Dragon Blood Isle

Yullie the Witch hovered high in the sky slightly below the lowest clouds. They were moving swiftly as some would combine while others would split, constantly forming different shapes. The totality of the small little world she found herself in all looked quite magnificent. A type of beauty and awe only Mother Nature was capable of creating. Right this second, Yullie couldn't care less.

Things were about to change. There was no stopping it now. In fact, she would be the arbiter of that change.

Life finds a way, or so they say. The same can be said about its eradication. Both intertwined—creation and destruction—and the cycle continues.

Towering way up into the sky loomed a great tree standing tall in the middle of a great expanse of water. The deep blue was similar in visuals and motion to an ocean. An unknown sea in a magical location. The elderly tree dove below the water out of sight, down into an undetectable depth. It wasn't just any regular tree. This one was special. Maybe even more so than the mightiest of oaks and the saddest of willows. It doubled as a thing and a place at the same time, its unique attributes allowing for this remarkable feature. This remarkable world it created.

Dragon Blood Isle was the place's name most commonly referred to, amongst many others. A fitting name, it was, given its species classification the 'rare dragon blood tree.'

It resembled an island floating in the sky, especially since the anchor holding the whole thing up couldn't be seen from up top. Down below stretched its extremely thick trunk while all its branches were exclusively concentrated to the uppermost section of the tree. All of these reached well above the water protruding out and up at varying angles. These branches and connecting leaves came together to give the illusion of a flat piece of land or connected surface capable of being traversed on. Looking from the side gave the appearance of a saucer type shape while an oval would be seen from above glancing down.

At least, that was the look in Dragon Blood Isle’s infancy until a grand metamorphosis turned it into something more over time. The illusion made real. In the beginning there was nothing but a hopeless seed that would eventually sprout and grow in virtually ungrowable conditions. Once the trunk had grown well beyond the water's surface to become one with the sky, the first branches appeared. First it had grown solely vertically until reaching a certain height, then its genetics commanded expansion horizontally every which way. Strong branches and leaves stretched with every ounce of energy they had going this way and that, out and around, a completely chaotic event following a perfectly predictable growth pattern. Over time an ancient kind of magic fused these sprawling branches and leaves into mud, clay, dirt, and grass. All the building blocks for land were created along with a solid crust and layers and layers of earth, eventually making way for courageous new species of other trees as well as plants and flowers. An entire ecosystem developed and evolved, developed and evolved some more. And to this day, the cycle continued.

Once brimming with potential and suitable for habitation, both the living and the dead flocked to this improbable paradise, drawn like a magnet to its ethereal nature.

Clink...

Clink...

Clink...

Yullie grew bored and impatient waiting. She pulled out a fancy glass sphere from inside her robes small enough to be held comfortably in her hand, then presumed to play catch with it. Tossing it up and catching it again. Tossing it up... and catching it again.

The clinking noise rang out every time she caught it because of the glass sphere's impact with rings on her index finger and thumb. Whatever strange sound emitted each time after contact was far from unpleasant nor dull. Quite astoundingly it was just the opposite. Every impact created a unique sound like a limitless stream of one-of-a-kind musical notes. All kinds of pitches and peaks and chimes and depths. Some deep, some not. Some lingered, some ending quickly and precisely. The object's properties were very much a mystery. It was arcane, mystical, and magical, clearly. A pattern began to emerge. The same sequence of unique sounds was repeated over and over with each catch, a melancholy vibe in its totality. And so, the cycle continued.

This went on for approximately ten or fifteen more minutes. A time with a mind of its own hellbent on growing increasingly more abstract the more it was felt. If time was typically determined by a planet revolving around a Sun, how did it work when the Sun was unmoving? The more time had passed the more she wondered what in the world she was doing here.

Oh yeah... she was hungry.

More often than not she had masterful control over her thoughts, but something strange about this place was starting to get to her.

The Witch took a break from catch to roll the arcane Glass around her hand and then up one arm, around the neck, and down the other, catching it once again while simultaneously studying the object more closely. A rainbow of colors danced off the reflection of the glass when in different angles of exposure to the Black Sun. She balanced it carefully on the back of her incredibly steady hand, glaring at it as if anything could happen at any moment. Something swirled around inside, a visual representation of what lightning might look like if it could ever be captured inside a bottle. From two different states the contents inside switched back and forth between this lightning-like behavior and a nearly opaque heavy ashen colored smoke. The activity inside the thing was picking up intensity by the second as if it was reacting to something nearby. Beams of light shot out of the nucleus like a tesla coil, only to be blocked and trapped inside the glass prison, lost in an infinite ricochet.

