The Ruler of Ruin

“Losing an avatar is an annoyance, but not lethal.” Corvusol answered about what happens if they successfully evicted Mithras from Etienne.

“Killing Mithras is like chasing the wind,” Amaranthine said. “When I killed his last avatar he sacrificed that portion of his anima in a spectacular, but failed, attempt to take my life. He will sacrifice anything; his believers, the true world, even portions of his own essence to survive another day.”

“Mithras has enthralled hundreds within his clergy. Their individual affinities with him are too weak to become avatars like Etienne, but it also makes the control he has over them weaker. Not that it matters when they perceive him as their god and devoutly carry out his commandments.” Arx Maxima said.

“So, what, we can’t kill him?” I asked in annoyance. Why was it so hard to kill him? A spear to the heart or brain killed most things, but Mithras didn’t have those it seemed like.

“He’s a determined survivor. If your goal is to finish Mithras, you will fail. But that is not your goal. Your goal is to free your brother, is it not?” Corvusol stated it bluntly, and with a slight vindication, as if Mithras’s survival proved that Mithras, and by extension Corvusol, were better than me.

“Yeah,” I growled. The idea had bubbled into my mind that I could kill Mithras and free everyone in the True World from his awful grasp. It felt like a bone stuck in the back of my throat that I couldn’t deal with the crux of the problem. Corvusol took vicious glee in popping the dream-bubble of my delusion of grandeur.

“We must take the victories we can, Emery. We save our family, disrupt his plans by taking his best avatar, and maybe recruit talented adventurers in the process. That’s a lot of victories, and more than most ever get against someone as powerful as Mithras.” Remy said with a grin.

Remy’s pride at accomplishing a goal, if not the whole job, helped me refocus the situation in my mind. I couldn’t dwell on not being able to finish off Mithras right now, once I saved Etienne I could work on growing my power until I could kill the bastard.

“If I must be a sliver in his finger, so be it. One day I’ll be the dagger in his heart,” I vowed.

“Hear, hear,” Amaranthine purred happily. I could feel the satisfaction bubbling in her tone that I had righted my ship and altered my focus to the possible. I felt proud, in that moment, that someone like her had any interest in me.

I noticed a small frown on Chrys’s face, and recalled her actual question had only been partially answered. I took a deep, steadying breath.

“As for what happens if we can’t evict Mithras from Etienne, there’s only one answer. We’ll have to kill him. Could you resurrect him if that comes to pass?” It wasn’t a question for anyone specifically, but for the whole of those gathered. I had no resurrection capabilities, but the casual disregard for death on the Plains of Valor made me wonder about the permanence of what I thought was an end.

“Magical resurrection is still out of my reach,” Remy answered in the negative.

“Yeah, no,” Claire answered in an almost hysterical laugh.

Chrys simply shook her head in the negative, while Xian tapped the hilt of his blade as if to say he were only a warrior.

“I’m afraid not,” Miyuki said sincerely.

“My specialty is destruction,” Amaranthine answered.

“Hahaha. No.” Corvusol answered.

“Unlikely,” Arx Maxima stated.

On the surface, this seemed like a lot of negative responses. Yet what I heard was Remy needed to grow stronger, and Arx Maxima might be able to do it, if conditions were right. If it came down to killing Etienne a small hope at the end was better than no hope. We could seek help in the mists if it came down to it.

“Alright. So, we have a plan. We break through the wall while other forces attack separate Castles to split up the forces of Solarias, and the Hydras and Wyrm soften up the main gates of Havenstone. When will the other forces be ready to go?” I asked and looked to Arx Maxima and Corvusol.

“You have 78 hours to prepare. The other strike forces are traversing the Gossamyr. Once they are in position we will strike.” Arx Maxima said, and a count down timer appeared in the corner of my vision.

“I would train with these two,” Xian said and gestured to Chrys and Claire. “You are close to Citrine, and I can get you near to it in that time.”

The absolute confidence of the Urmahlullu didn’t surprise me. I had already identified it partially originated from a constant aura he projected called Majesty, that increased the morale and effectiveness of himself and his allies. Even if he barely knew Claire or Chrys, he probably could train them better than anyone else here.

“I had better work on evolving a few of my own abilities,” Remy said with a glimmer of determination. I don’t think I’d ever seen Remy determined to grow his power in recent years, but maybe he’d just had nothing of value to fight for.

“I’ll join you,” Miyuki declared with flickers of fox fire in her eyes.

The meeting ended with everyone breaking into twos and threes to go make use of the facilities of the Spire, and before I knew it, Amaranthine and I were the last two left in the conference room.

“Let’s go,” Amaranthine practically purred.

“Where?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“Somewhere quiet, where I can have you all to myself and no one will interrupt us.” My betrothed said words I really wanted to hear. Amaranthine’s words were like a worm, wiggling into my brain, breaking loose all of the calm and reservations, triggering a cascade of what ifs and fervent wishes.

“We could use my suite,” I suggested nervously.

“No, there’s a strong chance anywhere we go will suffer catastrophic damage.” Amaranthine didn’t laugh at that, she was serious that anywhere we went might be destroyed.

My daydreams took a wilder turn. Clearly I had been thinking much to vanilla, far too tamely. What did she have in mind for me that would destroy the powerfully constructed rooms within Arx Maxima? I had a hard time coming up with answers. My understandings of sex were limited, but I assumed my draconic body and her fey body worked mostly like my old human one did. What sort of intimate acts could bring such destruction?

