King of Chains P.O.V

The King of Chains pulled away from the tree. Pain lanced from his shoulder as the chains of his armor vibrated to destroy the tree. It had grown through his shoulder. What the fuck was that? Somehow the lightning changed to wood in an instant, and that wood had nearly taken off his arm. He could heal it, and the protections around his skull and heart prevented it from spreading, but still.

Damn, this was always the problem with new powers. There was too much he didn’t know. He was sure he could contain the aspects, but the kid’s other abilities were different. His reports knew about lightning, but not that. Also, his mana and stamina were draining from just being around the kid. Another thing his spies did not know about. This was why he hated rare classes. Their skills were too powerful. Monsters were especially annoying. That being said, he had his own powerful and unfair skills.

The wound on his shoulder healed as one of his enchanted chains wrapped around his shoulder. He stared up at Mash and scowled. The boy was smiling like a fool. He landed a single attack and missed the opportunity to follow it up. He wasn’t thinking about what fighting at this level meant. You never just attacked once, since it usually was not enough to hit anyone at this level. He had underestimated the stupid kid once, and that was not a mistake he would make again. One word left his lips as two of his reinforced chains moved to slap him out of the sky.

“Restrain.”

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Mash P.O.V

Mash lurched as his wings and body halted. It had only been for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough that he could dodge the chain. He spun out of the sky and crashed into the ground with so much force that he left a crater in the ground. One of the legs that held the man up had moved to swat him. He hadn’t worried about it and followed it easily with his domain. He was about to dodge when the space around him froze. His domain let him see the magic. The air morphed into chains around his limbs. He broke them almost instantly, but that instant had been enough.

He shook his head and pulled himself from the dirt and grass. His domain let him see the chains as they followed. They formed into comically large fists. Dizzily, he reinforced his body with scales and shrunk his wings. They were too large, and that attack had managed to actually damage him. Break one of the wyvern wings. He didn’t actually think physical force could do that much, but those chains were strong.

The fist slammed down, and Mash raised his arms to catch it. Each link of the chain was as thick as his entire body, and the whole fist was the size of a house. Even still he caught it. Its weight of it sent cracks running through the ground. They grew and grew until the dirt beneath his feet collapsed. He was slammed through the ground.

Mash couldn’t let this continue. Another few seconds and the king would be out of his reach. Instead, he connected to the tree that he had grown over. It was still partly within his domain, and he could use it like an extension of his body.

Rather than try something new, he just did the same thing again. This time its range was wider and more chaotic. Light flashed and brown and green cascaded into the hole he was being pushed into. The chins didn’t break but they paused. He pushed through the dirt beside him and punched through the earth rather than try and break the chains. He came out to a chaotic sight.

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King of Chains P.O.V

The king watched as Mash fell to the ground. His wings crumpled as a butterfly's wings would. It wasn’t the time to let up.

“Suffer. Kneel.”

His commands pushed the world, and the person he directed them toward. Suffer would weaken Mash’s defenses and limit his focus. Kneel would increase the effects of gravity on the boy. The mana drain was more than he would’ve liked. Just how resistant to magic was the kid? He had fought literal anti-magic worms with less defense. As the words took effect, the fist of enchanted and empowered metal slammed into the kid. And they stopped. The boy had changed somehow and caught them. Caught an attack that could’ve leveled a castle.

A kid shouldn’t be this strong. How did he skip the levels from 150 to 200? His power didn’t make sense either. There were too many annoying questions. The king smiled as Mash was pushed further into the ground. The boy was dangerous and properly trained, he would make a wonderful slave. Greed flashed in the king’s eyes, and he licked his lips unconsciously. It tasted like iron. Then he felt the magic in the air shift. His head darted around. The tree that streaked through the sky flashed. Light engulfed everything. Even his resistant eyes burned with tears as brown and green light consumed the world.

His chains reacted faster than his mind. The runes across them activated and preserved his heart and head with perfection. His limbs weren’t preserved, and even after all of his levels he never got the skill to deal with pain. He had items for it, but a few items worked well when someone reached his level. They just couldn’t properly get past his natural defenses. The thought was dim compared to the attack. The singular tree had grown. Hundreds of similar bolts had sprung from the tree and spread across the world. Each strand dug into the dirt. He looked at his limbs in horror. His left arm and leg had been destroyed. Replaced by the wood of the boy’s attack. Blood flowed down the branches, and he grimaced as his armor vibrated to destroy the wood.

