Chapter 17 - The Dragon God
The wind brushed past the massive emerald Dragon as he flew through the skies with a grace that defied his mass. He truly was a sight of pure beauty to behold, and an awe inspiring being of unimaginable power.
It was slowly starting to creep into Kareah's mind just how much the Dragon Hunter had underestimated her newest counterpart. He was younger, she'd been doing this for a few years now so the theory in her logic was that she'd killed more Dragons than he had, which she now wasn't totally convinced was true.
If she'd been doing it longer and had a higher kill count then surely that meant she'd amassed far more strength than he had, right? Perhaps, but she hadn't been a Demi-god before opening that wretched box so her power hadn't exactly melded to anything other than her own mortal soul.
He'd at least been wrong about one thing, she wasn't quite as 'Human' as he'd assumed. She was tipping the scales more towards mortal than anything else but her blood was a mixture of the old deities that ruled the darker realms.
And yet despite everything she was quickly realizing with each passing moment that she would never be as powerful as he was, and he still had a long way to go to succeed with his plan.
His 'plan' she knew without having had to have been told, it was a complete rebirth of their world, the Dragon world, that involved the sacrifice of all of the Ancient souls, all twelve of them.
That included hers and his.
She wondered if he'd told that little Goddess of his about his true intentions to absolve the Dragons and save them through redemption. She expected that if nothing else then he would have likely used some clever word play to mask his true intentions and not give her any cause for suspicion.
"Does the silver Goddess know of your plan?" She asked once she'd gotten close enough to him that he'd have heard her. Her voice in her true form was fairly similar if not a bit more gravely due to the size increase in her vocal chords.
"No. Nor will I tell her until the time is right. Now is not that time. Drop the subject, we're only a few hundred miles away from the disturbance and it's changing heading, I've got a feeling that Leviathan knows we're coming." Percy explained, nodding towards the horizon.
Kareah couldn't see whatever he was nodding to, if that was the case for him, but she could feel a rising pressure faintly pulling towards her whole body coming from the exact location he'd been talking about.
It had only been a few minutes at most before they'd stopped pressing forwards. Great wings beating against the skies to keep them aloft. The surface of the sea broke apart, giving way to a gargantuan head. It was light green, reflective of the waters it shrouded itself in. It had jagged plates of armour covering it's skin, they'd have worried about the thickness of that armour if they hadn't been so sheer in scale. In the midst of the face were two bright blue orbs that were reminiscent of small islands made of pure sapphire.
"How in the actual fuck are we supposed to fight that!? It's head is like a dozen times bigger than Ddraig's whole body!" Kareah moaned, not liking the unfathomable scale of Leviathan's body.
The massive sea Dragon soon dipped it's head and the rest of it's serpentine body followed. It took a good thirty seconds before the whole creature had recessed back into the depths.
"I have an idea but it's a REALLY fucking back one." Percy announced in response after a few moments of consideration. "Hold still, this isn't going to be graceful OR dignified for either of us, so apologies in advance." The Dragon Hunter grumbled slightly before flapping his wings to move forwards.
Kareah did as instructed and stayed put, keeping herself in the same position without fail. In an instant Percy had barrelled out of her vision. She could hear some distinct noises of pain from behind her before she felt some light feet touch down on top of her head.
"Like I said, not dignified, I AM sorry for this." He told her, poking his human head over the precipice of where her eyes could see him standing on top of her head.
"Your plan better be good for you to do this." She snarled, contemplating blowing a cloud of fire at him, not that it would do anything at all.
"Why can't you just use whatever unfair power you used on me when you figuratively stabbed me in the heart and told me no?" She asked with a dead flat line of sarcasm in her tone which was harder to pick up due to her constrained draconic vocal chords.
"The Law of the Dragon." Percy nodded, "A small gift from Azazel's soul bonding with mine. It's a whole other level of strength coming from me though, so I guess, Law of the Dragon God? Anyway, not important. That power requires me to have a genuine sentiment of order, which for Leviathan, I do not. It also requires the intelligence of a Dragon and whilst that thing is most certainly one of us, I can't sense a shred of intelligence, just sheer primal monstrosity." Percy explained, looking at the darkness moving in the depths.
