Chương 203: Ur-Dragon

The High God's words hadn't finished echoing through the divine space before the world was blotted out with a light as bright as a dozen suns. It lacked eyes in any real sense, so normally, such a thing wouldn't be more than a distraction to the Ebon Blade. However, Hydonar's light of creation was so filled with essence that it blinded even the sword for a moment, and when it faded, the pompous god had vanished. A moment before, he'd stood there with a fine toga, golden jewelry, and an aloof expression.

Now all of that was gone, and in its place was a giant, golden dragon. It was a shock, but rather than panic, the blade tightened its grip on its wielder, who in turn tightened their grip on its hilt in preparation for whatever happened next. The dragon looked nothing like any of the furnace beasts it had fought before now. While not as large as the Mechanical Drake, it was larger than any naturally born dragon.

That wasn't the biggest difference between this golden beast and those gray, rust-encrusted ones, though. The biggest difference was that Hydonar's draconic form was beautiful. The sword rarely noticed such things, but this time it was impossible to miss. The dragon before it wasn't just golden; it was sculpted, symmetrical, and perfectly polished. Even without the glowing aura, it was hard not to believe that it wasn't some giant statue that artisans had labored for lifetimes to create.

What a foolish choice, it reflected, without hesitation. The weapon had destroyed many beautiful things. What was one more? There's nothing more in this world that I'd rather fight than a furnace— It didn't have the chance to finish that thought. It expected the dragon to close the distance between them immediately, or perhaps pontificate, but it did neither. Instead, it opened its mouth and launched a spray of light at it.

That light was just as bright as the previous burst had been, but being blinded wasn't the problem. The problem was that it moved faster than any fire should, or even lightning, for that matter. While the weapon doubted that curtain of impossible brightness would be enough to destroy it, it had much less certainty about its shadowy wielder. She could be annihilated in a second, it realized, reflecting on her nature. She was no longer a Goddess, but the fading memory of one.

There wasn't enough time to move out of the way. Even Bolt would have been too slow to avoid the destruction that was advancing toward it like a solid wall. So, instead, it activated Position of Privilege once and used it to twist the world. -100 Life Force. This time, it didn't try to push the luminescence away. Well, it didn't just try to push it away. As it did that, it bent space, twisting the cone of annihilation just off the mark enough for it to erase the area to the blade's left.

It was a narrow miss, but the blade didn't understand how narrow until it looked down and noted that its left arm had, in fact, been utterly erased by the lightest fringe of creation's wrath. The limb started to regrow immediately, and as it did so, the blade studied the part of the plaza that had been scourged of its jeweled mosaic. Beneath it, there was dark graven stone, covered in complex runes. It had glimpsed those before, but they were much clearer now. -831 Life Force.

It ignored those and refocused on its opponent, who was already inhaling to attack it again in the same way. For a moment, the sword considered Severing the Thread, but it held back. That was a trump card, it could only use once, and it should save it as long as possible. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Instead of doing that, it warped space with Position of Privilege twice more, and twisted the world between them even harder than it had last time.

This time, the spray of light didn't come close to the blade, and the time after that, it went even further afield. Three failed attacks were enough to make it change tactics.

"Those tricks won't save you!" the dragon roared, rearing up on its hind legs for a moment, and spreading its wings wide. It was obvious that the weapon's opponent was about to charge, but whether the titanic display was meant to be intimidating or not, the blade didn't care. It saw an opening, and it went for it, bending space the opposite way and compressing it as it sprinted forward. The weapon covered the huge gap between them in an instant.

It almost made it, too; unfortunately, it didn't realize that the display was a trap until it was sprung. It had been expecting more luminescent fire or a sudden lurch. It had been prepared for those eventualities. What it hadn't prepared for was the dragon's glittering tail to whip around from its hiding place behind the creature's massive bulk. It came around from the blade's left like a tree-trunk-thick bullwhip.

The golden-scaled weapon aimed for the center of the dark revenant, and would have likely blasted it apart to the four winds had the blade not pivoted to parry the blow. Its wielder was midair at the time of that desperate parry, so it had no footing to hold its ground and was instead launched across the wreckage of the jeweled plaza, but even so, that was the best-case scenario. As black blade and golden scales met, the sword struck back, trying to work its razor edge between the metallic scales.

The blow was shockingly hard. It would have been enough to break the arms of a mortal wielder, and it caused a shower of sparks to blossom around them in a cloud that seared the darkness of its wielder. Even that wasn't enough to sever the dragon's tail, though, so it activated Vorpal strike and finally pushed through, slicing the thing in two. -93 Life Force. The Ebon Blade wasn't greeted with the taste of blood or flesh, but pure, burning essence.

For a moment, it was blinded as all of its senses were overridden by the strange power. It didn't taste foul like the demons had. It was just the opposite; it was pure creation. It should have been a banquet, and yet the blade couldn't siphon a drop of it away. I'm too tainted to channel it properly; it realized as it landed lightly on its ghostly feet some distance away.

There, it watched the stub of the tail continue to spray light for several seconds, melting any number of priceless mosaic tiles with its terrible energies. That wasn't all bad news, of course. The light actually seemed to burn away some of the worst of the blade's corruption, and in the place where it had cut through the tail, it looked cleaner than it had in a long time. It might have studied those threads more had the truncated tail not started to regrow immediately.

Impossible, the weapon whispered as it watched the surreal sight. The wounds I inflict cannot be healed. It hadn't expected anyone to hear, let alone respond, but Hydonar did.

"Heal?" the creation god asked.

"Why would I mend a limb and leave a scar when I can simply create one anew? You may inflict unhealable wounds, but how can you wound something that is always reborn anew whenever it chooses? You cannot defeat me! I am creation itself!" Those words concerned the Ebon Blade, primarily because it didn't consider them to be an idle boast. It was the only explanation. How do you kill something that doesn't die? It wondered for a moment before answering its own question.

In a single blow, before they get the chance to use such an accursed power. There were other options, of course. It could imagine being forced to kill the god over and over again, until his power ran out, but somehow that struck the blade as unlikely. The energy that Hydonar radiated made it think that it had energy to spare. One hit will be cleaner, it decided, just like when Baraga slew his own dragon. While the blade considered all of this, the dragon advanced on it purposefully.

It could see cockiness in the way it strode forward, but there was just enough caution, too, for the blade to be certain that it was a bluff. There was caution there, too. It might not be afraid of the Ebon Blade, but no matter what it said, it took its threat seriously.