Chul Asclepius
I danced across the ruined streets of the flying human settlement, Suncrusher my fiery partner as I hit and hit Alacryans and mana beasts alike with my warmace's incandescent head.
"Where are you?!" I snarled at the sky, my mana burning through every vein, and lighting my blood on fire. "Show yourselves! Enemies of Peace!"
Alacryans bearing strange symbols, different from the elephant-riding ones, came from all sides in foolish hope they would overwhelm the son of Dawn.
I rotated on my heel, holding Suncrusher at its absolute endpoint and as I gained speed, a tornado of fire followed me on my wake, annihilating my enemies in the process.
I smashed Suncrusher on the ground, an earthquake following and fire seeping through every crack in the stone. I lit ablaze the Alacryans, and those few who resisted I grabbed them by their face and squashed them like flies.
"Chul, you are exaggerating," a voice chirped from above, Chantelle complaining about my methods. "These are just some lessers."
"Lessers who serve the Vritra," Ayden cried out, he too flying just a few spaces from Chantelle.
Milo ran to my right, his rooster form something I never got used to. "Hop! Hop! We need to get away from the city!" He incited.
"You would be of much more help if you just shut up," I hissed, running against a Lavatic Pachyderm and wrestling with it, my flock disbanding again at the coming of the enemy.
I hoisted the Lavatic Pachyderm from one of its log-sized legs, the weight of the beast plus that strange baldaquin and the Alacryans burning my muscles, but the more they burned the more I wanted to fight.
The beast bellowed wildly, its fire-breath drilling a trench through the already ruined streets and the Alacryans abive fire their petty spells, but their mana bounced off my skin like splashes of water, leaving only tears and burnt spots on the elven fighting robes I wore.
With a war cry tearing from my throat the Lavatic Pachyderm was smashed on the ground, the structure on its back breaking down and leaving the Alacryans mountless. In other words: the prey had left its nest.
Still dancing like Grandfather himself taught me, and Mother always loved to watch, I finished those Alacryans too as they cried out the names of the disgusting Vritra before death claimed them.
Vritra, Vritra, Vritra. Were those cowards the only thing these lessers were able to mutter? Alongside their Fiachra and their Highblood Frost?! Where were the Wraiths?!
I spat to the ground and turned, my march outside Xyrus City fundamental to avoid countless innocents to die in the incoming fight. But as I marched I would leave behind a trail of Alacryan death, so that they will come—the Wraiths.
—
Suncrusher's massive head smashed directly into the skull of a Lavatic Pachyderm just before it could unleash its fiery attack on a huddled group of civilians.
The mutant elephant's thick skull violently caved in, turning instantly into mashed, scorched grey matter and boiling bodily fluids.
The Alacryan soldiers riding in its howdah tumbled to the ground, and I immediately transformed the ruined street into my stage. I dropped onto my back, kicking and punching the air in a fluid, devastating breakdance of violence.
I spun around the disoriented invaders, moving far too fast for their insulting, sluggish magic to even register my presence before I shattered their bones.
Suncrusher, which I had sent flying upward in a spinning arc as I danced, fell perfectly back into my waiting hands just as I flipped back onto my feet. I turned my head sharply toward the terrified people I had just rescued.
"You have to run to the Nexus Garden of this city!" I shouted at them. "There, the people of my Uncle will bring you to safety!"
"It is called Mana Square here, Chul," Chantelle corrected me gently, her pristine dove form landing lightly on one of Suncrusher's still-burning golden spikes.
"Yes, that!" I shouted to the group of lessers.
It deeply pained me to see so many crying children among them. Dk they risk losing their mothers and fathers at the hands of the Vritra today, just like I did? I asked myself.
A fresh, blinding rage burned deep within my marrow as I loathed the horrifying possibility that my personal tragedy might become a common occurrence for these innocent people.
"Elijah."
I turned again, a genuine smile breaking across my face as I heard the gruff, familiar voice of one of the few living remembrances of my father.
Elder Rahdeas and several other dwarves—some wearing heavy bronze armours, others in simple militia gear—were quickly exploring the ruined streets in search of survivors.
"Rahdeas! Lead them where my Uncle said!" I shouted, giving Suncrusher a quick shake to make Chantelle flutter away safely. "I have Vritras to slay!"
Pouring explosive pure mana directly into my legs, I vaulted high above the brick buildings, half-flying away from the civilians I just saved.
As I soared through the smoke, the peaceful outskirts of Xyrus City—the pristine ring of terrain surrounding the dense settlement that was still free from human buildings—came into view.
