Path of Dragons

Elijah chose his moment well.

From where he'd remained perched in a tree, he threw himself at the lone asharii. His talons flashed, ripping into the blue creature with ease. Blood – paler, but still blue – splashed across the undergrowth, and the thing let out a gurgling wail.

That's when things went wrong.

The first hint was when Ethereal Sepsis halted its quick progress, expelled before it even took hold. Only a second later, the same became true when Spreading Blight was expunged. Shocked, Elijah dashed past, then wheeled around to face the creature. It turned, and, in a deft manipulation of the ambient ethera, formed a dense lattice of threads. In the space of a moment, those threads contracted into a ball.

Elijah watched as the ball turned solid, almost crystalline in nature. Without hesitation, the asharii closed its fingers around the solid ethera, then slammed it into the wound caused by Elijah's initial ambush. Via Soul of the Wild, he could feel the ball become malleable – like putty – which it then used to seal the wound. When the asharii pulled its hand away, the injury was gone.

When Benedict had described the things as creatures of magic, Elijah hadn't taken it seriously. But now he understood that the term didn't just refer to their predisposition, but rather, the nature of their bodies. They were as much pure ethera given flesh as they were creatures of vitality.

Wanting more information – because that was the entire reason he'd attacked in the first place – Elijah chose to shift out of the scourgedrake form. Once he'd returned to his natural shape, he leveled his scythe at the creature and let loose with Storm's Fury. Lightning, thicker and more volatile than ever before, arced out, spanning the distance in a faction of a second.

It wasn't fast enough, though.

The asharii felt it coming, and in another display of deft ethereal manipulation, unraveled the threads associated with the spell. It didn't completely stop the lightning, but when it hit, it did so with a fraction of its normal power. Indeed, if it was any stronger than a normal electrical current, Elijah would have been surprised.

Fortunately, that was enough to send the asharii flying backwards. It hit a tree with a loud thud that, judging by the cracking sounds, shattered a few bones. However, even if the asharii's durability was nothing special, its ability to repair itself by absorbing ethera made up for that disadvantage. Even as it rose, the thing's misshapen arms and legs snapped back into form.

It was no painless process – at least judging by the creature's trembling limbs – but it was effective nonetheless.

"Fair enough," Elijah said, stalking forward. Over the next few minutes, he tried out most of his spells, and to similar effect. The process gave him some insight into the limitations and advantages of the djinn's nature. The first and most obvious issue was the thing's ability to unravel his spells. The more powerful abilities among his repertoire were more difficult for the asharii to unmake, and as a result, they tended to hit with a little more power – relative to their normal expression of strength – than something like Storm's Fury.

But to his irritation, Eternal Plague was entirely ineffective. The second the conjured insects – this time, blue butterflies – came close to the asharii, they exploded into motes of ethera. Not a single one delivered its payload, even after the spell had been ongoing for thirty seconds.

A similar problem occurred when Elijah tried to use Nature's Claim, which ended up doing nothing. The spores were destroyed the second they took hold in the creature's body. They never even had a chance to spread, much less erupt from the creature's back.

The same was true with his other damage-over-time spells. As he'd already established, Ethereal Sepsis and Spreading Blight never had a chance to take hold before they were expelled.

It gave him a clear idea of the asharii's abilities. Spells were mostly out. Lasting effects were out as well. Even when he tried Shape of the Master and used a low-count Incinerate, the results were almost nil.

Fortunately, Elijah wasn't particularly dependent on spells, and the creature was somewhat vulnerable to physical damage. If he let up for even a second, it would rebuild itself though. However, when it did, the ambient ethera was much diminished, meaning that it would eventually run out of fuel for that particular ability.

In fact, Elijah suspected that it would have difficulty maintaining its form if there wasn't enough ethera around.

After testing a few other strategies, he decided that the most straightforward way to deal with them was to simply tear – or slice – them apart. The scourgedrake form wasn't the best at that, largely because it relied on hit-and-run tactics. In the Shape of the Scourge, his instincts told him to pounce quickly, inflict his afflictions upon his foe, then dash away.

Of course, he could go against those instincts. He was in control, not the beast. But instincts existed for a reason. Often, they represented the best available tactic.

Luckily, Elijah wasn't nailed to any particular form, so he continued to experiment. Shape of the Master was a viable option, though the creature didn't really use physical attacks. So, there was nothing to dodge, making the cindrandir a decent, but not perfect fit for that kind of fight.

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But the Shape of Thorn was all but perfect. It didn't really rely on gimmicks. Instead, it was just strong, fast enough, and incredibly durable.

That last bit was important, because its primary means of attack was to throw spears of ethera at its opponent. When they hit something, they exploded into a thousand shards. Elijah decided to tank one – just to see what would happen. That was a mistake that would have gotten him killed if he wasn't so much more powerful than the thing.

Even with all his additional levels and cultivation, the only reason he didn't die was because of his recent advances regarding his soul.

