Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

Draycos’s attempt to stifle a large yawn failed as he sat in his waiting room with Vertex standing in his usual spot next to the door.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Vertex questioned.

“Yeah, but not enough,” Draycos yawned, covering his mouth with one hand. “I was up late last night planning, since this Balara dragon is supposed to be so powerful.”

“Oh? Can I assume you came up with several strategies, at least?”

“A couple, yeah. I was also thinking of new ways to use my magic, since I’ve finally learned about conjuration spells. I was bouncing ideas off Poseidon late into the night.”

Interesting. I want to hear what Poseidon heard from him. Vertex shook his head. “Out of the five magic classes, conjuration is probably the most free-form. There isn’t a set way to use it, and what magic users can conjure is only limited to their magic and imagination.”

The MC had been getting the spectators in the coliseum in a frenzy with a dramatic introduction on the final match while the two of them had been talking. The chains attached to the gate started clanking as the gate rose open.

“Give it your all out there today, Draycos,” Vertex told him as Draycos stood up. “We have a special guest here today for the sole reason of observing your match, since you made it all the way to the finals.”

“Really?” Draycos expressed mild interest in hearing this. “Mind telling me who it is?”

“You’ll find out if you win the match,” Vertex teased, placing a talon in front of his mouth like he was shushing Draycos. “I will tell you that this person is involved with the search for the Orb of the First King, but that’s all I can say.”

“Great, like I know anyone who fits that profile,” Draycos remarked, rolling his eyes. His actions earned him a sharp slap across the face with the tip of Vertex’s tail. Draycos had been expecting this and jumped backwards to avoid the blow, smirking.

“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that if you want to slap me like you have been ’till now,” he informed Vertex as he turned around and walked out of the room.

“Don’t get yourself killed out there!” Vertex called after him.

Draycos raised his right hand in farewell, and a smoky-black scimitar appeared in his right hand as he lowered it, giving off dark blue and black wisp-like tendrils of magic aura. The weapon had gained some solidity to it compared to how it was during his fight with Clyad yesterday; there was a definite metallic sheen to the body of the blade, and the edge of it glowed silver in the sunlight it was now exposed to. It had a standard, gold guard, and the hilt was wrapped in what appeared to be brown leather. What struck Vertex as odd about the scimitar was the fact that a small gold hoop, about the diameter of Draycos’s thumb, was attached to the very bottom of the hilt. It was nothing that Vertex had ever seen on any bladed weapons made down on the surface below.

The gate closed behind him, and Draycos turned his attention to the arena before him. His opponent already stood in the center of the ring, waiting patiently as the dragon’s bright yellow eyes observed Draycos. This dragon was the first humanoid dragon Draycos had seen in the arena with him, and his glossy black scales reflected the sunlight right into Draycos’s eyes. The underbelly scales were a bright yellow, the same color of the wing skin that stretched out between the spines of its bat-like wings. A mane of black hair grew out from behind the horns protruding from the eyebrow ridges, but a braided lock of yellow hair hung down the left side of the face, a few colorful beads woven into the braid. Two blade-like protrusions shaped like shark fins extended from its forearms, and a row of small, sharp-hooked white spines extended from the base of its thick neck all the way down to the tail tip. In terms of its body type, its muscularity was only second to Zero. A single white horn protruded from the tip of its snout, and smaller ones lined its lower jawline.

The crowd was in an absolute frenzy when Draycos entered the arena, but neither he nor Balara, the dragon, paid heed to their cheers. Balara opened his mouth as Draycos stopped directly before him, a somewhat amused look in his eyes as he started down at the human half-breed only one-fifth his height. “So you’re the Draycos brat I’ve heard so much about?” His voice was even deeper than Theravor’s, but it sounded ominous. “I must say, it’s quite impressive that you managed to win against all of your opponents so far to get to the finals. You must be quite skilled and powerful if you were able to beat the dragons you must’ve fought. Unfortunately, I have no use to have a human half-breed swear fealty to me, so I supposed I’ll actually go for the win this year and get myself out of here.”

Draycos glared at the dragon towering over him, not showing any fear to his opponent. “I heard about that,” he remarked, the scimitar he held disappearing in a puff of black smoke. “I’ve heard that you gave the win to your previous opponents in exchange for having them swear loyalty to you. Are you really stupid enough to try and plot something directly in front of Theravor like that? Or is there another reason you’re being so brash about it?”

Balara chuckled softly, hiding his mouth behind a fist as he gave Draycos a threatening look. “That’s none of your business, you human. By the time this fight is over in the next few moments, I doubt you’ll have the capacity to worry about matters far above your position.”

