Should Have Let Me Die

Chapter 74: Blood Glass Headstone

I flapped my wings for effect as I hovered over the scorched earth. Scream I the dying filled the area, but none of it registered to me; it was just sound. As I jumped into the air, I had decided that I would put a part of me away for this. I needed to disconnect from what I had done and was about to do. 

I turned and started moving up into the sky until I was high above the very few clouds. I could see it up ahead far in the distance, Landokingson, my target. I pushed my body forward; the entire time, I created destruction inside myself, infusion magic to create the perfect weapon.

I would make an example of this city to the world, and there would be a sign left, reminding others of what happened and why. The city was getting closer now, and my Fire Wheeled Bouncing Betties were ready. The name wasn't that creative, but I was already at my daily limit of fucks to give, so that's what I called it.

Soon I was high in the sky, hovering and looming over the city. My excellent hearing could hear the people crying out "Dragon" and "Run," but it was far too late for that. The sins had already been committed as a group, and I didn't have time to weed out the good ones. 

The city was vast and spread out around a sizeable decadent cathedral of a castle. This spot is where I floated, and I prepared myself to do what I had to. Gripton had been silent since we last talked, and I suspected he would be this way the entire time. He knew what I was about to do and what it would do to me, but he still didn't try to stop me. 

That little bit was something, I thought as I opened my mouth over the city. There was no rush of fire; instead, hundreds of little glowing and spinning spheres fell down the capital of Haertia. From below, the people would see these as a shower of sparkles. The light would be barely visible from the ground in the clear sky and sunlight, but that would change quickly. 

By using some of Breth's magic, I made the spheres larger as they fell. Mr. Spin's magic would cause the sphere to be moving continuously. The last part besides Kadence's fire magic was Tora's overpowered self- replicating explosion magic.

I watched as the staring crowds noticed the spheres expanding into ten-foot-wide rotating balls of death. At first, it wasn't that bad, the explosions deleted the castle from existence, and it was hard to see anything until the balls started to streak out of the center of the city. If I were human, I would have puked as my extra strong vision let me see the first-hand violence I was causing; men, women, and children we blown to pieces. The spreading fires soon consumed any that survived the initial blast, and I listen to the screams, but dragons are made of thicker stuff, it seems.

I pulled my vision away from the carnage and started to examine the wall. I needed to detach myself from this; I couldn't let pity or remorse stop me from finishing the job. Now, a blasted landscape was all that was at the center where the castle had once stood. I dropped down from the sky and smashing the ground, causing more damage and clouds of dust to kick up. I shifted back to human but kept my body encased in shifting lava.

While in the air, I had studied the walls that surrounded Landokingson and judged it to be about eight miles across, so a four-point two radius would be enough. I activated my tattoos, causing the red and black lines to burst from the churning lava on my arms once the two black lines sunk into the ground, while the two remaining red ones hovered.

Once the black tattoos had spread out thirty feet under the city and out past the walls, I activated Dak's Vibration magic, and the world started to tremble. It was slow at first, but it started to put out many spheres as the shaking intensified, causing them to expend all their magic force left in them. The city was filled with massive explosions, but now the shaking was so bad that a building that hadn't crumbled was getting sucked down. 

All solid rock and earth from the city's surface to thirty feet below shifted dirt and sand. The city was almost wholly swallowed now; the people were all dead and buried in the churning sands. As the last building shattered and pulled under, I uprooted the black lines, drawing them back to me, letting the red pair spread lines spread.

The surface had dropped down five feet, and the red veins gave me a visual of the full extent of my power. That small part of me shouted out to me, saying that I had finished and I didn't need to do this, but that wasn't true. If the rest of the world or most of it felt like this about every other race that wasn't human, then I would leave a message as a reminder.

I thought of what my friends and new family would think of me for this, but then Mishka's troubled expression and then one filled with tears filled my mind, and all care left. I pushed so much magic into the fire the red lines produced that I started to get light head as the ground melted. Finally, I let go, and a blood-red glass covered the ground five feet below where the city had once stood.

I sat down, exhausted, and put my head into my hands; an entire city, gone. Everyone was dead, the last memories left in the blood-red glass sheet that served as the cities headstone. I had planned to leave a message, but as a couple of tears escaped my eye, I took a deep breath. I had done enough already.

This message would spread across the continent, and I would have to get ready for more war, but maybe this would make them think twice. I wiped my eyes, I wouldn't dwell on what I had to do, but I didn't leave. I needed some time to collect myself and let out the part that I had put away to retain some part of my old self.

But, when I reached for it, the old me was gone.