As soon as Anastasia entered her office, her eyes were drawn to a large gift basket placed on her desk. ‘Why would master send me a gift basket now of all times?’ She wondered idly. Their situation had entered what could only be described as ‘the calm before the storm’ but that didn’t mean Anastasia wasn’t busy. On the contrary, it was now that her skill at diplomacy was at its most important state. That said, she hadn’t really done anything to warrant a present either. She was trying to negotiate alliances with certain other second circle communities, but had met with limited success. Most had taken a ‘wait and see’ approach for now. Then again, who else would be crazy enough to send her a gift basket aside from her master?

She sat down and was just about to start going through the other messages placed on her table. She even picked one up to go decipher. Her hands stopped when she gave the gift basket another look. ‘This is most likely going to be a pain, but it might also be important.’ Her master could be a little silly at times, but this was not the time for jokes. Whatever the gift basket was supposed to be for could be time sensitive and might require an immediate reaction. Or it might be just a joke, but it would keep bothering her until she checked.

She rose back up and walked around her table to get a better look at the gift basket. The items inside were fairly generic, though with a definite bent towards delicacies. ‘Has someone eaten half of that fruit?’ Anastasia looked incredulously at a red and blue fruit that seemed to be missing a large chunk. It looked like someone had taken a bite out of it. ‘Did master truly send me a half-eaten fruit or did Janika get hungry while working?’

Janika was her secretary of sorts. In fact, Janika was one of those members of the Crimson Path who had lost her sanity due to their method of using power. Luckily Janika had been able to return to normal after some effort on Anastasia’s part, but she no longer took part in battles despite her strength. She feared losing herself again and not being able to come back this time. Warriors like her were the reason why the Crimson Path was so eager to gain access to certain elemental rifts, but Janika had pushed the treatments off, electing to stick to her role as Anastasia’s secretary instead. That made Anastasia both glad and sad, as Janika was a very competent helper, but she had also been a great warrior. Some warriors never recovered from the mental wounds they suffered.

Anastasia picked up the card that came with the gift basket. It was decorated with gold filigree and had a large letter D on it. The contents were not showing as it was folded. As Anastasia opened the card and read the contents, the half confused smile on her face vanished. There were only two lines inside. “Xinglong is dead. 100% personal confirmation.” There was no signature, but Anastasia focused on the large D in the front again.

“Janika!” She called loudly. Her secretary popped her head through the doorway. “Where did this basket come from? Did you question the sword who brought it?” Anastasia was certain that Janika would not allow anything in her office if it was not brought by one of the warriors they knew well.

“It was brought in by one of our agents in the fifth circle. Apparently, it was dropped off by a handsome and powerful Alpyran man.” Janika replied, unasked questions clear on her face.

“Have the agent brought to me. Also, send a word to our agents. Code: Serpent.” Anastasia said firmly, her voice bringing a surprised look from Janika who didn’t argue and went on to complete her orders.

As their offices were close enough to each other, Anastasia could freely contact her master without risking being overheard. A cranky voice answered her. “What?” Her master had been on edge for a long while now. This anticipation filled waiting was not her master’s strong suit. Patience was most certainly not one of her virtues.

Anastasia replied succinctly. “Code: Serpent.” That was one of the prearranged codes they had set up a long time ago. In this case it meant general recall of all Crimson Path personnel in the event that the news of Xinglong’s death was not yet widespread. Everyone should retreat with haste but without drawing too much attention. Anyone observant would notice all of them withdrawing, but might not realize the significance right away.

“Are you certain?” Her master asked, her voice suddenly eager.

“Reasonably. I heard the news from a source I have no reason to distrust and they claim to have verified the news personally.” She would have to explain further, but this sufficed for a moment.

Her master went quiet for a while, and Anastasia knew it was in order to relay a message to the whole community. She was not disappointed as a blood red rune suddenly appeared in front of her. “Attention all members of Crimson Path. This is Code: Serpent. Everyone not at the headquarters within a day will be punished, everyone not here in two days will face personal training from the leader and everyone not here in three days will be considered a traitor.” The voice belonged to her master’s aide.

