Author here, the series isn't over, but a few things have happened in my personal life that have prevented me from enjoying my free time and writing, also I'm in my senior year of uni so I need to make sure I finish strong. My uploads will probably be inconsistent, but I want to keep the series going by all means. A big thanks to everyone who's stuck around and my apologies for the lack of updates!
(Also, I will be dropping some sort of chapter summary (hopefully next week) so that people can remember what's going on since it's been quite a while)
~~~
Seren
A few moments ago
Nephis turned into a drill sergeant, shouting commands and ordering people around the moment Kallen set off through the Castle. Caster rushed past, going door to door gathering anyone and everyone who could help in the defense of the Bright Castle.
Effie summoned a powerful shield to accompany her spear. Kallen's hunter, Jaric stood beside her, and his other hunter, Lyss flanked him opposite, holding a bow and arrow taut in her hands.
Kai was pale.
Sunny was nowhere to be seen, and Cassie shared a heavy look with Nephis.
"Cassie," Nehpis asked, "... does he win this?"
Before she could answer, something came streaking toward them.
It rocketed toward the castle, silent in its approach. For a second at most, the castle itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then it hit. Just a hundred yards from where Seren stood, the ground erupted.
Stone shattered and the shockwave came a split-second later as a concussive roar that hurled debris and cracked ground with the sound of terrible thunder.
Seren's scream caught in her throat, but Effie was there, her arm thrown up, a heavy shield batting away flying stone. She shoved Seren to the ground and slammed the tip of that shield into the floor before them, her powerful muscles rippling as she put her whole body into the effort.
Seren hit the earth hard, heart pounding in her throat. Ears ringing. But she was alive and breathing. When she opened her eyes, the world around was dust.
Effie held firm, braced like an iron statue. Steam curled from her form. Her spear trembled in the other hand. "You alright, kid?" She asked without looking down.
Seren coughed, nodding, and choking out her response.
After a moment, Effie mumbled to herself, "What the hell was that?"
Seren attached a starlight thread to Effie, hopefully to help her see, but Kai had beat her to it. He struggled to his feet, a terrified look in his eye, "Kallen…"
Seren's stomach dropped and she forgot to breathe.
Effie swore aloud, and Lyss stepped back, mortified. Even Nephis's eyes widened, if only slightly.
As the dust began to fall away, Seren caught sight of him. Barely a few dozen yards from where they stood, was a crater in the ground. Deep, jagged, still smoldering. The air above it shimmered with heat, and at the center of it all, lying motionless in a suit of shattered armor was—
"Kallen!" She shouted.
No answer.
Seren began to run forward, but Effie reacted instantly, scooping her up and holding her back.
Nephis dashed to the crater.
Kallen's helm was shattered, barely clinging to the ruin of his face. Blood, vivid, unthinkably red coursed down his face in streams. His mouth hung agape, lips busted, teeth cracked and crimson. Each breath came as a ragged whistle, chest fluttering like a torn banner in the wind.
Far above, a Titan's roar rippled through the grey skyline, and in the crater below, their last hope lay bleeding out.
"Kallen!" Seren screamed again, struggling in Effie's grasp. "Put me down! Let me go, please, please!"
Nephis wasted no time, reaching out a hand wreathed in white flame.
Lyss stood next to Effie, holding back her fear and worry. She didn't speak, and didn't cry, but her focus never left Kallen. Her bow had fallen to the floor, however.
Kallen's head was bleeding too much. Gods Seren had never seen so much blood…
"Don't release your echo yet," Nephis said through ground teeth. Her flaw wracked her body. "It's keeping… parts of you in place for now."
She looked back, wincing, then nodded once to Effie.
The woman's grip loosened.
Seren tumbled forward, half tripping down the slope of rubble until she slid to her knees. A thread of starlight shot out and attached to Nephis, augmenting her healing, just as a second attached to Kallen as well.
"Effie," Nephis began to say, but the huntress cut her off.
"On it princess."
She took off for the man whom Gunlaug kept around because of his unique aspect. The man who could actively repair echoes outside of the soul sea.
It was then that the explosions began.
