The Storm King

Chapter 601: The Serpent Falls

Gaius could only scowl as the dreadnought pushed deeper into the storm, the sounds of battle growing steadily louder as they cut through the waves. He could feel an immense amount of power up ahead, so much that he was feeling quite queasy, but regardless, he stood at the bow of the dreadnought, guiding the ship forward.

Not that the ship needed a guide, for all the islets that had been here only a few hours ago were now gone, having fallen into the sea. However, what everyone on the ship was far more concerned about were the bolts of lightning, fiery explosions, and bestial roars that were rolling over the waves.

But still, even with the titanic auras, the monumental killing intent, and even the occasional convulsion that rocked the ocean hard enough to shake the teeth in Gaius’ mouth, the dreadnought soldiered on. The rest of the broken fleet remained outside of the storm, for the sole remaining Legate of the fleet refused to put those survivors in danger, but he trusted Gaius’ word that Leon was still active and committed the ship to sailing to the former knight’s aid.

Naiad had long since abandoned the ship to fly ahead with Anzu, but the rest of Leon’s retinue were only a little bit behind Gaius, silently staring ahead just as he was. Alix, Marcus, and Alcander were all equipped with the best bows that the Legion could provide them with and were furnished with all the remaining explosive arrows that Leon had given them. None of them expected to be able to do much with them since the serpent had proven itself invulnerable to even the Flame Lances of Sigebert’s flagship, but they were resolved to use them regardless.

Whatever it took to end this threat, they were ready to do it.

They hadn’t even moved through the swirling clouds before that resolve was tested, though. There was a loud, though hoarse, roar, and the seas shook even worse in response. That roar was answered with several claps of thunder that had Gaius’ hair standing on end.

But even with the titanic amounts of magic power that were emanating from deeper in the clouds, the ship kept on.

They heard many more terrifying things, but they never once thought of turning around. They kept moving forward, the Flame Lances at the ready, the sailors and marines that were on the ship prepared for whatever may come.

Soon enough, the ship was pushing out of the swirling clouds and finally let everyone aboard see what they had obscured. They saw the maelstrom, and the Black Eagle high in the sky. They saw the demon seemingly trapped in the Eagle’s wake, and the white griffin and his rider behind them. Most eye-catching was the serpent, still raised into the air, fury in its eyes, and long, jagged lacerations and burns decorating its scaled hide.

Before the Flame Lances could be brought to bear, the massive reptile slid back into the ocean, and the maelstrom ahead began to spin even faster. In only a moment, the dreadnought was seized by the current, and any chance they had to turn around and flee to safety vanished.

“Hold on!” Gaius called out to the rest of Leon’s retinue. “We’re committed now!”

“So be it!” Marcus responded.

“Nowhere I’d rather be!” Alcander added as both young noblemen held the guardrail and prepared themselves for battle.

Alix didn’t verbally respond, but her eyes kept flitting between the ocean and the griffin high above. Her body radiated killing intent, though, so Gaius knew that she was ready for battle.

The Eagle spread its wings and pulled out of its dive about a hundred feet above the water, while the water dragon continued downward and crashed into the ocean surface. Gaius couldn’t see what was going on below, but he could feel some titanic collisions buffeting the dreadnought, and he guessed the water dragon was now wrestling with the serpent.

This didn’t last long before dying down, but the river nymph’s power was inundating the sea by then, and the Eagle had begun to rapidly fly in a tight circle at the edge of the maelstrom, doing something that Gaius guessed had to do with wind magic.

After a few seconds, what the two were doing became clear: a twisting tornado formed at the water’s surface that grabbed hundreds of tons of water every second and lifted it into the air. The river nymph seemed to be assisting, and Gaius could see the serpent caught up in their combined power, struggling to escape as the power of the maelstrom was slowly overcome.

Gaius, realizing what they were doing, quickly turned and began signaling to the control tower to slow down and bring the Flame Lances around. The Legate in command followed those directions, and the dreadnought began to turn slightly so that both of its Lances could be used.

Slowly, the Eagle with its wind magic, and Naiad with her water magic, pulled the serpent out of the sea. The monster roared in wrath as its head was exposed, and huge spears of water were launched from the ocean at those causing it grief.

The Eagle and the griffin nimbly dodged these strikes and kept going, slowly but surely yanking the colossal serpent out of its domain. At the same time, the ship continued to slide closer to the immense serpent, pulled in by the currents of the maelstrom.

“Get ready!” Gaius shouted as he raised and aimed his bow, one of his explosive arrows nocked. The wind was strong, so the range of the bows was drastically lower than usual, but he guessed they could still shoot accurately out to at least five hundred feet. Still, for a creature the size of this serpent, that was practically close enough to reach out and touch it. The other three got ready as well.

As the serpent’s body was slowly lifted out of the sea, the flying demon plunged in and started hurling great fireballs. The demon concentrated on the wounds that the monster had suffered in previous clashes and seemed to do some good damage as Gaius could see some of the monster’s huge scales torn from its frame.

