Path of Dragons

Book 4: Chapter 22: Closing a Door

The night air was pleasant, playing against Elijah’s skin with the cool breath of impending autumn. Yet, he didn’t really allow himself to feel it. Instead, he focused on the city laid out before him. Even in the depths of night, there were plenty of people out and about. The city itself was lit by a thousand torches and ethereal lamps. But there were a few other fires, too. Great blazes that swept across the city, devouring everything Roman had built.

“You know it’s all doomed, don’t you?” Elijah whispered. “This whole city is going to burn, and everyone who ever pledged loyalty to you will fall.”

“I…am…humanity’s only…hope…”

It took Elijah a moment to comprehend what the man had said, but when he finally wrapped his mind around it, he barked a harsh laugh. “You?” he spat with no small degree of incredulity. “You’re barely in the top ten, and it doesn’t feel like you spent any time working on your cultivation. You’re too weak to be anyone’s hope.”

Roman tried to argue, but Elijah had no interest in hearing it. So, he squeezed Roman’s throat with a little more force, then, at last, slammed him against the ground. The force shook the balcony, and Elijah knelt atop the self-styled king. He leaned close, whispering, “You are a small, pathetic, little man who murdered his only friend for nothing. If there is a hell, that’s where you’re going. No one will ever remember you, and if they do, it will only be to curse your name. I promise you that much.”

Then, Elijah picked the man up by his neck before once again slamming him against the floor. He did it again after that. And another four times. By that point, the back of Roman’s head was a mass of blood and shattered skull, but that didn’t stop Elijah from keeping going. Again and again, he bashed Roman’s head against the ground, not even stopping when he felt the experience from the man’s death entering his body.

Over and over, he continued to batter the skull of his sister’s murderer against the ground until, at last, he was holding nothing but a handful of skin. He hadn’t just decapitated the man. He’d removed his head by way of blunt force trauma.

For a long moment, Elijah just stared ahead, and for once, his mind was blank.

He was empty.

He’d achieved his goal, but rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment, he just felt nothing. Then, suddenly, there came an onslaught of grief and anger. Frustration. Guilt. A thousand other, subtler emotions contributed to his state of mind, and before he could get ahold of himself, he had begun to weep.

He knew he was behind enemy lines, and that he should leave the area. However, in his current mindset, he couldn’t force himself to move. He’d expected to feel better about it all once he killed Roman. But he didn’t. The pain he’d felt upon hearing the news of Alyssa’s death was even stronger now.

And Elijah couldn’t take it.

He wanted to lash out, to go on a rampage that wouldn’t be sated until he’d killed everyone and everything. Or retreat to a cave in the middle of nowhere. Or return to the grove and take comfort in his family’s presence. A hundred other plans flitted through his mind, but he knew that none would help.

Only time would do that.

After a few minutes, he mechanically pushed himself to his feet and took notice of his latest notification. He’d gained another level. Not surprising, given that Roman had been in the top ten. That, plus all the others he’d killed since coming into Valoria, had been quite a boon to his levels, pushing him to seventy-nine.

One more, and he’d get a new spell.

But at the moment, he didn’t really care about that. Indeed, he found it difficult to care about anything, with all the emotions flowing through him. Still, he went about the process of collecting loot with all the efficiency he could muster. He gave Roman’s dignity no consideration, stripping him down to his underwear and shoving anything that seemed worthwhile into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel.

That included his armor as well as his sword and dagger. But there were also a couple of rings and a curious pendant that seemed to emit a decent amount of ethera. When Elijah touched it, he received a notificatiton:

Elijah stared down at the item in his hand. But it didn’t take even a moment for him to reject the offer. The last thing he wanted was to rule over a city, and even if the position did appeal to him, he certainly wouldn’t have chosen Valoria. So, without giving it any more thought, he shoved it into his satchel next to all the rest of his loot.

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Beyond that, the former Lord had nothing of consequence, so Elijah moved to the rest of the room, looking for something very specific. It wasn’t long before he found a display case featuring a half-dozen weapons. Each one had a plaque, identifying them as belonging to warriors Roman had conquered. And then, there was the one at the top. An elaborately carved spear that he recognized from Carmen’s descriptions. He didn’t need to read the plaque beneath it, but he did.

Spear of the Dragon Lancer, wielded by the hero Alyssa Hart, it said.

Elijah broke the glass door, shattering it with a single blow. Then, he threw the other weapons into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel before hefting his sister’s weapon. It was light, but then again, it had been made for someone without the benefit of his cultivation or levels. Still, he felt a connection to it, and not one based on the system. Instead, it was like looking upon the last remnant of his sister.

He stared at it, taking in each detail as he studied every inch of the spear. It was a good weapon, and he knew Alyssa had used it well. She’d tried to save people. She’d stood up for innocents. And it had gotten her killed.

