Bluespawn

"A devil? How is that possible?" Navi finally lost his composure. Looking up at the towering figure before him, he shook his head in disbelief. "Hahaha! Come on, round two!" Tiansheng Zhankuang roared, swinging his battleaxe through the air. Raging flames erupted from the bloodstained blade with terrifying fury. Trailing fire, the long-hafted axe carved a crimson crescent through the air, tearing through the atmosphere toward the bluespawn godslayer's neck. "Hmph! What if you are a devil?! We are the Mother Goddess's most prized warriors!" Navi's gaze sharpened once more. Raising his dragon-skull shield to guard his flank, he swung the bone sword in his right hand with all his might toward Tiansheng Zhankuang's crown, unleashing dazzling arcs of lightning. Yet before the bone sword could descend, Tiansheng Zhankuang's long-hafted axe crashed into the dragon-skull shield first. The immense force shattered the shield to pieces, sending Navi flying backward amid a shower of flying splinters. Surging forward in a roaring inferno, hellfire instantly engulfed the bluespawn godslayer. Tiansheng Zhankuang didn't press his advantage. Resting his axe at his side, he merely laughed wildly where he stood. "Is that all? These are Tiamat's warriors?" Within the flames, Navi threw his arms wide. Blinding lightning eclipsed the fire as multiple bolts crashed down from the sky. "Mongrel! I am a child blessed by Lady Tiamat! A warrior born of the storm!" The next moment, lightning crackling in his eyes and dense electric arcs coiling around his entire frame, the bluespawn godslayer lunged maniacally at Tiansheng Zhankuang, brandishing his bone sword with a savage snarl. At this point, he had completely abandoned defense, possessed by a single thought: rip this blasphemous mongrel to shreds and burn him to cinders! "Come on! Try and kill me!" Gripping the long-hafted axe in both hands, Tiansheng Zhankuang raised it high, cloaked in hellfire as he brought it chopping down head-on against the bluespawn godslayer. *Clang!!* Another explosive report rang out as two beings that could only be described as monsters collided. Axe crossed bone sword, hellfire clashed with thunder; in an instant, lightning flashed, thunder roared, and sparks flew everywhere. Twisting his body midair in a sudden pivot, Navi swept his bone sword whistling through the air, slashing toward Tiansheng Zhankuang's waist with crackling current. Tiansheng Zhankuang beat his wings, dodging backward abruptly, but the blade still grazed his abdomen, ripping open a long, gory slash from which crimson blood spurted. Feeling the chill across his stomach, Tiansheng Zhankuang's expression didn't waver in the slightest. He merely grinned, veins bulging along his arms as the long-hafted axe swept down at a diagonal, cleaving once more toward the bluespawn godslayer's neck. Deprived of his dragon-skull shield, Navi gritted his teeth and held the bone sword crosswise in both hands, barely parrying to his flank. *Boom!* The axe fell with terrifying force. Navi's arms sank violently under the impact, cold sweat drenching him as the blade bit almost all the way into the side of his neck. Tiansheng Zhankuang bared his teeth in another vicious grin. With a flick of his wrists, the axe shifted direction, grating harshly against the sword blade in a shower of blinding sparks. *Slash—* The long-hafted axe swept past the bluespawn godslayer's head, shearing right through the massive horn on the tip of his snout and slicing off a huge chunk of flesh, leaving his head a mangled, bloody mess. "Aaargh!" Clutching his bleeding snout, Navi stumbled backward in agony, letting out pained roars and whines while the lightning in his eyes dimmed considerably. "I've played enough! Time to end this!" Tiansheng Zhankuang flapped his wings and swung his axe, blurring into a crimson afterimage as he surged straight for the wounded bluespawn godslayer. A flash of axe light cleaved through the air. Blue scales scattered, and Navi's tail was severed clean off, blood gushing like a fountain from behind him. "Damned mongrel!" Spurred by agonizing pain, Navi whipped around in a frenzy, wildly flailing his bone sword—failing to notice that Tiansheng Zhankuang was already hovering above his head, long-hafted axe raised high. *Schwing—* The axe fell in a single clean sweep. Blood geysered amid the crash of thunder as the bluespawn godslayer's skull was cleaved down the center, split in two all the way to his chest. And so Navi perished. Before this bluespawn godslayer, gestated within a blue dragon, could give his all for his