Their powers of regeneration were, to say the least, astounding. Mortal wounds didn't faze the Eight. Any injury was immediately fixed, bones rejoining, flesh knitting back together. This was only a fraction of what they would be capable of, for they had not done their blackest of deeds.
***
Kyra stared in horror as the building collapsed on top of Laidu. She stared through a window, and she was far away, but those raging flames seemed to fill her vision, capturing her attention like nothing before. "He'll... he'll be alright, right?" She looked at Skaria. Skaria was silent. But the look in the mercenary's eyes told Kyra the storystory she didn't want to hear.
"That was easier than I thought," Kazalibad said as he stalked closer to the blaze. "Two pesky enemies finished off with one blow. Surely, it's a gift of providence." He leaned down towards the blaze. "You're dead now. And now, that girl's nex-"
He stopped, suddenly, and Kyra could see why. Kazalibad recoiled, hands flying up to his -or its- throat. Those claws were suddenly stained red. The monster let his hands fall, and Kyra gasped. The beast's throat was ripped out! It didn't seem to faze the monster, however. Kyra could see the flesh begin to grow back.
"You...you're not dead," the beast said in shock to the fire. And Kyra could see it. A massive forearm jutting out of the wreckage, a piece of Kazalibad's throat still stuck in between its talons. It opened, and the piece of foul flesh fell into the burning wreckage, to be consumed by the flames.
"I... am sick and tired of your voice," the thing said as it rose. Kyra's breath caught in her chest as the thing rose. Kazalibad looked down at the thing. Then looked it straight in the eye as it rose. And then Kazalibad craned it's neck up. Kazalibad was eight feet tall. What emerged from the wreckage was almost double that.
It was unmistakably Laidu, but he was not normal. His hands and feet had looked normal before, albeit with claws. He had large scale plates across his chest before. And besides the horns and the snoutlike nose, his face was pretty human, even if it was covered in scales.
Now, he towered over Kazalibad. His head looked like a dragon, and instead of two horns on top his head and two horns on the side, he had at least seven pairs, fanning out. His body hunched over, and, while Laidu had muscle before, he wasn't covered in it like this. His body reverberated with power. His feet looked like a lizard's foot, and a giant tail swept through the burning wreckage.
"I am not dead," the thing said. The voice wasn't Laidu's. It had the gravitas of a king to it. "You, however, will soon be dead." The creature's massive chest began to glow cherry red. That heat traveled up the throat, before lighting up Laidu's skull.
"Oh, sheike," Kyra heard Kazalibad mutter. And then Laidu roared.
Her literature teachers said it was one of the mysteries of the poems of old. Whenever a dragon would breathe fire, they never used the word breathe. They used roar. A dragon would roar flame. The teacher didn't understand it. Now, Kyra understood completely.
The sound was like a blow, shaking everything. Everyone in the building crouched down. The roar was powerful, yes, but the flames, the burning fire that poured out of Laidu's dragon mouth like liquid wrath was a sight to behold. And when the flames let out, all could see the damage.
Kazalibad was nothing, just a soot stain. The tree he was by was also ashes. And the grass. Laidu exhaled, and tiny curls of fire escaped from his lips. His chest was heaving from an adrenaline rush, and the glowing fire within dimmed. Laidu's pants, which had reached down to his ankles when he was only seven feet tall, barely made it to his knees. Indra had known about the tail somehow.
"Indra," Kyra said. "How did you know he'd have a tail? How did you know to cut in that slit?"
Indra's face reddened. "Well, when I lifted him out of the water before, I, uh... noticed there was a hole in his backside."
"You...you felt him?" Kyra asked. Indra's face was bright crimson. "Never mind that."
Laidu paused, before touching his face with a claw. It was stained red when he removed it. That made him react in a frenzy. His chest lit up, and he released another gout of flame on the ground. Then, defying all logic, he dove headfirst into the flame. And then Kyra saw why.
A giant forearm, crowned with yellow talons, burst from a bloodstain on Laidu's arm. Slowly, inexorably, the grey monster dragged himself out of the bloodstain, his entire body reforming. Laidu struggled to try to get the creature into the flames, but Kazalibad dragged out half a torso and an arm, separating. Kyra could see white ribs, intestines forming, flesh knitting itself together. In a few seconds, Kazalibad stood, complete. Laidu roared.
"It's not him," Thaen said. "Someone else is controlling Laidu!"
Kazalibad charged forward, trying to tackle the dragon-man off the cliff and into the quarry. Laidu, however, deftly sidestepped Kazalibad, grabbed an arm with one hand, placed his other hand on Kazalibad's shoulder, and twisted. Kyra could see Kazalibad's arm slip out of its socket, the shoulder distending. She could hear the pop. Then, Laidu slammed it back into place.
"Nope. I was wrong. Laidu's controlling himself," Thaen said.
"How do you know?"
"That's a move he did a lot in sparring when he was younger. Brightin' painful." Thaen studied Laidu. "Strange. Half his moves seem foreign."
"As if he's working with someone else?" Kyra asked.
"Working in tandem with a second mind." Indra stared. The voices! They were controlling him too!
The voices and Laidu were working fine, it seemed. Kazalibad backed up. "You weren't like this last time!"
"Of course," said the other voice. It had a regality to it, a glory in its timbre, authority in every word. "My other half merely surrendered to an aspect of me. He gave me control when I was a disordered mind. Thus, I was disordered. But now, I am ordered, whole and hale." He smiled. "You, however, are as ugly as ever. Though I can think of some good you do, even looking as nasty as you do."
"Oh?"
"You assure all the lepers of the world that they aren't the ugliest creature under the sky. It's almost a shame I'm going to destroy you," he said, "if only for their sake."
