Of Ancient Kings

Chapter 13

The barrages stopped as Drust clambered to his feet, clearly hurt. From halfway across the plateau they could see the cracks in Drusts skin.

"He's hurt." Caderyn informed.

"No more games." Drust rasped, a fire in his voice. He stomped his foot and thousands of spikes formed in the ground around him. A slide of his foot sent them flying towards the group. Caderyn just let the spikes pass through him, Alice and Oliver flew out of their path and Damien lifted up a wall of stone. Robin focused forwards and willed the spikes to stop in front of him and stop they did. He closed his eyes and walked forwards. Using his will to clear a path and to protect him from blows. He walked further forwards and began to feel heat on his face but not much else. He kept walking and the blasts of heat began to rise in intensity but never got to a point where they hurt. He finally opened his eyes and kept his focus. Around him scorch marks formed a v pattern.

Drust was only about two metres away now. Robin could see the spider web of cracks across Drusts ancient face. A piece of skin had even fallen out revealing gleaming bone beneath.

Drust snarled at him and Robin maintained his peaceful face. He felt the spark inside of him and instead of holding it deep he let it fill him. Robin began to shine, dull at first but slowly reaching the strength of the shine coming from Caderyn. He felt the air around him become suppler and the earth beneath him bending and wriggling, eager to obey his every whim. He felt powerful, more so, than before. Rather than attempt to have a conscious grasp of everything, his power manipulated, he instead willed it to do things; a separate entity that could reason and execute commands.

He willed that the man in front should die. Around him the air swirled, earth shifted, fire roared and water flowed. He was about to launch an all-out attack when Drust rushed towards him. He went to grab Robin by the shirt to disrupt his focus. Until a figure landed on his shoulders at speed and sent him falling to the floor with the sheer momentum.

"Need some help?" A very familiar voice chirped.

"Caleb!" Robin beamed, he then continued preparing his onslaught. When he finally had the power ready, all four of his material helpers had a different limb of the old man, holding him in place.

The power swirling around Robin blackened his clothes and melted some of the edges. He punched with both fists towards Drust. There was nothing in the old man's face but pure fear. Four streams pierced his body. The water that jetted through him was white from the sheer pressure. The fire a solid deep blue, the temperature causing a blast wave of heat. The air, a solid mass that carried in it the smoke and heat from the fire in a concentrated beam of gas. The earth was a fine mist of super fine sand summoned from the ground, it acted like a particle beam due to the sheer velocity the tiny particles could be accelerated to.

Robin kept the beams going for only a second but it was enough time to bore a hole hundreds of metres through the solid ground. Drust made one last smirk as his body collapsed. The bones clattering out of his robe and the ceramic like skin slowly broke down over the course of the next few minutes and blew away on the dusk breeze. The last things to stop moving were his eyes which remained trained on Robin with a fiery glare.

"We... Did it." Robin panted as the dust from Drust scattered away. He swayed as if moved by the same light breeze that was diffusing the ancient man's ashes, then all went black.