As the still-beating heart was violently torn away from the tendons and veins it was connected to, a sharp gasp escaped from Jarun's mouth. He gasped desperately for air, his mouth falling open, and turned his head with great effort toward the woman standing before him—the woman who had literally stolen his heart away.
Aiona pushed him away from her as she released the deadly embrace she had initiated moments before. The man fell heavily to the wooden stage floor with a loud, sickening thud. As he landed, he spat out a mouthful of blood that pooled beneath him. He looked up weakly at Aiona, his golden eyes asking the question his voice could no longer form: 'Why? Why did you do this?'
"This beating heart here in my hand is proof that you are fundamentally human," Aiona said, her voice cold and steady. "I thought I could show you this truth because you never seemed able to grasp the concept in your head. You thought you were something other, something beyond. Or perhaps you believed you were better than a mere human being. You were wrong. You were a human all this time, just like everyone else. Just as I am, in my core."
She paused, looking down at the dying man. "Although I shed my human shell to become a dragon, in my heart I'm still human. If you had just acknowledged and accepted that simple truth about yourself, life wouldn't have been so hard for you. You could have found peace."
Then she scoffed bitterly as she extended his still-beating heart toward him, showing him the evidence.
"What you did to your fellow humans was completely unacceptable," she continued. "You were a monster, yes—but you were a human who turned himself into a monster. Not because of what you were born as, but because of your own vile, evil thoughts and choices. Think about that truth as you enter the circle of reincarnation and are judged."
She sighed heavily. "Any last words before you die?"
The man lying broken on the floor smiled weakly despite his agony. Then he coughed up more blood. "I love you," he managed to say, looking directly into her eyes with what remained of his strength. "I always did. I will always love you, even beyond death."
Aiona frowned at those words. Then she let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Of course these are your last words. Till the very end, you will curse me with your love. Till the end of time itself."
She said quietly, almost to herself, "Goodbye, Jarun."
And then she crushed his heart completely in her hand, reducing it to tiny fragments and stopping it from beating forever.
---
The next scene showed Aiona flying high in her magnificent dragon form—setting the streets and the entire Kingdom of Heinnas ablaze with her flames. Everyone remaining in the kingdom had been turned into hollows, their souls stolen. And Aiona realized she could not waste more precious time going to each and every single person one by one, carefully setting them individually on cleansing flames as she had done for her son Garam and for Grendran.
She had performed that mercy for them. But as she surveyed the devastation and realized the sheer scale—hundreds of thousands of hollows—she understood it was completely inefficient to continue that way. She simply transformed into her dragon form and breathed purifying flame across everything below, releasing them all at once.
A few of the ships that had been departing from the shores of Heinnas—vessels that carried people who hadn't been turned into hollows simply because they were already out at sea when the attack happened—witnessed the terrible sight from the water. They saw the massive dragon circling above, raining fire down upon the kingdom. And they whispered fearfully among themselves about what they were seeing.
"The living deity of Heinnas has gone completely mad," they said to each other in horror. "She's burning her own kingdom down to ashes. The goddess has turned destroyer."
The word of what had happened traveled swiftly to far-away lands and distant kingdoms. Even to the northern Kingdom of Draga—that ancient realm that had lasted for over three thousand years and kept meticulous records of every single dragon that had ever walked the world.
And so the name she would later be known by came into being: "Destroyer of Kingdoms." The title followed her like a curse.
---
After burning her beloved kingdom down to nothing but ash and scorched earth, Aiona spent her remaining time sitting motionless on a cliff near the ocean. She held carefully in her arms the corpse of her mate, cradling him. She had burned down even her own palace, destroying everything. And she waited and waited, looking constantly at the horizon—waiting for the inevitable divine wrath and punishment to come for taking so many human lives.
She knew they had been as good as dead without their souls intact, but still their physical bodies had been alive and animated. So essentially, she had deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of living people with her dragon flame. That was the truth, regardless of mercy or justification.
After seven full days of waiting without moving, finally someone came for her. During those seven days, she hadn't moved even an inch from her position. Only when it rained heavily one night had she temporarily turned into her dragon form to shelter her mate's decaying corpse from the rain, protecting him. Besides that single movement, she had simply sat and looked at the sun rising and setting back down again, day after day, praying for her own death to come faster. She didn't want to live anymore. There was nothing left.
A soft sound of gravel crunching under someone's feet could be heard approaching. The sound broke the silence.
