Agnisotra: Origin Tails

Raishin teleported us to the problematic mountain. This mountain was a considerable distance removed from the newly formed volcanoes so the only problematic factor is how unstable this shadow is. Wow, it must be really bad if even I can see what shadow is the problem. Raishin was correct, one shadow, in particular, was acting bizarre. Personally, I have never seen a shadow act like this but I know in theory what actions to perform in this situation. The shadow in question was moving as if restless, also a pair of dragon eyes had formed and glowed periodically. Our forces were split up, I would have preferred to deal with this dragon with the 4 of us. I decided to stall the dragon by attempting to stabilize the shadow.

Raishin, can you slowly pour energy into my shadow? I am going to attempt to stall this dragon till Agnis and Ted can help us out. Don't forget Azu!

We especially need the help of Azu but she is making sure that Agnis doesn't die so we will just have to be patient. Ok, here is some energy.

We will have to put up with this for an undetermined amount of time, you know that right? Although fighting a dragon sounds exciting, I don't feel like dying so go for it! I stepped on the problematic shadow causing my shadow to mix with it and I attempted to stabilize the shadow. It was fierce in its counterattacks; it is a dragon after all. But as long as it was trapped in the shadows it would have to obey me as its master.

Attempting to gain control was straining at first but after half an hour I mastered the execution. I was putting both my tails on simulations to help me refine and perfect it, and also to come up with solutions when the situation gets worse. That is correct ‘when’ not ‘if’. It required utmost focus and precision so while I was maintaining control my tails would be responsible for dealing with other problems.

Uhh, Greg, what are these? Shadowshards, it is this dragon's way of fighting back. You could defeat them with well-placed flash bombs.

Won't that mess with your shadow? It is impossible to mess with my shadow unless you are a shadow cat yourself, go crazy with the flash bombs. I took sunshades out of my bag and put them on. Several flash bombs went off.

Aaah! My eyes! Idiot. I fetched a spare out of my bag and threw it at Raishin.

Thanks! Despite Raishin’s flash bombs the number of shadow shards seemed to slowly increase. I allowed a tail to gain control over shadow magic and it decimated the shadow shards while I was maintaining control over the trapped dragon. Some shadow shards increased in size in response to Raishin adding lightning attacks in between his barrage of flash bombs.

Don't use regular magic! You will just feed them, and treat them like you are fighting shards made out of frost magic. So, I run?

That is a valid conclusion normally but we can't run now. So only flash bombs and shadow magic work?

If you produce enough light to make them disappear then that will be enough. Maintaining control over the trapped dragon and dispatching shadow shards became taxing on my magical facilities. I grabbed an anti-nausea potion and downed it. I never had to attempt something this big and draining before. I wasn't completely sure if I was doing the right thing in this particular situation. I assume this is similar to how Agnis must feel. My problem seems a bit more straightforward though. The rate at which I had to ingest anti-nausea potions increased. The sky was quite dark because of the ash, this made it easier to control the shadow. Without the ash covering the sun this dragon would have escaped no doubt.

At nightfall, I would be able to rest. The more distinct the shadow the more effort I need to put in to keep it in check. Raishin was holding out well. He seemed to have mastered the art of using flash bombs. The shadow shards didn't seem to decrease in numbers but they weren't increasing in numbers either. As long as we could hold out till nightfall, we would be able to rest. I started to think of a reason why so many phenomena had defense mechanisms. I am assuming those Things that crawled out of that dimensional tear were a form of defense mechanism, I might be wrong on this, Agnis thinks they are invaders from beyond our dimension.

The shades seem to also be some defense mechanism, just like these shadow shards. Something or someone must have put these systems in place else it would be unrealistic that everything has a defense mechanism. I dispatched more shadow shards and ingested my last potion. The sky started to darken considerably and the number of shadow shards dropped dramatically, also the energy required to keep the dragon in check dropped gradually.

You can rest Raishin, the rest will disappear in just a bit. I stopped controlling the dragon because it did not have enough energy to break out. I was exhausted and Raishin seemed to show signs of physical exhaustion.