Small objects, like insects on the horizon descended in droves, crashing into the ground before detonating.
Lyss and Kai shot a few out of the sky before they could land, but there was simply too many for it to make a difference.
The Bright Castle was already drowning in flame by the time Kallen was in fighting shape, and his echo was repaired.
Nephis knelt to the ground, panting as Kallen rose to his feet, seemingly good as new. Gunlaug's armor flowed around him once more, but he stopped it from encasing his face.
He bent over, resting his hands on his knees, breath ragged as smoke curled around him. His eyes darted to Seren, and then Lyss, and he gave them the barest smile.
"Thank you…" he rasped, voice hoarse. "Phase one was mostly a success—I depleted a whole lot of those scales… but I'm running away before I let that thing turn my insides to paste again."
Kallen paused, then glanced at Nephis. "How long was I…"
"Three minutes," she responded, pointing to the Titan looming overhead. It would reach the castle in half a minute at best. "You almost bled out."
He breathed a hoarse sigh, straightening.
"Kai."
The charming idol spared a thinly veiled nervous look.
"I need you for phase two… but be careful. That Dragon is faster than it looks, and those scales are even faster. One good hit and you're dead. You got it?"
Kai nodded, giving a pallored smile. "What else is new?"
Nephis interjected. "If you can ground it, we win, Kallen."
"I know…"
"You don't need to participate in phase three, you know. There will be casualties, but we'd be able to handle ourselves down here."
Kallen rolled his shoulders, hopping on the balls of his newly mended feet a few times. "I know."
With that he took a few steps, then turned around as if he'd forgotten something. He looked at Lyss, then to Seren.
"Seren, look away."
Before she could ask what he meant, Kallen was already moving. He stepped up to Lyss, reached out without hesitation, and drew her into a passionate embrace. One hand slid to the back of her head, steadying her as the two shared a deep, sudden kiss.
Then, just as quick, he pulled away. The liquid metal surged up over his face, masking his expression, and he turned and ran.
A golden trident—one that Seren had never seen before—formed in his hand.
The Elder Gargoyle wove itself just in front of him. He leaped onto its back, and they were off, Kai flying forward to catch up.
~~~
Kallen
Kallen rocketed towards the dragon looming high above, eyebrows drawn into a frown. Round two wouldn't be nearly as quick, nor would it be as easy as phase one.
Phase one had been all about expending as many of the Titan's scale bombs as possible. It couldn't regrow them, so the more he could direct towards himself and his powerful echo armor, the less that would be bombing the innocent Sleepers of the Bright Castle.
It had also been a good way for him to get a feel for his chances in phase two. Until now, he'd never met a strike from the dragon head on. And now he knew that he couldn't take another one. Its whiplike tail had come fast and completely unreactable.
He'd need to keep his distance from that.
Around half the dragon's scales are ones that are able to be expended, Kallen thought to himself. Its already lost about twenty percent of those expendable. The ones around its head and wings are the spots where it can't, but just about everywhere else can.
Kallen gripped his Trident, Olympus, calculating the battle ahead. He couldn't afford to waste its power, not when the battle's true cost would be measured in lives. Not when it would leave him drained after a few uses.
Phase Two, like he had explained before, had a clear objective: ground the Titan and bleed it dry. Every scale expended on him in the sky meant fewer bombs raining on the castle below. Every minute stolen gave Nephis time to heal the wounded and the defenders time to prepare themselves.
The Titan's oppressive heat field meant that no one save for him, Tessai, and Nephis could engage it when it landed.
Unless…
Kallen's thumb brushed Olympus's shaft. If he could use [Stormbringer] to call upon rainfall, it might thin the heat just enough. An ace he'd draw upon steadily so as to conserve energy.
Then, hopefully the more powerful Sleepers like Tessai, Gemma, Effie, and Sunny wielding Wyrm's Tongue would be able to engage in close range.
As long as he could do that…
Well… it's not like they expect me to keep going after phase two anyways.
He snapped himself out of such thoughts as he and Kai closed in on the Titan. It descended on the castle as a falling star made flesh and scale. Its shadow swallowed entire sections of the dark city as it passed, the air trembling under wingbeats that sounded of war drums.
