Chapter 43 - Some things, you just never learn..

The fire howled and bellowed like a thing alive as it swallowed everything in its path while coming after me. The sound was extremely disconcerting, as it lent a visceral feel to the whole experience that wouldn’t really help in keeping a calm mind so as to make the right decisions and calls.

That is not to say that it got to me. After all, I was a scarred veteran of countless battles. I had put my life on the line on a daily basis, until it had become second nature - like brushing my teeth or taking a piss. Not that hard to do, after a while, so long as you survive the admittedly harsh initiation period.

It is a pretty damn harsh world out there, after all.

Take for instance the first few times you watch someone next to you bite the dust. It’s really a very unnatural experience, as your whole life the so-called civilized society tries to indoctrinate you on the sanctity of life and all that spew. Then the next thing you know, you get tossed headfirst into the world’s least fun butcher house and your bunkmate’s head gets blown clean off during his first engagement. Consequently, you’re standing there staring stupidly at the blood gushing like a geiser from the severed neck of this living, breathing person who just now became a useless chunk of rotting meat.

Welcome to the realization of your own mortality.

Many crack right there and then.

Others are all bravado and bluster, temporarily fooling themselves into thinking they’re immortal. They’re the protagonist of the story, after all. That works (sometimes too well, as many of these idiots simply become suicidal nitwits) right up until it doesn’t, most often prompted by some close call or messy wound. That’s all it takes for the crystal spire they’d built up to come tumbling down. Then they collapse and we’re back at square one.

As for my present self, I even had the luxury to spit out an endless litany of curses as my body hurtled through the air and the smell of singed hair assaulted my nostrils. My eyes were working just fine, and I threw a quick glance towards the lethal wave of raging fire cresting over the exploding rock fragments and red hot magma in its mad rush to incinerate me.

Making an instant judgment call as to how far the splashing tongues of flame would reach, I let my body figure out the rest of the landing sequence while my eyes focused on the real threat: Sharinne, or more accurately the gargantuan red dragon she had somehow transformed into in the blink of an eye while trying to barbeque me on the spot - without so much as a word of warning.

And then people wonder why I harbor such deep personal trust issues.

Well, lets go over the evidence laid out before us thus far.

Exhibit A: Benevolent godlings attempt to trick me into serving up my soul as an aperitif. When that fails those evil soulsucking bastards just make me go through pretty much everything about my life I had done my damnest to forget.

Exhibit B: Grateful relative of the child I pretty much risked my life AND soul to rescue thanks me for kind of succeeding (and restoring her messed up house, to boot) then turns into big, nasty dragon with no warning whatsoever, and is even now doing its damnest to turn me into a smoking pile of ashes.

Need I keep going?

Oh yeah, this all went through my head as I was still suspended in the air, in the middle of my desperate, last minute evasive dive. This was important to me, alright? Not only did it serve to further cement my constantly growing contempt towards the value of civility and trust in interpersonal relationships, but it also fueled the endless torrent of vicious expletives gushing from my mouth.

Else, the frenzied fury scorching my own heart would probably burn me up before the damn dragon’s flame even caught up to me.

Why was I so upset? It wasn’t really the fact that Sharinne was trying her damn best to kill me, and had as a matter of fact nearly succeeded. Hell, that’s even how I met most of my friends for the first time. Kind of a sick initiation ritual of sorts before I take anyone seriously, if I think about it.

Neither was it because she had just liquified my precious baby nuke launcher before I even had the time to get a single stinking shot off. Well..

Alright, fine. It is not completely due to that.

And to be totally honest, I do enjoy a good scrap like few others ever would. I did technically just get done with slaughtering thousands upon thousands of hapless souls while trapped within the Labyrinth, but that hadn’t even been that fun after the first few hundred or so. After that it had just turned into an aggravating chore on my quest to save Sol and slaughter the demons pulling the strings from behind the scenes.

Like having to stop the car, step outside and wipe the windshield wiper every couple miles because of all the damn annoying bugs that stubbornly kept smashing themselves into bloody ichor against the glass.

Get my drift?

But no, none of the reasons above were truly the cause for all my rage and indignation.

No, the biggest reason was that I was fairly certain this was some sort of idiotic test in Sharinne’s mind. Else, why even bother speaking to me and put up the nice facade of cordiality and gratitude? Furthermore, I hadn’t even felt a trace of killing intent until she actually lit herself on fire and transformed into that giant, raging behemoth.

That is not to say she did not intend to kill me. Oh no. The raging, murderous vibe-meter had spiked through the roof as soon as things had gotten all heated up.

What pissed me off to no end was the fact that this overgrown lizard that had looked just about ready to be sent out to the pasture or the nursing home mere moments ago had the freaking gall to try and test me.

Me.

What are you, freaking insane? Stupid? Retarded?

