15-1. The Aftermath of Victory

“They’re not going to let it go, are they?” Elijah asked, kneeling amongst the rocks, his hand resting against the jagged terrain.

Mano answered, “They do not take defeat easily. It is a draconic trait. Some consider it a flaw. Fatal pride.”

“Are you one of those people?” Elijah asked, glancing back at the big dragon. His adopted brother maintained his humanoid form, which meant that he looked like someone had enlarged a professional wrestler and shoved him into a set of black armor. His grey skin shone dully, with black scales encircling his body in complex whorls that reminded Elijah of Celtic body paint.

Otherwise, Mano’s stern features looked like they’d been carved from granite.

“Pride in victory is a good thing. In defeat, it is useless,” he stated. “It blinds and conceals the truth.”

“What truth?” Elijah asked.

“That someone was better than you. It is a learning opportunity. Not a chance to cling to past perception that was already proven false.”

“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I have lost countless battles, it is true.”

“Sounds like there might be a story there,” Elijah prompted.

The transcendent shrugged, his eyes scanning the moon’s horizon. “Defeat is inevitable. Using that as fuel for future victories is the key to transcendence,” he stated. “In my youth, I was a runt. Like you. Mother wished for me to follow in her footsteps. I was driven to battle. We disagree on most things, but none more so than my choice to take the Warrior archetype.”

He clenched his jaw. “I will never forget that look of disappointment,” he explained. “She told me that I’d made the same mistakes she had, that I would one day regret my decision.”

“Have you?”

He shook his head, though only slightly. The weight of his presence sent ripples through the air. “I have not. I was born for battle.”

“Sometimes, I think the same thing,” Elijah said. “Or maybe I just have a habit of attracting trouble.”

Mano glanced at Elijah and smiled. “You were not born for battle, brother. You were born for survival.”

“Lot of overlap there,” Elijah pointed out.

“But distinct differences, nonetheless.”

Elijah could only agree. While he would never deny the enjoyment he felt from a good fight, he didn’t revel in battle. He fought because he had to. Or in the case of the tournament, because the rewards outweighed the risks.

Which brought him back to the initial conversation.

“What do you think they’ll do?” he asked, referring to his unexpected victory in the Tournament of the First Fang. He’d fought twenty rounds, and against the best the Empire of Scale had to offer. The last battle – against Cyran es Caelwyn – had shown just how averse some people were to Elijah’s victory. Cyran had used a host of items and potions that should’ve been banned from such a tournament, all because he represented pure dragons.

“Assassins, likely. Political plots, perhaps. They may even attack you economically,” Mano answered. “But they won’t let this go. Because of what you are and what you represent.”

Elijah was what some called a half-scale. A dragon who’d been born to another race. A human who’d been granted a dragon core, rather than developed it naturally. People like Kirlissa – his adopted mother – made no distinction between the two origins, but there were many among the dragons who felt differently.

And they’d made their views known. Not by declaring them outright, but by bending the rules in the hopes that Cyran would win the all-important Tournament of the First Fang.

Their plans had failed.

Elijah had emerged victorious.

He had yet to claim his rewards, but there was a part of him that wondered if it was even worth it. An item from the so-called Fourth Treasury and a trip to the First Fang didn’t sound all that impressive. Of course, that wasn’t the case. The Empire of Scale was millions of years old, and its foundation had formed from other fallen kingdoms and empires whose history stretched back to the very first dragons. As such, their treasures were sure to be some of the best in the multi-verse.

Even the fourth-tier ones.

And the First Fang? The dragons spoke of it like humans spoke of God. It was a tangible link to their nearly forgotten past, and it functioned as one of the most potent cultivation resources in the empire.

As such, it was a great opportunity to advance his core.

Even so, he hated everything that came with claiming it. Like the fact that everyone who mattered in the empire was now out to get him. If he was left alone – even on Vyrin, which was Kirlissa’s home – he would be in grave danger. After all, his victory had angered deities and transcendents alike. They wouldn’t attack him overtly, but with that kind of power involved, they didn’t need to.

That was why Elijah found himself with a bodyguard.

