Chapter two

Just when the flow of magic into her couldn't be taken any longer, Sellaiya unleashed a massive blast out across the battlefield, a blast so powerful that it sent trees rocking violently on islands thousands of feet away. The full grown demon dragon must have noticed it too, because it let out a roar of its own, and began descending faster, aiming to get out of the Melstrom and to her. She let it approach, though. Floating there in all of her shining glory, Sellaiya felt renewed, like a goddess ready to obliterate the world and set hell itself trembling at her power. She didn't yet know what the limits to this new power were, but she could already make out that they were vast, vast enough to kill a fully grown demon dragon, no less a young one.

While she waited for the colossal beast to remove itself from the vortex, she looked to the original dragon, and pulled out her shortsword, which had been sheathed on her lower back. Without even realizing it, her magic started to coil around it, giving the simple blade the feel of something otherworldly.

"You want to see this world turn to ash? You'll have to work for it," Sellaiya growled as she took in the aspects of the beast. It was well muscled for what must have been such a young age in its species, and the mist falling from it was a sign that it was preparing to attack. It reared its head and spewed a jet of whatever dark magic it had been born from. "Now, now, stop messing around. I'm sure our spectators would like to see what I'm capable of," she shouted at it, well aware of the fact that the fighting on the beaches had ceased.

With that, the dragon roared furiously and beat its wings toward her, creating a blast of wind that sent her careening back, but only for a second. She snarled. Sellaiya hadn't come out here to die. No, she'd emerged from the barracks of the Winter Continent ready to win, to bring glory to her world and to settle a score with the monsters that had ravaged her home in the Western Continent all those years ago, taking her parents along with it. She roared back at the dragon and unleashed a shockwave of blue energy that slammed into the dragon so hard it crashed back into the island it had risen from. She then formed a ball of the energy and lobbed it at the island like a bomb. It detonated, sending trees and dirt everywhere as the dragon took another hit. Finally, just to be flashy as she finished it off, she gathered the energy at the tips of her fingers and shaped it into claws, and when she swung those claws, they sent out massive waves of the blue energy that brutalized the dragon again and again, until the island itself was ravaged and the dragon stirred no more.

The onlooking warriors that had come on the warships cheered as they realized that this godlike being was fighting for them as again and again, blue waves of light rippled from them, tearing into the demon dragon that lay sundered below. The Slayers picked up their weapons with new eyes, determined that there may now be a sliver of hope for them winning. The demons didn't hold back either as they unleashed their rage at losing such a fine dark warrior to the humans in the war that waged on their turf.

Sellaiya breathed a sigh of joy. Whatever this new power was, it felt good wielding it, and now that she had it, there might still be hope of them winning against the demon dragon that was now almost fully out of the Maelstrom. Remembering the fully grown dragon, she turned back towards the storm that blotted out the light of the setting sun, but as she did, she felt another tug, but this one was different. Instead of the feeling that her skin was being tugged towards something, it felt as if her skin was being tugged by something, almost as if it could feel her presence and wanted to be closer to her. She turned back to the horizon to see what might have caused the pull, and there she saw it. A dark spot on the waterline that was growing bigger by the second. A storm.

"A storm? Well, guess I know what I'll call this new form of crystal magic, Stormion," She thought to herself as suddenly, only twenty seconds later, it was upon them, sending waves crashing and ship captains calling out to their crew to remain calm and vigilant as they faced the new task at hand. A low rumble that wasn't from thunder sounded out and she turned once again to face the demon dragon that was almost fully out of the Maelstrom now.

Gathering everything she had down to the tip of her sword, Sellaiya took a deep breath as she pointed it at the beast, and fired.

The dragon let out a furious growl that set the earth shaking as it let out a return blast of its own dark magic. The two blasts met, and the air took on a deep cold as the world seemed to hold its breath, watching as two anomalies rocked the universe, giving it everything they had to make sure the other side didn't win. She let out a guttural scream as her funnel of power grew and grew in diameter, until it looked like a rolling tsunami in the sky, surging against a blacker than night whirlpool that threatened to consume them all.

"More. Need more power," she thought as she pushed herself to new limits against the vastness of unexplored magic that she had taken in.

Just when she thought she was done for, as the dragon finally began to make ground on her, Sellaiya felt that tug again, and heard a whisper against her ear.

"I can help you, if only you let me." She gasped. The storm was speaking to her.

"Okay, tell me what I need to do," she ground out as her teeth gritted against the strain of holding back the darkness.

"Reach out with your magic, if only the tiniest bit of it, and touch me intentionally." Sellaiya did as she was told, putting everything into making sure that her current blast of energy didn't break under the strain as she did so. When her magic connected with one of the storm clouds, she felt something stir within her blood. "You guessed correctly as to what your new power was, the voice murmured, and as such, that now makes you the Stormion Goddess."

Without warning, the clouds themselves and all the rain they held turned to magic, and she was rejuvenated. Putting all of her newfound magic into the funnel, Sellaiya gave it everything she had. All of her sorrows, all of her joy, no matter how minimal, all of the new magic, she poured it all into the funnel as it grew once more, pushing back against the night and all that it stood for. There were no words to describe the next noise that emitted from her throat, only that it was so loud, people back in the continents could probably hear it.

Back and back the dragon's magic was pushed, until there was none left and the full force of her magic was penetrating through its near invincible hide, shredding it to pieces and returning it to the void above. All around, she was dully aware that people were cheering, but she couldn't be bothered to answer those cheers. She was just so exhausted that her flight failed her, and she let herself sink down into the tides below.