Daraken thought his plan was foolproof. Even if Annabelle was powerful enough to wipe out his entire army, his curse would shut her down. Nothing could resist it.

But she had. At least, at first.

Daraken was hesitant to intervene. He was in the process of imbuing a massive crystal with the energy necessary for a future ritual, and if anything interrupted the process, the crystal would shatter, setting him back several weeks of finding another suitable crystal and another week of charging it. However, he could accept that delay if it meant he guaranteed the elimination of his biggest threat.

He turned himself invisible and prepared to teleport. Normally, portals took several minutes to open. However, that limitation was not a fundamental restriction of all portals, but rather a limitation in the amount of power the generators were loaded with. With a simple incantation, he instantly opened a portal into the sky over Arexia, and stepped through, closing the portal behind him. His permanent flight kicked in, and he hovered over the city to observe.

He immediately noticed streams of ultraviolet light around Annabelle, as she manifested her abilities to engage his troops on the wall. The light was not in the normal visible spectrum, but Daraken’s arcane sight allowed him to track it, as it allowed him to track the energy of several other types of spells that were invisible to the naked eye.

After she cleared out the walls, she dropped back into the courtyard, and Lorso used a wall of fire creatively to block off his Harpies. She wasn’t technically a traitor (given that he hadn’t officially revealed himself to her), but Daraken still wasn’t sure why she had an interest in Annabelle, or why her friend was tough enough to withstand being impaled by Circe and strong enough to snap her neck effortlessly.

Daraken decided to dispel Lorso’s wall covertly, as he ordered one of his apprentices to move in to engage. The combined assault from his apprentice and the Harpies would likely overwhelm them.

Then, a stream of red energy, surrounded by the ultraviolet energy of Annabelle’s psychic powers, shot into the apprentice and incapacitated him. Annabelle had found a way to harness the curse for her own ends.

Daraken analyzed the recent future, using magic to scan the future where he did nothing to intervene. In that timeline, Annabelle was overwhelmed, lost focus, and succumbed to the curse. He cancelled his analysis of the future, and in the real world, the events transpired in exactly the same manner, and Annabelle was put into Stasis. It should have been his victory.

But then, the Event occurred. While Annabelle was in stasis, she somehow managed to create a telepathic burst, and transferred all of the curse’s energy to it. In an instant, the entire city was knocked unconscious. Daraken himself only resisted it due to a combination of his distance from the burst and his automatic mental barrier.

Daraken had dropped the timeline the instant it showed victory, not even considering the potential of Annabelle doing another thing Daraken had previously deemed impossible.

Now, his entire army was incapacitated, and Annabelle and her team was unharmed. And, taking advantage of that, Annabelle sent a message to Sanctuary, calling for backup.

Daraken realized two things.

Firstly, Annabelle mentioned this as if it was a planned operation, not a desperate ploy. So, she had to have known of the curse’s existence, and of its nature. That explained why they went loud after infiltrating, despite having the potential to inflict severe damage with sabotage. Annabelle wanted him to know she was a threat and deploy his trap card.

And secondly, this was a perfect opportunity for a different trap, turning a devastating hit against his army into an opportunity to cause even further damage to the Resistance.

He took ten seconds to carefully arrange a spell that would disable Resistance communications city-wide without letting their Sanctuary realize that communications were lost.

He took ten more seconds to prepare a contingency that would hijack the incoming Resistance portal as soon as someone attempted to retreat through it, ensuring that retreat would be a death sentence.

Then, he fired a piercing bolt at Annabelle. While elemental attacks were flashy, they were an inefficient use of energy. It was far more efficient to summon a small super-durable needle and then use magic to launch it at supersonic velocities, eliminating the target before they even knew what hit them.

Somehow, Annabelle dodged it, even though she wasn’t looking up and had no way to hear the bolt until after it hit her. The impact created a small explosion in the dirt, but Annabelle was relatively unharmed. Daraken readied another bolt, but Annabelle quickly rushed into a building, and Daraken couldn’t get a clear shot.

He could have destroyed the building, but they would likely be able to flee faster than he could destroy it, and it would result in excessive collateral damage. So, he dropped down to engage them inside.