I landed heavily on my two feet, raising a massive cloud of dirt and ripped grass upon impact.
The fighting here was far less evident, but violent traces of sudden skirmishes were still visible. Various flying mana beasts, both normal native ones and those tainted by Vritra corruption, lay dead in the grass, having likely sacrificed themselves to give their bonded riders time to escape or find help.
"Nabyun strictly told us to lead the killers of our flock into a trap, but..." Ran, in his jay form, started. "Does anyone actually have any idea how to do it?"
"No..." was the grim, unified answer from the rest of the disguised flock.
"Perhaps one of us can act as bait and lead them directly to Chul?" Aurora proposed, fluttering lower to the ground to make her suggestion heard.
"They are evil, not stupid," Palmyra interjected sharply. "They will instantly understand we are trying to lead them into a trap."
"The Vritra-blooded lesser that Nabyun so fiercely insists on calling an ally explicitly said these Wraiths are engineered specifically to kill Asuras like us," Hellio Asclepius pointed out logically. "And guess exactly what we are? Asuras. Wouldn't they just blindly follow the prey they think they are born to hunt?"
"That is how we Phoenixes reason, not Basilisks," Amanessi argued cautiously.
I grunted, sick of the debate.
"All this talk will not resolve anything," I declared, gripping the burning haft of Suncrusher even tighter. "If those cowards will not come to us, then we will hunt for them, exactly as our parents taught us."
The flock chirped, warbled, trilled, and cooed in unified agreement. I felt a strange, entirely foreign sensation wash over me as I realised they were all actually deferring to me; something I had absolutely no memory of them ever doing before.
Technically, I was part of the warmest nest. I was the proud son of my mother, Dawn Asclepius, the true heiress to the Clan.
I was the grandson of the former Highprince, and the direct nephew of the current one. And yet, I had never truly felt treated as such.
It was a dynamic I had also witnessed first-hand in Darv while working for Rahdeas's company. Those dwarves who could not work the forges due to physical ailments or health reasons were treated as if they were... not quite children, but dangerously close.
They were handled with a suffocating, gentle pity and polite sufficiency by their capable coworkers.
Yes. I had felt exactly like that for my entire life, until Uncle and the Warrant of War had finally erased the crippling disability that had defined me.
My flock retreated, distancing themselves from me and faking a frantic scatter toward other sectors of the floating city, leaving me entirely alone in my hunt for the Wraiths.
With Suncrusher's golden shaft resting heavily against my shoulder, I marched forward like the proud standard-bearer of some ancient Clan of Pantheons leading his kin into war.
My weapon's long handle of pure Oathgold served as my flagpole, while its luminous, jagged head crowned the mace like a blazing war standard.
Solar flames licked and danced around its spiked top, unfurling behind me like the banners of an entire nation.
However: I carried no flag and needed no heraldry to mark me as an Asclepius; Suncrusher itself was my standard, its golden radiance my battle colours, and its roaring flames the comrade marching at my side.
Treading the viridian blades of grass of Xyrus's outskirts, I observed the brutal battle unfurling in the city proper just a few hundred metres from my position.
Massive beams of fire rose to pierce the winter sky, the deafening clash of magic and steel audible even from out here. Buildings crumbled into thick columns of smoke, and as I watched them burn, I finally let go of my elven disguise. I returned to my natural Asclepius aspect, letting my eyes and hair shift back to their true, fiery colours.
Uncle was absolutely confident the Wraiths would come for me, which meant they would take the bait if I simply gave them the perfect opportunity. And once they did...
I looked down at my free hand and slowly clenched it into a tight fist, vividly imagining it wrapping around the pale neck of one of those Vritra wretches, snapping the bone in half and violently ripping the life out of their bodies.
It was as I walked, lost in the bloody anticipation of slaughter and blood spilled, that the enemy finally arrived in a sudden, violent burst of spatial magic. So they really did possess some fighting spirit!
Five black-horned figures emerged from the distortion, stepping onto the grass in perfect unison. Each one wore a scaly, jet-black uniform. But as my eyes locked onto their mantles, my blood instantly boiled into liquid fury.
Woven directly into the collars of their dark capes were the desecrated, blackened feathers of slaughtered Phoenixes.
"A stray Phoenix walks into the High Sovereign's board," one of the wicked Vritra remarked. The creature had clot-red eyes, flowing mud-brown hair, and a pair of gnarled, ebon spirals protruding from its scalp. Disgusting thing. "And he comes to join his flock in the armouries of Taegrin Caelum."
