15-24. Reputation Earned

The Coreway shook.

Ribbons of parti-colored lights exploded from the shield, and for a brief moment, Elijah saw what was on the other side. And he very much wished he hadn’t. The thing was composed of tentacles, thousands of rows of razor-sharp teeth, and chitinous carapace. Like someone had combined an octopus, shark, and a lobster, only taking the worst parts of each.

In that moment, Elijah felt like he was back in the abyss. But this creature wasn’t corrupted. It was just incredibly weird.

“It’s going to hold, right?” Elijah asked, glancing around.

“How should I know?” asked Alrhok. He’d encased himself in armor that looked like interlocking slabs of granite, and he carried a massive warhammer.

“Don’t look at me,” Okar muttered, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Imal remained silent, though she had summoned nine water spheres that floated a in an arc above her head. It stretched from one shoulder to the next, each comprising orb looking like they contained a swirling maelstrom.

A tentacle the size of a skyscraper descended upon the shield, and the Coreway trembled under the resulting quake. And all the while, the ekolasi plodded along.

“If I go out there to kill it, it will likely attract more foes,” Mano stated, suddenly striding beside Elijah. “And as pleasing as the slaughter would be, it would also slow us down. The exit from this dimension is not far.”

“What kind of dimension is it?” Elijah asked, trying to ignore the tentacle assault far above.

“An entire reality of water. Even that creature out there is almost exclusively liquid, though slightly denser than its surroundings,” Mano answered. “We do not belong in such places.”

Imal finally chimed in, “I feel it.”

“You would not be much of a water mage if you did not. Though do not think you can use a place such as this reality,” Mano cautioned. “If you go out there, you will die within moments. Only a transcendent from our dimension can handle such foundational dissonance.”

“But think of the gains,” she breathed.

Elijah was thinking just that. Specifically, how his body might react to such a place. If he could survive the upper atmosphere of an excised planet, then he suspected he could live through whatever pressure this water-based dimension could throw at him.

“No.”

“What?” Elijah asked, casting an innocent expression toward Mano.

“I know what you were thinking, brother. This is unlike anything you have ever experienced,” he stated. As if to punctuate the statement, the Coreway shook again. “Do not think to test yourself against it. Not until you have achieved a truesilver body, at the very least.”

“What –”

“Tier seven.”

“Oh. Not that far, then,” Elijah said, looking up at the shield. It held, but every attack from the tentacle beast sent ripples throughout the rainbow surface.

“Don’t take cultivation for granted.”

“I don’t,” Elijah assured him. However, he’d yet to find a real wall. Sure, he’d tried and failed to evolve his core a few years before, but his failure had more to do with the unsuitability of the environment than any detriment on his part. “I take it very, very seriously.”

“Good.”

After that, Elijah continued to walk alongside the caravan. He’d been forced to abandon his position atop the ekolases when the monster attacked. Partially, for his protection, but mostly because the creature couldn’t use its natural defensive skills with a rider. Even Tisk had dismounted, though she’d gone to join the caravan driver.

After all, she was still on the job, while Elijah was technically cargo-slash-guard.

Fortunately, Mano’s prediction came true when they reentered the void after twenty or so minutes. He stayed behind to ensure that the rest of the caravan made it through the gate, so Elijah was left alone with the others.

A few hours later, the last of the wagons left the water dimension behind.

For his part, Elijah decided to take Mano’s advice to heart, so he planted himself atop one of the wagons and continued his core cultivation plans. Which was why, halfway through the next day, Elijah was the first to notice something was wrong.

That sense lasted for all of three seconds before the Coreway’s shield exploded into a million shards of rainbow glass. Even as the void rushed in, Elijah was already shifting into the Shape of the World Serpent. He’d just completed his transformation when he saw their attackers.

“Vespirans!” he bellowed just as a wave of pressure washed over him. Suddenly, Elijah couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even think. He felt his insides slowly collapsing under the pressure, and panic suffused his mind.

He used Dimensional Leap, slipping into the void and emerging a quarter of a mile away. The pressure dissipated just enough for him to regain control of his body, and when he looked back, he saw a swarm of vespirans descend upon the caravan.

From the way they moved, Elijah suspected most of them were high demigods, but there were a handful that were far too fast for that designation. Deities, then. And not inexperienced ones.

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There was a singular figure that drew Elijah’s attention like a lodestone.

She hovered within the void, bigger and sleeker than all the rest. Her wings barely seemed to move, but the wasp-woman radiated enough power to temporarily stop Elijah’s heart. Only when he flared his Mantle of Authority was he capable of yanking his attention away.

Though it was unnecessary in his current shape, Elijah took a deep breath.

“Mano’lith!” the vespiran woman shouted, brandishing a pair of lightning-etched swords. Electricity echoed throughout her body and surrounded her in a sphere of the same. She made to shout once again, but no words ever escaped her mouth.

Mano had responded to her call.

He hit her with the force of a supernova. Thankfully, the void cut the shockwave down to almost nothing, but a handful of caravan cars still shattered under the explosion. Even from hundreds of yards away, Elijah’s eardrums burst, though he had no trouble seeing through the void.

His jaw dropped.

Finally, he got to see Mano’s dragon form. Distance in the void was often difficult to gauge, but Elijah suspected the battle was at least a hundred miles away. But Mano’s black dragon form still filled his entire field of vision.

Elijah shook his head, his natural regeneration healing his eardrums. A quick cast of Wild Resurgence mended his internal wounds and cleared his head enough for him to shift his focus toward the caravan.

Or rather, the ongoing battle.

