Wish upon the Stars chapter 888

The kobold wizard was staring intently at me from across the cavern. Not smug, or mocking, but focused. The lungs hanging around his neck pumped like bellows, glowing as the dragon skull manifestation became clearer. Behind him, the skull began to expand. A spine appeared, and then a pair of skeletal wings, and from the spine grew six skeletal arms.

As the thing expanded, I saw some of the other kobolds freeze, their eyes glowing with the same unearthly purple light that shone in the eyes of the skull. Slowly, they started to thin, flesh contracting and dessicating, and as they did, draconic scales and muscle began to flow over the skeleton. Ten kobolds dropped, then twenty, then a hundred. More flowed in through the cave entrance as they died, replacing their numbers, an endless tide of the damned things.

Above us all, the six armed dragon roared, the cavern shuddering from the force of its booming shout.

Glaring, I focused on the platform we were standing on. It was mine, made with Agares, and I was still in control. The platform melted away, turning to tar, and then reformed into a massive stone arm. Mountain stance flowed through it as I triggered Behemoth, and the hand whipped us back, depositing us safely out of the reach of the attacking army before whipping back towards the dragon with a brutal chop.

The monster roared, its arms swinging out, two of them intercepting mine, and the other four spearing toward us, talons extended. I heard a derisive snort, and then a pair of blood red fists manifested above us, blurring forward in a quadret of strikes. Each punch smashed into a weak spot on the dragon limbs, deflecting the force perfectly, and Abel’s followup strike aimed right at the wizard.

From behind the little lizard, another figure emerged. Another kobold, but this one was MUCH bigger. The lizard wizard was like four feet tall, and scrawny, but this thing was easily eight feet and covered in thick plate armor. It swung a colossal axe, the heads each as big as my sternum, and designed to look like spreading wings, the draconic center of the weapon wrapped around the wooden haft in a way that was both artistic and functional.

Abel flashed forward, appearing in front of the axeman, spinning off his back foot and sending his leg scything up in the tightest, most vicious roundhouse I’d ever seen. The giant fists above had faded as he manifested the condensed Ragam Blood Body, but it had been all the time needed for the others to spring into action.

Mel raised her hands, Chelsea joining her, and Callie manifested her own heretic fire. Serah and Holly joined in, adding to the mix. My sister’s yin yang diagram manifested in the air, and all five of their flames blended together into a strange, misty grey fire.

While my sister and Callie had raw power Mel didn’t, our red masked mentor had years of experience shaping and controlling flame. With the yin yang diagram combining their power, she had access to the shared strength of all three, and she put it to expert use. Her hands flew, shaping the fire into a sleek fiery sword in the air, and with a flick of her wrists, she grabbed the air in front of her and began wielding it.

The dragon roared,all six limbs whirling as it tried to counter, but it was quickly driven back by the flames cutting into it. The lizard wizard cursed, roaring in a booming voice much like the dragon’s, and more kobolds died. The dragon manifestation grew, thicker scales and plates of bone expanding its already formidable body.

Snorting, I stomped my foot, dissolving the arm I’d made with Behemoth and sending a wave of tar washing over the army of kobolds. The wizard was using them as fuel, which meant I needed to thin the herd.

I triggered Wrath, infusing the wave of tar from Agares with the destructive corrosion of the lake of fire. Hundreds of kobolds died, screaming, but about one out of every three managed to avoid it. I stomped again, and the film of burning tar condensed into a field of razor sharp needles, killing another hundred or so kobolds.

My forces were still grouped up in a circle, defenders protecting the archers, who were sniping the incoming kobold forces as well as they could. “Dayna!” I roared to the elf. “You and Whisper held Abel with the axeman. And where the hell is Bethy?”

I glanced over toward the sphere, and immediately noticed a wall of mist swirling around it. The mist was whipping and churning, and there seemed to be a specter wrapped around it, a draconic ghost. I cursed. “Someone figure out where the fucking necromancer is and KILL IT please!” I bellowed, turning to focus on the wizard.

Triggering Double Trouble, I appeared behind the magic used, my staff whirling as I struck out at his head. To my utter shock, the kobold’s staff flicked out expertly, deflecting my force as it offloaded the strike into the ground.

“Interloper,” it boomed in a surprisingly deep voice. “Today will be your day of death!”

Snorting, I launched a blurring series of probing strikes. My wings spread behind me, the strength of Sammael flooding through me. I wanted to use Limbo or something, but I’d been doing too much. I couldn’t muster another form right now. That was fine. I didn’t need to.

The wizard’s confidence started to fade as he was pushed back. His staff work was decent for a mage, but he was clearly not as experienced in single combat as I was. His deflections were clean, but his attempts to return attacks were sloppy and slow. He’d trained in defensive staff work, but he didn’t have the offensive skill to hang with me.

Screaming with outrage, the kobold leapt back, then slammed his staff into the ground. The thing was huge and bronze, with a big sweeping head ornament that looked like, you guessed it, a dragon. The thing was coiled around a sapphire the size of a fist, and as he slammed it down, the gem exploded in a cascade of purple light.

