[Axxaer]

Chapter 5
Hive Inferno
17 Velstrom, 14074

Ixilia crept to the top of a small grassy hill and watched as three score of its finest warriors charged heavily across the vast foot plains of Terranalia. Their prey, a lone Avalen firewarrior and an exiled Terreve, were standing at the top of an enormous cliff with nowhere to go. Ixilia’s eyes burned with fierce delight at finally seeing real carnage, not just a feeding frenzy of Ilkar.

It watched eagerly as the Avalen surrounded itself with several rings of fire and created a twelve-foot barrier of flame between himself and the Guran patrol. He fell to one knee as though being knighted, startling Ixilia’s unbroken gaze. All the grass within ten feet of the firewarrior was burnt to a crisp as a jet of fire taller than any of his predators burst up into the air.

A swirling wind whipped up suddenly and spread the fire; it leapt across the entire field, and ignited the nearby forest from which they had just fled. The well trained Gurans ignored the flaming woods and charged forth into the burning hurricane of death like trained soldiers into heavy machine gun fire.

For a long time the only audible sounds were the inhuman screams of the mighty Gurans as they were cremated alive within the fiery inferno. Ixilia was unable to see its valiant warriors dying due to the impenetrable curtain of scorching flame.

Ixilia stood still, eyes wide as it listened with horror at the sounds of its personal guard dying in ways unimaginable to sane beings. It had never seen an Avalen fight before, but had heard unbelievable stories of their single-handed feats in combat. Even when the last dying Guran finally fell silent, the screams continued to echo in Ixilia’s mind unceasingly.

Ilrûn emerged unscathed from the blistering inferno, rising up on giant wings of fire. Clutching his leg was a severely burnt Kelkharn, his silver hair now a dull ashen black. The fearsome Avalen’s eyes were deep red from bloodrage.

An enraged Ixilia began to sprint across the vast grasslands before it and leapt high into the air. A pair of glistening wings possessed only by royal hive Gurans unfolded from beneath its armoured back, and it took flight after the fleeing pair. Ilrûn span about face as a fiery bastard sword flickered into existence in his hand.

“Come to join the party?” growled the bloodlusted Avalen.

Ixilia merely hissed and flew at Ilrûn, fangs filling with deadly venom. Ilrûn used his free hand to shower his assailant with thousands of burning embers whilst he used his other to draw his flaming sword high above his head. The embers burnt to ash on contact with the light plated Hive Lord and it continued towards the floating Avalen, oblivious of the flaming sword lying in wait like a tiger ready to pounce.

Moments before Ixilia struck the pair, Kelkharn’s grip slipped and he fell at least ten feet to the ground. His left knee buckled under the pressure and he fell hard on his. Several ribs broke painfully and his arm fractured slightly below the elbow.

Ignoring his mortally wounded companion, Ilrûn swung his flaming sword down in a brilliant arc and struck Ixilia’s abdomen. The magically enchanted sword cleaved effortlessly through the enormous spider’s body, like a knife through hot butter. Ixilia stopped suddenly in mid-flight, her eyes a picture of overwhelming pain and shock.

Ilrûn thrust the flaming blade clean through Ixilia’s chest and out the other side. He brought the enchanted sword hacking down repeatedly, smashing the strong bony skull and sending its owner crashing to the ground on burning wings. Hastily snatching up his injured companion, Ilrûn spread his wings wide and soared high to the south, towards the setting sun.

* * *

Swirling blue waves of energy encircled Vexxa’li’s prey, dancing and leaping to form shapes of various creatures, then disappearing or morphing again. A giant black bear formed out of nowhere, then shrank into a grey wolf; a smallish wyvern swooped over the icewarrior and then suddenly became a winged red serpent. All the while, to those who watched, time in the pit appeared to stop. Vexxa’li was seconds away from ripping the Avalen to shreds for eternity, the other icewarrior and the commentator were both unmoving, even the spiritchanger himself was not moving.

