The wind across the northern hills of Mirekeep carried the stink of opened graves.
Isara Ashvane stood at the foot of the ridge with her white hair stirring behind her like pale smoke, eyes narrowed toward the darkness above. Fell Aether rolled down the mountainside in cold waves thick enough to make lesser cultivators choke.
Dead trees creaked overhead.
Somewhere beyond the black timberline, something screamed.
"Stay alert," Isara said flatly. "The ridge is crawling with monsters. And there's something stronger up there."
The women behind her immediately tightened formation.
Sylva Dreyn glanced uneasily toward the upper slopes. "Sixth Elder-Uncle went up the mountain this morning. Do you think he'll help us?"
The name alone carried weight.
Varek Smolden.
The Lone-Smoke Elder who had slaughtered demon kings across the Fell Realm even after losing both arms. A monster among monsters. If he chose to interfere, the entire battle for Mirekeep could change in moments.
But Isara merely said, "Do not rely on him."
Then she moved.
Her figure blurred across the stones with terrifying speed.
The others hurried after her.
The climb grew worse the higher they went. The air became colder. Heavier. Every breath tasted damp and rotten.
Then they saw the soldiers.
A flood of Imperial troops burst down the slope in utter panic.
Men from the Iron Maw Legion. Demon Hunters from Dawnbreaker Hold. All of them drenched in blood.
Their faces looked shattered.
Some had thrown away their weapons entirely just to run faster.
"What happened?" Sylva shouted.
No one answered.
The soldiers barreled past them like hunted animals. One man nearly smashed into Mira Stonwell before scrambling onward without even looking at her.
Another was openly sobbing.
The women exchanged grim looks and continued upward.
Beside Sylva, Selene Voss swallowed hard.
"Second Soror..." she whispered shakily. "What in the hell scared them that badly?"
Sylva gave her a calm smile despite the tension in her own eyes.
"Stay close to me."
Selene nodded immediately.
At Vane's Summit, Sylva had always been her safe place. Quiet. Gentle. Capable. The woman who patched wounds without complaint and stood between danger and everyone else.
Selene stayed almost shoulder to shoulder with her as they climbed.
Bodies soon began appearing across the trail.
Some belonged to Iron Maw soldiers. Others wore the black hunting leathers of Dawnbreaker Hold's Demon Hunters.
Many had not merely been killed.
They had been butchered.
Armor had been split open in long ragged tears. Flesh peeled apart. Entrails spilled across rocks and roots. One corpse had nearly been cut in half from shoulder to hip.
Selene felt her stomach tighten.
Sylva's expression hardened.
"Skeleton-spiders," she said quietly. "Those wounds match their legs."
As she spoke, she reached into her satchel and drew out The Verdant Bow.
The divine weapon unfolded in her hands with a pulse of green light.
Selene had already drawn her own blade.
The Banishing Ice-Flame Blade shimmered with pale frost and faint crimson flame.
But her fingers were trembling so badly around the hilt that her knuckles had gone white.
"Look over there!" Mira suddenly called.
Ahead, between several massive trees, thick webs had been stretched like hunting snares.
Inside them hung grotesque shapes.
Skeleton-spiders.
Several of the horrors twitched weakly within the nets, their blood-red skeletal legs jerking in dying spasms.
Sylva studied the glowing threads. "Dawnbreaker Hold's capture nets."
Then shouting erupted deeper in the woods.
"We've got it!"
"Hold the line!"
"Don't let the bastard escape!"
The women rushed forward through dense brush until the forest suddenly opened into a chaotic clearing.
Dozens of Demon Hunters were sprinting back and forth while hauling on ropes attached to a gigantic warded net. The thing inside it was enormous.
Whatever they had trapped thrashed so violently that the men were being dragged through the dirt despite their numbers.
"Dawnbreaker Hold," Sylva said. "Looks like they caught something big."
Mira stared wide-eyed at the net itself.
The mesh was layered with hundreds of glowing Ward-Scripts that crackled with bursts of lightning every time the creature struck it.
"That's the Adamant Ward-Net?" she breathed.
Sylva nodded once.
"It once captured a demon general alive."
The trapped creature slammed sideways.
A tree trunk thicker than a barrel exploded apart from the impact.
Several Demon Hunters screamed as they were yanked off their feet.
"Hold it!" someone roared desperately. "We nearly died catching this thing!"
"That bastard killed half our squad!" another shouted. "We're cutting it into pieces after this!"
Then one of the creature's legs punched through the net.
