ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 62: The Dais of Death

Chapter 62

The Dais of Death

The realm that Alexa found herself in was a nearly perfect realm that seemed to span out for miles in all directions. At least that was the visual representation that was being displayed. However, with Alexa’s Eyes of the Architect, her view was drastically different.

Behind her was a wall that had its own peculiarities related to it.

Endless Field Image: Warded by Electricity.

Seeing the warning that would happen if she tried to run, the message was clear. Stay and live or try to run and die.

The ground she stood upon had a slight slope leading down before she would join the other monsters in their three army battle. Well, a battle of four armies when she joined.

Seeing the way all three armies seemed to drop their differences as they all turned as one to face off against Alexa, a malicious smile filled her face. She was still being powered by the essence of Integration itself.

Energy pulsed and swirled within her body, making her feel truly alive.

This was where she would make her stand, this was how she wished to die. Besieged by monsters on all sides, while being able to feel and experience every emotion.

Badump, badump.

Her heart pulsed with the thrill that this would be a battle for the ages. One that would blessedly be hidden from her parents and her brother.

Just as she was about to get lost in her own mind, a system message appeared that pulled her back to the moment.

Hidden Quest Activated: Stop the Invasion: Three armies of opposing forces have joined together to enter your planet. Fight off the constant invasion of forces, until integration is no longer possible. Time Remaining: 2 hours, 7 minutes, 3, 2… seconds.

Rewards: Based on number of enemies slain.

Enemy Counter:

Elves: 0

Orcs: 0

Dragons: 0

Seeing the message, Alexa knew there would be no retries. There would not be a second third or fourth chance to slay monsters. In her mind she knew this was it, a straight slog fest of fighting. One where she would constantly have to stave off the waves of monsters coming over and over.

With the realization that this would be a long battle, Alexa pulled in the waves of energy around her, and began using Nature magic to create dense walls of woods to protect her from projectiles. She built these walls of trees all around to protect her from enemies that might even try to flank her, throughout the long contest.

To increase the difficulty of climbing through her fortress, she had the walls slanted up and out, then poisonous vines wrap their ways over around and through the trees to both give strength, and prevent enemies from being able to rip one tree down. She did remember to keep one kill tunnel at the front, one where enemies would have to run up a line of trees where Alexa had full visibility. At least that was the plan, when she would be given enough time to complete here construct.

Unfortunately, the enemies did not seem to be accommodating as she had hoped.

Woosh, woosh!

Giant wings flapped high overhead. The sound alone was enough to remind Alexa that the dragon was still here, still a threat. Even knowing her substantial increase in power when dealing with dragons, where her magical power was increased by four and a half times, she had never had a chance to test her magical prowess against a level 25 dragon.

The life force and power wielded by the level one dragons far exceeded anything she had ever encountered before, now that she looked on and saw her enemy, so much became clear.

Draconic Princeling (Black): Level 25.

That was what here Eyes of the Architect told her about the monster she was now facing. That information alone, along with the size and undeniably oppressive energy being exerted by the dragon was almost too much to bear for a normal person.

Fortunately, Alexa was far from normal.

VWOOM!

Alexa felt a surge and a hum of energy as the dragon passed some unseen boundary.

In a second the trees she had been focusing on growing for protection erupted to life, quintupling in size in moments. Going from torso sized trunks to full blown towering trunks that Alexa couldn’t hope to wrap her large arms around even half of the giant stumps.

With the dragon so close, Alexa knew what happened. Her mind associated the final perk of her Dragon’s Bane and Dragon Slayer titles to become active. This increased even her defensive uses of magic to be increased by 450%. This was good to know, but ultimately pointless for the moment as Alexa looked up to the sky and saw the magic beast glide forward and seem to hover right in front of Alexa’s make shift fort she was building around her.

Heheheh.

The dragon let out a long billowing sound that caused all other forces to stop in their tracks. Looking out behind the dragon, the orcs and elves that had been charging forward suddenly stopped as they saw the giant dragon blocking their direct path to Alexa.

Even the might orcs and their close to six hundred monster army paled in the terms of individual strength that the dragon before them posed.

