Fight for your life

-- Elena’s POV, Trinity, Khax’s palace --

“Do you not want to save your king?” I asked.

“He commanded us that no matter what happened, we shouldn’t interfere,” the undead serving as Khax’s right-hand-man replied.

“Even if it means the fall of your race?”

“Are you threatening the undead?”

“No, I’m telling you that you’re going to die if you don’t help me, but really. It’s not me who you have to fear. I kill only those who are worthy of it and I told you already that I had no plans to kill you.”

“Oh, do you mean Padinyss?” it asked with newfound interest.

“Yes.”

“Indeed, he is an annoyance and even dared to take our king as some sort of hostage, but I’m still going to follow my king’s command.”

“So you plan to wait ignorantly and let Khax die. Oh, and just so you know, if we die, the other kings are going to die as well because they sure as hell won’t be able to kill Padinyss. And believe me when I say, he isn’t going to leave you alive,” I pressed on, trying to get some help.

“Well, I think we’re dead enough already,” it made a great joke at the best moment possible.

“What’s your name?” I asked with a smile.

“Why are you asking?” it tilted its head to the side.

“Because I might add you alone to the list of ‘to be murdered’.”

“That certainly doesn’t sound promising, but no is no. If our king commands otherwise, we’re going to help you. But unless you can get Khax’s command, don’t even dream of the undead army.

“What are you afraid of? Why are you not helping?”

“Afraid? Undead have no such feelings. I’m following my king to the grave, that’s the way of the undead culture. If you dislike it, you can leave or mark us as your next target. Of course, the one who attacks us is going to become our enemy,” it replied, its tone rather threatening.

Dred grabbed my waist and put me to the side. “What are you doing?” I asked, a bit confused.

“I’ll talk with him.”

“I’m not a ‘him’ and we have nothing to talk about,” it replied.

“I don’t care what your gender was before you died, but we’re going to talk,” Dred grabbed the undead and raised it into the air.

“For one, you should never threaten us. Secondly… can I have someone else to talk to?” he turned around.

“Why? I’m the second in comm-” before the undead could finish its sentence, Dred crushed its body and devoured it.

“What are you doing?! Do you want to make even the undead our enemies?” I shouted in his mind.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,” he soothed me.

“As per your king’s orders, we’re allowed to take the life of those who we deem ‘guilty’ in his kingdom. Ignorance is also a crime. The moment you do nothing even though you know you should, not just for yourself, but for everyone else as well. Once the seal is broken, a race which lives below the surface is going to appear. We’ll need the undead’s help to fight back the kobolds. So I repeat again, is there anyone sensible who I can talk to?” he asked as he sat down on the ground.

“Who is this bear?” another undead stepped forward.

“I’m Dred,” he replied as he reverted to his panther form.

“Oh, I haven’t seen that form of yours before. Although I don’t wish to overthrow our king either and I’ll gladly take any punishment later, I agree with you. I don’t think that we should leave our king be captured and then killed by the living. We’re also aware of the kobolds living below our feet since our homes are almost common,” the undead said.

“So will you help us?” I raised my brows.

“As the third in line to take command, I’m going to help you, but I can’t be sure how many undead will follow my command and how many will stay here, following Khax’s last instruction,” it replied.

I turned around and looked at the other leading figures. After taking a bit of silence, one of them nodded its head. “I’m going to join as well.“

I thought they’d step forward one by one and state their decisions, but except for one of them, everyone said things like, “I’ll follow your orders until our king’s return.”

Hmm- with so many leaders supporting us, we should have much better chances.

“Well, that’s our decision, you can count on us.”

“I apologise, but I don’t plan to leave. We need somebody to protect our home as well,” the one who stayed silent said.

“That’s fine,” I shrugged my shoulders.

“So? What are your plans?” the commander in line asked.

“Before that, won’t you tell me your name?”

“I haven’t told you because I don’t have one. Only our king can have a name and I’m usually referred to as Three since I was the third in line to take command. Now that the second died, you shall refer to me as Two,” it replied.

“Eh? What if I gave you a name or something?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t listen to it,” it replied.

“Leave it be,” Dred whispered in my mind.

“Fine. Let’s go, we have a lot to do.”

“Mhm.”

-- Audrey’s POV --

I stood on top of a tower on the outer parts of the city. The dark scars rushed through the alleyways without anyone’s notice. Everyone entered a guard’s shadow and then waited for my command.

