Book 13: Chapter 40: The Crack that Became a Ravine

Path of Dragons

Silence reigned across the battlefield as Elijah let Shape of Spores fall away. For the first time in months, he assumed his human form. Doing so left him feeling awkward and out of place. Weak.

And compared to his dragon form, it undeniably was. For all that he’d been born a human, he was rapidly becoming a dragon in spirit. By comparison, his once-natural form felt oddly constrictive, as if it was a cage around his power.

He pushed that thought aside.

He was a human. He was also a dragon. And at times, he was a beast as well. Bringing those three parts of him into balance was a necessity. One could not exist without the others. Not if he wanted to maintain his identity, which he very much did.

So, after spending a few minutes appreciating the death of the arboreal flesh monster, Elijah decided to move on. At first, he did so on foot, but once he’d established that the creature’s roots were dead as well, he shifted into the Shape of the Sky and flew away.

Even at top speed, it took him a few hours before he reached the end of the flesh tree’s influence. Its roots had spread for hundreds of miles, keeping the other natives at bay. But now that he’d outpaced the spread, he had to worry about other creatures. With that in mind, he returned to the ground and took on the Shape of the Scourge before letting the Guise of the Stalker envelope him.

He still didn’t relax, though. He didn’t dare, for while he knew the tree monster was likely the most dangerous creature in the area, there were plenty of others who could ruin his day.

Days passed as he slowly crossed the massive plain, and along the way, he felt the density of the ambient ethera continue to rise. Alongside it came increased corruption, and to the point where it set his scales to sizzling. If he had to gauge it, he would have marked the atmosphere as being as corrosive as the edge of the crater surrounding the pillar where he’d cultivated his silver body.

And he was still a long way from Druhmor.

After another week, he found the terrain changing to something resembling the desert surrounding the Painted Wastes. Great dunes rose hundreds of feet into the air before plummeting to a nadir that soon became another rise. The differences between it and an Earthly desert were plentiful, though.

For one, the dunes were much larger and entirely white. The result was that Elijah felt like he’d stepped into an old, black-and-white movie, though one with a slightly purple tint. The second difference lay in the composition of the sand.

Which wasn’t sand at all.

Elijah knelt atop one of those dunes, stark white grains trickling between his fingers. A few stuck to his skin, blistering his flesh with something akin to a chemical burn. It reminded him of lye, though considering that it managed to damage even his silver-tier body, it was much more potently corrosive than anything on Earth.

He brushed it away and pushed himself to his feet.

Over the past few weeks, he’d taken the time to return to his human form for at least a few hours each day. It was more dangerous, but he also felt it was necessary. And besides, he could escape most monsters without too much issue. In the rare instances where he couldn’t flee, he could kill the attackers.

It took extra time, largely because the raw power disparity was so wide that he usually had to rely on his massive regeneration, coupled with his ability to heal, in order to outlast his opponents.

A painful strategy, but one to which he’d grown unfortunately accustomed.

At one point, while resting inside his tent, he mumbled to himself, “At least I’m getting a good jump on the next tier of body cultivation.”

It did bring up something he’d never quite considered. While he knew most people generally focused on one aspect of cultivation above all others, he’d never really figured out why that might be. After all, a Warrior could benefit from increased mind or soul cultivation, just as a Sorcerer could use a stronger and more durable body.

But now, Elijah was beginning to understand why people usually chose to specialize. Warriors tended to take damage a lot more frequently than other archetypes, which meant that, just by doing their jobs, they would be better prepared to take the next step in body cultivation. It still wouldn’t be easy – as Elijah had discovered – but it would have been a lot more difficult if they had to actively seek out damage.

Something similar was true of Sorcerers and Healers, whose use of spells tended to better prepare them for mind or soul cultivation.

Elijah had the benefit of versatility on his side, which meant that he cast spells at least as often as he fought physical battles. Thus, he found it much easier to maintain a balance between the aspects of cultivation.

Or that was his running theory.

Those thoughts flitted through his mind as he set off through the dunes. It wasn’t long before he found that they were much more populated than plain he’d left behind. Few creatures lived on the surface, though. Instead, they lurked underground or in the air.

The first monster Elijah was forced to fight resembled a centipede, though with tentacles instead of legs and a multitude of stingers emerging from its bone-like chitinous carapace. He ended up killing it by flipping it over and ravaging its comparatively soft – and grotesquely moist – underbelly with the scourgedrake’s talons. Killing it was no quick or easy feat, but Elijah managed it all the same before moving on.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

This time, he maintained Guise of the Stalker.

Crossing the desert was extremely unpleasant, though. At times, his stealth wavered under the damage inflicted by the caustic sand, which laid him bare for the more powerful among the native monsters. Eventually, he abandoned Shape of the Scourge in favor of the much more durable Shape of Spores.

Its plodding steps were far slower, but the extra regeneration meant that Elijah didn’t need to maintain Wild Resurgence just to keep up with the environmental damage. What’s more, he was far less vulnerable to ambush. In short, he was a walking tank that could shrug off most attacks and keep going.

Still, he was forced into a few long, drawn-out fights that required the full suite of his abilities. None of his foes were nearly as enduring as the flesh tree, but a couple were strong enough to live through Flames of Renewal. Thankfully, even though they survived, each monster was crippled by the powerful ability, making it easy to finish them off with his other abilities.

