The Ballad Of A Semi-Benevolent Dragon

Antaria clenched her jaw and strained to shove her opponent back. Akemi was a two-tailed kitsune, and she had proven to be a most troublesome sparring opponent. Rather than meeting her head on, Akemi preferred to evade, parrying from time to time and almost never blocking a strike outright. It was a stark contrast to the way humans and monsters fought, but that was probably the point. Since taking her to the realm of the kitsune for further training, Hikari had emphasised flexibility. The most common way for a warrior to die was against something they'd never seen before, so Hikari was going to make sure that Antaria had experience with plenty of different styles.

And it wasn't like Antaria was the only one benefitting.

As Akemi strove to disengage, Antaria finally found the opening she was looking for. She stomped down and then lashed out with her free hand, her fist falling with all the weight and force of a sledgehammer. Akemi's golden eyes widened comically for a moment. Her sword was in no position to block, and her hasty footwork had left her exposed. And for all that Antaria was lacking in grace and elegance compared to the kitsune, there was one area where she definitely had the upper hand.

Brute strength.

There was a sound like thunder, and Akemi flew backward, spinning end over end through the air before landing on her feet and then skidding away.

"Damn it." Antaria scowled. "You know, that's cheating."

Akemi's eye twitched, and she lowered the tails she'd used to block the strike. "It's not my fault humans don't have tails. And what did you want me to do, get punched in the face?"

"Yes," Antaria said flatly. "Punching you in the face would be my reward for working so hard."

"..." Akemi glanced to the side where Hikari was watching. "My lady, are you sure we should resume open contact with humans? If the rest of them are anything like her, we might be in trouble."

Hikari laughed. "Don't worry. Antaria is something of an exception amongst humans, both in terms of her power and her general attitude." Her lips curled. "Not that being an exception is a bad thing. If you want to advance further, bowing and scraping isn't the way to do it. Humans don't have our natural gifts. If they want to progress, they have to fight for it." She nodded at Akemi. "Good work. I'll take over from here."

"Thank you, my lady." Akemi bowed graceful and then turned to leave, but not before giving Antaria a mischievous grin. While the two of them were reasonably well-matched, Hikari was on a completely different level. The gap was so huge that if Hikari ever hit Antaria with a full strength blow, it wasn't a question of whether or not she'd die. It was a matter of how big a mess would be left behind.

Fighting the urge to shake her fist at Akemi - Filch was definitely rubbing off on her - Antaria turned her attention to Hikari. "What are you teaching me today?" she asked.

"You have adjusted well since arriving here," Hikari said. "And you have made commendable progress. I believe it is time to teach you something you would have learned earlier had things not gone so poorly at the end of the Sixth Age."

"Do you mean something your father came up with?" Antaria asked eagerly. Hikari had been teaching her more about her ancestor's empire, not simply its history but also how it had been governed. The realm of the kitsune had one foot in the physical world and the other in the Dreaming Lands, so Hikari was able to cram an amazing amount of information into Antaria's mind through lectures given while she was dreaming. It was similar to the approach that Doomwing had come up with, but as a nine-tailed kitsune, Hikari was even better at it than the dragon.

"Yes." Hikari gestured, and their surroundings faded away. Instead of the familiar courtyard of Hikari's residence, they were now in a training yard inside a large castle. Although the area outside the training yard was draped in mist, Antaria could just barely make out the silhouettes of towers and other buildings. "If you're curious, this is the training yard my father preferred to use when he held court as emperor. It was also where he taught me the style I'll be teaching you."

"I'll be learning your father's sword style?" Antaria's eyes gleamed. Hikari's father was a legend, the man who'd united countless human nations beneath one banner for the first time. Under his reign, humans had reached the peak of their power and prosperity. Following his death, that great empire had fragmented, with the various human nations fading into shadows of their former glory. "I'm ready."

"I hope so." Hikari flicked her wrist, and a sword appeared in her hand. "What you need to understand is that my father grew up a farmer's son. He did not have the luxury of learning swordsmanship from experienced soldiers or duellists although he would later make a point of learning from such people later on. Instead, when he first began to learn swordsmanship in earnest, he had no choice but to learn it from the only person willing to teach him." Hikari grinned impishly. "Can you guess who that was?"

Antaria's brows furrowed. A farmer's son? Who would be willing to teach a farmer's son? "A hunter from his village?"

"No."

"Perhaps a retired soldier he knew?"

"No." Hikari chuckled. "He learned from a friend, one he only befriended through a combination of immense luck and what most people would call complete idiocy."