Mother Goddess, a highwayman player felled him with a single axe blow. The other two bluespawn godslayers fared no better. Xiaye Qiuyu hovered in midair, golden-red flames circling her body, while the bluespawn godslayer on the ground was charred black and riddled with wounds, completely disoriented by a barrage of fireballs that carpeted the sky. The third bluespawn godslayer bellowed sullenly at the heavens, where Mantou was circling on his wyvern, swooping down time and time again to carve deep, glaring wounds across the monster. Yet for them, the real nightmare had only just begun. Their strongest, Navi, was dead, and the dozens of kobolds had been wiped out. Now, the two remaining bluespawn godslayers were pincered by four players. "Die!" With a fierce roar, Tiansheng Zhankuang beat his wings and dove alongside Mantou from different angles toward one of the bluespawn godslayers. The godslayer noticed only Tiansheng Zhankuang charging him from the front and scrambled to raise his dragon-skull shield to block. But howling wind and a piercing screech came from behind as Mantou thrust his lance forward, running the creature clean through the chest. *Thwack—* The blood-soaked lance tip punched out through the front of the bluespawn godslayer's chest. Looking down in shock at the point protruding from his chest, he let out a feeble rattle from deep in his throat before crashing to the earth. The battle on Xiaye Qiuyu's end was even more one-sided. That bluespawn godslayer had already been driven to scurry about clutching his head under relentless fireballs, utterly miserable. In a fleeting moment of distraction, a heavy dragon-slaying arrow tore through the air, plunging straight into his throat and bursting out the nape of his neck. The godslayer's eyes instantly dulled and unfocused, and he too collapsed limply to the ground. Monsters with a Challenge Rating above 10 would have required a large party of players working together just to challenge a few years ago. But now, especially in the eyes of these insanely overpowered pro players, they were merely slightly troublesome elite mobs. And so, in mere moments, the Blue Dragon Sect convoy escort was entirely wiped out, leaving behind several carts of weapons and armor, as well as blood-spattered gold and silver treasures pillaged from various towns. "Not a bad haul. Split evenly, each of us should walk away with over a hundred gold dinars," Singo said in a relaxed tone as he counted the loot. Mantou couldn't help marveling, "Holy crap, that lucrative? Nothing beats zero-cost business after all! Why don't we just settle down in Taliro and become desert bandits right here? Raiding, robbing caravans—you can easily rake in hundreds or thousands of gold dinars. Isn't that way better than sitting in Isdalia on a fixed salary?" "This line of work isn't that easy," Singo replied, shaking his head. He swept the weapons and jewelry into his bag of holding, then looked up at the sky. In the distance, wind and sand whipped into a frenzy. Through the swirling dust storm, numerous indistinct silhouettes were racing toward them, accompanied by crackles of thunder. "The Cult of the Dragon has spotted us. Let's go!" Singo and Mantou mounted their wyverns and skimmed low above the ground, while Xiaye Qiuyu and Tiansheng Zhankuang unfurled their wings to flee on their own flight power. Sure enough, the sandstorm swept close behind in hot pursuit. Lightning surged within the raging dust, revealing menacing silhouettes: a pack of bipedal, winged drakes clad in pale-blue scales, their bodies crackling with electrical arcs like miniature blue dragons. These were fellow bluespawn, the reapers that stalked the sandstorms—stormdrakes. Over twenty stormdrakes glided out from the churning sandstorm, roaring in unison as they unleashed Lightning Breath from their maws. This was no longer something a four-player squad could take head-on. Mounted atop one of the stormdrakes was a Blue Dragon Sect priest clad in dark blue robes. With a fanatical expression, he roared furiously, "Imperial bastards who betrayed Lady Tiamat! You shall pay for this! "Give up your futile struggle! You cannot escape! This land belongs to the dragons!" He waved his scepter. Dark clouds expanded rapidly across the sky, gathering terrifying energy before a bolt of lightning thick as a bowl crashed down, illuminating the entire heavens in a flash. "Look out!" *Boom!