Flight

Li phased through the forest at blinding speed, countless tree trunks passing through his ethereal Elder Leshen form. He didn't so much run as he floated, and he felt as light as a feather, as if moving by the power of his will alone. It wasn't like physically running where he could feel the muscles of his legs moving and his feet crashing upon earth – there was no sense of impact anywhere, just movement.

He felt free in this form, more powerful than ever. There was just so much his human form lacked. He could sense so little and he felt so constrained, forced to cram the entirety of his existence into a vanishingly small box.

But he knew he couldn't get addicted to this sense of belonging too much just yet. He had only shifted to activate his [Forestborn Sense], and he would try to tune everything else - all the life that spoke out to him and the dark whispers of eldritch powers - out.

Soon enough, his [Forestborn Sense] picked up the Lerneas's location. Thankfully, it worked like it did in the game. So long as the tracked creature was within the range of the forest, it didn't matter how high it flew, it still got tracked since it still counted as being in the same area.

The Lerneas flew at around the height of one hundred meters. Relatively low, as far as flying heights went, and as it massive wings flapped to propel its body forwards, they cast shadows across the forest trees. Li could feel the panic of the forest creatures around him. All the birds and rabbits and even the dire wolves and giant spiders all scrambling to get away as they sensed the invasive presence of the Lerneas.

Within a minute, Li had caught up to the Lerneas. He was directly under the shadow its body cast, and that was when he decided to fly for the first time since he had come to this world.

"[Shapeshift: Wings of Simurgh]"

Li jumped into the air, far above the trees as he didn't want them to break apart. If he estimated correctly, then these wings would be a little too big to unfurl on the ground.

He was right.

Li felt pricks of sensation at his back as two wings sprouted from where his shoulder blades would be. They unfurled in an instant, their scale so large that they utterly dwarfed Li – he was essentially a tiny little point engulfed in the colossal scale of the wings around him.

When Li mentally commanded the wings to push down, he propelled more than a hundred meters up. Wind blasted forth from the single beat of the wings crashed into the forest, shaking the trees and loosing their leaves but leaving them unbroken.

Now, Li was higher than the Lerneas. As his wings spread out, they completely dwarfed over the dragon, covering even the sun, and as the sun's light beat upon the wings, they emitted a tricolor radiance – green, blue, and red.

The Simurgh was a mythical creature of immortality, the symbol of the union between the heavens and the earth. It roosted upon the colossal tree of life and its wings carried seeds that bore life to the earth for many thousands of years.

Its inner layers of feathers were those of nature, laced with vines that bloomed with vibrant flowers that shimmered like precious gems. The second layer of feathers were blue, symbolizing the oceans, and they seemed to shine in that almost mirage-like manner that the ocean's surface did under daylight. The final and outer layer of feathers were a blinding bright red, the tips of the giant feathers immaterial and flickering like the destructive flames that nature oft used to make way for life anew.

The Lerneas twisted four of its heads back to look up at Li. Its eyes widened in unmistakable fear, and it doubled down on its efforts to escape, putting all its heads forwards and flattening them together, trying to be as aerodynamic as possible as it furiously beat its wings.

"Flight is quite an enjoyable experience, but it is time that this little chase ends," said Li. He kept track of the Lerneas's trajectory, figured where it would end up, and flapped one of his wings to shoot out a single green feather.

The feather, almost a dozen meters in length, sliced into the Lerneas's back and protruded out of its chest. The Lerneas roared, but it did not stop its flight. It would probably just regenerate from the blow too, but Li didn't intend to put it down for good.

Perhaps it was because he had assumed his true form again, but he was reminded that he was a keeper of balance, and a creature like this did not encroach on such a peaceful forest without there being some severe imbalance in the world.

Vines grew from the feather embedded in the Lerneas, latching all around the dragon, tangling around its wings, and seized it up as if it had been snagged in a giant net. Li merely wanted to stop the creature from flying, and when he saw the Lerneas falling, he pushed power into his wings and flew right beneath it.

Carefully, Li raised an arm and grabbed at the end of the Lerneas's tail and pulled, stopping it from slamming unceremoniously into the forest below. He slowed down the beating of his wings, lowering his elevation until he found a clearing big enough to toss the creature onto without doing much harm to it.

The Lerneas squirmed against its restraints, but the vines bound it tight, folding its wings and flattening its limbs and heads to its body.

Li landed on the grounds and cancelled his shapeshift, the Simurgh's wings receding into his back as quickly as they had emerged. As he approached the Lerneas, its nine heads hissed at him in unison, their forked tongues flitting out and dripping with venom.

"You still have yet so much fight in you," said Li. "Despite understanding my power."

"It doesn't matter what you are," said the Lerneas, the voice distinctively female. "God or demon you may be, you won't find me and my child to be easy prey."

Li paused. For a second, he was surprised the Lerneas could talk, but then realized it made sense.