Antaria gasped. "No... you don't mean...?"

"Yes. I do." Hikari's grin widened. "He learned swordsmanship from Doomwing. Now, don't get me wrong. Doomwing is a magnificent warrior, as skilled as any you'll ever meet, and he's an even better mage. However, he is also a dragon. As you can imagine, that means his views on swordsmanship are a little... biased."

"I bet they are," Antaria made a face and then lowered her voice in a bid to imitate Doomwing's voice. "What need have I for armour when my scales are stronger than any plate or mail? What need have I for a sword when my teeth and claws are sharper than any blade? I am a dragon! I am Doomwing! I alone am enough!"

Hikari laughed. "That's not a bad impression - and you're not that far off when it comes to how Doomwing responded when my father asked him to teach him. Of course, Doomwing eventually relented. My father could be very persistent, and I imagine his swordsmanship was such an eyesore that Doomwing taught him just to avoid having to look at it any further." She lifted her sword and started down the length of the blade. "My father's swordsmanship was designed by a dragon to help a human. As such, it was not meant for slaying other humans although it is also extremely good at that. Instead, it was meant to help a human challenge and defeat foes that a human had no business beating."

"I like the sound of that," Antaria replied. "And if I need to fight another human, there are plenty of styles that specialise in that." She clenched her fist. "Besides, the more powerful I become, the more I realise that the overwhelming majority of humans just aren't a threat to me anymore in anything even remotely resembling a fair fight. It's monsters and people with more power and experience that I have to worry about."

"Precisely so." Hikari gestured, and a man with blonde hair and violet eyes appeared in the courtyard beside them. It was her father, Elerion. "My father," she said. "I'll let him demonstrate while I explain."

At her words, the image of her father began to slowly move through a series of sword forms.

"Had my father not known Doomwing, he might have given his sword style a foolish name like 'Mountain-Splitting Sword' or 'Sky-Cleaving Blade'. However, knowing Doomwing, who actually can split mountains and cleave the sky, he decided to go for something less extravagant. He called it the 'Empire-Uniting Sword' because it was the swordsmanship that let him unite an empire. At its core, it is made up of two sets of offensive techniques and two sets of defensive techniques."

The image of Hikari's father brought his sword down with thunderous force, carving out a crater in the middle of the training yard. Antaria's eyes widened. That was an incredible amount of force for a human to generate, well beyond what she was capable of.

"The Armour-Splitting Sword is a set of techniques designed to defeat the opponent through overwhelming force. Essentially, you don't care if the opponent defends because you plan to completely crush their defence, splitting their armour or weapon and slaying them with unrelenting ferocity." The image of her father shifted to show him battling a drake. The reptile lunged, jaws snapping shut on empty air. Elerion pivoted, his magic bursting out of his body as he threw all of his weight into a single blow that didn't cleave through the drake's neck so much as it smashed right through its skull before ripping a trench in the ground below. "As you can see, it can be very effective."

Antaria nodded. "That's one way to put it." The drake had been roughly a hundred feet long, and Elerion had slain it in a single blow - and with power to spare, if the collateral damage was anything to go by.

"Of course, there are foes whose armour is too thick to simply break," Hikari said. "Against such foes, the techniques of the Armour-Evading Sword are more effective."

Instead of a drake, Elerion now faced some kind of giant armadillo. The monster rolled, trying to crush him. Elerion dodged, and the creature crashed into a hillside. Dirt and rock went flying, and the armadillo uncoiled, turning to face him again. It was then that Elerion struck. His blade flashed, and the armadillo reeled, blood pouring from its eyes, throat, and underbelly.

"Rather than overwhelming force, the Armour-Evading Sword seeks to target weak spots and vulnerabilities, striking with unerring accuracy and speed."

Antaria was definitely impressed by the accuracy and speed of the strikes, but she was more impressed by something else. "I saw the results of at least four strikes, but I only saw a single thrust."

"That means you still have a long way to go. Part of the Armour-Evading Sword is learning how to strike such speed and technique that what appears to be a single strike actually contains multiple attacks."

"And the defensive techniques?" Antaria asked.

"The Doom-Parrying Sword and the Doom-Avoiding Sword."

Antaria twitched. "Those names sound very suspicious."

