One of the opportunistic lads wove a Lightning Rod around the broken stump of the nose-blade. The Mick and the other Lightning users about targeted the jagged remnant and let the Saberfish Emperor have it.
The broken and jagged edge proved a wonderful conduit backwards into its brain and sensitive portions of its nervous system, sending epileptic fits dancing through its system as it tried to endure the impacts... all the while I was pounding it faster and harder than it had ever been attacked with anything before in its life.
The layered attacks sent it reeling onto the top of the Breakwall, actually starting to send it over the top as a constant dance of Lightning and terrifying Wails of Loss wove their Thunder together and rendered the Imperial Fish incapable of thought, only guilt and abandonment and failure...
Six Swords of Light plummeted from the sky and nailed it to the Breakwall. There was only getting in through its eye to its brain as I drilled Shards in that direction, and it convulsed and shook as its skull lit up with very hostile energies, the last of its protective magic eaten away.
Vivus poofed out of eye sockets emptied of meat and bone, and began the process of reducing said meat.
“Big John! Haul that fucker ashore and get the fixings for a vivic feast ready! Today a Saberfish Emperor feeds a city!”
Always a foodie and spreading the same to his Summons, Big John, Lord Quake, and Little John hurried to gather up his personal company of Mages and Archmages, Typeless and Fire/Earth types both.
The smashing power of another Emperor’s Aura rolled this way; I turned around and slammed it back with a full flaring of my own Aura. Heads paralyzed with fear and power for a moment snapped around in shock as another massive head on a serpentine neck rose from the seas inside the Cityward of Seattle!
One of the Sea Dragon Emperors had come inside the Cityward?!
Its gleaming scales were turquoise and aquamarine, with shadings of gold about the edges of them and the frilled ruby crest that ran the length of its body. It had the classic draconic head, large and only slightly rounded, with a beard of animated tendrils that could actually serve as hands or fingers if it desired, and black, gold-slitted eyes that seemed to draw a viewer’s eyes into hypnotic emptiness. It was at least a thousand feet long, one of the true masters of the Waters, and the noblest Bloodline of the Seas.
It had its eyes fixed on the dead Saberfish Emperor. Clearly it was looking to take the prize of the body, and was utterly dismissive of our chances of stopping it.
I flashed the Blessing of the Heavens across the sky, and dozens of flying mages lit up with Celestial Light as the empowering Buff caught them up. The Sea Dragon’s eye fell on me, and on the Tokens hanging from Noble, all of which were lit up with deadly intent.
An Eagle’s cry of outrage ripped through the air, and a bolt of Lightning went from one horizon to the other overhead, giving even this Sea Dragon pause as the entire sky above us exploded with crackling Lightning within the churning cloud cover.
I was giving orders on the one hand and building a Heaven to Earth Seal with blinding speed on the other. The Earth, Air, and Lightning mages around me could feel the power thrumming as the Mana gathered to us, and were also weaving spells as fast as they could.
“The little human envoy of the Land Emperors,” its sibilant voice rang from the waters all around us, but its forward advance had slowed as seething falls of magic, like nothing it had ever seen before, gathered in front of it. “I will take my prey, little monkeys. Do not think you can stop me!”
“You are a coward and a fool,” I replied forthrightly, as magic continued to be woven around me, pulsing in the clouds starting to spin overhead in a building vortex of Air and Lightning, brooding, rumbling, and sighing with deadly melancholy as it rose towards the stars. “You think I cannot see the wound down your side? You drove the foe into us to weaken it so you could kill it... and so we have! It is dead and it is our kill... and you are not our ally!
“This is the land of Thunderbird, and here, Dragons are Prey!”
Lightning cracked and howled in a maelstrom above at those words, screaming eagle shrieks that made the Sea Dragon twitch and flinch from the incipient violence building overhead.
“Pewling Human plankton! Know your place!” it roared back at me, and breathed on me.
The hypercorrosive stream of Water would have washed me away as less than a puddle if I took it head on and couldn’t block it. The bullet-stream of it flashed across the thousand feet between us, locking down space as it came, ensuring I couldn’t avoid it.
Greater Arcane Fusion smashed the Spellflare into it, and Hydrokinesis braced the magic as I heaved it up towards the sky in the instant the Sea Dragon lost its control over the magic.
A Tribute to the Thunderbird came down. Although He was many miles in the distance, there were four Thunderbird Mages and ten others bearing His Mark here, the Sage of the Six Skies the most senior of them. Thunderbird Emperor had charged up the sky, and two Patterns wove together and brought that building Lightning down onto the spearing stream of water... and onto something more.
Backed by every other Void Mage present, the severed fragment of the Saberfish Emperor’s noseblade was wrenched out of the Saltstone wall and fired like a spear right down the middle of that stream of incoming Dragon-water.
It cut the unbelievably corrosive and powerful flow of Water effortlessly, riding the wave of unraveling magic behind the Spellflare as it slid through its target, and the Lightning Rod on it attracted all that Lightning and Thunder coming down from above perfectly.
And right there at the end of its path was a Sea Dragon Emperor with its mouth yawning wide open as it spewed Water at me, not seeing what was coming in the incredible blinding discharge and swirl of magicks all around, including pulses of Temporal Magic that were totally messing with its danger-sensing timesight.
