The world trembled as two titans – one in the form of an emerald scaled dragon, the other a much larger, three-legged automaton – clashed. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but that only lasted for a brief moment. Then, the sound of claws against metal stretched across the city, followed by a shockwave that kicked up dust and shook trees for hundreds of yards in every direction.

  Elijah caromed off of his foe’s chest, momentarily stunned. That faded quickly, and he flapped his wings to right himself. Meanwhile, the automaton stumbled backward, though only a few dozen feet before it regained its balance. Its tripod stance was far sturdier than if it was bipedal, meaning that Elijah would need quite a lot more force to tip it over.

  But that had never been the point.

  He was just a distraction.

  Down below, Benedict had arrived, and he was not alone. Hundreds of natives – all blue-skinned and terrified – trailed behind him, bound by ruby red chains of solid blood that extended from his back. They struggled against him, but there was nothing they could do. The chains came alive, like grisly tentacles, tossing the would-be sacrificial subjects into the center of a hastily drawn ritual circle.

  Even as Elijah went in for another attack, the djinn natives railed against the confines of that ritual circle. But they were incapable of passing its boundaries. They were trapped. They were doomed. And they knew it.

  Elijah again rammed the automaton, keeping it off balance. A half-dozen smaller automatons – each at least fifteen feet tall – leaped free of the openings at the creature’s joints, then skittered across its body to assault Elijah. His next carom took him just out of the path of an ethereal beam that would have turned him to ash.

  Then, ethera surged down below.

  Instantly, those hundred sacrifices keeled over, their bodies disintegrating in the space of a second. The ritual circle drank their essence, and greedily enough that Elijah suspected that it could take much, much more.

  But those were all Benedict could gather for now.

  They would have to be enough.

  Ethera roiled, drawing the attention of even the massive automaton. Elijah didn’t hesitate to use that small distraction to his advantage, throwing himself at the creature’s chest. He’d yet to dent it, but he could feel the slight give in the metal with each attack. It was only a matter of time before it worked.

  In the meantime, a forest of mushrooms – each the size of a tree – had erupted from the thing’s back. The spores that came with them infected the smaller automatons, weakening them with every passing second. And finally, the sky was full of glittering blue locusts from Elijah’s ongoing Eternal Plague.

  The conjured insects could scarcely exist in close proximity to the automaton’s boiling aura of churning ethera. However, they were just durable enough to reach the surface, where they infected the thing with their afflictions. One would not expect insectile venom to have much of an effect on an inorganic creature. However, these were no normal insects, and the venom was as much magic as it was a natural substance.

  It spread corrosion with every passing moment, further weakening the giant creature. Not enough to down it, but that had never been part of Elijah’s plan.

  It was not a battle that would be won quickly. Nor would it be easy. And it would require at least one moral compromise. Hopefully, the sacrifice of the natives would not go to waste.

  Punctuating that thought – which was sequestered in the back of one facet of Elijah’s mind, where it wouldn’t distract him – was a massive surge of ethera from below. Elijah glanced down to see that a portal to hell had opened beneath him.

  Black spires, volcanic eruptions, and demons stretching across the landscape were all he managed to see before a huge shape blocked his view. Then, a hand appeared, passing through the portal and slamming down on the edge of the portal. A red-skinned arm came next, followed by a shoulder bulging with muscle and festooned with bone-like spikes.

  Elijah couldn’t help but stare as the rest of the demon came through the gateway to hell. The moment it climbed free, the portal winked shut. Somewhere below, Benedict fell to his knees. Mirroring that gesture, the demon rose to its full height of more than a hundred feet.

  It spread its arms wide and stretched its black wings to their full two-hundred foot span as it celebrated its freedom with an earth-shaking roar. The gesture laid bare its form, which could best be described as prototypically devilish, complete with crimson skin, cloven hooves for feet, and the head of a demonic goat. Its eyes blazed with black fire, and it gave off the aura of a creature approaching the demi-god tier.

  That was as Benedict had described.

