Dragon Gods Reign

[Near the dragon peaks]

Deep within the central continent were a series of canyons interwoven into each other. Together they formed a great obstacle around the towering peaks in their midst, with the hundreds of junctions creating an enormous maze.

Scattered throughout these canyons were thousands of caves, both small and large, housing all manner of beasts. But despite this large amount of living beings existing close to each other, there were no signs of conflict across the entire area, only occasional signs of past fights that served as warnings.

This lead to a tense atmosphere despite the region being peaceful, with nearly all of its inhabitants excluding a sense of vigilance. Occasionally they would look to the sky with fearful eyes, no matter whether they were walking on the elevated earth between the canyons, walking at their depths or climbing along the steep walls.

This occurrence became more and more frequent the closer one came to the mountain, just as the number of beasts decreased. As soon as the large numbers of caves were replaced with only an extremely few large ones, the already low number of beasts sharply fell to none.

Making her way through this canyon system was a woman, seemingly unperturbed by the tense atmosphere. Making her way towards the center where the group of mountains stood, undisturbed by the hundreds of beasts eying her.

Occasionally she would flicker her hand when one of them became too daring, causing the offending beast to be swallowed by a wave of fire. Whenever this happened the rest would jump back in fear, only to slowly close the distance again.

By the time the women walked far enough that the caves became sparser the beasts following her became fewer as they would only trail her while she was near their territory. After a while even these few beasts started to back off fully, leaving her alone again.

Slowly walking through the empty canyon she only spared a short glance at the many empty caves that she passed. Only when she stood in front of the only one that had traces of a being recently walking into it around did she stop.

Standing in front of this cave, she waited for its inhabitant to notice her.

“What do you want?” Asked a voice from deep within the cave after a few minutes of waiting.

“A meeting with Batoim.” The woman answered.

This stunned the being inside the cave for a moment, before it broke out into laughter. Hearing this laughter, the woman grew visibly annoyed that she wasn't taken seriously. This didn't go unnoticed by the being, though it didn't particularly care.

“Oh, what do you want to do now, attack me?” The being asked in a mocking tone.

“Not that bad of an idea.” The woman replied with a threatening smile. This caused another wave of laughter from the being.

“Do you even know what I am?” It asked amidst its laughter.

Instead of answering the woman just made a crushing motion with her fist. Instantly the laughter stopped, being replaced with an angry growl.

“That was a mistake.” The being said in a deep growl.

At the same time, there was a slight rumbling from inside the cave, causing the ground in the vicinity to shake. A moment later a wave of flames erupted from inside, shooting out of the cave and toward the women.

Despite this, she didn't seem concerned and just kept standing still with a smile. As soon as the flames reached her, they engulfed her completely before flying for hundreds of meters more. Slightly stunned by the lack of a reaction, the being inside the cave stopped the wave of flames and looked at the place where the women stood slightly stunned.

As soon as the flames receded from there they revealed the woman standing there, completely unharmed and still with the same smile on her lips. Irritated by this development, the being chose to finally leave its cave.

Reaching the light, a red and orange dragon revealed itself. The flowing sun-like texture on its scales glowed ominously, with a yellow glow coming from beneath them and shining dimly out at their edges.

“Now you have my attention, whether you like it or not. Say, who are you?” The dragon asked.

“First you look down on me, now you make demands? Bring me to your leader and you will know who I am.” The woman said.

This defiance towards him angered the dragon, causing the glow below the scales around his neck to intensify. Growing brighter, it first changed from the initial red to orange before settling at yellow, though still with clear traces of the orange. At the same time, the scales started to stand out with their tips being pushed slightly away from the neck itself. This allowed more of the low to be visible, with it slowly becoming flames in the same color that engulfed the neck.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second and directly after another wave of fire came out of the dragon's maw. Instead of being red like the last, this had the same color as the flames around the neck. This time the woman took the flames slightly more seriously and held out her hand.

Compared to the last wave that washed over her harmlessly, this one was more dangerous and could even wound her if it hit. But before it could the space in front of the flames distorted for a moment. When the flames reached this spot the center of the wave simply vanished, with the flames that didn't simply passing by the women harmlessly.

Stunned by this development, the dragon couldn't even react to the woman's counterattack. Moving her outstretched hand upwards with a twirl, she let a pillar of earth below the dragon form that struck its underbelly with enough force to lift him into the air.

Ripped out of its confusion, the dragon attacked by forming a series of spells in a vertical circle around it. However, as soon as they formed they were dragged into the hurricane that had formed around the dragon and were brought of course. This made them strike the walls of the canyon, only knocking a few large rocks loose.

