Path of Dragons

Thankfully, it didn’t look like he needed to. There was more than enough room to avoid swimming within striking distance. The real danger came from its camouflage, which would allow the creature to ambush unwary swimmers.

For a while, Elijah tread water, watching as the snake attacked anything that came near. And unlike the pool which had turned into a sinkhole, the Abyssal Glassworks were filled with life. Fish swam everywhere, sea plants grew from the floor, and various types of bioluminescent algae coated the glass walls. It was a thriving ecosystem full of dangerous creatures.

Fortunately, they seemed to mostly ignore Elijah. Perhaps it was his massive size, or maybe it was the aura of power he emitted, but none of the fish or other sea creatures seemed intent on attacking him. For that, he was grateful, and his intuition told him that if he’d not had the Shape of the Sea, it would be an entirely different story.

And that wasn’t even considering the pressure, which had only grown stronger when he’d entered the Abyssal Glassworks. If he’d been in his human form, he’d have been bleeding from every orifice.

In any case, the Shape of the Sea protected him from such a fate.

After spending quite a while just observing his surroundings, Elijah decided that he could learn no more from simple observation. And as much as he loved his new shape – and exploring the sea – he had no intention of spending longer within the Primal Realm than was absolutely necessary. With that in mind, he swam forward.

At first, he had an easy go of it, and the powerful strokes of his fins propelled him forward without issue. He kept an eye on his surroundings via Soul of the Wild, which allowed him to navigate what amounted to a maze, and he quickly covered ground.

However, that all changed when he reached what he would later dub one of the main channels. He only swam a few feet out into the tube-like channel before he felt the current tugging against him. A few more feet, and he could barely hold steady. That’s when he retreated to the safety of his previous corridor.

The current was moving faster than he could handle. If he wanted to proceed, he had no choice but to go with the flow. For a while, Elijah explored the other options, backtracking and inspecting offshoots. However, he eventually discovered that he had no choice in the matter. If he wanted to proceed, he needed to follow the current. S̈

But he very much wanted to avoid that.

Not only did losing control of his path seem like a bad idea, but he couldn’t help but feel like the entire setup was a trap.

It didn’t matter, though. He was out of other options.

So, with trepidation in his heart, he swam forward and plunged into the current. It whisked him away, and in seconds, he found himself pushed toward the middle of the channel and going faster than he ever could have managed under his own power. If he’d had to guess, he was moving at least a few hundred miles an hour. Maybe much faster, considering how the water felt against his beak-like snout.

Then, suddenly, the current ceased. Elijah kept going for a few seconds before he was blasted from the side by an equally fast jet of water. It hit him with enough force that he felt his shell creak from the pressure. And then, he was spinning along a different corridor. That lasted for less than a minute before another current hit him.

Then another.

Elijah could scarcely tell which way he was going, much less reorient himself, before the current changed. The glass walls flashed past him in an instant as his speed increased with every passing second.

And then, he shot out into an enormous open cavern. It took more than a few hundred yards before his momentum dissipated, but even then, he hadn’t even begun to close in on the edge of the cavern. It was at least ten miles wide, and judging by what he felt via Soul of the Wild, incredibly deep.

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It wasn’t long before he found out why it was so large.

Elijah felt the monster coming only a second before it hit him. Sharp teeth cut massive rents in his shell before the creature disappeared an instant later. Then, it hit him again, moving so quickly that Elijah could scarcely perceive its shape. Though he did manage to determine its basic nature.

It was a monstrous eel, perhaps forty feet long and with the head of a barracuda, and it pulsed with enough ethera that Elijah knew it was ascended. In fact, he expected that it was a much higher level than him, though that wasn’t entirely relevant at the moment.

He focused hard on Soul of the Wild, searching for any hint that the monster was on its way. Then, he felt it. Just a slight shift in the water displacement that told him it was coming.

He didn’t react, though. Not this time. Instead, he waited, keeping track of the passing seconds before it inevitably appeared like a lightning bolt to once again rip a chunk out of his shell. Pushing that pain aside, Elijah endured three more passes before he decided to act.

The barracuda-eel darted in, its monstrous maw wide as it aimed for Elijah’s already injured shell. However, this time, he didn’t just let it hit him. Instead, he whipped around, and launched his head forward like a snapping turtle. Before the monster could even begin to react, Elijah’s massive jaws crunched down on it, severing its body in a single bite.

But Elijah didn’t have time to revel in his victory.

Instead, he suddenly became aware of another, much larger presence. It shifted all around him, the glittering glass of its body only vaguely perceptible. Even Soul of the Wild struggled to sense it.

And yet, Elijah knew what it was.

The glass serpent closed in, its body constricting all around him. Elijah lashed out with a wild bite, but his beak glanced off the hard glass like it was nothing. Then, the monster’s head appeared, ready to strike.

Panicking, Elijah tried to swim down, but no matter which way he turned, there was nothing but the glass serpent’s body. It was miles long and hundreds of feet thick, and it emitted such dense ethera that Elijah questioned whether it had already progressed past the ascended grade and into demigod territory.

Assuredly, it hadn’t. Elijah got the feeling that if it had, he’d already be dead. But at that moment, against a monster that very much outgunned him, that distinction didn’t really matter.

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It took a few seconds for him to get his panic under control, but the second he did, he took action.