* Mantou steered his wyvern into a sharp aerial bank, dodging the lightning strike by a hair's breadth as cold sweat beaded on his forehead. "Holy shit, why is the pressure so insane?" Mantou wiped his brow, glancing up at the dense thunderclouds. Instinctively, he guided the wyvern lower, skimming nearly flush with the ground. Singo warned, "Don't just watch the sky! Watch the ground—this is a desert!" "What?" Before the words had finished settling, the dunes trembled. Blue shapes burst from the sand in a shower of dirt and stone, pouncing straight at Mantou in low flight. They clamped vicious fangs onto the wyvern's hind legs, refusing to let go once they had bitten down. Dangling beneath the mount, they clawed frantically with heavy talons, tearing away large chunks of scaled flesh. These creatures were sized like enormous wolverines, boasting thick scales, dense muscle, and a sharp horn—distinctly bearing the hallmarks of blue dragons. They were bluespawn ambushers. Locals called these dragon-blooded beasts the "wolves of the desert." In hunts, they operated in tight packs, digging tunnels through the detritus to lie in wait beneath critical routes and ambush their prey. *Skrrr—!* Bursts of electric current surged through the bluespawn ambushers' scales, throwing off crackling sparks and arcs that leaped onto the wyvern and Mantou, snapping loudly. Finally, shuddering and trailing black smoke, the wyvern whined and pitched toward a dune where a dozen more bluespawn ambushers waited hungrily. Mantou thrust his lance down, skewering the ambusher dangling beneath the wyvern and sending it wailing to the ground. He patted the wyvern's neck and urged anxiously, "Noodles, pull up! Fly!" Dazed though it was, Noodles seemed to catch the command. Beating its wings on pure instinct, it skimmed just above the yellow sands at the very last second before crashing. The bluespawn ambushers leaped in frustration, but couldn't reach them. Though wobbling erratically, Mantou escaped the ambush and managed to catch up with the other three. Yet the sandstorm closed in fast behind him, shrinking the gap. Mantou could already hear the screeching of the stormdrakes, the frantic shouting of the cult priest, and the snapping crackle of lightning. Below, across the rolling desert, the red-eyed bluespawn ambushers pursued them relentlessly, howling toward the sky as they churned up clouds of dust. Singo turned back against the roaring dust storm and shouted toward Xiaye Qiuyu nearby, "Qiuyu, is the portal ready? We're pulling out—" *Boom!* A bolt of lightning grazed past his body, scorching his sleeve black and nearly claiming his life on the spot. Flapping her dragon wings amid the howling gale, Xiaye Qiuyu remained composed and steady. "The Weave is being disrupted by the cult priest—it's too chaotic right now! Give me two more minutes!" "Got it! I'll cover you! Focus on your spell!" With a sweep of his axe, Tiansheng Zhankuang cleaved a stormdrake attempting to sneak attack Xiaye Qiuyu in half, shouting with absolute confidence. Twisting around on his mount, Singo nocked an Arrow of Dragon Slaying and pulled his longbow to full draw. The arrow screamed through the storm, striking straight into a stormdrake's throat and punching out the back of its neck. Mantou was far less graceful. He tumbled and rolled through the tempest, scrambling to dodge the explosive lightning bolts raining down from behind, thoroughly disheveled, his hair blown out into an afro. "Tear them apart! Don't let these damned traitors escape!" the cult priest roared, waving his scepter incessantly to drive the horde of bluespawn onward. Right then, delicate sparks of arcane light flashed in Xiaye Qiuyu's eyes. Space warped and twisted before her, opening into a massive spatial vortex. "Don't linger!" "Right, let's go!" Xiaye Qiuyu, Singo, and Tiansheng Zhankuang plunged into it one after another. "Hey, wait for me! I haven't gone through yet!" Mantou tried to dive through, but a leaping bluespawn ambusher caught his wyvern's tail in its jaws, dragging their speed down considerably. "Screw it! Noodles, punch through!" Watching the spatial tunnel begin to collapse, Mantou gritted his teeth and plunged straight into the vortex, ignoring the electric arcs writhing around his body—dragging the clamped bluespawn ambusher along through the portal. "No—!" Behind them echoed the cult priest's frustrated roar. The other side of the portal was a Cinder Empire forward encampment, teeming with fully armed imperial soldiers and metallic dragons—silver and brass dragons circling in the sky above. The bluespawn ambusher that had hitched a ride across space opened its eyes. Gazing blankly at the unfamiliar surroundings, it slowly released its jaws, eyes swimming with utter despair. "Awoo...?"