Dragon Gods Reign

[Beast forest]

Sitting on her throne, Neandra's face was marred with a heavy frown. Before her were hundreds of beasts crowded together around an altar. Lying on it was Orielle’s lifeless body, her wounds having been healed as a side effect of Neandra trying to revive her despite knowing of the effort's futility.

This resulted in her current state, her body being biologically fully healed but with the remaining mana of the attack that killed her making the difficulty of returning her soul too great. And while a weaker soul would be easier to revive, putting another soul into Orielle's body would lead to another being reviving in her stead no matter the method used.

This rather predictable result nonetheless led to another wave of anger among the beasts. Despite Neandra's insistence to remain calm for the time being, many started clamoring for war. This divide along with the aftermath of the hero's summoning spell caused some discontent with Neandra's rule.

For the first time since she ascended to the throne of the beast empress, she was opposed by an even remotely relevant portion of the legendary rank beasts. And despite her best efforts to prevent it, she was too late to keep the news from spreading to the humanoid kingdoms.

This news soon emboldened many of them, seeing this as the first crack that would one day bring down her throne. In their heart the hope of a return to balance started to bloom, believing that she will soon have only the same amount of control over the beasts as each previous beast emperor had from the beginning, meaning none beyond what their power could give them. The emperor's title would again become an empty one, only giving its holder a place in the meeting and nothing more.

But contrary to this sentiment by the vast majority, the true top powerhouses instead became wary. The beast emperor title and its holder lacked many things compared to the others, but personal power was seldom one of these. The beast emperor may generally have the smallest gap to the next strongest out of all emperors but that was more so the case due to the remaining beasts often surpassing their humanoid counterparts.

And as the first ruler of the beasts for whom this difference was great enough that nearly no beasts would choose to follow one of these rials, Neandra was undoubtedly in a league of her own.

So even if she were to lose that title, the threat she posed would in no way diminish. Additionally, lesser dragons would still follow her, making even the dent in her following's power rather lackluster.

Instead, her being opposed by this many beasts may lead to her abandoning her crown willingly and return to her old ways, an idea all those who still remembered those times feared. Because they knew that as much of a headache she was in that role, it had actually reigned her in.

Before she had been known to act together with two fellow mythical rank beasts and without regard for anything. They would regularly cause trouble for the other species, whether after provocation, simply for their entertainment, or out of disregard for their existence. One example would be the many occasions on which they had spared in their true forms and destroyed entire regions in the process.

All of this was a large part of how she acquired her position, the beast emperor at the time having found their actions to his liking and demanded them to submit to him. Laughing at him and disregarding his demand, the three only caused his will to force them to submit to grow.

Thus he attempted to force them, attacking Neandra and promptly being beaten down by her. Though this didn't happen without her getting intrigued by the idea of ruling over the beasts, his obsession with it prompting her to try it in an attempt to stifle her boredom.

Killing him as is tradition, she took his title for herself. This initially left the other species euphoric as new emperors nearly always faced an initial wave of chaos that would drop the specie's overall power.

But this quickly turned when they realized that their estimates of her power were far too low, with her having long since passed the point at which the other emperors could gang up on her. And though this wasn't the first time, in most cases it happened due to the other emperors being replaced by weaker successors, thus dropping this point.

And even compared to these other cases, she surpassed this point of no return by a far larger margin. This made any attempt to rectify the situation futile, starting the current era of the continent. Reinforcement's from the human empires, wave after wave of new beastmen refugees and even the spread of dwarven inventions previously only seen on their continent didn't change this.

With the leadership of all other species, not just those with emperors, now resting on the beasts, Neandra decided to act decisively and effectively.

During this past week since the battle, she had restrained her fury as she had feigned indecisiveness and waited for Orielle's funeral.

This led to the current situation, with the remaining human and beastmen prisoners being bound at the feet of the altar carrying her body. Cowering in fear after receiving the unfiltered wrath of the beasts for days, they nervously awaited her words.

When the last beast finished its speech honoring Orielle, praising not just her power as was common among beasts but also highlighting the kindness that made her popular with nearly everyone, it was finally Neandra's turn to speak. Initially giving a similar speech to the previous speaker's and praising her accomplishments, she waited until the end to pass her judgment on the prisoners.

“For your years in my service, I will give you one last honor as well as judge your murderers. For ending your life prematurely they will give theirs, my magic binding them to you in the afterlife and submitting them to your will. For all eternity you will be able to exert your revenge, whether by your own hands or through the agents of death.

For not only will they serve you but any positive deeds they may have done in their life will elevate your treatment while their souls will atone for any of your mistakes. Enjoy this eternity fully for you deserve the treatment you will get.”

