Dragon's Blood
Dragon's Blood
Unique Magic.
This was a perk acquired upon reaching 10 Mana.
It granted the possessor a selection of magic drawn from their existing skills and spell configurations.
And that Unique Magic was, as its name implied, wholly unique.
Magic of a kind never once discovered anywhere in the history of Geladrion, in any era.
The sole province of the 'protagonist.' That was Unique Magic.
One such magic, Domination, possessed a simple but overwhelmingly powerful function.
Aslan widened his stance slightly and settled into a posture. Words rang out.
"The trial by combat for the criminal, Aslan, shall now commence."
The proclamation came from behind him, from a position even higher than the spectator stands.
Twenty Dragon-kin sat there, each in their appointed seat.
All bore the marks of advanced age, grizzled veterans who each carried the title of Head.
A master artisan who had once defined an era, Belus Alpen's preeminent swordsman, a former Grand Marshal, and the highest-ranking shaman among the Dragon-kin—a grand sorcerer of peerless skill and standing.
The title of Head was the seat granted to such figures after they had grown old.
Thus, they represented the wisest and most respected collective in all of Belus Alpen.
Their power ranked second only to the Heart's. The Council of Elders.
One of their number rose from her seat.
A female Dragon-kin of dark crimson scales, her face draped in a veil. She pointed a finger at Aslan and spoke.
"This trial by combat, to prove the innocence of the accused Aslan, is vouched for by me, Nermul Head. May the Great Flame look down upon us with favor."
The clatter of steel echoed. Aslan turned his head to find a Dragon-kin who had finished his preparations.
Standing two and a half meters tall, his full-body armor left not a single gap. The axe in his grip was of the highest craftsmanship.
An opponent impossible to defeat with a blunt iron sword alone. There were other methods, of course, if killing was the goal, but Aslan understood that killing solved nothing here.
Proof was required.
What needed proving in this tiresome piece of theater was the divinity Aslan now held in his hand.
No one had explicitly demanded it, but Aslan had caught on.
He had already laid the groundwork. Feeling the immense mana coiling around his body, he rotated his sword in a slow circle.
His opponent was a Dragon-kin clad in heavy plate. In physical ability, a Dragon-kin could easily crush a human. Layered with plate armor, his defenses were peerless.
Ordinarily, Aslan would kill such an opponent with the Knight Slayer technique, but his purpose today was not death.
So Aslan walked forward with loose, unhurried strides.
Wearing no armor at all, clad only in cloth, gripping a single dull longsword.
Clang!
They clashed. Aslan deflected the descending axe-blade with his longsword, turning it aside with a glancing impact and the force of his wrist alone to drive it into the sand.
His eyes gleamed through the spray of grit and dust.
Three more exchanges followed. He caught the rising reverse slash on his sword's forte, then ducked low beneath a horizontal swing, deflecting it to the side.
The Dragon-kin's kick lashed out to reclaim the momentum of the parried blow. The trajectory of that traditional martial art, once even employed by a Dragon-king, was a sight Aslan could evade blindfolded after countless precognitive warnings.
But he didn't evade.
Aslan had a performance to maintain.
So he raised his sword and blocked. A sharp ring of metal, and Aslan was shoved backward.
The blade was already beginning to rattle in its hilt. Aslan noted this and charged forward to meet the assault regardless.
He thrust his sword out to block squarely, absorbing the shock directly instead of deflecting it.
He even hammered his blade against the plate armor with furious strikes, deliberately inflicting damage.
Every movement was executed with a precision so fine that few among the elders could even notice.
"Guh...!"
The Dragon-kin serving as Aslan's opponent staggered. Aslan thrust his blade at the faltering figure.
Clang!
A stab. It struck precisely between the eyes of the helm. An attack that would have meant instant death without head protection. The Dragon-kin warrior found himself doubting whether this was truly an act, re-evaluating his instructions as he swung his axe.
Shrrrrriek!
A wild swing of the axe. Aslan met the horizontal blow squarely. At that moment, only the lone Dragon-kin warrior sensed something amiss.
The blocking blade snapped. More precisely, it was made to snap. With a grinding squeal, the notch in the axe-blade caught the flaw in the sword-blade, and it broke.
The severed blade spun high into the air. Aslan offered no resistance to the brutal force wrenching the hilt from his grasp, simply letting go.
The hilt tumbled skyward. A sword reduced to just its grip signaled undeniable defeat.