It didn’t take long when a huge volcano which was visible even from afar raised out of the sea. At first, a smaller dragon left the courtyard of the palace and returned only a few minutes later that felt like an eternity. Padinyss walked out of his palace shortly with a black haired man standing beside him, who was none other than Shin.

“My servants! It’s time we deal with these evil creatures and free the world from their haunting powers. Rest assured, I’ll open the seal around this world and take down these creatures!” he shouted and then turned into a majestic black dragon. His arms turned thicker and longer and his hands transformed into paws. His neck grew longer while his head turned longer, forming terrifying jaws of death. I believed a single bite and I'd be a goner. The thin and axe-like tail grew longer and thicker, stopping at a length of three meters.

“Shin, can you follow me?” he asked.

“Yes, with this ring I can teleport straight there, but mind if I have a little chat with one of the captured ones?” Shin replied and pointed at Cor.

“Hmm- I don’t mind, but please keep it short.”

“You may go ahead, I’ll be there in a bit,” Shin smiled at Padinyss. The latter turned around and left behind the city in the blink of an eye.

Shin walked through the crowd of royal guards and stopped in front of Cor. The latter opened his eyes in surprise and moved his head forwards in interest. “You’re?”

“My name is Shin, but call me whatever you want,” he put his hand on Cor’s face.

“What do you plan to do?” Inhe stepped forwards to grab his lower arm.

Shin’s face twitched as he looked around, seemingly contemplating something. After nodding his head, he said, “What, of course, I’m just meeting an old friend-”

“Stop this,” Cor muttered.

“As you wish,” Shin replied and then turned around. His eyes seemed to focus on me for a moment and then he nodded his head.

“I’ll leave him in your care,” he turned towards Inhe but his eyes moved towards me while he said ‘your’.

“Alright, now go after my master, you need to break that seal,” Inhe smiled at him.

Shin slowly turned into a small dark cloud as he said, “I’m counting on you,” and disappeared.

As a sign to start, I formed a rock dome around Jake and Cor which exploded outwards. The royal guards focused on their spells to defend themselves, not realising the threat that was lurking behind them. The dark scars raised out of their shadows and slit their throats, finishing off a few of the biggest threats.

They grouped up in teams of five and stood in formations. The sight of everyone moving like one was rather impressive. I haven’t had the chance to see them work like that before in all the chaos that often engulfed the cities we attacked.

Dred’s summoned demons appeared behind the poles and broke them into two halves and then rushed back with Cor and Jake. The other teams closed in like a shield and protected them from the rain of spells that flew after them. The area flashed with all kinds of colours until a golden coloured dragon appeared in the middle of the crowd.

Inhe, you fucking bitch.

A thick bolt of lightning struck her body under my will as soon as she appeared, but she just shrugged it off. Tsk, lighting is no good against dragons and the other elements won’t do much alone either. I should use ice and dark magic to damage her, nature and earth magic to restrain her, and explosive spells to kill her.

After a quick consideration, I formed an eight coloured ball in front of Inhe. Seeing it, everyone on our side jumped back and created all kinds of elemental shields in front of them. She looked at the ball in confusion until it blew up in her face and destroyed the houses nearby. I controlled the wind to clear the dust and revealed Inhe a few meters behind her original location. She was lying on her back but stood up in a hurry.

Except for a few shallow wounds, she seemed to be fine, which was rather annoying. A few black clouds appeared in the sky and as they got closer, I realised they were soldiers of the other races. Barely a few seconds passed and then a towering, eight coloured light shot into the sky and cleared the dark grey clouds, revealing the starry sky.

While everyone else was gaping at the sight, I used the eon element. Everything disintegrated in the area until Inhe used some sort of spell and cancelled mine. This time she noticed me and was about to lunge at me when another golden coloured dragon latched onto her back and grabbed her wings.

She roared in pain as Ekrok tore off her wings and threw them to the side. I shot a huge fireball towards her in the meantime and when she was about to swing her tail to retaliate, my fireball hit the ground right in front of her. Although the fire didn’t amount to anything against her, the shockwave was strong enough to throw her into the air.

With no wings to control her movements, she was left to using wind magic. But I prepared my wind magic beforehand and made her smash into the ground with some help from gravity magic. She stood up quite easily in the pressure we trained our bodies and roared in anger.

