Dragon Gods Reign

 

[Monster territory]

Seeing his sister's state when he finally managed to arrive at her position, Darganth let out a furious roar. Three hours, that long the four eldritch gods managed to keep him from reaching her. Illusions, barriers, and outright shifting of the terrain to increase the distance, they employed every option available to them for this purpose.

They did all of this in a desperate attempt to allow the vampires under them to bring her back to Lucius and allow him to finally fulfill their goal. What was the anger of what they assumed to be a measly third rank when they could make the first step to ending their imprisonment.

With Lucius undoubtedly wiping out all phoenix-blooded people, their flames could no longer help to purify the corruption they had managed to infect their progenitor with.

Deep within the sun, he slumbered, imprisoned by them as he had done to them. Inside his body raged what could only be called a war, with his phoenix flames and self-regeneration trying but failing to keep the mutated mana he was infected with at bay

Only by guiding tiny portions of it to the planet together with their energies did he manage to change that, though at the cost of increasing the number of monsters. At the same time, he drew in normal mana from the planet at the same rate, hoping that his descendants would be able to purify the corrupted mana through their phoenix fire and for them to still have the numbers to do so fast enough.

What they didn't expect was that Irsyr placed the previously independent universe into a small realm, weakening the foundation of space within. So when Darganth finally snapped upon seeing Alicia falling towards the river and started drawing on the void to smash through their barriers, the four eldritch gods knew immediately that they had made a mistake as they.

And despite their confusion over his current state, they didn't dare to continue with their attempts out of the fear that they would anger him further. Instead, they hoped that he would ignore them as they had no interest in finding out what the void would do to their current weakened state.

Once the obstructions before him cleared, Darganth rushed towards Alicia. Flying along the canyon, he saw her creating the massive wave and acted.

Along with an earth-shaking roar, the full might of his dragon's breath shot along the canyon. Tearing apart the wave that had formed, it landed a few meters behind Alicia before traveling along the canyon as he lifted his head more.

Ignoring the horrified looks the mages and bloodline users gave him, he dived into the ravine and transformed into a human body with the same looks he had as Victor. In her current state, his sister would undoubtedly be glad over such a piece of familiarity.

Opening two portals to divert the river's flow around Alicia, he landed behind her just as she looked at the remnants of her attackers.

“Victor?” He heard her say.

“I'm glad that your safe, sis.” Darganth said.

Watching as she slowly returned to her human form and fell into his arms, he hugged her protectively.

“Everything will be good from now.” He said.

“I-I thought I would n-never see you again.” Alicia said, her voice shaking from joy.

Standing silently for minutes and letting her regain her bearing, Darganth slowly felt her strength returning to her. Moving away his arms and letting her stand up straight when she no longer leaned fully on him, he smiled gently.

“I'm sure you have many questions, but let me first deal with them. I'll explain everything once I'm done, alright?” Darganth said and Alicia nodded lightly.

“Just don't get lost to me again, I have no one else anymore.” She answered him.

“I promise.”

Reassuring her with those words, Darganth isolated the space around Alicia to both protect her and prevent her from witnessing what would follow.

Only then did he look up towards the remaining vampires and aura users in the canyon.

'You're too good for this world.' He thought with regards to Alicia, remembering how she never inflicted more than shallow cuts on her opponents despite fighting nearly only based on her instincts.

At the same time, he was proud of her ability to show restraint, knowing full well how much dragons get influenced by their instincts, especially when they are younger. Older dragons still were similar, but over the years their instincts and personality slowly melded into one. Even if such a dragon were to seemingly fall into a mindless rampage, he would in truth still be in control.

This became the case with Darganth as he let his gaze wander across the individuals before him. With his rage visible in his eyes, he let loose the reigns he held on his presence.

As soon as he did both vampires and aura users stiffened up, shivering as they saw the look in Darganth's eyes that promised their death. And with certain doom approaching some simply gave up, though the majority chose to die fighting instead.

“Courage in the face of death, that’s rare. But it won't help you one bit.” Darganth said with a vicious grin.

Slowly taking a step forward, he suddenly vanished as put his strength into his legs. Practically flying through the canyon, his jump carried him all the way toward one of the vampires. Slamming his elbow into the man's face while passing by, Darganth caused his head to explode into a shower of blood, flesh, and bones.

At the sudden loss of one of their allies, the other men and women hastily increased the distance between themselves and Darganth. In response, Darganth clasped his hands together before drawing them back to form a half-circle. Behind each of his palms, a series of small fireballs would appear, forming a partial ring around him.

