14-84. Breaking Things

“You don’t have to do this.”

Elijah didn’t respond because there was nothing to say. He’d made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t be swayed. Not by anyone. His path was set, and there was nothing anyone could do to divert him.

After a few moments, he looked up at Tura and said, “You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“I have a good idea, boy.”

“No. You don’t.”

Was that true? Maybe she had some notion of what he intended, but the one thing she would never expect is the depths to which he would sink. Elijah made no claims that he was a moral person. Most of the time, he tried. He truly did. But events usually conspired to rob him of that option.

It had happened when he’d slaughtered those mercenaries from Ironshore, so long ago. And history kept repeating itself. In Bloodrock Bay. In Meridian Lux. With the hunters who thought they could kill an innocent guardian for no other reason than because they could.

At times, Elijah had regretted most of those actions. He didn’t want to be that person. But the notion of not following that path was so detestable that he simply couldn’t abide the idea itself, much less what would happen if he failed to act.

Some lines should never be crossed.

And when they were, consequences were supposed to follow.

Elijah embodied those consequences. He was a warning. A message. And he would play his role.

Tura rested her hand on his shoulder. For all her scales, she was no dragon. She understood the culture. She had lived it for her entire life. But ultimately, there was a reason she’d never developed the dragon core. She lacked the mentality.

Ultimately, that was probably a good thing. Much healthier than what Elijah felt coursing through him. The rage. The hate. The cold fury.

His path was set. He knew the plan. Now, he only needed to walk it.

“You understand that there will be consequences for this, don’t you?” she asked.

“Were there consequences for what happened to Kaela?”

“That was different.”

“Was it?” Elijah asked. “Was it, really?”

“You will make enemies.”

“They were already my enemies,” Elijah stated evenly. “It’s probably for the best if they realize that sooner, rather than later.”

“Just beat him.”

“What?” Elijah asked.

“Don’t do whatever else you intend. Defeating him will be enough,” Tura pleaded.

Elijah sighed, then turned to her. She’d spent countless hours tutoring him. She’d mothered him in ways he hadn’t experienced for decades. Not since well before the car accident that had taken his parents. She’d fed him. She had supported him. And in her own way, she probably loved him.

And he loved her, too. She felt like family.

But Elijah would not be deterred.

“I’m going to break him, Tura. Completely. Irrevocably. When I’m done, there will be nothing left of his mind, reputation, or soul. His path ends today.”

Elijah knew he couldn’t kill Skahan. Not permanently. Not in the arena, at least. But there were much worse things than death, especially for a dragon. Even more so for someone like Skahan, who bled arrogance and wore his haughty privilege like a cloak.

“They will retaliate.”

“Let them.”

That statement hung in the air like a dense fog. Elijah expected repercussions, but Kirlissa had already committed to protecting him against deities and transcendents. And after seeing the best-of-the-best in the tournament, he felt confident that he could take anyone at his stage.

At least individually.

If they all banded together, he would be forced to flee. Not ideal, but if it came to that, he wouldn’t hesitate to leave the Empire of Scale behind. Perhaps he could return to the void and find a reality appropriate for progression. Or he could explore other parts of the multi-verse. Surely, there were plenty of other empires and kingdoms out there. And with his travel discount, he could feasibly reach them all.

It wasn’t what he wanted. He’d barely seen the Empire of Scale so far. But with the situation being what it was, Elijah was more than willing to make that tradeoff. So long as Skahan broke, he would accept the consequences.

Tura paced back and forth, her cane steadily clicking against the floor. But she didn’t say anything else. She clearly understood that her arguments would fall on deaf ears. Elijah’s path was set.

Meanwhile, he sat on the edge of his chair, his eyes trained on nothing as he lost himself in his plans. Like that, they waited until, at last, the attendant arrived. With only a nod to Tura, he pushed himself to his feet and wordlessly followed the woman to the long-anticipated moment.

In the two months since his fight against Palir, he’d done little else but train. He had maintained his routine with both Tura and Birk, but the rest of his time, he spent perfecting the skills necessary to enact his plan. If that failed, things would be much more difficult.

Not impossible, and Skahan’s breaking wouldn’t be nearly as complete. But it would still be satisfying, nonetheless.

As the Chronomancer created the anchor, Elijah continued to play his plan through his mind. Anticipation simmered in his heart, his anger providing the heat. But outwardly, he remained calm. Unflinchingly focused.

The doors opened, and he stepped into the night air.