Oof, do we have to do this tomorrow as well? Yes, but I don't think we can hold out for long. We might have to fight the dragon tomorrow. Depending on how bright it is tomorrow we might have time to prepare or none at all. Assume that we will have to deal with it at daybreak.

Ugh, you weakened it right? I did but it is inconsequential in its total power, it won't cause us to get a miraculous win. It will probably still destroy us; our only hope is Azu and maybe some impossible trick Agnis comes up with.

Can't you just banish it again after it gets out? Not when it gets shadow corrupted, we either have to defeat it usually, defeat it with a solid light attack, or rip the shadow out of it and then banish it again. I don't know how to rip its shadow out so that option is out, it is theoretically the safest option that has the lowest fail rate…

I guess just like Agnis you’re too young to have been taught how to do that. Yes… Raishin grabbed his head and acted all dramatical.

Aaagh! Why can't they just send stuff our way that we just have to vaporize? Things would be quite easy if that was the case yeah…

Hey, what is that? Uhh, that doesn't look good, I hope Agnis can manage to stay alive. Darkness descended on the Boshi plateau but in the distance in Boshi town, we could see that the root started to glow dark pink.

Hey Greg… Sup?

I have the feeling that Azu and Agnis won't be able to help us tomorrow. Hmm, yeah, I was thinking the same. The glowing root was giving both of me and Raishin a bad feeling. I guess we all had a rough day but it seems his day isn't over yet.

Can that dragon be only hit by shadow or light attacks? It depends if it had a big weakness before it got sealed that weakness will persist but besides that, it will be immune to any element besides dark and light magic.

Please be weak to lightning, please be weak to lightning! Wait none of us can use light magic! Didn't you have a mild affinity for it? Don't you have any light-based magic circles?

Uhhhh… I facepalmed. What was I expecting? I strained my brain to check if I could recall a light-based magic circle. I couldn't.

The first thing you are going to do when you find a light-based magic circle is study it until you've mastered it! Ugh, I hate studying.

We’ve noticed… I think when push comes to shove you should use [Solar stream] on the dragon. It seemed to be a mix of fire and light magic so it should work. Aye, sir! I will only use it when you tell me to! I urged Raishin to rest since tomorrow will be a long day. I was wondering how Agnis is holding up. I attempted a Teleroad message but it didn't seem to go through. I assume he is busy. I checked on Ted.

-How are things going with the evacuation? - - I fully understand now why Agnis sent some of these people to get vaporized. It is like they are deliberately making things difficult for me. -

- Are you in the underground city now? - - Yes, it took a long time to convince Isi to let these people in. Luckily Agnis’ clone was helpful in this because she might not have agreed without that clone by our side. I am busy preventing these people from carelessly claiming rooms in the palace. Agnis’ clone seems to put in a lot of work but it seems that it is running out of juice, how is the real Agnis doing? I can't reach him. -

- Hmm, we can't reach him either but the Thing’s are gone. I assume because I can feel Agnis' energy which I normally can’t feel when he is dealing with his dimensional stuff. But the pink root seems a bit bigger and is glowing so he might have different problems now.- - I see, how is Raishin behaving?-

- He was behaving well today, so I will allow him to misbehave tomorrow because that is probably when the dragon will escape.- - I will try my best to wrap up things here, delegate the responsibility to Paul and Paula, and come and help you guys-

- Take your time, we don't want you to rush here to end up dying, I am expecting both of us to lose some lives against this dragon, in the worst-case scenario Raishin will use [Solar stream], and if that doesn't work we have to lure it to Azu.- -Be careful, I have to go, Donkey and Monkey are causing problems, I might have to beat them up.-

- Have fun.- Raishin went out to catch some fish in a small lake nearby. We had fish yet again and decided to sleep early.

Day 3: I awoke and the first thing I noticed was that the ash clouds had disappeared and the sky was magenta colored. I got up and looked in the direction of Boshi town. I saw multiple pink spears flying around, large shades, and a lot of frost and water magic flying around. I don’t have to deal with that mess but I started to get a headache. So, this is how Agnis must feel constantly. The dragon trapped in the shadow was stirring but it wasn't bright enough for it to break free. I decided to ignore it and wake Raishin to start our preparations. Ugh, why so early? Because if we wait longer the dragon will escape and you will have no time to prepare.