A snarl tore from my throat as I brought Suncrusher down, every muscle in my body straining beneath the impossibly heavy warmace.
Forged by Wren Kain the First eons ago, the ancient weapon descended like the wrath of a fallen star, its golden mass aimed at all five mongrel wretches of the Vritra Clan at once.
Its spiked head struck Xyrus's soil in an explosion of blinding golden flames. The very earth buckled beneath the impact, and a colossal eruption of solar fire burst from the point of contact, swallowing the battlefield in a roaring inferno.
It was as though I had driven the sun itself directly into the ground.
A Vritra female with putrid cerulean hair raised her shield—a rectangular slate of some unknown, foul material with a central, ominous eye that sent shivers down my spine—as a defence for her and her vile kin.
Like a swarm of flies, an absolute blasphemy compared to a proud Phoenix such as myself, the five Wraiths clustered behind the woman to escape Suncrusher's wrath.
I seethed at their cowardice as the flames unleashed by my warmace slowly dissipated. I grasped Suncrusher with both hands and swung it in a brutal lateral arc to crush the shield-wielding Wraith.
But the weak—true to their inherent dishonour—knew that they could only match the strong in numbers.
From behind the rectangular shield, the Wraiths emerged like black spectres, their dark clothing absorbing all ambient light. The cocky Vritra who had dared to mock the name of Asclepius and a bald companion of his came down on me, their wicked blades unsheathed.
I grinned madly, perfectly knowing how to react. But when I tried to move—I simply could not.
My eyes flared with inner flames as a hateful, unnatural compulsion locked my gaze entirely onto that shield.
The shimmering, eye-like orb in its centre forced me to ignore everything else but it
A jagged sword, coated in a vicious, bubbling acid that actively boiled my Asuran skin, bit into the forearm I barely managed to raise in time.
From my right flank, the bald Vritra attempted to violently disarm me of Suncrusher, but I persevered, my grip like a vice, utterly refusing to let go of my birthright.
Pushed back and bleeding, my eyes physically unable to tear themselves away from that foul shield, I snarled.
"What is this foul sorcery?!" I bellowed. Hot, cleansing flames exploded from every pore of my skin, seeking to swat away these Wraith flies.
But one of the other mongrels still cowering behind that shield—another female with horns shaped like a baldachin over her greasy, tar-coloured hair—conjured dense, suffocating pockets of vacuum to instantly snuff out my Phoenix flames.
"The technology of the Vritra is nothing a retrograde barbarian like you could ever comprehend," the fifth Wraith mocked, his tone infuriatingly playful. "But you shall witness much more once you join your slaughtered flock in Taegrin Caelum."
Spikes of blackened, hardened blood violently erupted from the ground to spear my feet. No matter how desperately I tried to look down to dodge, my eyes were magically chained back to that shield's glowing eye.
"Enough!" I roared.
I violently slammed my empty hands together, forcing copious amounts of raw, explosive mana to leak directly from my palms before clasping them in a thunderous clap.
The concussive shockwave boomed outward, propagating a devastating torrent of physical force and pure mana. The Wraiths didn't see the sheer brute-force tactic coming.
They were thrown violently off balance, leaving me with a single, precious moment of freedom from that artifact's horrifying compulsion.
I hoisted Suncrusher high above my head, locking my aim onto the Vritra woman with the shield. I didn't waste a single microsecond. I arched my entire body and hurled Suncrusher directly at her like a javelin, the spiked golden head transforming into a rolling, roaring sphere of incandescent solar flames as it travelled.
"Valeska! Shield Ulrike! Blaise, Ifiok, on the half-breed with me!" the cocky Wraith barked.
The wind-conjuring Wraith desperately attempted to create a pocket of repelling wind magic around Suncrusher. Fool.
Nothing could stop Suncrusher. This was the warmace Grandfather himself had wielded as he led the Asclepius Clan out of Epheotus. Said to weigh as much as the Epheotan Golden Sun itself, some pitiful spell cast by a mongrel wretch could never halt its blazing trail.
I heard the deafening crunch as Suncrusher impacted, sending a localized earthquake ripping through the floating island's soil. However, the three remaining Wraiths descended on me all at once, cutting off my path to retrieve my weapon.
I punched hard to my right, the bald Wraith bleaching in terror as he barely avoided my fiery fist by a mere inch. Dropping low to the soil, I seamlessly evaded the lethal, sweeping swords of the other two mongrels.
From my crouched position, I executed a fluid, circular sweep kick. Using the momentum, I launched myself upward, spinning on my hands to deliver two more blazing, acrobatic kicks directly into the Wraiths' chests.
