Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

“What the hell?!” Draycos, surprised by the hand that had suddenly grabbed his ankle, attempted to break free of its grasp, but to no avail. Another bony hand broke out from the ground and grabbed his other ankle, holding him in place.

“What the hell is this?!” Draycos cried, struggling non-stop to free himself.

Falmento’s only response was his laughter as the ground turned a sooty-black color that radiated out from where the black flames burned endlessly. Cracks formed in the ground, and bony arms sprouted from the cracks as they reached up into the sky.

A horde of skeletons pulled themselves out of the ground as they faced off against Draycos. Dark green light suddenly flashed out of the pillar of black flames behind the skeletons and nailed the skeletons one by one. The green light concentrated and eventually formed into a variety of weapons that filled the skeletons’ hands. Axes, pitchforks, swords, clubs, hammers, and spears were lifted high into the air above the skeletons’ hands, and all the skeletons opened their mouths as a single, shrill screech tore at the air.

Grimacing at the high-pitch noise, Draycos covered his ears. Many of the spectators followed his example as they bent over in the stands in an effort to take cover from the noise.

Theravor was also displaying signs of discomfort. The noise had reached all the way up to the top box where he and the Dragon Council sat, as well as a few others. It felt like the noise was trying to claw its way into his skull.

Theravor shook his large head in an attempt to dispel the noise. “This is a shock,” he muttered as he focused on the arena. “Who knew that Falmento was capable of such a large-scale Necromancy spell?”

Necromancy spells are a special class of magic that uses a combination of two or more of the basic classes of magic at the same time. There’s a wide variety of hybrid classes, but they’re extraordinarily difficult to learn since the caster first has to master the use of the classes that comprise the hybrid class. For example, the Necromancy class is a hybrid class of Alteration and Conjuration, which made it even harder to learn due to the placement of those two classes in the magic diagram.

Boreta nodded. “This is surprising to discover,” she commented. “When we first arrested Falmento after he attempted to break his cohorts out of prison, he was only capable of summoning a skeleton or two. His skills have definitely improved after his arrest, but I can’t see how he would be able to practice in prison...”

“There’s one possible answer to that,” Theravor slowly responded. The army of skeletons below began to make a mad dash to where Draycos was pinned down.

“Falmento could just be a natural talent when it comes to necromancy. If I’m not mistaken, his name is similar to the word ‘death’ in one of the many human languages.”

Draycos shook his head, unable to get a complete grasp of the situation as the horde of skeletons bore down on him. Crap, this isn’t good. Looks like I won’t be able to get out of this jam without using magic.

Draycos grabbed his pendant in one hand, and his magic aura appeared around his body almost immediately. Focusing his magic into his legs, he kicked his feet out. Bones went flying as the hands holding him shattered. Draycos jumped back a short distance to put some space between himself and the skeleton army.

Zero only taught me that one Enhancement spell yesterday. Let’s see how useful it’s gonna be.

Draycos spread his legs apart and crouched slightly, cocking his right arm back as far as it would go while he held his left hand in front of him. The magic aura that surrounded his body began shifting, all of it being drawn into his right fist. He waited till the skeletons were on top of him before he made his move.

“Dragon Impact!”

Draycos threw the punch he had been preparing, and his fist smashed into the skull of the skeleton leading the group, breaking through the bone. The skeleton went flying from the impact and the strong force of air that accompanied it, slamming into the skeletons behind it. The whole horde of skeletons fell to pieces and scattered in a small horizontal tornado. There was a lot of clacking as the bones eventually fell to the ground one by one.

“Huh, that was impressive,” Theravor commented casually, eyeing the spectacle with interest. He turned his head to look at Zero. “That’s the spell you taught Draycos yesterday? He seems to be pretty adept at it already.”

Zero smiled and nodded. “That’s right. Even though he’s a conjurer, he already has a penchant of using Enhancement magic. He’s been boosting his overall physical abilities from the very first moment he used magic, so it wasn’t hard for him to learn the Dragon Impact spell.”

“That’s the spell you developed yourself, though, isn’t it?” Boreta inquired. “It’s a simple Enhancement spell, but quite destructive in that it focuses all the user’s magic into one body part to deliver a devastating blow. Not to mention the fact that Draycos’s magic is on par with that of the average dragon, so that punch just now wiped out an entire skeleton horde.”

“I don’t think it’s time to be impressed with the brat right now,” Vinzgar suddenly interjected. “Looks like the fight is far from over.”

Everyone returned their attention to the fight below just in time to see all the bones laying on the ground glow in the same sickly green color that had flown out of the pillar of black flames. Each and every bone slowly rose into the air, and then more bones began to generate off of all of those.

Everyone in the entire coliseum was shocked to see Draycos now surrounded by a horde of at least two hundred skeletons, which had only numbered about thirty or so beforehand.

“Did you really believe that skeletons would go down that easily?” Falmento sneered. “They’re undead creatures; they can’t feel pain or emotions or anything! And as long as I have mana remaining, they will continue to multiply every time you break them!”

Damn, this is going to be more difficult than I expected. Draycos shook his head in irritation. I can’t win unless I get close to Falmento, and I can’t even do that with an army of hundreds of skeletons between us!