One of the advantages of all of them using the same type of abilities was the ease of reaching them in case of emergencies. Of course, only four members in the entire community had the suitable skills to pass such messages to everyone while still keeping the contents a secret, but it worked in situations like this. Anastasia gave a small shudder. She might prefer being considered a traitor than get any more personal training from her master. She knew everyone felt the same, and part of the respect she had garnered was because she had personally survived years of such training. Most of those that had experienced the same were not as fortunate.

“Now, details please.” Her master’s voice suddenly contacted her again personally.

“A friend of ours sent us a message. The one blessed by Eternity to be exact.” Anastasia replied succinctly.

“Can you ask her for details? I want to know how she got this information. You mentioned she verified this personally? How? You can’t just walk up to the Living Mountain for a visit.” Her master asked eagerly.

“I can’t ask her questions because I haven’t been in contact with her directly. She probably knew we had questions and didn’t want to answer them. So she sent me a message in a way that only I would put the clues together.” Anastasia explained.

“How? Not to be rude, but there’s plenty of smart people in our community. If you can put things together, then…” Her master was not looking down on her, she was just curious.

“She sent me a gift basket with a card inside. The card was only signed with the letter D. It’s not even the first letter of her name, just that her nickname is Dee. To top things off, it was her old master in the Radiant Sun that delivered the basket to one of my agents.” Anastasia explained with resignation. It was clear that Dee wasn’t too happy at the prospect of being questioned.

“I knew the gift baskets were a good idea. Didn’t I tell you? Maybe now you’ll listen to your master’s brilliance in the future.” Her master sounded incredibly smug.

Anastasia almost wished she had lied about the message. She’d hear about this for centuries, and it was virtually certain her master would bring along a gift basket to the next diplomatic meeting, thinking of it as a secret weapon. “Gods dammit, Dee.” She cursed under her breath.

------

“This does not look like a good place for us to fight.” Dee commented as they entered a small domed stone room. The outside of the place had looked rather bleak, almost like a cellar. Inside, the ceiling seemed to be almost transparent and showing the night sky through the stone. Couple of problems with that though. It was still daylight outside, and that damn sure wasn’t the night sky of Pantheon. The room was also way too small for any fighting, with a small group of chairs placed in the center, with several more surrounding them.

“It’s at the same time the best place and the worst place.” The old man commented. Razark already walked to one of the side chairs and waved the Valkyries to follow, leaving the central chairs open to the two. He clearly knew what was happening. “I get the feeling the two of us fighting would destroy my mountain…”

“Volcano…” Dee interjected. She looked at the Valkyries taking seats around the middle. Why was the old man suddenly training a group of people that had at least some hostile intentions towards her? Or at least one of them did. The one with the halberd and a banner looked at her like she was the epitome of evil. The others seemed more interested in fighting a worthy foe actually, and Dee could respect that. She’d have to deal with the crazy one eventually though.

“….my mountain, and a large chunk of the wilderness to boot. We’d also likely draw in every powerful beast within range and we don’t need such interruptions.” The old man said stubbornly.

“I have a mountain, you have a volcano. That’s just how it is, so deal with it.” Dee commented with a shrug of her shoulders. “Anyway, I don’t see how this tiny place solves the problem.”

“Since when do you have a mountain?” The old man asked curiously, then shook his head. “Not the point. This room brings us to our dreams where we can fight freely without actually killing each other or destroying the surroundings.”

“Didn’t Mazatl use an ability like this once? Sounds familiar.” Dee said mostly to herself, remembering a similar incident.

“Who? I have no way of knowing if you’ve tried something similar. Anyway, she isn’t here now is she? Hence we’ll have to use this thingy. Don’t worry, you’ll have all of your abilities in the dream, even those you are unaware of. I had an immortal mage help me build this thing. Just sit down and let the magic do its thing.” The old man plunked down on one of the central chairs.