I just got done single-handedly mopping up the nefarious, evil masterminds who had basically driven your kin to the edge of extinction without breaking a sweat and now that I saved your useless, pathetic, ungrateful little ass you have the freaking gall to try and TEST ME?

Oh you great mother.. I am going to really, really f*ck you up now.

Well, as soon as I haul my own ass out of the fire - in the most literal, personal sense.

Finally done rummaging through my mental list of reasons I felt entirely justified in my overwhelming impulse to smash my opponent into a wet, squelching bag of amorphous flesh, I simply shoved it all out of the way as I realized none of that was truly relevant at all.

I would kick this dragon’s ass either way, simply because hey, how often do you really get to kick a dragon’s ass?

Not one to disappoint, my body did manage to figure out its own landing by itself. This left my mind - well, at least the part that wasn’t throwing a fit because of this ungrateful lizard or hollering in ohmygodican’tbelieveimmakickadragonsass euphoria - relatively free to start doing some serious planning.

The first thing I did was turn my sloppy belly-flop of a landing into a smooth roll that saw me on my feet and running in an instant. I judiciously ignored the crackling, booming noises howling in my ears from behind as I rushed towards the dragon while making a mental inventory of the weapons I was carrying on my person just now.

That task was finished depressingly fast, as I hadn’t been bearing any type of weapon when I first came to my senses after exiting the final soul construct where I’d faced off against the Ice Emperor, Xiao Ming. So, no armored exoskeleton, no sniper gauss rifle, no automatic machine gun, not even a paltry sidearm. Most definitely no mini-nuke launcher - not anymore at least, that gout of flame had seen to that. I really hadn't taken the time to summon any other weapons because, well, I frankly just really, really wanted to shoot my nuke, dammit!

So, all I’d done was to strap on that big slab of steel - the blue flaming sword - I’d conjured up before having the bright idea not to bring a knife to a gunfight. It felt decisively less impressive than my darling nuke launcher, but then again I felt it would suffice in the off-chance that anything tried to jump me before I had a chance to bring my big guns to bear. I’d figured, fend them off with the big pointy stick, then gain some distance and ram a thermonuclear warhead up their ass.

So much for that idea.

Then again, I suppose you don’t bring a gun to a dragon fight.

Sighing in mournful resignation, reached over my shoulder to unsling the sword I had so casually summoned earlier. It was a hefty two-handed sword, double edged with a length just short of 4 feet ending in a nice, sharp point and a simple, utilitarian hilt. None of that silly gilded stuff for me. I expect my weapons to maim and kill, not to glitter and shine with gold and gems to look extra fancy.

I had my ethereal blue flames for that.

Indeed, as soon as my hands found the hilt and I hefted the sword in both hands eldritch fire that burned with a deep, blue hue roared into life with a satisfying WHOOSH! As I brought its weight to bear before my chest, I could feel the heat of it on my skin, and instinctively knew that were I not its wielder, I would have been scorched by the tenacious blaze.

Heh, maybe the big pointy stick wasn’t so bad after all. Perfect for cooking an overgrown lizard, medium rare.

As my gaze roamed the dizzying length of the Dragon’s girth until they met the dragon’s own twin ruby eyes, I detected a hint of surprise flash through them when they saw just how freakishly fast I could move.

Indeed, my sprint had taken me on a nice flanking move straight under the flaming blast and next to one of the dragon’s folding wings. By the time her maw finally snapped shut and the useless stream of fire was cut off, I had already launched myself off the ground and begun to dart up the dragon’s left hind leg in a gravity defying act. By the time I felt the scales under my feet begin to shift as the dragon began to move, I had already reached the its knee. With a ferocious shout of my own, I gathered my own momentum to rocket off into the air while twisting my upper body so both my arms held the flaming blade behind me, almost brushing against my back.

Seeming to almost instinctively sense what I was planning, Sharinne hurriedly tried to gather her wings into her body, but it was already far too late.

With a furious cry, I unwound my body as my arms brought the sword swinging in a translucent arc of dazzling blue lights that smashed into the thin membrane of the dragon’s wings but couldn’t penetrate that far. The sizzling edge followed my body’s upward motion and trailed a shower of sparks and blood behind me as I continued to soar up along the damn near-impenetrable wing.

An ear-splitting howl of pain rumbled in the air but I ignored it as I grit my teeth and reached out with one of my hands to just barely grab hold of the top of Sharinne’s wing. I used that hold as an anchor to push both feet against the scaly flesh, feeling like I’d just kicked an iron plate. Still, it served my purpose just fine as used the force to smoothly flip myself up into the air above the dragon in another dizzying jump.

By now the dragon’s whole body had started to shift as it reflexively sought to protect its wound, but I had already predicted the motion and as I reached the apex of my arc in the air, I firmly grasped the hilt of the sword in both hands as I burst forth with all my pent up rage with a vigorous shout.

