Dominik practiced his fire magic for the coming weeks, so he would be ready for the moment he’d been waiting for. There was a gathering of House Ostragoth once every year. He’d heard about it when he was a slave, it wasn’t hard to ask about it.

  He kept an eye on the goings of this house recently, the people managing it. It was happening very soon, and he wouldn’t wait one more year for them to gather again.

  He created a mask to alter his appearance, to look like another less assuming person, should he meet anyone who’s seen him recently when going into the city. He also created armor.

  He didn’t need much physical protection, he just needed it to be resistant to fire, as close to immune to burning if possible and, ideally, something he could heal. He also needed to make light armor, for the other part of his plan.

  Dominik made armor out of eldritch flesh. Dark red leather armor, somewhat hard, but still flexible, and living. He added mana gems so it could remain living when he wasn’t wearing it, and so it would function as a storage for extra mana, should he need it. Though that was unlikely.

  More importantly, he could change it as he needed, including making room in the back of the armor. And it was much lighter than thick metal armor made of a heat resistant material. He didn’t make the suit of armor to protect him, but simply as some sort of clothing that would remain in any fire he created.

  Next, he made a pair of wings out of eldritch flesh, they were a similar color to the armor, but the wingspan was a darker color, more leathery, and almost black in the darkness of the dungeon. He put mana crystals in them, and decorating some parts of the bones outside of the main wingspan.

  They were very large, but they folded onto the back of the armor, and he would be covered in clothing, with a cloak to hide everything, until he was ready to escape the city before drawing too much attention.

  When the gathering was nearly upon them, he told Fran he had something he had to do and left. Soon he arrived at the city, after running for several nights and days. He didn’t want to draw attention by flying even part of the way to the city.

  Then he waited, and watched through the eyes of the crows. On the day of the event, he jumped over part of the wall, and walked through the city wearing his mask. He stood near the mansion until the final guest was announced, and then he entered the building. He didn’t bother sneaking, or entering through a higher floor of the mansion.

  Domink pushed past the hired help and entered the parlor. Only then did he remove his mask. He only gave a single warning, his voice loud and clear, cutting through the noise of the house. “If you try to run through the fire, you’ll be killed instantly.”

  Dominik had left embers outside the mansion, and now he spread them and created walls of fire going far above the roof of the mansion. The fire was powerful, but he controlled it as he had practiced to stay where it had been put, being fueled by his mana rather than what it was burning. Or rather, what it was not burning.

  This was a measure simply to keep anyone from escaping. He would feel if anyone had somehow escaped, or lived. There was no way for them to leave this place.

  House Ostragoth was a decrepit, yet indulgent house. There were no children, he had thought of removing any children first, but they had no one to remove from the premises. All of the men and women were old enough to have children themselves.

  They chose to keep their riches for themselves, not trying to build up House Ostragoth, only bleeding out what was still left of it. If they had any children, they were probably illegitimate heirs, who would have no claim on any money from any of them. Or perhaps they’d already sold their other children.

  He didn’t care for the hired help either, they knew what house they were working for, and they took the money. House Ostragoth and anyone loyal to it would be destroyed today.

  The screaming and shouting, babbling, all of it was so annoying. He hated hearing any of it, and he wouldn’t bother speaking over any of them. He used a silence spell on them. This spell was mostly used for silencing mages who relied on invocations for the spells they used. But it works well to silence everyone else.

  “Do you recognize me?” He asked, his voice booming into the room. He was about to lift the silence spell. Before he had, however, his mother was the first to show any recognition. And she was the first to leave the parlor, running as quickly as she could.

  Dominik ripped the earth from beneath the mansion and blocked the doors before anyone could leave. The momentarily silent screams finally filled the house as he lifted the silence spell.

  There was more nonsensical shouting and complaining.There was no point in speaking to them much further. Whether or not he recognized them, they were all evil. They all profited off of the sale. They all let it happen. No one ever tried to save him. No one cared. And no one would ever be subject to this evil house any further.

  He silenced them all again, and then spoke.

  “I am Dominik Jaeger Ostragoth, and I have come to destroy this house.” His voice was rough and deep, so loud it was painful for those in the room.

  Dominik lifted the silence spell again, and prepared to cast a spell to destroy the house, when a voice he didn’t recognize cut through the noise.

  “Dominik died in the dungeon, everyone heard it from the guild.”

  Dominik stopped to address the interjection. “Of course, everyone was killed, including myself, to some degree. But my spirit survived, and I recreated my body.”

  There was a sort of cacophony of responses, decrying that such a thing could be possible in the first place. These people were acting as if denying the reality of the situation could help them.

  He chose to show them all the truth. Dominik set fire all around him, burning his clothing off, leaving only his armor and his wings in the burning fire.

