Dragon's Bane

A burning javelin, white as phosphorus, bright as the sun, fell toward me like a shooting star. I should have been running for my life. I should have been afraid. But like a deer caught in the headlights, I just stood and watched as molten death raced toward its marked prey.

I raised my right hand to the side of my face. A moment later, a silver ethereal visor appeared over my eyes, not unlike a pair of fashionable eclipse glasses. These glasses were one of the first things I learned to make with gom magic because there was nothing worse than being blinded in the middle of a battle.

I watched as the falling javelin collided with the edge of my barrier. The missile erupted into a supernova bright enough to take away one’s sight for a lifetime and a half. The explosion should have blown out my eardrums. The shockwave ought to have shattered every bone in my body. Yet I heard nothing, not even a dull thud. I felt nothing, not so much as a tremor beneath my feet, for my shield was perfectly insulated. I had witnessed what many would only in their final moments. Yet here I still stood, safe and alive, the world perfectly still within my perfect barrier. I often wondered how my family, the Densus Knights, were wiped out when they had access to similarly powerful barriers.

I got a sense of how powerful the explosion was by the fine mist that now enveloped me like a thick soup. The explosion had atomized the lake beneath my feet. For all I knew, I was now standing on solid ground, the lake vaporized by Esther’s attack. The only problem now was that I could not see anything within the murky cloud. I raised my hands to use a gust alteration to clear the mist so I could see again, but I stopped myself. I now had concealment thanks to the mist, good concealment, in fact. Concealment Esther probably couldn’t see through.

I’m going to take advantage of this, I told myself.

I sent out a small wave of percussion magic. Essentially sonar made from a small blast of kinetic force, one of the many perks of my particular field of magic. When the signal returned, I received a large signal significantly left of where I remembered Esther being. It had to be her. I activated my Spider Boots and leaped toward the direction she had relocated to.

I emerged from the mist to spot a surprised Esther turning to face me.

“What?” she cried.

I grinned.

“Surprise!” I cried.

I prepared the first kinetic strike prepared on Kairos’s blade as I made contact with the lake. But as I dug into my heels to make a second empowered leap toward my opponent, Esther’s look of surprise dissolved into a smug smile.

Something sharp lifted my right boot about half a foot into the air, nearly dislocating my right hip. I slid my foot instinctively to the side. Beneath my foot? One of her deadly javelins, completely submerged in the lake like a sleeping leviathan. Its business end pointed directly at me like the beak of a famished cassowary.

“How-”

Boom!

This explosion launched me several dozen meters into the air. The acceleration from the explosion alone should have easily ruptured my internal organs had it not been for the kinetic-canceling properties of my ever-present barrier.

When did she have time to hide a javelin in the lake? I thought as fell back toward the ground. I landed on my feet again, the shin-shattering impact quietly absorbed by my Spider boots. I grinned. Nothing like landing on the ground without flinching to make you feel powerful. I absorbed as much magic from both the explosion and landing on the ground before the energy dissipated. This time, I was able to gather a little more than from the first javelin, my barrier was now a little over 50% full.

Keep shooting me, I thought, my heart racing.

Esther was nowhere to be seen. Mist now completely obscured the lake thanks to the second javelin exploding. I sent out a horizontal sonar signal again. This time, the signal returned empty. Concerned, I immediately sent out a second signal, this time, a multi-directional one that covered every direction around me. When the second signal came back empty-handed as well, I knew that only two things were possible. Either Esther had completely left the arena and was now hiding somewhere in the abyss among the stars. Or, as I feared, she had the ability to become immaterial. If the latter was true, I would have a very difficult time doing any real damage to her because my attacks, while quick, were very straightforward and severely limited in range. I would have time my attacks perfectly to ensure they connected. On a more worrisome note, her ability to turn intangible meant she was using power from Remnant she had yet to show me.

Just how many Remnants are you carrying? I wondered.

“You know, blinding me in a fight was Priscilla’s absolute favorite gimmick back in our academy days,” I said as I continued to send out one sonar signal after another to the misty lake around me. Nothing. “But, it’ll only buy you time if you don’t have something to break my shield.”

All of a sudden, my sonar revealed a massive disturbance around me on all sides. My barrier was now at 75% charge. She had shot me with another javelin.

Three down, I thought. Three to go.

I had enough free magic now to safely go on the offensive. I prepped and activated a gust alteration. Powerful winds chased away the dense cloud within seconds.

Then I saw it.