The limb was long and crimson, curved at the end like a butcher's hook.
It hacked wildly at the glowing mesh.
Every strike triggered explosions of sparks and lightning.
Selene's face went pale.
she whispered. "It's enormous."
"Maybe their queen," Mira muttered.
She finally pulled out The Earth-Spirit Flute, though she looked far steadier than Selene did. Bugs and crawling horrors bothered her far less than undead corpses.
Another crimson leg stabbed through the net.
Then another.
The entire structure bulged outward violently.
"It's breaking free!" a Demon Hunter screamed.
"Throw another net over it!"
"That was the last one!"
Panic spread instantly.
A squad leader barked over the chaos, "Calm yourselves! The warding flames will burn it to ash if it keeps struggling—"
A red blur flashed.
The hook-like leg punched through his chest without warning.
Blood sprayed.
The man was lifted screaming into the air before the scream abruptly stopped.
The leg tore him in half.
Several Demon Hunters instantly let go of the ropes.
"Damn it!" Sylva snapped.
She whipped her sleeve outward.
Thick green vines exploded from the undergrowth.
genui{"math_block_widget_always_prefetch_v2":{"content":"f(x)=x^3-3x"}}
The Python Vine Art lashed toward the net like striking serpents—
—but Isara was faster.
The Lady Magister had already formed hand seals and shot forward in a streak of white.
A horrible growl echoed from inside the net.
Not human.
Not animal.
The entire Adamant Ward-Net suddenly burst apart.
The remaining Demon Hunters were hurled through the air.
At the same moment, scarlet shadows flashed through the clearing.
Bodies exploded.
Several men were sliced apart before they even hit the ground.
Then the monster emerged.
Its upper body resembled a giant blood-soaked man with long tangled hair and a twisted face split by a predator's grin.
Below the waist was the monstrous body of a spider.
Eight massive crimson legs stabbed into the earth around it.
"What miserable bastards," it screeched in a voice like rusted blades scraping bone. "You dared ambush General Bloodrend?"
The creature lunged.
Sylva's summoned vines were instantly hacked apart.
Isara met the attack head-on.
Scarlet limbs slammed against her defensive seals in a burst of force that shattered nearby rocks.
Even she was driven backward two steps.
---
Kael Ashvane nearly blacked out from despair.
"Why am I this cursed?" he thought wildly. "First everyone says I'm some demonic bastard, now I fall into a dragon's nest?"
He looked around the enormous pit.
"And why are there skeletons everywhere?!"
The skeletal sorcerers lining the edge of the crater had all frozen in shock.
Hundreds of hollow eye sockets stared down at him.
Kael still wore stolen skeletal armor, but under the gaze of so many high-ranking undead it felt about as useful as being naked.
Then he noticed their robes.
Their staves.
Their formation.
"Oh hell... they're all skeletal sorcerers?"
His stomach dropped.
"And they're standing in a ritual circle."
The undead recovered quickly.
Staves lit up all around the crater.
Kael's blood ran cold.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
The sky exploded with magic.
Green fire.
Purple bolts.
Rotting black mist.
Sickly blue meteors.
Kael threw himself sideways an instant before the first barrage struck.
The ground detonated behind him in bursts of twisted flame that looked like dozens of fireworks exploding at once.
"If all of them hit me together, there won't even be teeth left to bury!"
He sprang toward the slope, trying to escape the crater.
Blue fireballs instantly drove him back down.
Then the real bombardment began.
Spells poured down from every direction like a storm.
Kael sprinted across the pit floor in pure panic, diving and weaving between explosions while Lyra's Flashstep Art screamed through his Channels.
Without the speed enhancement, he would already have died ten times over.
Even so, sweat drenched him within moments.
His Vitae reserves were draining fast.
A huge cloud of glowing green smoke suddenly exploded directly ahead of him.
The vapor expanded instantly into clawing shapes filled with corpse-light.
Dark rites.
Kael recoiled backward without thinking.
His back slammed into something hard.
Then—
Silence.
The attacks stopped.
Every skeletal sorcerer above abruptly ceased casting.
Kael blinked in confusion.
Then slowly turned around.
His entire body went weak.
He had crashed directly into the lower jaw of the Skeletal Dragon.
The gigantic skull loomed over him like a fortress.
Its mouth alone could swallow him whole.
"Oh gods," Kael whispered.
His will to fight almost vanished on the spot.
He shut his eyes tightly.
"When I die... will Master remember me sometimes?"
