The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today
Chapter 72: The Goldsmare’s Fire vs the Weeping Crown

Chapter 72: The Goldsmare’s Fire vs the Weeping Crown

PRESENT

Adrei’s claw sunk further in the cross before another lunged for her left as she blocked, seething as a million slices chipped away her hardened scale like a chainsaw, steam rising from blood-gel burns. The Sovereign’s eyes rose further, the bare dent on the Dragon’s skin impressing her, before a chant was heard in the air.

<Muds, Shockwaves, Flip>

The dead muds boiled, ungrown seeds bursting into smoke, and then the ground heaved, flipping them skyward as the sovereign’s smile met the glare, her hand commanding with swings as she swung her cross to the right, meeting Adrei’s striking claw, then retracting for a left to meet another. Right, left, down, up, down, side, then the waist, before being blocked by something leathery, the air held its breath for the majestic wing from the Dragon Queen, as Adrei unfurled the wing and bounced the cross back, before gliding and carving the sky anew as her scaled elbow colluded into the sovereign’s stomach, impacting her to bounce and claw through the air with a subdued gasp, before a cross returned and cushioned her back, her ribs cracked, then liquefied and reformed as she chuckled.

The Dragon didn’t relent and glided the distance with a glare, only for her elbows to be tugged along with a sickening scent of iron. Her draconic eyes glanced over her shoulder, blood seeping from cracks as baskets of red bony hands grasped both her arms, as if her scales were the key to escape eternal torment. A shade towered over her as the Dragon Queen turned, the blood cross, now the size as if it would cover the next red moon, hovered over her like a Queen is a mere ant.

"Feel free to fall back down with that human over there."

The Sovereign smiled with closed eyes as she swung down the cross, crashing Adrei’s skull as she gritted her teeth. Even with a slight crunching on the scale, the Dragon muttered.

<Arcs, Circulate, Enlarge>

Her scaled leg boiled steams as she kicked up against the cross, a flamed arc tracing like peeling away skins of the sky. Flames meet blood, blood splurged and exploded, the cross half-broken, before the flamed arc’s gap widened and shredded the blood crosses and the hands that dared to touch the Queen’s shoulder, silent screams carrying over to the horizon.

"For the Peacekeeper to use <Dragon Language> twice for me, this humble vampire is honoured." The child sovereign tilted her head, casually cracking the sky for another blood-gel cross as if the very air was her armoury.

"You should be." Adrei breathed a puff of flame, her throat a little hoarse for the ’Dragon’s Language’ spouted in a short period. It is not that her soul or mana couldn’t afford it like how she fought with Manasseh, but rather her human vessal she needs further refining to contain the devastation that came with quick succession of ’Dragon Language’.

For a moment, their glances met. The one who ruled the sky, the one who defied the sky, gold met red as their bloodlust flared; one narrowed her eyes in a disciplined focus, the other smiled in a haunting anticipation, amongst the clouds that watched, anticipating judgements tipping for the victor.

Then, as if on cue, they both glided sideways, before neons of gold and red crashed, splited, then crashed again. Fierce wings against graceful steps, scaled claws against reddened crosses, sharpened gleams against slicing bloods, their battle sang an outcry that shook the foggy sky, the tendrils of vagueness that would have stretched to both tremoured and tipped away from the sheer force of two cataclysmic exchanges.

The Dragon’s claw clinked with the cross, then another dash, then another counter. Up, down, left, right, up, then left, then...now! Dragon’s eyes lit up as ashen mantles covered her scaled skins, her scales huffed coals as her opponent’s smooth skin steamed vapours, with her heated claw clashed with all its might against her right, the bloods swirled, trenched the divided like partings of red sea, before Adrei’s wing rushed to meet another cross blocking the sovereign, the child’s eyes crying sweat instead of bloods.

"Enveloping a mantle of your magic that burns concept... how smart. Allow me to borrow your technique."