"Who do you think my father practiced his swordsmanship against? From what he told me, he would spend hours each day striking at Doomwing or one of his clones, all while Doomwing critiqued his technique and occasionally counter attacked. As you can imagine, trying to block one of Doomwing's attacks or an attack from one of his clones would have been folly. Thus, he focused on parrying attack or avoiding them outright."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The image of Elerion shifted to a battle of him against a hydra. The four-headed beast unleashed streams of acid, with Elerion nimbly evading them. Now and then one of the heads would dart forward, only for Elerion to parry the assault.

"Did he beat the hydra?" Antaria asked.

"No," Hikari said. "But he did survive long enough for Doomwing to slay it with a single blow. Frankly, I think Doomwing only killed it because it had the temerity to stand its ground rather than having the good sense to beg for mercy and retreat when he arrived."

"That sounds like him," Antaria said. "So where will we begin?"

Hikari took up a stance of her own and dismissed the image of her father. "Do as I do. We will begin with the footwork for the Doom-Avoiding Sword. Since you have an affinity for wind and sky magic, you will likely take to it swiftly. More importantly, you can already hit hard enough to threaten most opponents you are likely to encounter. Dodging will not only provide you with openings you can exploit but also minimise the chances of you taking an attack you cannot withstand." Her eyes narrowed. "And don't think I haven't noticed your tendency to try to weather attacks to force openings. My father did the same. I suspect it is a product of your affinity for enhancement magic. It has worked reasonably well for you so far, but it will absolutely get you killed against more powerful opponents."

They practiced for what felt like hours before finally taking a break. Antaria sat on a chair, gulping down water and devouring food. After Doomwing's nightmarish training and her recent experiences against the kitsune that served Hikari, she had mastered the fine art of not vomiting up whatever she'd eaten earlier when struck. It was really one of her most impressive feats, allowing her to not starve to death despite being worked to exhaustion and pummelled each day. Hikari had compared her to a squirrel, albeit one who was able to digest food and drink much more swiftly than any regular squirrel.

"While you rest," Hikari said. "There's something else I'd like to teach you although I must warn you, it may be dangerous."

Antaria raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous? The fact that you're calling it dangerous makes me worry."

"Have you ever wondered why my father, who might well have been the most powerful human to ever live, still grew old?" Hikari asked. "Yes, he was old for a human, but with his power, why couldn't he have lived another century or two, setting aside, of course, the unfortunate end of the Sixth Age?"

"That's a good point," Antaria said. "Doomwing mentioned that once dragons get strong enough, they don't have to worry about ageing. The same is true for lots of other creatures. Are humans just unlucky then?"

"Yes and no. It comes down to the soul," Hikari said. "Simply put, human souls are not very durable. Doomwing has no shortage of elixirs and other items that can extend someone's lifespan, but they only affect the body. That's why he never gave any of them to my father. My father's body would have lived longer, but with a steadily weakening soul, he would have been closer to a lich than a human. My father didn't want that."

"So you've got to strengthen the soul then? But from what I know, that's pretty difficult," Antaria said. Everything she'd learned about the soul suggested it was incredibly hard to manipulate and any mistakes made manipulating it could be fatal... or worse.

"It's almost impossible for humans," Hikari replied. "For dragons, it occurs through Awakenings. For monsters, their Ascensions serve a similar purpose. For reasons only the gods know, humans cannot walk those paths. However, my father tried to make a path of his own. He did not succeed... but I do not think the approach he took was wrong."

Antaria leaned forward. "Tell me more."

"Souls are shaped by power and experience. Humans lack power, and they do not usually live long enough to acquire the experiences required to uplift a soul. Admittedly, a human might occasionally experience enough to uplift their soul, but the resulting injuries to the mind, body, and heart usually leave scars on the soul that more than counteract any benefits they provide. However, when my father met my mother, he realised there might be another way." Hikari bared her teeth. "Use illusions and the power of the Dreaming Lands to let a human experience more than they could possibly ever experience in a single lifetime. Because illusions are involved, it should be possible to avoid harming the body. However, the weight of those illusions... they would still affect the mind and heart since the experiences needed to uplift the soul are... tough."

"I can imagine." Antaria could. The soul was like a blade. It had to be tempered in fire and beneath the hammer blows of a life full of struggle and tribulation. "The sort of experiences needed to uplift a human soul, they'd probably drive someone insane or leave them emotionally scarred for life."

"Indeed, which was why my mother was so reluctant to try it on my father. However, my father devised a solution. A dream. He needed a dream to aspire to, a dream that would serve as both sword and shield in the midst of even the most terrible of illusions, a dream that would let him weather all the worst horrors and cut through all the toughest challenges. As long as my father's mind and heart held firm, as long as that dream never died, then there was a chance he could uplift his soul."

