-Scarcely had the Dragon Lord ventured into the Broken Forest when his entire spirit erupted in anguish—from his jagged horned crown to his steel-clad soles. His eyes fractured with crimson rage as his throat parched and his heart thundered against its ribbed prison.
The sacred resting place of his beloved, now violated by unknown hands, left him consumed with fury. Only blood would quench his burning thirst for retribution.
His form dissolved into electrified vapor, swiftly enveloping the Broken Forest, before materializing above the churning waters of the Broken Bay.
“Tempos-Versus-Ibo wá Loka,” he chanted.
Time. Space. When & where became his instruments as he orchestrated their synchronized flow, commanding the violent water waves to coil around the serpent and drag it into the depths. Darken had never actually plundered either tomb—he had merely disturbed the soil above them, cleverly triggering the trap from a safe distance. With calculated precision, the grey rider had ensnared the entire dragon cove in his elaborate net, which burst forth with Gr?y now struggling in its web, hurling him violently into the far distance with merciless force.
… … …
The Dragon Stone, like all other Rainbow Relics, cannot be stolen from its possessor due to unbreakable binding magics. One must either receive a Pearl Boon willingly or face devastatingly unbalanced consequences & curses. The Fable of Fires recounts how the Dragon Stone originated from the beating heart of the Dragon King himself, who, bleeding and defiant, made the ultimate sacrifice during the cataclysmic final battle of the Aeons, surrendering both his final breath and his still-pulsing heart to forge a power that would outlast even his legendary reign. Upon death, dragon gods become the stars, and the Lord Leviathan proved no exception, orchestrating the most devastating cosmic catastrophe ever known. His heart and soul, as legend recounts, violently tore through the heavens, shattering the eclipsing celestial satellites in their path before manifesting as the cosmic comet.
“Give me the stone and I shall return your bones.”
A pitch-black portal materialized beside the grey wraith, its edges pulsing with malevolent energy. Darken, his eyes gleaming with desperate fury, thrust his hand into the swirling void. He withdrew a feminine skull, cradling it momentarily with unexpected tenderness before replacing it with deliberate, trembling hands—a ritual that seemed both reverent and terrifying in its implications.
“V’Lyrra,” the Dragon God bellowed.
His voice had become more beast like as his baby blue eyes became blood red and his skin began to blue as he ripped through the net which bound him.
“ENOUGH!” A gaudy & godlike bawl echoed across the earths & skies.
Thunder clapped, and lightning bolts crashed down, driving them both to their knees, their bodies trembling against the scorched earth. The storm gods—not one but two—streaked across the sky, streaking as naked as their nameday. Whether or not brother & sister, Husband & Wife were their only material names; mind you, the many races of Kundra had many other names for the Twins of Tempest & Tundra, regardless.
“Gr?ycien V’Lorum! The Sapphire Empire summons you, Caster!”
The world quaked at their every quote, with lightning thundering as though meeting or matching a quota.
“You have stolen that which belongs to the world!”
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Gr?ycien’s lips parted into a menacing grin, exposing his gleaming fangs as he let out a contemptuous scoff that hung in the air between them.
“You know better than any, I cannot steal that which belongs to me!”
The two principals stood frozen in tense silence, measuring their words carefully before either dared to speak.
“Then you leave us no choice,” Tempest said.
“If you will not sit the Dragon-God throne, we take from you our powers which are tribute only to the God King of your kin,” said Tundra.
Rather than merely assaulting him with ice or lightning—attacks that would prove futile against dragonkind—they stripped him of his very connection to these two elemental forces. Though his six Natural magic affinities remained intact, his two most formidable Supernatural affinities had been violently torn from his essence, leaving an irreparable void where once flowed his greatest strengths. The loss cut deeper than any physical wound, a spiritual amputation that would haunt him throughout eternity.
“NOOOOOOOO,” the dragon roared to the duo.
The pair simply turned their backs, ascending to the stars with eyes brimming with tears or faces contorted in rage. Gr?ycien had groveled shamelessly at their feet, all dignity abandoned, yet his pleas had still fallen on deaf ears. He remained sprawled on the ground, not bothering to rise, as he addressed the grey ghost who knelt nearby, paralyzed with shock and disbelief.
