A thousand years agoâ¦
Jake looked down over the planet heâd dubbed Alius, picturing all the battles occurring now because of his orders. Below thousands were dying to give him the time he needed, and if he failed, millions would return to slavery.
The mountain he hovered over exploded, and a spear of darkness flew toward him. He vanished, appearing amid the debris next to his adversary. His foe landed a blow, and what little remained of the mountain vaporized at the impact. Jake flew backward across the surface of the moon, breaking through mountains that failed to arrest his motion. With each impact he felt the lives of hundreds of dragons wink out.
He tried not to think about it. Theyâd been warned, but the stubborn dragon pride had seen that they refused to leave their home.
Maybe if I hadnât⦠He began to wonder, but pushed the thought away.
It had been necessary.
The item called to him from his soul space, begging to be used, but it was not yet time. Heâd only been battling the Impietor for three hours. It was far too soon to play his hand, especially considering the cost to give him such a secret weapon.
The dragons had briefly tried to help at the beginning of the conflict, just after Jake had baited the Impietor to the moon. The elder dragons, being second only to the fallen gods and the Impietor himself, descended upon their ancient foe. Theyâd lasted less than a minute. Second strongest they might have been, but their power was like a candle to the hurricane that was the Impietor.
Jake finally mustered enough Imperium to stop his flight, and the Impietor was there to follow up. They fought on a hundred battlefronts. They attacked each other with blades of impossible value, defending with armor of equally immeasurable wealth. Jakeâs mana pool lashed out at the Impietorâs, stealing from it to refill itself while the Impietorâs did the same. With each impact they sought to sap stamina from one another, and their souls battled to rip the very essence from each otherâs bodies.
And that didnât account for the magic.
Between them they held all the powers once claimed by the gods. Jakeâs Imperium over life itself urged the growth of tumors in the body of the Impietor as his own Imperium over death killed them and lashed out. Jake slowed down time itself to avoid the greater speed of the Impietor while the Impietor stretched out the very space between them to avoid Jakeâs now-faster blows. And so it went. Life versus death, fire versus ice, air versus earth, and on and on. For each aspect of creation they shared control between them, and they used that control to destroy each other.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
But each was too strong. Too durable. Around them the moon decayed into rubble and still they fought on, as fresh as they had been at the beginning of the fight.
After two days of resisting the call, Jake was ready. Yesterday, Jake had begun to use a bow crafted from the bones of a god, strung with the sinew of the eldest dragon. From it he fired arrows crafted from the freely given heartwood of the most ancient of trees, tipped with steel from the core of the planet itself. Each shot could level an army, and the Impietor didnât even bother to block them after deflecting the first and judging its power wanting.
Perfect.
Jake brought more weapons to bear, axes crafted of the ice from the heart of the ice volcanoes, living flames forged from the souls of dragons, poisons concocted from the great manticoreâs venom.
With each attack the moon around Then fell apart. They threw each other into the ground and the moons surface gave way to their bodies. Deeper and deeper they moved as they fought, digging past rare natural treasures buried deep in the moon and destroying them without a thought.
Magic ores, mountain hearts, wells of pure life, never seen by man or dragon gone in an instant.
More and more treasures Jake threw at the Impietor as they move downward, and the Impietor threw just as many back until neither paid any heed to the priceless treasures exploding all around them. Until Jake pulled out the arrow. Identical in every way to the others save one.
Within it resided the soul of a dragon.
While the elder dragons had been second only to the gods, the dragon whose soul this arrow contained had had no equals but Jake and the Impietor.
Draco. Jakeâs first companion on this strange new world. Together they had grown strong, and together they would free the world of the Impietorâs tyranny.
Jake drew the arrow and fired it with no more fanfare than any other arrow heâd fired, but somehow the Impietor detected the deception. He dodged the arrow, letting it sail past harmlessly, yet Jake didnât give up.
He used a treasure to teleport to the end of the arrowâs flight, caught it out of the air, and used another treasure to send himself at speeds blinding to both of them into the Impietorâs back, all in less than a blink of the eye.
The arrow pierced the back of the Impietor, and there was a moment of stillness before black shadows erupted out of his body. They were deep within the core of the moon, and the shadows spread out into the darkness, corroding everything they touched. The sound of a thousand earthquakes filled the moon as the great celestial object began to fall apart, dooming the dragons, but none of that was on Jakeâs mind, for he had received a message.
The Impietor (error) has been killed.
You have reached level 100.
Do you wish to ascend? Y/N
Jake chose no.