Adrei, the Queen who didn’t blink even when burying her kind, widened her eyes as the vampire sovereign cracked the sky for another cross, before she stretched out her right palm only for the cross to impale into it. Shield dissipated, Adrei’s claw slightly flailed before a little fingertip flicked her claw. Then a force came to her scales, and she was launched backwards like a reverse-springboard before her wings fluttered gusts and steadied her frame in a distance, yet her arms were readied ignition as she swiped an arc mid-recovery.

<Coil, Bluster, Blast>

A loud screech tore through the sky, like hellish fire itself would burst out through the arc’s gap. Then the screeching arc severed sound itself as the heatwave escaped through the glowing gap. Wave met the sovereign, the sovereign narrowed her eyes as steam purred from her ears, her vision slightly blurred with only a hint of a visage approaching at fast speed.

She shrugged before raising her hand, the bloodied cross, now sigiled in her palm like a divine gift from the blood moon, swiped as bloody raindrops of glittering moonlight surrounded her, clashing against the claw. Adrei narrowed, the claw on the tiny light drops unpassable as if her scale touched upon something otherworldly, before her wings fluttered away a striking blood cross before backing down from another below her.

The Dragon frowned as the Sovereign stretched out her right arm to the side, a skull peeked from a cracked air as she grabbed it before crushing it to dust. The greiving bonemarrow had no chance to return for the merciful Earth as it seeped into the sigiled cross, red ashes slipping like waters to her ears and eyes before the sovereign blinked, the golden Dragon scowling at her.

"Hm. I must have regressed." The sovereign chuckled as if in apology to herself. "Usually it would have costed five souls of adults, or two children’s for my eyes alone, but one only? My body must have gone as foolishly generous as its owner."

"It seems your death comes not with your soul, but your purpose to sacrifice for all, matyr." Adrei’s claws clenched into itself, an unwilling frustration creeping out of the peacekeepr’s lips.

"You speak of my existence as if it is solely for sacrifice, but it is a mere...rashness for what I did to my kins." The sovereign’s smile faltered but never let down as if keeping in a graceful rage. "Someone whose tongue could shake the World without a whiplash should not speak of sacrifices like child’s play."

"Someone unwilling to sacrifice any, like a child keeping broken and unbroken toys in one basket, had no rights to speak of sacrifice." A rare smile came to the Peacekeeper’s lips, the sovereign’s ironic hypocrisy never leaving her mind, just her wife’s advice not to ever sympathise with her stupidity.

"... perhaps so. I am forever the selfish monarch, and now I remain alone without my subjects." The sovereign’s smiling eyes cast down, a slight tinge of unwillingness to admit reality, before her eyes dangled back to her enemy. "But tell me, how does your blood sing to you when you murdered your kins for another? Should I have done the same as well?"

"Frankly, yes." Adrei’s claw stretched before she bolted from the air, her glare glazing a flamey trail. "You wouldn’t have ended up here if not so."

Claws met the cross again, as both glowing eyes of gold and reds glared at each other. Exchanges of will happened again through another swing, another claw. The two stalled in their struggles, first slow and steady, before rampets of claws and swings tore through the air. Bloods swirled, claws chipped, the cross and claw were dancers that matched only one’s rythem, always trying to override their partner. One was a realist who manifested possibilities through slaughter, one a dreamer who murdered possibilities through mercy, both were peacekeepers who yearned for the silence of warcries.

Yet only one had a partner of true understanding, as beyond the fog, across the street of Rouen, through citizens who murmured thanks and knights who sighed in relief, a lone witch stood, her smirk as high as the moon, her icy gaze steady and focused, stretching visions beyond boundaries.

Fogs gathered within her palm, tailors laughed and echoed in the sky, new weavings of fabricated gusts and ices combined, as her eyes gazed down for the sovereign, unaware of an upcoming storm.

"Tranquil choir sung not for celebration, but for tomorrow’s soups and bread crumbs."

Then the sovereign widened her eyes, needles of songs seeping into her ears, as she swung her cross to bounce Adrei off, her mind drumming, her confusion fuming in her veins, and...ice...ice glitters glistened from around her lips, like breadcrumbs left after a day’s breakfast.