Meh, so what do we prepare? The moment it escapes from the shadow I want you to spot its weak spot and hit it with every element you can use and pay attention to what does damage. I will also need you to pour more energy into my shadows, I will attempt to shoot it down with abyss magic, I will need you to keep it busy while I set it up.

Ooh, are you going to one-shot it? I am scratching the bare requirements with a fully saturated shadow so it won't be very powerful so I would be surprised if it could kill the dragon.

Ok! Do I get to use my [Fusionado]? Uhh, do you have anything that is more environmentally friendly but still strong?

Like my [Raishin kick]? If you can Raishin kick a dragon I would say, go for it.

But I will need you to keep it on one spot because the beginning isn’t lightning-based. Just lightning glitter it, and imbue the beginning with lightning…

Oh! You're a genius! This is going to be a long day… For once in a long time, I prepared curses to drop on the dragon to weaken it. I also ran simulations on how and where to hit the dragon with abyss magic. There was a high probability that this won't do sufficient damage to the dragon. It was nearing noon and the sky became brighter and brighter pink. The shadows stirred and a black mass shot up to the sky from the shadow. There in the bright pink sky, there he was, a monochromatic dragon. It had its eyes focused on me.

The sky got littered with lightning glitter and a [Lightning beam], [Fire beam] and [Wind lance] shot out. Only the lightning beam hit. The dragon let out a deafening roar. It appears that it resisted the lightning attack. It dove at me. I needed more time before I could use abyss magic so I [Shadow melded] into my own shadow to dodge the attack. I reappeared from my shadow and continued readying my abyss magic. Raishin was still trying to hit his [Fire beam] and [Wind lance]. I remembered where Raishin hit the dragon with his lightning beam so I sent a [water ball] in the form of an icicle at that spot and some [Lava bombs] They both hit but only the icicle seemed to do damage.

Great, it is weak to water, it just so happens that 2 strong water users are dealing with pink spears in Boshi town… What? It is weak to water? Why not lightning?

Water is regarded as the weakest element so having water weaknesses won't be a big disadvantage. Meh, so [Fusionado]?

I am not sure if that will work but wait with it. Keep it busy I’m almost done. I launched myself to the side to dodge a light-based [Dragon breath]

Take this! [Raishin kick!] It is not a kick though…

Owowow this dragon is hard! Raishin’s swipe with his spear didn’t do anything but hurt his hand in the process. The dragon slapped Raishin with its tail and he flew into a rock wall. I attempted to [Shadow bind] the dragon but its physical strength was too great so I couldn't restrict it for too long. I cast the curses [Heavy body] and [Hex] on it. [Heavy body] went through and the dragon fell to the ground but [Hex] got resisted. I attempted another [Shadow bind] and this was somewhat successful. I cast another curse [Exsanguinate] but this got resisted. Raishin managed to hit the dragon now but he wasn't doing any damage.

You can start casting [Fusionado] nothing you do seems to work; my abyss magic is ready. I didn't have a name for it and it was relatively weak I just named it [Abyssal Bolt]. A bolt blacker than I’ve ever seen shot out. Observing the blackness of this bolt seemed more like going blind than observing something extremely dark. It was hard to continue looking at. The dragon seemed to have the same but it covered itself with its wing. The wing got obliterated but the rest of the dragon was still there. It howled and thrashed, broke my [Shadow bind], and attempted to take off to the sky. But it couldn't, [Heavy body] was still in effect and it was missing a wing. It roared and a huge magic circle showed up behind it.

This is bad! I launched myself at Raishin and covered us in a small [Shadow dome] Because I had to travel to Raishin before taking defensive measures I didn't have enough time to use more and the shock of the attack sent us flying as well as breaking my [shadow dome]. I got up from that attack and saw the whole area covered in some whitish sticky liquid. The blast injured both of us heavily. I looked at Boshi town.

There is a huge chance that we are outside the range of Agnis' illusion protection. I hate to say it but we have to lure this thing to the town. Raishin, get up, are you ok? Ugh, everything hurts, I don’t think I’m okay though.

