§
Only our threat to the beast prevented him from looking down and attacking the train. Or perhaps his quarries were Lady Serera and me, the two most powerful souls on hand, in the first place.
Which meant, he did not see my strength equally through Daq or Sirth’s less powerful effigies, nor did he see the real strength behind the human body belonging to Kottos. Maybe Fan Li knows, but it’s not part of the knowledge she shares with us. At any rate, he remained focused upon Serera and me.
Actually, by ignoring Sirth, the dragon more-or-less confirmed it. His perception of our relative power was based on the strength of our respective effigies, not the soul behind them. Otherwise he would treat Sirth and I as equal threats. He clearly saw the difference between my Third Stage effigy and her peak First Stage one.
I remained desperately focused on opposing the dragon with the most I could muster without destabilizing my effigy, because that train was full of defenseless civilians and my insufficiently powerful soldiers, and the dragon was now above the hindmost car.
My anxiety shot skyward when Daq blasted at the beast with his sci-fi-movie-worthy weapon, and I sent a fireball with my effigy-replica fan to keep his attention on me, feeling my ersatz body nearly lose cohesion from almost overdoing it. At that moment, I was below chest level and sent the shot at roughly the same location as Daq’s shot, hopefully making the beast believe the entire attack came from me.
It either worked or it didn’t matter. One way or another, his attacks continued to target us, and Daq resumed fighting the dracs.
Then Daq’s surprise and Fan Li’s frustration both hit me. Vaguely, as I continued dodging dragon fangs to deliver strikes with effigy Durandal, I recognized something strange had happened below…
And [Fairy Sense] filled me in on that strange thing that was happening. Did it really involve Shindzha growing wings and carrying the gorgon upwards?
It did. Huh. That’s a surprise…
No, not just a surprise! I retorted to myself while attempting to hit the same spot on the dragon’s wing membrane that I had struck the last three times. And Daq’s thought that she wasn’t supposed to have a flight ability reinforced mine. Had she lied to us?
But Fan Li was already ahead of us, because naturally she had already known.
Earlier, the sage hadn’t been surprised at Shindzha’s ability to drain Demonic Mana. Instead, she’d been surprised that Shindzha knew she could do it. Fan Li had long since deduced the ability but didn’t teach Shindzha because of exactly the reaction Shindzha had concerning it.
Shindzha called it ‘too creepy’, when, in her heart, she meant too Demonic. She hated her Demonic side, and longed to be a human like her beloved mother…
Hence why Fan Li hid it not just from her, but also from us, to protect her from accidental revelations.
In the same way, Fan Li was unsurprised at her flight. At the time Shindzha told me she couldn’t fly, she told the truth. It was Fan Li who created and taught Shindzha the spell during her time in the mountains, as a last resort safety measure.
Fan Li’s alarm came because Shindzha was compromising her disguise in front of everyone, and not just because of the unnatural wings. The overwhelming Dark mana required for [Dark Wings] destabilized Kiki’s Light Magic illusion. My hellspawn servant dragged a crap-ton of Dark mana through my mana channel to cast magic which imitated a fairy’s physical metamorphosis, using it to grow bat wings from her clavicles. As she flew, Kiki’s disguise grew translucent, with the real Shindzha peeking through. My pixie sister could not hold the disguise much longer.
<Kiki, drop the disguise and shield her instead!> Fan Li sent, since the bat wings were rendering it moot anyhow.
Kiki’s presence, perched on Shindzha’s shoulder, popped into existence in my [Fairy Sense] as my Servant transformed back into a slightly humanized hellspawn girl. She had both her arms and her magic, a bit like the [Blood Tendrils] I’ve used before, wrapped around Lady Ilni to keep her secure. The gorgon had her eyes squeezed shut to protect everyone around her.
Despite that, Fan Li used me as a transmitter to warn everyone facing the beast, <Do not look into Lady Ilni’s eyes! She has broken the charm which suppresses her paralysis attack!>
In the same moment, Fan Li transmitted more details to we other personas. The attack was not automatic, but highly uncontrollable. As her tamer, Child Ansri could suppress her eyes, but her Limiter was breakable as a last resort measure. Ilni had now done so, to protect her family. Fearing accidental discharge, she was now keeping her eyes shut and depending on Shindzha to tell her when to open them.
The cool-down of the dragon’s breath weapon was about five seconds by my estimate. I charged in to attack an eyeball while I had the chance. Its eyelids were faster than me, just as in my two previous attempts, but I put another nasty scratch on its face.
The beast let out a basso bellow and faced the newcomer while Kiki warned, “Not yet! Not yet!”, prompting Shindzha to dodge.
“Who is that voice?” Ilni cried out, after the dragon once again let out its breath weapon. Kiki’s mana shield kept the fringes of the near-miss from singeing them.
“My friend!” Shindzha replied. “She’s helping me disguise as a human!”
“You’re not?!” Ilni yelped, with blatant concern. With Kiki’s disguise gone and Shindzha flapping hard, the gorgon might be able to sense her ride’s bat wings by now. I had no idea if her monster senses included something which could, but only a very few, very rare non-demons like dragonkin have bat wings.
“I am Her Grace’s loyal Servant!” Shindzha retorted, while dodging dragon claws. “Kiki, tell us when to go!”
“Yup yup!”
Worrying about my reckless Servant was more distraction than I needed at the moment. I forced my mind back on the dragon while blazing another Fire-laden hit across its wing surface.