As Dragon-kin who had failed to notice screamed for his death, Aslan closed his eyes.
'Domination.'
Domination's effect was simple.
It commanded space, exerting a physical, telekinetic force within that domain.
The level of that physical force scaled with the user's own skill.
In the hands of someone with Aslan's level of combat mastery, it would feel as if he possessed several extra arms.
And no being within this space could possibly perceive the magic.
Unique Magic was, by definition, unique.
Magic granted only to Aslan alone in all of Geladrion.
Aslan's tattoos glowed azure, and dense mana saturated the air.
Even the Dragon-kin warrior, utterly incapable of sensing mana, felt a shudder from the overwhelming force. His axe halted mid-stroke, and the corner of Aslan's mouth quirked upward.
A sensation of tendrils spreading out through space. As awareness branched outward like taking root, Aslan opened his eyes and extended an invisible, unseen hand.
The sword hilt stopped dead in the air.
"Purity."
The word was a murmur. At the sound, the hilt blazed with light.
Suspended in midair, the hilt drew all eyes as it began to shine.
A blade was forged outward from the grip.
The hilt itself transformed. Tempered in white-hot flames, the blade swiftly took shape.
A strange sword: its blade possessed the length and breadth of a greatsword, yet its grip was short, suited for one hand alone.
Yet the platinum-hued metal and holy aura that constituted the weapon made it feel not like a bizarre failure, but an auspicious, sacred relic.
Purity, unmistakably a holy artifact, hung in the void for a moment before plunging downward.
Claaaaang!
The Dragon-kin's axe caught Purity's descent.
As the axe held firm without yielding ground, the warrior quickly withdrew his weapon and sucked in a breath. Aslan, in contrast, reached out with languid ease and grasped Purity.
The grip settled into his palm as comfortably as if made for him from the start.
Despite the heavy blade, its superb balance allowed Aslan to wield Purity one-handed.
The sword, spun by the strength of his wrist with the freedom of a dagger, came to rest at his side.
"Stand down and withdraw. No need for force."
As soon as Aslan murmured, white light blazed forth, seizing the air.
A cut was made. The plate armor, forged by Belus Alpen's masterful smithing, split apart in a single stroke. The blade parted only armor and weapon, leaving the wearer unscathed.
The 'actor' who had faced an impossible situation froze, and the Dragon-kin who had been shouting curses fell silent.
The circumstances had been unnatural from the start, so their shock was inevitable.
A broken sword had descended from the sky, made itself whole, and planted itself before Aslan—an omen of profound auspiciousness, and its power had proven transcendent.
The people, who deeply revered the God of Fire and Smithing, began to murmur. There was no rancor in the exchanged words, only the sharing of knowledge as they tried to grasp what they had witnessed.
One elder, who had been observing Aslan's trial by combat, seized the perfect moment.
"Look there!"
He cried out. Though the exclamation was sudden, the Dragon-kin's attention snapped to him at once.
An elder with white scales and hands where the scales had peeled away.
Seeing every gaze fixed on him, he spoke.
"Fire and Smithing, our great Father, manifests here before us!"
He stretched out his hand as he spoke, pointing directly at Purity in Aslan's grip.
"Behold that sword! Its beauty beyond the mortal realm, and its might that cleaves even steel!"
Aslan exhaled and raised the sword slightly. The Dragon-kin's eyes tracked Purity.
It had the blade of a greatsword, but the grip of a one-handed weapon. By rights, it should have been unwieldy beyond all reason, yet Aslan handled it as if it were a dagger.
The elder seized on that detail to sway the crowd.
"Witness that balance no mortal could forge, that perfection which clove steel and yet shows not a single nick! This is proof that the sword is divine!"
The elder shouted, feigning fervent excitement. The Dragon-kin, most of whom had at least some training in smithing, murmured their assent.
"Surely this is a revelation from the Great Flame, sparing this foreigner's life!"
No sooner had the elder finished than another rose from her seat.
The shaman who had declared her support for Aslan before the trial began.
As she stood, the white-scaled elder with the scaled hands gestured toward her.
"When Elder Nermul Head claimed to have seen the god's will, that this foreigner must live and drink the Dragon's Blood, I could not comprehend it at first... but now I understand! My beloved kinsmen! Fire and Smithing has shown his will twice to his slow-witted children, fortifying his purpose beyond doubt!"
With those words, the elder vaulted from his seat.
