I had blanked out for a second. It was not true unconsciousness like a human would experience, instead it was the sudden realization that I could die. Mortality. I could feel pain. I could be hurt. That realization, that sensation, sent a thrill up my spine. For the first time since I woke up in Dracula's body, there was a change. A paradigm shift, a block that had been pushed out of place.
Dracula was strong.
I was strong. However, I was not invincible, and while there had been nothing that could truly challenge me in the previous world, the more I traveled, the more likely I was to meet more powerful enemies. I had not expected to come to this realization so soon. After all, Planetos was not a world that could inspire dread in a figure like Dracula. Still, to be blindsided like this...
Outside I could hear the clash of weapons as Isaac and Gerion fought, the scrape of steel against scale, the wet sound of flesh tearing. The thought suddenly struck me, what was I still doing under this rubble, lost in thought? I was being hampered, my thoughts and reactions slowed by the morality and consciousness that was my human self.
Then I heard it. A scream, one that was as fueled with anger as it was with pain. One of my people was hurt. Isaac, my ever faithful servant. Marwyn, a sorcerer with more curiosity than sense. Or Gerion, poor, tortured Gerion, who had already suffered too much in this cursed land.
The thought of them falling to harm lit a fire in my belly. They were mine under my protection. And I had been lying here, buried under stone, contemplating philosophy while they bled.
Unacceptable.
I drew in a breath and roared a single word. "Enough."
Then I flexed, pushing upward and to the side with the full power of my vampiric frame. The rubble that had buried me, stone fused by dragonfire, harder than steel, gave way like rotted wood. The entire collapsed building exploded outward, and I rose through the dust and debris like a pale specter of death.
My coat was torn. My hair was matted with stone dust and ash. My ribs ached where they'd been broken and had only just finished knitting back together.
I had never felt more alive.
Through the settling dust, I could see them. Isaac stood with one arm hanging at an awkward angle, his wrist clearly broken. Blood ran from a dozen cuts across his face and arms. Gerion looked ready to collapse, only his grip on Brightroar keeping him upright. Marwyn cowered behind a chunk of wall, clutching the pack with the dragon eggs like his life depended on it.
They had fought well. Better than I'd expected, honestly. They'd survived against impossible odds, buying time for me to recover.
That was enough. More than enough.
"Leave," I said, my voice calm despite the anger simmering beneath. "Take the eggs. Take everything you can carry and go back to the castle."
Isaac opened his mouth to argue, of course he did, loyal to a fault, but I cut him off with a look.
"Now, Isaac. This fight is mine."
I watched them gather what they could and retreat, Isaac supporting Gerion, Marwyn clutching his precious cargo. Good. They were safe. That was all that mattered.
Only then did I turn my full attention to the sorcerer and his wyrm.
The creature had pulled itself fully onto the road, its massive body coiled and ready. Magma dripped from its scales like sweat, hissing where it hit the ground. The sorcerer fused to its back watched me with his four golden eyes, his burned face twisted into something between a snarl and a smile.
When he spoke, his voice was like grinding stone. His Valyrian was accented in a way I'd never heard, yet I knew it was the native tongue, even broken as it was. "You... survived. Impressive. But... useless. I... will... kill... you. I... will... find... them... Take... everything... back."
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the last of my ribs click into place. The pain was already fading, my body repairing itself with the efficiency that came with centuries of undeath. "You're welcome to try," I said, allowing myself a small smile. "Though I wished for an actual conversation. I have questions, however, I suppose I would have to beat you senseless before I get any answers worth my time. For example, what caused the Doom?"
It felt like I had touched a nerve, the reminder of the Doom, what he had gained, then lost. The sorcerer's face contorted first with surprise, then pain, before finally transitioning into rage. Whatever sanity he'd maintained through four hundred years of agony and isolation snapped in that moment. He screamed something that transcended words and shifted into pure rage, and the wyrm lunged forward with all the force of its massive bulk behind it.
I didn't move. Not yet.
The wyrm closed the distance in seconds, its jaws opening wide enough to swallow me whole. I could see down its throat, could see the magma churning in its belly. The heat radiating from it was intense enough to make the air shimmer around it, and still I stood, body loose and unworried in the face of inevitability. This time, I was not hampered by a combination of worrying about the men I led, nor was this an ambush.
This was a fight in truth. So at the last possible moment, I moved.
It was almost casual, a small shift to the side, and I sidestepped the lunge. One moment I was in the wyrm's path, the next I was beside it, my right hand snapped out, my fingers closed around one of its front legs, right where the radius, humerus, and ulna met, and I pulled.
The wyrm's momentum did most of the work. Its leg twisted as it was pulled into a curve from an uncomfortable position. Bone grinding against bone unnaturally till it couldn't take it anymore as its elbow snapped under my hands, and the creature crashed to the ground hard enough to crack the dragonstone road beneath it. A cloud of ash and dust rose from the impact, and I was greeted by the surprised yell of the twisted sorcerer.