More scales began to fall.
Each hissed through the sky, streaking towards houses, gates, and refugee clusters around the outer settlement. Kallen watched from the back of the Elder Gargoyle, his repaired Terror beating its wings in steady rhythm as they rose to meet desolation.
"Steady," he said, not to his echo, but to himself. Fifty yards below them, Kai shot a scale out of the sky. It detonated in a blossom of fire.
Kallen gripped the trident at his side.
His gargoyle banked hard as a cluster of red scales arced toward them. He leaned into the turn, feeling the heat of the near-miss lick at his armor. No more than a passing summer breeze.
Kai flitted through the air below, looking more like an anti air cannon than a mere Sleeper.
Good, Kallen thought, better that he keep his distance.
As they cleared the plume of flame and smoke, he finally caught proper sight of his enemy. Its wings were stretched wide as the clouds above, the remaining scales shimmering in the dim night. The air around it warped from that unnatural heat.
Its sulfur eye locked onto him.
Behind his mask, Kallen bared his teeth in something too fierce to be a smile. With a thought, he sent the gargoyle into a steep rise through the sky.
They shot past the confused Titan. Small amounts of moisture gathered in Kallen's palm. When he broke the the cloudline, moisture gathered in droves. By the time they shifted back into a dive, he held a spinning orb of liquid twice the size of a cannonball.
The liquid metal of the Gilded Warden opened up near his hand, and he pulled that water into his armor, trapping it along his body to protect it from the heat.
Then, the Elder Gargoyle pulled its wings in tight, and they plummeted toward the dragon.
Precision harassment.
Attrition.
The long game.
Kallen and his echo flew in close, aiming for a quick fly by. The Wyrm noticed them and swung its tale in a surprisingly deft motion given its size. But the Elder Gargoyle was too quick.
Its wings folded out and it pitched just above the thunderous whip. Then, it made a mid-air lunge, bringing Kallen close to the dragon's face. In the same breath, he ordered his armor to open around his hand, and he fired a point-blank shotgun shot of water.
Several pellets careened uselessly off its scales, but others caught its eye, blinding it for a few moments.
Kallen used that opening and leapt off of the Terror, holding his divine trident in a javelin-like grasp. The dragon, however, shifted out of the way—more of a reaction from being blinded than a dodge, but it worked and Kallen fell through the open sky.
No more than three or four seconds later, his safety net, Kai, caught him, darting out of the way of a falling scale.
The Elder Gargoyle retreated down below, passing just under Kallen. Kai dropped him at just the right moment, and he landed on the Terror's back, ready and geared up for pass two.
Round two began not with scales, but with a breath. Crouching low on the Gargoyle's back, he held onto a spiky ridge along its spine. The heat of the flamethrower as it engulfed him was similarly blistering as it had been last time, but manageable beneath his transcendent armor.
His Terror growled as it fought through the flame, small boils forming on its skin, but they emerged mostly unharmed.
Yet again, they did not engaged directly from below. They dodged, weaved, and avoided the dronelike bombs of the Titan, anything to climb higher into the sky. Anything to reload.
Like clockwork, Kallen gathered more moisture. The air around the dragon was sparse with it, but in the clouds it was abundant. The only problem was, there seemed a steep limit to the amount of water Kallen could shape for any extended time.
When he had collected his fill, they plunged downward again, passing by just close enough for him to fire off a blast of compressed liquid. This time, however, the Titan had learned. It closed its eye right as they passed, blocking the shot with its eyelid.
But still, it had to have hurt.
Again!
They climbed higher. Again. And again. And again.
Kallen and the Gargoyle became a perfectly oiled machine. Up, then down. Dart, then strike. Climb, reload, dive, divert, fire.
It was a dance of attrition written across the sky in arcs of water, steam, flame, and hissing wind. The Titan could burn the castle to ash, but it couldn't catch Kallen. Not like this. It grew more frustrated with each pass. That was the point. It was ancient, and powerful beyond reckoning. But it wasn't used to fighting things it couldn't swat.
