Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 459: Awirren and Anatalien

The Dome Monster

Awirren, in her Evolved Form, that of the Golden Phoenix, flew at her enemy. The forest below her was filled with smoke and fire. Attacks were falling all around her, used by her Sect warriors. Techniques flared at the edges of her senses, but she disregarded them and focused on her foe. She was this Dome's natural enemy, fire to burn away the forest.

They hadn't known that it could spread to the mundane forest that surrounded the Dome, and now she was on a time limit. She couldn't allow all these watchers to see her struggle, she had to end it all as fast as she possibly could.

She burned with Soulfire Qi, a golden symbol shining through the darkness, a beacon for her people. Her Qi spilled from her core and she shaped it with an expert's hand into a technique.

She plunged straight into the canopy, knowing that the ground was still far away below. The trees were extremely tall. Her body didn't even touch the leaves and branches before they burst into flames and burnt up fully in moments.

The toxins that had bothered her people had no effect on her, and even if it could, nothing could pass through the scorching heat surrounding her. She sensed thorns and vines coming at her, but didn't even have to bother with them, they ignited and were reduced to ash long before they could touch her.

Her technique bulged inside of her body as she fed it more and more Qi, draining her Core dangerously low. And then she released it all with the {Dawn of Soul Flame}.

The reflection of her Soul, the phoenix that flew high in the sky, manifested around her, shaped by the flames, an identical copy of her Evolved Form. For a moment, the two phoenixes existed, both made of fire, yet one was more ethereal, a concept and imagination made real. Her technique was superimposed above her real body, Soulfire Qi given a reason and purpose. And then the Soulfire Qi grew brighter, blazing with light and echoing the beauty of her Soul for all to witness. A moment later, her technique exploded in all directions, like wings following a current, the fire burned through the forest. It carried the piece of her soul with it, the searing rage that was all-consuming, the determination to never be snuffed out.

The air shifted as the flames in Awirren's attack raced down upon the Living Forest. Everywhere she looked, trees were on fire and sparks filled every gap left by their canopies. It was incinerating everything in its path. All the living things, from the great trees to the small plants futilely spraying toxins and poisons, spores on the barks that burst in displays of putrid clouds, to the vines and thorns launched by strange plants, it all burned in the wake of her attack. It was all reduced to ash.

Smoke filled her vision, preventing her from seeing the devastation that she had wrought. But she knew that nothing could stop her, that SHE WAS FIRE AND NOT EVEN THE MONSTROUS NATURE COULD NOT HOLD BACK HER MIGHT.

From far above, Anatalien watched Awirren fighting against the Dome. She couldn't see much through the smoke, but the flashes of light, and the heat. That terrible heat that reminded her of her own body burning, of the stench of melted flesh and burnt hair that filled her nostrils and never truly left. The agony of feeling nerves being scorched through, of bones charring, of her eyes boiling in her head.

It all came back to her, memories carved deep into the core of who she was that she could never get rid of them, a constant reminder of why she was doing this.

Sigmund signed, and Anatalien grimaced. "I had to," she said. "They follow her, but they are innocent, mostly."

Sig didn't respond. Tali hadn't even thought about it, if she was being honest. When she saw that the people below her were dying, she'd just reacted. Using her Qi to push down anything harmful away from them.

"Don't look at me like that," Tali added.

Sig turned his eyes back to the fight in front of them. Both of them had held onto their hate for a long time. Being this close to finally seeing Awirren pay was making them... anxious.

Tali felt the wind moving as some of Awirren's warriors used their techniques in unison to clear away some of the smoke and help the others see what they were fighting better.

The smoke from the blaze began to clear, and they could see the destruction that Awirren has caused. The once lush forest was now a ruin. Charred trees stood like skeletal remains in a few places, slowly rolling in the staying breeze. The few trees that remained impressed Tali more than the destruction she was seeing. The fact that anything remained in the face of Awirren's power was just a testament to how resilient it was.

She turned her eyes and looked farther away from the center of Awirren's destruction, where the forest had taken the edge of her attack. Everywhere Tali looked, she saw that the trees were reduced to nothing but ash floating through the air, a reminder of what it meant for anything living to stand in Awirren's way. You either worshiped her, or you were reduced to ash.

The ground was cracked, pieces of once giant branches laid strewn about as if thrown into chaos by an invisible hand. The streams of the rivers that passed through the dome too had been consumed by the fires, turned into steam, leaving behind only blackened deposits rotting away on either side of their banks where creatures used drink or hunt outside of the dome. New water was crashing into the now empty river bed, and evaporating just from the heat of the surface. Steam and smoke rose up, threatening to obscure her vision again.

It seemed like everything within the Dome area was wiped out completely without even a single blade having survived intact from Awirren's fiery attack.

Antalien's scars ached as she watched Awirren beating her wings above the ground, keeping herself suspended in the air. She raised her head and released a cry, a single note to give voice to her victory. Her warriors picked up the cry, and the thunderous cheering filled the air.

Sigmund leaned forward, looking down with a frown on his face. Tali followed suit. "Do you think that it's time?" She asked. Unfortunately, the Dome hadn't given Awirren as much of a trouble as they had hoped, but she had spent a lot of her Qi, that would have to be enough.

Sigmund shook his head, then signed quickly. Anatalien turned her attention to the ground, a soft rumble was coming, building rapidly until the Sect warriors and Awirren noticed. It happened so fast. The ground shook, the sound becoming so loud that it drowned out everything. Then, for a moment, the ground stilled. She felt a draw of Essence on a scale she had never felt before. Beyond the area that Awirren had decimated, was the ordinary forest that met and burned from the fires spreading at the edges of the Golden Sky Sect's attacks. Tali turned her head to see the forest that surrounded the Dome area shake, every tree, every plant, every thing that grew from the ground. The forest that covered the entire territory reacted as one, and then it shriveled. Green leaves decayed rapidly, going through their life cycle in an instant while still attached to the branches. They turned brown, then darker until they flaked off the branches that withered and crumbled into broken husks of what they were just a moment before. The green sea that stretched far in every direction she could see, that covered the entire territory, died.

The ground beneath Awirren ripped apart, and giant tendrils of deep brown reached out. Like a mutated roots, they reached for the sky in such numbers that it looked like a gaping maw of a giant filled with narrow teeth opening.

Awirren's fire flashed, but it didn't matter, the roots caught around her, and burned. They turned to ash, but always there was another to take its place, too fast for her to react. She was pulled toward the ground as her warriors suffered the same fate. Some were caught and crushed to paste in moments, others evaded only to be caught by another.

Flower-like growths sprouted on the surface of the roots, and started spitting thorns or acid on everything in the air. It seemed like the Dome had more tricks up its sleeve than they had anticipated. Frozen, Tali watched, wondering what she should do.