All was normal. It was working. Something must have been the catalyst for this object's behavior. She was in the right place, after all. But what caused it? There was no immediate shift or change in anything around her. She would have noticed had there been. Right?

Trees defied gravity by pulling water up and breaking the nigh undefeated principle that what comes up, must come down. This particular tree was so powerful it drew up enough of this water to create a natural wonder in the form of a small river and waterfall, synergized together and locked in perpetual motion, forever connected. On and on and on, the cycle continued. On and on, the cycle continues.

A steady breeze flew in every now and again. Several clusters of smaller trees of different kinds populated a forest near the river. They longed for the wind, and when it came, displayed their excitement by dancing, swaying to and fro channeling the force of air.

Spirits and ghosts inhabited the land, many of them calling it their forever home. At the moment a majority of these unique beings lay dormant. Inactive. As if they were a threat to her had they not been momentarily obsolete. Nonetheless, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for a newfound threat to announce its presence at any moment. In fact, she was hoping for just that. A visit from a familiar acquaintance. The calm before the storm was at hand.

Long ago, Dragon Blood Isle had been called home by both the living and the dead, as well as most recently by those in between. A world within a world.

One day in the past, a day as ordinary and normal as ever, out of the light crawled a menacing darkness, a corrupted specter inflicting a wretched sickness upon the world. It started small yet spread like wildfire, sapping the lifeforce of the Ancient Tree also known as Dragon Blood Isle. Soon it became uninhabitable for many, the dark matter and energy ripping through its lifeforce in a relentless malevolent storm. Mass exodus was inevitable. It could not be contained. Once the living and the in-between had been rid, the darkness became stagnant. Waiting. Daring them to come back, feigning weakness while plotting its next chance to strike. All the while acting as a beacon for other shadows to come and join the party.

An otherworldly type of Black Sun shone in the distance as it lingered on horizon's end, slowly growing less and less bright by the minute while remaining still and unmoving. The Black Sun provided plenty of light, yet not of the really bright kind. This effect altered the hue of all the colors giving them a much richer, much crisper, vivid aesthetic. But soon, very soon, the Moon would become empowered, foreboding in its size and presence, a yin much more powerful than its yang.

The Sun and the Moon. The former radiated unique waves to bathe the world in light while the latter attempted to blanket everything in darkness and finish its job of fully corrupting its counterpart. One produced light and the other consumed it. The foreboding Moon probably reached a mass over three times than the Black Sun. Like a black hole it swallowed any and all light created near it. Both intertwined, their fates infinitely intertwined, Black Sun and Moon, the cycle continued.

With the final remaining light fading, glowing and twinkling stars began populating the sky. They brought a sense of normalcy and calm. The clouds from before had somewhat migrated making half of the sky clear. Stars of all kinds could be seen all around in different shapes and sizes and levels of brightness. They weren't just pathetic dots in the distance.

Yullie’s patience was waning down. Not because she was bored, it was more of an anxious type of thing. The kind usually felt when waiting for something to happen that could come in any minute, then proceeds to drag along as time moves unbearably slow. She spoke her next thought out softly, unsure if it was a statement or a question. Sure, she’d done this type of thing before, but this time was different. This was her most anticipated moment ever. This was next level.

“Any minute now, yeah?”

She slid one leg over her mount, an eldritch creature resembling a serpent.

It was a fitting ride for the Witch. She even donned the stereotypical, telltale drooping pointy hat associated with her kind, matching it with her black and white dress robe, the darker of the two being the most dominant color. Functional yet flashy. Sophisticated yet basic. The perfect get-up for an ethereal being equipped with more than just unknown powers.

A soft ringing in between her ears turned from nothing into something as it grew louder and louder, setting off her inner alarm bells. All around the sky was changing.

Morphing…

Twisting…

Transforming into a synergistic kaleidoscope of colors before darkness would ultimately soon take over. The Black Sun needed to recharge. For a moment the sky looked like it was folding in on itself akin to bendable dimensions, then sorted itself out back into its original stagnant form. Before this shift, various signs and noises of nature echoed off every so often. The place clearly could sustain at least some kind of life now despite its ongoing corruption. Some being the operative word.

