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Chapter 26 : The Wind Dragon's Call
🕑 Added 2024-08-25 16:18:09 +0000 UTCbefore the man could close the distance, Orion acted. Breath hissing sharply from between his teeth, he thrust his hand towards the ground. Ice burst from below him, carving jagged crystalline patterns across the floor of the chamber. The frost raced forward like a living entity, freezing the ground in its path until it reached Eula. The icy wave surged up, forming a towering barrier of thick, shimmering ice between her and the incoming attack.
In front of Eula, a wall suddenly appeared just inches from her skin, the chill of the ice brushing even against her skin. She hadn't seen or sensed Orion moving, had not seen him cast the frost that now shielded her from certain doom. She hadn't realized just how close that blade had come, and her wide eyes were the same shade as the cold blue of the ice.
On the other side of the barrier, the man's sword clashed into the ice with a resounding crack, but it held, the dark steel unable to even scratch the surface. Orion's laughter boomed through the hall, bright and sure.
“I understand very well” he called out, a playful glint in his eyes as he glanced over at Eula, who was still in shock from the unexpected save.
Xiao, standing poised for battle, sneered at the attacker. “Coward,” he spat, his voice dripping with disdain.
Orion wasted no time. Strongly, he leaped across the barrier of ice between him and his dark enemy. "You are nothing compared to him!" he taunted back, his assurance now more heightened than ever. "Now I am sure of it!"
As Orion soared through the air, his polearm ignited with blazing pyro energy, his eyes filled with a fiery determination. The battlefield seemed to freeze in anticipation, all eyes locked on the impending clash. With a powerful twist of his body, Orion hurled his weapon with pinpoint accuracy, sending it hurtling toward the dark figure below.
The man barely had time to react. He twisted at the last second, the polearm whizzing past his face, mere inches from striking true. A sharp “Tch!” escaped his lips, the sound of annoyance mixing with the cold air. His eyes narrowed in anger, and his grip on his sword tightened. “You’re calling me weak!?” he snarled, fury igniting in his voice.
Without another word, he leapt at Orion, the dark blade arching through the air with murderous ambition—but the assault was quick, and Orion was quicker. He extended his hands, a confident smirk spreading across his face as if he had anticipated this exact moment.
"Easy now," Orion's voice oozed with baiting sarcasm as he snapped his fingers, eyes dancing with unchained amusement. "Don’t lose focus."
With a word, the earlier ill-aimed polearm came to life at Orion's command. It reversed course, hacking its way through the air with mortal precision. Unclad in his anger, the man never saw it coming. The already-brutal point of the polearm struck from behind and drove him into his knees as his sword clattered to the ground.
The man gasped in pain, his eyes widening as he realized his mistake. But even at such agony, he reached behind him to firmly pull the polearm from his back, all the while gritting his teeth with a loud grunt of defiance. Throwing the weapon to the ground, his body shivered from the shock and pain, blood now staining the ground below.
Orion touched the ground, his eyes unmoving as the man clawed to keep himself from falling. The smirk remained, uncaring at the man's tenacity to keep himself from the ground. Tension hung around; there was no other existent thing but the battlefield, silence rudely broken by the ragged breathing of the wounded opponent.
"You should've known better, losing focus can be disastrous and deadly," Orion stated, his tone casual—almost as if he held back a smirk.
The man eked out a groan filled with burning agony that seared throughout his whole being and willed himself to stand. He sagged at the knees, but sheer will kept him up. Spitting blood onto the ground before him, he caught Orion's eye with fierce defiance still flickering within his own. "i'm not done yet" he growled, holding his sword extremely tight with quivering hands.
Just before the man could pull another stunt, there he was, Xiao, who had seemed enough to scare down whatever will was left, showing him the reality. "Yes, you are," Xiao said coldly; his voice was a blade slicing through the tension. The man withered under Xiao's demoralizing words, for it was evident he had lost the fight.
Then Xiao faced Orion, appearing very serious but with a composed demeanour. "Orion," he said, tense but cool in voice, "I know this might be too much, but try breaking the ties up there on the Dragon of the East. Only your power affects those crystals."
Orion raised an eyebrow, his smirk fading as the gravity of the request set in. "I’ll see to it," he replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Though I might end up sleeping for the next month."
Xiao allowed himself the faintest of smiles at Orion's jest, though his eyes remained focused. "Just leave this fool to me," he said, gesturing dismissively toward the wounded man. "He won't be doing much now anyway."
Orion grabbed his polearm, swung it around to clean off the blood, and nodded at Xiao. Then, with determined paces, he walked over to where Diluc and Eula still dueled the time and life out of the repeatedly-reviving enemies. The sound of clashing steel and elemental bursts hit him from everywhere around him, but it was obvious that the fight dragged out way too long.
As Orion stepped to the forefront of the field, he couldn't help but smile, his words full of sarcasm. "It appears you're struggling," he said out to Diluc, his voice pleasantly casual compared to the uproar around them.
Diluc spared but another glance, hence slightly narrowing his eyes, but there was a trace of a smile playing on his lips beneath the intensity. "Just keeping things interesting," he shot back, his claymore cutting another enemy down with a fiery sweep.