At the same time, this hurricane forced the dragon to focus on keeping his body stable as its winds were stronger than he had initially expected. Conjuring a flaming sphere around him, he at least prevented the rocks and trees that were being dragged into these winds from reaching him by melting them to nothingness.

Once he ensured that his body was stable he turned to the woman, only to stare at hundreds of spears of light hovering around her. Stunned for a short moment he nearly missed the five massive chains of light flying at him at extreme speed, giving him barely enough time to deflect them by blasting a concentrated beam of flames toward them.

With his movements now restricted by these chains, he could only watch on helplessly as the spears of light pierced towards him. Just before the first one hit him, they were devoured by another wave of flames, this one a pure yellow compared to his that was mixed with orange.

Sighing in relief at this, he looked towards their source in gratitude. The woman also looked there, both finding a man with two draconic wings behind his back, hovering in the air with a relaxed attitude.

“As much as his impulsiveness deserves a lesson, I can't let you impale him.” The man said when he noticed the woman's glare.

“Then why did you stop me, this wouldn't have killed him.” The woman complained in annoyance.

“Yes, but it would have crippled him. Even if it heals, it would take time and I don't want to have to deal with finding someone else that wants to do his job.”

“Fine, but keep him under control. And bring me to Batoim.” The woman said annoyed.

As soon as she said this the chains around the dragon became more and more illusionary, until they fully dissolved. Still angered by the humiliation he had endured, the dragon wanted to jump and attack the woman but was held back by a glare from the newcomer.

Only when he no longer showed any intention to attack the woman did the man turn to her, “As much as he let his impulses dictate his actions, he is right in that we won't just let a random human meet with our leader.”

“Random human? You don't know who I am, so-” The woman started.

“I don't care.” He interrupted her, “Whatever fancy title you have among you kind, it doesn't interest me. Be happy that I let you return unharmed and enjoy you life. Even I must admit that I admire the heights you reached, but we dragons don't entertain human visitors. Especially not for a meeting with our leader.”

“It seem that you misunderstood. You call me human?” She said, letting go of the reign she has on her mana.

Feeling her mana pool to rival his, the man opened his eyes in shock. Before he could express this however, he noticed her mana to feel familiar. Focusing on this feeling, he tried and failed to recall where it is from.

Seeing his shock made the woman chuckle. After a few moments during which the man kept trying to recognize what gave him this familiar feeling, she decided to put an end to the current situation before it dragged on for too long. And with the man's pride it would have been a long time.

“Recognize it now?” She asked, letting two draconic wings sprout from her back. At the same time she stopped keeping her dragon mana hidden, letting it mix with the mana she was already releasing.

Nearly without delay the man recognize what had caused the familiar feeling, the shock of this realization being large enough that he forgot to flap his wings for a moment.

“S-Star dragon, how?” He asked, not entirely believing his senses.

Enilla simply smiled in amusement at his shock. Silently waiting for him to organize his thoughts, the man soon started to realize they only possible explanation, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

“He is here?” He asked is shock.

“How else can an extinct species resurface?” Enilla asked with a smile.

After a moment of thought the man nodded to this. Instantly afterward he realized that this must mean that she had quite a lot of Darganth's trust which made him look at her with fearful eyes.

“I must apologize for my earlier attitude, I had though you to be a human.” He hastily said.

Enilla ignored his words and simply motioned for him to show her the way. Without further words he conjured a portal next to him and walked through. A moment later she followed behind him through the portal.

Only then did the dragon that had initially attacked her sigh in relieve. Turning around he walked back to his cave while shuddering slightly, hoping to never meet her again.

When Enilla stepped out of the other side of the portal, she found herself on an elevated plateau with dozens of mountains surrounding her position. Upon closer inspection she noticed hundreds of caves carved into the mountainsides, growing larger the further up they were and with even those at the ground being larger than hers was.

Additionally she could see further plateaus on most of the mountains, splitting them into multiple peaks. Most of them were far enough up that they should have been hidden by the clouds, but to her confusion there were none despite her having seen the entire mountain being veiled in them. But after a moment she noticed the reason for this when she turned around.

Directly behind her was the only place from her point of view that didn't end in a mountain, allowing her to look down on the thick blanked of clouds hiding the ground from her. Additionally she could see another similar mountain in the distance.

“What else did you expect? Batoim has of course one of the highest caves.” The man said, clearly amused at her surprise.

“The highest not used by the Void clan.”

Her answer surprised him slightly, but then he remembered that she had to have met Darganth. Not reacting to her correction he started levitation and motioned for her to follow after him.

As soon as she followed his example he shot towards the sky with Enilla following closely after him. Making their way up through the sky, she noticed very few dragons flying around especially when compared to the number of caves. Even most of these caves didn't have any signs of recent use.

“How come so few dragons are here?” She asked, mixing her voice with mana to allow it to reach her guide despite the high speed they flew at.

