Dragon Gods Reign

[High order territory]

Standing on an elevated position a few kilometers away, Darganth looked at the high order's seat of power in the distance. The central castle and the city surrounding it were sprawled out over multiple kilometers, losing out to Earth's metropolises only in the height modernity of the buildings. But strangely, even such an enormous city seemed completely empty, at least if one only looked at the streets.

Instead, all windows and doors were closed and barricaded, with carts and crates having been piled up to form crude barriers in the streets. Most of the able population was meanwhile stationed on the walls, overlooking the approaching undead army. Leading it were two vampires, a sight that struck fear in the defenders.

“I had always feared that I would one day have to defend the capital against a vampire host, but in my mind, I always stood on these walls.” Alorick joked in an attempt to lift the mood.

Letting out a light chuckle in response, Darganth nonetheless kept his focus on the horizon as he scanned it for signs of the seats. Not just did Alicia still want to exact her revenge on them, but their locations also determined multiple details of the plan that they and Alorick were following.

In the one and a half weeks since they had arrived in the base he and the rebel forces under him were using, they had received a constant flow of reports about the war's trajectory. When it had abruptly turned for the worse, Alicia had proposed the idea of using it as a way to replace the seats as the protectors of the living.

With the favor now clearly being on the side of the vampires and monsters, the spearhead of their assault already having reached the capital, stopping their advance would turn public opinion massively in their favor. If done well, not even the seats could openly act against them after it, not that they would still live at the end of this.

“Found them, still no change.” Darganth said a few minutes later.

At his words, Alorick and the handful of mages that accompanied him nodded. Taking a deep breath to calm their nerves, they turned towards the city with complicated expressions.

“Somehow it doesn't feel right to exploit this situation for our advantage.” Alorick said with a slight frown.

“Then don't, what happens after we leave isn't our concern. But the seats will die today and the invasion is currently happening, so when you get cold feet now there won't be much left to save when we return.” Darganth said.

With those words he started walking, taking only a few steps before jumping up and flying.

For a few seconds after Alorick remained frozen in place, clearly immersed in his thoughts. But considering that the vampire host marched closer to the city with each second, the other mages snapped him out of it.

“He is right, we have to do something. Both now and after this war, there is no other group that is as posed to stabilize the situation for humanity and all our allied races.” One said.

“I know. It just feels hypocritical to get into power with methods I've criticized the seats for.” Alorcik answered in a depressed tone.

“Maybe similar, but our main motive is still to save the city. I am quite sure that the second part was mostly to convince the more problematic groups among us. And we can and should step down once everything is somewhat back to normal. Or at least leave it to the public whether we should remain.” The same mage said.

“Maybe. And you're right, such talks can wait till we survive this.” Alorick said, conjuring a portal towards the rest of their forces.

Stepping through it one after another, the group prepared themselves for the upcoming battle.

 

Around the same time, the fight between the seats and the alliance of vampire lords and monsters was intensifying again. After multiple cycles of clashes and temporary retreats to recover, the gap between the two groups had only widened. And with two of their numbers having fallen at the cost of only one monster, the pressure on the remaining fighters only rose.

Thus the eight remaining seats wore ugly expressions as they stood in place under the storm cloud covered sky, mirroring the desperation they felt. The two dozen other bloodline sorcerers that aided them fared even worse, with multiple lacking the power or skill necessary to use their phoenix flames to heal the monster mana infected wounds all over their bodies.

In contrast to this, their opponents were mostly unharmed. Only those among them that failed to accurately gauge their opposite's strength couldn't fully heal within a few minutes at most, a time frame that was akin to a moment in his fight that spanned days.

This superiority was great enough that the vampire lord Lucius hadn't even needed to partake in the fighting until now. Instead, he hovered a few kilometers away, just outside the area where the combatants would move about, and watched the scenes before him with an amused smile.

Alicia, Allaire, and Jennia were watching all of this from a similar position, though they still kept themselves hidden from the fighters.

“Serves you right.” Alicia muttered when she saw Isaiah's despair.

Overhearing this, Allaire and Jennia momentarily glanced at the other.

“Yup, I can definitely see the similarities to our husband.” Jennia laughingly said after a moment and Allaire nodded with a slight smile.

“But she'll soon have to stop watching and act or the vampires will finish them off.” Allaire responded after a few seconds.

Looking up in response, Jennia saw the two groups rushing at each other anew, though even from this distance she could feel the instability in the mana flow of multiple individuals. Focusing on it, she saw that two vampires and one monster suffered from this, together with eight individuals from the high order side.

Shaking her head in response, she already dropped them from the list of potential threats. Though such instabilities can always happen in a fight, with spells impacting even just one's personal shield contributing, most powerful mana users could correct it during the fight or would need at most a second of respite in the case of especially strong instabilities.

Not managing to do so was devastating to one's ability to fight, especially as these disturbances in the mana flow would increase exponentially if not addressed, increasing the difficulty of doing so. With it would come an increase in wasted mana and a decrease in spell stability and to no insignificant amount in either case.