Even wyrms were social creatures that could communicate at a basic level, and a dragon was far more intelligent. He noted that the creature's mouth did not move. It communicated with varying pitches of grunts and growls, but Allspeak allowed him to understand.

"I do not consider myself one to orphan children, nor do I consider lowly species such as yourself 'prey'."

"But I have harmed your humans, so why do you wait? Kill me. To protect these humans so, you must be some god to them. Parade my heads to them, if you wish. I'm sure they would love to nail my heads upon their little walls to whet their vanity."

Li waved his bony, branch-like hand. "I am hardly a guardian to humanity as a whole, and you would do well for yourself and your child to halt your tone."

The Lerneas narrowed her nine pairs of eyes. A few of her heads, the ones least restricted by the vines, bobbed up and down as their nostrils flared, taking in Li's scent. "You smell of an Old One. Then you are not a generous entity. Far from it. You will scatter my corpse to the wind and tear my young apart, perhaps corrupt it into an abomination."

"Oh? You know what I am? But fortunately for you, you aren't quite right." Li was surprised, but when he thought about it more, he realized he just wasn't knowledgeable with this world. He was in a lower-leveled area, so it made sense that he didn't see any creatures related to eldritch forces as they tended to skew towards higher levels.

In the game, it wasn't uncommon to see Old Ones. In fact, players that chose to start as Mindflayers for their race could become Old Ones at higher levels.

Old Ones were eldritch creatures essentially at the level of deities, representing the infinite chaos and coldness inherent in the universe, and as such were typecast as creatures of horror and destruction in lore. Elder Leshen, however, were one-part forest spirit and one-part Old One, harmonizing life and destruction, warmth and cold in a fine balance.

Li wondered briefly about what Zagan had mentioned. To keep his nurturing and destroying sides in harmony. What would happen if he developed as a forest spirit too much? Would he become something less than he was now? And if he did, would his mind change also? And conversely, if he kept using eldritch forces, would he become just like the Old Ones of lore, always seeking destruction and decay upon all?

But those thoughts were to be sat on until later.

"I am a guardian just as much as I am a creator. Behold." Li motioned to the ground around him. As usual, plants were blooming all around him before decaying and then growing again in a perpetual cycle. "I am not here to indiscriminately destroy, nor am I here to mindlessly coddle. Tell me why you have come here, and then I can exercise my judgement."

The Lerneas finally relaxed, its great body shifting as it sighed. "True. I can sense some forest spirit within you as well, though those scents are fainter. But if you are a spirit of this caliber, then you must be a guardian, something that oversees the ways of this world. Then I must tell you now that you must act soon."

"And why is that?"

"The demons have gone mad. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. I thought them uninterested in feasting on the flesh of my kind, but no, their hunger has made them savage. They have invaded my swamps, a great, swarming horde of them, and they tore my brethren to pieces."

"Swamps? Then you must be speaking of the Mire Bogs," said, recalling the geography of this world.

The Lerneas perked its heads up. "Yes, that is what the humans call them. To me, they are just home."

"Then all of you must have ran. How many more of you are left? How many more will come here?"

The Lerneas closed its eyes. "No more. I am the only one left to bear the memories of my brethren," she said, but there was no hint of weakness in her voice. It was unyielding and, rather, full of determination. "Yet so long as my child lives, my kind still lives on."

"I see." Li pointed a bony finger to the Lerneas and cast [Dispel]. The vines snapped off the creature's body before fading into particles of green energy. "Then your life is far too precious to end here, and you pose no threat to my land. Go and rebuild, but make sure to never come near here again. As you said, this is still my territory, and I will not have its peace disturbed."

The Lerneas unfolded slowly unfolded its wings, letting circulation flow through them again after being bound so tightly. "But what of yourself? I am sure the demons still hunger for human misery, and there are plenty of them around you. They will come here soon enough."

"Then that will be their mistake," said Li. He waited for the Lerneas to leave, but she didn't. "So? What else keeps you here?"

The Lerneas lowered her eyes and her heads bowed. One of the heads reached out towards Li and opened its mouth wide, regurgitating the egg gently upon the forest floor.

"If you are a guardian, then I will throw away my pride and beg you to keep my child in your care."

"This is the last hope of your kind. Why would you entrust it to anyone other than yourself?"

"Because you are strong. Should my child grow in your territory, then I am sure it will survive, and I want nothing but the best for it." The Lerneas grimaced by baring its teeth. "And where I go now, I cannot guarantee its safety."

"Oh? And where would that be?"

"It hurts me to turn to the Elders for help, especially when they were the ones to cast my kind out, but I must go to Torr Valeris in the north, the home of all greater dragons, and beseech them for help against the demons."

The Lerneas shook her heads.

"They do not take kindly to outsiders, especially my kind that they have long since exiled as filthy and unworthy of their mountaintop paradise. It may be that they will jump at the chance to destroy me to cleanse a bloodline they have deemed impure, but at least I will die at peace knowing my child yet lives on."