The elves too found their advancement halted as they stared on at the dragon as well. While the elves had fewer numbers, they made up for their lack of numbers with the fact that more of their kind were magically gifted than the orcs.

Of course, even the band of elves would be hard pressed to wage war and win against a level 25 dragon, let alone a black dragon, one who was royalty of the dragons.

“Puny mortal, bow…” Was all the black dragon managed to get out in its draconic tongue, before a fully focused Alexa produced slicing wave after wave of destructive magical energy.

Empowered Arcane Wind Blades.

The entire time the dragon had paused, Alexa used to build up the nearly endless supply of energy that was coursing through her. Energy that she channeled into long rows of invisible blades of death. The blades only gaining shape and distinction at the last second, just before they were ready to be cast.

Crackle, zip, BOOM!

The blades bisected, overlapped and shredded into different portions of the dragon. The once imperious glare the dragon had on its face was stopped only for a second, as the dragon looked down, to see portions of its body falling lifelessly to the ground.

This strike was made possible by a myriad of events all lining up perfectly. First there was Alexa’s exceptional prowess with magic that surged when she battled dragons. Taking her already insanely high 5,510 calculated attribute points and ramping that up to 24,795 when battling with dragons. Then there was the fact that the Black dragon for all its power and abilities had been overconfident. As a leader of dragons, it expected this one human to tremble in fear at its majesty, at least until it gave its ultimatum of death. Never in its wildest dreams, did it believe that anyone would stand up to it, let alone a mere level 0 human.

To say that the dragon was shocked at the sudden turn of events would be an understatement.

The dragon’s face went through a quick change of emotions, starting with shock, which quickly morphed into confusion. Then the great dragon seemed to be perplexed as to why its wings were no longer working. Then a slight indignation at the fact that the rest of its own body also seemed to be ignoring its imperious commands to move.

Thud.

Alexa didn’t have time to see more of the monster’s looks as it fell below the line of her tree fortification. Though she was aware that only a few seconds later, the beast had died when she received a system message.

Absorber Class Material Found: Would you like to absorb essence of Black Dragon?

Seeing the message, a malicious smile filled Alexa’s face as she answered truthfully, “yes.”

Then even more strains of energy filled her. Strains that seemed to go into a different pool entirely. Strains that Alexa seemed to realize were to be her reward after the battle. That while she could use that personal pool of energy, it would be a waste, especially considering she still had the chaotic waves of integration energy swirling about inside her.

This personal insight took time, time that Alexa realized she didn’t have. Also looking forward, her line of trees now prevented her from peering out at her approaching enemies.

For a second she realized she had a number of options available to her. The first option would be to create little viewing slits within the walls, but she knew this would only create weaknesses in the integrity of the walls, ones that could be exploited by enemies against her. Another option would be to run forward through her little tree tunnel she had created to view her enemies. Of course, that option was also cut off as she realized there would be no purpose for having the wall at all if she ran out from behind its protections.

Finally in the span of a few seconds, Alexa disregarding all previous options, went with option three.  Realizing she needed a way to be able to see the advancing armies, Alexa decided to create a raised platform to view the enemy movements from. One that she could easily step down from when the enemy got too close or were able to fire accurately at her with projectiles.

Focusing her will, Alexa quickly focused on creating a flat stump of a tree that would rise up under her feet, allowing her to see over the walls around her, so she could better make in the battlefield before her.

The entire process of growing a tree that was wide enough took a few seconds. By the time she managed to grow the stump high enough so she could see out over her protective barriers she was surprised.

The two armies were shocked.

While a few of the enemies had moved forward, during her time used for constructing a viewing stand, most just looked on in horror.

Looking forward, Alexa couldn’t blame them. Now standing before her was a dragon, well the carved-up pieces of one. There almost at the mouth way to the curving entrance tunnel to her protective tree fort was the diced up remains of a level 25 imperial dragon.

As she rose up, wisps of the dragon’s energy rose up from the beast and were clearly seen going into Alexa, infusing her with dark energy.

“NECROMANCER!” Some of the enraged elven priests cried out in shock at the sight. To their minds, there was no other way to describe the transference of energy that they were seeing.

