‘Long story short, if that Dragon is the father, we’re fucked!’ Scarlett summarized the situation for Lith.
‘I don’t get it. I’ve already met Thrud. I understand how pregnancy works now, but how could she being pregnant affect her equipment as well? The last time that I fought Thrud, it wasn’t this powerful.’ Lith asked, yet everyone was at loss for words.
They had no way to know that thanks to her experiments, Thrud had altered her bloodline for good. She had used the Madness to amplify not only Tyris’s blood, but Valeron’s as well.
Now she was akin to a direct descendant of the First Royals that had chosen to embrace their Griffon nature instead of turning into a human. The Arthan’s equipment was a perfect replica of Saefel’s and now it recognized Thrud as Valeron.
The Arthan’s set had now fully unlocked its true potential, forever replacing the will of the First King with that of Thrud thanks to half of her blood belonging to Valeron.
‘We can still aim our attacks at her belly, correct?’ Lith said, receiving only insults in reply.
‘Hey, the kid may be innocent but I’m not going to die just to be a gentleman. Most of those people were innocent as well but Thrud didn’t give a fuck about it. I say we return her the favor.’ He said.
‘Fuck my life, he’s right.’ Scarlett bit her tongue to keep her rage in check. ‘We must save Sedra. I’m not letting another child die at the hands of a madman or cruel fate!’
The trio charged forward, but only the Scorpicore and the Firstborn met Thrud in battle. Jakra stepped in, intercepting War with his own bastard blade, Dragonclaw.
“Are you insane my Queen? Three against one? Let me help!” He said.
“Three against two, actually.” Thrud caressed her belly as she needed but one hand to stop with Arthan’s Sword the Adamant blades that extended out of Scarlett’s forepaws and Vladion’s Primordial Thirst.
“The runt makes no difference, but I’ll leave it to you if that’s what you want, honey.” Her words made Jakra blush in embarrassment, but they didn’t make him any less fierce of a fighter.
“Walk away, little brother, this is no place for you.” The Emerald Dragon said while pushing Lith back thanks to the massive gap in mass between them.
Lith had a perfectly refined body, but Jakra’s real form was that of a Dragon weighing several tons with a physical prowess that not even most Awakened Beasts could compare to.
“Leave now and you have my word that no harm will come to you. My Queen is done with her project and there is no point in further bloodshed.”
“Depends. Are you the ones who killed my friend Lark and Marchioness Distar?” Lith never stopped his attacks, quite the contrary. He used his words as a diversion while he circulated fusion magic and cast spells with his body.
No matter what Jakra said, the timing of the events was too suspicious. Fighting Thrud was dangerous, but if she was the one threatening everyone he loved, letting her go was even worse.
“Who?” The Emerald Dragon’s honest surprise made Lith’s hope to have found the sender of the Balkor cards crumble. “I’d never hurt a fellow Dragon.”
“Really, then who are those guys linked to the tank?” Lith snarled as a barrage of cantrips rained on the Emerald Dragon from every side, yet Jakra didn’t even bother defending.
His Adamant armor had crystals of seven different colors grafted on its surface, making it immune to such puny spells. They were white, red, blue, orange, black, silver, and yellow.
“Those are imperfect beings, lesser Dragons.” Jakra said with a spite that had nothing to do with the slave spell that the Golden Griffon had imposed on him. “Yet I wouldn’t have harmed them either. We did nothing to them. It was their masters sacrificing them for the greater good.”
“What?” Lith said in surprise.
He had Solus assume her Hands form and add the mass of her stone doll form to that of his armor while never stopping his attacks and accumulating world energy.
“Do you really think that Xedros is the only one who wanted to ascend? Who do you think were those guys you fought before coming here?” Jakra replied, noticing something odd.
Not only did Lith continue to waste mana and effort casting cantrips, but also it was becoming harder to push him back when they clashed.
“The Council and the Guardians left behind so many abandoned children that all I had to do was to offer them a hand and give them hope.” Thrud snarled as Vladion managed to shrug off his paternal instincts and took the kid gloves off.
“As for Lark and Distar, they were loyal servants of the Kingdom. When I find the filthy traitor who dared to kill them, I’ll make them an example that will be still sung centuries from now!”
“Our interests align, little brother.” Jakra nodded at her words.
“Walk away and we’ll take care of the problem for you. My Queen even plans to take revenge on Balkor for betraying her beloved country.”
On the one hand, a bloody, possibly deadly fight and getting the help of two powerful beings on the other. Lith didn’t care for the undead nor for Sedra. They were already dead and avenging them would bring him no advantage.
Thrud was a problem of the Kingdom, not his own. Yet the thought of Xedros becoming a Dragon, of what might happen if the Mad Queen ever sat on the throne was hard to set aside.
“One last question. Do you know who killed my people?” Lith lunged at Jakra’s head who deflected War, only for the Wyrmling to flick his wrist and exploit their combined strength to strike with doubled speed.
“No. We were too busy with this project to meddle with the Kingdom’s internal affairs.” Jakra grunted, needing all of his strength to deflect the blade.
‘This makes no sense.’ He thought. ‘Lith is just a humanoid Wyrmling, how can he be so strong? How can he become heavier and stronger by the second?’
“Vladion?” Two fully developed horns came out of Lith’s forehead, a long tail from his back, and the second set of wings was atrophied no more.
“I swear on Radusk’s life that I can find out who they are!” The Firstborn couldn’t afford the Wyrmling walking away.
The two of them were slowly overpowering Thrud. If the Emerald Dragon joined the fray, however, the tide of the battle would turn.
“Sorry, big brother. As long as I’m paid, I always follow my job through.” Lith hurled a jet-stream of Origin Flames that met Jakra’s halfway, causing a big explosion that pushed them away and threw Thrud off balance.
The Scorpicore and the Firstborn didn’t miss the opening, unleashing their respective best spells.
Scarlett conjured the tier five Spirit Magic-Light Mastery spell, Spirit Mastery. The hexa-elemental spell used her hard-light constructs to further enhance its speed and durability, doubling the amount of light element.
The final result was a tidal wave of emerald-golden energy as hard as Orichalcum yet as fluid as water that flooded Thrud without harming Vladion.
