Path of Dragons

It was all a show.

Elijah was well aware that everyone was watching, and he also knew how they would react to the Shape of the Sky. After all, it was still the most visually impressive form he had available, if only because of its resemblance to most people's picture of a true dragon. No one on Earth could look at that form and not feel a note of awe.

His choice to leave the hill goblin camp via that shape was calculated. Anupriya was already afraid of him. He could see that in her eyes. But after everything, he needed her terrified. Anything else might invite challenge, and for all that he didn't want to care what the rest of the world thought of him, he had been forced to admit that perception was a tool he needed to use.

The past few days of his convalescence had been spent in meditation, mostly putting the final touches on his plan to advance his mind cultivation to the next stage. However, he'd also given global politics a lot of thought. He was a public figure now. A world power in the form of a single person. A walking weapon of mass destruction. And he needed to consider how he wanted his actions to affect the world at large.

No more spur of the moment reactions. No more letting his emotions get the best of him. He needed to be cold and calculated, lest he find himself going down a dark road where the rest of the world had no choice but to oppose him.

On that same note, he couldn't allow an attack on his person to stand – not without response. Doing so would only invite more. And what's more, he had an idea where the culprit was. If he didn't deal with them now, he'd end up spending his days looking over his shoulder.

That was no way to live.

He flew only a few dozen feet above the jungle's canopy, following the hill goblin scouts' directions until, twenty minutes later, he reached the edge of their range. After circling for a few moments, he landed in a small clearing next to a stream, then shifted into the Shape of the Scourge. Adopting Guise of the Unseen, he bent forward and began searching for the trail.

In some ways, tracking was easy. After all, Shape of the Scourge was the form of a mighty hunter. An apex predator with senses that far exceeded that of any human being. Those were further enhanced by Elijah's body cultivation, meaning that his mundane senses bordered on the supernatural. He could pick out the tiniest variation in scent. He could see the slightest twitch of movement, and from dozens of yards away. His spines twitched at the gentlest disturbance of air. And he could hear a whisper at a hundred feet.

However, despite the increased potency of his senses, he was even more reliant on Soul of the Wild. Of late, he'd come to realize that what he felt via that ability wasn't just limited to a mini-locus, as he'd once thought. Instead, he'd come to sense ethera as well.

Most of the time, that stayed in the background, the results presenting themselves in his mind as level estimates or a perception of the local attunement. But when he truly concentrated on it, he saw so much more.

In this case, he sensed the trail of his attacker. Tiny bits of ethera, each one smelling like a mixture of conflict, nature, and predation, trailed off into the distance. They were like footprints in the jungle. Not easy to follow, but so long as Elijah maintained his focus, he could manage it well enough.

The biggest problem wasn't the faintness of the trail. Rather, the issue was that everything else in the jungle left an ethereal signature as well. Picking the attacker's out of everything else was exceedingly difficult, and that wasn't even considering that, with the passage of time, it had grown slightly more diffuse.

Would that he could have immediately followed, but his recuperation had taken the better part of a week.

Because of those factors, the way was slow going, and it got even worse when night began to fall. The jungle was as densely packed with life as any other rain forest, which meant that, even at midday, barely any light pierced the canopy to illuminate the ground. The shadows became much deeper at night, further obscuring the trail. Not wanting to stumble into a situation where he couldn't even see his attacker, Elijah took shelter for the night inside an old building.

The structure was made almost entirely of concrete, and many of the walls had been cracked by encroaching vegetation. In only a few more years, the jungle would swallow it completely. For now, though, it looked like the concrete skeleton of a building, with roots and vines draped over it like cobwebs. Bamboo shoots had torn through the floor and jutted through the barely intact ceiling.

Upon arriving at the structure, Elijah studied the rotted wooden sign, which was predictably arranged into two distinct languages. One was obviously Hindi, but the other was English, proclaiming it to be a Forest Department Outpost.

Inside was a mess. Elijah recognized the rusted remnants of a metal cot, its thin mattress mostly rotted. There was also a steel desk with an overturned chair. A single skeleton occupied the small space.