The gong suddenly echoed throughout the coliseum. The MC had apparently finished his speech about the fight and had the match started while the two fighters conversed with one another. Balara’s right hand instantly shot forward in an attempt to grab Draycos, but Draycos avoided the massive hand and jumped back out of his reach, the hand flying through the air where Draycos stood an instant before.

“Huh,” Balara commented, straightening up and cocking an eyebrow at Draycos, a hand on his hip. “I wasn’t expecting you to be able to dodge at that speed. That was surprising.”

“I could tell you were going to do that before the gong sounded,” Draycos replied. “You need to do a better job at hiding your body language. Anyone would’ve been able to tell what you were planning if they were paying attention.”

Balara’s expression darkened, and he glared at Draycos. “I don’t need to try hard in a fight against a mere human, half-breed or not.”

“Seriously, you’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you? You a dragon supremacist or something?”

“And what of it? Do you humans bow to ants as they crawl around your feet, or salute to flies as they buzz around your ears? It’s the same for us dragons when we deal with you humans.”

Looks like I hit the nail on the head. “Sorry to say, but you’re wrong about that. You’re the first dragon I’ve met that’s been like this.”

“That won’t be the case for very long after I crush you and get out of here,” Balara growled.

“Try me,” Draycos shot back. “I just hope you’ve come up with a good excuse to tell any of your friends why they had to wait an extra year for you to get to them after losing to a mere human. You might want to rub some ice on the burns they’ll give you from hearing of such such a pathetic display.”

Balara’s eyes widened at Draycos’s words. Enraged by those words, Balara dug his feet into the ground and kicked off, flying through the air at supersonic speeds as he closed in on Draycos. Draycos, however, hadn’t just been standing there chatting with his opponent without preparing for anything. He was already well out of Balara’s reach before the dragon threw a left hook at where Draycos had been standing. The purplish black magic aura tightly enshrouded Draycos’s body as he raised his right hand in the air. The aura around his body flared slightly.

“I’m glad I bounced my ideas off of Poseidon last night,” he remarked. “I might’ve killed myself trying this if I didn’t get the advice he had for me. I spent most of the night trying to make this new spell of mine usable.” Fingers outstretched, Draycos threw his hand down until he stopped it at about waist height, palm to the ground.

“Blade Storm!”

Something sparkled darkly in the sky above where Balara stood, and everyone in the coliseum looked up to see what it was, shielding their eyes from the sun that was in the zenith of its arc. Raining down from the sun was a countless horde of identical black longswords. The entirety of each weapon was transparent, warping the blue sky on the other side of the blade that was wrapped in a black light, trailing out at the top as the swords sped to the ground, making them look like a massive gathering of black comets.

A small smile appeared on the corner of Balara’s lips as he saw the blades rain down from above. “Well played,” he said before the blades fell on target, sending up a large cloud of dust as they pelted Balara’s body and the ground. The onslaught continued for several seconds before the final blade hit the ground.

Draycos stared at the dust cloud for several moments before shaking his head. “Stop faking it and come out already!” he called out. “I know you’re not anywhere close to being done already!”

The ground directly below where Draycos stood suddenly cracked. Draycos jumped up into the air out of reach of the hand and arm that shot out of the ground. One of the blades from Draycos’s previous spell flew out of the dust cloud, and Draycos landed on the blade that floated parallel to the ground.

“Well, now. That certainly wasn’t something I was expecting,” Theravor commented.

He and everyone else in the top box had been silently watching the fight progress with great interest. Several of them had clapped when Draycos had cast the Blade Storm spell, but the fact that Draycos was now flying through the air on one of the remaining swords took everyone by surprise.

Theravor looked over his shoulder at Poseidon, who stood close to the back wall with Vertex. “Vertex said that Draycos asked you for advice last night on some conjuration spells he was thinking of, correct?” he inquired. “Was this one of your ideas?”

Poseidon smiled and shook his head. “No, the credit for creating this spell goes to Draycos. He did ask me for advice on it, though. A spell like this would drain quite a bit of his magic, so I recommended to find some way of making use of it as much as possible after the attack was over. After all, it would be a complete waste of magic if the spell didn’t connect to their intended target. The result ended up being this spectacle you see now.”

More swords rapidly shot out of the dust cloud, dispersing it as they gathered beneath the flying sword Draycos stood on. Draycos looked like he was riding atop a serpent made of around one hundred swords that flew through the air as he circled above the spot where the hand and arm extruded from the ground. Balara pulled the rest of his body out of the ground and dusted himself off before looking up at Draycos. A small, cruel smile curled his lips.

“So, the human thinks he can win against me in an aerial battle, huh?” he growled, extending his wings. “Looks like he’s going to have to learn the hard way that dragons reign supreme in that area.” Balara kicked off the ground and sped towards where Draycos flew in the sky.