TO&FQ: Book 2 - Chapter 50 (RAW)

Sorry for the late update! This was the final chapter for Book 2 so needed a bit more special attention!

Chapter 50 - Shattered Skies

“One does not simply slay a Dragon.”

- Attributed to Seraphina de Sariens.

The great Wyrm Balalazanga, the Mother Hive Tyrant, should not have been able to fly at all. Yet four broad, semi-translucent wings, each sprawling wide enough to blanket a small town, beat in slow, thunderous rhythm and kept the black and pink leviathan aloft, giving it the unsettling grace of a lizard-shaped dragonfly. Down its spine ran a honeycomb lattice of vented hollows, each ring whispering with the rush of displaced air. Two serpentine heads, eyes glowing a baleful amber, scanned the skies in opposite directions while four long legs folded neatly beneath its armored belly, their obsidian claws gleaming like polished onyx. Jagged spikes and interlocking bone plates, thicker than any tank’s armor, shielded its immense body, and twin tails cracked through the wind behind it like living whips.

It was a DLC boss creature… no, it was an entire DLC campaign.

Seraphina realized that she had perhaps picked off a bit more than she could chew. What was she doing here, anyway? She was never a fighter… surely there would be others? She shook her head. One way or another, she had always been a fighter. If she did not stop the flying catastrophe, then all of her schemes and plans in Meridian would burn and go up in smoke.

A quieter, secret part of her, the golden heart of song, nursed this thought. Turned the selfish need into a desire to protect. If not her and the Ballista, her weapon of war from a bygone age, could not stop the Dragon, then no one could. Many would die. Power, once claimed, demanded that it be wielded for those who conferred it. That was the price of privilege—the essence of noblesse oblige.

Seraphina had always believed herself exceptional; now fate offered a stage on which to prove it. Her magic repeated the invitation in her own voice, soft and seductive. Eyes closed, she listened to the Nex Frame’s reactor thrum and felt its latent ferocity straining for release. The choice was made. All that remained was to cast the die.

She would need to play a perfect game.

“Adjust Sensorium to third-person view…” she commanded, and the Nex obeyed.

Her vision shifted, overlaid now with an external projection of the Ballista—as if she were observing the suit from a floating camera just behind and above. With a thought, she refined the angle and focus, rotating and zooming until the image aligned precisely with the familiar perspective from the game. It was perfect.

Seraphina rocketed toward the great dragon, her resolve hardening to iron. Sensing the Ballista’s approach, the beast loosed its deadly passengers: from the honeycomb hollows along its spine burst a swarm of bat-winged shapes. These Wyrm-drones were not hatched from an Egg but gestated inside those living chambers. They were stunted creatures that would never become true Dragons. They lacked a Dragon’s breath, a Dragon’s cunning, and a Dragon’s nearly impenetrable scales, yet each one still posed a menace even to veteran adventurers.

The living cloud shrieked their challenge and streaked toward her in a ragged cone. Reluctant to waste precious ammunition so early, Seraphina shifted her grip on the Ballista’s colossal two-handed sword and braced for the first strike.

She gauged the closing distance, then pushed the thrusters to their absolute limit, starting a roll. Reactors howled, white exhaust flaring as the Ballista became a spinning comet of steel. She hit the swarm head-on—a living blender that scythed through false dragons in a vortex of metal and flame.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

You have slain a lesser Wyrm-drone. 134 experience gained.

…

The kill notifications flooded her inner vision in a cascade while she carved a tunnel straight through the swarm. Only when she burst out the far side did Seraphina cut the thrust, letting the Ballista slow amid the drifting fragments of wing and scale. 

You have gained 1 Constitution.

Fighting without a proper synchronization harness wracked her body with crushing g-forces, yet Seraphina’s prodigious Constitution absorbed the punishment, the stunt costing her only thirty points of Health. Still, it wasn’t a thing she wanted to repeat.

“You all right?” she asked between measured breaths.

“Sleepy,” Cornelia mumbled, the Hydra’s voice thick with drowsy contentment—she had been eating far too much of late. Greedy thing.

A thin, gleaming thread of strategy flashed through Seraphina’s mind. That very greed, that raw hunger, would save her, she hoped. Slim though it was, it offered a chance.

