Page 96 of Elemasters

The ceremonial sword in his hand rattled violently, before being ripped out of his grip, flying across the room where Chloe was waiting. Her metal armor was mostly torn to shreds, with only half of it covering her face. That only served to reveal the intensity of her glare beneath it all.

She didn’t say a word, simply angling the sword and sending it flying back at Qin Shi Huang with the force of a ballista bolt; striking him straight through the chest with a boom like thunder.

Cracks splintered through his body further, allowing light and electricity to seep out like blood. He grasped at the sword plunging through his chest, but he had no chance to remove it before vines slithered across the floor, up his legs and forced themselves into the cracks like an invasive species.

Dustin’s gaze immediately shifted to James, who was now standing beside Chloe and holding onto her partially armored body for support. His other hand was clenched at his side… and then he expanded it.

The second he did, the vines violently tore Qin Shi Huang’s stone body apart from the inside out. Piece by piece. Brick by brick.

The resulting scream shook the place and sent cascading thunder echoing through the sky as the last piece of this supposedly immortal emperor crumbled to the ground.

The wind that was pinning the twins down finally disappeared, and Chris was already helping Bailey stand and holding her close before Dustin could even make it to his feet. James limped over and fell into his arms, and Dustin couldn’t resist immediately kissing his forehead.

“Shit… we actually did it,” Chloe exhaled shakily, resting on her knees and finally letting the rest of her armor peel off.

“I can’t lie… I kinda expected it to be harder than that,” Chris spat out some blood, careful not to get any on Bailey.

“It wasn’t hard enough for you?” Bailey scolded him, still resting her head on his chest as she held him close, “you’re fucking mental,”

“You know it babe,”

Dustin wanted to say something… but he was distracted by the fact that nothing had really changed yet. The Palace hadn’t returned to the spiritual plane; it was still hovering in the sky over Pacific Cove. And beyond that, Sima Yao was still nowhere to be seen.

He didn’t have a chance to voice his concern, before an absolutely earth-shattering sound rumbled the Palace with enough force to knock everyone to the ground.

A sound a hell of a lot like a roar.

Dustin jumped up and scrambled to the hole in the wall that the group entered through…

At this point, he didn’t think there was anything else in existence that would rattle him.

But the sight of an absolutely ENORMOUS, serpentine dragon, comprised entirely of storm clouds and angry purple lightning, was apparently the one thing that could do it.

Its massive antlers, formed from raging winds that had somehow taken a semi-solid form, made it abundantly clear; that stone titan wasn’t really Qin Shi Huang. It was just a vessel attempting to contain impossible power.

THIS was the emperor’s true form.

“How in the FUCK, are we supposed to kill A CLOUD?!” Chloe shrieked as the rest of the group arrived at Dustin’s side. And honestly, Dustin had no answer for that.

Not until the glowing jade light in his pocket seemed to respond in his place.

“When the moment arrives, you will know,” he muttered to himself, quoting the final words of Mr. Liu before he resumed the form of the Heirloom Seal. He fished it out of his pocket, the glow now bright enough to envelop all five of them in its light. It lifted from his palm, as if of its own will, floating out into the storm, getting more radiant all the while, until finally…

A second dragon existed in its place; body longer and more winding than its stormy, tempestuous counterpart, despite its smaller size. Long jeweled whiskers hung from its crocodile-like snout, and its entire body looked to be made of smooth, brilliant jade.

“You’ve done well to get this far!” the familiar voice of Mr. Liu echoed in Dustin’s head, “perhaps, you’re ready to go one step further. Let us finish this,”

Chapter 38

See the Light

If someone told Dustin a few months ago that he’d be riding a giant jade dragon through a sentient storm with the goal of ending an immortal tyrant, he would’ve absolutely assumed they were on hardcore drugs.

But now he was clinging on to the divine beast’s smooth exterior as it snaked its way through the sky like an elaborate dance, dodging lightning and gale force winds as easily as breathing.

“What’s the play here?!” Chris yelled, his arms tight around Dustin’s waist as the dragon made a particularly dramatic spin, “we’re a little small to get into a dragon-on-dragon battle!”

“Nothing so dramatic! When we enter the Storm Dragon, we will be effectively penetrating the emperor’s very essence. To win the battle, we must fight through to the core of him, where my power over him will finally outstrip his own ego. From there I can exert my dominion… but you must take care not to lose yourselves in what you experience within the clouds,” Mr. Liu’s telepathic voice instructed.