Chapter 733: Tug-of-War

Chapter 733: Tug-of-War

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The sky trampled as the battle raged. Jon was fighting solo on equal footing with a Dragon that was empowered by devouring the soul of another dragon. The two took it to the sky, and things developed in unprecedented ways.

From the ground, people could see fire lighting up the clouds and magic bolts striking like thunder. The shadow of a man and a dragon wrote a saga for the ages on the sky of Solstheim, and it made those people tremble in fear. Prayer was the weapon of those who were unable to do anything, and oh, how people prayed! The Skaal to the All-Maker and the Dunmer to their Daedra.

Not a long time passed, and those who were watching the fight from the ground started to notice the shadow of a dragon mingling in the mess. Then the fight turned into a dragon against another dragon.

Even Alina was just looking at that phenomenon and frowning. She tried to look deeply into the sky to know what was going on up there, but little could she see.

"He's up there, but I don't see him." Alina spoke. n)/OveLbIn

"Can it be an allied dragon?" Wulfur asked.

"All the allied dragons are subordinates to Paarthurnax and are members of the Greybeards order. They are pacifists unless attacked first." Alina shook her head.

There was a mystery going on here, but even though she was a Mage of high standing, there was little she could do when two entities of such caliber were fighting it off in the high heavens.

"What a drag!"

But there was a being who was close to these things up there on the ground. He was a Dark Elf with a bad temper, and he seemed to be annoyed to no end by what was going on above his house.

"You are Master Neloth, of Tel Mithryn." Alina looked at the Dunmer man, who seemed to have approached them near the Sun Stone without anyone noticing.

"And you are?" Neloth looked at her with a frown, "Talented human sorceress? You are with that man, Jon Dare?"

"I'm Alina Dare. Second disciple to Nurina Aren and wife to Jon Dare." She introduced herself.

"Ah! Another infant! Great!" Neloth looked away from Alina before looking up at the sky, "Can you explain to me what is going on?"

"I... was hoping someone of your caliber could have more insight than I." Alina replied.

Neloth let out a tired sigh and said nothing.

In truth, even he wasn't able to see much up there and wouldn't want to try to approach it either. His senses told him that even though he may see something interesting, he'd be better off not knowing it.

Now, for something to keep the unquenchable curiosity of a Telvanni wizard at bay, even Neloth had to admit it must be dangerous and not of this world.

And with nothing to intervene, the fight dragged itself on even more, and the two dragons were at their climax, tearing and clawing at each other. They interlocked their legs in what seemed to be a dragon brawl and tried to drag the other one out of their position by flapping their gigantic wings and flying backward; this resulted in a tornado of Magicka as the two rotated without halting.

With their long necks, sharp horns, and razor teeth, their fight became more personal, and they dug their fangs into each other and ferociously roared.

Their fight reached a deadlock in the sky, and they were devouring one another at this rate. Their power was swirling and caused many natural phenomena that almost threatened the island below. Alina then understood something about what was going on.

"This is no allied Dragon?" She said.

"Is it Jon?" Wulfur asked the most logical question that was on everyone's mind.

"Bah! Are you mad?" But Neloth looked at Wulfur as if he heard the most absurd of things.

"Wulfur, a man, even if he is a Dragonborn, can't turn into a Dragon." Alina said while shaking her head.

"Why not?" Wulfur seemed a bit offended, "Jon was fighting the dragon, and they just got up there, then he turned into one. We don't see him, but we know he's up there."

His argument was sound, but a dragonborn isn't a dragon; this was something that Jon made clear to Alina once. His dragonborn soul was specifically designed to contain and develop dragon souls but remain mortal. That way, the souls of the dragons find their way back to unity with Akatosh.

Even he wouldn't want to turn into a dragon.

In conclusion, only Jon Dare can explain this phenomenon once he returns.

But the fight was worrying them all to the point where some of the strongest people in Winterhold would shudder at the mere idea of being involved in such a fight. They were involved in the fight against the dragons more than once, but it was nothing like that.

But as the climax of the fight was reached, it died down as one dragon triumphed over the other and managed to finally push it down for the two colossal beasts to descend from their fight beyond the clouds. As one emerged while falling down, the shadow of the next was coming after it, and as soon as it appeared, the shadow slowly faded and no dragon was seen.

Only Jon was coming down there with his halberd pressing against the Dragon's chest and stepping on his sword, Bloodskal, like a skater, as it has superior flight speed to himself. As the Dragon would try to retaliate at him, Jon would swing his halberd with only one hand or cast a spell to disturb the Dragon.