“Give me back her bones,” he whispered.
His eyes transformed to a pearlescent white as violent convulsions seized his whole body. He flung his head backward with savage force, arms thrashing upward through the air in frenzied, uncontrolled movements.
“Dah mini irawo emi mundus confringam,” the Silver Serpent cursed to the grey ghast.
Turning his twisted fingers to the nearest moon, the Dragon Lord ripped away the lunar body from its place in the heavens, hurling it down on his opponent like a magnanimous meteor.
“Are you fucking ill?” Darken screamed out.
Dark vapor then spewed from his lips as he uttered forbidden incantations, stretching his grotesque fingers toward the heavens. Three dense, layered & shimmering barriers materialized before the moon’s destructive path, swallowing its entirety before placing it back to its rightful position among the stars. The two titans clashed in a ferocious duel, Darken striking first with crackling bolts of lightning that seared the air—a petty, vengeful response to the Star Drake’s recent loss. The would-be God-King evaded the thunderous assault with a graceful leap skyward, then retaliated, his left hand erupting with a deep azure blast of raw power. Undaunted, the grey wraith tore open reality itself, summoning a gateway to the Limbos that devoured the beam whole. Before his opponent could recover, writhing eldritch tentacles burst forth from the dimensional rift, ensnaring the Dragon Lord in their otherworldly grip.
“Orun apadi Igni,” the Silvery Sky Snake replied.
Gr?ycien’s eyes darkened to midnight obsidian as he exhaled a shallow breath of ebony flame. The nascent black inferno consumed the beast, hurling it back against the portcullis and obliterating the gateway in a rapidly expanding pitch-black pyre. Before the searing heatwave could touch Aster, he conjured a barrier of weeping ice around it, then shattered the frozen flames with a violent gesture. The ice exploded into countless razor-sharp fragments, transforming into lethal crystalline missiles that streaked toward the Silver Dragon with merciless velocity. Gr?ycien, watching his counterattack unfold with grim satisfaction, closed his heavy-lidded eyes, savoring the imminent devastation his own power had brought about.
“?tun Ut Ojo,” he whispered.
The billions of blades became a refreshing cascade as they transmuted to water midair. Gr?y chuckled while wiping his face, only to find himself assaulted by a renewed onslaught from the grey ghost. Massive meteor missiles rained down from an enormous portal to the far-flung cosmos that had escaped the Dragon Lord’s notice until now.
“You won’t laugh for long,” hissed the spectral foe as the barrage intensified.
Gr?ycien’s neck popped with an erratic twitch, his fingers tearing away his gorgerine and remaining gauntlet as the transformation seized him. Agonizing screams erupted from his throat as draconic horns burst through his forehead, the magical resonance of his cry shattering the falling fiery stones. He gulped them down like iced tea, his eyes blazing with primal fury. Star-studded webbed wings erupted from his back, tearing through flesh and fabric. He convulsed violently then regurgitated the explosive energy, channeling it into a concentrated beam of white-hot flame. The inferno blast blasted Darken far across the fading horizon, the wraith’s shrieks of rage fading with distance. The grey ghost soared for miles before crashing violently into the earth; but not before crashing into a blackened tree and through every major branch on the way to the ground level of the forest. Thimble and thistles poked and prodded his every orifice on his way down. Though he managed to rise, he quickly dropped to one knee—not from exhaustion, but in immediate recognition of a presence that had remained undetectable while the silver sky snake dominated the battlefield. An army of the dead, a quarter billion strong, marched eastward from the Free Lands, their footsteps shaking the very ground.
“Seven Hells,” Aster muttered darkly, whistling for his soulless steed, which materialized swiftly despite the cross-continental journey to rejoin its master.
Mounting the nightmarish nightmare, whose eyes burned with unholy fire, he galloped into the clouds to witness the horror of the Bright Armies laying waste to Gorgos & sacking its capital.