Reality was pitched into an uncanny silence as the extravagant scenery faded and a distorted darkness swiftly took its place. It would probably take a bit of time for her eyes to adjust. It wasn't totally pitch black since the surrounding stars provided a semblance of visible light. At least it was something, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to see even her own hand in front of her face.

The lack of brightness wasn’t the only thing she needed to adjust too. The phantasmagoric effects earlier came with the side effect of causing her eyes to have trouble accurately decoding the information her receptors were bringing in and translate them into her brain. The result was a few seconds of normalcy followed by a few seconds of an extremely intense mirage type filter infused with everything she saw. Closing her eyes only made her dizzy. The cycle continued again and again until finally it began to dissipate after a few minutes. It felt trippy kind of like a dream. Noted, however, was the fact this experience was most definitely not a dream.

The breeze came back. Nothing but the swaying of trees in the wind could be heard, one of the more elegant background white noises in existence. Something about them got her every time, settling Yullie into a fierce yet relaxed state, sensing something big was about to happen. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she simultaneously felt goosebumps along her eyes. With pupils dilated she scanned the horizon, still seeing nothing out of the ordinary but remaining steadfast in not letting her guard down.

The intervals in which these breezes and this same wind whooshed across her face increased to roughly once every three medium sized breaths in and then out she took, factoring in the split-second each she held each phase of the cycle.

The calm had faded.

And in came the storm.

Nothing predicated the incoming barrage of meteorites except for a sudden bright flash way up above from space. In the blink of an eye they were upon her, a roaring cacophony of screaming projectiles drowning out the quiet and heading straight towards her.

Yullie the Witch was ready for it. She had honed the abilities of all of her senses as opposed to only focusing on sight, the most used one of all. She did not neglect these other senses like others did. And thus, she was rewarded. Just moments before the onslaught, her ears perked up and her body responded instinctually before even having a chance to tell it what to do. In one smooth motion she slid off the serpent immediately after tossing the Glass way up higher into the air than she'd done before during catch, getting it safely out of the way of any crossfire. Sure, it was strong, but now was not the time to test just how strong. A whole sequence of events was done in one smooth motion starting with this feigned drop that put her into a hanging position. Holding on tightly, each hand on a separate spike atop the back of her mount, she never came close to a stop, instead reversing her momentum as a spring of sorts to channel the energy of inertia and hop up on two feet into a stand. By the time the flash went off, her knees were bent and her body was poised, expecting the unexpected.

What came next was fifteen seconds of pure skill. Equipped with supernatural speed, she dodged, blocked, parried, and deflected a series of bullet-like rocks all trying to kill her. Any one of them had the power to take her out if a direct hit was landed. Absolute perfection was required.

Yullie moved like water as if she could sense forward in time to know how dodging left or right and up or down would influence the way she’d have to move after each sharp and crisp movement. The outcome was like that of a sophisticated dance, nothing jerky or forced or unpleasant to the eyes. Towards the end after most of the metaphorical ammo had been spent, she ducked in a way that allowed her sightline to naturally pinpoint the location of the Sphere thrown up from earlier, now well into its trajectory back down. One handed she caught the last remaining meteorite in her hand, the force of the impact so great the rock virtually disintegrated in her palm, debris falling from it like sand. It definitely left a mark. Without looking, she caught the falling glass with her other hand.

Clink.

Some of the otherworldly objects she had either dodged or had missed her collided with the land below. A few of them were forceful enough to pass all the way through the rare dragon blood tree and out the other side to eventually plummet all the way down under the sea. Small mushroom clouds sprang up from the ground, earth and dirt and sand dislodged from the vicious impact. Screeches and noise of all kinds erupted in sync with the initial onslaught of projectiles causing mass chaos. Now that it was over, a silence blanketed the world below as if everything and everyone were holding their collective breath.

Watching Yullie...

Waiting...

In the blink of an eye, an improbable paradise had transformed into a combat zone. The danger Yullie was sensing didn’t appear to be fazed in the slightest and showed no signs of disappearing. Way up there it lingered, and soon it would come down to find their kill. They were in for a rude awakening if they expected her to go down that easy.

Assessing her surroundings with a forced calm and repressed excitement, Yullie scouted the area for a place to land and prepare for the second wave. She wondered what the best vantage point would be to meet her invader. At the moment there were still no visual clues indicating another round of space-rocks coming to take off her head, but she trusted her instincts if the status quo on that were to change. If round one had done no damage, her attacker would certainly know any additional attempts were probably futile. Still, moving forward she'd have to keep that relative spot constantly in the corner of her eye, at minimum.

