Path of Dragons-Chapter 62Book 9: : A Brief Respite

When Elijah peered out across the island, an alien landscape stared back. In a lot of ways, it resembled what he might see at the bottom of the ocean. Some of the characteristics were similar enough to make that connection, and seeing things like strands of kelp streaming upward in mid-air was certainly a novel experience.

Great coral mountains jutted from the sandy ground, while fish-like monsters swam above and through forests of seaweed. Yet, aside from the fact that they weren’t underwater, every characteristic felt a little off. Like the octopus with only five legs. Or the sleek fish that resembled a shark, but had fins like a stingray. There were hundreds of other discrepancies that were technically feasible but added up to something entirely novel.

Looking at it triggered the part of his brain that recognized the uncanny valley.

Unfortunately, Elijah could also feel the presence of the smaller, invisible manta rays that had dogged their entire journey across the sea and up the stairs. Because of that, he didn’t dare speak. Instead, he gestured to Oscar and the pack for them to stay while he shifted into his blight dragon form and tried to adopt Guise of the Unseen.

It didn’t work.

There was too much attention on him to slip into stealth. No matter where he went, he found no respite from the manta rays.

With that in mind, he set out, hoping that he wouldn’t draw too much attention from the other wildlife. As he scouted the area, Elijah used Soul of the Wild to ascertain the disposition of the beasts all around, and he was only a little surprised to find that there wasn’t much in the way of true nature at play. Sure, there was a thread of vitality that bound everything together, and he could sense a thin connection to nature buried within each creature’s life force. However, it was nearly overwhelmed by what he could only perceive as a water attunement.

That set them apart from the sea creatures on Earth, who were just as natural as any other beast he encountered on land or in the sky. It didn’t take him long to connect it to the feelings he experienced when he’d encountered the gates to the Underrealm or Ignis during the Trial of Primacy. The only real difference was that instead of fire or death, he was now mired in water. The connection to Niflara was clear and incredibly potent.

He felt it in the air as well. Like dense humidity, but somehow even more solid. At first, he thought back to what he’d felt during the first tower. The Sea of Sorrows had held a similar nature, but even though it was entirely submerged, it obviously wasn’t quite so close to the plane of water.

To put it mildly, it was an odd thing.

Strangely, though, Elijah didn’t feel quite as out of place as he had in the Crucible of Fire. Perhaps he possessed a latent attunement to water. Given his past, that definitely wasn’t out of the question. After all, he had always loved the sea. That was what had driven him to marine biology, and he was rarely as content as he was while swimming around in his leviathan form.

In any case, Elijah spent the next few hours in silent exploration. Along the way, he saw more terrestrial sea life that left him feeling out of sorts. The worst were the crustaceans, who were all far more armored than they should have been. Their thick and rock-covered chitin doubtless made them as durable as any tank, and their oversized claws could have snipped Elijah in half without effort.

Troublingly, most were well past ascension, with a few hulking creatures that could rival his level.

Fortunately, they left Elijah mostly alone. Certainly, if he veered too close to their respective territories, they weren’t shy about attacking. In those cases, Elijah responded with brutal violence and ended their lives as swiftly as possible. However, so long as he gave them a wide berth, they paid little attention to his passage.

The same could not be said for the smaller creatures. Shrimp the size of his forearm were a constant annoyance, and considering they displayed similar abilities to mantis shrimp, they were more dangerous than their small sizes would suggest. Being constantly peppered with bullet-like punches was extremely irritating and it forced him to adopt Shape of Thorn so he could take advantage of the oft-forgotten reactive damage that came with the form. The shrimp – which had wild and colorful plumes similar to a lionfish – weren’t very durable, so that was enough to kill them off.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the invisible rays that attacked the second he made any noise louder than a whisper. They too died after only a few reprising hits, but there were always more to take their place. The anemones were a danger as well. Beautiful to behold, they waved in the air like fleshy flowers – and yet, one brush against them was enough to paralyze even Elijah.

The single time he made that mistake, he was forced to watch as the anemone showed its true form. Apparently, it was not an anemone at all. Rather, the waving appendages were simply the mane of a grotesque creature with pale skin and a multitude of limbs that had two joints too many.

Fortunately, Elijah used his recent advances in his soul cultivation technique to banish the foreign ethera from his channels and free himself just enough to cast one of his heals. That treated the paralysis and allowed him to attack the monster from a distance.

Doing so drew attention from the manta rays as well as a few other nearby monsters, so Elijah was forced to fight a short but furious battle against the local sea life.

Once he’d emerged victorious, Elijah took a few minutes to compose himself before continuing on his way. Once again in the Shape of Thorn, he barely even acknowledged the occasional attacks from the smaller monsters. In a lot of ways, they were like insects. Some carried significant afflictions that Elijah was only able to ignore because of his advanced body cultivation and immense attributes. Others were more direct in their damage as they attempted to burrow into him like true parasites.

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That was more horrifying than he wanted to acknowledge, and he was froced to spend quite a lot of brainpower to steel himself against the panic induced by the situation. Still, he managed to make his way across the landscape until, at last, he found what he was looking for.

Visually, the cave was no different from a thousand others he’d seen during his journey. The difference lay in the way it felt. Elijah could sense the dense earth attunement suffusing the interior, and when he stepped inside, he discovered two very important things.