He double-checked his defenses before engaging. His physical barrier was at full strength, but his mental barrier had been corrupted and rendered useless by the curse hitting it. He discarded it and quickly threw up three more in its place. He did not want to take the chance of Annabelle beating him with one of her mental attacks.

With one of the functions of his arcane sight, he was able to track the position of living beings through walls and stealth. It was effortless to track them down and hover in through a window.

Now, how to kill them? His piercing bolts took time to charge up before launching, would give away his position, and would likely be evaded. A fire blast would fail to bring down Lorso, and she would have the chance to heal everyone back from the brink of death.

Wait. They had stopped moving. And now-

Lorso’s brute leaped at him, even though his position should still have been concealed. Daraken was caught off guard by the height of the leap, but his barrier warded off his unarmed strikes (though they did a lot more damage than he expected). He swung out with his staff, hitting the brute with the focusing crystal and triggering a kinetic burst that launched the brute back into a nearby wall, hitting hard enough to leave a small crate.

He knew Annabelle had some way to deal with invisibility, but how did she transfer the information to her ally? And why did this brute look completely unharmed after being slammed into a wall?

His mental barriers came under assault. Daraken’s first barrier began to crack, but for now it withstood the attack. The energy stream she sent out was a visible stream of purple, which also revealed his position to the other members of her team.

Darius fired a dispelling bolt from his wand. It purged his invisibility and slightly weakened his barrier, but his defenses were too strong to be beaten that easily. He fired several more blasts, but his defenses still held.

Lorso blasted him with a beam of fire. His barrier resisted the assault with no significant drain, but she persisted the assault. Maybe she was trying to burn the shield down (which would be effective eventually), or maybe she was trying to blind him with the spray (a measure that Daraken's arcane sight was specially formulated to counter).

Behind him, the brute leaped again and delivered a devastating haymaker, one that was strong enough to briefly shatter his shield. The fire beam got through, but his coat’s elemental protection meant that it did only mild cosmetic damage.

Daraken quickly readied a piercing bolt. The brute rebounded off of the shield and into the wall, but before he could jump off of the wall to hit him again, Daraken countered with lightning chains, pinning him to the wall and electrocuting him. Then, he fired the bolt, aiming center-of-mass on Lorso. Lorso took a direct hit, and her fire beam stopped.

Then, he was staggered by a devastating mental blast. Even though all three of his barriers were still up, Annabelle had managed to find a way to bypass them. He withstood the initial assault, and quickly analyzed his defenses for flaws.

I’m curious, how did you invent gunpowder? Annabelle asked.

Daraken was too focused on identifying the hole in his defenses to respond.

The last guy I asked about it killed himself. But you can't possibly have a killswitch on yourself, can you?

Daraken identified the weakness. Annabelle had managed to subvert his first barrier, and used it to bypass the other two with her attack. He discarded the subverted barrier, and reorganized his defenses so that she couldn’t do the same thing twice.

But while he was defending against that attack, Darius had enough time to free Silence from the wall with a dispel from his wand. He then made his move against Daraken. He first attempted to time a dispel shot from his wand to disrupt his shield so that a thrown knife could bypass it, but the dispel had no effect, and the knife bounced off.

Darius then chose to jump up to engage Daraken in melee. He turned around in midair, body-slammed Daraken's shield, then whipped around and slung a knife through the shield as it was disrupted by a dispelling jolt with no known source. For the first time in a decade, Daraken had been injured in battle.

But he quickly countered, shooting out a red bolt that put him to sleep instantly. Unlike the Curse of Eternal Slumber, this ‘lesser’ variant didn’t put the body in stasis. Darius, instead of controlling his fall, landed on his back, likely breaking some bones in the process. Daraken then pulled the knife out of his chest, and another contingency activated, giving him a burst of regeneration that closed the wound in a matter of seconds.

Daraken next turned to face Annabelle. She backpedaled and fired several shots from her Arcane Bolter, which had minimal effect against Daraken's shield, and sustained her mental assault, which had almost destroyed his second barrier. Daraken aimed his staff at her and fired a continuous energy beam into her. She managed to put up a telekinetic barrier to block the beam.

