Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 100: Picking Up the Pieces

Elijah let Shape of Thorn slide away, returning to his human form. Like that, he knelt atop the slain Lightning Emperor. He barely remembered the details of the last leg of the fight. It was all lost amid so much ripping and tearing. And squeezing. Milky white blood covered most of his upper toros, and even more formed a pool all around the site of the battle.

He just stared off at nothing, covered in sweat and blood – some of it his own, but a good deal of it belonging to the slain Yloa – as he tried to come to terms with everything that had happened. With what he had done.

Elijah was no stranger to brutal fights. No powerful enemy went down quietly, so those battles usually ended in savagery. Even so, the death of the Lightning Emperor hit him harder than any that had come before. And it wasn’t difficult to understand why that was the case, either.

Yloa had been a transcendent. The absolute peak of power within the multi-verse. And yet, he’d fallen to a relative infant. It should have been sad. Or maybe just unfair. In the end, though, most of what Elijah felt was relief.

It was finally over.

Until that moment, Elijah hadn’t really acknowledged just how much the Trial of Primacy had weighed upon him. It was like carrying around a mountain of responsibility on his shoulders. He was not unused to that feeling, but never before had he been forced to endure it for such a long stretch. Usually, he saw a problem, then took care of it. But the Trial had been different.

It had been exhausting.

In the back of his mind, though, Elijah had to admit that it was exciting, too. Even amidst the death and chaos, there was a certain level of exhilaration that came with victory. In persistence. Guilt was there, too – after all, many hadn’t made it – but survival was intoxicating in a way he didn’t usually acknowledge.

That was reinforced by the thrill of conquest, which was reward enough for Elijah. However, he couldn’t deny that he was looking forward to how the system would compensate him and his companions. Already, he’d passed the threshold to level one-twenty, which came with another spell or upgrade. He hadn’t looked at it yet, but he could feel it begging for his attention.

And that meant that, once he officially finished the Trial, he would gain another. And the ability to evolve his class, which, from what he understood, was a leap in power that far exceeded anything that had come before. So, even though he wanted to check on the rest of the party, it was difficult not to check his notifications first.

But Elijah wasn’t without significant willpower, so he shoved that desire aside and focused on what was really important. His companions had been forced to endure significant injuries, and he needed to ensure that they were all alive. So, he pushed himself upright, focusing on One with Nature.

What he found was not encouraging.

After climbing to his feet, Elijah tripped over the Lightning Emperor’s remains, righted himself, then climbed the slope of the crater to check on his companions. Everyone in his group was alive, but Ron and Kurik were both unconscious. Sadie and Dat were both wobbly, but they managed to remain standing.

Lamar’s group was decidedly worse off. The former linebacker was unconscious as well, but he was still breathing. Elijah threw a couple of heals his way, then added Healing Rain. However, Helen was the only other survivor. She knelt, weeping, beside Derek’s dead body. Their healer – Elijah regretted that he still hadn’t learned her name – had been killed as well. Both looked badly burned, with their bodies twisted out of shape – probably from the wind throwing them around.

In most cases, Elijah would have considered a couple of casualties to be a great tragedy. And it was. But he also knew they were lucky it wasn’t much, much worse. He didn’t know how so many had survived.

After a few seconds, he knelt beside Ron and started healing. As he did so, he asked Sadie the question most prominent in his mind. “How?” was his simple question.

“Kurik. He spent most of the fight deploying some sort of device that threw up a temporary shield,” Sadie said, pointing to what looked like scattered debris. When Elijah looked closer, he saw a dozen spent power crystals. “It protected us from the worst of it, but…Derek and Moira were out of range.”

“Dammit,” he muttered, shaking his head in regret. If only those two had been a little closer, then everyone would have made it. Such was the nature of battle, though. Too often, survival came down to simple chance. A few scant feet was the difference between life and death.

Those thoughts accompanied him as he continued to heal Ron. The Healer’s issue wasn’t one of vitality, though. His sacrifice had emptied his entire reserve of ethera, and it would take more than a few healing spells to get him back to normal. He did regain consciousness after a few minutes, though.

In the meantime, Elijah worked on the others as well. Of the survivors, Lamar had taken the worst of it – which was fortunate, considering he likely possessed a Constitution that exceeded even Elijah’s in Shape of Thorn. His other attributes lagged behind, but for his chosen role, he was well-equipped for success. Otherwise, he’d have never survived as long as he had, much less against Yloa’s potent attacks.