A painful ache tightened in his chest.
"Will Sel always think about me?"
He could practically picture Selene screaming at him for doing something reckless before crying herself to sleep afterward.
"And Mira..." he thought miserably. "She'll bawl her eyes out..."
Then another thought struck him.
"Peria."
His heart twisted.
"If I die down here, nobody will let her out. Nobody'll water her."
The image of the little peach spirit trapped alone inside the branch nearly broke him.
But nothing happened.
No bite.
No crushing jaws.
No death.
Only the steady sound of the dragon breathing.
Kael cracked one eye open cautiously.
The Skeletal Dragon remained motionless.
He waited.
Still nothing.
"Is it... sleeping?"
Slowly, carefully, he looked up into the creature's dark eye sockets.
His heart hammered violently.
The skeletal sorcerers above were still staring downward in tense silence.
A few of the higher-ranking undead appeared to be arguing among themselves.
Kael's thoughts raced.
"They stopped attacking because they're afraid of hitting the dragon."
That part made sense.
"But why isn't this thing eating me?"
The dragon remained completely still.
Now that Kael looked more carefully, he noticed something strange.
Its bones were dark and dull.
When he had seen the creature before, its skeletal body had glowed with vivid bloody light. Now the crimson color looked faded, weakened somehow.
Then realization struck him.
"Lyra."
His eyes widened.
"The Violet Aurochs Pin injured this thing."
Memory flashed through his mind—the impossible sight of Lyra's tiny hairpin punching through the dragon's core.
"It's badly wounded," he realized. "That's why all these skeletal sorcerers are gathered here."
They were healing it.
That was the ritual.
Relief loosened his chest slightly, though only slightly.
Because he still had no idea how to escape.
"If this keeps going," he thought frantically, "they'll eventually figure out a way to kill me."
And even if they didn't—
Lyra was planning to flood the Bone Warren.
"If the Mire water comes down here," he realized grimly, "I'll drown like a rat in a barrel."
His breathing quickened.
Then he noticed something deeply wrong.
The dragon's breathing had changed too.
It was becoming faster.
Uneven.
Restless.
Kael stared nervously at the massive skull.
"Is it dreaming?" he muttered. "Or waking up?"
Suddenly warmth spread through his chest.
A strange swelling heat filled his lungs and ribs.
At the same time, something invisible began pouring out of his body.
The Skeletal Dragon reacted immediately.
Its dim bones began glowing.
Dark crimson light spread through the enormous corpse-dragon in pulsing waves.
"What the hell?"
Then the visions came.
Kael's eyes were open, but scenes suddenly exploded across his mind anyway.
Purple fire.
Endless purple fire.
Inside it writhed a gigantic jade dragon.
The creature twisted violently in agony, thrashing and roaring soundlessly while violet flames consumed its body.
It looked desperate.
Broken.
In unbearable pain.
The vision flickered.
Reality returned.
The Skeletal Dragon still lay before him.
Then the vision slammed back again.
The burning jade dragon.
The writhing agony.
Silent screaming.
Reality and hallucination began overlapping in horrifying flashes.
Kael staggered backward in terror, clawing wildly at empty air.
"What's happening to me?"
The jade dragon in Kael's vision stopped thrashing.
For one terrible moment it simply hung there inside the sea of violet fire, its immense body trembling while the flames chewed through scale and flesh alike. Then a strange glow detached itself from beneath the dragon's throat.
Soft. Beautiful. Almost mournful.
The light streaked away like a falling star and vanished into darkness.
Kael barely had time to register it before the dragon's body began to come apart.
Its scales blackened and curled. Ridges along its spine melted like wax beneath the purple blaze. Flesh sloughed from bone in dripping sheets while the flames devoured everything with ruthless hunger. Soon only a vast skeleton remained inside the inferno—crystal-white bones slowly reddening under the heat.
Then Kael realized something even worse.
The burning skeletal remains were overlapping with the corpse-dragon lying before him in the pit.
Perfectly.
Bone for bone.
Skull for skull.
The instant the two aligned completely, a shriek exploded through the cavern hard enough to rattle Kael's teeth.
Red light detonated across the pit.
The Skeletal Dragon surged upward with violent force, dragging the chained war chariot behind it. The massive beast nearly smashed into the cavern roof before twisting away in a cyclone of crimson bone and shrieking wind.
Kael stood frozen.
The creature circled overhead like a nightmare reborn, wings of blood-red bone cutting through the air while the entire cavern shook beneath its roar.