Daraken continued to fire his staff one-handed, while with his other hand he fired an arcing blast of black lightning over and around the shield. A magical barrier sprung up around Annabelle that blocked the lighting for a few seconds before it failed. Then, Annabelle managed to stay up even as the current arced through her body. If anything, it seemed to make her mental assault stronger, as if she was channeling the lightning through the mental connection she was using.

She only went down when her barrier was finally overwhelmed, allowing Daraken's beam to strike.

Then, Lorso’s brute slammed down on the top of his barrier, brandishing an explosive charge in his palm. The charge detonated, all of its explosive force trapped between the brute’s palm and his barrier. Somehow, against all logic and biology, his barrier broke first, and he was blasted into the ground.

He lost consciousness for a split-second. Not due to trauma, but rather due to one of his contingencies briefly putting his body state into stasis to nullify incoming damage. Maybe the brute had used a similar trick to prevent the explosion from blowing apart his hand. The next thing Daraken knew, the brute was on top of him, pounding him to death. He ate one nasty blow to the head before he blinked four meters away and back onto his feet. His regeneration caused his headache to quickly fade.

This brute called for extreme amounts of firepower to dispose of. He backpedaled away from him while unleashing simultaneous streams of fire and lightning, finishing with a piercing bolt to the torso. After the barrage was finished, he was still standing, and still pressing forward. Daraken stabbed forward with his staff, but the brute grabbed it and stepped in.

Just before he connected, Daraken teleported behind him and slammed him in the back properly, knocking him down. Then, he charged up his staff to full strength, readying a beam powerful enough to blow through several buildings. If it couldn’t kill this brute, he would have to get creative.

"Stop!" Lorso screamed. Daraken looked over, and saw that she was almost fully healed. "We surrender!"

"Surrender?" Daraken replied. "What do you have to offer?" He kept his staff charged and at the ready, but held his fire.

"I'll do anything for you." Lorso begged. "Just don't hurt him."

"Interesting proposition," Daraken replied. "But you've already betrayed me once before."

"When did I betray you?" Lorso asked, before immediately realizing the truth. "Wait, that professor at the college- that was you?"

"An associate of mine," Daraken said. "On second thought, I don't think you actually did betray me. At least not knowingly. So, how about a simple deal: you two join me as my apprentices, and aid me in accomplishing my goals, and I won't kill you."

Lorso briefly considered it. "I accept."

"You… traitor…" Annabelle managed to say. Despite her wounds, she struggled to her feet, attempting to continue the fight. Daraken was about to finish her off, but Lorso did the job for him, incinerating her with a single blast of power.

"It's too late to go back now, " Lorso said. "The Resistance is going to send the rest of their forces in through a portal."

"Yes," Daraken said. "They will be eliminated. It doesn't mean much anyways, given that their heavy hitter is now dead. The rest of their forces combined would not equal her."

Just to make sure, Daraken attempted to absorb her soul, just to ensure Annabelle could never be brought back. But when he did so, her soul resisted. It was still attached to a live body.

However she had survived, it wouldn't matter. Daraken charged up his staff to full power, ready to obliterate her until there was nothing left.

But Annabelle struck first.

**********

Annabelle had a surprising amount of resistance to electricity, partly due to recovering from prior torture utilizing electricity, and partly due to sheer mental fortitude mitigating the damage to her mind. But though Daraken couldn’t disrupt her manifestation of the barrier, he was still able to overwhelm it with brute force.

She let herself fall to avoid being finished off, and devoted her attention to Darius. Daraken hit him with a lesser sleep spell, and though the spell still had a hold on his mind, it wasn't anything like the Curse of Eternal Slumber he had used on her.

She had managed to revive Darius at about the time when Lorso set her on fire. But oddly, she didn't seem to burn. In fact, she felt... powerful.

So, I've come up with an experimental spell. I call it Inferno Blessing. For the next few minutes, the energy from that fire is going to be converted into healing and strength. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what happens after it expires.

Yeah, a risky spell and you just use it on an ally with no warning. Great idea.

It's the best I could do, on short notice. It should give you an opening for a surprise attack.

A vortex wouldn’t work here, not when the target was in close proximity to several allies. She could resist the effects of her own vortex, but it would cause excessive casualties among her allies, and might not even kill Daraken.