He landed with a soft curve of motion, light on his feet. The elder, visibly a seasoned warrior at a glance, descended into the arena and approached Aslan.
Aslan shot him a look that plainly asked if all this was truly necessary. The elder returned a faint smile at the expression.
He stepped close, seized Aslan's wrist, and lifted it without a shred of hesitation, hoisting the sword high, despite the sigh Aslan released.
"We, the twenty elders, acting as the Head of Belus Alpen, pronounce Aslan innocent!"
The Dragon-kin still peering down into the arena looked bewildered, but the evidence was unmistakable.
Aslan had been chosen by an Ancient God.
No Evil God could ever produce such a blade.
Even so, lingering questions remained. As a few Dragon-kin rose to voice them, the elder merely shifted his eyes to glance at them before placing a hand on Aslan's shoulder.
"Yet we must ask, noble one. Why did the Dragon-king have to be executed?"
Aslan's expression flickered with reluctance, then smoothed away.
"Dragon-king Bahamut Heart had lived for a thousand years. More than that, he was a high priest of the Predator. Fire and Smithing commanded me to deliver punishment upon him, and I merely carried out that will."
At the courteous reply, the elder put on a look of shock.
It was a sly expression, unmistakably theatrical to Aslan, who stood close enough to see.
Taking in the sight, Aslan's gaze drifted toward the seats where the elders were gathered.
They were pretending to hold grave, urgent discussions, as if overwhelmed by the news Aslan had delivered.
That, too, was surely an act. A hunch taking root, Aslan narrowed his eyes slightly.
'They knew.'
The Council of Elders had known Bahamut Heart was a high priest. Aslan took that in, his expression grim, and the elder, reading that look, answered with a bitter smile.
That smile clarified the situation for Aslan more accurately than any words could.
The strength of a high priest defied all norms.
Even the Ereta of old had possessed the power to incinerate an entire city.
That was only a high priest of the relatively weaker Three Evil Gods, yet the Dragon-king had been a high priest of the Predator—a true god.
A high priest of the Predator, who grows ever stronger with time, and who had lived for a millennium.
Even Aslan, who had achieved considerable growth, had barely managed to kill him after a chain of flukes, miracles, sheer luck, and brushes with death.
Dragon-king Bahamut Heart was such a formidable foe that a second victory was by no means guaranteed.
If that was the case even for Aslan, the elders' decision had been a wise one.
The Dragon-king, at least until Aslan exposed him, had shown no apparent inclination to harm the city.
From the perspective of protecting the city and its people, it was a rational choice.
Simply not siding with the priest was, in itself, far more than could be expected.
Standing aside when one lacked the strength was never a sin.
Reading Aslan's eyes, which held something just short of absolution, the elder cracked a slight grin.
A grin that felt ominously foreboding.
And indeed, the elder seized Aslan's wrist again and hoisted it high.
"Dragon's Blood now flows through this man's heart! Fire and Smithing has chosen him, and with the same blood as ours coursing through his heart, we, the twenty members of the Council, have resolved to accept him as a kinsman!"
A shouted proclamation. Even Aslan was caught off guard. As his eyes widened, the watchers in the stands erupted into loud murmurs and shouts.
The cries were half affirmative, half outraged.
The elder seemed to savor the reaction, looking at Aslan with gentle eyes before lowering his arm.
Then he placed his hand on Aslan's shoulder. Mana flowed from five scale-sheathed fingers, tracing across Aslan's shoulder and onward to Purity.
"Henceforth, your surname shall be Flametongue. A flame sent forth by Fire and Smithing, to burn the blasphemers."
As Aslan's expression shifted to bewilderment, the elder's mana, which had been flowing across Purity, ignited.
Whoooosh!
Purity blazed to life, revealing its existence in tongues of white flame. As its radiance spilled in all directions, the elder turned toward the people and shouted.
"Behold! Fire and Smithing himself has accepted him as his own child!"
Geladrion was a world where gods truly existed. Their traces and footprints were tangible, and the touch of the Evil Gods squeezed the world without rest.
In such a world, a divine miracle was inevitably accepted as irrefutable truth.
Amid a crowd stunned into silence or erupting into murmurs, Aslan grasped the situation and let out a sigh.
He shot the elder an irate glare, but the elder merely answered with a hearty laugh and a nod.
A nod that implied no better option lay ahead. Aslan, with grudging acceptance, raised the sword high.
The white-burning blade hung aloft, and through the descending sunlight, Purity radiated with dazzling splendor.