Shape of the Sea was great for most underwater situations, but it definitely lacked in combat versatility. So, as much as he didn’t want to, he shifted into his human form – and immediately regretted it as the pressure collapsed in on him. Thankfully, before he was crushed, he cast Blessing of the Grove, then Wild Resurgence, and finally, Nature’s Bloom. It was just in time, too, because he felt his flesh rupturing a little more by the second.

Elijah ignored it, trusting his healing spells to keep him alive as he pushed ethera into the Verdant Fang, which erupted in green fire as he embraced Dragon’s Echo. The second it took effect, he used Eternal Plague, pushing the spell as hard as he could. By that point, the monster’s glass coils had closed to within a dozen feet. Elijah pressed as hard as he could, conjuring hundreds – then thousands – of tiny, glass minnows with every passing second.

They swarmed the monster, and to Elijah’s surprise, they managed to slide under its crystalline scales and deliver their payload of afflictions. The creature shifted, and the current created by its movement sent Elijah spinning away in a swirl of water. But he kept pushing ethera into the spell, and the minnows continued to manifest.

But he couldn’t keep it going. Not after his Wild Resurgence dissipated. The moment it did, Elijah’s pressure-ravaged body degraded. So, he was forced to cut off Eternal Plague and re-cast his heals, stacking an extra Nature’s bloom on top of it.

Then, he used Lightning Domain.

Bolts of electricity arced out, slamming into the monster’s glass scales and bouncing off. Elijah hadn’t expected that. Certainly, it didn’t follow the physical laws with which he was familiar. But then again, magic was in play, which meant that just about anything was possible.

The reflected bolts of lightning didn’t go straight back at Elijah, though. Instead, they were a bit off-center, and they kept going until they hit the coiling scales on the other side. Those, in turn, bounced to another set of scales. Over and over, without pause of dissipation, they filled the entire area with charged electricity.

The creature shifted in obvious pain, spasming from the electrical current.

Then, Elijah saw a crack.

It wasn’t much, and he had difficulty focusing with thousands of volts of electricity running through him. Without his healing spells, he never could have survived, and even as it was, he could scarcely concentrate.

But he did see the crack, and that was enough to spur him forward.

He kicked through the water, letting Lightning Domain dissipate as he recast his healing spells. When they settled in, he cast Shape of Thorn, a transformation which completed only a moment before he slammed into the cracked scale. Without hesitation, he activated Domain of Vines.

There was no ground from which the roots and vines could grow, so they all came from Elijah’s body. They erupted from his scales, then at his direction, burrowed into the crack and started to expand. Elijah helped the process along by latching on with his claws and using his immense Strength to widen the gap.

The sound of cracking glass echoed through the abyss, coupling with the enormous serpent’s screeches of pain. Elijah ignored it as he leveraged the entirety of his power toward a singular goal of widening that crack.

It fought against him. Not only did the glass refuse to budge, but it also cut into his palms with unnatural power. Nature’s Bloom bloomed just in time to keep the glass from cutting right through his hands.

And then, at last, the gap widened just enough.

Elijah shifted into Shape of Venom, then climbed through the crack. Suddenly, the pressure ceased as he was enveloped by clear, squishy flesh that looked ripe for Envenom.

He didn’t hesitate to bring his fangs to bear, biting with rapid fury and injecting the monster with more venom than he’d ever inflicted upon any other enemy. He even used Lurking Swarm, and though the phase spiders shattered soon after their first bite, they still administered their own payload of venom.

But Elijah knew that it wouldn’t be enough.

The creature was too big. It was too durable. He’d exhaust himself well before his venom could kill the thing.

With that in mind, once he’d weakened the flesh around him, Elijah shifted into the Shape of Thorn, and for the second time in quick succession, activated Domain of Vines. He felt his stamina drain considerably – which he’d expected – but it was a calculated risk. After activating Thornbound Legion, he used those vines to dig his way deep into the monster’s body.

The muscles all around him contracted and seized, but in the durable form, he was mostly invulnerable to such factors.

Once he reached the spine, he got a little extra room to breathe. He used that to his advantage, following the shape of the vertebrae to guide him toward the creature’s head. It was a long and arduous process that required him to shift back into his human form and heal himself more than a few times, but he managed it all the same.

Finally, he reached his destination when he found his way blocked by a crystalline skull.

That’s when Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Sea.

He grew, both in terms of his attributes and size, and for a moment, the monster resisted. If Elijah had been any less durable, he probably would have been crushed by the act. However, his Constitution was just high enough to keep him intact, though he was forced to use Wild Resurgence to keep himself alive.

The enormous glass serpent was not so fortunate.

Elijah burst free in a hail of shattering glass and blood. His body was ripped to shreds, and even his shell couldn’t completely protect him from grievous injury. But that was as expected. And what’s more, it was a price Elijah was more than willing to pay, especially considering that he’d just decapitated the powerful monster from the inside out.

Even as it drifted down and the water was filled with a cloud of blood, Elijah very nearly succumbed to his injuries. But just before he lost consciousness, he shifted back into his human form and cast his other two healing spells. They were just enough to help him stave off unconsciousness, but because of the constant pressure, it took almost all his ethera to heal the injuries he’d sustained.

He managed it, though.

However, the battle had highlighted one simple reality – he was in over his head, and if he didn’t rise to the occasion, he was going to end up dead.