Dragon Gods Reign

[Ilnori]

Sprinting past Toril, the seven other members of the Emerald guard also let the flexible mana tree branch spring out from their metal bracers.

Catching it once enough material for their needs had emerged, they shaped them into the desired form with merely a thought before hardening them as needed. When it was hardened, the previously flexible wood became as solid as steel, keeping it in its current form without any more input from its wielder.

As soon as this was done, the soldiers let mana flow into the branch, causing a variety of different weapons to appear one by one. These ranged from small daggers to three meter long lances, with one individual even wielding an easily ten meter long whip that retained the normal flexibility of the branch as he only barely hardened it or skipped the step entirely.

Furthermore, five of the seven didn't create just one weapon but two. Having simultaneously activated the bracers on both their forearms, they had either shaped the one in their weaker hand into a second weapon, used it to form a shield, or created something like the whip to hamper their opponents.

Thus fully armed within a second, the members of the emerald guard engaged the human unit without hesitation.

Along with them, one of the three women they had arrived with also moved across the clearing. Floating a few meters behind the soldiers, she reached out with a gravitational pull just before the two sides melee combatants collided and dragged one of the human fighters past her allies and toward her.

Having pulled back her hand in a guiding motion to aid with the spell, she paused for one moment before punching out with the same arm.

As she started throwing her punch, her fist began to rapidly grow in size. This phenomenon quickly traveled up her arm before expanding across her torso and ultimately applying to her entire body. Within fractions of a second she not only quadrupled in size, but her bones seemed to shift and grow at different rates. Due to this, her head's shape shifted to become elongated, while outgrowths formed on three spots on her back.

During this, her clothes melted into her body to reveal black scales in their place. These then rapidly expanded over the rest of her by then changed skin until she was covered in them from head to the tail that had formed from the outgrowth at the lower end of her spine.

Finally, with the complete formation of two draconic wings from the other two outgrowths a few more milliseconds later, Alicia's return to her true form ended just in time for her fist to strike the incoming aura user.

Hitting him with the full strength of her true form as well as the momentum she carried, her punch easily sent the man flying back across the clearing. Passing by the fight between the emerald guard and the rest of his unit, he struck a tree a few meters to its left.

Left disorientated after the impact, he didn't even try to dodge when Alicia's breath attack shot at him a second later.

Arriving just as he started falling over forward, the beam of concentrated gravitational force immediately slammed him back into the tree.

This initial impact sent splitters of bark flying in all directions and punched a tiny crack into the tree trunk. When the breath then kept pushing against this fracture then widened with a series of cracks as the man was pressed further into the trunk even after he started resisting.

After only a handful of short seconds, this constant pressure became too much for the tree. Snapping at the pressure point, it came falling into the path of Alicia's breath.

Unaware of this, the aura user that had previously been trapped by it tried to use the opportunity to escape his predicament. Catching a hold of a protrusion on the stump that remained from the massive tree, he managed to push himself downward and out of Alicia's breath.

Harshly landing on the ground as he dived down head first, he only partially succeeded in softening his landing by rolling. So though he managed to soften the impact, he still didn't come to a controlled stop and instead went tumbling through the thicket before sliding to a halt.

Lifting himself up with a pained groan after this landing, he looked up just in time to see the massive tree trunk being catapulted his way.

Having only slowly dropped into the path of Alicia's breath, the tree's center of gravity had mostly remained outside of its effect. As such, it hadn't initially been moved by it, leading to the tree being rotated into a nearly horizontal position as its lower end was accelerated forward while the rest of it only dropped downward.

The result of this was that the vast portion of the tree that hadn't been accelerated before then dropped into her breath practically simultaneously, causing it to come shooting at her opponent like an arrow.

Though he noticed this early enough to jump to his feet, the man recognized that it was too late to fully dodge. And with only milliseconds before the impact, he first prioritized avoiding a frontal collision with the trunk.

Throwing himself back to the ground for this, he rolled forward a few meters until he could at least rise into a kneeling position without reaching the tree that by then rapidly moved past above him.

Not dwelling on this minor success, he quickly turned his attention toward the rapidly approaching branches.

Due to the slight downward angle the tree still had, these were scraping against the ground as they rapidly approached him. This threw up massive amounts of soil and foliage, causing a dense cloud that obscured the still attached branches as well as the at times still dangerously large broken-off pieces that were heading his way.

Deciding to stand his ground despite the imposing sight heading his way, the man anchored his position relative to the ground with aura and coated his arms in flames. Not finding his own weapon, he then supplemented this with a sword construct he created with manifestation, with the flames immediately latching onto and spreading across it.

Staying hunched over as he brought this weapon in front of himself, he braced himself for the approaching danger.

Inhaling in calm, measured breaths, he initially remained completely still. Leaving smaller pieces of debris, some of which would still kill a manaless human, to harmlessly bounce off his with external aura enhanced body, he only sprung to action when the first dangerous piece came flying his way.

Stepping toward it, he swung his sword upward and cut the loose branch in two. Purposefully doing so at an imperfect angle, his slice disrupted the debris piece's momentum and caused it to erratically veer off its trajectory.