His vision came back a little fuzzy, but he stared at his surroundings in a little awe. If he had used that attack in the real world, it would affect the very landscape. Hundreds of the bolts had branched even further as they traveled across the skies. All of which had turned into spears of wood that simply tore through whatever they could. If it couldn’t like with his chains, it snuck through any gaps it could find. His flesh had been torn apart, but the world had been changed. Thousands of dark brown strands of wood rose towards the original attack like the legs of an inset. They no longer looked like trees either. Instead, it was as if some great giant had stuck dried twigs into the world. Made a sick forest out of them. The king gazed around as his wounds healed. Then he heard Mash explode from the earth, and he didn’t look like a child anymore. Now, the king saw the truth. It was a monster, one that needed a leash.

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Mash P.O.V

Mash roared as burst from the dirt. The chains had done something to him. They had taken some of his stats. Drained them through contact alone. That seemed a little unfair. He thought that, despite acknowledging that he continuously gained attributes in fights. As he took in the surroundings, he froze and just looked for a second. His domain let him get a picture of the scene, but he didn’t realize the scope. His attack had drained a decent amount of energy, but it was still well within what he considered acceptable for a single attack. The devastation was something else.

The branches of wood that littered the ground around him weren’t particularly thick. Each was probably only as thick as his leg, but they were vicious. The way they had branched left the wood sharp and jagged. Furthermore, they spread across the ground. Tore up the grassland and river. Essentially his attack had destroyed the environment. The wood crawled into the sky and loomed over the ground. Their shadows partially blotted out the sun. This might have been one of the creepiest things he had ever seen, and he couldn’t stop imagining what this would’ve done in the real world. The branches of wood extended far even leaving his domain in some places. How many things would something like this kill? Hundreds? Thousands? More? Could he even control it?

Mash shivered a little but refocused on the fight. It was just another thing he would need to practice. He examined the king and watched as the man regrew within his armor. The king’s flesh and muscles filled the empty spaces left by his last attack. The king noticed his glance and spoke. His voice came out roughly as if he needed to fight through the pain.

“What are you? Did you find a dungeon with some ridiculous time alteration? Perhaps you lived two or three lifetimes?”

Those sounded like desperate words, but again Mash didn’t really want to respond. Nor was going to give the king the time to recover. It seemed like the right time to try something else. Mash decided to try mixing some other things. Water and heat as well as remote magic. One thing he had realized with the last attack, was that he could activate his magic through any previous instance of his magic that was still within his domain. The thousands of branches that spread across the skies and ground were pillars for his magic.

Each of the branches started dripping water. Hot water that was boiling and left steaming trails through the sky as they fell. The king’s armor vibrated even more quickly trying to fend off the water, but Mash knew that some of it would leak through. He imagined that a constant burn from boiling water would be enough to stop any more conversations. The king’s silence was enough of an answer. Mash was about to smirk at the king when he felt a chain digging through the ground. He jumped to the side and pushed off some of the branches to rise into the air. A set of chains exploded from the earth in the form of a snake. It destroyed the wood like they were twigs and chased him as he wove through the new forest. Mash dodged until he felt the familiar spell and heard the King’s words despite the boiling rain.

“Restrain.”

The singular word somehow affected reality. Forced it to work against him somehow, and he didn’t like it. He had seen it a few times now and reacted. Wind magic let him push against the sky, and he plummeted downward. He had to use a lot of force to avoid the chains of how fast they were moving. So, he crashed into the dirt digging into it as he skidded to a halt. The snake crashed overhead and then came down to slam him into the dirt again. He could move now, and

he crawled across the ground rapidly. The chains crashed and the vibrations shook the ground like an earthquake. The king spoke again as Mash climbed back into the sky.

“I sacrifice Thur and Efor to empower the throne. Bind!”

His words caused reality to bend, and Mash somewhat felt what happened through his domain. Reality, or maybe the dimension they were in, reacted to the king’s words. Chains seemed to solidify from the very fabric of reality. Their metal was black, and they wrapped around his limbs and tied him to the space. Not the ground, but the exact space he had been in at the moment. Mash reacted quickly, he pushed against them with all the empowered strength of the dragon form. They didn’t budge or bend in the slightest. In fact, they grew tighter and more rapidly. Mash felt the king’s confidence throughout his domain.

Mash would’ve shaken his head, but a chain had formed around his forehead and trapped it. If the king was going to use his throne, then it was time for him to try something equally as fun. It was time for something to change.