Dragon Gods Reign

[Beast forest]

Faced with Neandra's question the group initially remained silent even as her mana started to press down on them and made them shake in fear.

“Fine, seems like none of you want my mercy. Then I'll have to do it another way.” She said with a scowl.

Shrinking her form even further until it reached the smallest possible one, her figure became a bit under fifteen meters from head to tail. Gliding down and landing a few meters from the group, she slowly walked toward them. With only a thought she caused the air around them to bend to her will and lift them from the ground.

Restrained by the prison of wind that they couldn't escape no matter how much they struggled, the group could only watch as Neandra's stinger came threateningly close to them.

Wyvern poison was famed for its deadliness which allowed it to threaten even stronger enemies. And considering that Neandra was stronger than them by far they knew that even the slightest scratch was practically guaranteed to be fatal for them. The only saving grace would be that it would be a quick death that would be fast enough for them to feel little of the pain.

Or at least they thought so.

“We'll see if this can change your mind.” Neandra said with a threateningly calm tone.

Piercing her stinger into the right shoulder of the reptilian beastman, she watched with a sadistic amusement as his expression fell when the quick death he expected didn't come. Struggling even fiercer for a moment, he suddenly started to howl in pain. A moment later he started twitching as it spread through his bloodstream and started dissolving his body from the inside out.

This was the most feared part of a wyvern's poison, its acidic nature. Instead of just spreading through the body and attacking it, it melted organic material into more of the liquid poison. This allowed it to become exponentially difficult to get rid of the longer it stayed in the body while also growing in potency.

A side effect of this was that the process was extremely painful as it would often follow the blood through most of the body's arteries before dealing enough damage to the heart to be fatal.

All of this also meant that wyverns would need to eat a target afflicted by their poison quickly, something they can do due to their immunity to not just their own poison but wyvern poison in general. But being able to doesn't mean that they enjoy it, it's bland taste for them making it an unpopular weapon to use when hunting.

This immunity allowed Neandra to theoretically ignore it when the man engaged in one last act of defiance, biting his tongue and spitting a mouthful of blood at her. But even though it posed no threat and she could have just ignored it, she felt insulted by the act and decided to punish him for it.

Catching the blood that already consisted of a quarter of poison, she splashed it back at him with a sadistic grin. Landing right in his eyes, the mixture slowly started eating into them. Compared to flesh and muscles that only died off quickly but took quite a while to dissolve, the softer eyes were melted down far quicker though by then the man had already met his fate.

Letting the horrifying body hover in place to intimidate the other further, Neandra again turned her attention to them.

This time they were far less steadfast in opposing her and at the first quick movement of her stinger one of the humans broke.

“I'll tell, I'll tell! Just please, don't kill me with that poison.” He shouted in terror.

“At least one of you has some sense in them. Now tell me, who dared to kill a beast and how?”

Loosening the restraints around the man, Neandra gave him some room to move. As soon as he felt this, he pointed toward another human in the group, the one who the rest of them knew little about.

“He did but I don't know how. That attack just appeared out of nowhere after he barely even moved his mana.”

“Traitor! Wha-” The bor beastman shouted in response, the string of curses he was about to hurl at the man interrupted by an explosion.

While Neandra sensed it, she only sneered and did not attempt to block it as she had already discerned that it wasn’t aimed at her. And with the line of energy trailing behind the initial projectile connecting to the human the one she had interrogated had pointed to, she got had all the confirmation she needed.

Simply lifting her wing to shield herself from the dust that the explosion threw up, she found that the explosion was stronger than expected. Still not strong enough to do any damage to her but strong enough to cause a shock-wave of mana that blew away her halfheartedly created prisons.

Barely paying attention to this, she only focused on the offending human. Lashing out with her tail, she held back as to only throw him back. But instead of impacting her target, her strike was blocked by a tree that suddenly appeared in its path.

“Interesting.” She commented on this with a chuckle.

“Where did they get you from, I’ve never seen such an ability. A rare bloodline perhaps?” She wondered.

“Otherworldly summon.” Darganth interjected, shocking the human.

His words also drew Neandra’s interest. Her eyes glowing from the multitude of sensory spells she cast on herself in an instant, she studied the man with curiosity.

“Huh?” Recoiling in confusion when she found her spell being blocked, she returned to her human form and used telekinesis to drag him to her.

Grabbing him by the face without care, she once again tried to pry open his mind with a psychic spell. This one required her to have physical contact and was far less subtle, but it was also more powerful and thus she was even more surprised when even this attempt was repelled.

“Don’t waste time, his soul still carries too much of the energies of the void. Happens sometimes, would reckon his mind will still be protected for a year or two.” Darganth said.

This snapped the man back to reality after his shock that Darganth knew of his origins.

“How do you know that, that should be a secret!” He shouted, earning him a pitying glance from Darganth.

Using the perceived moment of opportunity during Neandra’s condescending chuckle to this, the group's leader started casting a spell. Empowering it with world magic, his plan to get one or two seconds of extra power backfired completely.

As soon as Yldra noticed this attempt, she took control of some of the surrounding mana and flooded the man’s position with it. This caused his channeling to draw in far more mana than he can control, leading to the spell violently discharging in an explosion of pure mana before it could even form.

Before he could catch himself from the sudden explosion that threw not just him but also the beastman near him backward, a group of beasts arrived in a series of flashes from teleportations. This caused him to freeze mid-movement as the mana he had gathered for another spell harmlessly dissipated.

The rest of the group paused similarly, nervously looking toward the new arrivals.

“What should we do with these?” One of them asked Neandra after a moment.

“Catch them, they aided in Orielle’s death.”

Her answer instantly caused a wave of shock and sadness to wash over the beasts, shortly followed by rage. Glaring at the group, they showed their unfiltered rage over the news of one of their fellow’s death.