As it was a free fall, Jon made it impossible for the Dragon to fix his posture midair, and it started to get dangerous, where the two lands would turn into destruction.

Where the two were landing, however, was something that made Master Neloth Telvanni frown greatly.

"Not my tower, you fools!"

The Dragon was descending, while wreathed in flames like a meteor, towards Tel Mithryn, the large mushroom cluster that was turned into a residence by Archmage Neloth Telvanni and has been used as his home for many decades now.

Seeing the imminent danger heading towards his dear home, Neloth moved his hands, and two staves appeared on each. He cast the first, and a large Ward appeared around his tower, far to the south. It enveloped his tower perfectly in multiple layers of protection that seemed like thin sheets of aether.

Once the falling Dragon hit the first layer, it shattered like glass, but the Dragon was halted for almost a second before falling towards the following layer.

The second layer was as miserable as the first, but the third seemed to have absorbed more impact than the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth.

Once they hit the seventh, however, Neloth started groaning, but he still maintained his focus. At that point, he realized that it would be impossible to stop the Dragon since there were only two layers left.

"This one is not perfect but..."

Neloth aimed for the next staff, and suddenly the aura of alteration magic was felt around him, and the land around this region of the island seemed to flow like water. All of that ash covering the land started to gather around Tel Mithryn and cover it rapidly as the dragon broke the eighth layer of protection and headed to the final one.

At that moment, the ground started shaking heavily.

"What the..." Alina looked around before turning to Neloth.

"Not me!" He said.

The shaking of the ground started to intensify, and around the Sun Stone, a few cracks were formed around the ground, and two fat silhouettes swooshed out of them. They headed towards the Sun Stone and ran through it as if they were made of no corporeal bodies. At that moment, a large creature was cast out of the Sun Stone and stumbled around it.

It was none other than a Daedric Lurker, one of those things that protected the All-Maker Stones for Miraak.

"The fuck!" Wulfur saw the thing and couldn't understand what was happening.

"Kill it! Now!" Jullanar, on the other hand, launched three arrows as she was speaking and hit the Lurker in the eyes.

"Freeze!" Alina immediately cast a frost spell that froze the Lurker's feet to the ground so it wouldn't trample any of the nearby troopers.

"HYA!" As for Wulfur, he just swung Volendrung with all his might and launched it with the power of a cannonball at the Lurker's face.

In an instant, one of the mightiest Daedric creatures in Apocrypha was reduced to a mere two legs frozen in ice with no upper body to see.

As the Lurker died and the structure built around the Sun Stone fell, those blurring silhouettes rushed at an incredible speed and were suddenly joined by around a hundred blurring silhouettes that emerged from the same crack they came from.

Their target was the falling dragon, and as they reached him as the ninth layer was broken, they turned into a layer of magical protection to protect Tel Mithryn. The only difference between that one and the ones that were shattered was that this layer never broke, and it bounced the dragon off to the side away from Tel Mithryn along with Jon.

"Oblivion, damn me!" Neloth exclaimed.

"What's happening?" Alina asked.

"I have no idea." He replied.

Where Jon and the Dragon fell wasn't that far. Jon seemed to have triumphed over the dragon, and as such, he only needed to deliver the killing blow as the dragon was bloodied and stunned.

With a strong fluctuation of Magicka, he cast a Lightning spell that rose to the sky, then descended with much stronger energy, carrying the lightning of heaven and smiting the Dragon with it.

With that, he defeated the Dragon completely and stood over it to absorb its soul.

But surprises weren't just going to stop there. As he stood over the Dragon's corpse, the Dragon's Soul was flowing towards him, but suddenly the flow was reversed in a different direction.

"Not this time, Dragonborn." A voice shook the world as it spoke from the direction the Dragon's Soul flowed towards, "This one is mine."

"I knew you would appear." Jon said and extended his hand forward.

In front of him, at a fair distance, was Miraak. Not the real deal, of course, but merely a projection of him.

Nothing like any magic known; a few dozen chains of golden energy shot from Jon's palm and tired the Dragon's Soul as it was flowing towards the Astral Projection of Miraak.

"No!" Miraak seemed to be surprised and suddenly did the same thing Jon did.

From two directions, Jon and Miraak had a tug-of-war match for a Dragon soul. The two were adamant about absorbing the Dragon's power, and they almost did.

As the pressure over the soul increased, the Dragon's Soul split into that of its old value and the one the Dragon absorbed from the other dragon that was killed by the cannon. Jon took one, and Miraak took the other.

And with that, Jon and Miraak had their first official showdown in the shadow of Tel Mithryn.

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