Path of Dragons

Elijah felt like he was just wasting time.

He knew that wasn't the case. There were quite a few demands on his time, each one clamoring incessantly for his attention. He was no machine. Rest was not an indulgence. Rather, it was the only way he could ever hope to survive. And as much as he felt guilty about each day he spent without making progress, he recognized that they were absolutely necessary.

Otherwise, the pressure would build and build until, at the worst possible moment, he would explode. Given the stakes, he couldn't afford that.

So, he'd spent the past few days with Sadie on the island. A good portion of it was dedicated to quality time, but they'd also trained together a little. It was the first time he'd noticed just how much she'd improved in the Eternal War. For one, she'd gained quite a few levels, but more importantly, her fighting style had developed an aggressive edge that Elijah found continuously surprising.

It was a good reminder that he wasn't the only person out there risking his life and gaining power. Sure, he was ahead – for now – but that would not always be the case. Not unless he kept up the pressure.

Still, even when he decided to act, he wasn't quite ready to throw himself back into a Primal Realm. Not yet, though he did plan to take advantage of the opportunity represented by the Chimeric Forge, and sooner rather than later. The difference was that he didn't intend to go alone.

In any case, he wasn't at that point yet. Nor was he quite ready to take the final step in his mind cultivation. Close. Very, very close. But he needed to put the finishing touches on his plan before he began the final leg of the journey.

The advantage was that he felt even more ready for his core cultivation, the imagery for which he'd begun to prepare even before he'd developed his ideas for mind cultivation. That meant that he would be in a great position to advance his core soon after progressing to the next grade of his mind cultivation.

But as excited as he was for that, he forced himself to wait until the circumstances were perfect. Anything else, and he'd shortchange the results. The guides he had read stated that reaching the fourth stage was when cultivation really began. Everything before that was foundational.

Which meant that they were incredibly important.

Perfection was the goal, and Elijah refused to accept anything less – even if it meant slowing things down.

The result was that he now found himself flying above the mountains near New York as he searched for the war that had been described to him. He could have asked the guilds for intelligence on the armies in question, but he preferred not to let them know that he was interested in the conflict. If they knew, they might expect him to help, and he wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to do so.

Not yet, at least.

From what he'd discovered during his most recent time in New York, the fighting was on the other side of the mountain range. For most people, crossing could be accomplished in a limited number of ways. The first was the most obvious – there were a few well-traveled passes, though best one was well-guarded by guild forces. Second, one could go out to sea and approach from the east. That was complicated by the presence of powerful beasts that were known to capsize ships. Finally, one could fly, though Elijah didn't know anyone else who could take advantage of that method.

They had to be out there, though. There was a class for everything, after all.

Regardless, he took the most expedient route, which meant flying high above the mountains. Along the way, he saw evidence of a few scattered villages, small but surviving. He also saw a few cities that had not been so lucky. The architecture was varied, suggesting that those cities had been pulled from a variety of mountainous regions across the world. One looked Chinese, while another featured English signage, suggesting that it had once been in the US or Canada.

There were also plenty of strong beasts roaming the mountains. From nimble mountain goats that could spring hundreds of feet in a single bound to huge eagles that gave the birds around Chimera Island a run for the money, at least in terms of wingspan, the variety on display was impressive. Elijah wished he could stop and immerse himself in the natural world he saw flashing by beneath him.

But he resisted.

As much as he needed time to recharge, he couldn't stop the ticking clock in his head. They had a limited time to close the Primal Realms, and he needed to finish investigating the war sooner rather than later.

So, he harnessed what focus he could muster and ignored the instincts telling him to connect with the mountainous wilderness. Instead, he used Eyes of the Eagle to study the terrain more closely. The whole time, he searched for signs of the war of which he'd been told was afoot.

He found nothing in the mountains, which was gratifying. If the violence had begun to spill over the mountains, it would certainly threaten New York. Given what the guilds meant for the world's continued fight against the Primal Realms, that would be a bad thing. Elijah had no intentions of conquering every Primal Realm himself. He didn't even have time to find them all, much less fight through them.

No - he needed help, and not just to protect his trees.

Earth needed to be able to stand on its own two feet, which meant that they couldn't depend on people like Elijah and Sadie to shoulder the entire burden of keeping the threat of excisement at bay. A war on New York's doorstep would change those plans, and significantly.

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He was glad to find that, for now, at least, the city was kept safe by the natural barrier that was the mountain range and their diligence in guarding the lone pass large enough to accommodate an army.

Soon after leaving the mountains behind, Elijah found what he was looking for. Signs of battle spread across the plains, with villages and other small settlements having been razed to the ground. Elijah found the remnants of great pyres and mass graves containing human as well as bestial bodies.

On foot, Elijah followed the trail – obvious because it marked the route of thousands of people – from one site to the next until he saw a city rising in the distance. Dozens of skyscrapers composed the skyline, though Elijah didn't recognize any of them. It was only when he drew much closer and saw the signage that he realized what he'd found.

Many of the signs featured three lines. The first was in what he assumed was Hindi, with the second in English, and the third in some unfamiliar language he couldn't hope to identify. It wasn't long before he saw a rusted green sign that had been half reclaimed by creeping vines. On it was a simple message that told him what city he'd found.