He liked Mano. Mostly. But the dragon’s presence rankled on Elijah’s sense of freedom. He told himself he didn’t need a bodyguard, but that just wasn’t true.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mano, interrupting Elijah’s thoughts.

“Ley lines,” Elijah answered. “Or rather, the lack.”

“Why?”

“New spell.”

“Hmm.”

Mano didn’t ask any other questions, probably because he recognized that, as a demigod, Elijah couldn’t really do much damage. Not on the scale he was accustomed to, at least.

For what it was worth, Elijah felt the same.

The two spent another couple of hours wandering the surface of Vyrin. The moon was only a little larger than Earth’s Luna, meaning that Elijah could have circled it in couple of hours. However, Elijah decided to take his time, stopping every so often to feel the ley lines.

There weren’t many, and most of those were incredibly weak. The only ley lines with any sort of power were the ones leading directly to the palace, which had been built at an intersection of power. The rest of the moon was practically barren, which was exactly what Elijah wanted.

In the end, he stopped on the other side of the moon, where the terrain was mired in eternal darkness. There was an atmosphere, but it had grown much thinner the further they traveled from Kirlissa’s established home. Fortunately, breathing wasn’t really a priority for Elijah. Not anymore, at least.

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At some point, he’d progressed past the practical necessity. In theory, he would eventually need to take a breath, but Elijah knew that wouldn’t come for days. Or weeks, perhaps.

The perks of being a demigod with incredible attributes, he supposed.

The diffuse ethera was a much more urgent problem. Thankfully, Elijah had plans to see to that particular issue. To that end, he stopped on the most desolate side of the moon and dug a hole.

The ground was rocky, but Elijah cut through it with ease before burying a small seed. Once he’d done so, he shifted into his dragon form, inhaled, and erupted with the Breath of Life. Green lightning composed of pure vitality arced across the ground. The life-giving energy clung to the rocky surface, sinking into the ground and forming an apron around the seed.

But that would never be enough to foster life on a desolate moon.

Elijah cast Blessing of the Grove and Nature’s Design, the combination taking hold of the area and, under his direction, forming a series of complex runes. To those intricate glyphs clung tiny particles of life. Bacteria, mostly. Some fungi. Enough to kickstart the ecosystem.

“If you don’t mind, Mano?”

“I am no gardener,” the dragon grunted. But he’d already agreed to help. Over the next few minutes, he dumped tons of fertilized soil around the seed. Even as Elijah maintained the aura of life, Mano spread the rich earth in a wide circle that measured exactly a ninety-nine-point-one yards in diameter.

Elijah had even brought a measuring tool to ensure specificity.

Once Mano had finished with that, he stepped outside the circle. Meanwhile, Elijah continued his work, suffusing the area with life, then guiding the growth of the bacteria and fungi. He used a similar but more refined version of the techniques he’d employed in Druhmor, but in addition to having a better grasp on the theories behind it, Elijah was also far more powerful than he’d been back then.

He used that to his advantage, and over the next few days, created an oasis to rival the grounds of Kirlissa’s palace on the other side of the moon.

As Elijah worked, he also recognized that he wasn’t doing so alone. Kirlissa was known as Prosperity, and she epitomized the given name. Within her domain, her subjects would know unrivaled success. And as her adopted son, Elijah was no different. Everything just seemed to work better. His thoughts were sharper, his actions more decisive. And at times, he experienced brief moments of inspiration that made the whole project work better.

“What are you doing?” Mano asked at last.

“I thought you said you weren’t interested in Druid stuff,” Elijah countered.

“I am not.”

“And yet, you asked,” Elijah said, grinning. Before Mano said anything else, he went on, “I want to build a dolmen in the Empire of Scale, but to do that, I need to have life. Hard to do on a moon like this. So, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Dolmen. A monument?” Mano asked.

“Something like that. The term actually refers to a megalithic tomb, but either the system translation glitched, or it took some liberties. It’s fine, though. The point is that I build these stone circles, empower them, and then use them as a personal teleportation network,” Elijah explained. “I’m hoping that it’ll give me the ability to go back to Earth, then return to the Empire of Scale without spending a fortune.”

“Ah.”

“What?”

