Chp.31: Oddities

Inpu moved his legs slightly. His muscles tensed and his feet rotated slightly. The whole thing lasted less than an instant, then the spirit made what seemed like a leap and aimed at Serengal with the intention of striking her in the heart. The sand beneath him moved like a wave, with the same force of a raging river, dragging him without even having to move against the dragoness. The golden spear glowed with pure energy, and the muscles in the spirit's arms seemed to swell as if they were shot through by pure force.

Serengal moved on instinct: the spear passed just an inch from her face, scratching her left cheek. But although she managed to avoid the blow of the spear, the shock wave it generated from the friction of the air and the force of the sand moving as if it were a wave hurled her aside as if she were a feather. The poor dragoness flew through the air for a couple of meters before tumbling back to the ground and rolling very ungracefully.

Inpu would have liked to use that opportunity to hit the dragon again, this time in the right place, but obviously Corgorin wouldn't have stood idly by; with a ferocious roar it lunged at him from behind and bit him at the base of the neck. It was like biting into a block of marble, but after discovering that the spirit could be injured, Corgorin had no intention of letting go; she wanted to keep biting and tearing at him until she was able to kill him. She pressed all her strength into her teeth and finally they managed to penetrate deeply into the flesh of the spirit. Inpu let out a cry like a dog's bark, but Corgorin wasn't sure if it was a cry of anger, pain, or surprise; it rumbled in her ears almost as if it were an echo.

Inpu swung his spear arm in the opposite direction, trying to strike at the dragon, but she kept shifting and keeping out of reach of his weapon. As she did so, Corgorin placed her claws on his shoulders and began to exert her full weight on them. If any newcomer had been under her at that moment, whether he was human, elf, beastmen, ogre, or any other race, he would surely have been crushed to a pulp under the weight of a ten-ton dragon. But on the contrary, in this case Corgorin encountered strenuous resistance; Inpu leaned down, but only a few inches; he didn't even sink into the sand, and indeed it seemed to move as if it were a liquid and took the form of a sharp point, pointing straight at the dragon. Seeing this coming, Corgorin let go and ducked, pulling herself back to a safe distance.

Inpu rubbed the affected part, which immediately returned as new, but it was still evident that the spirit had suffered damage: his posture had become slightly less straight, as if he felt a sharp pain at the base of his neck, at the point where Corgorin had hit him. "No one had ever dared to bite and claw me before. Only a beast devoid of any civil sense could take advantage of such improper means to..."

"Listen, can you please stop talking like you're reciting an epic poem? Or at least, can you stop talking to me? I'm asking you please! I'm serious, I'm not understanding half a word you're saying!" Corgorin interrupted him.

Inpu's face wrinkled and his teeth gritted making a sound like a dog's warning growl. But before he could say anything Serengal, who in the meantime had gotten back on her feet and was back in shape, spoke for him: "You're saying that only an uncivilized being could use his teeth as a weapon" she said translating what Inpu had just said. said in a way that Corgorin could understand. "And anyway these are false and ridiculous accusations. If your life is in danger, fight with any means at your disposal. It doesn't matter if it's weapons, teeth, claws or tails. It's stupid to fight according to your opponent's rules"

"Ah ah! Right, right! Give him the heck, sister!" Corgorin exclaimed with a big laugh, infuriating the spirit even more. It almost seemed that his milky white eyes were emitting flashes of the same color. But despite his fury, Inpu seemed to be doing his best to maintain his composure and avoid getting carried away by emotion. Which was clearly very difficult since just looking at the sneering stares of the two dragons drove him into a rage.

While Corgorin laughed and Inpu tried hard not to yell at her and maintain a stoic facade, Serengal's mind was racing. That spirit had hit her much less strongly than she had expected. She had dealt with major spirits before and remembered well how powerful they were; if one of them had performed the same attack as Inpu, if she too had been able to dodge it probably the force that would have hit her with the shock wave and the remnants of the divine power would have been enough to crush half of her body as if a boulder rolled down a mountain had landed on her. This time, however, she hadn't even scratched her scales, and apart from a couple of somersaults in the air practically nothing had happened. Maybe the spirit was still playing with them? Possible; basically he gave the impression of a person who was quite confident of his power. It would have been normal if he had behaved arrogantly and unnecessarily boastful. However, by now Serengal and Corgorin had clearly shown him that they were by no means an enemy to be underestimated; after all, they had managed to wound him twice. Regardless of how the spirits viewed being injured (there was always a chance it wasn't a big deal to them given how quickly they regenerated), anyone at that point would start the fight and give their all to eliminate the threat immediately, before they could make him other surprises. So why wasn't Inpu doing it? Why did he keep holding back using such weak attacks, instead of unleashing all his divine power and forcing them to at least be on the defensive, instead of passively accepting their attacks? Why did it almost seem like he was the one stalling for time? In her point of view, there were too many oddities...