But my deadly dance had merely started. Slapping the ground hard with my palm to anchor myself, I launched a devastating, spring-loaded kick straight into the bald Vritra's face.
My heel connected dead-on with his nose, and I felt the incredibly satisfying, sickening crunch of his facial bones shattering.
I pushed off the earth with that same palm and flipped backward, landing safely away from the Wraiths before they could retaliate.
I brushed a bead of sweat from my forehead and observed my wretched enemies.
The bald one's ruined, bleeding face was now covered in writhing black flames—Soulfire. It was an absolute insult to the pure fire of all Phoenixes, yet the foul magic was actively stitching his shattered bones and torn flesh back together.
Across the crater, the Wraith who had foolishly attempted to halt my throw was frantically pulling her comrade free; the shield-bearer's leg had been utterly crushed beneath Suncrusher's impossible weight. Yet, there too, Soulfire was trying (and succeeding) to heal the mangled flesh.
"Ulrike!" the cocky Wraith shouted, panic finally bleeding into his arrogant voice as I settled back into a fighting stance. "Retrieve another ATC!"
The cocky mongrel's eyes darted to the shield. I smiled pleasantly, observing how the vaunted Vritra artifact had been reduced to nothing more than useless powder beneath Suncrusher. My warmace, still ablaze, stood firmly embedded in the earth like a golden beacon in the middle of the battlefield.
"Your cowardly technology is absolutely nothing compared to the true power of the Asclepius Clan," I mocked back, mana flaring violently around my fists as I prepared to charge and retrieve my weapon.
"You signed your own death warrants the exact moment you dared to face my flock in combat. Not a single one of you shall live to see the light of tomorrow's Dawn."
The Wraith leader, the cocky one, barked clipped orders to the rest of his swarm of gnats, and they frantically prepared whatever cowardly plan they wanted. But I had a plan of my own.
As I had seen Evascir do countless times, I lowered my head and charged straight into the enemy's wall of magic.
Unlike the Hearth's stoic guardian, however, I possessed no intricate defensive barriers to effortlessly weather such a barrage. I had only my own Asuran flesh, the inextinguishable fire burning within it, and the unshakable conviction that my flames would outlast absolutely anything the Vritra could throw at me.
Caustic acids splashed against my frame, violently sizzling on my skin.
Soul-eroding fires gnawed desperately at my essence as they tried to eat my very lifeforce.
Breath-stealing winds clawed at my nostrils and deep into my lungs, while jagged earth spikes and necrotising black lightning tore into my flesh all at once.
But with a loud, deafening war cry worthy of the mightiest Phoenix as it spread its wings before diving upon its Basilisk prey, I weathered it all.
My forearms rose like a shielded battering ram, forming a tight cage around my head as I drove forward, step after punishing step.
Muscles ablaze with inner fire, I physically wrestled against the Vritra's decay magic, brutally forcing my way through a concentrated storm of spells that would have instantly reduced anyone who was not a son of Asclepius to ash.
I did not slow, and obviously, I did not falter.
I was a living siege engine, a battering ram wrapped in solar flame, and Suncrusher's golden head was drawing ever closer to its unworthy master—until now; by taking the life of these Wraiths I would prove myself worthy of Grandfather's weapon.
Grandfather, I said in my head, the imposing image of the great and brilliant Mordain Asclepius flashing before my eyes.
My thoughts then drifted to the sun, the celestial body that shared my grandfather's name, for the Djinn themselves called Peace by that name, and the patriarch of the Asclepius Clan had changed his own to honour the Folk of Calm Currents.
"Here comes the grandson of the sun, Vritra!" I declared.
I threw myself the last few metres, sliding onto the scorched earth. The exact moment my hands locked onto the long, golden handle of Suncrusher, the world around me exploded under the combined onslaught of the Wraiths.
But it was too late for them.
With both of my hands firmly on Suncrusher's shaft, I violently swung the warmace left and right, physically fighting back against the omnidirectional assault of Vritra magic.
Flames—both my golden-orange ones and the vile black ones of the Vritra—completely covered my field of vision.
But through a tiny, shifting fissure in the wall of deadly fire, I caught a glimpse of the horned, arrogant pest orchestrating the attack.
I jumped directly toward him.
"Richmal!" the other Wraiths shouted in warning to their leader, but it was far too late. I emerged from the roaring flames, diving straight down onto my prey with Suncrusher raised high, ready to claim its first Vritra victim of the day.