The remaining fights were held after sunset, and the arena looked even more impressive than in the daylight. Elijah barely noticed the twinkling lights, the trembling crowd, or the Curator rising above the arena, his silver scales glinting.

Instead, Elijah focused on his opponent.

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Skahan’s strode from his designated entrance like a snake on two legs. Confident in his superiority, in his cunning. He wore the same white armor he’d worn during his fight against Kaela. It radiated power, enough that Elijah could feel it even hundreds of yards away. An ornate sword hung from his hip, and his white scales shone like moonlight.

Briefly, Elijah wondered what Skahan saw when he gazed across the arena. Did he see prey? A hapless Druid? Or did he have any inkling that his doom had arrived to hold him to account?

Elijah had made no special additions to his armor, but he clutched Thorn in one hand. He didn’t intend to use the spear, but it felt good to be armed.

The Curator introduced Skahan, recounting his victories. He only devoted a single sentence to Kaela. It didn’t seem like enough, given that the fight had all but robbed her of the future that had once seemed so bright. One line to encapsulate the fall of a promising scion. To destroy whatever Elijah had found with her.

His fingers tightened on the spear shaft.

The Curator took even less time to introduce Elijah, almost as if each victory had been mere happenstance. Some in the crowd booed him.

Elijah didn’t care.

He didn’t need anyone’s approval. And once he was done, everyone would know the truth of the matter.

Finally, the Curator announced the beginning of the fight.

Elijah strode forward, calm and unhurried. Skahan waited, a hint of a smirk on his face. He thought he’d already won. He thought he could use the same tactics on Elijah that he’d employed against Kaela. He intended to destroy Elijah, just as Elijah had planned to destroy him.

A quaint idea.

But it would never work. Elijah didn’t care about his reputation, save as a means to an end. If he lost, if he was forced to beg for his life, then he’d simply move on. Shame had no hold on him.

Not that Elijah intended to let it get that far. He didn’t. But he was prepared for it, all the same.

They stopped within fifteen feet of one another.

“You could just surrender now,” Skahan offered, his tone imminently reasonable.

“You can’t.”

“What?”

“I will not allow you to surrender. There are no easy ways out of this. No escape. You can’t slither away from it. By the time this battle ends, you will be a broken mess. Your path ends here,” Elijah stated. Then, he cocked his head. “No. Your path ended the moment you decided to humiliate her.”

“Her?”

“Her.”

“Ah. Kaelari. A shame, but a necessary sacrifice.”

“A sacrifice? To what? Your vanity?”

“The greater good,” he said. “She was dead weight. If I hadn’t ended her, something else would have. I probably saved her life.”

“You don’t get to –”

It was at that moment that Skahan struck. Not physically. No – that wasn’t his style. He didn’t just want to beat Elijah. He’d set out to destroy him, just as he’d destroyed Kaela. But he had no way of knowing that Elijah was a much harder target.

The first probe slammed into the barrier that was Plain Sight – the mental shield attached to his Antlers of the Wild Revenant. Even before it had been enhanced by the Synergy trait associated with the Armor of the Wild Revenant, it had stood up to the mental assault of a transcendent-level, extra-planar manta ray. That defense had lasted less than a second, but it was a testament to the shield’s power.

By contrast, Skahan was less than a gnat.

The other dragon’s eyes widened as his mental attack rebounded. And Elijah canceled Hidden Authority, letting his helm flicker into sight. Antlers composed of green fire spread from what looked like a deer skull as Elijah stepped forward.

Skahan burst into white light and thrust his palm forward. A massive wave of mental energy cut into the shield around Elijah’s mind, chipping away at it. At the same time, the dragon grew into his natural form. The power behind his attacks doubled.

Even as his shield cracked, Elijah continued forward. At the halfway point, it broke.

As a three-hundred-foot-long dragon, Skahan grinned an evil grin. “You should have taken advantage while your shield held!” he bellowed.

His mental energy split into nine vectors of attack, slithering forward to hit Elijah’s mind from multiple directions.

It destroyed a few spores.

Elijah continued forward, still unhurried as Skahan began to panic.

His efforts redoubled.

A few more spores fell.

And Elijah finally stepped within striking distance. He moved purposefully, thrusting his hand forward. He was still too far away to connect. But Elijah didn’t need to lay a finger on Skahan in order to destroy him.

A branch of his soul arced out, visible as a flash of solid, emerald light, slamming into Skahan’s chest. It slid through the dragon’s scales like they weren’t even there. Elijah looked on as the green light coalesced into something more than ephemeral but less than solid. Thorns, sharp and curved, sprouted from the extension of Elijah’s soul.