Perhaps there was a lesson there, but it was one Elijah refused to learn. After all, he and Alyssa had come from the same place. They’d been raised by the same parents. And they were more alike – at least regarding morals – than they weren’t. As a result, Elijah knew that, if they had switched places, he would have made many of the same choices. Perhaps, in that case, Alyssa would have been the one avenging him.

But that wasn’t how things had worked out.

Elijah sighed, then pushed the spear into his satchel as well. It had gotten quite full, so he was glad that he’d be going home soon. Still, as he stood there in Roman’s quarters, Elijah couldn’t help but feel that he hadn’t done enough, that his vengeance had been cut short. He’d accomplished his mission, but it had just felt so unsatisfying. More of an extermination than a dispensation of justice.

Then, he remembered the fires he’d seen in the city, and it didn’t take him long to connect their presence with the people he’d set free. Maybe they had chosen to rebel against their former captors. If that was the case, then they would need help.

The thought only had to cross Elijah’s mind before he shifted into his draconid form, adopted Guise of the Unseen, then left Roman’s rooms behind. As he moved through the palace, he found that, like an anthill that had been kicked, it had erupted into activity. Guards and governmental officials raced through the halls. Some were clearly on their way into the city, but many others had begun to muster inside a large chamber.

Elijah saw his opportunity.

So, once he’d found his way to an adjacent and abandoned hall, he once again embraced Swarm, aiming it with One with Nature. Because of how the ability worked, it could easily bypass walls. That meant that Elijah could remain in relative safety while he inflicted his Swarm upon the gathered soldiers.

Biting flies flew across the chamber, delivering their afflictions unto the unsuspecting crowd, and when those flies dissipated into motes of ethera, Elijah summoned another set. And another after that. By the third, half the guards had already begun to show signs of sickness, but Eliijah refused to stop.

Indeed, he kept going until his entire store of ethera had been used. By that point, everyone inside had felt the effects of his afflictions. Of course, they’d begun to panic, as well. But they’d already grown too weak. In fact, they were already dead – they just didn’t know it yet.

Elijah focused on recovering his ethera as he watched the soldiers die. None of them managed to resist for long. They were laughably weak, and Swarm, when used properly, was incredibly powerful – so long as it had plenty of time to work. Still, it left Elijah with a bad taste in his mouth.

Killing needed to be more difficult than that.

But then again, would the result have been any different if he’d gone in there in his guardian form? No. With his attributes alone, he was all but untouchable against people like that.

Regardless, he couldn’t let that stop him from doing what was necessary. These soldiers were tools of oppression, and even though he hadn’t, until that very moment, realized that he’d committed himself to freeing the city from their clutches, he’d already chosen not to disregard their plight.

So, the moment Elijah recovered his ethera, he moved on to the next gathering point, where he repeated his actions from before. As he did, he paced himself better, letting Swarm’s afflictions work rather than rushing to pile them on as quickly as possible. It was much more efficient, and by the time they succumbed, he had only used half of his ethera.

Over the course of the rest of the night, Elijah kept going, killing thousands of people. Along the way, he gained level eighty, but he didn’t bother checking his notifications. Even though he knew he had gotten another spell, he didn’t intend to use it yet. After all, trying out a new ability without testing it extensively was a good way to get killed. Besides, what he was doing was working.

By the time morning came around, Elijah had slaughtered everyone in the palace. Some might have been relatively innocent. He couldn’t know one way or the other. However, the moment he had chosen a side, they had all become enemy combatants. And there was only one way to deal with those.

Elijah wasn’t interested in keeping his enemies alive, after all.

Once he’d finished his deadly trek through the palace, he progressed into the grounds. Along the way, he killed any guards he found, though it was much more difficult because, out in the open, he couldn’t rely entirely on Swarm. Instead, he was forced to use his bestial forms, which were just as effective, but required more effort. With his battle experience, high attributes, advanced cultivation, and powerful spells, he was never in any true danger, though.

Not unless he made some serious mistakes, which he did not.

Eventually he reached the city proper, where he had an even easier time. Troops were everywhere, arranged in groups of five. Most had the benefit of a Healer, defender, and a trio of damage-dealing classes including Sorcerers and Rangers. But so long as Elijah took out the Healers quickly, the rest went down without much difficulty.

Each of the archetypes were good at what they did. The defenders were difficult to permanently put down, the Rangers and Sorcerers could output quite a lot of damage, and the Healers could keep a group alive through all manner of attacks. Yet, they were incapable of dealing with someone like Elijah – an intelligent and superior opponent who could fill all roles at once.

The results were predictable.

And Elijah slowly made his way through the city until he was brought up short by a surprising development. He stopped in his tracks as he studied the scene, the anger and grief that had faded into the background returning tenfold.