"You? Destroy me?" Kazalibad said, laughing. "I'm an immortal! I don't fear death!"
"You do. You fear death. In fact, you fear it so much you'd kill others to escape it." Laidu's chest lit up again. "It's time to face your fears, Skinstealer."
Kazalibad said nothing. He only leaped forward, claws out to attack. Laidu greeted Kazalibad's charge with an elbow uppercut, tearing the things head off. Blood poured out the wound, some of it splattering on Laidu's arms and chest.
Laidu grabbed the body and, in a second, his entire body burst aflamd. Laidu was glowing -no, he was radiant- with the light of a furious sun. The body in his hands evaporated, cremated in an instant.
A cloud of red appeared, floating off a building, before solidifying into Kazalibad. "Solar Heart, if I'm not mistaken. Very risky, King of Joy."
"Everything worthwhile has risks of some sort," that voice said.
"You'd risk incinerating yourself to kill me?" Kazalibad asked.
"Of course." That was Laidu's voice! With that, Laidu roared into his hands. Flame engulfed them, but instead of flickering and dying out, they stayed. Like strings of fire, they hung from Laidu's claws.
"Scourges of Flame?" Kazalibad said, giant eye widening in horror.
Laidu swung the flame lashes, cracking them through the air, every movement sending a burst of fiery energy from its glowing tendrils. Kazalibad stared at it, then jumped back, plummeting down the quarry.
Laidu jumped after him. "Come on! Kyra said. "We have to help him!" Before anyone could stop her, she rushed out the building, past a terrified Tom. Indra and Thaen were right on her tail.
She didn't have long to wait. Before Kyra even got close to the edge, Laidu sailed up, Kazalibad in his claws. He hung there, a hundred feet in the air. He tossed Kazalibad down, sending him into the forest by the inn.
Laidu descended, falling slowly, as light as a feather. He stalked over to the wall, and then, completely ignoring the terrified guards, he leaped over the wall.
Kyra stopped at the gate. "Open it up!" she shouted to the guard. Terrified and possibly traumatized by the sight of two monsters brawling, he offered her no resistance.
The gate opened with agonizing slowness. The second they opened, Kyra went to slip through, but someone grabbed her shoulder. "Let us go first," Skaria said. "You're too important to go rushing in there without a whit of bloody caution." Kyra nodded, and let the two mercenaries through first.
When she got out, she saw a clearly one-sided battle. Kazalibad could regenerate. That was it. Laidu was bigger, stronger, and he could burn Kazalibad. The Ranger had the upper hand.
Laidu released another torrent of flame, vaporizing Kazalibad and the copse of trees behind him. He stopped. "It is done," Laidu said, before falling to his knees. And there, he came undone.
There was no other way to describe what happened to him. Kyra saw him exhale, and he began to shimmer, to darken, yet glisten at the same time. Then she saw the scales. They fell off, and before they hit the ground, they blackened and were swept away by the wind, disappearing into clouds of ash. The light breeze eroded his horns, removing soot from them, making them fade. Where scales fell away, Kyra could see muscle fibers unravel, blackening and floating away, disintegrating into ash.
Shadwell fields apply energy and reconvert it into matter, guided by a sentient mind. The amount of energy, of found lacking, can be made up for by reduction of duration. The equation is S=(A*m*r)/t, where S stands for the Shadwell field mass, A for the aether the Shadwell field consumes, m for the mass inside the field, and r for the radius of the field. T would stand for time.
Kyra blinked. How did she know that? It felt like she remembered it. But she also remembered never learning it. Was she going crazy? Like Laidu?
Not for the first time, Kyra felt scared.
The hulking creature that was Laidu disintegrated, and the half-dragon that Kyra knew slumped out of the mess. Immediately, Kyra rushed to go get him. But Skaria grabbed her wrist. "Not yet," the mercenary warned. "We don't know if it's safe."
Laidu rose unsteadily to his feet. "I think I'm alright," he said, voice shaky. He took a step forward, and another. He seemed exhausted.
There was a sharp crackling sound. Kyra spotted the source, a small puddle of red that was bubbling and sputtering. Blood. A red mist floated up, and Kyra saw thin threads spiral out of it. White, jagged stuff blossomed in the middle of them, and the threads multiplied. An arm. Laidu was too close, to tired to move.
Kazalibad pulled himself out of the puddle. "Nearly had me there," he said. "See? I win. You're defenseless." He walked over to Laidu, and every step he took raised Kyra's panic. No! Kazalibad couldn't be unkillable!
Kazalibad grabbed Laidu by the neck. "That was a challenge," he said, "but not much of one." With that, the grey beast dug his claws into Laidu's side, ripping a chunk of flesh.
"Stop!" Kyra shouted. Kazalibad stopped, and turned around. "If... if I go with you, will you let him go?" She had caused too much pain, too much suffering to those around her. Maybe it would be better if she just...left. She saw Laidu, lying in a pool of red, the wound bright and angry on his side.
"No," Skaria said, adamant. "I don't get paid if you just surrender yourself. I have a better idea." She stepped forward aand drew her sword.
"Have you learned nothing?" Kazalibad asked.
"Die, wither away, and leave no trace," Skaria commanded. She slumped over. Kazalibad, however, did a bit more than that.
Kazalibad fell to his knees, veins of black spiderwebbing across the thing's skin. He reached toward his neck, presumably to slit his own throat, but his claws -and his fingers- turned to dust. "A...lexiurgist," he said. "That is...foul play, witch." And with that, he collapsed completely, becoming dust and ash. But it wasn't over yet. Ash mingled with Laidu's crimson blood.
The monster was dead, and the hero was dying.