Or with simple tooth and claw.

In the end, crossing the desert took almost two months, and when Elijah finally reached the end, he was incredibly drained. More, his supply of food had long since run dry, and he’d been forced to eat monster meat ever since. It was filling, and it provided him fuel to continue on. But it was far from pleasant.

More troublingly, when he finally took the time to camp and rest, he found that he was out of coffee.

That realization came with a surge of anger and frustration that culminated in an unfocused rampage. Elijah didn’t bother with stealth. He didn’t try to avoid conflict. Instead, he sought it out, ruthlessly destroying any creature that stood in his way. And the monsters’ nature was such that they could never flee. Instead, they accommodated his rage and charged to their single-minded deaths.

Elijah was more than happy to receive them appropriately.

By the time the wild rage dissipated, more than two months had passed. Elijah only remembered bits and pieces of it. He was conscious throughout. He knew what he was doing. He just didn’t care to stop.

Years of pain and frustration had finally sent him over the edge, and all he wanted to do was vent his ire. It was a good thing that he was surrounded by monsters, because he did not discriminate when it came to his targets. If it moved, he killed it.

Some of those fights lasted days. Others were over in an instant. But each time, Elijah emerged victorious and covered in gore. He also sank a little deeper into the familiar savagery that came along with spending too much time in his various bestial shapes. In this instance, he welcomed it. He pushed his humanity – and his draconic nature – aside, preferring instead the simplicity of animal instincts.

That might have continued indefinitely if he hadn’t nearly died at the hands of a vaguely humanoid abyssal monstrosity that reminded him of the creature he’d baited across the chains back in the Broken Crown. It was larger. Deadlier. And it was more dangerous. But Elijah attacked it without thought.

And it was more than he could handle.

It battered him across the rocky landscape in a battle that lasted more than ten days. And in that time, Elijah used every last ability at his disposal, even digging deep into his repertoire to employ a few that he usually ignored.

It wasn’t enough.

That creature broke him more times than he could count, but he kept coming back for more. It was only when it ripped him in two that a memory flashed in his mind.

It was something he never thought he’d forget, and yet, he hadn’t thought of it in years. Back in the Trial of Primacy, he’d been torn in half by an undead creature. And at that time, he didn’t have the ability to mend the damage via Mycelial Regrowth. He should have died.

But Sadie had used a Miracle to save him.

He still remembered that look of determination on her face. The powerful light blooming from her core. The sheer refusal to accept his death.

And that memory led to other, more pleasant thoughts. Those in turn sent his mind reeling with one recollection after another. He thought of all the people he’d left behind on Earth. He remembered falling asleep with Sadie in his arms. He recalled the pride he felt when Miguel chose his class and tied his fate to that of the Hartwood Grove.

A hundred other memories slowly dragged him out of his savage rampage, all in the space of a single passing second. So, by the time his two halves landed – hundreds of feet from one another – he could no longer summon the fury to keep himself engaged in battle. Instead, he quickly shifted to Shape of Spores and used Mycelial Regrowth.

Fungal tendrils erupted from his waist, snaked out across the ground, and latched onto a similar outgrowth coming from his lower half. They wove together, then yanked the two disparate pieces back into place. In only a few seconds, he was once again whole.

Without hesitation, he shifted into the Shape of the Sky. The monster – looking even more grotesque than usual, largely because most of its body had been charred beyond all recognition – charged.

Elijah threw himself into the air, then became a bolt of lightning scorching across the uneven terrain.

When Lightning Rush dissipated, he returned to the Shape of the Scourge, adopted Guise of the Stalker, and backtracked to where he’d left his tent. It took him nearly four weeks to reach that spot.

When he did, he found it in total disarray. The tent still stood, but many of his belongings lay scattered around the surroundings. Pillows, blankets, and even the remains of his broken French press.

Sighing, he began to gather the remnants and right the wrongs inflicted by his tantrum. Once that was done, he took a long and unpleasant shower. Scouring his body of blood and grime was only part of it, and doing so took quite a lot of scrubbing. But the cold rain from Blessing of the Grove also served to reawaken him from his previous state.

And with that came a good degree of shame.

He’d lost control, and what was worse, he knew what he was doing the entire time. He just didn’t bother stopping himself. It was the culmination of years of frustration born from being trapped in a hopeless situation. Running out of coffee was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

And it had broken him.

Almost irreparably.

If that monster hadn’t torn him in half, prompting the resurgence of his memory, Elijah would still be out there fighting a battle he wasn’t equipped to win. The monster would have eventually killed him. He knew that. Perhaps it would have taken weeks more, but one way or another, he would have succumbed.

And then, his journey would be over.

He would never see his family again. Nor his friends. He would never bask in the light of the sun. He would never stand on a cliff and look down at a carpet of green. He would never again go swimming in the ocean or run his fingers through Sadie’s hair. He would never see the man Miguel would become or the culmination of all of Nerthus’ hard work.

And that just wasn’t acceptable.

He would return to Earth. Even if it had been excised, even if everyone he knew was already dead, he would find his way back. He refused to give in. He would not give up. He would find his way to Druhmor and see his plan to fruition.

Or he would die trying.

What he would not do was allow himself to succumb to the frustration heaped upon his shoulders. He was stronger than that because he had to be.

With that in mind, Elijah continued cleaning up after himself. Then, after months of fighting, he finally allowed himself to rest.