"My child, why did you do that?" asked the person who walked calmly to the edge of the cliff near her and stood looking out at the endless ocean.
Aiona looked up at the young man standing next to her. He appeared so young—she could guess around fifteen or sixteen years old at most. He had black hair and black eyes. He carried a quiver full of arrows on his back and held a bow in his hands. He looked exactly like a hunter, nothing more.
But Aiona knew with certainty that wasn't his real identity or form. He was a vessel, a temporary body being used by Rulha—the Dragon God himself. The one who was ultimately responsible for all dragons that roamed the world.
"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter much anymore," the boy said in a voice far too profound and ancient for his youthful appearance. "You are already drowning in a world of pain after losing your fated mate. Nothing else matters anymore when that bond is severed. I know that terrible feeling myself very well."
He paused, still looking at the ocean. "But you deserve to know the whole truth—how everything came to be, and about your mate's final moments before death."
At those words, Aiona whipped her head around to look at him directly.
"Yes, please—tell me everything," she pleaded desperately, her voice breaking. "I need to know."
At her plea, the hunter boy let out a heavy sigh like an old man who had witnessed everything the world had to offer, all its cruelties and sorrows.
"You were sleeping deeply for three full days," he began explaining. "You were poisoned by that special bottle of wine—that fine vintage, I don't recall the exact name—that Grendran brought and opened. It had been compromised, tampered with. A rare herb called Dragon's Sleep was secretly added to it. It's not harmful to humans at all, but extremely potent and effective for dragons specifically. It makes them fall into deep sleep for as long as the amount consumed—three sips meant three days of unconsciousness."
He continued, "Your friends—Yana, Garam, and Grendran—were desperately worried about you when you wouldn't wake. They went to find your mate Hunter and sought out a cure for the poison. But they were confronted and stopped by that abomination you later killed—Jarun. When they realized he had harmed you by poisoning you, they decided he shouldn't be allowed to live. They attacked him together, trying to end his life."
The god's voice grew darker. "But Jarun retaliated. He started turning them into hollows one by one, violently sucking out their souls and consuming them to increase his power. He deliberately spared only your mate at first, toying with him. Your maid Yana managed to escape his immediate grasp and ran back to your palace to try to take you away to safety. But she was caught and turned into a hollow inside your palace walls. Eventually, Jarun systematically turned everyone into hollows—every single person in the whole kingdom."
He took a deep breath before continuing. "Your mate was incredibly brave throughout. He fought again and again, trying desperately to rescue you and escape with you to safety. And he finally enraged the monster beyond control when he shouted that even if Jarun were born and reborn a thousand times, you would never love him. That's when Jarun impaled him on that spike in the center stage. It was designed as torture—a slow, agonizing death meant to maximize suffering."
He ended the story there.
"I see," Aiona said, her voice rising with fury. "And you didn't intervene at all? You didn't think to help me or them?"
She screamed in rage, "You could have helped them! You could have stopped this! What kind of god are you?"
The god inhabiting the boy's body laughed, the sound echoing.
"That wasn't my fault, but entirely yours," he said calmly. "The day that monster was born, you knew in your heart that you should kill him. But you didn't do it. You couldn't bring yourself to end his life. Even when you knew with certainty the child would bring only destruction and more destruction—you weren't able to end his existence. Why? Just because his mother was your dear friend? Your choices shaped your own destiny, my dear child. Don't blame me for your own shortcomings and failures."
His voice remained steady. "You were supposed to marry your mate, travel the world together, and even give birth to a hatchling—a child. You ruined everything for yourself. And even when you were given one last chance to change things, you decided not to alter anything. So this tragedy was your fault, not mine."
Aiona started crying silently at his words. Her tears fell steadily, but no sobs escaped her mouth. She wept without sound.
"Just do whatever you came here to do," she mumbled after a long while, her voice hollow.
The boy sighed heavily. "If you are fortunate enough, perhaps you will meet him again in another life. But for the crime of taking innocent lives—even if they were already as good as dead—you must be punished. You are sentenced to burn to death from dragon flames. Brace yourself for what comes."
Aiona hugged the corpse of her mate even tighter, holding him close one final time.
And then the words of judgment were spoken aloud.
"Curse Magic: Dragon Flames."
And flames made of pure, bright red fire engulfed both Aiona and her dead mate completely, consuming them both.