The shards wormed their way into his channels, blocking them and poisoning his ethera. That allowed the asharii to take rudimentary control over the flow, and if Elijah hadn't immediately purged the shards – using the same method he'd employed in the Elemental Maelstrom – he might've been in trouble.

After he took care of the foreign ethera, Elijah decided that the time for experimentation had passed. So, he advanced on the creature in earnest. Fortunately, the ethereal spears weren't easy to summon or quick to coalesce, so Elijah reached the creature before it had another chance to attack.

Then, he extended his Mantle of Authority, using it in its most basic form to still the local ethera.

The asharii immediately panicked. It tried to run, even as its body began to lose cohesion. But in a display of control that Elijah had not anticipated, it forced itself to stay together. Unfortunately for it, Elijah reached it a second later. In the Shape of Thorn, he ripped it apart, piece by piece, until only a few hunks of rapidly dissolving meat were left.

Finally, Elijah relaxed.

He'd never really been in danger, but the asharii was an odd creature that, in the right circumstances, could have proven to be incredibly difficult to overcome. It didn't take a genius to imagine a situation where a much higher-level mage was killed by one of the things. By comparison, classes that relied on physical damage would be very effective.

When the thing was dead, Elijah inspected the area for any potential loot, and upon finding that its gold jewelry had dissipated into motes of ethera, once again resumed the Shape of the Scourge and adopted Guise of the Unseen. It was just in the nick of time, too, because only a few moments later, three more asharii came into the area.

At first, Elijah thought they were entirely uncommunicative. However, after sensing the most subtle thread of ethera he'd ever encountered, he discarded that conclusion. The thread stretched between two of the creatures, pulsing with the slightest thrum of energy. It beat rhythmically, reminding Elijah of morse code.

It wasn't that. But it was something similar.

The trio inspected the site of the battle, with one kneeling next to the biggest puddle of blood before pulsing an ethereal beat to its fellows. Then, they retreated, leaving Elijah alone.

From a distance, he followed them for a few miles until they reached another one of those small temples. It was little bigger than a woodshed, though its architecture was an odd mixture of flowing lines that made it look almost like a modern sculpture. Only when Elijah drew closer did he realize that it was made almost entirely of solid ethera.

The area surrounding it was thick with energy, almost to Ironshore levels.

When the trio reached the temple, they all knelt around it before bowing low. Foreheads on the ground, they manipulated the local ethera. Thousands of webs of energy bloomed into being. Each one was more delicate than the last, and if Elijah hadn't spent quite some time learning to detect and manipulate outside ethera, he might not have noticed it at all.

What's more, he suspected that whatever the purpose of that temple happened to be, it couldn't be good for Earth. So, without further deliberation, he struck hard and fast. Using the lessons he'd learned from his previous battle, he didn't bother with any abilities. Instead, he only used his Mantle of Authority and the raw attributes of his forms.

After the initial ambush, which bisected one of the creatures entirely, Elijah shifted into the Shape of Thorn. Without hesitation, he embraced his mantle and ripped into the creatures. The first one was already dying, but Elijah had seen enough of their native regenerative ability to not take its death for granted. So, with a might stomp, he destroyed its head.

That was enough to send a surge of experience coursing through him.

Unlike the first time he used his Mantle of Authority, the remaining creatures did not flee. They still panicked, but instead of running away, they rushed Elijah. Which was fine by him. Better that they come at him than him being forced to chase them across the woodland.

Of course, they also threw their spears of solidified ethera at him. Thankfully, with the Mantle of Authority already in effect, those projectiles lost cohesion almost as soon as they left the creatures' hands.

What followed was a brutal execution. Elijah didn't hold back. Instead, he went at them with the full force of his fury. Like a mad gorilla, he pummeled and tore them to pieces, bit by bit until there was nothing left.

Only when they were dead did he notice something odd about the temple.

Like the spears, it had begun to lose cohesion. Not as quickly, largely because the battle had taken him far enough away from the structure that his Mantle of Authority only brushed against it. But it turned from stone-like to something akin to a non-Newtonian substance.

Not quite solid. Not quite liquid.

And when he approached, it completely melted before dissipating into motes of ethera. The eruption of energy swept over Elijah, powerful even to his senses. Anyone under level fifty would have probably collapsed. And for someone yet to attain an archetype, it would have been deadly.

When the dust settled, only a pile of gravel remained.

More importantly, Elijah received a notification:

Elijah frowned after reading the message. He knew he should have expected it. After all, there had been similar requirements to enter the Desolate Reach. Back then, he'd been forced to overcome four challenges just to gain access to the Primal Realm. It seemed that this was a comparable situation.

Whatever the case, he had no intention of destroying any other Ethereal Anchors. For one, hunting them down would likely be a pain. He'd only discovered this one by chance. However, even more importantly, it seemed that he wouldn't be stumbling into this Primal Realm by accident, so he was free to explore the area to his heart's content.

But one thing was certain – he wasn't going to be dealing with Benedict's blue devil problem in time to get the man's help against the Third Army.