  The spell to summon the creature came with a few major detriments. The first was that it required a significant sacrifice, though the Warlock had overcome that by targeting the unfortunate natives. Second, it came with an extreme cooldown. The other man had been a bit cagey about the length, but the implication was that the spell wouldn’t soon be available.

  And finally, the summoned creature would not remain active for long. Part of that was because maintenance required a significant drain of ethera, but also because Benedict could not control such a powerful demon for longer than a few minutes. If he pushed it too far, it would break free of his control and consume him.

  But for those few minutes, it would fight just like any of Benedict’s other minions – meaning that it would remain unconcerned with its own preservation.

  To that end, it wasted no more time before racing toward the automaton. To counter its charge, the massive metal creature opened its chest and shot a beam of ethera at the rushing demon. The devil didn’t hesitate to open its mouth and let out a reverberating bleating sound that came with a column of black fire. When the two sources of energy collided, they did so with explosive force.

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  It was like someone had detonated a nuclear bomb.

  Mingled blue and black light erupted from the point of collision, followed by an immensely powerful shockwave that very nearly ripped Elijah’s wings from his body. He narrowly managed to tuck them close to his body in time to avoid that fate, but that meant he had no control over his own trajectory, which sent him tumbling backwards.

  He slammed into a building, the wall shattering with the impact. But he didn’t stop there. Instead, he went through every single wall – interior and exterior – coming out the other side. He didn’t stop until he pierced three more buildings over a half-mile stretch. The last one came down on top of him, burying him beneath tons of rubble.

  His bones didn’t shatter. His constitution was too high for that. However, many of them did break, and in multiple places. More importantly, he briefly lost consciousness. It would have lasted longer had Wild Resurgence not been ongoing.

  The world shook as he regained his wits and used Nature’s Bloom to hasten his recovery. His mind cleared, and, with a mighty heave, he shifted the rubble. It moved only a little, but that minute movement was just enough to start a chain reaction that sent huge hunks of stone cascading down the mountain of debris that had fallen atop him. Still, it took a few more moments for him to climb free and take stock of the situation.

  A dense cloud of dust still hung in the air, obscuring the battle in the distance. However, Elijah could still see flashes of light – blue, black, and red – as the two massive creatures fought. More distressingly, Elijah could tell that his body wouldn’t soon heal – not completely – under his current spells.

  He needed more.

  With that in mind, he spread his wings and concentrated on Nature’s Bloom. He didn’t cast the spell, though. Instead, he held it on the cusp of activation, just like how he cast Nature’s Claim and Eternal Plague while in his dragon form. The pressure built in his chest until it felt like he was going to burst, but he forcefully prevented activation for a few more moments.

  Then, at last, he let it loose in a stream of green fire that quickly arced around him and enveloped him in a cocoon of vitality. His body mended almost instantly, with bones snapping back into place and organs stitching themselves back together. The stream itself only lasted for a few seconds, but in that time, it was like he’d cast a hundred instances of Nature’s Bloom.

  And his body responded in kind. When the power of the spell faded, he was back to perfect condition. Though he could feel that something was missing. Almost like he’d overlooked something incredibly important. Something about life and vitality and how it related to his nature. Understanding eluded him, the lack needling him with his incomprehension.

  Elijah shook that feeling, planting it in the back of his mind to be addressed later. For now, he had a battle to win.

  To that end, he once again threw himself into the sky and sped toward the ongoing fight. When he reached the battleground a few seconds later, he saw that both combatants had taken quite a bit of damage. The goat-headed demon was missing one of its horns, while its arm hung limp by its side. Smaller automatons crawled all over its muscular body, hacking at its flesh with sapphire-bladed axes. Periodically, blue light would flash as they scorched through it with their own, much smaller beams of ethera.

  Meanwhile, the demon hadn’t remained idle, and the evidence of its attacks was scattered across the automaton’s body. Dents and scratches abounded, but no part had taken more damage than its chest. The mechanism that controlled its beam attack had been permanently knocked the side, and its core was partially exposed.

  That told Elijah that the plan was working.