The first was that the manta rays that had hounded him so incessantly could not cross the cave’s threshold. That alone was enough to elicit quite a bit of relief on Elijah’s part. However, it was sullied – at least a little – by the fact that the cave was occupied.

There was a beast inside. A creature of rock and fire that blazed with enough power to make even Elijah wary. What’s more, the snake-like thing was curled around a glowing geode that was obviously a natural treasure. Oddly enough, the guardian – for that was what it clearly was – was a creature of three parts. The first was a water attunement, which was little more than a thin thread. Wrapped around that was a stiflingly powerful earth attunement that seemed intent on destroying the opposing force. The water-tinged ethera was stubborn, though. Malleable. It would not succumb to the earth.

And then there was nature.

It remained separate from the other attunements, like a nebulous cloud that surrounded everything else and gave the creature life. Only then did Elijah realize that it was also present in the rest of the cave. Even outside, it was there. Thin and ephemeral, but there all the same. He just hadn’t dug deep enough to sense it properly.

The snake shifted, its rocky coils grinding against one another as it raised its head to look at Elijah. He remained still as it slithered forward. The thing was at least a hundred feet long, and its head was as big as Elijah’s human body. It shifted closer and closer until it was only a few inches away.

Its tongue darted out, tasting the air before it let out a hiss.

But then it retreated to curl around the geode. Elijah let out a small sigh. He hadn’t felt any fear when confronting the creature, but given its size and clear power, he probably should have been at least a little wary. There was a thread of connection there, though. It wasn’t quite as strong as he’d felt with many other guardians back on Earth, but there was a bond of kinship there nonetheless.

He settled down next to it, considering his options.

When he’d entered the cave, Elijah had intended to take refuge inside. And he still could. The manta rays remained outside, so he could finally relax and make at least a little noise without getting cut to pieces. However, the presence of the guardian meant that Oscar and the dogs were unlikely to be welcome.

The obvious answer was to simply kill the snake.

He could even take the geode back to the grove. It was powerful enough that he expected that Nerthus would find some sort of use for it. And if not, then surely someone in Ironshore – like Carmen – could figure out what to do with it.

However, the very idea of killing a guardian was so abhorrent that Elijah didn’t want to even consider it.

But Oscar’s attunement was similar enough to his own that there was a chance that he could exist alongside a guardian. Maybe he’d need to bribe it – much as Elijah had with the bear or the panther – but that shouldn’t be difficult. Elijah had plenty of food.

To test it, Elijah dipped his hand into his satchel and grabbed some dried meat. He tossed it to the snake. But to his irritation, after the creature nosed it a few times, it remained ignored.

Then, he rummaged in his Ghoul-Hide Satchel and found a hunk of dragonstone he’d missed when he had emptied the bag. He tossed that to the snake, who gobbled it up in an instant. Elijah watched – both with his eyes and Soul of the Wild – as the ethera in the piece of dragonstone dissolved, then joined with the rock serpent’s internal flow. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

That told Elijah all he needed to know.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any other earth attuned materials on him.

But he had some ideas about where to get some. After all, he’d passed dozens of large crabs whose shells were absolutely covered in rock. And he suspected that those crustaceans might have been the snake’s natural prey. So, without further thought on the matter, he retreated from the cave and quickly found one of the crabs.

It was one of the smallest versions of the monstrous things he’d yet encountered, but it was still at least five feet across, and with oversized claws as big as Elijah’s cindrandir form. He attacked it without hesitation, and in only a few moments, he’d slain the thing by flipping it over and ramming the blade of his scythe into its most necessary organs.

If nothing else, Elijah knew how to kill crabs.

After dragging the crab back to the cave, he was happy to find that the snake took absolutely no time to devour the thing. That served two purposes. First, a full animal was less likely to attack. That was just instinctual for most beasts – even guardians. And second, it established a tentative spirit of cooperation with the creature. Sure, it wouldn’t hesitate to attack him if it grew hungry enough, and it certainly wasn’t a pet. But he’d already established that the best way to deal with guardians was to give them something they needed. Healing or food were the best, in his experiences.

So, once that was done, he headed back to the stairs where he’d left Oscar and the dogs. The journey was no less frustrating, but it didn’t take nearly as long now that he could proceed in a straight line. So, it wasn’t long before he reunited with his companions. A few gestures were all it took to get Oscar and the pack to follow.

The return to the cave was even more frustrating. Some members of the pack – like Escobar – weren’t particularly durable, which meant that they needed to be protected from the local wildlife. Thankfully, Jackson and Sophie were extremely good at their jobs as defenders, and if they somehow missed an attack, Elijah was there to heal the damage.

Still, it was slow.

It took a while to reach their destination, but by the time they arrived at the cave, Elijah was dragging two huge crabs that he hoped to use as a bribe for the snake. As it turned out, doing so was not necessary. The dogs and the snake seemed to get on famously, which was entirely unexpected. The sight of Freddy snuggling up in the creature’s coils left Elijah a little perplexed.

But at least it meant that they weren’t in any immediate danger.

It also meant that, at long last, they could speak.

Elijah didn’t waste any time before he said, “Well, that sucked. Like, really, really sucked.”

“I…I agree,” Oscar said. “Thank you for protecting us. We would not have survived the sea without you.”

Elijah reached out and gripped the other man’s shoulder, saying, “That’s what friends are for.”

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