As if to answer his questions, Inpu moved his spear again, this time with greater force; under his command, a vortex of sand rose and thickened into a very solid tentacle-like structure. Sand continued to feed it until it was at least twenty feet high; whereupon the tentacle came down violently against them, striking the earth so violently that it shook. The two dragonesses narrowly dodged the blow, but before they could recover the tentacle began to slither across the ground, sweeping away everything in its way. Serengal and Corgorin managed to avoid it by jumping on it and moving out of its way, but the tentacle promptly returned to its attack position, ready to deliver another blow.

"Sgrunt! Here, now he's getting serious!" Corgorin grumbled, then she whispered to Serengal: "Sister, it's time. Let's find out how far this asshole can exert his powers"

Serengal nodded. That was the moment they were waiting for: for their plan to work, in fact, they first needed to know how far that spirit could use his powers. He had to have a limit on how far he could travel for the sand to still be affected by his influence. However, it had been impossible to measure it as long as Inpu had been fighting almost hand to hand… but now that he was using a sand tentacle, he was basically using a long range attack. Through it, the two dragons could find out how far he could go: it would have been enough to see when the sand tentacle would have started to lose its energy and it had crumbled.

The two dragons split up and placed themselves on the two opposite sides of Inpu; in this way the spirit couldn't move in any direction. If they were on the same side, then he would have approached when he noticed they were approaching the edge of his influence; but if they had been on opposite sides, as they were now, Inpu couldn't have gone towards either, because in that case he would have moved away from the other, with the result that his field of influence would also have moved away from her and then he would still reveal how far his powers could go. With that plan in mind, the two dragons positioned themselves in the predetermined points and continued to pretend to want to attack Inpu, who could do nothing but protect himself and chase them away with his sand tentacle. As they did this, the two dragons backed away imperceptibly; to reach them, therefore, the sand tentacle was soon forced to grow in length by sucking up new sand from the ground and using it as building material.

Finally, when they got within seven feet of the spirit, the tentacle began to quiver and lose strength. Sand began to detach from it in the form of a small waterfall. Serengal realized that if she carried on any longer, the tentacle would completely crumble. This meant that the maximum radius in which Inpu could exert his power must be around eight or nine meters. To be safer, she decided to assume that the larger estimate was right: it was always better to exaggerate than to minimize and risk derailing the plan. So, while Inpu was busy keeping Corgorin away, who having also noticed that they were reaching the limit was provoking him on purpose to keep his attention on her, Serengal just turned her gaze towards a nearby dune and mimed the number nine with a paw. Almost as if it were an answer, a very rapid shimmer, as if something metallic had been hit by the sun's rays, appeared in the sand and then disappeared in the next instant.

That was enough for Serengal. So, having made sure that whoever was supposed to receive the message had actually received it, she decided it was time to stop playing defensive and charged forward. Inpu noticed her attack and used his sand tentacle to defend himself, but the dragon skilfully dodged it using her extraordinary agility and thanks to her speed she was in front of him in a few moments. Inpu acted almost instinctively and moved the spear raising a cloud of dust that hit Serengal in the face, but it didn't have much effect apart from blocking the dragon's charge to make her sneeze. Inpu tried to take advantage of this to stab her, but Corgorin attacked him from behind and forced him to focus on her again.

Serengal brushed the sand off her face with an annoyed snout. However, her mind was racing. Again, that attack was far too weak. Even if Inpu hadn't had time to think about how to use his power, if he had acted on instinct he would surely have generated a much stronger attack; the moment when someone acted on instinct, after all, was when he or she gave vent to all his or her strength. Yet, Inpu had hit her with a fit that barely made her sneeze. The situation was far too strange; something was wrong...

Suddenly she heard a sound. Corgorin heard it too and stopped, looking in the direction it came from, and so did Inpu. It wasn't yet another roar due to the blows that Carrion, Haku, Darbi and Rhaegal exchanged during their battle; no, it was very different, like a whistling and a distant rumble combined. To the dismay of the two dragons, what appeared to be a thread formed by pure energy rose above the place where the battle was taking place, and began to swirl in the sky forming what appeared to be a circle. "What? But... but then...?"

Inpu's laughter shook them out of their thoughts. The spirit seemed to have just abandoned any attempt to remain stoic and composed and was letting go of a mocking laugh. "Exactly, mortals! You have fallen into a trap!"