New Delhi.

He approached the city via one of the highways leading into the metropolis, and he was often forced to leap large gaps where mudslides had collapsed the roads. Along the way, he saw thousands of abandoned cars. Some had been old and rusted even before the world had changed, but there were just as many that had been shiny and new. Neither category had fared well in the wake of the world's transformation. Elijah also saw the remains of plenty of unlucky people that, by now, had been reduced to nothing more than bones. From the states of those skeletons, they had been mauled to death by powerful creatures.

Not an uncommon occurrence. The touch of the World Tree – and the injection of ethera that had come with it – had transformed the wildlife much faster than people could marshal their defenses. Many had been caught unaware that the beasts hunting them were far more powerful than they would have been before Earth had entered its new era.

Most of Earth's human population had fallen in the months directly after that fateful day. The casualties hadn't ended there, either. With global supply chains being entirely shattered, food had quickly become scarce. On top of that, resources that most people took for granted – like water and electricity – were suddenly unavailable.

By anyone's reckoning, it had been a massacre.

Elijah had seen plenty of evidence of the near-extinction of his people, but as he entered New Delhi, he had to admit he'd never seen death quite on the scale before him. Bodies had been piled in every alley, and only a few buildings remained completely undamaged. Most of the skyscrapers swayed in the wind, and the poorer areas of the city were even worse closer to collapse.

And worst of all, there was not a single human being left alive.

There were animals around. Natives of the area like jackals, monkeys, various snakes, and a wide variety of birds were the most noticeable, but there were plenty of stray dogs and cats, and even livestock like goats and pigs. The latter were clearly feral, with the once-domesticated pigs looking more like wild boars.

None were aggressive – at least not when it came to Elijah. Given that quite a few were fairly strong, that was probably a good thing.

Finally, he entered the slums. Vaguely, he remembered that locals might have referred to them as basti, though he had no idea where he might've heard the term. Perhaps in college. Regardless, that was the extent of his knowledge of the city – or India in general, save for developing a taste for the food while in college – so, given that there were no natives of the area to educate him, he was on his own.

In any case, the slums were surprisingly better off. Many of the makeshift buildings showed signs of ethereal reinforcement, suggesting that they'd survived the first few months after the World Tree's touch. In fact, some were so well-made that Elijah suspected that they'd been built years after Earth's transformation.

Unfortunately, the city's abandonment was absolute. No one remained, and some of the areas looked like they'd been abandoned in a hurry. Plates with decaying food still on them, closets containing whole wardrobes, mementos like figurines or photographs – it all told Elijah that everyone had been forced to leave, and so quickly that they couldn't spare the time to collect their belongings.

Elijah spent an entire day exploring the city, and even though he'd only investigated a fraction of the enormous settlement, he decided to leave it behind. No one was left, and he didn't have the heart to see more signs that everyone had either been killed – as evidenced by a few mass graves he'd found – or forced to flee.

With that in mind, he once again took to the skies. The increased altitude gave him a little more perspective into what had been lost. The city proper was pretty large, but the surrounding metropolitan region went on for dozens of miles in every direction.

And it was all deserted, with much of it having been reduced to ruins. A few times, Elijah caught sight of extremely large beasts roaming the remnants of the city, and he even saw a troop of tens of thousands of monkeys – each one at least three times their pre-World Tree size – that clearly ruled over their territory with an iron fist. Some even tried to throw things at Elijah, and though he was more than a half a mile high, some of those projectiles nearly reached him.

Soon enough, he left the city behind, and after only a little searching, he found evidence of the path taken by the city's fleeing residents. Regrettably, many had died, but instead of falling prey to beasts or being piled into mass graves, they'd clearly been slain in battle. After a brief inspection, Elijah determined that many were armored, though it was obvious that anything of real value had been stripped away.

Tens of thousands of corpses dotted the highway leading off to the east and into a nearby jungle. Elijah landed, shifted into the Shape of the Scourge, and adopted Guise of the Unseen before following the highway through the jungle. Along the way, he saw more of the same, confirming that the residents of New Delhi had not been chased away by monsters or beasts. Instead, they'd fallen prey to men and women.

As he covered one mile after another, the corpses grew fresher. Clearly, most of them had died months before, but by the time he'd covered a hundred miles, it was obvious that they hadn't been dead nearly as long.

That pattern continued until he reached the edge of the jungle. And when he pushed through the tree line, he saw why.

A fortress-like city loomed in the distance. Made of red sandstone, the fort was absolutely enormous. The walls were at least two-hundred feet tall, with massive bastions and battlements jutting even higher. From an architectural standpoint, the Mughal influence was obvious in a grand and syncretic style that blended Islamic, Hindu, and Timurid traditions.

As Elijah drew closer, more details came into view. The structure was the size of a small city, and from what he could see, it was densely packed with buildings. Circling it, he saw a trio of heavy gates as well as a clear emphasis on symmetry.

The entire thing looked like the famous Agra Fort, though far larger and obviously new. In addition to being populated – there were people on the walls – the fortress glistened with enough ethera to suggest that it had been built by powerful Tradesmen.

More importantly, the trail of blood and bodies obviously led to one of the gates. Elijah decided he needed to continue his investigation.