Hissing purple flames clung to the exterior of my shield, very much like enchanted white phosphorus, or “dragon's bane.” Though dragons were resistant to all kinds of fire, conventional and magical alike, dragon's bane burned long enough and hot enough to melt through even the toughest of scales. If I had dropped my shield prematurely, the hissing flames would likely have burned me upon contact and have continued to burn even if I had plunged myself into the lake, because, unlike normal phosphorus, enchanted white phosphorus burned just as well submerged as it did in pure oxygen. I have seen someone burned to death with this very material. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy that Esther not only had this forbidden magic in her arsenal but didn't even think twice to use it against me.

“You know in my world, using dragon’s bane against a human target is a serious war crime punishable by death,” I said.

“And in my world, dragon’s bane is sold on every street corner to use on humans and dragons alike,” Esther said in a disembodied voice.

"Oh, I know," I said, my teeth clenched. I had not forgotten that Eleanor's execution was carried out with dragon's bane for the sole reason that the flames would burn hotter when created from the vile substance. "Yet dragon's bane seems like something you would only use on those you hate with all your heart."

"Or those that are notoriously difficult to kill."

Like a wraith, Esther apparated from the mist itself, like a ghost returning to take vengeance. She raised her hand to her side. Her two remaining javelins whizzed through the air from who knows where taking their place at her side. My opponent looked a bit frazzled, perhaps frustrated that her war crime javelins didn’t kill me in a single shot as she was likely accustomed to.

"I told you not to hold back," she said. “Why do you refuse to attack me? Could it be that notions of chivalry still exist within your heart?"

"This is how I fight!" I protested. "Understand just how much power I wield. I can destroy anything within a 30-meter radius of me just by willing it be so. With my brain! Beyond 30 meters, I have a myriad of tools to take down my opponent. I could chuck a rock at you at supersonic speeds. I could walk up to you with a time dilation and stab you while you are helpless to respond. Or I could simply launch you to the other side of the island as I did before and be done with the fight entirely. Sorry about that.”

“I remember well.”

There was venom in her voice. Maybe I shouldn’t have reminded her.

“What I mean to say is that when you live with this much power, you learn to be very careful. One slip-up is all it takes for a lot of people to die, and that’s not something I ever want to live with. This is how I fight. I wait for my opponent to exhaust their ammunition. Then, I make my move. And if I’ve been counting correctly, those two javelins are the only ones you have left. If they are your strongest weapons, once they are gone, I can force a stalemate. I'm perfectly happy with that. I refuse to play your game."

Her two remaining javelins suddenly pointed toward me. They must not have liked what I said. I perfectly stood still, ready to take the attacks to my barrier. But I was confident I was going to be okay. My free magic was almost fully charged. I hadn’t expended any of my magic, really, and was still fresh. I called Esther’s bluff. She didn’t have the tools to defeat my barrier, and she knew it.

Sorry, Titus, but you won’t get to play your game today, Iris said suddenly. Esther, you can use the boa. This time.

“Boa?” I scoffed. “What, you're gonna throw a snake at me now? What’s a little serpent going to do to my shields? Hiss at me to death-wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, you don’t mean a boa like a BoA, right? Cause that’d be cheap. That wouldn’t be fair at-”

Then I saw it. A small ivory handbell with a silver handle is held in Esther's left hand. She raised the bell slowly, deliberately. Then she rang it.

The air around me began to vibrate dangerously. It was a familiar sensation, one that immediately induced fear in my gut.

Db.

And that’s when I knew I was in trouble.

Oh my, he really is afraid of bells, Gordon said with veneered sympathy.

“Shut up!” I cried. “You know exactly what that bell can do!”

The chance of being burned to death in a very painful way suddenly became an all too real possibility. I was not about to let that happen.

“It is a little dishonorable to use a Remnant as niche as this to secure victory,” Esther said, “but you are right. The javelins are my strongest weapons, they can't so much as dent your barrier. Those barriers of yours are truly is a problem.”

Esther rang the bell again.

I flinched.

The air around me shuddered with twice the intensity as before. I could see the surface of my emergency barrier vibrate like a soap bubble in a hurricane. I was near full magic. Under no circumstance should my barrier wobble. But if that bell was what I thought it was, I was about to be in a world of hurt.

Esther raised her hand in front of her. Her javelins flew high into the sky until they were no longer visible. Though I could no longer see them, I knew they were waiting out there, like a pair of falcons waiting to strike. My mind raced on how I would survive this next attack.

An idea came to mind.

Esther made a fist with her outstretched hand.

"Let's see how you fight without them."