He wasn’t too happy that there was a demon on the field, but after seeing this and feeling the power of its attacks, he was at least placated that the demon seemed to be fighting their mutual enemy.

The serpent roared again, this time its hoarse reptilian voice sounding more pained than usual. Massive serpents of water whipped out of the sea, biting, gnashing, and lashing at the demon as it circled, still throwing fireballs. Most of the demon’s flaming attacks were thusly blocked, but the demon itself was more than maneuverable enough to avoid being hit by the tentacles. The Eagle and the griffin stayed far enough up that the serpent couldn’t easily strike at them with such an attack.

More and more the serpent was ripped from the ocean, and as it took more and more damage from the demon, the serpent finally seemed to abandon all resistance—it suddenly lifted its immense head out of the ocean, throwing it back in an attempt to impale the Eagle upon its horn.

Up until now, Gaius had gotten the impression that the Eagle was more than quick enough to escape this slow attack, but as the horn rose up, speeding toward it and the griffin, the Eagle beat its wings, creating a powerful burst of air that sent Anzu spiraling away from danger—for the first time, Gaius noticed that Anzu had been somehow injured, with one of his white albino wings covered in crimson blood. Unfortunately, this move left the Eagle open, and the serpent’s gigantic horn pierced through one of its wings.

The Eagle let out a dreadful shriek, and a moment later, innumerable bolts of golden lightning rained from above down upon the serpent, while the Eagle’s body sparked and crackled, and lit up with silver-blue lightning. The power within these bolts shook the sea with every strike, nearly blinded those whose eyes were turned in the serpent’s direction, and just about deafened them as well. Each strike tore scales clean from the serpent’s hide and ripped and burned its flesh, spilling immeasurable quantities of the serpent’s blood into the ocean.

Gaius’ eyes went wide at that sight, a hundred theories for why it would have Leon’s lightning thundering through his mind, each one crazier than the last. But he barely had time to widen his eyes in shock before the serpent howled in pain, its voice louder even than the Eagle’s thunder. The Eagle shrieked again, its wing still caught on the serpent’s gigantic horn, and the lightning strikes intensified.

A moment later, something small and bright erupted from the ocean, catching the light just enough that Gaius was able to spot it in all the chaos of the storm and the battle. Gaius only recognized it as Leon’s sword after this object had embedded itself into the chin of the serpent, driving in all the way up to the hilt.

The serpent’s howls grew worse as its body was fried from within and without by lightning.

Anzu limped through the air a little closer, and Naiad conjured a few more water dragons that descended upon the serpent, biting, scratching, and succeeding in tearing away scale after scale from the monster’s previous wounds; all the while, the demon continued circling, bombarding the serpent with its dark red demonfire.

“We’re about to bring these things around!” Gaius heard a marine shout from somewhere behind him, and seconds later, the Flame Lances spiked in magic power and sent their deadly payloads on a crash course for the serpent. At their current range, it was almost point-blank.

One missed completely—the seas were choppy, and these were the first shots, Gaius passed no judgment. The other shot, however, splashed across the serpent, covering one of its more severe wounds in molten stone.

From every direction, the serpent was picked and peeled at, and its responses grew less and less frequent. It started to sink back into the sea, but fresh lightning from the heavens started to pierce its hide and caused its muscles to seize, keeping its head well above water.

The Flame Lances sounded again, this time both shots striking true. One gouged out a huge chunk of flesh from a hole in the serpent’s scaly armor that the demon had widened, while the other struck where Naiad’s water dragons had concentrated their fury. The serpent’s howls of pain died down, but the barrage continued; again and again the serpent was hit from all sides. Chunks of flesh were torn from its body, scales were ripped clean off, and rivers of blood flowed from its wounds into the ocean.

Soon enough, the dreadnought had drawn close enough to the beast that even Gaius and the rest of Leon’s retinue could start peppering it with explosive arrows. By this point, the beast had grown so weak that even these weapons were having an effect, ripping whole sections of flesh free from its scaled form.

And finally, the beast went silent, and fell. Almost at the same time, the ocean became noticeably calmer, with the nearby maelstrom closing up as the serpent’s head crashed into the water.

The Eagle, though, was still impaled upon its horn, and as it hit the water, too, the clouds above suddenly brightened, the winds died down, and the rain stopped. Gaius watched the Eagle, fearful of what its possession of Leon’s lightning could mean. It wasn’t until he saw Naiad leap from Anzu’s back into the sea that he truly understood the gravity of what this meant.

He turned around and began to furiously signal to the command tower to get closer to where the Eagle had been dragged beneath the waves. It seemed this course of action was a little more debatable amongst the dreadnought’s command staff, for it took an agonizingly long time for the ship to turn in that direction.

Even the demon started hovering around that area, and as the serpent’s body drifted down into the depths of the ocean, Gaius couldn’t help but feel just as tense now as he did when the ship had first joined the battle.

They had to retrieve that Eagle. Whatever had happened to Leon, that Eagle was related, Gaius could feel it and knew it to be true. They couldn’t just leave it to the monsters of the deep to rip apart.

