The kilometers meant nothing to Krarvathar. He had found them again.
The elves, now stronger than before, also sensed the dragon's approach. However, what lay ahead of them worried them as well.
"He's alive?!" Some shouted, while others tensed up. Thswoner, however, smiled. The elven general felt a power he had never experienced before, and when he looked at Garhlieash, he noticed his friend was smiling too. It was a new opportunity to face a powerful enemy, to test their newfound strength, and to kill an old adversary.
The three wyverns glided at approximately six hundred meters above the ground, but an immense wall of sandstorm churned violently ahead of them, stretching as far as the eye could see, both to the north and to the west. Something there was pulling at them. It did not weaken them as before, but it disturbed them deeply.
"Our ancient home was cursed. Now, with our Mother, we have the chance to reclaim it. However, beware: just as our glory has returned, our enemy has also risen again," Garhlieash proclaimed in a powerful voice. "So we will kill him again — and as many times as necessary!" He raised his sword, and the elves answered with a unified roar.
Less than ten seconds passed after the proclamation. In the cloudless, clear air of late afternoon, beneath a clean blue sky, Krarvathar appeared in the heavens more than six hundred meters above the ground. He could not yet fly freely, but the skies were gradually becoming his domain once more.
The dragon now saw perfectly the amalgam of sand, iron, and minerals transformed into an uninterrupted hurricane that stretched for kilometers, dense and powerful. The reflected light created a strange palette of white, yellow, gray, and dark brown tones.
This time, he did not get distracted. He saw the elves and was ready, even in the air. Thswoner reacted first. He leaped from the back of the winged creature straight toward Krarvathar.
The dragon thrust his arms forward with fingers tensed. The air was sliced by powerful, invisible blades that grew in the sky — ten in total, one from each finger.
Thswoner moved like a flash of lightning, but stopped mid-air, using his khopesh to defend against the attack. The harphesh allowed his eyes to perceive the invisible cuts. The others were not so fortunate. The wyvern was destroyed the moment the attack struck it, causing an explosion that hurled both Thswoner and the rest of the group backward.
"Hahaha!" Krarvathar smiled and let his body fall through the air toward them. "This is my pain, my anguish of life: to live in order to fulfill what I am."
Thswoner swung his sword and dissipated the air in front of him. He was not wounded, but his body was falling toward the ground as he heard the dragon's words, even from a distance.
That surprised the elf, even as he watched Krarvathar descend. He gripped the blade with both hands and attacked. A slash of black flames tore through the air directly toward the dragon. From behind him came red flames from Garhlieash's scimitar, delivered in the same kind of strike.
Arrows charged with chains of harphesh were fired by the other fifteen elves. Now more powerful, resistant, and solid, they wrapped around Krarvathar, binding him without pause.
"What are you… why do you exist?" Thswoner thought. From the beginning he had avoided thinking about Krarvathar. He had thought only of killing him. Questioning his existence made no sense. But now, after everything, this human dragon made him question.
One of the wyverns flew toward Thswoner, catching him, along with the elves who held the harphesh chains.
The black and red flames had consumed each other around Krarvathar and exploded.
The dragon had allowed it on purpose. He seized the chains and pulled with force.
The elves had not expected the move. Suddenly, all fifteen of them, together with the wyverns flying in an almost circular formation, were yanked through the air toward Krarvathar.
The harphesh flames from Thswoner and Garhlieash vanished. In that instant, even from a distance, Thswoner looked at Krarvathar. The dragon had no wounds at all. There was no time to shout or for the elves to react. Some were pulled closer to him than others.
Then, a new fire appeared — this time coming from Krarvathar himself. A gray fire, almost the same color as the sandstorm wall rising a few kilometers ahead. The flames burst from his fingers and arms as he spread them wide, gazing at the sky. They formed a powerful wing, larger than his own body, which burned and exploded toward the elves, crackling, expanding, and rippling upon itself.
"Suffering and pain that you flame, burn within me and within them! The war and death that you desire!" shouted Krarvathar, expanding his power through the air.