Before it could recover, before it could even process what had happened, I was already moving. My boot-clad feet raced across the broken dragon road so fast that I didn't leave any footsteps behind me and when I got to the wyrm, I hit it like a cannon.
My fist drove into its side, between two of its glowing scales. The impact sent shockwaves through my arm, but the wyrm got the worse end of it. Scales cracked like pottery, and I felt flesh give way beneath my knuckles. The wyrm screamed in pain, a sound that was half roar, half hiss of escaping steam, but I had not even gotten started.
I hit it again, in the same place. Then again. Each blow landed with the force of a siege weapon, pulping flesh and shattering bone. Black blood mixed with molten rock was sent flying, some of it splashing upon me while the rest sprayed across the scorched ground, hissing and bubbling where it landed.
The wyrm thrashed beneath me, trying to throw me off, trying to bring its tail or jaws around to catch me. But I was already moving, staying ahead of its desperate attempts at defense. Every time it moved, I was there, my fists finding the gaps in its armor, exploiting every weakness its massive frame brought to bear.
This was what I was. What Dracula was. Monstrously powerful, on a level not even a monster that had survived for over four hundred years in Valyria had an answer to. A predator that had spent centuries perfecting the art of killing before he retired and turned scientist and scholar.
The sorcerer on the wyrm's back was screaming something in Valyrian, his words lost in the chaos. I could see panic in his four golden eyes, yet his words had not been random. I felt it more than I saw it, a wave of magic, twisted and corrupted as it was, hit me with the force of a gust of wind, and for a second, I was forced to slow.
My arms, that had been shooting forward like javelins shot from a harpoon launcher, slowed all of a sudden, and for the first time, the wyrm had a chance to breathe. Its tail shot out, and with my movements slowed, I simply braced, overriding my instincts to dodge out of the way. My arms shot up in a guard position, protecting my head and shoulder, then the tail hit me.
The blow reverberated through my body. If I was human, or unaware, I would have been sent flying like previously, but now I was prepared for it, so instead the force of the attack sent me skidding away as my boots dug grooves into the earth, until I was inches away from the gaping pit behind me.
I straightened up and looked at my arms. There was a dull throb of pain, but already it was receding. Whatever spell the sorcerer had cast on me had also been broken by the attack.
I raised my head and stared the sorcerer in the eye. "If this is all you can amount to, no wonder your civilization was brought to ruin."
I whispered it in smooth Valyrian, and the sorcerer stilled. The expression I could see on his face, twisted as it was, surpassed surprise. It was pure, undiluting shock. Then, like the words were slowly beginning to make sense, his features began to twist further and further. Four eyes bulged out of their sockets, black wriggling veins prominent beneath the skin as it stared at me with a single emotion on its face.
Unbridled hatred.
I already knew mentioning the doom was a sore spot, but this... He let out a scream of rage, and I could see plain cracks in his demeanor. Whatever strength and confidence he had was gone, replaced by something primal, and an arrogant smirk spread across my lips in response.
Then I felt it. The gathering of chaos, and not just in the sorcerer's hands, but throughout his entire body. There was a sudden density to the air, a saturation that would have instantly mutated any mundane man or woman in the vicinity. The veins of molten rock running through the sorcerer's flesh began to pulse faster as it slowly began to grow further upward, writhing like it was alive.
He should not have been able to channel such chaos, but he was cheating by using the Magma wyrm both as a reservoir and as a filter, I concluded.
The very air around us shimmered with heat, and even without knowing the exact spell he was about to cast, I could already infer it.
Fire erupted from his palms. Fire so hot it burned pure white, hot enough that the wyrm beneath it began to roar in pain from the proximity. The heat was tremendous, and for the second time, I could feel something more than a dull throb. Parts of my exposed skin immediately began to redden and blister. The edges of my coat, the least protected by the magical enchantments woven into the fabric, caught fire, giving me a tail of flames.
This was a suicide attack. I could see it in the sorcerer's eyes. He was ready to die now, despite surviving for centuries untold. That single taunt had struck at something so deep in him.
We locked eyes, and my attempt at skin changing was rebuffed immediately, and this time it did not even seem like a conscious effort. To stay here was to die with him. Even with my speed, I could tell that the moment the spell was unleashed, my chances of escaping were low.
Still, I should have let go. I should have retreated, found another angle of attack. That would have been the smart, tactical choice.
But I was angry. Angry at being ambushed. Angry at the men underneath my protection being hurt. Angry at this pathetic creature who thought he could challenge me. I was fucking Dracula fucking Tepes.
So instead of doing the smart thing and retreating, I took a step forward and did something I did not even know I could do.
I caught the fire.
My hands shot out, fingers spreading wide, and I grabbed the flames as if they were half solid and half liquid things. They resisted at once, writhing in my grip like living creatures as they tried their best to consume me and every single thing, both organic and inorganic, around us.
The pain was sharp and intense, and my palms began to char, flesh blackening as I tried to contain what seemed like a themobaric explosion released and fueled by hate. But I held on. All the chaos magic I had siphoned from Gerion and stored without an outlet sprang to life, and just like the fire, the magic moved as if it were alive, empowering my movement and my will, and then I squeezed.