“They just rarely leave their homes, most who are here are so because they are too powerful to go unnoticed somewhere else on this planet. The Void clan doesn't want to deal with gods trying to claim it.” He said to her.

Nodding in understanding, they continued in silence until they reached a small plateau on the highest of the mountains. Lying just below the half way point towards it peak, it was a clearly artificial protrusion around the entirety of the mountain.

Landing at its edge, Enilla directly noticed the palace standing before her. Standing about half way over the plateau, it covered nearly the entirety of the cave behind it from her view. Ignoring the bland and empty scenery surrounding it, she made her way towards the door.

When she walked towards the door she noticed the transformed dragon that had lead her here already walking inside.

“What do you want Idrian?” Came from inside the palace.

Before the man could answer Enilla also reached the door, following inside. This made head of the person opposite of him snap his head towards her. Instantly his expression shifted from annoyance to curiosity.

“Batoim I assume?” Enilla asked.

“Yes. And I must say, I hadn't expected to ever again see one of your kind.” He answered her.

This answer surprised Enilla slightly.

“Again? Hadn't expected you to be this old.” At this Batoim laughed slightly.

“I only met the last of your kind when he visited my parents, a few years before his death. As powerful as our kind can get, few of us are gods.” He said in a reminiscing tone.

This made the conversation devolve into an awkward silence. While Batoim was reminiscing, Enilla had no idea how to react to this and felt bad for reminding him of a possibly bad memory.

After about a minute Batoim continued, “Sorry, was lost in thought. Why are you here?”

Hearing from his tone that she her worry's were unfounded, Enilla sight in relieve. Thinking for a second how much she should say, she decided to remain vague with her answer.

“Want to visit someone.” She said.

Batoim of course noticed her formulating her answer this vague on purpose but decided not to pry further. Someone who had Darganth's trust was, in his mind, not someone he had the right to doubt. Though there still was something he wondered about.

“I don't see a reason why you would have to meet with me first?” He asked.

“Well, I doubted that you would like it if I just flew into the territory of the Void Clan without announcement.” Her words surprised him, though he quickly started to realize what this meant.

“You want to meet with Vorthos?” He asked to confirm his thoughts.

This in turn stunned Enilla enough that she forgot to answer for a moment. Collecting herself, her thoughts raced on how to react.

“No worries, I don't really care what business you have with him.” Batoim said when he noticed this.

“Thanks.”

“Well, its not like you would do anything to him. Even tough you can affect him with dragons authority, he stronger than you by far. And he enjoys Irsyr's protection.” He added.

This made her look around with a guilty look, causing Batoim to narrow his eyes with a suspicious look.

“Well, I won't do anything too bad to him. No matter if he is under Irsyr's protection, I doubt he will intervene as long as I don't take it too far.” She explained herself with a wary smile.

This didn't alleviate his suspicions, causing him to dig further.

“Why do you want to meet with him?” He asked in a stern tone.

Sighing at her own rash words, Enilla thought for a moment before deciding to tell him.

“I want answers as to why he left me and our daughter behind without a word.” She said, making both Batoim and Idrian widen their eyes in surprise.

After a moment Batoim started to laugh in malicious joy. And while this annoyed her, she could only wait for him to finish.

“That I get to experience this.” Batoim said with a chuckle once he collected himself.

“That wasn't the reaction I expected.”

“But the reaction he deserves. Do you have any idea how much I hate the fact that he gets to live among their kind despite doing the same job I am? And even that he does worse as he is by far weaker than I am so whatever gets past me will also get past him.” Batoim said, his anger over the situation palpable.

Seeing Enilla's bewildered expression he asked, “You don't seem to realize how much pride we take in our role, do you?”

To this she shook her head, making him sigh in understanding.

“I would like to explain it, but its something that everyone has to learn for themselves.”

“Then I doubt I will ever get it. As much as I respect the void lineage, having our god as son-in-law changes my outlook considerably.” She said, leaving the two dragons shocked once more.

Shrugging her shoulders with a small smile to their looks of disbelief, Enilla stayed silent.

“You are telling me that Vorthos abandoned his daughter and that daughter is now married to Darganth himself?” He asked, trying and failing to suppress his glee over the situation.

“They are together and, as far as I know, not married, but yes.” She said.

Her confirmation nearly made him break out into laughter again, but he managed to delay it.

“I will have to ask with Irsyr for confirmation, but I don't doubt that he will allow you to go up further. When I have his answer I will inform you, till then you can stay in the palace.” He barely manged to say before his laughter overwhelmed him.

Seeing that he would probably need a while before he collected himself this time, Enilla left the hall they were in with a slight smile. Searching for the guest rooms, she chose one and went inside.