"So what exactly IS your plan?" Kareah asked, seeing that they were going around in apparent circles.
"Back when I was a Demi-god I had a famous sword that was capable of transforming into a pen and vice versa." Percy smiled as he rummaged around his pocket, "And just before I left my world behind for good I paid a visit to just one God, a God that I respected greatly, one that understood my need to leave my world behind. In that visit I laid Riptide to rest." Percy told her, a small smile gracing his lips as he pulled out a small length of brass no longer than his hand.
"Riptide was the sword. I laid it to rest as a permanent tribute to an old friend of mine, in the Garden of the Hesperides on a grave that I made. Anyway, in return for laying to rest the power in my sword that old God made me something else, something that to this day I've never once tried as it means that I'll be fully accepting who I used to be as well as who I have become." Percy announced slowly, just staring at the brass length in his hand.
It had a single indented button at the top, awaiting the press of it's master to be summoned to it's true form and finally used.
"Normally I'd one hundred percent not give a shit about this because it has nothing to do with our Leviathan sized problem but I am so invested in this." Kareah told him without a single trace of sarcasm.
"It IS relevant to what we're doing. Like I said before, this is a fight you cannot join in for, it's going to take a water Dragon to fight a water Dragon." Percy told her calmly, his demeanor was changing, becoming more serious with each passing moment.
It began to dawn on Kareah exactly what his plan was. "You cannot be serious!? You can't fight him down there all on your own, a water Dragon or not he will kill you." Kareah told him sharply, her eyes narrowing as she awaited his response.
"Perhaps, but then again…" He paused for no longer than a few seconds as he clenched on the brass rod and closed his eyes, the moment weighed down on him heavier than anything had for a long time.
This was it, this was the moment that all of those Gods had dreamed of for so long and they typically weren't going to be able to see it, not unless they were all watching through Iris, which wouldn't be unusual.
With a strong breath he finally gave in. "I'm not fighting as a Dragon." He whispered before pressing the button on the brass rod, the metal links exploding outwards as they expanded and changed colour to form a beautifully crafted sea green trident that kept building itself until it stood as tall as he did.
"I'm fighting as a God." He didn't wait around to hear what she had to say, instead he took the leap and dived head and trident first towards the waters, aiming right for the spot he knew Leviathan was roaming.
That was it, he'd finally said it out loud and accepted who he was. He WAS a God, he had been ever since opening that box, a Dragon? Yes, he was, but he was so far beyond the species that it was unfair. He sat in a pantheon of his own…
The Dragon God.
Now he was attending to one of his subjects. Kareah couldn't help but feel compelled by him. She had no idea that he'd been fighting against his own identity for that long.
She also had no idea that he really was above and beyond what she thought he was. He'd referred to himself as a Demi-god outside the Dragon Sanctuary so she'd naturally taken him at his word, but he'd really just been in denial.
Everything was clicking into place. It was clear in her mind but with the fact that he'd already turned her away, she was sure that she'd now never say it out loud.
Never admit it. She would NEVER admit that she was falling in love with the Dragon God. The one that she KNEW she would never get.
That silver Goddess was a lucky one. She couldn't even find a reason to hate the little Goddess, she'd clearly been with him enough for him to mark her as his, and surely it was the case for him as well.
A pure Goddess and a Dragon, it was almost ready to fail, yet she could already tell that it wouldn't stop either of them from trying.
Kareah was torn away from her thoughts when her attention was instead directed at the massive explosion of water from where Percy had assaulted the ocean with enough force to cause air waves to throw her around even miles in the sky.
She wasn't sure who she was supposed to be worried about anymore, it was clear that her perceptions of Percy's ability had been grossly undermining, he was even more powerful than she could imagine and it looked like it was going to be a far more even fight than anyone expected.
She just wished she could see what was happening, it was no doubt going to be a destructive battle of pure dominance if her instincts were anything to go by.
In that moment as she'd been trying to watch for signs of the fight under the waves her senses had all twinged at the same moment.
The twins had awoken.
That wasn't good.
A/N: So, for those who have figured it out; I'm going to keep focusing just on this and see if I can finish it while I'm stuck in my home for this shitty lock down.
Stay safe and review this chapter. - Health officials 2020.