The flames compressed under the pressure of my chaos-stained will, and like an animal that had been caged, they struggled to escape my grasp. They lashed out, slipping through the gaps beneath my fingers, yet the more I squeezed, the further they were compressed and condensed as I forced them to shrink.
Winds blew around me, superheated air that somehow managed to dry even the lava flow that the sorcerer had appeared from, and through all of that, I still squeezed. My hair was blown back, the well-maintained mane thrown into a frenzy, and through it all the sorcerer looked at me with wide, unbelieving eyes.
I stared back at the sorcerer with a mad grin on my face, exhilaration in the face of the madness I had conjured, and the sorcerer's eyes narrowed in understanding. He knew what I was about to do.
He screamed and tried to wrench himself free, his fused body straining against the wyrm's spine, but it was too late.
"Let me return this."
I finally brought my palms together, enclosing the whole of the explosion in my grip. The resulting sphere was no larger than my fist, but it contained all the concentrated fury of the sorcerer's attack. It pulsed in my fist, eager to be released.
I moved.
My feet tore across the dried and broken road so fast the world turned into a blur and streak around me. One moment I was at the mouth of the great pit, holding the compressed fire. The next moment I was in front of the wyrm, eye level with its massive chest.
The wyrm stared at me with dull eyes. There was confusion there, at its prey fighting back more than it expected. The thought that such a stupid creature thought me prey.
I braced, my feet digging into the ground for traction, and then I swung, my fist disappearing into a blur as I buried it in the wyrm's chest, right in front of where I could feel its massive heart beating.
Then I ripped my hand back and blurred away from the creature, narrowly dodging the slow spell the sorcerer had shot out a split second after.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The wyrm just stood there, frozen, as if it could not quite process the injury of my fist digging elbow-deep into its chest.
Then it detonated.
The explosion came from inside the creature, and still I felt it through my bones. I felt the moment the compressed fire let loose all its pent-up energy at once. The wyrm's chest bulged outward, scales cracking and flying away like shrapnel. A gout of fire, blood, and molten rock sprayed from its mouth and nostrils. Its roar turned into a gurgling, wet sound as its lungs collapsed and its heart ruptured.
The force of the internal explosion was dampened by the wyrm's physiology, but no matter how reinforced, gene-forged, and enhanced the creature was, no matter its resistance to fire, a resistance that had allowed it to survive swimming in the depths of a volcano, nothing could prepare it for what felt like a sun coming to life in its chest.
With a final gurgle, the wyrm exploded.
I swung my cape in front of me at once and shifted my stance as the force and heat of the explosion slammed into me, but I remained unmoved as I rode the worst of the blast. My ears were still ringing when I finally let my cape down to see it had been badly charred.
My heart came to life as blood flowed once more, and I slowly began to recover my hearing as my eardrums healed. I looked down at my hands. They were a ruin. The flesh was blackened and charred, burned down to the bone in some places.
It hurt. Not the sharp, immediate pain of a fresh wound, but a deep, throbbing ache that pulsed with each beat of my undead heart as my regeneration split its attention between healing them and my ears. I prioritized my hands, and with a mental flick, muscles and tendons began to grow back, with skin slowly filling in.
I could feel what little blood reserves I had take a dip, but I still had enough to keep me moving.
I couldn't keep starving myself out of some flawed sense of morality.
I flexed my fingers experimentally, heartbeats later, and I felt the charred skin crack and flake away as new skin pushed through.
This was the first time I was testing Dracula's regeneration in truth, and it was baffling to witness.
Then I heard it. My ears had healed enough that I could at least pick up the sound of a wet, rattling wheeze that might have been breathing. The dust ahead was beginning to settle, and through the haze, I could see chunks of the wyrm that had somehow managed to survive the implosion.
But that was not my focus.
My focus lay in the broken mess, deep in the crater of obsidian that was the rapidly dried lava flow. The sorcerer was an ugly, broken-down eyesore. I did not think the figure could have found a way to look more horrible, but I had been proven wrong as its single working arm twitched while it tried to drag itself away from the crater.
Unfortunately for it, that sole limb was barely functional and not enough to move its body.
I started walking toward it, some part of my mind wondering how it had managed to even survive the implosion, considering how connected the two creatures had been. There was no hurry in my movements. The battle had come to an end, the outcome already decided.
All that remained was the execution.
And I had no plans to let the sorcerer simply die, not when I was curious about the spells it had used. Spells fueled by chaos, not by blood as Dracula preferred. Oh, I would take my time wringing out every secret it had.
I'm certain my favorite Other would like a cellmate. A true song of Ice and Fire. The thought brought a soft chuckle in my lips, one that ended a second later.
My movements turned jerky as my ears finally healed, healed enough that I could hear the massive wingbeats in the sky. I looked up and caught the massive silhouette of a dragon in the clouds.
Another challenger.
I felt my lips twitch, and in the sky above us, a thunderous roar rang out, echoing across the entire broken peninsula.
When it rains, it pours.