As soon as he finished the motion, these spheres of fire shot out and aimed toward different targets among his enemies. Tracking their target and following it until they struck or were intercepted by another attack, they exploded with serious force in either case. Whenever one did, the new fireball that had formed in its place would shoot out, aiming for another randomly chosen target.

During the entire process, Darganth only had to convey the spell who to target with his intent, leaving him free to conjure a sword into each of his hands and join the fray. As soon as he did, the spell followed his silent command and the half circle shifted to his back, shooting its attacks in all directions and making it seem like a firework show happened behind him.

With this, he rushed towards one of the vampires currently not chased by one of the fourteen projectiles and opened the fight with a wide swing with the blade in his right.

Forced to jump back, his target nonetheless managed to react to the thrust from the blade in Darganth's left hand. Twisting his body out of its path, a glimmer of hope flickered in his eyes as he swung his claws at Darganth's throat.

But before they reached him, Darganth pivoted on his right foot, bringing the sword in his right back up towards his opponent's side.

Knowing full well that dodging was out of the question, the vampire jumped up to keep its point of impact as low as possible. Succeeding, Darganth's strike only tore through his legs instead of bisecting his upper body.

Falling towards Darganth with what remained of his body, he tried to claw at him in a wild frenzy. But despite his best efforts he failed to come even close to hitting Darganth who had already switched to another enemy.

In spite of this, he didn't forget about his initial opponent, swinging his sword in his direction as soon as he had the opportunity to. During this strike a beam in the form of the sword formed from it, elongating its reach to multiple meters and tearing through the wounded vampire before simply vanishing again.

At the same time, he lifted his other sword to swat an aura user's attack to the side. Spinning around and piercing through the now stumbling man's back, Darganth quickly dodges the next attack.

Turning around to face the female vampire that had attacked him with a thin rapier, he shook off the blood from his weapon before launching a flurry of attacks at her. Covering the openings of each strike with the other sword, their weapons clashed continuously as she barely held on under his onslaught.

From time to time Darganth would even manage to attack another person that made the mistake of coming close, though as the fireballs claimed more and more lives the number that did so dwindled.

When Darganth suddenly changed his approach and stopped raining down attacks on her, the woman instantly became alert. Ignoring the mental exhaustion from keeping up with Darganth for this long, she lifted her weapon into a defensive position and paid close attention to the surroundings.

But despite this, she wasn't prepared for what followed, as Darganth returned to his true form and swung his tail at her. When it came into contact with her rapier, the sword simply snapped under the force and left the tail free to skewer her on the spikes growing atop it.

Having disposed of the last enemy inside the canyon, Darganth conjured a massive portal before leaping through it.

Instantly arriving back outside the canyon, he looked down at the utterly terrified mages and bloodline sorcerers.

“What do we have here? The last few ants that dared to harm my sister.” He said, his rage mixing with amusement at their terrified faces.

Noticing one of the handful of vampires that had remained here sending a distress call to his allies that searched along the canyon, Darganth's smirk widened further.

“Don't bother, I may have had trouble reaching here but those that walked too far were easy prey.” He said, enjoying the momentary confusion this brought.

His words also prompted a few of the human teams to also try and contact their colleagues only to get the same results. But instead of reacting to this with the fear he had expected, the bloodline sorcerers just shrugged it off. The mages seemed at least slightly shaken, though they also didn't seem to care much.

“A tragic loss, but their sacrifice will be worth it.” One of the bloodline sorcerers said, letting flames erupt across his arms.

Following his example, about two dozen individuals of different species flared up with phoenix fire while the mages started layering countless support spells on them.

“The blood of the phoenix will never bow to dragon kind!” One of the bloodline sorcerers shouted before charging.

With this rallying cry, the area before Darganth became blanketed with enough fire that it seemed like another sun had formed. The handful of vampires still present shrunk back when they saw this, feeling danger from it even at this distance.

The mages were meanwhile forced to cover themselves with shield spells due to the intense heat. Only the bloodline sorcerers were unhindered by their creation, boldly charging through the flames and towards Darganth.

But as impressive as this looked, Darganth was wholly unimpressed by their lacking copy of phoenix flames. Stretching his front legs fully to reach a more vertical position, he just turned his head to the side and shielded the rest of his body with one of his wings.

The let the flames wash over him harmlessly, leaving only a few marks on the scales that covered the outer side of his wings.

Fanning out his wings as soon as the flames passed, he created a gust of wind that snuffed out the few flames that sprung over to bundles of plants on the ground.