Skahan tried to scream, but no sound would come.

The branch pierced the dragon’s core, digging deep as the thorns ravaged its structure. To Skahan’s credit, the core maintained its form. He hadn’t slacked in his cultivation. Tier three, probably. Maybe a weak four, though Elijah doubted he’d made that leap.

Against a grandmaster soul, it was nothing.

The structure flexed, trying to repair itself.

Elijah stepped closer to the agonized and panicked dragon. “This is just the beginning,” he promised. “Remember that as I take you apart, piece by piece.”

Then, he ripped the branch free. The thorns acted like a sawblade, tearing through the already-wounded core. It could no longer maintain its structure, though it didn’t burst like a balloon. Rather, it acted like a broken water main.

Ethera, dense and attuned, geysered from the ephemeral wound. Skahan collapsed, still alive, but powerless. Without his core, he had no way of supporting his magical body.

His bones broke beneath his massive weight. His organs ruptured. And somehow, he managed to initiate the transformation back into his humanoid form. Instinct, perhaps. Maybe he knew the form was safer.

Just as Elijah had predicted.

He stood over the humanoid dragon, watching as his ethera continued to leak. Skahan writhed.

“Finish him,” came a voice from on high.

Elijah turned to look at one of the towers. “No.”

Then, he went to work.

Choking up on Thorn, he knelt next to the convulsing dragon. He reached down, grabbed Skahan’s hand, and brought the blade to bear. A second later, the tip of his finger flopped onto the sand. Just an inch, cut at the first knuckle.

Skahan tried to speak, but Elijah used his Mantle of Authority to shock the words from his mouth. Then, Elijah made another cut. And another after that. Soon enough, he only had nubs where his fingers had once lived.

Elijah healed him, carefully recontextualizing himself so that he could cast Wild Resurgence on an enemy. He also used Tura’s lessons to cast the spell at the lowest possible power. Just enough to stop the bleeding and keep Skahan alive.

Then, Elijah started in on the dragon’s toes.

Above, power surged. Elijah ignored it, trusting that Kirlissa would keep the peace.

He continued. Toes came next. Then, he went back to the arms, cutting them off at the elbows. Knees. Shoulders. Hips. When only a torso remained, Elijah went to Skahan’s face. The ears came off first. Followed by the nose. Lips. Eyes. Tongue.

He let his mantle lapse.

Skahan tried to surrender, but all that came out was a wet gurgle.

Through it all, Elijah kept Skahan alive by maintaining Wild Resurgence. Skinning the dragon required him to push the spell to the mid-range of its power, but it was worth it. Especially when Skahan’s skin joined the pile of discarded body parts.

Next came the muscles.

Elijah carefully peeled them away, bit by bit until only organs and what was left of his skeleton remained. A normal person would’ve long since died, but Skahan was a demi-god. Even with a broken core, he could take a lot of punishment.

Once the dragon’s organs were exposed, Elijah attacked Skahan’s cultivation. Using his soul like a scalpel, Elijah severed the link between the dragon’s mind and his soul. It wouldn’t stop the suffering. The brain and the mind were linked, but they weren’t the same thing. It just kept him from drawing ethera.

Then, he cut into Skahan’s soul.

It was tier-three, but a weak version. He’d been coddled. He had achieved the bare minimum.

Elijah sliced it apart like it was nothing. That took longer than the skinning.

Skahan continued to writhe, wordless and gurgling groans echoing through the silent arena. Elijah kept going.

Then, once the dragon had been torn to pieces in every way imaginable, Elijah just knelt beside him and watched. He waited. Minutes passed. Then an hour. The pathetic pile of flesh tried to muster some defense. Somewhere inside there, Skahan still lurked. He still wanted to win.

Elijah saw that resolve drift away.

Pain had a way of cutting through a man’s determination. But the real dagger was the hopelessness of impotence. Skahan could not escape. He had no power. No way of ending his suffering.

Elijah allowed him to stew in that until, at last, he felt Skahan’s mind go blank.

Finally, after hours of torture, Elijah pushed himself to his feet, raised Thorn, and severed the dragon’s head.

I doing so, he progressed to the final in the Tournament of the First Fang. But in that moment, he didn’t care about any of that. Instead, he focused on the hollowness of his victory. He took no joy in it. No pride. The dismantling of Skahan was just something that had to be done.

And he had done it. Now, he would need to deal with the repercussions.