She allowed herself a fierce grin, slammed the throttles open, and hurled the Ballista straight toward the Mother Hive Tyrant Balalazanga.

Seraphina drove her metal titan forward, engines roaring, armor trembling beneath the immense pressure of acceleration. The titanic shadow of Balalazanga loomed over her, blotting out the sky as the creature's twin serpentine heads turned in eerie unison. As one maw snapped open, Seraphina's vision blared with warnings of urgent red. But she remained calm, for she knew exactly what was coming.

The dragon unleashed a torrent of white-hot flame, a searing river cascading toward her, incandescent with heat. Seraphina counted heartbeats. Thrusters ignited, pitching the Ballista into a flawless spin, evading the Dragonfire with a perfectly timed roll. Heat warnings flashed as molten air washed over her frame, scorching but not harming. It was a perfect dodge she'd mastered through countless hours of combat in the game.

Balalazanga whipped both of its immense tails next, twin scythes slicing the air with earth-shattering force. Again, Seraphina pivoted expertly, each thruster pulse precisely choreographed, avoiding lethal blows as if following steps in a familiar, deadly dance.

The young girl launched a salvo of missiles at the sky beast, a miniature swarm of bees. They exploded along its length with ardent fire, their flaring explosions a counterpoint to Balalazanga’s great roar.

She had the Dragon’s full attention now, and she guided the enormous creature away from Meridian, steering the confrontation westward. The city's towers, vias, and canals diminished behind her, giving way to sprawling marshlands, an expanse of dense bogs. 

Below the deadly duel in the sky, thick mist rose from stagnant waters, forming swirling veils below. She had been tempted to lure the Mother Hive Tyrant into the sea, but that would have meant little chance of recovering its corpse. A dragon was a treasure trove of valuable resources. The bog was perfect terrain—a muddy grave for the titanic Sky Tyrant.

“Just a bit further,” Seraphina whispered to herself, coaxing the leviathan onward with short bursts of machine gun fire and sporadic missile fire. Each projectile did little harm to Balalazanga’s, so great was her size, but they served their purpose—luring the beast away.

Now, she was flying above the centre of a vast expanse of darkened water and rotting vegetation. Seeing her moment, Seraphina fired a quick burst from her gun, tungsten rounds shredding another cluster of lesser Wyrm-drones hovering about the dragon’s back. She surged upward, racing along the massive spine until a honeycomb vent opened before her, pulsing with a sickly glow.

“Now!” she cried, opening the Ballista’s cockpit. Wind shrieked through the gap, nearly deafening her as she shouted over the tempestuous roar. “Cornelia, food time!” she cried, grabbing the serpent from inside her dress and throwing her into the opening.

The small Hydra flew across the gap, expanding rapidly midair into her full monstrous form. Twin heads surged forward, scales as white as snow, muscles rippling as her fangs pierced membrane and cartilage. With a gleeful cry, Cornelia began tearing through the Dragon’s flesh, greedily consuming the Mana-saturated meat.

Balalazanga bucked and writhed violently at this intrusion, its colossal wings faltering in their rhythm. Its cry reverberated through the clouds, a deep, pained bellow shaking the air. Yet even in agony, it retaliated, loosing another horde of Wyrm-drones from other fresh vents along its spine.

Spitter variants surged toward Seraphina, swollen throats glowing bright with acidic bile. Armored Wyrm-drones, heavier and slower, advanced behind, carapaces gleaming ominously. Sharp Razorfin scouts dived in, weaving arcs, aiming to flank her.

“Come and get me,” Seraphina hissed, slamming shut the cockpit and firing with her shoulder-mounted gun. 

Rounds streaked across the sky, tearing through the lightly armored razorfins in quick succession, leaving shredded corpses to slowly fall. A spitter swelled grotesquely, only to explode mid-air as a bullet struck home. The blast cascaded outward, its corpse raining burning bile.

The armored drones crashed against her next, their dense shells resistant to projectile gunfire. Slashing instinctively with her sword, Seraphina cleaved through their ranks with powerful strokes, sparks flying as Adamant-edge met thick scale.  Each strike jolted her Nex, but the Ballista’s inner Dragonflesh fiber bundle muscles held firm. She spat out bullets between each strike to make up for the weapon’s poor attack speed. Yet the drones swarmed endlessly, and her ammo reserves were dwindling rapidly. 