Artwork on Earth often depicts dragons with side-facing eyes like horses, but carnivores normally have front-facing eyes for binocular vision. To fire her signature attack, Ilni needed to line up right in the line of fire and far enough back so the beast would see her stare with both its eyes..
The attacks from Serera, Sirth and I must have been beginning to work, because as my [Qi Sword] Durandal dragged along its hide, following a mark I had left on a previous pass, the dragon gave a different sort of bellow, a pained cry like the world’s loudest bass trombone, and in response, the remaining dracs peeled away from the train and returned to defend their master.
In one instant, the battle changed. The dragon began a rapid ascent, and our fight turned defensive as Serera and I found ourselves pinned between the massive beast and the dracs. Originally twenty six but now down to nine, the creatures were all we could handle as they forced us onto our feet on its back.
While Serera let out repeated cries of, “OH-ho-ho-ho!” while facing the opposite direction behind my back, we battled dracs while Sirth stayed out in front, baiting the beast with Wind attacks. She couldn’t be any more than a minor annoyance, since she didn’t attract even a single drac, but she was determined to tank for Shindzha and Ilni somehow.
Soon, the dragon might ignore her completely, taking her small damage in order to focus upon Ilni and my Servant. As I alternated between casting shield spells to break enemy blows and parrying with [Qi Sword] Durandal, I sent a frantic message to Fan Li.
<Can you swap out Sirth’s effigy for one of the Stage Two ones?>
She replied, <Switching to a different effigy takes far too long. The persona needs time to sync to the effigy. We need her to keep flying cover for Shindzha and Ilni.>
To my relief, I spotted the train now pulling away, as the dragon concentrated on climbing rather than following. But I argued with Fan Li’s claim.
<We’ve swapped out instantly before though?>
<That was transposition,> she replied calmly, <exchanging locations of your effigies themselves. You only thought of it as switching control of the effigy.>
Among the various details in the back of my mind about the other personas was the fact that Lhan was with my sisters, seeking to persuade them to come back us up, Rugau had the ability to levitate, but no ability nor willingness as a monk to fight and Kwelabi couldn’t fly.
<What about Daq?>
He had some kind of sci-fi flying gear to go with his weapon.
<That is only for low-level hops. You are already a half mile in the air and rapidly ascending. You are past his maximum altitude.>
I exchange several blows with a drac, then blasted it back with a Will-filled raw blast of Wind. My mind raced, growing more fearful for Shindzha as I battled.
<With the dracs attacking us , the fairies don’t need to guard the train anymore!>
<Without Serera, they are even more obligated to remain with Amana and Ceria. And Kottos is ordering both not to come to your rescue. It seems Oberon gave some strict orders.>
Shindzha swooped in once more. My eyes were busy with the dracs in front of me as Serera and I fought back-to-back, but my [Fairy Sense] could track what she was doing. With her full strength concentrated on keeping Ilni secure, she had no means to defend herself other than agility.
No doubt feeling the same anxiety for our Servant, Sirth rushed in first, looking to distract the beast when Shindzha dodged again to push him into cooldown. It didn’t work. He ignored the charge while the mixture of Fire mana dirtied with Demonic mana welled in the creature’s open maw. Time slowed in my stress-filled mind as I recognized my Servant had mis-estimated the speed at which he could train his breath on her.
Although I didn’t dare use Durandal’s attacks in effigy form, I always kept his shields as a last resort. I pushed my anxious desire at him to shield my Servant at full strength, opening my Aether mana wide open to him.
[Shield of Oranos] blossomed between the gaping jaws of the beast and his target as my vision went gray. In [Fairy Sense], I witnessed the furious eruption of Demonic fire blasting Durandal’s defense in a realistic imitation of a space capsule’s heat shield mid-reentry as my effigy melted away, its limits found at last.
With all my will, I fought to hold it, to stay with my comrades, to continue defending my Servant, but the only fruit of my resolve was to find myself suddenly ‘riding’ in the head of my ‘little sister’ Kiki as the last of my effigy vanished.
To my relief, Shindzha and Ilni still lived, and through Kiki’s powerful [Pixie Sense] I knew that Ilni had opened her eyes at last. Her gaze met the dragon’s, triggering the magic attack of her gorgon gaze.
Her racial attack was [Paralysis], not [Petrification] like in the myth, but gorgon [Paralysis] has an added effect like rigor mortis, whence the idea of them casting [Petrification] comes. I’m sure, in her mind, she thought she could freeze the dragon’s movements, dropping him from the sky, but instead, the beast recoiled while letting out a pain-ridden booming thunder beyond any roar I had ever heard.
He certainly felt it. He certainly took damage. But he certainly remained airborne. And that’s as far as Will took me before my perception vanished into the backlash of my effigy’s destruction.
§
Special announcement: I’m unlocking this chapter despite not posting a new premium chapter in order to give my free readers some information that my premium readers are learning in the author’s notes.
My employer, during a recent layoff, made a serious mistake (not that they realize it) in laying off two out of three people who do my job. This is a symptom of a business making hiring and dismissal decisions based upon factors other than what the people they are letting go actually do. And the result of their poor choices land 0n my shoulders, because I now have three times as much work to do, since the overall workload has not decreased.
This may end up driving me into retirement, but it won’t happen in the near future because I have far too much to prepare first. And it is definitely affecting my ability to produce chapters.
I’ll work something out. In the meantime, please have patience!