Together with him twisting his torso out of the way, this led to it only lightly grazing his shoulder as it flew past and burned up a few meters behind him.

Though by then this piece of the incoming debris was already out of the man's mind as he had to focus on the next one. Bringing his swords back around, he again slashed at it as soon as it crossed into his reach.

Shattering it into hundreds of small fragments that ignited only by proximity to his sword, he turned it into a ball of fire that burned to nothingness before it even reached him.

Stepping through the small puff of smoke that remained, he continued slashing his way through the mix of debris and branches while advancing forward.

Swinging his flaming sword in wide arcs, he remained constantly on edge as he found himself assailed by increasingly smaller yet more numerous pieces of wood. And though he minimized his movements at the expense of his room for errors in response, the man felt the pressure mounting.

Soon this forced him to start trusting in his aura's ability to secure his feet on the ground when he was too late to notice a second of debris coming at him shortly behind the one he just struck.

Turning his shoulder into the incoming object, he felt the small stone's impact throughout his entire body as it bounced off on the side of his upper arm. Despite this, he managed to continue unimpeded, barely still catching the next one with his blade.

Furthermore, as he looked ahead to find the next danger, he also caught sight of the clearing through a tiny opening between the branches. Realizing from this that he didn't have much more to go, he saw a hope to get through this.

Focusing this feeling into a surge of energy, the man continued cutting his way to safety with renewed vigor.

Dodging below an especially large branch, cutting through wood and stone, and using his shoulder to burst apart whatever reached him, he finally saw the last obstacle to escape the five most hellish seconds of his life.

Gathering his aura and sending it out as an illusionary projection of his swords over twice its size, he brought the weapon into position to his side. When he then swung it, this projection perfectly mimicked its movements and cut through the last layer of leaves and branches before vanishing again.

Bursting through this opening, the man arrived back on the clearing where Alicia was already waiting for him.

Immediately targeting the area around him with a spell that increased gravity there, she tried to immobilize him. This caused the soldier's knee to fold away under him mid-step, sending him stumbling onto one knee.

Gritting his teeth as he fought back against the weight of his own body in an attempt to quickly stand back up, the man instead slowly sank into the ground. And though he also managed to partially lift his knee off the ground, he recognized that he would be knee-deep in the soil by the time he had fully stood up.

Consequently deciding to switch tactics, his body lightened as his body tried to rise into the air when he started forming an aura avatar. Combined with his own strength, this allowed him to at least stop sinking further.

But because he nonetheless was still on the ground when the avatar manifested a moment later, the earth around exploded upward as it was pushed away by the formation of the construct's legs.

When the aura avatar finished forming around him, the effect the increased gravity had on Alicia's opponent sank noticeably. Instead, it was blocked by and mostly affected the far lighter avatar, which managed to stably stand under the same pressure thanks to the larger surface area of its feet.

Even as Alicia increased gravity around him even further, the man stayed in place and reached back with his avatar's arm. Manifesting an aura spear in its hand, he aimed at her even as she strained herself to increase gravity yet again.

Just as the man was about to launch it at her, his eyes suddenly widened as he felt a piercing pain in his chest while his aura avatar's movements ground to a halt.

Slowly lowering his head, he couldn't believe his situation even as he stared at the blade of blood that was sticking out of his chest. Blinking in disbelief even as he started coughing up blood, the man couldn't believe that the protection of his aura avatar had failed him.

As that thought filled his mind, the blood blade was drawn back. And with his aura avatar already fading as his mana no longer sustained it, he felt himself starting to plummet toward the ground before his consciousness faded.

Following the man's fall until he impacted the ground, Alicia watched his mana rapidly leave the man's body for a few moments before turning to the figure walking past him.

“I had this under control, Vika.” She said as the vampire woman walked up to her.

“You could have had it under control but you obsessively tried to capture him alive.” The latter replied.

Glaring at her subordinate in response to her accurate assessment, Alicia tried to explain herself.

“And I was about to succeed, that spear wasn't any danger to me and would've left him exhausted.”

“Maybe, but I wasn't going to risk it. If you were to suffer any serious wounds in my presence your brother would surely make it a painful experience for me as well.”

“Then couldn't you have at least only taken him out of the fight or simply blocked the attack?” Alicia said.

“Why, we've already learned everything we might need from the group the elves previously captured?”

Frowning at the reminder of how different Vika's morality is, Alicia sighed and turned to where the emerald guard was just taking their last surviving opponent captive.

“Because I wanted to. So how about you just try to follow my intentions when you already see through them?” Alicia asked.

Waiting for a moment as if in thought, Vika answered a second later.

“Stop overestimating when you can be merciful and I will. You seem perfectly capable of killing when threatened, so that arrogance seems to be the only thing sometimes keeping you from doing it even when your opponents are trying the same.”

Hearing Vika's words, Alicia sighed in resignation.

“Did my brother tell you to do this?” She asked.

“Not exactly this, but yes.”

Accepting with a nod, Alicia thought about her words for a few more seconds before making her way to the emerald guard with a new sense of determination.