Vespirans were everywhere. Not only did they outnumber the defenders, they were also unslowed by the creeping void. The shield was still partially intact, and the runes emblazoned on the road managed to keep the worst of it at bay. However, even a little bit of the void was enough to damage the unprepared.

Elijah slithered forward, his eyes flicking from one vespiran to the next. It wasn’t long before he found precisely what he was looking for.

He hit the deity-level vespiran at full speed. The wasp-man was unharmed by Elijah’s ramming attack, but that had never been the point. Elijah aimed for the crack in the shield, though the vespiran didn’t give up without a fight.

Fortunately, Elijah had Scales of Infinity on his side.

And the vespiran was a void mage.

Elijah charged through spatial rifts and void showers, his jaws clamped tightly on the vespiran. He only needed to go a few hundred feet, and at his speed, that meant less than a second. Even so, the vespiran nearly wriggled free.

Together, they burst into the void proper.

And Elijah immediately felt like he was going to burst. Or perhaps collapse. The battle between Mano and the lead vespiran continued, which only contributed to the pressure. The only saving grace was that the void was like a vacuum. It smothered the shockwaves of that battle, destroying them before they even reached Elijah and his unwilling passenger.

Mostly.

But not completely, as the void mage soon discovered.

Elijah might’ve been protected by Scales of Infinity, but the vespiran certainly was not. The remnants of the shockwaves destroyed the void mage’s shield, which laid him bare to the effects of the void. And a second later, he imploded.

It happened so quickly that it took Elijah completely by shock. He’d been prepared for a long and rigorous battle. But clearly, that wasn’t in the cards.

Once again, he shook his head and returned his attention to the Coreway below.

It looked so far away.

Elijah slithered through the void, only to see that his plan had been successful. The vespiran army’s edge was gone. The void mage had clearly used some ability to protect them, and his death had shattered that defense. Now, the draconic forces had begun to push back.

He descended upon them like a plague, having shifted into Shape of the Scourge along the way. He hit the first vespiran claw’s first, already casting Phantom Shift. His six copies echoed from his body, like shadowy reflections. Elijah’s tail lashed out, jabbing into his victim rapid-fire until he leaped into another copy and attacked a second vespiran.

At the same time, a geyser erupted nearby. It slammed into one of the deities, and with enough force to send them cartwheeling toward the rip in the Coreway’s shield. Another vespiran deflated as its blood exploded from its body.

Imal was busy.

Elijah didn’t bother watching further, as he had other things on his mind.

Like inflicting as much damage as possible.

He hit another vespiran, then kicked them into a clump of its allies that had swarmed pair of drakes. The impact didn’t do much, but that wasn’t really the point. Rather, Elijah only intended to spread Ethereal Sepsis and Spreading Blight among them.

He shifted into his human form, multi-casting four spells. Nature’s Claim on the nearby vespirans was the first. Then came Blessing of the Grove, to heal his allies. Nature’s Claim to infect nearby enemies with deadly spores. And finally, Eternal Plague.

Elijah kept all four going as he dove into the fray bearing a whirlwind of spear strikes, fungi, afflictions, and lightning. He became a walking calamity, and wherever he went, vespirans died in the most brutal ways. Some simply keeled over from Eternal Plague. Others fell when mushrooms burst from their backs in showers of gore. Still others made it through those horrifying spells only to die to a quick spear thrust. It didn’t matter if they were deities or demigods – none could stand up to his fury.

Of course, that was at least partially due to the fact that they had been counting on protection against the void, which was now gone. But it was also because the dragons’ deities were putting in plenty of work as well. Hundreds of them, affecting the battle in both subtle and more overt ways. Elements flew in every direction while weapons came to bear.

Vespirans died in droves.

But so did drakes and serpentors.

More than once, Elijah was forced to shift his casting queue to add his other heals into the mix. Bough of the World Tree really made a difference, especially when it came to more serious wounds. However, Blessing of the Grove was incredibly beneficial as well, mostly due to the cleansing effect that pulsed every few seconds. Normally, Elijah forgot that part even existed, but it was almost impossible to ignore when fighting wasp-people who relied so heavily on toxins.

Gradually, the battle wore down as more and more vespirans fell.

And then, at last, they broke. They didn’t flee into the void. Rather, they raced ahead, following the Coreway to wherever it might end. Of course, the draconic forces weren’t willing to let them, and many took off in pursuit.

Elijah stayed behind, though. There were too many wounded for him to abandon the caravan. So, he quickly got to work healing the injured alongside the other Healers. He wasn’t as strong as them when it came to pure healing, but he did have staying power. He pitched in where he could.

At the same time, others began repairs. First, to the wagons, and then to the Coreway itself. When Elijah asked about Mano, he was told that the transcendent dragon had other ways to return.

So it went until, at last, the rainbow shield shimmered back into place.

Elijah let out a sigh of relief.

The battle itself hadn’t lasted long. Maybe an hour. But in that time, hundreds of people had died. And it could have been much, much worse.

“Good job with the void mage,” came a voice from nearby. Elijah turned to see the last person he expected.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Elijah had known that Cyran es Caelwyn was part of the convoy, but he hadn’t seen him since they’d entered the Coreway. All good things had to come to an end, though.

The Caelwyn scion sighed. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“I think that’s the understatement of a lifetime.”

“Look, things are more complicated than they seem.”

“Sure. That’s what they all say. In the meantime, I’d just prefer it if I never saw you again.”

Cyran sighed, clearly disappointed. “Fine. But I still want to say that you saved a lot of lives today. Thank you.”

Then, without further speech, he turned and retreated to the back of the caravan. Elijah watched him go, seething and confused. But more than anything, he was convinced that the dragon was planning something.