By now Dee had managed to read enough of the magic here to understand that the chairs on the sides were for observers. She sat down and immediately felt drowsiness fill her mind. She felt that she could struggle against it, but that would be against what they were trying to accomplish so she let herself fall asleep. She opened her eyes to find herself in a large meadow surrounded by mountains on all sides. ‘It might be more accurate to call this place a valley then.’ She thought idly. The old man was standing close-by and the others seemed to be just faint traces in the air, like very weak ghosts.

The old man was twirling his hand around to limber it up a bit. “Here we can fight without worry. We could set the terrain as we wish, but this seemed to be the fairest for now. I know you like to fly around while I like to be close to the ground. This way we can both deal with things.” He then made a ‘come hither’ gesture. “Ready when you are.”

Dee narrowed her eyes as she saw the skin of the old man changing. It seemed to take on a silvery metallic color. Here and there one could see veins seemingly made of bright blue power. His size was also changing, as he seemed to be growing in size. He was already almost a dozen mel tall and seemed to be growing further. Dee could sense the presence of the old man’s soul space and totem, although its nature eluded her. Clearly he was not planning on taking it easy.

“I see, so this is how we're going to play it.” Dee said, and suddenly shot into the air. She had expected a brawl like they used to have, but apparently the old man had something else in mind. Her form also changed as she took the serpentine form of a dragon. Dee didn’t really get to test out her dragon form earlier, and even the breath she had used to kill Xinglong had been a special occurrence. It had been the easiest way to direct her flames back then, nothing else. Now was time for real business.

Dragons were mainly known for a few specific things, no matter if they were the serpentine type that she now was or the normal chromatic and metallic types. They were known for their large bodies and magic resistance, they were known for their sharp claws and impenetrable scales, and most importantly they were known for their breaths. Unlike the more powerful bodies of the chromatic and metallic dragons, the serpentine dragons focused more on their breath, and Dee was about to fully unleash the power that made her kind famous.

She drew her head back while flying in the air and a large orb of power seemed to be gathering in her mouth. Her head lunged forward, towards the large form of the old man, and a dark stream of annihilation went straight forwards. The breath of each dragon was slightly different, and Dee’s breath was affected both by the dark power of an abyssal and just a hint of the black flames she recognized as her own. It was also further affected by the power of death and suppression thanks to her Domain and totem.

The black stream annihilated anything it hit. The ground looked like it had gone through a bombardment of meteors by a thousand high-level mages over several weeks, getting lowered by almost a hundred mel straight down. Some places were simply turned into dark glassy substance. Several mountains seemed to simply vanish as Dee swung the beam of destruction around. As the stream of power came to an end, Dee gave a small hiccup. “Well, that should be useful if I ever have to fight an army I suppose.” She mused to herself. It was a bit harder to control than she thought. ‘Oh well, the first time is always a bit tricky.’

Her musings were interrupted as several streams of lightning energy lanced towards her. She nimbly flashed around, dodging the streams of extremely fast and deadly power while making it look effortless. It was good that she did because those lances of power had been thicker than she was long. Luckily her speed and the speed granted by Lumen’s blessing had risen greatly. Even something as fast as lightning would have trouble hitting her from a distance like this. Partly it was also because she could read the path of the attacks and was already moving away before the attack even fully materialized.

She looked towards the source of the attacks. The old man had grown roughly to a size of three hundred mel. His body had clearly taken some damage from the dragon breath, as his body was missing large chunks. That said, it was recovering quickly. Dee could see power flowing from the ground into the large metallic looking form. “Body of a Titan indeed.” Dee mumbled. Razark had mentioned something like that when talking about the old man’s totem.

Titans were beings who had a strong connection to certain elements, namely earth and lightning. She had heard that one of the top ten communities in Day city was made up of Titans, and their Cloud Temple was located on the highest mountain on the planet. The mountain was perpetually surrounded by deadly storm clouds. Storms and lightning followed their command and the earth provided them with life. Immortals were already hard to kill, but it seemed the old man was being provided constant healing, power, and vitality as long as he was connected to the ground.