Calmly watching as a group of three flaming sorcerers flew towards him, Darganth responded with flames of his own. Calling upon the purest flames of destruction he could currently control, he let them erupt from below his scales.

Hued in flames of silver and emerald green, he rushed towards the approaching enemies, intent on using them as an outlet for his still substantial rage.

Cleaving through the one member of the flying formation with his claws, he tackled a second one out of the way before diving towards the mages.

“AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!” Crying out behind him, the man he had only tackled became enveloped by Darganth's flames.

His own defensive mantle of fire only managed to resist their destructive force for a second or two before failing. As soon as he no longer enjoyed its protection, the flames of destruction rapidly burned through his flesh and soul. The combined pain of both practically shattered the man's mind, making it a relief when his life was fully snuffed out no two seconds later.

The other high order soldiers momentarily hesitated as they saw their fellow's fate, giving Darganth enough time to reach the mages unobstructed. Crashing into the first and giving him the same quick death the other bloodline sorcerer had gotten, Darganth started his rampage among them.

Swiping his claws in a wide arc that quickly turned the stone beneath them into scraps, he mercilessly tore through their ranks. Human, elf, beastmen, none were spared from his wrath.

Shortly after the third mage fell beneath his claws the bloodline sorcerers also arrived back at their position, though Darganth's seemingly frenzied strikes left no opening for them to attack him.

Waves of fire sent his way were simply devoured by his flames of destruction, with spells fading out all the same.

Forced to helplessly watch this massacre, the bloodline sorcerers started trembling in fury. And after a couple of seconds, the first could no longer watch the scene before him and recklessly charged in between Darganth and his next target.

Pushing mana into his flames until he stood in a pillar of fire that reached tens of meters into the sky, he met Darganth's lunge. Right at that moment Darganth's lips curled up and his flames turned into a similar pillar, making the lone bloodline sorcerer realize that he made a mistake.

As soon as his flames met Darganth's, they became locked into a fierce struggle. Slowly the two pillars of fire melded and allowed Darganth to advance until he finally managed to impale the sorcerer with his claws.

With this, the last bit of resistance from the phoenix fire died down, allowing the two pillars to fully merge. As soon as they did, Darganth hastily turned around and flew as far from them as he could. Stopping over two kilometers from the point of collision, he looked at the pillar of fire with a vicious grin.

“Dragon and phoenix, two titans locked in an eternal rivalry but when together capable of unimaginable power. Ah, the irony.” He mused to himself, reminiscing slightly.

At the same time, the pillar of fire started expanding. As phoenix flames didn't contain the aspect of creation but rebirth, they didn't simply balance out the destructive energies of Darganth's flames. Instead, both started fueling each other, growing the inferno exponentially.

A bit over ten seconds after Darganth had escaped from the flames they reached critical mass, momentarily stopping before collapsing in on themselves. After a second of silence, the fingertip-sized sphere into which the flames had collapsed exploded violently.

Shaking the ground and easily melting through the stone, a storm of fire blew across the area. Instantly devouring the last few living vampires and high order members, Darganth watched their panicked attempts at escape with glee. Barely a second after it had devoured them, the flames also reached him, though by then they had already lost most of their strength.

But even this meager strength was enough to bring Darganth some discomfort, prompting him to quickly return to Alicia despite the satisfaction the sight brought him.

Turning around and flying for another kilometer before diving into the canyon, he returned to his appearance as Victor before dispelling the protections around Alicia.

As soon as he did, she saw the enormous destruction he wrought on the canyon, with an entire portion of it now going through the crater left by the explosion. Along some of these parts, the walls were reduced to as little as ten meters, with the rest being melted down into lava that filled the crater and dripped into the water.

“Did you-?” Alicia asked, failing to find words to express what she was seeing.

“Yes.”

“Are they dead?” She asked.

Seeing Darganth nodding in response, she felt a sense of satisfaction at the news despite her mind telling her that it was wrong.

“I should have already done it, not leave the burden to you. But whenever-” Alicia started but Dargant interrupted her.

“Don't think like that. You grew up in a different world, killing sapient beings will naturally be difficult. But sadly it is needed far more regularly here than back on earth.” Darganth said.

“Then just thank you.” Alicia said.

“Siblings should hold together, so always.” Darganth said.

After a moment he added, “Still, we should start to return to the city and get you a place to sleep without worry.”

Seeing his sister perking up at this, Darganth opened a portal before them that brought them back out of the canyon. Slowly the two made their way back to the monster city, with Darganth updating Jennia and Allaire along the way.