The majority of the crowd were scared witless at what they were witnessing. Very few beings ever see an Avalen spiritchange, and even fewer live to tell the tale. Hundreds climbed over others to escape, fearing the worst. Others were unable to move due to the mesmerising beauty and splendour of the spiritchange. Even more though, were simply riveted in shock.

The array of shapes and being slowly began congregating in an enormous mass of energy above the icewarrior. One by one the shapes joined to the mass as if dragged in by gravity. Hundreds of the energy waves were all suspended in a huge shapeless blob. Gradually, a shape began to form of the energy. First the top portion became elongated with a blob at the end. Then the lower section slowly branched out into two limbs and the blob at the top formed into a rough head-shape. Two tiny limbs protruded from the middle of the energy mass, and, together with the first two, formed fingers and toes. Two enormous sheets of energy folded out from behind the shape and grew into wings, whilst the head evolved eyes, ears and a tooth-filled mouth and the hands and feet grew claws. Scales began jutting out from all over the back and neck of the creature in a regular pattern, and long tail snaked out from its lower spine.



The being was a crystal dragon. It was so huge that it filled the entire arena already, and when it straightened its neck, it sent the roof crashing down in an uneven sheet of debris. More crowd members began desperately fleeing for their lives whilst others became trapped under broken slats of wood and other rubble.

The dragon quickly surveys the room, and, upon noticing the tiny Avalen beneath him, dived towards him. It didn’t take long before the dragon slammed into the icewarrior at great speed. The impact didn’t, however, harm the icewarrior, the dragon, or the old concrete floor. The dragon vanished suddenly and time began again.

A bolt of energy flew from the Avalen’s chest and struck Vexxa’li in the head, catapulting him across the pit. The icewarrior began to grow and his body twisted and changed in the process. His shoulder blades split through his back and he let out a deafening scream of pain. The bones grew out and formed the structure of wings, on which skin grew and spread over the enormous expanse. His posture changed to a crouch as his legs grew much larger than his front, and eventually he could stand up again. His head elongated and his eyes sunk back into his skill. Scales formed over his body and hundreds of sharp teeth lined his mouth.

The Avalen had become a crystal dragon, one of the most powerful creatures known. The few left in the crowd who knew about Avalens were suddenly aware that they had witnessed a spiritchange, and tried to relax and continue watching the show. The process of morphing into a powerful creature, beast or monster is the most feared aspect of Avalens. Very few outsiders, though, know that it is very uncommon for an Avalen to be capable of spiritchanging as it is incredibly difficult for an Avalen to find his spirit. This misconception works perfectly to the advantage of Avalen bandits who merely need to make a passing mention of spiritchanging to scare their victims into do whatever they want.

Elur realised instantly that he had been tricked. These Avalen weren’t slaves, the weren’t spiritless, in fact, they were probably among the most powerful warriors in existence.
“Shall I bolt the exits sir?” Marbakkar asked fearfully.
“Steel and timber cannot contain a beast such as this,” replied Elur, “We would only be securing our own death trap.”

The sight of such a majestic creature caused even the mighty Vexxa’li to scurry away to the wall in fear.

“Survulen,” the dragon boomed down to the fourth Avalen, “The stones at dawn.”

The icewarrior nodded in acknowledgement and fled the arena through the hole made by Vexxa’li. Survulen swung his massive head towards where Vexxa’li was cowering in his shadow and shot a breath of ice cold air at it, knocking it the floor and sending frozen chills all over its body. Another blast froze its legs and prevented it from moving. Survulen threw his massive crystal body at the immobolised arachnid to finish it off. He slammed into Vexxa’li, crushing it and breaking its skull. Shards of crystal embedded themselves in its torso, one puncturing its heart.
“Flee now or prepare to be incinerated.” Elur threatened menacingly.

Survulen turned to face the spot where Elur and Marbakkar stood and breathed a gargantuan ball of ice at him. Elur met this attack with his own ball of flame which he hurled directly at the ball of frost. A dazzling explosion of fire and ice followed, and when Elur’s vision returned, the dragon was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was the ruins of his life’s work. They would have to pay for this with their lives…