Chp.30: Turn of events

Carrion once again dodged the combined attack of the snake creature controlled by Rhaegal and the modified wyvern controlled by Haku. Fortunately, both had limitations: Rhaegal's avatar needed to follow the currents to stay in the air, otherwise he would have fallen to the ground and could no longer take off, and consequently couldn't attack his opponent fast enough; Haku's modified wyvern, on the other hand, was too heavy to be able to fly and therefore only performed rapid glides flapping its wings violently to lift itself off the ground, and furthermore, given the size of the body, it too could not move too quickly, for not to mention the fact that the extra head controlled by Darbi unbalanced the whole thing. Thanks to these small flaws, Carrion was still able to dodge the attacks of the two creatures, but he couldn't continue like this forever.

Both Haku and Rhaegal, and even Darbi, still managed to put him in serious trouble. The two basilisks continually spat streams of poison filled with flammable liquid and then the wyvern set fire to it with just a sneeze. The sky over that corner of the desert was continually rocked by extremely violent explosions; on the plus side, they also generated a shockwave that forced the dragon avatars away, but that was little consolation compared to all the damage Carrion was taking. If he continued like this, it couldn't have lasted long. If he missed even one move, his life would be over.

Haku watched Carrion moving in the air, almost amused by that scene. He wasn't someone who liked to play with his food before eating it, as many of his sisters loved to do, but still he had to admit that he felt a certain satisfaction in seeing this man in such difficulty. A legendary level, a being who should have no rivals in the world save adult dragons and gods, was now risking his life against dragons who were just over two years old. He felt powerful when he thought about that factor. Besides, he had to admit that perhaps it was also a little vengeful: even if he had factored in the possibility that Carrion would decide to pursue him instead of walking back to his ruler like the pathetic insect he was, really discovering that he had dared to look for him and plan to new way to kill him infuriated him. He felt as if Carrion had spit on his clemency, though it couldn't be called that since it had only been a premeditated deal with King Marcus and he unfortunately planned to give that pesky fly a chance to live. Therefore, seeing the legendary level that was so fatigued and struggling between life and death gave him a strange feeling of hilarity. If it weren't for his self-control, he would have laughed almost maniacally.

However, his rationality had always been superior to his emotions. Therefore Haku was still maintaining his infallible logic even in that situation of absolute triumph. After all, the game wasn't won yet: starting to celebrate now could have led him to trip over the finale. First he had to kill Carrion, wipe him out of the world once and for all, eradicate him as poison is eradicated from a wound; only then could he exult and laugh over his corpse... and maybe he could even keep it to do some experiments with.

Haku lowered the wyvern's head slightly and whispered to Darbi: "Take off the shoulder without being noticed and position yourself to be able to hit Carrion. At my signal, lunge at him like Rhaegal did"

Darbi let out a snort. "Are you sure? You too will be thrown off by the recoil" If the basilisk had returned to its true size while it was still leaning on Haku's shoulder, the energy generated would have been released not only in the surrounding air but also on the wyvern. The shock wave would have been so violent that even that twenty-five meters long avatar would have been thrown off. While the dragon scales on the outside of the wyvern's body would have endured, the same probably couldn't have been said of the inside: since the basilisk would have returned to normal while still in direct contact with the wyvern, a good portion of its energy would be channeled through his body as if they were seismic waves, shattering bones and breaking the bonds between internal organs. While this wouldn't have killed Haku, it would have made the wyvern's body much less efficient in a fight.

"Don't worry, I designed this body, I know its limits. It will resist to that" Haku replied. While the bones and internal organs couldn't match adult dragon scales for strength, they had been reinforced with great basilisk plates and wrapped in rows and rows of shock-absorbing muscles. Even if all the energy generated by the basilisk's transformation had been channeled directly into the wyvern's body, it would have reported at most a few fractures. But since most of the energy would have been dispersed into the air and not into the wyvern's body, the odds of it escaping unscathed were virtually certain.

Darbi nodded; he knew that when his brother said something, he knew what he was doing. If Haku said his avatar would resist, he had no reason to doubt him. So he moved the muscles at the base of the neck and tore all the ligaments one by one with the body of the wyvern; luckily Haku hadn't connected the bones as well, or it would have been impossible to detach. Once it was completely separated, he got into position and took good aim. Carrion was still hanging in the air, grappling with Rhaegal who was distracting him quite well. Then, as soon as the moment was right, he deactivated the spell that reduced the size of the basilisk's body.