“OVERKILL!”

Special Attack: Overkill Success!

By harnessing all your power and explosively focusing it in a single blow, you are able to deal tremendous damage at the sacrifice of greatly increased stamina expenditure and leaving yourself vulnerable to a counter-attack!

If you hit your target, you will score a critical hit!

The sword in my hands seemed to sense my intent, and it responded in kind by flaring up with a massive sheet of semi-transparent force that materialized itself just beyond the point of my blade, easily doubling its reach. The whole length of it was coated in boiling flames that left a blinding trail of light as I brought the sword down in a mighty two-handed overhand smash fueled by every last iota of grim determination flaring up within my heart.

BANG!

As the white-hot edge of my sword violently exploded against the thick scales covering the top of Sharinne’s wing, the force of the clash was enough to send me tumbling backward in the air in a blinding shower of blue flames mixed with bright crimson dragon blood.

Another howl of agony issued from the dragon’s maw as it threw its head back and recoiled from the terrible blow amidst the smoking ruins of its ruptured flesh. On an instinctive level, most winged beasts will immediately attempt to take flight when their lives are threatened, and the hideous wound I’d inflicted on Sharinne was enough to trigger such a reaction. However, as the sinewy flesh underneath the scaly skin rippled in an attempt to extend her wings, the side I’d just struck down spasmed violently before finally collapsing altogether and hanging limply against her back.

My heart roared in exultant celebration as I bared my teeth in a vicious, blood-flecked snarl. I threw one last contemptuous look towards the crippled giant before retracting my senses in order to take account of my trajectory as I soared through the air.

Hmmph, that’ll teach you to piss me off, you bitch!

Amateurs always made the same mistake. They took it easy as soon as they gained what they perceived to be an unassailable upper hand against those they considered as weaker enemies. Huge rookie mistake! And that’s all Sharinne, ancient dragon or not, was to my eyes.

A rank amateur.

Don’t ever underestimate your foes, stupid!

Camly taking stock of my situation, I estimated that I should be able to stop myself by latching onto one of the tall buildings that lined up the enormous plaza. With my magicked blade in hand, it should be simplicity itself to jam its burning edge into the stone, gradually breaking my fall.

Of course, that’s when three things went very, very wrong.

First, I missed my swing. I gaped in stunned stupefaction as my stab towards the side of the building I’d been aiming for somehow struck nothing but air and I sailed on by, hurtling towards the ground at bone-crushing speed. It took me a much longer time than I’m comfortable admitting to finally stare dumbly down at my “Invincible Sword of Eldritch Blue Flames” and figure out the reason why.

Apparently, after the titanic clash against rock-hard dragon flesh, I would be forced to re-christen my blade as the “Broken Sword of Tiny Sparks and Sputtering Smoke” instead. Indeed, the sword was a sorry looking affair of tangled steel and fluttering sparks that ended a good two and a half feet short of where it should have been.

Oh man, I don’t think I even finished paying that off.

Second, I found - and much to my dismay, let me assure you - that not all of the smoke stinging my eyes and burning my lungs came from the sputtering sparks of my totalled sword. As a matter of fact, it was not with a small amount of distress that I came to the sudden, flashing realization that I was the main culprit for all the mess. The deep crimson dragon blood caking nearly every inch of my body had begun to boil and sizzle, eventually combusting spontaneously while the wind howling through my ears only served to further fuel the hungry flames that began to eagerly lick at my tender flesh.

Last, but certainly not least..

WARNING! You detect tyrannically intense killing intent directed at you!

No, really? I can't possibly imagine why.

That about sums up my thought process as I watched the berserk rage flooding a burning pair of ruby eyes grow larger and larger in my vision as their owner pounded furiously along the ground, thereby surging forward and drawing closer at a spectacularly alarming rate for a beast of that size - and with a maimed wing at that! - I belatedly realized I’d just made the exact same mistake I’d been ridiculing my opponent for.

Oh crap.

Don’t ever underestimate your foes, stupid!

When will I ever learn?

The rest of my musings was rudely cut off short by the hideously conspicuous sound of a long intake of breath that seemed to suck all life and color from the world along with it. The dragon never even slowed down as it spread its maw wide straight in my direction as I flopped and flailed helplessly through the air and I had to wonder which would happen first.

Would the big nasty dragon char-broil me with that terrifying breath of hellish flame, then snap up my smoking remains and gulp me down in a single serving?

Or would I simply smash my brains into mush against the floor before grinding myself into a bloody paste as I skidded a hundred feet or so along the rocky ground. I mean, it’s not like I’m using it, anyhow. My brain, that is.

And to think this had been my idea of fun.

Oh yeah, here comes the dragon!

Oh joy.