  The room was getting hotter and hotter, and the screaming continued. Accusations of demonic involvement now joined the loud chorus of screaming. Dominik silenced them.

  “There are no demons involved. It’s me, I made this. I’ve made so much in the dungeon, and I’ll destroy much more in this city. I’ll kill everyone involved in selling me, everyone who defends it, everyone who profited off of it, and everyone who stands with this kingdom before me. I’ll burn everything, and boil every drop of their blood until there is nothing left.”

  Some of them tried running, some tried approaching him, as if they thought they could fight him. But they all burned. Dominik cast a fire all around him, and spread it through the room.

  The fire spread through the house, up to the top floor, and down into the lower floors of the house, meeting up with the firewalls surrounding this house, and spread to the walls surrounding their land. He burned everything, long since burning off the tattered clothing covering his armor and his wings.

  The house collapsed in the fire, and Dominik continued burning everything until there was nothing left. Soon he was lying in a pile of ash and soot. He stood up once more and burned off everything that still covered his armor and his wings

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  Dominik spread his wings, still covered in fire, and then let the fire finally end. He had ended house Ostragoth, he’d killed everyone, but he still felt hollow. The victory felt hollow. He had barely remembered his family. Some of them were just a couple of fragmented memories, and the rest of them he didn’t even remember, if he’d ever met them.

  But the trainers, he remembered them. Especially the head trainer. The man who enjoyed his job so greatly. Leaving him felt wrong. And what if he left after this, what if he couldn’t find the man after this moment? Cowardly nobles fleeing after an attack on such a house didn’t seem impossible did it?

  But if he attacked now, wouldn’t that tie him to the dungeon too quickly? He’d burned the mask up in the fire. Without the mask, they might send forces to destroy the dungeon if it becomes a matter of survival for the nobility. And even if he survived, what about the people in his dungeons? And what about Fran?

  No one had seen his new form yet. It was possible to become something else. But Dominik didn’t have the time for creativity, and especially not the patience, not now anyway.

  He made his flesh malleable and tore his face off. He burned the flesh in his hand and let the ashes scatter. Then he stopped the bleeding, but he didn’t heal himself. The cold wind bit into the exposed muscle as it carried his own ashes away.

  Now his face matched his wings and armor, and no vestige should give away his identity, save for his eyes, for the few who looked into them. Dominik lifted himself into the sky and flew to the small castle he had been trained in.

  The city he flew above looked filthy in the pale orange sunlight. Soon he had arrived, and the few guards, and would-be guardsmen were soon burned into unrecognizable piles of flesh.

  It was easy to know who was innocent. If they wore the collars, they were innocent. Anyone who chose to attack him, when they weren’t forced to, deserved to be destroyed. In fact, Dominik wondered how all of the noblemen weren’t to blame for all of this.

  As he slaughtered the trainers, some new, some old faces, he wondered how all of the houses weren’t as guilty. Not only did they do nothing to stop it, they benefitted from it. Many of them also sold their children into slavery in the service of this kingdom. Some for money, or power, or simply to get rid of what they found to be undesirables. And Dominik wondered, why not kill them all?

  If anything, only attacking house Ostragoth would seem more suspicious than if he simply attacked all of the houses he could before being defeated, or simply driven from this kingdom. If possible, he could fly to a neighboring kingdom just as rotten as this one, and get the kingdoms to fight each other, weakening them for a future assault by his own kingdom. Though that was far in the future.

  He worked his way through the trainers for the royal guard, until he finally found the most senior member of their organization. Dominik had picked up a large hammer during his slaughter, and began to lift it above his head.

  The older man, the one who had been so quick to torture children, and so gleeful in his actions, turned as if to run down a corridor. Dominik raised fire along all other paths. The man was up near a wall, there was no running.

  The terrified man began shaking, and finally drew a sword from his side. He finally spoke, screaming really. “What are you? What do you want?!”

  Dominik hadn’t sensed anyone nearby, but he spoke mentally in case anyone was listening. Shouting psychically into the man’s weak mind, Dominik spoke. “I am Dominik Jaeger Ostragoth, and I’ve come to kill you.”

  Realization dawned on the man’s face after the pain of the psychic attack ended. “You can’t be here, you’re dead!”

  “Yes, I’ve been dead for a long time. And now I’ve come to kill you.” After repeating himself once, Dominik took a step forward. The man swung his sword with a shaky hand, but it hadn’t even come close to Dominik, the man hadn’t gotten close enough to hit him.

  Dominik stepped forward one more time and swung, crushing the man’s arm. The force caused the slaver to drop his weapon and fall against the wall. Dominik swung over and over again, crushing his other arm, and his legs. He didn’t want the man running, or crawling away from him.