“I might be more inexperienced than I thought, why would it be dangerous?” I finally asked.

“Because you’re going to channel chaos, the truth of the storm, and awaken your fifth ability with Katrina. What did you think we were talking about?” The sly twist of her lips, the laughter in her eyes, the way she breathed deep, chest heaving breaths and posed with an arch of her hip that made the slit of her dress show off an immense length of long, bare leg. She purposefully drew my eyes across her body and tantalized me so that she could pull the bait and switch on me with our activities.

The only mercy Amaranthine showed me was that she didn’t activate her glamour. Left it a tease, instead of a burning need that might make me combust at any moment. Amaranthine knew how to push my buttons, that much was clear, and surprisingly.. I liked it. No, I loved the teasing, the torment, the satisfied curl of her lips. The denial made the wait even more worthwhile.

“The elevator can take us to a training room,” I answered after I coughed more sparks of black electricity.

The walk to the elevator, the shared confined spaces, the way she gently brushed her hip against mine or kept my hand intertwined in hers, even the casual walk to the training rooms a floor down were a dance between us. Amaranthine would move closer, I would move away, she would draw attention to herself with a pose or flash of light, I would move closer, she would move further away, or my elbow would brush her breasts… It felt like a dance, in a very unmusical way.

The room we entered was about sixty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. The walls and ceiling were white, the floors were gray. Not a single other object filled the room. Amaranthine pulled me to roughly the middle of the room, and gestured for me to sit down, so I dropped to the floor with my legs crossed. Unexpectedly, she sat astride my lap as if I were her chair, our faces almost touching.

“Close your eyes,” Amaranthine commanded me.

I closed them.

“Imagine the heart of chaos, the abyss of creation and destruction that exists beneath Arx Maxima. Do you see it? Describe it to me.” Amaranthine demanded, and with each word I could feel her breath against my lips and snout.

I let my mind detatch from the physical sensations that assailed me. I didn’t want too, I wanted to dwell on the warmth of Amaranthine’s body near mine, pressing down on me, but begrudgingly I did as she told me to.

“There are storms of chaos—prismatic and scintillating in color. They flow from tongues of flame to tendrils of plasma, bubbling up from the great abyss, which looks somewhat like the mist to start, going from thin, to thick, to opaque. It is difficult to see beyond that, it makes my tail twitchy, and my eyes feel dry.” I relayed the sights, sounds, and feelings I could perceive.

“Reach in with your mind, and grasp hold of it. Gather as much as you can within your bare hand, and do not relent.” Amaranthine encouraged me in a soft voice, like a hunter stalking prey.

I extended my mental left hand into the abyss. Fire, first white, then all of the colors, burst into a conflagration around my actual left hand. Chaos had no set consistency. It wasn’t like water that would flow away. It was like a slurry, where some adhered to me, some flowed away, and some I held as if it were a ball. The textures against my actual hand felt nonsensical. Smooth as silk, rough as sand paper, warm and juicy like an apple pie, cool and slippery like liquid metal, and even a cold, brittle, delicate structure that shattered again and again.

The flames charred at the scales around my hands, but Citadel Adaption kicked in and stopped any actual damage while Constant Maintenance healed the minor burns that had slipped between the infinitesimally small gaps of my scales.

Amaranthine waved a hand, and a Briarhound appeared twenty feet from us. The thing was huge, easily over eight feet tall, twelve or more feet long. It’s whole body was woven of rose vines with impossibly sharp thorns, while also looking like an actual hound. It resonated with the undeniable power of Amaranthine, a sapphire Mist Lord.

“Hit it with chaos,” Amaranthine demanded.

Hit it with chaos. How did I do that? I didn’t want to flail my arm around like an idiot with Amaranthine sitting on my lap, and I didn’t want to indirectly shape a power into another bolt attack, I already had Bedlam Bolt.

So, I drew a deep breath that caught up the flames of chaos from my left hand, and hit the Briarhound with Ira Draconis, the Dragon’s Wrath. Unlike the usual black lightning, this breath attack was chaos flame that struck the Briarhound. Vines withered and blew away. Blight swallowed an entire limb of the beast. It’s head glowed with disruptive pulses that grew more and more intense, until the entire body of the creature looked like a metal pressure tank being over filled, and hammered at from the inside by someone with a sledge hammer.

With each pulse of light the creature grew bigger and cracks ran along its body. It grew to fifteen feet tall, then twenty. Then one final immense pulse wracked the creature, and the exterior of vines, spikes, and bark blew away to reveal a very different hound.

What stood before us seemed tiny compared to the obliterated Briarhound. It had thick, scaley hide like a reptile. Its scales were pure white, but when it breathed or moved, the scales rippled in a beautiful iridescent wave. It looked somewhat like the dogs from Solarias, with a strong snout, two ears, a long tail, and four absolutely beastly strong looking legs. Its smile looked a lot like mine, when it opened its mouth and howled at the ceiling. The echo rang in the enclosed room, but I suspected it also rang through everywhere nearby regardless of the thickness of the walls in between.

Proud of itself for having howled, it bound over and licked my face.

“Incredible,” Amaranthine whispered, and pet my new friend.

“Oh, who’s a good boy? I’m naming him Havoc,” I said impulsively, and lifted a hand to pet his head. Havoc seemed to quite enjoy being pet by the two of us, and I enjoyed the closeness of Amaranthine, the success of our cooperation, and licks and cuddles from my new friend.

A sense of completeness filled me, but it also emphasized the singular emptiness left, the last unfilled ability of fortress.