Unfortunately, we don't have time for this. I grabbed Raishin and dodged a tail swipe by shadow melding. The white liquid seemed to have eliminated all the shadows on the floor except mine. It removed Raishin’s shadow and it was attacking his feet.

Owowow! Stand in my shadow. Raishin moved to stand on my shadow and he seemed to be fine. The rednadoes Raishin made fused into one and turned orange but it still wasn't doing any damage to the dragon. The dragon inhaled. Hey, do you have some more of those walls and domes? I can only use [earth walls] I will have to move my shadow away from you to use any shadow skills now, and I don't know what it will do to you so we might have to take the hit. Use your shadow skills! Raishin climbed on my back. I used [Shadow cloak] on both of us, [Shadow wall] [Shadow dome], and various [earth walls].

I have been trying to teleport us away but it keeps getting interrupted. Light dragons are quite slow so their racial ability disables any form of disengagement relating to teleports. We would need Agnis to get us out of here.

Everything here is cheating! We got hit by a light-based [Dragon breath] but also another light-based attack. It punched through all the defenses besides the shadow cloaks and sent us flying. Both Raishin and I lost a life in the process. We tumbled down the mountain and the monochrome dragon followed us. It sent some [Dark waves] at us but our shadow cloaks grants increased resistance to shadow and dark-based attacks so these didn't hurt as much.

A bright light appeared on top of the mountain which was probably the [Fusionado] but it was safe to say that Raishin missed again. I made 2 [Rock plates] and we used them as some form of a skateboard. I had to manipulate the rocks and earth in front of us to make sure we wouldn't crash. We left the monochrome dragon behind which it didn't like. It started to send fast-moving [Light beams] at us. Here is a funny thing. Normally these would travel at light speed but because of its forced shadow affinity and it being so naturally slow even these beams seemed to become slower. It was still fast enough to become a threat but as long as we paid attention, we should only get hit by 1 or 2.

Heh, this is cool! Raishin seemed to be uselessly good at this skateboarding while I was struggling to keep myself from making an ugly fall. I made some [shadow walls] behind us to block the [Light beams] we couldn't dodge. I got hit by 2 in my back but I have high magical defenses and the shadow cloak helped out. Raishin got hit once and he seems off worse than me. The monochrome dragon roared and formed a wing out of shadows and took off to the sky.

Wait he can do that?! I agree that is cheating. I tried my best to protect us from the attacks from above. We were feeling the lack of Ted’s bear avatar or Agnis CC or speed.

Greg! I can't use [Solar stream] like this even when I lock it onto myself with this much movement it is certainly going to miss! Aha so that stupidly overpowered skill has a weakness!

How is this helping? Good point. Alright, it is time to drop him with a [Liberation]. I threw my hammer at the dragon and cast [Liberation] from its shadow. It roared and crashed to the ground. I retrieved my hammer by pulling its shadow towards me.

That dragon sure is slow to get hit by that… At least I hit my attacks…

Pff minor details! We arrived at the base of the mountain.

Can we teleport now? Meh, still can't. Raishin used [Thundercloak], grabbed me, and dashed away from another light-based [Dragon breath]

So are we in range of Agnis’ illusions now? I feel like I'm about to kick the bucket soon. I’m not sure, he said it had the same range as the prison but as you can see, we’re still far from it. How many lives do you have left?

After this one 5. Ugh, can you hold on a bit longer if we are getting close to losing this one might as well use it. We are going to make that dragon launch us into the prison.

Die since we are going to lose this one anyway, eh? I like it! We are finally starting to rub off on you! I’m not proud of it at all! Can you provoke it?

Hey, dragon! Yo, momma is so fat, when she gets on a scale it says: To be continued! How is that going to work? The dragon roared and seemed genuinely pissed off.

Well, I'm stumped, that actually worked… Hehe, I was Hourai’s ‘Yo momma’ jokes champion!

So useless! I put up defensive skills but made sure that the incoming attack would ideally launch us toward Boshi town, the only problem is…

This is going to hurt like hell. Do you have anti-hurt potions?

Don't you think I would have used them already if I had something convenient like that? Just askin’ We got hit by an unfamiliar light-based attack. The defensive skills shattered and sent us flying. The pain was seeping into every fiber of my being until the life was expended. I recast [Shadow cloak] to make sure we wouldn't lose any more before getting in range of the prison.