Foolish beast, roar all you want, I couldn’t help but smile seeing one of the teams of the dark scars encircle her. Dred’s summoned demons brought Cor and Jake to me and put them on the ground. I went ahead and freed Cor from his seal and then turned towards Jake to see his wounds.

“I’m sorry,” Cor said as he stretched his body after days of hanging.

“What?”

“We were caught because of my condition,” he hung his head.

“It’s not your fault, it’s me who should have gone instead of you. It was a bad decision on Elena’s part. She too apologised to me, but I never held it against her. Go and help the others instead, you seem to be fine,” I replied.

“I am, I’ll be sure to take revenge.”

“No need, I’ll take care of that bitch myself,” this time I looked into his eyes. Nodding his head, he jumped off of the tower and ran towards the others. I looked after him for a moment and seeing that Ekrok was fighting Inhe, I felt reassured.

I gently slapped Jake’s face and poured a bit of my life force into him. Losing one or two years was no big deal since my lifespan increased by many years. Living for a few thousand years at this level was common.

He soon opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. As our eyes met, he reached towards my face with trembling hands. My lips quivered seeing his fingerless hands and all those wounds, but I knew he’d heal over time. I leaned closer to hug him and gave him a kiss. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

“I know, I don’t feel pain either… I’m just really happy to see you again,” he smiled at me.

“You two guard him even at the cost of your life, and you should use water and light magic to heal him. Can you?” I asked one of the demons. Since Dred knew they’d be of no use in their battle, he summoned the demons and commanded them to listen to all my commands. Even if they died, they could be resummoned, so I really couldn’t be bothered to worry about them.

“We all know how to use the elements, thanks to master’s knowledge,” the demon in the middle replied. He squatted down next to Jake and started to heal him.

Nodding my head, I added, “In case an opponent you can’t fight alone appears, make sure to run away with Jake.”

“Miss, pardon me for saying this, but we know how important his life is to all of you and it’s our master’s interest to keep him alive as well. Even if Miss hadn’t told us, we would have definitely done our best,” one of them said.

“Oh, okay, I’m sorry,” I nodded my head and then jumped onto the nearest and tallest house. I formed an eight coloured ball and made it grow until it had the size of a human. I shot it towards the incoming armies of the neighbouring nations and waited patiently.

The downside of the drip element was that it couldn’t be used from too far away and its movement speed was rather slow, but I formed a ball of earth in front of it to conceal the eight coloured spell. When it got close enough to the army, I felt the earth ball being destroyed and let go of the energy inside my second spell at the same time.

A similar sight as the tower of light followed after and grew to the size of the city. I was surprised to see it extending even further until it reached the edge of the city. I tried my hand a few more times, but each time I used the drip element, somebody cancelled my spell and the armies were only getting closer and closer.

After a quick thought, I decided to use supernova instead, but as soon as it was about to explode, one of their magicians countered my spell again. For fuck’s sake, how many counter magician do they have? I hate counter classes, so fucking unfair! Well, it’d be weird if I could nuke all their armies before they even reached here. I guess they came prepared…

I still have the time to finish off one more army, don’t I? I should get some help, though. Let’s finish off that bitch, I turned around and summoned the elemental spirits. They covered my whole body and created a colourful armour of light around me. Although it wouldn’t do anything against physical attacks, not many magical attacks would be able to affect me.

I took my staff out of my storage ring and ran towards Inhe. The spell forming in front of her mouth had the shape of a dragon’s head. It shot towards Cor, but he simply passed through it and punched her in the face.

Although it was a bit hard in my shiny magical armour… I snuck closer to them. But the truth was that everyone was too busy to bother with some random woman running on the rooftops which was good for me. I waited for the right moment and when Inhe was showing her back on me, I jumped off of the roof, my staff raised high.

Her instincts probably warned her as she turned around and looked at me, but it was too late for her to do anything. I smashed my staff on her head and beat her into the ground. I landed straight on her back and swung my arm in an arc to make casting easier. A blade of wind cut into her neck but wasn’t enough to behead her thanks to her magical resistance.

Ekrok used that moment to step on Inhe’s head and pin her down while I took out one of our salvages which was a plain looking dagger. I thrust it into her wound and then used wind magic to fly backwards in the air.

