Velik was under no illusions that he had an ally in this fight. If anything, Eslaka represented a thirty party interfering. In his opinion, the most likely scenario here was that she would try to kill all three of them, and the only question was the order.
Even in her human form, waves of heat rolled off her. If the ground hadn’t already been turned into a stretch of charred, blackened dirt, it would be igniting around her. Instead, the air itself shimmered around her, a testimony to her true nature.
“Eslaka,” Reisha said, his voice full of quiet fury.
“Reisha,” she cackled back. “I’ve come for your crown.”
“Don’t do this again. You won’t win. You never do.”
“How many of us have you killed?” Zelamir asked.
“Just one, and it was everything I wanted it to be. The look on her face… Delicious.”
That one seemed to hit Reisha like a physical blow. “Shurga’s dead? What about Tesir and Halifex?”
“I didn’t kill them,” Eslaka told them with a smirk.
They got her meaning, both divine beasts shifting their eyes to peer at Velik. Reisha’s lips peeled back into a snarl. “You have no clue what you’ve meddled in, do you?”
“Maybe if you’d kept your psychotic experiments out of the Garden, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” Velik told them. “The way I understand it, all you had to do was not mess with humans, and you couldn’t do that. If you’re expecting me to feel bad for killing Tesir, you’re going to be disappointed. As far as that bat goes, he attacked me. It’s not my fault he was too arrogant to think he could be defeated.”
His mana was coming back to him, and quickly. If he could stall for another minute or two, he’d be at half strength, which would hopefully be enough to kill Zelamir. Velik wasn’t any more convinced that he’d survive a battle between Reisha and Eslaka than he was that he could beat the leader of the divine beasts on his own.
“Stupid child,” Zelamir spoke up. “You could have had life everlasting and become one of the most powerful beings in the world. You’re throwing that away to be a god’s finger puppet! And when they’re done with you, they’ll discard you like trash on the side of the road.”
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“Worse than that,” Reisha added. “The gods broke the Compact sending you out here. You’ll die, and so will the rest of your kind.”
That declaration seemed to startle the other divine beasts, though Velik had no idea what Reisha was trying to say. If he was planning on killing Velik and then venting his anger on the people still inside the boundary, well, that just meant Velik would need to kill Reisha first. But, judging by the reactions of the others, Velik suspected something else was going on.
“Interesting tactic. If you’re wrong about what’s going on, it’ll kill you,” Eslaka pointed out.
“Our goddess left the decision to me.”
“What decision?” Velik asked.
“The Garden was a compromise to stop the fighting, and like any good compromise, it comes with a hostage. There is a divine beast locked away inside the Garden, incorporated into the system that empowers you humans. If Reisha decides to, he can wake it up. The system is a sort of soul scaffolding around that being, one that won’t survive its awakening,” Eslaka explained.
He didn’t need the consequences of that spelled out for him. A few weeks past the boundary had been more than enough to show him what kind of world existed without the system. It was one where everything grew stronger as it got older, and humans had no chance of ever measuring up to monsters with lifespans measuring in centuries.
Worse, their whole society was based on using the system. Everyone had a class that supported their professions, and nobody had any experience handling raw essence. Even if the system left them with their essence when it collapsed, it would take time before anyone was capable of doing literally anything with it. Somehow, Velik doubted the monsters would wait.
“And he’s the only one who can decide that?” Velik asked.
“Correct.”
That made it simple. As much as Zelamir needed to die, Reisha was the bigger threat. Ideally, Velik would kill both and escape with his life, but if he had to choose how to sell it, he knew what he’d spend it on. None of that took into account whatever plans Eslaka had, of course.
“Well, I know I’d prefer not to have that happen,” Velik said. “Eslaka?”
Her eyes didn’t leave Reisha’s. “I don’t care about the humans one way or another. I’m here for revenge.”
“You think you can kill me, just because you stole a little essence? I’ve been outgrowing the rest of you for over a thousand years. It’ll take more than this to bring you up to my level, Queen of Carnage” Reisha told her. “If you were smart, you’d have run and hid in some far-off corner of the world for another decade while you hoarded the power you’d need to rival me.”
The two of them glared at each other for a moment, then both shot into the air. Eslaka transformed into a giant bird with flames rolling off her body. Every part of her was being immolated, but it didn’t seem to actually hurt her. She swept forward, a single flap of her wings more than enough to push her across the former garden, where she collided with Reisha.
Velik had been wondering what the leader’s animal form would be. Admittedly, the sample size was small, but so far everything he’d seen had fur or feathers, so he was expecting something like that. A bear might have been appropriate, or even a wolf like Velik himself.
Reisha was not any of those things. For one thing, Reisha had scales, not fur. They were iridescent and practically glowed reflecting the light of Eslaka’s flames, and his body was so huge that Velik casually noted the thicker scales around his shoulder and back were the size of dinner plates.
A bone plate ridge covered Reisha’s forehead, swooping around a set of pitch black horns not unlike the teeth Velik’s form sported, and tapered together into a trail of spines several feet long that ran down his back.
He stood on four legs with a long, serpentine neck and a mouth big enough to swallow Velik whole. Golden blood-colored claws longer than swords scored the earth, and a tail lined with bony ridges lashed the ground behind him. Velik couldn’t even begin to guess how many tons Reisha weighed in his true form.
“Of course he’s a gods damned dragon,” Velik breathed out as Reisha leaped up to meet Eslaka in the air.
His mana hadn’t recovered to full, not even close, but he had better than a third of it back. That would just have to be enough. A plan of action unfurled in Velik’s mind, one that relied on Eslaka holding her ground for at least a few minutes. When she wasn’t immediately swept away by Reisha’s might on their first pass, he allowed a small flicker of hope to ignite inside him.
We can win this if we do it right. Kill the fox. Kill the dragon. Stop him from activating whatever death spell he has that breaks the system. And after they’re dead… we’ll see where the cuckoo bird stands.
He turned to face Zelamir, who, far from joining Reisha in combat, was in full flight toward what Velik could only assume was an exit from the floor. The fox divine beast didn’t even bother to look back. Whether that was confidence in his boss or just a well-honed instinct for self-preservation, Velik couldn’t say.
But he had no intention of letting the man who’d ruined his life escape. Reisha and Eslaka could tangle in the sky for a few minutes. He had a fox to hunt down.