I believe I can fly! I believ... Shush! Go arrange that we have a safe landing! The dragon was flying after us but it was still slow so after landing, we would have some time to prepare. I had enough energy stored for another [Liberation] but I was unsure how to use it because it didn't seem to do much damage to this dragon. I could knock him out of the sky… I decided to stall for as much time as possible and threw my hammer and dropped another [Liberation] on the dragon. It yet again got knocked out of the sky. I tried to manipulate the wing made out of shadow but I couldn't manage to alter it. I suddenly felt as if I got caught by the wind and got lifted up.

Raishin… Sup!

Of all the wind magic you know. WHY DID YOU CATCH US WITH [Tornado]? Ehh, oops?

If this dragon wasn't out to kill us, I would kill you myself! The tornado carried us upward in a classic tornado manner. All my plans of having time to prepare for the dragon's attack got blown away with this tornado.

Can you at least move this tornado toward the town? Haha, you know I can't control where tornadoes go right? Who needs enemies with allies like him? I grabbed Raishin with a [Shadow tendril] and used gravity magic which caused us to get flung out of the tornado and then reduce our weight to make a relatively safe landing. I smacked Raishin and we started running toward Boshi town. For a lack of better words, It was raining pink spears. I saw something that looked like purple lightning flashes zip around. I assume that is Agnis. An enormous ice wall towered over Boshi Lake and it seemed to be blocking, what I assume are [Tsunami] echoes. The dragon roared and started to catch up.

Sup guys, what brings you to this part of the town? Multiple spears that were locked on Agnis headed toward us.

Are you trying to kill us?! Woops sorry! He vanished and the pink spears all flew to another spot.

- We need Azu to deal with this dragon, where is she? - - She is throwing a tantrum because she couldn’t one-shot this root-

-Aha… so can you get her? - - Sure, maybe the dragon likes pink spears in its diet. - I saw some flashes of lightning and then suddenly countless pink spears headed toward the dragon. I saw something blue drop on the dragon.

- I would advise you guys to run. - - We were planning to but let me still ask why. -

-Well to get her out of her tantrum I told her I would make her some ice cream if she would deal with the dragon swiftly…- - Resorting to manipulation now, eh? -

- Ice cream and cuddling my tails is the only thing that works when she is in a bad mood! And I’ve had enough of the latter! - - Don't put her in a bad mood then! -

-That is impossible! - -Oh, the dragon is weak to either light, water, or shadow/dark magic. -

- We, know, I can see it, she is going to unleash some cool water attacks on it, that is why I said run. The first one is probably going to be [Tsunami] good luck! - -Wait…- No response, I only saw more pink spears following something too fast for me to see. I went serious with my gravity magic and started to launch myself as far away from the dragon as possible. I heard a big crash, not just a normal crash but also something similar to crashing waves. I looked behind and I saw an enormous wave approaching the dragon. I knew it was slow, I would hate to be that dragon. I reached the town and looked behind. The dragon was bound by ice shackles and some enormous spear made out of ice was slowly dropping out of the sky with the dragon as a target.

Wow! Do you think she could teach me that? You suck at water magic.

Do you think she will teach Agnis that? I… I don't want to know… The spear crashed down on the dragon. It seemed to do a lot of damage and it had pinned the dragon to the floor. I then saw a huge hammer made of ice appear in the sky. I could see where this was going. The hammer slammed down on the ice spear, driving the spear into the dragon. The dragon roared and then breathed its last breath after which it turned into shadows and dispersed. A large shock wave traveled outward and some cracks appeared in the plateau. I despised the dragon but I felt a bit sorry with how one-sided this was.

Uhm, we are sure Azu isn't the last boss, right? I surely hope not. Let's pick a spot and rest. It feels cheap but we did survive an encounter with a dragon…

Yeah… lets rest… We made sure to pick a spot that was out of the range of the spears and where the shades couldn't reach us. The scene of a dragon getting defeated within 4 attacks stuck to my mind. It was a young dragon yes, but even still is it supposed to die this easily? With this on my mind, I dozed off.