Of course, there didn’t really need to be a true reason why the elven priestesses spurned their warriors forward. In the end Alexa was still the enemy, regardless of what they called her.

Seeing the approaching armies, Alexa let the enemies get close.

She could feel the moment the first front line forces crossed a mental threshold, one where she could affect them with her power. She let them move forward, not wanting to give away her true range of her abilities, lest her enemies come up with counter strategies for her range.

Still from the added height, she felt she even had a bit more distance added to her strikes since most would be on a direct downward slope towards the enemy.

Even the area where the dragon fell was only a third of her maximum distance away. She had been lucky that the large beast stopped, otherwise its momentum would have carried it forward.

Whir.

From a very far distance away, the wind elves began trying to work together to create gusts of wind that would blow Alexa down from her perch. If she had been slightly less agile, or more focused on her mental Attributes this attack would have been particularly devastating.

But seeing as one of her three psychic powers was Magic Disruption, she managed to not only weather the busts of wind, but in fact seemed to do better with the gusts of wind than either the orcs or elves did.

Finally, after a few minutes of careful movements, the armies got to a point when they were but a hundred feet away from the fallen dragon. A dragon who, even now had corrosive blood leaking out and sending crackling lightning bolts to the nearby area.

Looking at the enemy lines it was clear. They figured they were just outside of her maximum effective range, which was why they all stopped as one. Then waited.

For her part, Alexa paused.

It was clear that both sides were up to something. They both paused as they seemed to know something that Alexa didn’t.

Alexa used this moment to focus her mind, to try to see if the mages in the back were channeling powers. They weren’t, everyone was standing still, waiting for something.

GRRROAOAARRRHHAA!!!

A mighty billowing cry rang out from the far side of the valley. Letting everyone know that a new dragon had spawned.

That was the cue that the orcs and elves had both been waiting for, the front line fighters used the momentary distraction of the dragon’s roar to charge forward. In their minds the objective was simple, charge in, kill the mutual enemy of everyone, then use the fortification to stave off any attacks.

The only problem was, Alexa wasn’t frightened by the dragon. Given its distance, Alexa knew she still had a few seconds before the dragon could even get to her, if the flight speed of the black dragon was anything to compare itself to.

The dragon was a different color entirely.

Imperial Ice Princess (Ice Blue): Level 25

The dragon looked around confused for a second, as it scanned the countryside. First it looked for the body of its slain brethren, the only reason she would be able to come here. For only one dragon would get a chance to go, given that only one person in the surrounding area had been marked as a chosen for the dragons.

With that one human chosen, only the best of the best had been able to come, which was why the Ice Princess’ older brood mate had been chosen to go first. Since the fool had perished to the lesser, it was now her turn to go. The only problem, she didn’t see the body of her slain brood mate. Odder still, she didn’t see the bodies of any elves or orcs for that matter. She had expected some type of resistance to be put up by her older brother, even if he was inept enough to ultimately let himself get slain by mere mortals.

Still, she looked and only saw the elves and orcs retreating from her. This was not unexpected, when a dragon, especially an imperial one like herself entered the battlefield armies trembled and often lost their nerve. So that wasn’t so unexpected, especially as they knew she would have to come and seek vengeance for her slain brother.

However, there was a problem, no one seemed to pay any attention to her. Not even after she came in and gave off her devastating roar and Nova Burst. That was standard practice for entering an enemy combat zone where the one who entered before you was slain. You needed to come in, and expect immediate resistance.

But there was none.

Then looking forward the Imperial Ice Princess saw a creature that made her blood run cold with rage.

There on the far side of the battlefield was a human, not just any human but one who was marked as the supreme enemy of the dragons.

She reeked of killing aura and malicious energies. Just seeing the monster standing above a fortress made of trees, raining death down on orcs and elves sent waves of hatred pulsing through her body.

Those elves and orcs were hers to slay. Worse, looking ahead, she finally found the body of her older brood mate. She saw the body carved to pieces right before the defensive forests that had been grown to protect the human.

Seeing the protective structure, the Ice Princess wondered if this human had somehow joined forces with the elves, for Nature magic was clearly a school of magic that was owned by the elves. And looking at the shelter that protected the human, it was clear that the elves must have helped, as there was no way a mere human would have been able to build such a structure on their own.

