Chapter Twenty

Noah looked down at his map and sighed. “You know,” he said, “I don’t know if I am going the right way or not.”

“And you’re asking me for directions?” Primordious asked.

“Well I mean I never have been to Saeyune before, remember I went straight from Uryaen to Aeon Torris. Not many magicians do that you know. Still this map has none of the roads marked out on it; it’s very vague I was extremely ripped off.”

“Then why did you purchase it?”

“Because I was in a hurry and couldn’t wait to see Astrid again, I mean I know Veleron is around the Tema Isles and we already flew over those, but now I’m stuck.”

Noah put away his map and looked back at the path before him. He was at a fork in the road where three trails split off all seeming to go in the same directions, but Noah knew any of them could trail him off further away from Veleron. He did not even know if any of them led to the Capitol, but they were the only real paths he had seen in over a day.

He glanced at his map again and deciding it was useless burned it up with a quick spell. As the ashes drifted away in the wind he made up his mind and set off down the middle path. Before too long he saw the outline of a massive city, it must have been Veleron.

Noah picked up his pace excitedly until Primordious said, “Noah we have a problem!”

Noah shouted in frustration and demanded, “great what now?”

“The void ethereal is summoning himself we have to get back to Elysian now!”

Noah paused a moment then asked, “Can it wait a day?”

“What is your obsession with this mortal woman Noah?!”

Noah shook his head and said, “Fine alright lets go, but I swear if I die a virgin I’m going to-”

His words and thought were cut off from a flash of blue light. When the light faded and Noah could see again he was standing at the foot of Ragnarock headquarters. The building had massive chunks from it torn off and scattered on the ground around as if it had been blown off from the inside.

A massive explosion of lightning erupted from the top floor of the building spreading outwards rapidly. Noah prepared a barrier for himself as the shockwave came to the ground but Primordious was swifter, summoning himself and absorbing the impact and electrical energy. He turned to Noah put out his hand and shouted in Noah’s head, “Give me your cards and the everlife stone!”

Noah grabbed his cards and the everlife stone as quick as he could, and then handed them to Primordious. The stone radiated a brilliant orange light and from it emerged the two storm wyverns and Vereo, the lightning Dragon. Primordious then broke off a small chunk of the stone and handed it to Noah. “Give that fragment to Draco and help him out. Tell him to summon his behemoth, and give him time to do so he’s still fighting Ragnarock members up there you need to distract them for him.”

Primordious and Vereo raced off in a streak of orange and blue light racing up the side wall of Ragnarock and into one of the massive openings. Noah hopped on the back of one the wyverns and raced them both up to the opening of Ragnarock where he saw Primordious enter through.

On the top he saw the corpses of several people in the Ragnarock uniform sprawled out on the floor, each covered in their own blood. He spotted Draco right away facing two other members of Ragnarock. He was slowly backing away from them taking in quick breaths, his clothes torn and partially covered in blood. The two members began summoning a torrent of flames together to finish Draco off.

Noah acted fast and used the first wyvern to block the flames. He then dived off the second one and had it spiral around in a dive, tackling the Ragnarock members. He raced over to Draco and helped him stand straight, handing him the everlife stone fragment. “You need to summon your Behemoth, I will hold these guys off.”

Draco took the stone fragment and spit out some blood then said, “You’re late.” He then walked over to the massive hole in the wall leading outside.

As Draco gathered his energy Noah stood between him and the last remaining Ragnarock member, he had managed to kill one of them with his wyvern, but the elemental was killed in the process as well. Now it was one on one, but Noah was out of elementals and didn’t have the stone of ever life or Primordious to save him this time.

He needed to stall, “So who do I have the pleasure of fighting today?” Noah said smugly.

“Henry,” The man said. Then he tossed out a swift ball of fire. Noah could have easily dodged it and saved himself the energy, but if he did it would have hit Draco. Instead he summoned a wind vortex that siphoned the oxygen from the fire and turned it into nothingness.

Henry smirked and started to slowly pace around the side to get a better shot at Draco. Noah kept up with him for a few steps until he realized Henry was also stalling, he needed energy to summon an elemental and if that happened Noah would have a serious problem.

Noah then did something completely unexpected and charged straight at Henry; the forces of wind pushing his back propelling him forward with great speeds. Henry started to summon a barrier of magic against an elemental force but Noah didn’t use magic, he instead jumped up and kicked Henry in the chest with both his feet kicking as hard as he could.