From the field of kobold corpses, shades rose. Ghosts of kobolds, screaming for release and mercy. They got none. The giant dragon manifestation’s head snapped down and it sucked them up like it was drinking milk through a straw. The wizard ginned nastily at me and then… he impaled himself on the staff.

I stared at him, not sure what the fuck had just happened. His corpse was sucked dry in seconds, and I saw his own shade sucked into the gem on the staff. The dragon on the staff shifted, coming alive as it animated, and it threw back its head and roared before taking flight, still carrying the sapphire. It flew up towards the giant six armed manifestation. As it approached, the dragon ghost thing fighting Bethy disengaged, flying towards the little statue, and dove into the gem even as the big manifestation snapped it up.

There was a pulse of energy, and the six armed dragon thing kind of…solidified. It stomped the ground with a pair of legs that hadn’t been there a second ago, looking awfully physical. Its eyes blazed blue purple, the same shade as the glowing sapphire. “INTERLOPER!” it roared. “YOUR DEATH IS PROMISED!”

“What the fuck did you DO?” Abel asked as he stepped up next to me. I glanced back to see that all the kobolds were dead. We hadn’t killed them, or at least not most of them. They’d been sucked dry by the wizard manifesting…whatever the fuck that monstrosity was.

I shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Chelsea!” I called to my sister. “I don’t suppose you can hold it with that sword?”

She shook her head. “Not a chance. At least, not the way it's going right now. The flames aren’t even getting through. I assume you’re hoping we can repurpose that into something a little more versatile?” Bethy condensed from mist nearby, looking surprisingly haggard but clutching a golden sphere rightly.

“Yup,” I said with a grimace. “Abel, Bethy, I could use your help on this.” Behemoth could create a giant avatar, but it took a LOT of energy. Using Abel’s infinite blood sea and Bethy’s domain as a structural support alleviated some of the burden. Plus with Chelsea helping, it was doable. I focused on the sea of tar, still under my control via Agares, and pulled it all together, manifesting a titanic version of myself from magmatic stone.

My sister waved her hands, her diagram spinning again, and the misty sword melted away, the grey flames flowing into the cracks in the magma giant. I whipped my staff up, triggering the growth effect, and the magma giant’s hand snapped out to wrap around the shaft. The monstrous simulacrum stepped forward, staff flashing out in an Extinction Event. 

Gabe shouted, and I felt his Adamant nature pour through us as Chelsea added him to the diagram. The sphere of black grey energy smashed into the dragon monster and then expanded, consuming the creature’s chest. It threw back its head and roared, purple energy pouring from the eyes. Hundreds of souls erupted from its snout, screaming kobolds exploding into the ether, desperate to escape.

The soul of the wizard was the last to leave, and it floated in the air, glaring down at me menacingly. “You will pay!” It boomed, then dissolved into a cloud of ashes, blowing away in nonexistent wind.

We all stared at the destroyed cavern, still in shock from all the insanity that had just taken place. “Man,” I said slowly. “Fuck this planet.”

Benny stepped up next to me. “Yeah, no shit. But hey, at least I got a soul to work with.” I turned to find him cheerfully hefting the big dragon axe, its blade glowing with a dull red light. He nodded to Abel. “Thanks for the assist, big man.”

My mentor shrugged. “No big. We lose anyone?”

I glanced around. Belsara was heading over, looking unhappy. “No deaths,” she confirmed. “But we got a LOT of wounded. The defensive fighters were solid, but they took a beating.”

“Jessie,” I called out to our healer.

She’d been talking with Alyssa, Daysia, and Celine, examining a root system they’d found. When she heard my call she headed over. “Yeah, I’m on it. We’re looking into possibly using the root systems to expand our foothold. Bypass the usual tunnels and we can avoid the enemy, maybe grab the orbs without even needing to appear in the chambers.”

I nodded. “Alyssa and Daysia can work on that. You get started on healing our people. We didn’t lose anyone this time, which is ideal, if we can get them all fixed up before we run into anything else that would be best.”

Not to mention I’d be going back into Dantalion to scout, and working with Callie. I wasn’t fighting any more fucking kobolds if I could help it. That whole battle had been a ridiculous mess. I’d underestimated the D-rank zone. I’d assumed that given our power nothing at D-rank was a threat, but it was clear that even the locals on the heirworld were legitimately dangerous even here.

Jessie headed off to start healing, and Callie joined me as we watched everyone recover from the battle. Bethy appeared next to me, tossing me the gold sphere. “Wow,” she said cheerfully. “That was crazy. I love when we do the big murder doll.”

“It’s not a doll,” I corrected her tiredly.

She nodded solemnly. “Right. Action figure.”

“What? No, that’s not what I mean-” then I just sighed. It wasn’t worth arguing about. I weighed the sphere in my palm, staring at the gold device. “Alright. Everyone take this time to rest a bit. We’ll need to move out as soon as we can. We’re going to get as many of these as we can in a straight line to the cliffs and that’s it. No going deeper. I think if we hit that kobold city even we might die down there.” What was worse, I got the feeling things were only just getting started. The succession war was already living up to the hype. I just hoped we would all manage the same.