As if it wasn't already, now it really was personal. They really had the audacity to attack her.

She tucked the Glass away in a specially designed pouch for it and sealed it shut, a luxury she didn’t have time for earlier. Skilled as she was, being arrogant or cocky was never her style. Not because she cared how it might make her look, but because that attitude undoubtedly could make someone weaker. Chances were she was going to need two hands in the upcoming confrontation. Maybe more.

Or maybe not.

For the most part the walkable ground followed a relatively flat altitude besides a small range of mountains and one specific area where the lone waterfall raged. Swiftly she made her way over there, the highest point of Dragon Blood Isle. It was up much higher than its lowest point.

The entirety of the waterfall couldn't be seen from her previous vantage point as it was blocked by some of the remaining clouds. This section reached into and above the fluffy looking things that produced a strange sensation when passing through them.

With impeccable grace she landed on the edge of a world. She remained there briefly, right at its precipice, and looked beyond. A few of the mountain peaks could be seen poking through the clouds, yet she paid them no mind.

She looked into the void, and the void looked back. A monstrous Black Sun hovered inches in front of her face, until she batted a hand and the illusion faded. In reality it was much further away, just a potent hallucination that sometimes ailed her. Even the serpent she rode had fallen for it as it tried to wrap itself around it. That made sense, for their connection hit deep.

Yullie swung one leg over and planted both feet and heels into the ground, still halfway sitting atop her steed. A darkness flame engulfed her left hand as she brought it up towards her face. The flame left her hand and covered her mouth and nose like a mask. She'd need it for later.

In between the lone waterfall and the neighboring forest stood a rather tame clearing with luscious green grass looking like it had very recently been cut or somehow maintained a neat aesthetic naturally. Throughout this small sub-section of land were a few trees here and there all of the same type. They were called rainbow eucalyptus, and the reason for that name along with what they looked like was relatively self-explanatory. The branches and leaves being typical colors but the trunks were what made these trees so special. A closer look revealed a black ooze beginning to rot out the color, even fading what it could not yet touch. Mingled around the trees were small clusters of greenery with long stems and big leaves interspersed with a wide spectrum of different colored daffodils. Various weeds like dandelions broke up the monotony of expansive grass in a few sections. The combination of it all despite the ever lingering curse made for a rather beautiful sight.

For Yullie it made her sick. Another species of tree was beginning to populate this area, the La Sabina. They were deformed, gnarly looking trees, and sort of looked like they were already dead.

With a snap of her fingers, her ride vanished with a dark plume of smoke, banished into the spirit world until she needed to call for it once again. Pacing back and forth, the movement helping her think, Yullie snickered in anticipation. A few minutes before she expected the climax to come, she made her way towards the center of the clearing and waited, looking up.

Another flash went off up above.

This time the incoming strike happened swifter than the blink of an eye, the end result being two powerful entities staring each other down a mere inches away from each other. A powerful shockwave ripped open a gap in the earth below, ripping it apart. Directly underneath her an enormous crater burrowed into the ground generated by the astounding impact. Standing in the middle of it was Yullie, a fierceness in her eyes deadly enough to kill.

"Zin," she said.

"Yullie," he responded.

Materializing out of thin air appeared a massive Masamune type sword. The hilt was about a foot long, held in the Witch's left hand at its very top where the guard was. As for the blade, it stretched another six or seven feet out, significantly taller than even her. Her other hand was required an anchor towards the middle of the back of the blade to block the powerful strike made against her by Zin's massive battle axe. The force traveled through the sword, through her, and down through her feet, thus causing the crater.

Zin held his battle axe with two hands, pulling his face back from right in front of hers to focus on continuing to apply as much pressure as was needed to cleave the wicked witch in half.

"Die! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE! You filthy wretch!"

A maddening look came over Yullie's face in response as she made a slurping sound, her tongue dashing across her lips and the side of her mouth.

With Zin's offensive shut down, he hopped ten feet back to muster a second charge with zero hesitation.

Before he could get close enough to strike, Yullie pounced with a thrust of her Masamune, stabbing him just above his heart. The blade went through his body, impaling him, and his axe slipped from his fingers.

She burst out laughing, taking the Glass out of her clothes and throwing it softly in the air once. With immense strength she held up Zin with her sword one handed, but not for long. The contents of the glass turned her foe into a bite sized piece of energy.

She walked forward, picked it up, and ate him, grinning with satisfaction.