she fully intended to rectify this.

Holding out her hand, she materialized a fiery red circle below them. With just a moment delay this circle erupted into a pillar of fire that consumed its targets.

Looking towards Alicia with a grin, Jennia watched as one of the stones that orbited her shot out and struck a large, centipede-like monster that managed to resist her spell. Replying by mirroring her grin, Alicia barely paid attention as she crushed the monster’s body with a wave of her hand.

“Then get ready to receive them.” Alicia said.

A moment later the undead and monsters that were helplessly hovering about two hundred meters above her were all pulled towards a single spot. As soon as a good number of them were bunched up there Alicia catapulted them all towards Jennia.

Before they even flew across half the distance towards her, Jennia had pointed her arm toward them. With a slight twisting motion of her wrist, the air around them picked up speed and not even a second later they were trapped in a rotating cage of compressed air in the form of blades.

Each blade had enough force to tear through flesh, quickly reducing the number of zombies and monsters to nearly nothing. The skeletons were a bit harder, especially the one death knight among them. Though each strike would carve small slashes into their bones, only when multiple ones struck near each other would these cause any lasting damage.

Despite this, Jennia didn’t bother with them beyond keeping up her spell, trusting it to slowly whittle them down. Instead, she followed Alicia’s newly launched projectiles, waiting until they expanded their energy before mercilessly attacking the enemies they dragged together.

Engulfing one after another in an explosion of fire, Jennia was surprised when one of her attacks was intercepted. Before she could turn back towards it and find out what caused this, her instincts screamed at her in alarm.

Switching from the explosive bolt she was about to shoot, she instead conjured a massive wall of stone in a half-circle around her.

Not even a second later she heard and felt something impacting it and causing the wall to shake.

Responding by breaking the wall into small spikes that hovered in place and threatened to launch as soon as she commanded, Jennia looked at her attacker. But instead of finding him, she saw a greenish cloud obstructing her view.

“That fucker.” She cursed, realizing that she made a mistake.

Reacting almost instantly, Jennia drew on her wind magic to form a hurricane around her. Flying up and away from it at the same time, she watched as the poisonous gas was caught and trapped by the strong winds.

Finally having an unobstructed view of her opponent, she was just about to strike back when a flash of light impacted the skeleton mage.

Shielding her eyes from Allaire's attack, Jennia regained her sight right as the former's fist landed on the mage. Or rather her aura avatar's fist, as Allaire was currently hued in a roughly five meter tall energy construct of herself.

“So that was what you meant with new tricks.” Darganth commented in an amused tone.

Looking over at him, Jennia saw him landing in the midst of what she could only assume to be the enemy elites. With three death knights, a ghoul, and two powerful monsters they would normally be a force to be reckoned with.

But against Darganth this powerful group only seemed pitiful.

Before they had even managed to react to his presence, he had already sent two streams of fire toward two of the death knights and started closing the gap. Shortly before reaching them, the flames erupting from his hands suddenly started behaving strangely, and soon the flamethrower-like attack was replaced with two burning swords in his hands.

Decapitating one of the two death knights with a single swing of the sword in his right, Darganth ducked as the other knight spun around and swung his sword against him. Before said death knight could recover, Darganth's other sword seared through his leg and brought him fully to the ground.

Standing up and looking towards the remaining four challengingly, he plunged his swords into the skeleton's head.

Seeing the spells he had used, Jennia's mouth morphed into a pout.

“Did you find some treasures or how come both of you advanced in just a short few weeks?” She asked jokingly.

“Maybe we just didn't dally as much?” Allaire answered her with a grin.

Noticing Darganth's lips slightly arching up in a grin when he heard this, Jennia flicked her hand in the direction of one of the two monsters. Instantly it was devoured by a tear in space, making Darganth chuckle at her response.

Before they could continue their little banter, the three remaining elites had shook themselves out of their shock and started rushing towards him.

The first to reach him was the other monster, its nearly fifteen meter long crocodile body allowing it to reach rather substantial speeds. Opening its mouth, the two jaws split further down the middle and revealed the rows of small teeth that covered the entire maw's inside.

Jumping back before it could get a hold of him, Darganth was surprised when its tongue shot out and towards him. Crossing the nearly ten meters he had jumped back extremely quickly, the monster tried to get a hold of him with the appendages backward bent spikes.

And despite theoretically being able to dodge this attempt, Daranth stood still with a bored look on his face.

When the monster started retracting its tongue, the spikes along struck Darganth from behind and tried to dig into his flesh. But instead of this, they only managed to rip apart parts of his clothes before suddenly getting stuck.

Calmly grabbing a hold of the monster's tongue, Darganth had a sadistic smile on his lips as his hands crackled with lightning right before he sent thousands of volts into the creature.

As the monster roared in pain, the zombie finally reached him. With the strength afforded to it by having been an aura soldier during its lifetime, it punched out toward Darganth.

Dodging by teleporting a few meters back, Darganth grinned as the tongue jumped back toward the monster. On its path its spikes dug into the flesh of the unsuspecting zombie, bringing it a moment of shock as it was dragged into the crocodile's maw.

Before it could realize its mistake and reopen its maw, he conjured a fireball in his left hand. Sending it flying towards the monster, it exploded upon smashing into the creature's maw, disorienting it.

At the same time, he also closed in on the last remaining death knight, jumping up before reaching him. Landing on the topmost portion of its towering shield behind which it had cowered in response to his charge, Darganth smiled as he felt his landing spot sink a few centimeters before stabilizing.

Pressing off from the shield, the force of his jump sent the death knight fully to the ground and him straight up. Conjuring up a spear as plummeted towards his enemy a moment later, Darganth drove it into the death knight's head at the same time as his landing caused the shield to crush its chest plate and large parts of its ribcage.

Twisting his spear free of the knight's skull, Darganth looked up at the enraged crocodile that was charging at him.

“Right in the head.” He whispered.

A moment later a massive arrow that seemed to be made from pure light stuck the monster from behind, pinning its head to the ground and killing it.

Looking over to Allare who was still in her aura avatar, he smiled as she lowered her bow.