I formed a wall of earth in front of Cor and Ekrok and pushed them back with it and also used a wall of water to protect myself. Inhe raised her head in confusion, seeing that she was ‘let off’, but her happiness was short lived.

The dagger which had an explosive inscription on it blew up and ripped off her head on the spot. Her blood sprayed on the earth wall and the soldiers nearby, also mutilating the careless ones. I turned around and landed next to her head, a few meters away from her body. One of Padinyss’s soldiers was sitting on the ground, both his legs missing thanks to the explosion.

As I pointed between his legs, a pointy branch grew out of the ground, scaring the shit out of him. I grabbed Inhe’s huge dragon head and thrust it onto the branch, “Here, follow your leader. She’s all yours.”

He shook his head as if he didn’t even know her in his fear and tried to crawl back. Seeing that most of the royal guards were confused by Ekrok’s betrayal and Inhe’s death, I used that moment to send a wave of ice towards them. A few of them nearby were too close to react and turned into frozen statues.

My ice started to melt since they probably used fire magic, but before they could get away, Ekrok swung his tail and smashed their bodies into tiny cubes and splinters of ice. “Nice, I need some help!” I shouted and two teams of the dark scars appeared next to me in but a few seconds. Considering that they were in the middle of a battle, it was rather impressive.

“Fire all kinds of magic towards that army,” I commanded them. “Ekrok, could you protect us in the meantime?” Seeing him nod his head and deflect a huge rock with his tail, I focused my attention on my spell. When the dark scars’ spells reached the army, I’ve seen many of them being defended against while a few were simply countered, but some also managed to hit.

At the same time, I mixed fire, wind, and gravity magic to use supernova, but it was cancelled in a bit. We tried two more times when they probably ran out of cancelling abilities and I managed to finish my spell. The gravity started to pull those ‘tiny flies’ in the far towards the core, making it harder to escape. When the star grew to the size I wanted, I made it explode.

The gravity multiplied for a moment and pulled everyone in while the mini-star changed colour. A moment later the star exploded, blinding everyone with its bright light. I turned my back on the explosion and while the royal guards covered their eyes to not get blinded, I and a few of the cleverer dark scars finished them off.

We devoured most of the corpses in the capital city and sat down to digest them and take a quick rest. A few seconds later I felt somebody put his hands on my shoulders. I turned around to see who was it and saw Jake. He still had a few wounds and his hands looked a bit strange, but they were good enough to fight.

“Are you alright?”

“Well, my fingers turned out to be a bit crooked and I think one of my fingers is broken, but I can use the rest! I have no major wounds left, except for one…”

“What is it?” I frowned.

“Nothing.”

“Do you think you can start something and then stay silent?” I raised my brows.

He coughed in his hand before replying, “She got rid of my manliness, but it’s going to grow back, okay?”

I looked into his eyes and couldn’t decide if he was cute or completely retarded. He was so worried about something so silly. “Its existence is a good thing and I enjoy it, but you mean more to me than your dick, am I clear?” I whispered into his ear.

“Yes,” he hung his head.

I turned around and hugged him tightly and smiled upon feeling his warmth again. “Don’t scare me ever again, alright?” I asked.

“Mhm.”

“Stupid.”

“Mhm.”

I rubbed my snotty nose and turned around.

“M-Master, I’m terribly sorry to intrude, but what should we do?” one of the dark scars came closer and with a small stutter.

“Have I ever hurt either of you?” I asked.

“No,” he clenched his fists as if he was expecting it.

“Then why the fear? You should know us by now.”

“W-Well, but when Mas-” seeing my gaze, he corrected himself, “you’re angry, you often hit Elena, so I’m not sure what to think.”

Now I’m considering hitting you.

“Hahaha, you’ve got it now.”

Rolling my eyes, I stood up and replied, “Go and stand in formations, the undead should arrive soon. We’ve got about five million people to beat, so you’ll need your strength.” Just as I finished my sentence, I noticed the eight coloured tower of light slowly disappear.

I hope they’re alright. Well, both Cor and I are alive, so they can’t be dead.

Biting my lower lips, I used my senses in my anxiety, trying to catch signs of the undead.

“We’re here,” one of them stuck its head out of the ground, next to my foot. I did my best to hide how much it startled me and replied with a straight face, “Thanks for coming.”

“So where is our master?”

Shit, because of Jake I forgot to free him and bring out Shin.

“Cor and you, follow me.”