There was a different trick, an attack used by the Elders that was dubbed the “distortion beam”, a beam of spatial distortion capable of ripping apart molecular bonds and destroying almost anything in one hit.

She focused her energy, concentrating just as much on keeping her efforts hidden as on gathering energy. Lorso continued to stall Daraken by pretending to defect, but it wouldn't take long at all for Daraken to realize Lorso's deception.

Just as Daraken realized, Annabelle unleashed her blast. She created a core of spatial rending, the predecessor to a rending vortex, and then destabilized it as she violently launched it at Daraken.

A brilliant beam of purple energy shot out from her head, slamming straight into Daraken. The blast penetrated through any defenses Daraken had, and shredded through his left torso. His body was almost sliced in two, and spun backwards, releasing a spray of blood. He was surely dead.

Just to be sure, Annabelle used direct telekinesis on his body. There was no manipulation boundary, and he took advantage of it to mulch his organs. If he was lucky enough to have only been incapacitated by the initial blast, that would finish the job.

"So, I think the whole 'convert fire to healing' is a bit overkill," Annabelle said. She was fully healed, but was still on fire.

"I can put it out,” Lorso claimed. “I think. Give me a few minutes.”

"Your spell only lasts a few minutes. I'd rather not wait."

"I think there's an aquifer nearby," Darius interjected. "You'll be soaked, but you won't be on fire."

Out of the corner of her eye, Annabelle noticed changes in Daraken's body. He began to grow in size, his clothing and equipment began to disappear, and his skin turned into blue scales. Then, wings sprouted out of his back, his head became reptilian, and his arms and legs grew razor-sharp claws.

“Interesting,” Daraken said, his voice booming and coarse.

Daraken, now in the form of a dragon, rose up into a standing position. Even in this new form, his left side still showed some damage, scales cracked and broken, seemingly a lingering effect of the distortion beam.

Do dragons exist in this world? Annabelle asked. And how did he turn into one after I killed him?

Dragons exist, but are incredibly rare, Darius explained. As for why he turned into one after his death, I have only one explanation. A shapeshifter reverts to their true form after their body dies.

That would mean Daraken was a dragon taking the form of a human, Lorso realized. Is everything we know about his youth wrong?

Daraken inhaled, readying some sort of dragon’s breath. Annabelle interrupted him by rushing forward, drawing her sword, and delivering an incredibly powerful telekinetically amplified sword swing straight to Daraken's new head.

Daraken's head was somehow not slashed open by the impact, but instead merely knocked aside. He swung his head back around to bite at Annabelle, but she caught the head on her backswing with another telekinetic boost, smashing it aside again.

Annabelle had a surge of confidence, and rushed forwards to deliver a third strike, an uppercut that would have shattered Daraken’s jaw. But Daraken pushed himself back and out of the path of the swing with a downstroke of his wings, then used an upstroke from his wings to surge back in, delivering a devastating slash with the claws on his foreleg that sent Annabelle flying into a nearby wall, disarming her at the same time.

But despite taking a massive impact, Annabelle was practically unharmed, between her Aegis flaring up to cushion the impact and Lorso's magic healing her injuries in just a second. For all that Annabelle could complain about being lit on fire, Lorso's magic was effective.

She switched to her Arcane Bolter, readying her last dispelling bolt, and fired it straight into the damaged scales along Daraken's left side. The shot penetrated and scored a direct hit with a trickle of blood, but yet his transformation was unaffected.

Daraken immediately let off a breath attack, firing a blast of ice that Annabelle barely avoided by diving to the ground. He then followed up by lunging forward off of a wingbeat, landing directly on top of her. Razor-sharp claws punctured her chest, but her protective field exerted just enough resistance to keep anything worse from happening.

Daraken was about to bite Annabelle's head off when he was knocked down by Silence throwing a heavy piece of debris into his side. She got back on her feet as the puncture wounds quickly closed, and watched Lorso unleash a fiery beam into Daraken's body. This seemed to have no real effect other than drawing Daraken's attention, however.