After shifting into his human form, Elijah knelt beside the person's khaki-clad remains. Dark splotches and great rips in the uniform were the first indicators that he had died a violent death, but the broken bones confirmed that. Something big and vicious had attacked him. Probably a monster of some sort. Given the location – the sign had mentioned a tiger preserve – it wasn't a leap of logic to believe that the man had been killed by one of the very animals he was meant to protect.

Elijah had seen many such scenes in his travels, and despite the sadness that came with a needless death, the most pervasive feeling gripping his mind was that at least it wasn't a child. He'd seen those, too, and they always hit a lot harder.

Regardless, Elijah couldn't concern himself with someone who'd died years before. So, he pushed those thoughts from his mind, then settled into one corner of the building. He didn't sleep. Not with someone out there hunting him. Instead, he occupied himself with meditation.

He'd already solidified his plan for mind cultivation, and he simply needed to implement it. However, that didn't mean he couldn't check and double check his plans. Getting it right wasn't just important. It was absolutely necessary. So, redundancy was welcome.

Slowly, the hours passed by, and Elijah felt the nocturnal predators of the jungle come alive. It was an immersive experience. Like he was one of the forest's animals, rather than a visitor. He'd always liked that feeling, rare though it was.

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He sank into it, letting the aura of nature suffuse him until he felt the nocturnal predators retreat to their lairs. Birds began to chirp, and frogs started to croak, announcing the dawn of a new day. Only then did Elijah open his eyes, and he saw precisely what he expected.

A tiger sat only a few feet away. It was no bigger than it might've been before the world's transformation, but that didn't mean it was by any means small. Most people didn't realize how large the big cats truly were, but this particular specimen was almost ten feet long, not including its tail. A truly enormous and admittedly magnificent creature.

It had arrived in the middle of the night, though it had only taken one look at Elijah before proceeding to ignore him. The remains of its most recent kill lay only a couple of feet from the dead park employee. Would it have attacked if food had been less abundant? Maybe. But probably not.

Because as majestic as the creature was, it was barely ascended, which meant that it was only a little better than half his level. Beasts weren't stupid. They could sense when they were outmatched. And in this case, that was precisely the situation.

But tigers were also proud and territorial, and it clearly refused to cede its lair just because Elijah was there.

Either way, he stared at the tiger for a long time, just appreciating its form. The beauty of nature never ceased to strike him with awe.

After only a few more minutes, Elijah summoned one of his grove fruits from his Arcane Loop. Together, he and the tiger enjoyed their respective breakfasts. He didn't bother with coffee. Building a fire just wasn't in the cards, largely because he wanted to avoid the attention it would bring. But it was also because he knew it would scare the tiger off. He wanted to avoid that.

Once he'd finished his meal, he gave the tiger a respectful nod before leaving the ruined building. As soon as he passed out of sight, he transformed into the Shape of the Scourge and resumed his search for his attacker.

The way was no easier now than it had been when he'd first started out, and more than once, he was forced to spend long minutes searching for the smallest remnant of a trail. However, so long as he remained vigilant, he made continual, if slow, progress.

His unerring focus on the trail ended up being his undoing.

The moment the trap activated, he threw himself to the side. However, he couldn't move quickly enough to avoid the darts that slammed into his right flank. He stumbled as toxins coursed through his body, degrading his muscles and poisoning his blood. Wild Resurgence enveloped him, halting its progress, but it was only just strong enough to overpower the potent toxin.

He backed away, only to get hit by another dart.

Than another after that.

His mind whirled, though with so much toxin coursing through him, he had trouble thinking. In fact, his instincts told him to panic, to run away, to flee until he could tend to his wounds. He ceded to those instincts, leaping into the canopy, bounding off a few low branches, and returning the way he'd come.

He didn't stop until he'd gone half a mile.

Only then did he shift into his human form and subject himself to the full weight of his healing spells. That turned the tide, though he didn't cure himself of the toxin until he used his Mantle of Authority to purge the impurities. It was surprisingly stubborn, and when he looked closer at the toxin, he actually recognized the complex mix of neurotoxins, hemotoxins, and procoagulants.