Finishing those words with a snap, Neandra activated the spell Darganth had taught her in the past few days. In an instant a black smoke in the form of ethereal chains came into existence above her body. Slowly fading into existence from the empty air, their form became more pronounced the further down one looked along their length.

Their paths went through her body, these chains split as each shot toward one of the three prisoners bound near the altar. As they pierced through their chests they didn't leave any wounds, their victims nonetheless flinching in pain as the hooks at their ends dug into their skin.

“In addition to their end, Kaita will now present you with her apology for her bloodline's involvement in your death.”

Following these short words from Neandra, Kaita stepped forward with a group of roughly eighty beastmen in tow. Each one had similar characteristics as the male beastman bound at the altar.

Each one of them was one of her descendants, their common ancestor having once been her lover. After Neandra had given her permission to do so, she had instantly gone to their small town and unleashed her pent-up anger on them.

Ever since her then-lover had betrayed her and attempted to kill her she had held her grudge against their descendants but couldn't bring herself to act while her children were still alive. Instead, she waited, keeping tabs on each one that left the town to always be ready to act.

But before she could do so the current beastmen emperor gave them his protection and with only her personal grudge as foundation she saw little chance to be allowed to alienate him. Over time she had become largely indifferent to them but the fact that someone carrying her bloodline killed one of her friends caused her hate to resurface.

Mercilessly bulldozing into the settlement, she utilized her metal element to disarm them before the aura users could coat their weapons with aura and increase the difficulty of doing so. And with a lack of magic weapons due to their low ranks and lack of money, none had mana bound weapons. These could have resisted such a spell, or at least made its usage far more difficult.

Once this was done she didn't waste any time and started demolishing the village. Blocks of iron and other metals broke apart any buildings, chains started appearing from thin air and bound the inhabitants, and all the while a wall of metal kept any from trying to flee.

Within minutes nearly all persons in the village were bound by her chains and all structures left were nothing more than piles of debris. The only exceptions to the first were the children who weren't yet of age. The memories of her children as well as the belief that Orielle wouldn't want her funeral to be stained with their death made Kaita spare them.

Instead of being led in chains to burn in the same flames that would soon incinerate Orielle's body, they stayed in the safety of her lair. Among beastmen, they would receive the same discrimination that their parents already faced and thus she decided to give her bloodline another chance and raise them herself.

If, once they become adults, they would want to leave for what she did to their families she would let them. But until then she would treat them as she had her children before their betrayal.

Standing at the side with the other beasts as the aura user that was part of the attackers glared at her in a mix of rage and despair, she steeled her nerves as Neandra rose from her throne.

Taking a deep breath, she spewed a breath of fire at the altar that devoured not just it but also all the bound humanoids around it. After a few seconds, small glowing particles of light started rising from the sea of flames, indicating that the life forces were starting to dissolve.

Ending her fire breath, Neandra closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before fully taking the spectacle before her in. The only thing left besides the altar and Orielle's body was a series of burned patches where the prisoners had stood.

Silently watching as the flames that burned all over Orielle's body burned it, dissolving it into a series of glowing snowflake-like particles thanks to the altar. Soon these particles didn't just ascend to the skies in small trickles, instead becoming a flood of light that flew to the heavens.

And as the last piece of her flesh burned away, the alter vanished without any traces. But everyone knew that it arrived at Orielle's side, bringing everything they had placed inside to her into the afterlife. There these gifts will hopefully help her even if none knew with what.

Like this, she was walking down the paths toward the halls of judgment and to an eternal life that was guaranteed to be great. Even a neutral evaluation, the lowest she could get thanks to the obscure and largely unknown spell from Darganth, would allow her to live a comfortable life. She wouldn't receive any special privileges but she also would not be subject to a possible eternal punishment.

But at the same time the beasts all knew that with the funeral's end, the conflict of the past few days would come to the forefront. Neither Neandra nor any of her critics wanted to act before it but now that it would no longer reflect poorly on them, they wouldn't hesitate.

The groups opposing her slowly stopped hiding it, their gazes showing open hostility and greed for her throne. Spurring each other on more and more, soon the first few beasts grew bold enough to step forward. Ignoring the large majority that simply stood at the sides in neutrality and the few they alienated from being the first to act as they saw it as insulting to Orielle, they walked closer to Neandra's throne.

Soon they found every lesser dragon present blocking their path, something they had expected as their unwavering loyalty towards her was well known. Before they were the group that showed the beast emperor the least respect, seeing themselves closer to dragons, but for her they became the most loyal group.

Before this could even have a chance to escalate, Neandra lightly tapped the armrest of her throne. As soon as she gave this signal, Darganth and Yldra descended from the skies in dragon forms about forty meters long. With her dragon's fear washing over the crowd, they silenced them instantly as Allaire, Jennia, and Venire teleported to Neandra's side in full gear.