His dragon form seemed almost invulnerable to conventional attack. Even though Annabelle was starting to feel severe backlash from her previous exertions, she pushed through and unleashed a second beam. This blast seemed to pass through most of the dragon's body, and despite the lack of external damage, Daraken was visibly dazed.

I think I have a way to kill this beast, Darius told the group. If I can jam a fireball wand underneath his scales, the blast will shred him on the inside. Just keep him stunned! He rushed forward, and leaped directly on top of Daraken, landing where his neck joined with his body.

Annabelle immediately launched a psychic attack to cover for Darius, Daraken’s mental barriers were still up. She hit one with an overwhelming assault and broke it, but the delay gave Daraken a chance to act.

Despite his draconic form, Daraken still proved capable of using magic. A burst of magic missiles sprung up from one of Daraken’s claws, before homing in on Darius. He took the entire barrage, somehow managed to stay up, and activated some magical effect to manifest four electrical orbs that spun around him. With Darius still mounting him, Daraken rolled over, and Darius threw himself away just before being crushed.

As soon as he was back on his feet, Daraken lunged forwards and smashed a claw into him, lacerating him and throwing him backwards. The orbs reacted by shooting into his claw, to no effect. Then, he unleashed his dragon’s breath on Darius.

Annabelle pulled him out of the way with telekinesis, just before a blast of frost could envelop him.

Daraken advanced to finish the job, but Silence slammed into Daraken with such strength that even Daraken's massive body was knocked down. Then, he delivered several powerful blows that seemed to stagger Daraken. But, then Daraken stopped taking the blows, and fought back.

Silence still held his ground, but the dragon was stronger than him, and had razor-sharp claws and teeth. Daraken almost got an edge, but then Lorso flew in and impaled Daraken in the left flank with her spear. Daraken replied by rolling over, ripping Lorso’s spear out of her grasp and disarming her. Then, he used a wingbeat to get some distance from Silence.

Annabelle cut through Daraken’s third barrier, and finally reached his mind. Now, she could end this.

You’re relying on magic to survive. Time to shut that down. She read Daraken's next move from his mind too late to counter it. A burst of invisible energy emanated out from Daraken, disrupting the entire team's magic. Lorso, her flight gone, plummeted, landing with a crack as her legs broke from the fall. At the same time, Annabelle paid for Lorso's folly, with the healing effect dissipating and leaving behind only fire.

She immediately began to stop, drop, and roll, and managed to mostly put out the fire. At the same time, the backlash from her psionic efforts began to escalate rapidly. It was a null-magic field.

You know what’s odd? Daraken told Annabelle. As a mage, I never expected to gain an advantage in combat by turning off magic.

It’s won’t be an advantage for long.

Annabelle hit Daraken’s mind with everything she had left. Now that he had no magic, he had no barriers, and it was just her mind against his. Daraken turned to crush her under his foot, but Silence also proved unaffected by the null-magic field. He leaped forward, intercepted Daraken’s claw, and pushed him back for long enough to allow Annabelle to get out of melee range.

Daraken had formidable mental resistance, on par with some of the lesser Elders. It was a tough battle, but Annabelle almost managed to get through his defenses, forcing him to drop the null-magic field and re-establish a mental barrier before Annabelle could seize control.

Annabelle persisted her assault, but she was almost out of energy. She doubted she would be able to get through.

Daraken decided to switch targets, ignoring Silence and turning his head to aim at Lorso. However, as he released a blast of frost, Lorso countered with a beam of fire. The two opposing elements clashed, creating a cloud of steam, but fire won out. The blast went straight down Daraken's throat, and managed to choke him briefly. At the same time, Silence rushed him and managed to break one of his wings.

But then, Daraken turned on Silence, grabbed him with his claws, bit down on his head, and pulled back. Somehow, Silence's head wasn't torn off outright by the immense force, but his face was still shredded. Simultaneously, Daraken's tail reached out, looped around Lorso's leg, and smashed her into the ground multiple times before throwing her into a wall with a sickening thud. Lorso was either dead or close to it, and though Silence was still standing, he was reduced to staggering around blindly. His telepathic network also collapsed from the strain.

"This is over." Daraken said, his draconic voice booming across the chamber. "I could kill you in a number of different ways. But that would be wasting an opportunity."