Predictably, he didn’t take the deaths of his teammates very well. He and Helen knelt beside their bodies, just staring at them for quite some time. They spoke to one another, but Elijah forced himself to ignore their conversation. They deserved privacy in their grief.

Everyone who’d participated in the Trial knew they were in for a rough time. That was especially true for those who’d chosen to stay after their initial arrival, and no one could claim that the people who had decided to participate in the raid on the Seat of Thunder were ignorant of the danger. They’d known what they were getting into. Yet, that didn’t make it any easier to accept the deaths of friends.

For his part, Elijah knew just how lucky he was that none of his companions had perished. But perhaps it wasn’t all luck. They’d spent the entire Trial pushing the envelope and developing their teamwork. And it had paid off when it mattered the most.

That just highlighted the brutality of trying to be one of the best. So many people had come into the Trial expecting it to be a reward. And in some ways, it was. Its true nature was right there in the name, though. It wasn’t meant to be easy. It was a test. A challenge. A deadly trial in every possible way.

He shook his head, thinking of how many people had made the ultimate sacrifice. Most hadn’t come in pursuit of personal power. Not for themselves, at least. Rather, they’d chosen to participate because their situations back on Earth were dire. They were the only hope of those they’d left behind.

And now they were gone.

The casualties of the Trial of Primacy wouldn’t be limited to those who’d died while trying to conquer various challenges. Instead, they would extend all the way back to Earth and the people who no longer had their champions to protect them.

“Are you okay?” asked Sadie.

Elijah shrugged as he continued healing. “I don’t know. Just thinking about what this all cost.”

“I know,” she said, sitting beside him. She leaned close. “I was thinking about Ron. If he’d died…”

“We’ll take care of one another,” Elijah stated. It was one of the things to which they’d all agreed. Everyone had people they wanted to protect, and at some point during the Trial, they’d all agreed to step in if one of them was slain. For Ron, that meant finding his daughter and dealing with her illness. For Dat and Sadie, it meant ensuring that Hong Kong survived its proximity to the Primal Realm. And for Elijah, it meant taking care of his family, including Nerthus and the grove. Kurik was the only one who didn’t have anyone back home.

Elijah hadn’t even realized it at the time, but the bonds he’d formed with his companions felt so much more real than any friendships he’d cultivated before Earth had felt the touch of the World Tree. Part of that was a product of the time they’d spent together. Being with a group of people for an entire year didn’t sound like much, but it definitely felt like a long time. However, more impactful was the shared dangers they’d faced. As it turned out, collectively defying death was a great bonding exercise.

“What now?” she asked.

“Once everyone’s recovered, I guess we check our notifications and go home,” Elijah said. “Finishing the Trial is supposed to open up the Teleportation Network, so I’ll be in Hong Kong in a couple of weeks. When we take care of that…”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Elijah trailed off. He’d made a lot of promises during his time in the Trial. Not only would he need to help in Hong Kong, but he also needed to find Ron’s location and help him heal his daughter. If he had his way, he would also bring them back to Ironshore, but that was up to Ron.

Then there was Philadelphia, where a warlord had taken up residence. Elijah had promised to help Lamar deal with that.

And finally, Elijah hadn’t forgotten about the refugees from the plane crash. He needed to figure out a way to rescue them as well.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, he had plans for his grove, his own cultivation, and a few side projects he had in mind. In short, he expected that the frantic pace of the Trial wasn’t going to end when he returned to Earth.

Hopefully, his recent gains – as well as the ones pending the completion of the Trial – would help him meet those challenges head-on. To that end, he finally glanced at his status:

Name	Elijah Hart
Level	122
Archetype	Druid
Class	Animist
Specialization	Connection
Alignment	N/A
Strength	254 (140)
Dexterity	142 (126)
Constitution	244 (149)
Ethera	198 (160)
Regeneration	239 (151)
Attunement	Naturen/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Cultivation Stage: Adept
Body	Core	Mind	Soul
Iron	Whelp	Jade	Novice

He had to admit that he was happy to see the numbers displayed before his inner eye. Not only had his attributes continued to climb – with his base Ethera and Regeneration starting to really pull ahead – but the progression itself was satisfying in a way he couldn’t really explain. Only three more levels, and he’d reach the peak of the Mortal Tier. That alone was a great accomplishment, but the reward for that was, to put it mildly, exciting. If the effects of his Specialization and the upgrades to his spells were any indication of what was in store, evolving his class would be an incredibly potent boost to his overall power.