As a biology student, he'd taken quite an interest in venomous animals. That had eventually led him to the box jellyfish, which had in turn solidified his decision to study marine biology. Regardless, he knew his venoms, and this one was exceedingly famous, as it belonged to the most toxic land animal on Earth.

The inland taipan, from Australia, was capable of killing a person in as little as thirty minutes. Less, if bitten multiple times. The only saving grace was that the snake was fairly docile and rarely bit humans.

In any case, its venom was chemically unique enough that Elijah recognized it immediately. In this instance, the toxin was also enhanced by a significant amount of ethera, but the snake from which it had originated was obvious to him.

It was probably the only reason Elijah was alive.

That, and he was fairly certain that the scourgedrake had some defenses against toxins, even if it wasn't listed anywhere in Elijah's status.

Still, it took him a few minutes to completely purge the venom, and during that time, he examined the darts that acted as the delivery method. They were small, heavy, and made of cheap materials. No infusion of ethera at all, so they were completely mundane. That told Elijah that they were never meant to kill him. Rather, they were just there to slow him down and sap his resources.

He crept forward, returning to the site where he'd encountered the traps, and it wasn't long before he found the triggers and the mechanisms that had launched the darts. That was powered by ethera, but from what Elijah could tell, it was just to create enough pressure to propel the projectile.

Minimal ethereal signature, but still, Elijah should have sensed it. That was evidence that some sort of concealing ability was at play.

It was also confirmation that his attacker knew he was coming and had prepared accordingly. And given the assailant's long-range capabilities, that was a distressing fact indeed.

Still, Elijah wasn't going to abandon his hunt just because things got a little more dangerous. The attacker had already taken their best shot, and at Elijah's most vulnerable moment. And they had failed.

They wouldn't live much longer to regret it, either.

Gradually, Elijah moved on, more methodically than ever before. His pace slowed to a crawl, but his caution proved warranted when he triggered another set of dart traps. This time, he was ready, though, and he avoided getting hit.

The same could not be said for the next set of traps he encountered. Not dart traps, but rather, pitfalls and snares. They were little more than inconveniences, but still extremely frustrating.

It wasn't until a day later that Elijah saw the full scope of the attacker's plans. Even as the ground collapsed beneath him, a dozen darts filled the air. He twisted and turned, but four still slammed home into his side. One nicked his tail, while another grazed his skull.

And that was before he fell upon the spikes at the bottom of the six foot pit. They could barely scratch his scales, but even that was enough to inflict the toxin upon him. His muscles turned to water, and his head spun as he used his Mantle of Authority to fight against the toxin's progress.

At the same time, he shifted into his human form and used his trio of healing spells. Wild Resurgence sent a steady stream of vitality pulsing through him. Meanwhile, Blessing of the Grove conjured a sunflower that, in addition to adding to that surge of healing, worked against the toxins alongside his Mantle of Authority. And finally, Nature's Bloom flooded him with life-giving vitality.

As he extricated himself from the pit, he felt a ripple.

Without hesitation, Elijah dove to the side. The warning only gave him an instant in which to react, but that was enough to save his life. A projectile hit his hip, sending him spinning into the underbrush as blood, flesh, and bone sprayed the jungle.

Elijah crawled behind a tree, his breath coming in gasps. The wound wasn't serious – not for him. And his healing spells were already mending the damage. But the implications were clear.

He waited for a few minutes as his body healed, but just before he was about to move, he felt another ripple. This time, it came from a different direction, suggesting that the attacker had relocated so he could fire from a different vector.

Elijah rolled away, but he was clipped again. This time, on his thigh. Thankfully, the attack only tore through his flesh, missing the bone entirely. That meant it only took a few moments for the damage to heal.

When it did, he shifted into the Shape of the Master, then sprinted away. Another shot came, but with the enhanced reflexes of the form, he managed to avoid it entirely. However, he didn't run toward the attacker. That was clearly what they wanted. It was bait. And he knew that if he took it, he'd end up running headlong into another series of traps. This time, they might prove deadly.

So, Elijah decided to retreat, recover, and come back with even more caution.

It was clear though that despite his certainty that he was higher level than his attacker, they were more than capable of finishing him off.