However, something about its behavior began to fundamentally change. After the twelfth fly-by, the Titan had finally understood why Kallen was disappearing into the clouds.
And it had formed a dire countermeasure.
Instead of any sort of clever positioning, or using its scales as floating mines to block him from ascending too high in the sky, the Titan flared its wings, and thrashed its neck, spewing hellflame skyward. The dreadful inferno scorched the heavens, heating the sky and evaporating as much moisture as it could.
The clouds were vast—the beast couldn't burn the entire sky away, but it could create a large enough deadzone to effectively cut Kallen off from his strategy. This wouldn't be a problem if he were allowed to retreat, but he needed the thing's full attention on him.
If not, it could turn its flamethrower on the city, and then everything would be lost.
The Titan's jaws gaped in what could have been a grin, embers dripping between its teeth.
Then it turned its head toward the castle. It must have understood now… Kallen and his echo were not bugs. They were a real threat with something to protect. A weakness to exploit.
A gout of flame gathered in its throat.
No!
Kallen didn't think. He wrenched his mount into a dive, hurling himself between the dragon and its true target. Olympus flared in his grasp, [Skybringer]'s wind howled to life.
Fire met wind.
Kallen could have created a vacuum burst to thin and spread the flame apart so that it would lose its concentrated heat. He could have created a wind wall or a vortex, or he could have even went after the dragon itself instead, but all of those options would have left him too weak to continue. Using the enchantment for anything more than small bursts would have sucked his reserves dry.
So he redirected it.
It was more of a gentle nudge than anything. He timed a crosswind burst at the very moment the breath left the dragon's mouth, shifting it to the side by only a few degrees.
But those few degrees made all the difference at such a distance.
The blast of flame struck the black sea below, dancing across its glossy black surface. Before the dragon could twist its head to correct itself, Kallen applied a forceful burst behind his back, launching him through the air, straight for its neck.
He felt his energy drain from the movement.
It cut off its flamethrower attack and whipped its head to face the man in golden armor.
"That's right," Kallen shouted. "Look at me!"
The Titan obliged.
Predictably, its tail came cracking toward Kallen, but an arrow from down below punched through the dragon's good eye. Its attack missed by just a breath, and a golden spear formed in Kallen's hand as he shot through the sky.
As he fell through the sky, he thrust the spear forward. It slipped between a narrow crack of a scale. Kallen's momentum stopped abruptly, and he nearly lost his handle on the weapon. It wouldn't have mattered. Voluntarily, he let go before a localized explosion could catch him head on.
Still, a glancing blow came from above, rattling his head. The Elder Gargoyle caught him. They retreated as he waited for his senses to return to him.
When they did, and his echo had created a few hundred yards of distance between them and the dragon, Kallen grinned. He hadn't noticed because of the adrenaline, but there were rivers of exposed flesh underneath where the dragon had expended its own armor.
That flesh sizzled with terrible heat, but it was exposed all the same.
He could work with that.
But when he stole a glance down to the city, he saw it and the castle at its center in flames. A brief worry about Seren flooded him, but he had to push it down. He had a dragon to fight and he couldn't let that distract him.
Kallen frowned and sent a mental command for his Echo to dip. He found Kai below, and they hovered just beside the archer who lacked a target at the moment.
"I think it's done bombing the city," Kallen said, noticing that he was slightly out of breath. That maneuver with [Skybringer] had taken a bit out of him. "It's running out of armor…"
The terror growled low in its throat. It was far more battered than Kallen was. More than the dragon was. In this fight, it was probably going to be the first to go, as much as that saddened him. It had been a trusty companion for his sister, and the first echo he'd ever gotten.
"What do you need me to do?" Kai asked.
"I need you to be ready for my wings here to die…" he patted his steed. "One good shot from that thing up there and he's gone."
Kai gave a grim nod. Then, he glanced up, noticing the dragon recover from being shot in the eye. Its vision was returning somehow.
"Hows my armor?"
"Battered," Kai said.
Kallen hadn't taken many direct hits from the scales. How was it battered?
"Damn it," he cursed softly. He took a deep breath and gave his ride another pat. "Be ready… and try not to die."
With that, they rose back into the sky.