As Jennia was focusing on this, Darganth arrived between her and Allaire, retracting his wings as he placed his arms around both their shoulders.

“How's the situation?” He asked.

“Already three dead, with eleven going to follow soon. And I must say, neither side impressed me up until now.” Allaire said.

“Same with me. With a month or two time, I could have made either side utterly dominate the other by sharing some of my knowledge, that lacking are they.” Jennia added.

“Then let's mess them up even more.” Darganth said with a grin that was quickly mirrored by Jennia.

Having made this decision, Darganth, Jennia, and Alicia all stepped a few meters away from the others and Allaire. As soon as they had enough space for it they returned to their true form, flattening the forest around themselves and revealing their presence to at least Lucius.

“Then let us start.” Alicia said, getting nods of readiness in response.

With this, the four of them rushed out of the forest and towards the fighting. Darganth and Alicia did so by taking flight, with the latter intending to take full advantage of the lack of this capability in most of their opponents. Darganth was meanwhile doing so with the purpose of forcing Lucius into a confrontation.

Quickly flying over the fighting, Alicia made her way straight toward Isaiah with fury in her eyes while ignoring the handful of attacks that were redirected against her.

“Time to get what you deserve asshole!” She roared as she brought her claw down on him.

“Tsk, don't bother me-” Keeping most of his attention on the two vampires and one monster he had been fighting, Isaiah's eyes widened in shock as her claw punctured through the shield surrounding him.

Before he could react to this development, Alicia's momentum and weight managed to put enough force on this shield that the ground beneath him gave in. Losing his footing as the spiderweb-like cracks spread from the small crater that formed beneath him, he was forced to escape from Alicia's second strike by expelling a concentrated beam of fire from the sole of his feet.

Rolling over the ground to minimize the damage from the uncontrolled flight's abrupt landing, he barely managed to give the pure mana shield around him fire properties.

Just a fraction of a second later Alicia's breath attack impacted it, with the part of his shield where it struck becoming covered in flames. And despite using an element not well suited for defense, the shield that had cracked under only her physical strength managed to resist.

When she ended her breath attack and the flames subsided Isaiah gulped heavily as he saw the destruction the attack had caused. Between him and Alicia ran a straight path where the ground had hollowed out by her gravity breath.

“Another fucking monster.” He cursed.

“One that you created, so don't complain.” Alicia answered him with a mocking grin.

Furrowing his brows at her words, he needed a second before the realization started to dawn on him. Slowly his expression went from confusion to shock as he made the connection.

“So now you've even cast away your humanity.” He roared, annoying Alicia greatly.

Before she could retort to his words Isaiah had already started rushing towards her with a furious expression, completely forgetting the presence of his previous opponents.

Using this opportunity, one of the two vampires formed a sword made from blood in his hand and arrived next to him with a dash. Smirking victoriously as he swung his weapon, the man noticed Alicia's reaction too late.

When he did, she had already fired a short dragon's breath at him. Surprised by this, the man didn't even manage to defend himself before the beam impacted him and ripped him apart.

“He's all mine to kill.” She growled, mostly as a warning for the others.

Thanks to this momentary distraction, Isaiah managed to reach Alicia unharmed. Conjuring flames into his open right palm and forming them into a flaming lance, he sped up for the last couple dozen meters by propelling himself forward with his flames.

Sneering in response to this attempt, Alicia swung her right claw against his incoming strike. Surprisingly his weapon managed to block her attack, though the same can't be said for his fire propulsion and the force behind her attack.

Being flung back a few dozen meters, Isaiah crashed into the ground with little protection. And despite the shower of earth that was thrown up by this, Alicia could see that his personal shield didn't soften the impact by much.

And as the sight slowly cleared, the other nearby individuals could also see what Alicia had already seen through the dust. Kneeling there with his left arm bent into an unnatural position and with abrasions all over his arms, legs, and back, Isaiah had trouble getting back onto his feet.

Slowly approaching him, Alicia fired multiple weak bursts of her breath attack at him, each only hitting his shield but disrupting his balance each time. Not just that, he was also forced to use increasing amounts of mana for his shield, going over his capabilities of what he can control.

This led to his mana flow slowly becoming unstable, further increasing the mana he needed to pump into his shield. And seeing the increasingly desperate expression he made due to this, Alicia started taunting him.

“Months. I spent months running from the hunters you sent after me and now you're finally quivering before me, what a moment. And with your death, this rage burning inside me will finally subside, so at least you're good for something. But hey, rejoice, you'll be the first stone on my road to a life without worry.” She said.

Coming to a stop and looming over his keeled-over form, Alicia slowly lifted her claw. But just as she was about to bring it down on Isaiah, multiple attacks of phoenix fire flew at her, forcing her to protect herself instead.

Nonetheless forced back a few meters by their combined force, Alicia lowered her wing with which she had protected her head only to see eleven new opponents standing around Isaiah.

Frowning, she prepared for round two.