Gatekeepers Book 1: Darkness

“Gah....” A sound of pain passed through Draycos’s lips as the morning star buried itself into his back, digging up his flesh. He could feel warm blood running down his back as he fell to the ground, too stunned from the pain to move.

Brock cackled and pulled on the chain. Accompanied by Draycos’s scream of pain, the morning star was torn out of his back, dyed crimson red by his own blood. Draycos continued to lay motionless, panting hard as Brock resumed spinning the morning star around in the air above his head.

“How do you like that, brat?!” Brock questioned. “My magic belongs to the Enhancement school. I can enhance or add additional effects to the objects I touch. In this case, I enhanced the morning star so that it chases you down and hits whether you’re able to dodge my attacks or not!”

Damn it, I forgot that everyone else in the tournament can use magic! Draycos got his arms under him and managed to prop himself up on both elbows, wincing from the pain radiating from his back. Feels like he dug out a good portion of my back with that attack. This doesn’t look good for me.

Theravor watched this exchange in silence from his throne, a somewhat morbid expression on his face. Quite a few members of the Dragon Council had winced and looked away upon Draycos being injured. Vinzgar whistled softly.

“Looks like you’re gonna have your work cut out for you after this fight is done, Damrabe,” he commented to the red dragon standing near the back of the room.

Damrabe said nothing to Vinzgar, letting out a low growl as he watched the fight below. A decent amount of the dragons present in the room did care for Draycos’s wellbeing to some extent; he was their only clue to what happened with the Orb of the First King. They certainly didn’t want him sustaining any injuries that could leave him disabled or even dead.

Back down in the arena, Brock sent the morning star flying towards Draycos once more. Prepared for this, Draycos shoved himself off the ground with his arms and moved to the side. The red aura flashed around the morning star and it sharply changed its direction to pursue Draycos. Thinking fast, Draycos brought his foot down on the chain and pinned it to the ground. The iron ball appeared to struggle against the chain as it tried to hit Draycos in the stomach a few inches away.

Draycos looked up at Brock and smiled painfully. “How’s that?” he huffed, holding the morning star in place. “Can’t reach me now, can you?”

Brock shook his head. “Ignorance truly is a blessing for the weak.”

“What was that?”

“I’m saying you know next to nothing about how magic works, do you?” Brock pointed at the iron ball with his right index and middle fingers extended. Shocked, Draycos looked down just in time to see the chain attached to the morning star extend from the point where his foot held it hostage. The iron ball smashed into his torso with the force to topple a semi-truck. Draycos was sent flying from the impact and hit the barrier surrounding the arena, right where one of the spellcasters maintaining the barrier stood. The spellcaster watched in mild horror as Draycos slowly slid down the wall of the barrier, leaving a thick trail of blood until he hit the ground and sat motionless. Rubble from the wall behind Draycos fell and surrounded his body as Brock began laughing in a loud voice.

Draycos barely registered Brock’s cackling, as he was in a state of half-consciousness with his eyes half open and glazed over. Damn it, I was an idiot for dropping my guard and forgetting what Poseidon told me about the games last night! This orc got a three in his magical assessment, so he should be decently skilled at using it. And now that he has a weapon, I have almost no chance of beating him, bare-handed and magicless with my body in this condition!

For some reason, something about this whole situation suddenly got under Draycos’s skin, and he suddenly became extremely irritated. What the hell am I doing here? I’m wasting my time dealing with the shit this world has dumped on me; why am I even bothering in trying to help this world resolve its problems?! I still need to find those bastards that blew up Atlantis City!!

Draycos’s rage continued to grow as he stewed over these thoughts from where he laid on the ground until it reached the point when he just wanted to stand up and scream as loud as humanly possible.

Damrabe was the first to notice something was off. “Huh?” He cocked his head to one side as he felt some heat on his chest. He had no clue what was causing the sensation, and he peeled the brown sash he wore away from his chest and checked where he had felt the heat. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, and the heat was even fading. Puzzled, he rested the sash against his torso once more only to be burned by a white-hot heat the moment the sash touched his sash again.

“Ouch!” he yelped, smoke beginning to rise from that spot on his body. Everyone in the room turned to look at him while he quickly took the sash off.

“Is there a problem, Damrabe?” the crimson-scaled dragon king questioned, an eyebrow raised. Something caught Theravor’s eyes, and he and everyone else in the room proceeded to stare at it in shock.

One of the test tubes of blood in Damrabe’s sash glowed red-hot as it visibly vibrated in its slot. As everyone continued to observe the spectacle, the test tube shattered without warning, sending shards of glass and droplets of blood flying throughout the room. Wherever the blood splattered, be it on skin, scales, cloth, or stone, the surface splattered immediately sizzled and burned black. Several dragons hissed in pain as their skin and scales were burned.

“What the hell just happened!?” Vinzgar growled, shock evident in his voice. “Damrabe, what was that!?”

“I...I don’t know!” Damrabe responded as he attempted to heal his right hand and torso, which had received the brunt of the blood exploding. “All I can tell you is that vial contained a sample of Draycos’s blood that I took from him two months ago!”

Theravor quickly returned his gaze to where Draycos laid on the arena floor, Brock approaching his position while still swinging the morning star around above his head. What the hell is going on down there? A bead of sweat formed on Theravor’s forehead and worked its way down his face until it fell off his chin and hit the floor.

Brock was walking over to where Draycos laid on the ground with his back propped up against the wall he had hit. Brock, smiling at his apparent inevitable victory, stepped into a pool of Draycos’s blood left by the second strike of the morning star. Brock’s left foot instantly started sizzling from the heat.

“Ouch!” Brock shouted, backing up a step as he stopped swinging the morning star. He lifted his left foot up and held it there, massaging the bottom of his bright red foot with both hands. The blood that he had stepped in became smeared all over his hands as he attempted to soothe the burn.

That was weird. I didn’t think it was hot enough today to heat up the blood so much.

That’s when the blood on both hands and his foot was set ablaze, a glorious blue inferno engulfing his limbs. Screaming in pain, Brock hit the ground and began rolling like a madman. The fires went out as quickly as they started, leaving black burn marks covering much of Brock’s hands and left foot. Brock looked around as he felt the surrounding air heat up rapidly. What he saw left him dumbfounded.

Blood.

Fire.

Wherever some of Draycos’s blood had been splattered, that surface was now set ablaze in the same glorious blue flames that had just burn Brock just mere seconds ago. The fires burned out after a few seconds, leaving nothing but large, black scorch marks where they had been. Brock turned his gaze over to where Draycos laid among the rocky rubble, almost all the rubble blackened by scorch marks. Heat waves visibly radiated off Draycos’s motionless body as his left hand touched a piece of rubble and gripped it tightly. The rock was instantly pulverized into dust as a smoky black and blue aura faded into existence around Draycos’s body.