Henry went flying back into the wall, Noah’s force of wind backing him greatly increased the power of his kick. He landed on his back and swiftly got to his feet charging after Henry again. He pulled his left hand back gathering a sum of electrical energy in his palm.

Noah was on top of Henry when the man recovered and saw him coming. Noah slammed his palm forward at Henry’s head. Henry rolled forward narrowly avoiding the attack. Noah hit the empty wall and half spun sideways extending his right leg out with great speed and force, connecting his foot with Henry’s jaw.

Henry took the hit hard, but managed to grab Noah’s ankle and trip him up as he went down. Noah got to his feet again just as Henry tackled him and the two wrestled around on the ground before Noah maneuvered around him and grappled his arm around Henry’s neck preventing him from fighting back.

“Wow those hand to hand combat lessons really came in handy,” Noah said. He looked over to Draco who was still concentrating on summoning the behemoth.

His moment of distraction cost him as he didn’t sense the energy Henry gathered until he had sparked a burst of intense flame. Noah was able to let go of him and leap away from the fire before getting too hurt. Henry tossed small but fast balls of fire after Noah, forcing him to move around a lot to dodge the attacks not giving him enough time to gather energy for a counter attack.

Noah was aware Henry was forcing him to move in alignment to Draco again where he could hit one or the other without worry. But as he did Noah slowly closed the gap between them, getting closer with each fireball avoided. It was working perfectly until Noah side stepped quickly and stepped into a small pothole that he never realized was there.

He lost all his control and fell; Henry had him now and knew it. Noah landed on his back and Henry was already in motion with another ball of fire in the palm of his hand racing towards Noah.

Right as Henry threw out his attack something pushed him sideways, disorienting him enough so his fireball trailed off and Noah was able to roll to the side and narrowly dodge it. He looked back at Henry as the man starred down at his chest then looked back up, confused.

Small red spots started appearing all over his uniform around his torso and spread out as he fell to his knees. Noah realized it was blood when Henry collapsed. “You have talent,” Draco called back to Noah. “But you’re not a killer, unlike him.”

Noah got to his feet and said, “You know I had him right where I wanted until the end there.” He tried to act Nonchalant.

“When facing an opponent who is trying to kill you with everything they have there is no middle ground. Either you fight with the same intent or die before them.”

Noah felt so useless, he had one small thing and to do on his own and couldn’t even handle it. He wondered what he was even doing there anymore until the entire foundation started shaking violently nearly knocking him off his feet again.

“It’s summoned, time to go!” Draco said.

Noah looked outside and standing at the foot of Ragnarock’s headquarters was an enormous elemental most similar to a bull with two horns and skin that looked like armor. He was taken back and blurted out, “How the hell did you capture that thing?!”

Draco smirked and said, “A story for another time, for now we have to get a good distance away from here.” Then he started flying away.

Noah soon followed after him and asked, “Why?”

In response Draco turned so he was facing the sky and point up towards Ragnarock. Noah turned to and high above the Ragnarock building he saw two radiant dragons above it, seemingly preparing for some great attack. “Those are my friends,” Draco called back; he was already moving forward again.

Noah caught up with him again and Draco continued, “They’re going to eradicate the building and everyone inside it.”

After hearing that Noah grabbed Draco’s arm stopping him and exclaimed, “Primordious is in there!”

Draco smacked Noah’s hand off him and said, “It was his plan. I have faith in my friends do you have faith in yours?” He starred Noah down with absoluteness; there was nothing neither of them could do from stopping that attack.

Noah grunted but said, “Yes, yes I do.”

Draco’s eyes went wide and he said, “Shit we spent too much time dawdling they can’t hold back any longer. Shield yourself the shockwave will be tremendous.”

A beam of pure energy blasted down from the two dragons encasing Ragnarock. Noah had his barrier prepped and felt a force unlike anything before pulse through the air hurling him and Draco back. The two fought against it with all their might as it kept pushing them back. And just before they broke the force stopped and Noah looked up to see a large crater in the ground that spread out around the center of the city, it must have engulfed a few blocks around Ragnarock.

“Incredible…” Noah said. He looked over to Draco to see him falling out of the sky.