Ignoring the plethora of notifications, she danced through their attacks, executing precise evasive rolls and dives with practiced grace. Her ammunition counters flashed warnings: rounds nearly depleted, missile racks empty. The sword alone would soon remain.

Seraphina continued to dance among the Wyrm-drones, her blade flashing a dirge of death. But while she could most certainly dance… she also realized she could sing. The young girl opened the doors to the armored cockpit, the wind whipping into her face, and wailed.

You have slain…

…

…

The righteousness of her Path answered her, and Wyrm-drones dropped like flies, filling her inner vision with ever more notifications. With the death of so many enemies, Seraphina had gained a level. Without a second thought, she put all her points into Luck and her skill points into Mana Regeneration to offset her low Wisdom.

And inside Balalazanga, Cornelia, a creature every bit as mythical as the Dragon, gorged relentlessly, tearing vast tunnels of ruin through the Wyrm’s inner structure. Each bite from her twin heads drained the beast of Mana, weakening its magic, dimming the luster of its scales. The creature shuddered violently, wings flailing as control of its massive body faltered.

But even a dying titan posed a danger. Its tails whipped in final fury, catching Seraphina off guard. The strike glanced her suit’s shoulder plating, sending her spinning away. The suit’s integrity alarms screamed in protest; she gritted her teeth and burned Ethereum fuel to stop her from entering a stall spin.

“Cornelia—eat faster!” she shouted through her Beast Lore Amulet, pouring the last few bullets into a closing wave of drones. With an exhausted whir, the weapon clicked empty. A final, perfectly-timed thruster burn spared her another tail swipe, but now warning signs started to appear in her vision.

Deep inside the great Wyrm, Cornelia answered Seraphina’s call. The Hydra’s voracious feast had finally reached the Dragon’s core, its second heart, its Mana Nexus. The same type of Nexus that beat inside powerfully in the Ballisa’s reactor core. In one last gluttonous bite, she punctured the beast’s essence itself.

Balalazanga screamed—a sound so raw and pained it split the sky and rippled the bog waters below. The enormous body convulsed, and gravity finally reclaimed the leviathan. Wings stilled, tails fell limp, and with a grace perversely beautiful in death, the dragon began its long plunge toward the waiting swamp.

The Mother Hive Tyrant struck the bog with cataclysmic force, sending waves of murky water exploding upward in towering plumes. The ground shuddered violently, splintering rotten trees and shattering mounds of compacted peat. Clods of mud billowed skyward in thick masses, threatening to blot out the sun and casting a grim twilight over the region. The once-stagnant waters churned violently, swallowing the colossal corpse inch by inch, dragging it down into the black, hungry depths. A steaming crater marked by twisted remnants of reeds and ruined islands of vegetation—an enduring scar left by the fall of a Sky Lord.

You have slain a Dragon. 15340 experience gained.

You have reached level 22.

You have reached level 23.

You have reached level 24.

9 unassigned attribute points.

3 unassigned skill points.

She had really done it. She had slain a Dragon and saved Meridian City. 

“Cornelia!” she remembered suddenly. Her hand flew to the necklace at her throat. Though distance muffled any hope of hearing the Hydra’s voice, she could feel her presence through the bond—a warm, steady pulse of life and satisfaction. Cornelia was safe.

Seeing the timer ticking down, she quickly put points into Strength and the rest into Dexterity, hoping that it would allow her to best a certain annoying teacher of hers. With a view to future unlocks, she put all of her skills into Blind Fighting.

She covered her mouth with a dainty hand and let laughter spill out, drunk on triumph. 

In that instant of total victory, she had forgotten one of Armsmaster Kellan’s commandments: always make sure a dead enemy is truly dead. Warning chimes filled the cockpit, but she noticed them too late; an Armored Wyrm-drone slammed into the Ballista from behind.

In her panic, she flared her thrusters to the maximum and boosted away. The engines flared white-hot, then sputtered, starved of their last dregs of Ethereum. Power bled from the gauges, control surfaces seized.

Unit Zero Ballista, the first of the ancient war machines that could contest the Dragons’ claim of the sky, started to fall.