But that would have to wait until he officially completed the Trial, as specified by the first notification he inspected:

Congratulations! You have completed the Trial of Primacy. You have finished with the following rank: 1. Rewards will be distributed after return to home planet.

That was as expected, though he was a little disappointed that he couldn’t immediately get his rewards. He glanced at Sadie and asked, “What rank did you get?”

“Three,” she answered. “Ron was fourth, and Dat was fifth.”

“Who got second?”

“Kurik,” she said. “Guess all those traps paid off.”

“I guess so,” Elijah agreed. It should not have been surprising. Kurik was responsible for more kills than anyone else in the group. If Elijah hadn’t spent so much time on extracurriculars like exploring various ruins and healing strangers every time he went back to Nexus Town, the dwarf might have passed even him. It was just further evidence of how powerful his class could be.

In any case, now that Elijah had gotten level one-twenty, he had something very important ahead of him. To that end, he opened the next notification:

Congratulations! You have achieved the requirements for the evolution of the spell Essence of the Wolf. Please choose a path:
Lone Wolf	Speed of the Pack	Lupine Reflexes
Evolve Essence of the Wolf by embracing solitude, vastly increasing the effect but limiting it to yourself.	Evolve Essence of the Wolf by embracing community, increasing the effect by a small amount but maintaining the ability to cast it on others.	Evolve Essence of the Wolf by embracing permanence. Primary effect remains the same, but adds a secondary effect, increasing speed in combat.

In a way, it felt a little disappointing. He’d hoped for an upgrade to Healing Rain or Nature’s Bounty, but the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. Essence of the Wolf, while often forgotten, had saved his life on multiple occasions. Being able to move faster was always a great advantage, after all. So, it only took him a few moments before he felt a smile cross his face.

Then, he started looking at the descriptions. They were a lot more specific than with previous spell upgrades, which made the choices extremely clear. The first – Lone Wolf – would be a great benefit so long as he was alone, but it would prevent him from assisting his companions.

Before the Trial, he would have chosen that without hesitation. But now, he questioned whether that was the right option. After all, an increase to movement speed was probably one of the reasons he and his companions had achieved so many first-clears. Obviously, they were the strongest group in the Trial, but they weren’t the only ones capable of accomplishing that feat. But they had gotten to most of them first, which was an extreme advantage.

That led him to the second option – Speed of the Pack. It felt like a straight upgrade of the current Essence of the Wolf. It would still allow him to cast the spell on others, and it would be more powerful than before. So, it would maintain the status quo, but the increase in effectiveness would likely be small. A safe choice, but not an exciting one, then.

Finally, he looked at the third choice.

Like the first option, it seemed like it was self-only. However, instead of simply making him move a little faster out of combat, it sounded like the effect would extend to in-combat speed.

After giving it some thought, Elijah eliminated the first option. He liked the idea of being able to move even faster on foot, but if he really needed to get somewhere in a hurry, he had Shape of the Sky. That left him with the other two alternatives.

In the end, it came down to one factor. Both seemed like good options to improve the spell, but only one offered something new. More importantly, Lupine Reflexes gave him more power in situations where he would need it most. Being faster out-of-combat was convenient, but extending that effect to while he was fighting could potentially save his life.

And as much as he liked the idea of helping his teammates, he wouldn’t always have a group. The choice was clear.

He chose Lupine Reflexes, which prompted another notification:

Lupine Reflexes

Passively increase base movement speed by 10%. Improves reaction time by 5%.

Elijah felt it immediately after casting the spell, and what’s more, he recognized the feeling as well. His Sash of the Whirlwind was equipped with a trait called Haste, which Elijah had once likened to time dilation. The moment he chose Lupine Reflexes, he felt the potency of that sensation increase.

It wasn’t a game-changing ability or anything, but the Haste from Sash of the Whirlwind had definitely saved his life a couple of times. The upgrade to Essence of the Wolf doubled that effect. In addition, it would make him move faster even in combat. The tradeoff was that he wouldn’t be able to extend those effects to his companions. Not a life and death detriment, but definitely something to remember going forward.

Either way, he was happy with the upgrade, and he had a feeling that he would be even happier once he got back to Earth and attained level one-twenty-five.

But first, everyone needed to recover, so he settled in and forced himself to work on his Soul cultivation while the others continued to recuperate from the battle.