Eula, on the other hand, really didn't bother with the whole pretense of being annoyed. She only glared at Orion, blue eyes flashing their annoyance, dodged a blow, and got rid of another one with rather cool precision. "You developed a habit of freezing me, you know," she muttered in that familiar, fast, cutting-away voice of hers.
Orion chuckled and arched an eyebrow back at her. "Just making sure you're safe," he declared, though there was an undercurrent of actual apology to his tone. "But I'll try to aim better next time."
Orion set his attention to the large crystals impaling Dvalin, their forbidding glow casting a dark shadow upon the form of the dragon. Then Orion sighed, feeling that the weight of the impending task was already sinking down upon his shoulders. "Honestly, friend," he said, looking at Diluc with a weary expression, "I'm not sure I can break every one of these. I'm spent."
Diluc calmed down somewhat. In his determination to do something about it, there wasn't the slightest glint of giving up in his flame-eyes. "Do what you can," he said, his tone so firm and clear. "We will find another way, if it's necessary, but right now, you are our best shot."
Orion nodded, determined, as his grip on his skyward spine went tight. He began to walk slowly toward Dvalin, and with each step, it seemed to weigh heavier upon him as he came closer to the giant dragon. The pulsation of the crystals seemed to surge with dark energy, an ominous sight.
The man fighting Xiao suddenly took notice of the fact Orion had moved towards the dragon; his eyes bulged with panic and he shouted, "Don't you dare interfere!" Desperate, he charged toward Orion, meaning to stop him.
But before he could go very far, Xiao intercepted him with a quick and heavy kick that sent him flying backward. The man managed a last-second block to stop the blow, skidding across the ground as he struggled for balance. Xiao's gaze was cold, unyielding, as he spoke with calm authority. "The same goes for you, stay out of this."
Standing near the colossal form of Dvalin, the Dragon of the East, Orion paused next to the dragon's head. The mighty creature previously standing tall had now been bound by dark crystals and heavy chains; his beautiful form was now defaced by these cruel restraints. As pained and exhausted as it was possible for them to be, his eyes flickered weakly at the appearance of Orion.
Orion stood for a moment, gripping the polearm's handle firmly as he looked at the dragon. For a moment, he felt— growing from the apex of his chest—a pang of sympathy as one time this creature might have been an emblem of power and freedom, now reduced to that of befouled misery and dejection. The scales, though dulled by years of suffering, still shone slightly with some of the ancient majesty that brought awe and reverence to mind in days forgotten.
Slowly, Orion knelt down, the chill in the ground sending a shiver up his spine, next to Dvalin's head. "You must have been something else in your prime," he murmured just loud enough for himself to hear, his voice carried out with distance in battle cries. "I can't imagine the strength it took to bring you down like this.."
The dragon's eyes flickered, and for that one fleeting moment, Orion could have sworn that he saw something within, as if Dvalin had finally realized the young warrior standing before him now was a compassionate soul.
Orion took a deep breath, pushing himself up to his feet, letting his muscles clench as he hardened his resolve. With grueling knowledge that the task maybe is way too hard and even beyond of his current-strength, he couldn't just leave this creature to suffer any further. He tightened his grip on the polearm and glanced back at Diluc, who looked at him with the hope of a determined man.
"I will set you free," Orion vowed to the dragon in his most even and resolute voice. "At any cost."
As those words left his lips, a faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through the air. Orion's eyes widened as the dragon's massive head moved slightly, its ancient eyes—dim but still holding a trace of their former brilliance—locked onto him. Then, to his shock, a deep, resonant voice echoed in his mind, bypassing the physical realm entirely.
" Celestia...”
That word resounded in Orion consciousness like a weight of centuries, of suffering, of something far more sinister. Orion's breath was trapped in his throat as, instinctively, he looked around, but the battlefield seemed to remain the same—the clashing of weapons, the cries of warriors, the faint glow of the crystals binding Dvalin—yet nobody else seems to hear it. It was speaking to him directly, through something beyond runic speech. He looked back at Dvalin, his heart pounding within his chest. The dragon's strained telepathic voice, laced with pain and deep sorrow, held within that sorrow a plea, an edge of desperate need, impelling him to have said something of vital importance.
“Celestia...” the dragon repeated, its mental voice a whisper of the might it once held. "I understand," Orion said, his voice quiet but firm. "This isn't just about freeing you from these chains—this is about something far greater, and you’ll tell me all about it once you are soaring in the sky once more noble dragon."
Dvalin’s ancient eyes closed briefly, a flicker of hope rekindling within them. Then, with a deep, rumbling breath that resonated through Orion’s mind, the dragon’s telepathic voice spoke again, carrying a crucial piece of guidance.
“The brightest one... is the core...”
Orion's eyes immediately began to scour the area for the crystal shining the brightest. He understood what the dragon had said, to destroy that core was going to be the key to breaking the chains holding Dvalin.
"Thanks," he muttered, his resolve now solidifying within him. "I'll get it done."