What confused her was that the old man had not used this form while they were assaulting the Tree of Life. This would have truly made the battle almost trivial. “So there’s a reason he can’t show this form around. Maybe the Titans of the Cloud Temple would be less than happy to see it? A half-breed perhaps?” Dee mused while dodging additional lightning.

A quick search through the information Xinglong had left her gave a confirmation of a kind. For Titans, becoming stronger meant becoming more like their progenitor instead of making distinct totems of their own. A half-breed becoming more like their progenitor would likely be a travesty for the Titans. He had hidden any traces of the Titan heritage very deep as even Dee had not seen a hint of it in his body before now. Maybe by forcing it to become part of his totem?

Dee allowed her Domain to extend over the entire area. The large form of the old man seemed to sway a little, and the skin seemed to be taking a sort of rusty tone in places. Dee could feel the life draining away from the large being, but also being replenished by the earth just as quickly. That had not been the point though. Suddenly the metallic halo appeared behind her large dragon head and the dark pearls also appeared out of thin air. With a thought, the small objects seemed to entwine together into a single larger object and Dee pushed the object into crashing towards the Titan.

The Titan seemed to have expected the attack as he swung his large hand to meet the dark object. A huge explosion radiated out from the impact, but the dark object was more powerful. The metallic looking hand also seemed to not have what it took to withstand the blow as it was heavily damaged. That had been the point of the Domain. Dee knew the metallic being had great defensive power, and she had hoped her Domain would diminish it. It had, to an extent. On the other hand, the Titan had also reached his goal. Even if he had not been able to block the descending object, he had managed to divert its path. Dee had put so much power behind the object that it was impossible to change directions at this point and it crashed into the ground, creating another shockwave.

A pair of large psionic blades the size of the Titan suddenly appeared and fell towards him. The Titan created a weapon of his own from pure lightning with his unharmed hand and swiped at the psionic blades. The two psionic blades were not made to take damage and exploded on impact with the lightning blade. It could be debated whether that was better than simply taking an attack from the large blades, as Dee had packed the two blades full of psionic energy that exploded forth as it was released from inside the blades. The form of the titan was reduced greatly as the explosion ate away at it.

Dee looked on as the titan seemed to be missing both his arms and shoulders. He also seemed to be missing half of his head, though that didn’t seem to bother him overly much. There was no actual physical brain in that head. The body of the Titan seemed to be made entirely of metal. Dee made a small ‘tsk’ sound with her tongue, though small was a relative term with her current size. This might be more difficult than she thought.

Against other opponents, she would simply go to her normal form and try to pummel them to death while raining down psionic might, but here that seemed to be a plan doomed to failure. Even with her strength, it would be kind of silly to fight something so much larger than her with her normal form. It might work against something living as she could strike at critical spots and the large enemy would not be able to catch her. The problem was, this enemy didn’t seem to have critical spots, and stabbing him with a sword was like stabbing a giant with a toothpick. A giant made of metal that regenerated rapidly, and a very dangerous toothpick, but still. She would have to find another way.

The old man was not satisfied with being a punching bag either. All this time storm clouds had been gathering in the sky, and now they bore their deadly fruit. Dee could feel the power gathering both inside the old man and in the clouds above. She realized the situation was rather bad. The old man knew that Dee was capable of dodging attacks. How did he decide to solve the problem? Leave no room to dodge to. Suddenly the area was filled with lightning. Hundreds of thousands of lightning bolts lanced down from the skies at the same time, creating a solid wall of power crashing down.

Just before the lightning struck Dee turned into her kitsune form and had Croestia boost her lightning resistance fully. She had no idea how resistant her new dragon form was to the lightning at the moment, so better go with something she was familiar with. One of her tails also turned sparkly blue. Then the wave of lightning struck. Dee wrapped herself in the angelic wings, hoping they would add to the protection. As the first bolts hit her, the rest of the lightning started to converge on her and she was bombarded constantly. The force of the lightning forced her to crash into the ground.