Annabelle fired a burst from her Arcane Bolter. Daraken completely ignored it. She managed to fire one bolt straight into his eyeball, but it bounced off of the eye (or, more precisely, the nictating membrane that protected it).

Daraken thought this was over. But he did not see Darius, who rushed over to Lorso’s body and used a healing orb on her. Lorso whispered something into Darius’ ear.

"I know you have information on the location of Sanctuary. Maybe not its exact position, but its climate, its sunrise and sunset, and the constellations in the night sky. Normally, such information is occluded, the memories disrupted as soon as one leaves it, to prevent me from obtaining that information. But with a mental resistance as formidable as yours, I suspect you’ve resisted that."

Annabelle had a flash of memory. She didn't think she had enough information for Daraken to find Sanctuary, but Daraken was far more intelligent than she was, and even narrowing the position down to a small area would be enough for him to find it.

"Now, you might still be able to resist. But, with your energy depleted, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to get through. So, give me your secrets.”

"Fuck you," Annabelle spat, as Daraken began his mental assault. But in reality, she welcomed his attack, because it would be her best chance at getting a counterattack.

Daraken had miscalculated. Annabelle’s mental defenses were slightly weakened by having her energy depleted, but only because she was also fighting off psychic backlash at the same time. Even if she couldn't take any offensive action,

She started slowly collapsing her outer defenses, but raised further barriers behind them, giving Daraken a hint of success without truly letting him get anywhere.

“I know what your friend is doing,” Daraken said. “Darius is no threat to me. He will not save you.”

Was he aware of Darius’s plan? It seemed likely that he was, and could easily finish him off if he tried it.

Another of Annabelle's outer defenses crumbled, but Annabelle still weathered the mental assault.

Daraken realized he wasn’t getting anywhere, and made an offer. “I may be willing to compromise. Give me access to your mind, and I will let you and your friends live, so long as you leave Garnoth and never return.”

Annabelle had to admit, that was a compelling offer. But then she realized the stakes.

She was only alive right now because Helios wanted her to eliminate Daraken. Once she was no longer useful to Helios, she would be at risk of obliteration. If she left and never returned, surely Helios would consider her not worth keeping around, same as if she killed Daraken here. If she managed to kill Daraken, she would be at even greater risk.

“The Resistance’s portal will be opening soon. You have one minute to open your memories to me, or I will have no choice but to finish you off before I engage them.”

Using the last of her energy, Annabelle opened a private channel with Daraken.

I fear for my safety if I am exiled, Annabelle admitted.

Daraken realized what she was talking about. Did Lorso claim that the gods could be after you?

Yes.

If he could truly intervene, why would I still be alive? Daraken asked.

The divine rules prevent action against you, but allow it against me for my nature. At least-

That’s Lorso’s theory. They’re interesting to hear about, but any factual support for them is flimsy at best.

Annabelle sent Lorso’s explanation to Daraken. Daraken dismissed it.

That smells of taking a religious belief out of context. Helios attempted to reduce the grief of families with stillborn children by claiming that the stillborn child was a psion that had to be killed for the greater good, and Lorso took that out of context to indicate that Helios had the capability to eliminate psions any time he wanted.

It is possible she is wrong, Annabelle admitted. But she may also be right. I do not know for sure. They did not know what went on inside a god’s mind. Maybe, like with the ‘god’ on Earth, Helios didn’t exist as anything other than a figurehead (though, in that case, what exactly would Daraken’s ‘ascension’ do?).

Suddenly, Darius jumped onto Daraken’s back. Annabelle cried out for him to stop, but while she wanted him to stop because he was considering taking Daraken’s deal, Darius thought she wanted him to stop because of the risk he was taking.

Daraken reared back, trying to shake Darius off. But somehow, Darius stayed on his back, and jammed a fireball wand into a small gap between scales, before unleashing all of its charge in a climactic explosion.

The resulting blast decapitated Daraken almost instantly, tearing apart his neck. Darius was thrown back by part of the shockwave, but he managed to get up afterwards, wounded but alive. Annabelle and her team had survived the fight and achieved an ultimate victory, but Annabelle knew her own future was not as certain.