With all the details in place, Ice Princess Murr’ya rose to the air and began flapping her wings wildly.

Whoosh, whoosh.

Neither elf, nor orc looked up at her as she approached. Everyone instead appeared to be charging forward.

Seeing the complete lack of respect paid by the insects before her, Ice Princess Murr’ya let out a mighty bellow and released a torrent of destructive Arcane Ice Beam out at the enemies.

With that one attack, the orcs and elves that had been avoiding her suddenly looked back in shock.

Seeing the recognition of fear in their eyes, Murr’ya nodded to herself contentedly.

Still she had to make the trek to the human who was marked as a supreme enemy anyways, so she decided while she was at it, she might as well play the game of scarring the little villagers. One of her favorite pastimes.

“AHHH!” Elves and orcs cried out in pain as those that survived the initial burst of her Arcane Ice Beam ran and hid.

Looking up, she paused for a second, realizing she was nearing the exact spot where her fool of an older brother had died. Pausing a few hundred feet back from her dead brother’s corpse, Murr’ya decided to pause and focus her will. While this wasn’t the maximum effective range of her attack, she knew it would be more than enough to deal with some pesky human.

Pausing for a moment, she gathered forth a large breath that she began to weaponize and infuse with her arctic energy instantly. She found that she liked the feel of dungeons, as the more she focused on charging and condensing her strike, the more ambient energy seemed to form around her. It was almost as if the ambient energy of the world was congregating near her and readying itself for her next strike. Not that she would need a second strike, this strike would be more than enough, just a bit more focus for show and…

Murr’ya paused, as the ambient energy that had been congregating around her formed itself into long blades of arcane energy. Looking at the blades, Murr’ya noticed multiple different schools of magic combined into one attack spell. Schools that had been purposefully separated by the two races. How was this possible? Did those two finally realize we were pitting them against each other all this time and finally decide to work together against us? Murr’ya wondered to herself for a split second, as her mind try to process all the new information it was seeing and try to come up with a new plan of attack.

Of course, that slight hesitation was all the time needed for the powerful spell to manifest next to her and begin slicing through her immaculate body.

Crackle, zip, BOOM!

The sound and waves of energy were excruciating, at least they should have been. Murr’ya knew this, just as she knew now how her fool of a brother had died. Maybe he wasn’t such a fool after all, was the last thought Murr’ya ever had.

Of course, the spell she had been building up within her body and condensing still had to go somewhere. After all, all dragons learned early on the importance of magic, the fact that energy could not be destroyed, only converted. Magical energy was the most notorious for following this strict rule of conversion. That was why when Murr’ya’s body was sliced into pieces, the magical blades of energy that sliced through her body added different elements of chaos and power to her barely stable spell structure.

NOVA BURST!

A giant snowball of ice spikes of death formed thirty feet overhead and lanced out at the ground below. Instantly what looked like a giant frozen fountain of water appeared in the otherwise lush battlefield that surrounded Alexa’s defensive position.

Of course, Alexa being behind her walls was far away from the blast wave. A wave that struck out and killed even more of the remaining casters and back line fighters that had been trying to assail her were magic and suppressive firepower.

With her second dragon slain, Alexa received a notice that her title had improved once more.

Dragon Slayer (9): All Magic abilities increased by 15% (135%). Magical effectiveness against all dragons increased by 50% (450%).

Taking a second to reorient herself with her current quest and progress she saw that for even such a short period of time, she had done exceedingly well. Especially as her fortifications had been doing their part of keeping the enemies at bay, at least for the time being.

Time Remaining: 1 hours, 59 minutes, 18, 17… seconds.

Enemy Counter:

Elves: 7

Orcs: 13

Dragons: 2

Looking at the timer Alexa realized that while it felt like she had been fighting for hours, in truth she had only been fighting for a matter of minutes. With that sobering thought, Alexa forced herself to calm down, and focus on the next attack.

Even with her continued reminders, she couldn’t help but have a lust filled grin fill her features as she continued to rain death and destruction in the form of magic spells at her attackers.