  He raced forward, diving low to avoid a falling building that had just been a victim of the automaton’s energy beam. He skated only a few inches from the ground, just fast enough to avoid once again being buried alive.

  And then, he hit the creature’s injured leg.

  It wobbled a bit, but even with all the damage, Elijah couldn’t move it. Not with a simple ram, at least.

  Even as Wild Resurgence healed the damage of the collision, he shifted into the Shape of Spores. Once the transformation was complete, he planted his feet in the ground and latched onto the monster. The second his claws dug in, he activated Throne of Spores.

  Doing so, he didn’t concentrate on the number of fungal tendrils. In fact, he only grew a few, all of which extended from his shoulders to wrap around the automaton’s leg. Once. Twice. A half-dozen times until Elijah was certain they wouldn’t break.

  Finally, he used the combination of Savage Might while flaring Heart of the Tempest. With that influx of power, he let out a roar and lifted the leg. It must have weighed hundreds of tons. Maybe a thousand or more. But Elijah would not be denied. Even as he lifted, he pushed forward, his tendrils aiding his efforts. Then, he pivoted, twisting his hips and yanking the creature as hard as he could manage.

  It moved.

  And not by a little.

  Elijah had no idea where his real limits lay. He’d never found the end of his might, especially given that he continually grew more powerful. There always seemed to be a well of strength from which he could draw more. He used that, twisting like he was swinging a baseball bat.

  Only, instead of wielding a slim piece of wood, he was holding the leg of a five-hundred-foot tall automaton. The difference didn’t matter. The results were the same. The creature lost all semblance of balance as Elijah swung it off its feet, slamming it into a series of buildings before letting it go.

  It flew for only a few hundred yards, but it was more than enough.

  Elijah was already following, and as he clambered over the creature’s body, he was joined by Hu Shui, who’d been waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, Benedict’s demon descended upon the automaton’s chest, battering it with every ounce of fury it could muster. However, even Elijah could feel that it wouldn’t last much longer. The enormous devil could have kept going for a while longer, but Benedict’s control was beginning to slip.

  Elijah could feel it.

  But it didn’t matter. The thing had played its part. Now, it was up to Elijah and Hu Shui to finish things off.

  As they raced across the creature’s body, they were confronted by a handful of other automatons. They put their previous experiences to work, dispatching them with brutal efficiency. Soon, they reached their destination.

  The automaton was trying to rise, but the demon had used its last act to pin it down. Time was of the essence, so Elijah wasted no time before plunging into the creature’s chest. Immediately, he was nearly disintegrated, but he’d already cast Mycelial Regrowth and Wild Resurgence. Even that was barely enough to keep him going as he descended upon the creature’s core.

  It was the size of a minivan, and it glowed with so much power that it nearly overwhelmed Elijah’s massive healing. He ignored it, wrapping his arms around it and heaving.

  At first, it didn’t move.

  But Elijah’s determination had been honed through hundreds of life-and-death battles. He didn’t know how to quit. Either it was going to move, or he was going to die. There was no in-between. No compromise.

  It budged, but only an inch.

  That was enough to push Elijah further. His strength was finite, but he’d progressed so rapidly that he very rarely managed to tap into its full expression. Desperation helped.

  He yanked it free, then leaped.

  The power in the cubic core surged, blistering through Elijah’s Shell and burning his flesh. He stumbled free, nearly collapsing, but the second the cube was outside the automaton’s body, the burning energy disappeared.

  The pain remained, but the source was gone.

  Hu Shui fell to his knees even as an explosion rocked the city. It was more than a mile away, but even then, Elijah was thrown free of the automaton. He hit a mountain of nearby rubble, shattering stone and bone alike, but his ongoing healing managed to mend the damage in a moment.

  He skipped across the rubble for a little more than a hundred yards until he finally rolled to a stop.

  When he looked up, he saw that, even though they’d managed to defeat the automaton, their battle through the Primal Realm was far from over. Moreover, given the suddenly twisted landscape, it had just gotten a lot weirder.

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