Fortunately, Gaius didn’t have to worry about diving beneath the waves, for just as the ship was pulling closer, the water rose and disgorged Naiad and the entire massive Eagle upon the deck of the ship. Naiad looked absolutely beside herself, and Anzu didn’t look much better when he landed upon the deck a moment later, one of his wings hanging limp at his side, bright red with shed blood and mana.

The Eagle was in bad shape, with the wing that had been impaled upon the serpent’s horn mangled almost beyond recognition. Still, the enormity and strange features of the Eagle had Gaius staring for longer than he would’ve cared to admit. It wasn’t until Alix ran forward a few steps, her face perfectly expressing her disbelief.

“Is that… Leon?!” she asked.

—

The serpent was dead, that much the Thunderbird could sense. She sighed with weariness, and finally let go of her descendant, letting him rest upon his throne. Leon, though clearly heavily affected by his transformation, had still fought magnificently, and she was proud of him. But the effects of his transformation were not even close to being done.

“What next?!” Nestor shouted in fear, as Leon’s soul realm was still in complete turmoil.

“We need to stabilize him!” the Thunderbird shouted, barely missing a beat as she began to draw runes in the air around Leon’s mind palace. “His soul realm is still growing far too quickly!”

“Is there anything I can do?” the dead man asked.

“You can be silent!” the Thunderbird sternly replied.

Her bronze face turned up in a terrible scowl; she was never one for enchantments and the healing arts, but she knew that if she wasn’t able to stop Leon’s soul realm from expanding as quickly as it was, then he would be left in a similar comatose state to that of the King of the land he’d been living in, let alone being able to transform back into his human form again.

Rune after rune she carved into the air, letting them all spiral around Leon’s Mind Palace in a manner that she knew Nestor was probably analyzing, but she hadn’t the luxury of time. Already, Leon’s soul realm had flown past ninth-tier and was pushing against the boundaries of the tenth, with the Mists of Chaos more than nine thousand miles away. That Leon’s soul realm was still intact at this point was most likely a testament to the enchantment that had brought about this change more than anything.

She’d thought she recognized some aspects of that enchantment when Leon had found it and had guessed that it was probably fine for him to use, but she’d been unable to quiet her doubts and so had sought a second opinion.

The Great Black Dragon had been her choice of consultants. However, that stubborn bastard had barely even acknowledged her presence until Leon activated the enchantment. Only once his blood that Leon had inherited began to truly awaken did he start to intervene and tell her what she wanted to know of the enchantment.

It would awaken Leon’s blood, and stimulate it until he transformed into something akin to the two of them, but the enchantment had been designed for someone else, and so would have terrible effects upon Leon. Those effects were what the Thunderbird now tried to counter.

“If you’re doing what I think you are, that’s not going to be enough!” Nestor called out as the wind within Leon’s soul realm grew more intense.

“It’s all that can be done!” the Thunderbird shouted back. “I have to make up for the shortcomings of that enchantment array!”

“Then aim for his blood!” Nestor responded. “You’re trying to stabilize his soul realm while the cause of its destabilization still ravages him!”

The Thunderbird felt like screaming in frustration. Leon’s soul realm was already so damaged by this horrific growth that she felt some of the damage might be irreversible. To stop her attempts at stabilizing him felt like it would do far more harm than good. But she knew that Nestor was right, and that her attention had to be Leon’s blood. His body had to be stabilized before his soul realm.

Still, it wasn’t easy turning her—

Suddenly, Leon’s soul realm was lit up with red-orange light, and its growth was almost completely arrested. It still grew, but with this, the Thunderbird had been given an immense amount of valuable time to work.

She cast a quick look out to where she knew the Great Black Dragon to be watching, a look filled with many different emotions. Gratitude was the strongest, but there was also plenty of pride, pity, and smugness there, too. Try as he might to deny Leon’s existence, blood was blood.

She turned away from writing runes in the air and began writing them close to Leon’s magic body, where they flashed and sank into his ‘flesh’. It was a long process, one exacerbated by her relative lack of knowledge regarding the matter of bloodline awakening and transformations, but eventually, things began to quiet down within Leon’s soul realm, and the Great Black Dragon’s power stopped its growth entirely.

And then Leon’s soul realm began to contract—with Leon’s stimulated blood now calmed, the force pushing his soul realm out had greatly lessened.

The Thunderbird turned back around and did her best to keep his soul realm from collapsing entirely. She placed great runes and enchantments around his Mind Palace, and eventually, Leon’s soul realm began to stabilize enough that it was no longer in danger.

Only then did the Thunderbird breathe a sigh of relief. The red-orange light filling Leon’s soul realm died down, and she took a seat upon the steps of the throne platform.

“Quiet!” the Thunderbird snapped, and she glanced over her shoulder at Leon’s magic body, still silently slumped over on the throne of his soul realm.

Leon was alive, and he wasn’t in danger of death anymore, but the consequences of what had happened over the past few hours couldn’t yet be measured. She had to wait for Leon to wake to know if his mind had survived this or not.