  Dominik healed him just enough to keep him alive, but he left enough damage. He then raised his left hand and covered the man in fire. The man flailed and burned in the fire. Dominik raised the heat of the fire as high as possible, while keeping him alive. Dominik kept the nerve endings healed constantly, so he could feel every minute of it.

  Even the damage from his screaming was healed. He let the man flail in the fire he created, burning for several minutes, before Dominik decided he was tired of it. There were other houses to burn, and he wouldn’t risk letting this man get away somehow.

  He finally let go of the healing, and destroyed the man almost instantly. It was funny, Dominik couldn’t remember this man’s name, only how much he hated him. Only what he had done to him, and others.

  Dominik felt the man’s soul slipping from his ruined body. He reached out and tore it to pieces. He focused on it more than the hero or anyone else, destroying it completely, or at least as much as his skill in this matter allowed.

  He didn’t want to consume these souls, not even to have them as a sort of food source. He just wanted to send them straight to hell. And because Dominik had never been a pious man, he wanted to make sure some souls suffered even more, regardless of where they were going. Being reincarnated as an animal, even if such a thing existed, was too good for this man. Instead he would get nothing but true destruction. Oblivion would take him if hell wouldn’t.

  When there was nothing left to tear apart, Dominik began destroying pillars with his hammer and destroying the ground and the walls with earth magic. Then he burned the remainder of the building down with fire. He hadn’t felt any more people in the building. Any slaves, or guards he’d missed, had escaped by now.

  After burning the building, and the whole area, Dominik flew higher and soared over the city, looking for the next targets. The noble houses had large mansions, grand estates. Their wealth marked them. He would cause as much damage as possible before he left the city he’d finally returned to.

  After destroying several estates, the military was finally upon him. From knights and mages, to the more standard soldiers. He cast great fireballs down into the streets and fields where they opposed him.

  When they tried blocking his magic, he simply kept bombarding them until their shields broke. These mages didn’t have much mana, not compared to himself. They could only rule over peasants, people with no power. When they stood against even his avatar, they broke and spilled upon the streets, and burned in the fields. They were barely more than kindling.

  As Dominik flew around the city, destroying great houses of the people in power, and slaughtering the armies of the king. The hours went on, and the sun began setting.

  Dominik looked toward the king’s castle, but he decided not to bother trying it, despite the possibility of success. There would be a new king, even if he killed the old king. And more importantly, none of the mages were nearly powerful enough to oppose him. He knew the king was hoarding his most powerful forces to guard himself, along with the highest among the noble houses. At this point he was only destroying property and expendable forces.

  He didn’t wish to leave them a corpse to examine, or to allow the possibility of breaking through his mental defenses and gaining some useful information. He could only destroy the kingdom when he could truly take it over, or raze every inch of the king’s castle to the ground. So for now, Dominik left.

  He allowed the remaining soldiers, and anyone else still watching to see him fly toward an opposing kingdom across the ocean to the northwest. He flew over the city, the docks, ships in the ocean, and eventually over the ocean itself until he reached the opposing kingdom. Hopefully this would remove suspicion from the dungeon, if there was any, and the two kingdoms would fight each other, while Dominik built up his own forces.

  Dominik flew to one of the larger cities, not the main city of course, and took a large cloak from a shop that looked as if it was doing well. It was dark, no one else was around, but he’d like to pay them back. Perhaps he could come here and pay too much for something, as a way of making up for this.

  For now Dominik flew high until he reached an uninhabited shore on the coastline. He wrapped the large cloak around his waist like a belt, tying it tightly. Then he healed himself completely, and dove into the water.

  Dominik now felt comfortable altering certain parts of his body, he was confident he could set everything back to how he made it originally. So he changed the wings. He altered them underwater until they were more adapted to swimming. He used them to propel himself under the water. He shot through the ocean like an arrow aiming for the shores of his kingdom.

  He didn’t bother creating gills or anything of the sort, and instead opted to simply use mana to fuel the biological processes of his avatar’s body. Eventually he reached the shore to the east of the mountain, near the forest.

  Dominik climbed out of the water and changed his tails, or whatever they were, back into the wings they were originally, and then snapped them back into his armor, making them a part of it, and then wrapped the cloak around himself.

  He’d already mapped a path out with his crows, no one should be able to see him in the forest, but just in case, he wore the cloak to hide his wings and armor. He ran through the forest quickly and met no one on his journey returning to the great mountain.

  When he entered the cave and walked past the spiders, he burned off his cloak, and spread his wings in the fire he’d created. He cleansed himself in the fire and when it finally abated, he breathed out a sigh of contentment. He was finally home.