The fly named Richmal tried to scramble backward, but I was a Phoenix. When we dive, it is already far too late for our prey to run.
The wretch desperately tried to fly away as his swarm frantically fired more corrupted magic to intercept me, but I came crashing down like a meteor.
The heavy Oathgold of Suncrusher impacted solidly with flesh and bone. Richmal cratered into the ground, driven many, many metres deep.
The impact was so devastating that I was genuinely stupefied the Wraith hadn't pierced straight through the floating island's soil to plummet unceremoniously to the plains below.
I looked down upon my fallen prey from the depths of the smoking crater, his body reduced to a mangled ruin.
The creature weakly coughed up his own blackened blood. Something deep within my veins stirred at the pathetic sound; something old and primal. It was the dark satisfaction of an apex hunter relishing the final suffering of its quarry.
"Ulrike! Shoot!" the fly gasped, the desperate words choking on his own blood, but they still made me snap my head up.
At the jagged edge of the crater, the Vritra woman with muddy cobalt hair had mounted a new, wicked artifact.
It was a strange, ugly instrument, entirely lacking the artistic intent behind Uncle's designs or the harmonious, rational flow of Djinnic craft. This thing was only meant to incite fear; it was ominous and cold in its brutal simplicity.
It was a tripod-mounted weapon, somewhat similar to one heavy ballista I had seen in Darv while helping a few dwarves working for Rahdeas, an handheld arbalest forged entirely of dark, rusted metal.
In an instant, I was showered by a roaring, high-pressure lance of dark and freezing vapour that tore through the air, leaving a thick trail of swirling, frost-like particles of decay mana in its wake.
Gravefrost and Grim Mist! I shouted in my head, genuinely alarmed as I remembered the strict lessons from Soleil, Uncle, and even the Vritra-blooded man Cylrit about the lethal deviants of decay magic.
I screamed and bellowed, wildly gesturing and thrashing around myself to get that thick, choking powder—or whatever foul substance it was—off me.
I punched and kicked the air, my flames bursting forward in desperate jets of scorching mana, but nothing worked.
The concoction I had been showered with was not purely made of magic!
If it were only those damned decay elements, I could have easily overpowered them with my Phoenix fire.
But they were not just that. I contorted in agony as I felt microscopic, alchemical powders actively choke the fire ignited by my mana. The grit settled aggressively onto my skin, burying into my ears, my nostrils, my eyes, and wherever else it could cling.
Suncrusher! I need Suncrusher! I screamed internally as I blindly searched the crater for my warmace.
I continued to forcefully pour out hot mana and my strongest flames. Whatever happened, I needed to remain physically on fire to burn the poison away!
My hand finally connected with the familiar, heavy shaft. I immediately swung it in a massive, circular arc around myself, the solar flames attached to the mace desperately trying to dissipate the damned fog.
"This is absolutely nothing!" I roared.
Pushing through the blinding pain, I jumped out of the crater, shaking myself violently like a wet bird to drive the damned compost off my body.
I crashed heavily into a small, still-growing grove of trees on the outskirts, perfectly knowing this was the end of this farce.
I coughed up black soot, leaning heavily on Suncrusher.
While I could finally see again through stinging, watering eyes, my respiratory tracts felt completely ravaged by that damned weapon.
"As always, you Asuras think yourselves the undisputed pinnacle of the world," one of the Wraiths sneered, stepping into the grove. It was not their cocky leader, who must have still been busy licking his shattered bones in the crater. "And yet you writhe like pathetic worms once we are done with you."
I wiped foul residue from my mouth and gave them a challenging, feral glare, a bloody smirk pulling at my lips.
"You call yourselves Asura hunters, right?" I asked, my voice rasping between heavy, rattling coughs. "Then why have you so blindly wandered into the Phoenix's nest?"
All at once, fifteen pairs of rapacious, glowing eyes lit up like bright candle flames amidst the shadowed branches of the trees surrounding us.
My disguised flock sang all at once.
"Jai aura deva," they chanted beautifully, their voices harmonising into one of the few Oldest Asuran choruses we all knew by heart.
"Glory to the God of Dawn," I translated mockingly for the suddenly terrified Wraiths.
"Valeska! The Tempus Warp! We need to get out of here!" one Wraith shouted, undiluted, primal fear finally breaking his composure.
But when his mongrel kin desperately activated her artifact to attempt an escape... the spatial portal violently sputtered and sewed itself firmly shut, a mockery of spatial magic completely rejected by the island's true master: the Highprince.
And from the branches above, the Asclepius Clan dived upon its prey.