From Haku's point of view, it was as if a mountain had just fallen on his left shoulder: a titanic-sized shock wave exploded breaking even the speed of sound and generating a deafening boom. The sand, even though it hadn't been directly touched by the explosion, rose more than fifteen feet and was hurled in every direction as if each grain of sand were a bolt from a fully drawn bow. Haku felt like his entire body was shaking from the inside; technically this couldn't cause him pain, since this was still an avatar, but it was still a strange feeling to feel all his bones, organs, blood vessels and so on shaking as if they were being shaken by an earthquake. The recoil was so violent that the wyvern's entire body was thrown backwards, and although Haku spread his wings to resist more, and although the force of the desert wind came to his aid, he couldn't stop himself before having completed at least twenty meters, such was the energy generated by the transformation of the basilisk.

Just as had happened with Rhaegal, Darbi was hurled skyward at near supersonic speeds by the force generated; in less than a second he was in front of Carrion. It all happened so fast that Darbi almost couldn't open his mouth in time to bite; his brain simply couldn't process the situation fast enough to keep up with his current speed, so the dragon had to act more on instinct than rationality, almost without thinking. Maybe that was precisely why things didn't go as planned this time.

In the brief instant that Darbi's position switched from Haku's shoulder to being in front of Carrion, the latter turned his head slightly. But her eyes weren't frightened or fearful, but extremely determined. The instant Darbi was in front of him, with an almost lightning movement the man raised his sword and swung it with an almost surreal speed; the next instant, Darbi found himself falling towards the ground and crashing into it so hard that the ground shook as if shaken by an earthquake. Just a second later, a second impact occurred, caused by the fall of his right wing, severed cleanly. "Ugh! What the heck..."

Carrion took advantage of his moment of confusion to throw himself against him with all his speed, intending to hit him on the head and make it explode with his divine power; but unfortunately for him, halfway he found his way blocked by Rhaegal. "Wait! I was there first!" the dragon roared, spitting a gush of poison at him for the umpteenth time and then using his tail to generate a powerful wind that drove him away, preventing him from approaching his brother. "Darbi! Are you all right?"

"Yes I am!" Darbi answered getting up. His serpent body could no longer fly, but that didn't mean he lost its lethality. Even without his wings, he was still a dangerous opponent.

Rhaegal watched him crawl for a moment, then burst out laughing: "Ah! And you who said it was something easy! I hit him at least one arm, you didn't even that! You landed like a beginner!"

"S-Shut up! Think about that asshole instead!" Darbi exclaimed trying to contain his shame. "How did he see me? I was moving too fast!"

"He didn't see you. He just learned from the situation" Haku said as he returned after being knocked away by Darbi's blow. His wyvern body looked practically unharmed, but his left shoulder was a little lower than before. The dragon looked at Carrion with very interested and partly curious eyes. "I'm guessing: since we've used this move against you before, you memorized the initial moves that go into generating it. Since it was the severed basilisk head that did it, it was only natural that you keep an eye on the other one, since there were high chances that it too would be able to perform the same move.As soon as you noticed that Darbi was aiming, you therefore prepared accordingly: the position of your body and your sword were already ready for what should have happened. As soon as you heard the roar, you acted without even thinking: you moved your body in exactly the direction you planned, dodging Darbi's attack and clipping his wing in the process. Am I right?"

Carrion smiled with an expression somewhere between proud and mocking. "The same trick never works twice against a good general" he answered. "Mine was quite a bet, you know. If your brother had changed the initial trajectory, I would have died for sure. But fortunately everything went the way I had foreseen"

"Fortune favors the bold, they say. I'm not a person who believes much in luck, but I recognize that it is often essential to succeed in a business" Haku said, then his gaze returned determined. "However, that is irrelevant at the moment. As things stand, not even the greatest stroke of luck could reverse this situation. You may have stopped Darbi from flying, but he is still a formidable opponent, and then there are Rhaegal and I too. You have no chance of escaping, much less winning. By now you will have almost used up all your divine power, and as soon as you are exhausted, you will no longer have a chance to flutter like a pigeon and escape our jaws!"

But contrary to what Haku expected, Carrion's smile widened. "Sorry, would I have used almost all the divine power by now? I'm afraid you're wrong, dragon" he said, and a strange light seemed to form in his eyes. "I haven't even consumed half of it"

Haku's eyes widened in surprise. Was it a bluff? Impossible, Carrion wouldn't have bluffed so obviously. But that estimate could not be real. To summon a greater spirit, Carrion would have had to expend at least half of his divine power, so it was impossible that he currently used less than that amount.

Unless... "No! You bastard!" Haku roared narrowing his eyes as if they were two slits as he connected all the information in his mind.

Carrion's smile widened, so much that his teeth could be seen. "I'm a general, dragon! You're a fool to think that a general can be fooled twice by a kid!" he laughed, then he raised his hand to the sky. He would have preferred to wait a little longer before using that move, so as to damage the avatars of the three dragons even more, but since he had now been discovered, there was no point in stalling further. "Enough with the preliminaries! Now it's time for the big event!"