“We usually don’t worry about those sorts of things.”

“What sorts of things?”

“Ethereum.”

Elijah stared at the big dragon, who had the good grace to at least look a little embarrassed that he’d never even considered the notion of saving money. Of course, it was understandable. Mano had never had to bother with budgeting. Kirlissa was one of the richest people in the Empire of Scale. Probably the wealthiest after the emperor themselves. Maybe even richer, all things considered. Surely, her children got whatever they wanted.

Would she have given Elijah the same treatment, had he asked? Probably. But he’d made no such requests, and he didn’t think he would. Not unless lives were on the line, and they currently weren’t. Even using her political capital to avoid the qualifiers in the Tournament of the First Fang had made him slightly uneasy.

“Well, I do worry about that,” Elijah pointed out. “Besides, this will let some of my chosen grove-members visit here basically for free. It could be a nice opportunity for growth, and I think it would tie us closer to the Empire of Scale.”

“Faction building. Smart,” Mano said. “With the benefits of a close alliance with the empire to strengthen your grove, none of your enemies would dare stand against you. You could conquer your planet in a decade or two.”

“I’m not trying to conquer anything.”

Mano snorted at that. “Conquer or be conquered. That is the way, brother. Remember that.”

During the conversation, Elijah had shifted some of his focus to the seed itself. With so much vitality and the rain from Blessing of the Grove, it was bursting with impending potential. Elijah unleashed it through a deft manipulation of Nature’s Design.

Gradually, he guided the seedling into adulthood – a process that took most of a week. As Elijah worked, Mano stood guard. He barely moved, instead scanning the moon for any threats. It was a display of control that beat anything Elijah had ever seen before.

But then again, he didn’t exactly hang out with transcendents all that often. Especially ones who spent most of their time in the abyss battling the Ravener’s forces. Out there, lack of attention probably meant a quick death.

In any case, Elijah focused on the task and slowly ushered the seed into becoming a tree. But not just any tree. He’d grown an ancestral tree. With its white bark and blue leaves, it cut a striking figure on the desolate surface of the moon.

Finally, Elijah let out a deep breath.

“It is powerful,” Mano said, eyeing the arbor. “Low demigod potential at least. Perhaps mid-tier with the right care.”

“Oh, it’s going to be more than that,” Elijah said.

Then, for the first time ever, he used Root Nexus:

The spell took a full minute to cast, and with every second, the ethera built upon itself. The intensity wasn’t quite exponential, but it was extremely close to reaching that mark. So, by the time the spell reached its culmination, Elijah felt like he had a miniature sun in his hands.

Then, it coalesced into a single shard of crystal.

“What is that?” asked Mano, actually leaning closer.

“Root Nexus,” Elijah answered, stepping toward the tree. “I’m really not sure what’s going to happen here, but…well, fair warning, I guess.”

Then, he pressed the crystal against the trunk of the tree. At first nothing happened, but then, after only a few seconds, the shard trembled. That tremble turned into an intense vibration that soon became so violent that Elijah couldn’t maintain his grip. When he released it, the crystal hovered in mid-air, but only for a moment, before passing through the tree’s trunk.

Stillness followed.

It was just the calm before the storm.

An explosion of ethera, slightly out of phase with Elijah’s reality, erupted from the tree and swept across the moon. Another pulse came on its heels. Then another. In all, it sent out nine waves of ethera before once again going inert.

Fifteen seconds passed before the ground trembled. But the physical expression was nothing compared to the ethereal effect. Great waves of energy came rushing into the tree, which exploded with green light. Power encapsulated the arbor, forming a solid cocoon that was both physical and ephemeral.

Elijah stumbled to his knees.

Mano narrowed his eyes.

The tree grew, its trunk expanding to more than thirty feet across while its canopy reached a height of more than a hundred yards.

“What did you do?” came a melodic voice as the flow of energy ebbed.

Elijah turned to see that Kirlissa had arrived. Or rather, one of her projections. “I just want to start by saying you gave me your permission to do this,” he said. “Let’s remember that.”

“I did not give you permission to rearrange the leylines of my home,” she pointed out.

“Uh…sorry?”