Noah raced to Draco, catching him before he hit the ground. He set him down gently and grabbed his wrist checking for a pulse. Draco’s heart was still beating and his chest moved up in down in rhythm so he was also breathing. Noah looked back over to the former Ragnarock headquarters and saw numerous bursts of colored lights flaring up as if some kind of half visible battle was going over there.

When one of the light blasts caused another shockwave that threw Noah back, he realized he needed to get Draco further away from here before he could go back to help Primordious. Maybe he would be useless in this final battle, but at the very least he could do just one thing right by saving Draco today.

He cradled Draco under his arms and sped off with the forced of the wind propelling him, heading away from the battle. He didn’t slow down until he got to the outskirts of the capitol. Noah set Draco down on the grass and went back to the battle.

When Noah returned he saw a large fractured tear of the very dimension he was in at the center of the crater. There were nine pillars still standing, around in a perfect circle shinning a brilliant light corresponding to their element. He saw a beam of purple energy shoot from the behemoths horns aimed at one of the pillars, it met an invisible barrier just before hitting the pillar that rendered the attack useless.

Something started coming out of the fractured hole in the dimension. It was a white creature with a humanoid shape and grey defining outlines, its head alone was as large as the behemoth. A hand came out of the fracture to and started opening the gap wider until the behemoth charged full force. It broke through the invisible barrier and bashed heads with the void ethereal.

Noah raced forth faster, not sure how he would be able to help, but after seeing that he knew he had to try and do something. The sudden appearing of Primordious in front of him forced him to stop abruptly. “Primordious,” Noah said. “What are we going to that thing is getting through.” The panic was evident in his voice.

“Once the pillars are shattered I will be able to channel the sudden released energy into reversing the effects of the portal and sucking the ethereal back into the void. The force from the pull will suck up everything in the city so you need to be outside of it before I do this.”

Noah shook his head, “No way you’re the only friend I got you idiot we’re in this together like we always been.”

“Remember your promise… my friend.”

Noah dashed forward reaching out to grab Primordious and pull him away. But his hand passed right through the elemental; it was nothing more than a projection in front of him. He started to dash ahead again trying to get to the dimensional rift to help out until a lunar dragon swept down from the sky and picked him in its claw and spirited him away from the rift.

He struggled to get free until a feminine voice echoed in his head, “Primordious needs you alive to accomplish the final goals of your mission. If you go back there and die then who will see his dream realized, who will free us then?”

For the first time in Noah’s life he wept uncontrollably, “He’s my friend damn it. He’s supposed to help me free his people, and live to see his dream come true.”

“He dies knowing you will never rest until his dream has come true. So long as you don’t give up, Noah do not let his sacrifice and that of all the others go to waste.”

The lunar dragon dropped Noah outside the capitol next to Draco who was now awake. Draco looked up at the dragon sand said, “Lienna, are you alright, where is Galrin?”

Liennas’ mental link extended between Draco and Noah as she said, “Galrin will return to us shortly, he is the only one powerful enough to shatter the pillars and resist the pull into the void.”

“What about the behemoth?”

“It is staying behind to hold back the ethereal from getting to far out of the void and to make sure it gets pulled back into the void. With its help Primordious will be able to pull the Ethereal back and this time there won’t be enough energy left for it to siphon for a shot at returning here.”

Just a couple minutes later Noah could feel a powerful force from the great distance tugging at him trying to pull him into the void. He was able to resist it easily but even being able to reach all the way outside the capitol was a frightening thought.

A second Dragon came up to and Draco called its name in relief. The four of them watched the dimensional rift from afar as it began to shrink and pulled in over half of Elysian into it before disappearing.

“It’s all finally over,” Draco said.

“Yes, Ragnarock has fallen,” Noah said.

“I thought I would feel better than this. I believed that after bringing Ragnarock down it would fill the hole in my heart that my parent’s deaths left behind. But all it did was subside the rage in me, and now I feel nothing.”

“So then, what are you going to do now with your ‘nothingness’?” Noah asked.

“I know about your journey Noah, now with Ragnarock gone you’re going to free all the remaining elementals are you not?”

“Well my life’s dream was crushed before it even had a chance to begin. And my first real friend is now gone. I promised him I would free his people and I intend to keep that promise. I got many things wrong before but this is something I will get right.”

Draco grinned and said, “Yeah I owe my friends as well. If you don’t mind the extra company we will help. We have a lot of work to do still.”

Noah then turned his sights to the setting sun; the long day had finally ended. And he said, “Yeah, we sure do.”