Eventually the bombardment subsided. The old man was not affected by the lightning as he was in the form of a Titan after all. On the other hand, he was unable to absorb the power of the earth while channeling all that power, so his earlier wounds had not really healed all that much yet. “Get up dummy disciple. I would know if that had been enough to defeat you. That’s how the dream works. It would end once one of us is defeated.”

“That was not very nice.” Dee grumbled as she got out from the hole the lightning had pushed her in. Most likely the hole had actually formed before when she was attacking and the lightning had made it bigger. Her form was charred and her black wing was severely damaged. The parts of her body that had been covered by the black wing were much more damaged as well. The lavender wing and the parts it had covered seemed to be doing fine though. Her body was recovering quickly, so the damage done was limited. The old man was not the only one able to quickly heal any damage done. She’d had great regeneration before becoming immortal and it had only improved since.

“Dammit, you really are hard to kill.” The old man cursed as he saw the blue tail and knew Dee had managed to resist much of the damage. Still, he had assumed he would be able to overpower her resistance, and to an extent he had. She was just much tougher in general than he had assumed. Her Domain granted a lot of defensive power.

Dee looked at the recovering Titan. She had some ideas on how to deal with the large being. The most obvious was her dark flames. She doubted the Titan would be able to recover from damaged caused by those flames. On the other hand, she wasn’t entirely sure if this dream spell would be able to keep him alive either. She didn’t want the victory bad enough to risk killing him. Another idea was to make sure the Titan no longer touched the ground. That might be manageable with her telekinesis. Barely. However, she decided to try a third option that had been a pure theory so far.

Suddenly the old man felt that the feeling of death and oppression got a lot heavier. He could feel the ground beneath him changing and he could faintly see the outline of an unfinished pyramid in the distance. Suddenly he felt deathly ill. He looked in horror as the energy he drained from the ground was filled with the element of death instead of the healing power of earth.

“How does that taste?” Dee asked with a smug voice. She had not been sure if she could bring her Domain this much into the real world, but Xinglong’s information had suggested it was possible in theory at least. “Try taking power from that ground.” She laughed.

The Titan fell to his knees as if suffocating. As a coup de grâce, Dee channeled the death energy in her Domain and totem into a more focused attack. An eerie skeletal hand burning with sickly-green flames reached towards the Titan and seemed to remove something from the inside without being hindered by the tough and metallic looking body. Dee knew this to be the old man’s soul and immediately let go in order to avoid damaging it. She was still not sure how the dream spell would react to such things, but she was worried for nothing. As soon as the dream recognized the old man as dead, the surroundings seemed to shatter like a broken glass and Dee found herself back sitting on the chair in the weird room.

“Well done.” Razark cheered from the side while clapping his hands slowly in applause. The Valkyries looked rather ill, mostly because now they had a better idea who they were picking a fight with.

The old man sitting across from her looked tired but unharmed. “Well done indeed, Haydee. I suppose I can’t call you a dummy disciple anymore. That last little trick was a dirty one, but a win is a win.”

Dee hid a smile behind her hand. Good thing it ended when it did, as she had a feeling she would have run out of power long before the old man. She was not running out just yet, and would not be for a while, but she would clearly run out of power before the old man would. That was the problem. The old man was most likely not a simple rank ten immortal, so she could clearly punch above her weight so to speak. She had access to abilities that were more powerful than other new immortals, but they were also pretty power hungry. For example, she had maybe four more of those dragon breaths in her before she ran out of steam. Especially the partial materialization of her Domain at the end of the battle had taken a lot out of her, and would not be something she could do repeatedly or keep up for long. The only reason she had won was because her abilities were so stupidly powerful, but they came with a cost.

If she could find the time, maybe she should look into researching some high ranking holy spells while waiting for her reserves of power to grow. She had a lot of holy power to cover her current weakness after all, but only so many effective ways to spend that power…