A few of the lads had even got some Infusions on the noseblade, adding in some nice Greater Magical Weapon, Bane/Dragons, and Enmity/Aquatics loving. The weight of the world and the sky was pushing that organic spear faster and faster; the stream of spewing Water parted around it like it wasn’t even there, the totality and bolstered focus of one of the great natural Weapons of the seas doing its job just fine.
And just as it hit, that massive descending Tribute to Thunderbird came down and along with it.
Shattered Water droplets exploding with magical power filled the sky and the Dragon’s view with prismatic brilliance as it jerked. The nose-blade, dripping with inimical energies, drove full into its gaping mouth and punched right out the back of its neck, impaling its spinal cortex in a way the corrupted Saberfishman Emperor would not have been able to do, but certainly would have approved of.
The Sea Dragon didn’t even have the luxury of blinking in disbelief, its thought that it would simply overwhelm and force us all the way with its pure might still stuck in its Imperial head as an entire sky of Lightning emptied behind the tickling burn of the Spellflare, and the Banefire of the blade jutting out from its jaws directed the falling Tribute right where it needed to go.
The pitiless black eyes lit up and exploded out, a whole thunderstorm’s energy playing inside its brain and skull. The blast should have vented into the ocean and grounded out, except the Blade was there taking it in as a Lightning Rod and recycling it over and over back up to and into the brain.
The Sea Dragon Low Emperor shook and shuddered, trying to move and regain control of itself, unwilling and unable to believe it had been struck so hard, so direly.
“Pound it dead with more Lightning!” I Shouted, and every Lightning mage around me unloaded as fast as they could.
We couldn’t miss; the Lightning Rod was right there and sucked everything in, letting it out where it was best to go. Bolts, bursts, falling strikes, dancing motes, diving eagles of Lightning, and of course my Shards; they all converged on that noseblade, and instead of the trauma fading, it only increased, especially as my Primal and Divine damage sliced through its incredible resistance to magic.
Also, my Pierce Magical Resistance landed, cracking much of its vaunted resistance to magic open for the others. Much of that actually came from its scales, whose protection we were already bypassing due to sword in mouth, dur...
It finally began to dance and writhe in the water, thrashing madly, but the waters here were still shallow, it was quite large, and we couldn’t miss. Ripping waves shredded absolutely everything around it blindly, no chance of any lesser things coming in here even if an Emperor’s Presence would have chased them off. The Water Magic being released in catastrophic quantities gouged out chunks of the Saltstone, too great to be neutralized completely, but the barrier still held and the Earthmages were instantly on the mending job.
It might have been trying to scream, but all the Lightning going off in its throat was making that hard, too.
I wove another spell, and something massive coalesced out of the clouds above and descended onto the harbor.
It was a great eagle made of Air, nearly as big as Thunderbird himself. The Lightning coming down and arcing out into the thrashing Sea Dragon passed right through it harmlessly as it swooped down, reaching out with massive vaporous talons, and grabbed the Sea Dragon by the noseblade impaling it through the mouth, a talon on each side of its neck and jaws.
Completely ignoring the briefly energized spasms that resulted from it doing so, cloudy wings flapped, dragging the bulk of the Sea Dragon through the water like a hooked worm, juking it upwards just enough with a massive beat to bring it completely over the Saltstone Breakwater and into the much shallower bay beyond, whose floodwaters were still being continually forced out by the Water Mages of the city.
“I’m bringing in the Butcher Teams to rend that sucker down. Today, the city feasts on a Saberfish Emperor. Tomorrow, it dines on Dragon!”
There was a rising roar from the defenders and the city beyond at that point. The rapidly fading writhings of the dying Sea Dragon didn’t end, nor did the Lightning bombardments stop for even a moment, the Casters flying quickly to stay on our helpless prey.
It was going to be a productive evening!
----------
It was a big Fish, there was a lot of meat, and there were a whole lot of people who had come out to chow down on an Imperial Fish. The benefits to them and their children for even a small serving could change the lives of a low-tier family, and today, it was stuff yourself to the gills.
No, we didn’t let them take any home. The number of thefts and reselling of that meat that would go on made it totally stupid to do so. But we had literally hundreds of grills out there preparing this Fish in the optimal way, vivus lightly getting any Dark Mana out of it quickly, and everyone was being served, one after another.
The guts and stuff were all hauled off into the Broom Closet, out of which all of these cooks and servers had come. It was the single biggest festival and party in the history of the city, no doubts about that whatsoever, thousands of tons of Imperial Fish more than capable of feeding everyone here.
The City Mayor was fuming off to one side, even as he enjoyed his plate. There was a goddamn reason we had first rights to any Aquatic Beasts killed with our efforts, and it was precisely so that it couldn’t be claimed by a government or Family and sold off to their benefit, and not that of the people.
Still, he was going to take all the credit for the great idea, and his tenure as Mayor was going to be quite long.
The number of mages being Awakened over the next few years should totally skyrocket among any kids who ate this stuff, and even adults were likely to overcome some bottlenecks!