The first to feel this was the boar beastman when one of the women of the group dashed towards him in an instant and ran her arm through his abdomen.

“I’ve always regretted not wiping my bloodline from you beastmen, now she had to pay for it.” She snarled at him.

Before the pain from his wound even set in, the man realized the meaning of her words. With bloodshot eyes, he tried to get a hold of her only for the woman to easily slap aside his attacks.

“You’re the bitch who stained my family's ancestry, so die!” He shouted, completely ignoring the ease with which she was dealing with him.

“Then they will like what I will do to them.”

Not dodging his next swing, she caught his attack instead and instantly overwhelmed her opponent. Getting closer, she struck him hard enough that it drove all air out of his lungs before throwing him to the ground.

“And don’t worry, you’ll live till then but only till then. Can’t have the family getting separated now, can’t we?” She said with rage before knocking him unconscious with a strong kick to the head.

The others were meanwhile grouping up against the remainder of the group, their power as mythical ranks quickly suppressing their opponents.

In under a minute, the group found themselves forced to their knees before Neandra, a group of beasts out for blood standing behind them.

Holding the otherworldly with her tail that coiled around his neck, she looked down on them with scorn. For a moment her gaze paused on the human with the patterns on his skin, recognizing him to be a product of a failed enchantment of his body that was only a hairs width from becoming a monster.

“What shall we do with them?” The man that had initially teleported the group asked, his clawed hand already at the mage's throat.

“Let them live for now, I don’t want to make it too easy for them. And Kaita, you have my permission to act. Even if the beastmen emperor himself tries to stop you, you are allowed to go through with it.”

Her words caused some murmurs of unrest over the fact that they wouldn’t be able to avenge Orielle themselves but they quickly accepted it. Kaita, the woman holding down the boar beastman, was the only one to react differently.

“I am thankful for the chance.” She said with a bow, clearly happy over it.

“Now bring all but the failed experiment there away. I want to test a bit how exactly he connects to this guy’s ability.” Neandra ordered, motioning towards the otherworldler at the second part.

Turning her attention to him, she stopped halfway when she noticed that her subordinates were still present. Seeing their request in the look in their eyes, she took only a moment to decide.

“I only care whether they are alive or not, healing is easy. But discuss the matter of her descendant with Kaita, she seems to have plans for him.” Neandra said, causing a shiver to go through the humans and beastmen as they felt the bloodthirsty gazes of the beasts bearing down their necks.

Not waiting for the beasts to leave, she looked toward Darganth. Seeing in his gaze that her hunch was right, she didn’t even need to ask for him to share his insights as the look in her eyes told him.

Waiting a moment until the beasts all left, he finally said, “It’s a summoning ability, a powerful one at that. As long as it existed, he can theoretically bring a copy of it to the present.”

“So these attacks weren’t his?” Neandra asked, slightly disappointed.

“No.”

“And here I thought I could at least get some use out of him. But whose attack could be that strong.” She grumbled.

Thinking for a moment, she failed to come up with an answer to her question. Instead turning to Darganth, she decided to get more info on the ability.

“You said theoretically, can you elaborate?”

“For one, he needs to know it exists, likely even have seen it personally or at least know quite a bit. And considering the enchantments on that guy’s body mainly revolve around reducing the impact of channeling, it seems to be limited in the amount of mana it can transport without hurting the user.”

“Hehe, find out as much as you want it won’t bring her back. These attacks are filled with months of preparation, even you won’t revive her from such a power.” The man taunted.

Gnashing her teeth, Neandra grew increasingly annoyed as his words were true. She was never particularly good at death magic and would at most be able to revive mythical ranks under favorable circumstances. And stronger attacks impacting the being shortly before death or after it, as well as some specially designed spells, make the process far more difficult as the mana would be far more chaotic, completely preventing her from reviving Orielle.

Seeing that his words hit a sore spot, he continued taunting her for a few seconds until she snapped.

“Shut up or I will make you.” She practically hissed, her mana flaring up along with her rage.

“Sorry, but I won’t let it go that far.” He said with a victorious grin.

Before Neandra could understand his words, he pointed his hand toward the human with the enchanted body.

“Code: failsafe.”

As soon as these words left the man’s tongue, the enchantment on the other’s body started to glow. Within a fraction of a second his body completely dissolved into energy in a similar process as the sacrificial bombs used during the dwarven civil war.

But instead of exploding, the energy flowed into the otherworldler who started laughing as he channeled it into his ability.

Sensing what he was trying to do, Darganth tried to act but came a moment too late. By the time the man became isolated in a space-time bubble, he could already feel the space around them breaking open.

Seeing that Yldra had sensed the same thing, he just focused on Jennia and Allaire. Grabbing the two by their hips, he did his best to keep the space around them stable as he flew backward with them.

A few seconds into their escape a shock-wave erupted, centered around where they had been before. Throwing into disarray as it washed over them and threw him back, he saw Yldar barely shielding Venrie as well as Neandra being catapulted back.

A moment later he crashed into the ground, shortly followed by Jennia’s and Allaire’s groaning as they crashed down near him. Neandra had meanwhile carved a deep rift in the earth as her she crashed into the ground after being catapulted back.

Trusting in her strength, he ignored her curses as she got rid of the dirt she was now covered in and instead focused on the problem at hand.

Before them was now a massive maze of space cracks, the once flat land now separated into hundreds of smaller pieces at the fundamental level. Each of these smaller pieces of space was disjoint from the rest, none lining up with their neighbors.

Some were even completely out of place, with one piece of earth simply hovering in the air as if cut out of the ground. The edges of this piece like those of many others defied physics, the earth simply staying in position as if in an invisible mold.