The skeletons surrounded Draycos on all sides before they all jumped into the air, attempting to pin Draycos to the ground. Thinking fast, Draycos raised his right arm into the air as his aura surrounded his fist once more.

“Didn’t you learn the first time?!” Falmento cried. “You’ll only help me in my victory if you keep breaking my skeletons!”

“Dragon Impact!”

While shouting the name of the spell, Draycos threw his fist at the ground with everything he had. The ground instantly shattered, and the floor of the arena broke apart as large shards of rock were forced up into the air. These rocks knocked the skeleton army back, and Draycos took the opportunity to hide himself among the large boulders that now littered the arena.

Falmento swung his massive head back and forth as he searched for Draycos while his skeletons began regenerating and multiplying. “Where is that brat hiding now?” he growled in a low tone.

Draycos had already made his way to the dragon’s blind spot behind his tail by dashing from rock to rock.

This is going to be hard to knock him out like I want to. Draycos peered around the edge of the rock that hid him from view to check on Falmento, who still hadn’t noticed him. I have to get up in his face if I want to win this fight, but I can’t do that as long as this skeletal army is around. That last Dragon Impact may have scattered them a bit, but I’m not fast enough to reach my target without them noticing and coming after me. I doubt I could avoid them, anyways....

Wait. Dragon Impact? Speed? An idea suddenly crossed Draycos’s mind, and he gave a slight smile.

“There you are!”

Alarmed by Falmento's sudden yell, Draycos jumped away from the rock hiding him just before black flames crashed into it. The rock shattered, and what remained it began to smolder and melt from the heat of the flames.

“Don’t think you can hide from me forever!” Falmento announced. “I use Necromancy spells, so that means I have the ability to detect life force if needed. I may have lost your location again for the time being, but you can’t hide in one spot for long without me noticing you!”

Draycos peeked out from behind a different rock not too far from the first to ensure Falmento hadn’t discovered his current location yet. He hid himself again and leaned back against the rock. Taking a deep breath, he gripped his pendant.

Dragon Impact is a spell that puts all my magic in just one part of my body. But what if I took all that condensed magic and made it surge throughout my entire body? It most likely won’t have as strong of an effect as Dragon Impact, but it should help me overall!

Draycos’s aura appeared once more and began to shrink as it condensed all over his body until it was just above his skin. It took on a more purple-black hue instead of its normal blue-black coloring, and Draycos felt his hair stand up slightly, as if he had just touched one of those static electricity balls kids had in their elementary school science rooms.

“Found you!”

Draycos was prepared this time, though, and he placed both feet on the rock behind him before kicking off hard, shattering the rock before the black flame hit it. He landed on another rock and instantly jumped to the next before another black fireball hit it. He traveled around the arena by bouncing off the rocks in such a manner, slowly closing in on his target.

“Something’s different about Draycos right now,” Theravor observed, closely watching the fight below.

“You’re right, Theravor,” Zero agreed, nodding his head. “His aura’s purplish-black instead of bluish-black now.”

“Idiot,” Vinzgar growled. “He’s not talking about the color. You can feel the change too, right? He’s condensing all his magic throughout his body to give all his physical abilities a major boost.”

“He took the principles of the Dragon Impact spell and used them to create this effect, huh?” Boreta murmured half to herself, a hand rubbing her chin as she observed while Zero and Vinzgar glared at each other. “That’s going to require a large amount of magic to sustain such a state. Draycos’s magic purity level may be a match for the average dragon, but how long can he keep going like this?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Theravor responded.

“Damn you, you brat!” Falmento howled, obviously annoyed by how things were proceeding. “Hold still for a second so I can burn you to ash!”

“Yeah, right!” Draycos yelled back as he continued to dodge fireballs. “Why would I intentionally let myself get hit like that?!”

Falmento stopped spitting up fireballs for a second to give his skeletons an order Draycos couldn’t hear.

Draycos had been waiting for the moment whenever Falmento stopped breathing his fire. Kicking off his current rock with everything he could muster, Draycos shot through the air like a rocket, aiming directly for Falmento’s head. Falmento turned his head to Draycos and cracked a sly smile.

A group of skeletons suddenly appeared from behind two rocks Draycos was getting ready to fly past in an attempted ambush. Draycos ignored them, just barely avoiding the weapons swung at him as he continued to close in on Falmento, who’s expression had turned into one of shock after the ambush failed.

Among the documents Draycos had gone through in Poseidon’s office while organizing the shelves, there had been several detailing the basic anatomy that most dragons possessed. And one of those documents mentioned that almost all dragons shared a single pressure point that would knock them out if it was hit hard enough.

Draycos stuck his right foot out. It hit Falmento on the snout, bringing an end to Draycos’s flying, but the momentum from his flight made Draycos’s body tilt forward. All the aura surrounding Draycos’s body slid up his right arm and condensed into the fist he raised into the air. Both of Falmento’s eyes, which were crossed in his attempt to see Draycos standing on his snout, widened in shock as Draycos threw his punch at the spot directly between Falmento’s eyes.

“Dragon Impact!”

The punch landed on target, and Falmento’s entire body shuddered from the impact. Everything remained completely still for a moment. Then a shiver that started at Falmento’s neck traveled all the way to the tip of his tail. With a soft groan, Falmento crashed to the ground with a cloud of dust, knocked out cold.