"Doomwing never mentioned this," Antaria murmured.

"He didn't know about it," Hikari said quietly. "It was to be my father's gift to him. After all, there are few things that Doomwing dislikes so much as losing his friends. Extending his lifespan and opening a proper path to Ascension would have been the greatest gift that my father could have given him, a way to repay him for all the grace he'd been shown. Alas, it never came to be."

"What happened?" Antaria asked. "From everything you've told me, your father's strength of will and determination were unshakeable. Even Doomwing says he was impressive in those areas."

"His dream died," Hikari said. "And it left a scar on his soul that nothing could heal."

"What was his dream?" Antaria asked.

"It wasn't anything spectacular. He didn't dream of an eternal empire whose glory never faded. No. My father was born a farmer's son, and his dream reflected that." Hikari's smile was soft and bitter. "He dreamed of a life with me and my mother and with all his friends and family. A life like that... a life so full of love and warmth... he wanted that life to go on forever and ever. That was his dream. And it died the day my mother went mad. It died the day she became the Sixth Catastrophe and tried to murder or enslave all of my father's friends and family. My father didn't die when she betrayed everyone, but the scar that betrayal left... his soul never healed from it. His ageing had begun to slow before that, but afterward... seeing what she'd become, knowing what she'd done, and realising that he'd missed it, that he hadn't see the changes until it was too late... even if he hadn't perished in that final battle, I doubt he would have lived more than a decade longer."

"Damn." Antaria didn't know what else to say. "Then...?"

"I don't know if my father's technique would have worked. It never got a chance to reach completion. But... of all his descendants, you're the one who reminds me the most of him. If you're willing to try, I am too."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"You'll probably go insane... or worse."

"And if it does work?" Antaria asked.

"You'd be the first human to ever truly set foot on the road to Ascension." Hikari smiled again. "You might even be the first human to truly surprise Doomwing."

Antaria laughed. "Can you imagine the look on his face if this actually works?" Her expression grew serious. "But I'll need a dream... something that can't die."

"You'll have to find it for yourself, but I will give you a piece of advice. Don't choose a dream that relies on others," Hikari said. "Instead, choose a dream that only death can take from you."

Antaria was silent, but she already had an inkling of what her dream might be. In her mind's eyes, she could see it: the sky, boundless and free. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see the sky in every part of the world? And why stop at one world? There were other worlds out there. Doomwing had said as much. What could be better than living long enough and growing strong enough to stare up at unfamiliar skies?

"I might have something in mind."

"Good. The training involved will be harder than anything you've endured so far. I hope you're ready."

Antaria nodded. "I hope so too." She paused. "Um... we're not starting right now, are we?"

Hikari sighed. "Of course not. There is a lot of theory you have to learn first, not to mention preparatory work regarding your magic, mental state, and so on. If improving your soul was a simple as throwing your mind into the most hideously painful illusions possible, there would have been Ascended humans popping up all over the place during the Sixth Catastrophe."

"Ah. Right." Antaria scratched the back of her head. "So what now?"

Hikari straightened, and her nine tails unfurled behind her, spreading out like the ribs of a folding fan. Each tail held a sword, and she now held a sword in each hand.

"We continue practicing the Doom-Avoiding Sword. Your earlier practice should have given you some grasp of the basic footwork. Now, we see if you can put it to use."

Antaria stared. "What kind of fighting style is that?"

"The Eleven-Fold Path of Destruction." Hikari smirked. "Technically, I should be using eleven different weapons, all with magical properties of their own, but I decided to go a little easy on you since this will be your first day practicing the footwork."

"..." Antaria's face contorted before she sighed. "Fine. It could be worse, I suppose."

Hikari's smirk widened. "Indeed, it could be. One of the other styles I use is called the 'Shadowless Sword'."

"I'm afraid to even ask..."

"It's a style that uses illusions to completely fool and confuse the opponent, deceiving all of their senses, so they cannot even tell how they are being attacked or even if they're being attacked at all. When used properly, the opponent dies without ever realising what happened." HIkari shrugged. "You've got a long way to go before you're ready to face something like that. And, naturally, it can be combined with the Elven-Fold Path of Destruction."

"That sounds like an absolute nightmare," Antaria. "What sort of opponent would you need something like that for?"

A bitter-sweet smile crossed Hikari's lips. "Ask Doomwing. My mother, the Sixth Catastrophe, used that style against him, along with her full panoply."