Niv-Mizzet vs. Nicol Bolas 1

          "Ah," he said. His tone was urbane, cultured, with the vast draconic rumble concealed expertly underneath. "As I thought—"

          Niv-Mizzet had never placed particular importance on politeness, or chivalry. What he did enjoy was efficiency. And in a fight, efficiency meant winning as quickly as possible.

          His mind reached out, finding auras across the city, spells that he himself had carefully prepared for this moment. They tripped mizzium batteries, vast constructions of crystal and metal concealed in unassuming buildings all across the Tenth District. Each of them, carefully charged for weeks now, let loose its accumulated energy in a fraction of a second, sending a titanic bolt of power into the sky.

          A dozen enormous energy blasts converged on Niv-Mizzet from all points of the compass. Space around him contorted, bending into a lens that smeared the light of the city into a glittering kaleidoscope. Another lens formed in front of it, then another, each disc crackling at the edges with the dragon's unleashed power. When the bolts from the generators struck the lenses, they twisted, narrowed, refined themselves like metal in the heat of a forge. Focused down, then focused again and again, until all twelve were coiled into a beam narrower than the palm of a human child, a finger of light so mind-numbingly bright that nictitating membranes reflexively slid over the dragon's eyes.

          It scythed down, accompanied by what was possibly the loudest thunderclap Ravnica had ever experienced. Windows shattered for blocks around, showering the street with glass. When it struck Bolas in the chest, the ancient dragon was punched off his feet, staggering into the building beside him and bringing it down in a collapsing shower of stone and roofing tiles. A moment later, the explosion of boiling rock and superheated air engulfed him, slamming outward with hurricane force. Carriages tipped over and slid sideways along the cobbles, trees snapped into splinters, and iron lampposts bent double. A wave of heat, rising from the blast, carried the dust upward, brushing aside the dark thunderheads and briefly revealing the stars.

          Niv-Mizzet hung in the air, watching bits of burning debris arc out from ground zero and land across the city, like flaming missiles curled from catapults. The smoke and dust was so thick that there was no sign of Bolas, or even of his enormous portal.

          All in all, he thought, he had to account it a successful experiment.

          Buildings were still crumbling, adding to the circle of rubble, and others were on fire.

***

The Gathering Storm, Chapter 18