Around the pit, every skeletal sorcerer had gone still.
The undead stared upward in stunned silence.
"What the hell just happened?" Kael whispered.
His mind raced uselessly.
Had something gone wrong with the ritual?
Had the dragon broken free?
Then a dangerous thought crawled into his head.
If that monster went mad and slaughtered everything in the chamber…
…he might actually survive this.
The thought had barely formed before the Skeletal Dragon folded its wings and dove.
It smashed into the undead ranks like a falling mountain.
Bone exploded everywhere.
More than a dozen skeletal sorcerers were hurled screaming across the cavern as the dragon tore through them. Its massive tail whipped sideways a heartbeat later, flattening another cluster of undead against the stone wall hard enough to shatter them into fragments.
Only then did the remaining skeletons finally understand the danger.
The entire chamber erupted into panic.
Undead fled in every direction.
The dragon chased them mercilessly.
One leap carried it halfway across the cavern. Clawed jaws snapped shut around several fleeing sorcerers and ripped them apart in sprays of blackened bone dust.
Kael stared with his mouth hanging open.
"Yes," he breathed. "Yes! Tear them apart, you ugly bastard!"
The moment the way cleared, he moved.
He launched himself upward with the Ground-Sprint Art, boots slamming against the steep stone wall of the pit. The climb would have been impossible for an ordinary man, but Kael bounded from ledge to ledge in rapid bursts of Vitae.
A few breaths later he reached the rim and threw himself over the edge.
Only then did he realize how massive the cavern truly was.
The ceiling vanished into darkness far above. The chamber stretched outward like the hollowed heart of a mountain. Broken skeletons littered the stone floor in every direction.
The dragon itself was nowhere in sight now.
Good.
Very good.
Kael did not waste another second.
He sprinted toward the massive gate leading out of the cavern.
"I've been stuck down here way too long," he muttered. "Lyra's probably about to flood this whole damned nest."
That thought shoved fresh panic into his legs.
He reached the gate—
—and a violent gust blasted him backward.
Kael stumbled several steps before looking up.
Something enormous pushed through the doorway.
A skull.
Long snout.
Jagged crimson bone.
Empty eye sockets.
The Skeletal Dragon.
"Oh, gods…"
Kael's blood turned cold.
The dragon drifted into the cavern slowly, immense body snaking through the air. Unlike before, it was not charging or roaring or attacking wildly.
It simply stared at him.
Kael backed away instinctively.
His heel caught on shattered bone and he crashed onto his ass.
The dragon's skull lowered toward him.
Closer.
Closer.
Its jaws alone were larger than a wagon.
Kael's courage finally broke.
"Don't come any closer!"
The dragon stopped instantly.
It hovered there in silence.
Kael blinked.
Something about the creature looked different now. The crimson bones still glowed darkly, but there was another sheen beneath them. A softer light. Almost jade-like beneath the blood-red surface.
"What…"
The dragon exhaled slowly.
Its hollow eye sockets remained fixed on him with unsettling intensity.
Kael swallowed hard.
"You… uh…" His voice shook. "Could you maybe back up a little?"
The dragon immediately drifted backward.
Kael's jaw dropped.
For several long seconds he simply sat there staring stupidly.
"This thing obeyed me."
Impossible.
This had to be coincidence.
Right?
The dragon remained hovering before him.
Kael forced himself to think.
"That monster belonged to Lord Ossian," he muttered internally. "Why the hell would it listen to me?"
Then another thought struck him.
His gaze slowly lowered toward the hollow beneath the dragon's throat.
There had once been a massive crimson orb there. He remembered Lyra destroying it earlier with the Violet Aurochs Pin.
And suddenly Kael remembered something else.
The strange pearl he himself had swallowed long ago.
The visions.
The jade dragon.
The same burning agony.
The same impossible feeling.
A chill crept through him.
"Could that pearl have something to do with this thing?"
Fragments of realization floated through his mind like broken glass, but they refused to fit together.
Kael finally inhaled slowly.
Standing around forever was not going to help.
He looked up at the massive undead dragon hovering before him.
Very carefully, very politely, he said:
"Great ancient dragon… would you mind leaving this place?"
The Skeletal Dragon turned immediately toward the exit.
Kael's eyes widened.
"No way."
The dragon began gliding toward the doorway.
Kael jumped to his feet.
"Wait! Come back!"
The creature instantly returned and floated obediently before him again.
Kael stared in disbelief.
Then greed took hold.
"Well…" He rubbed his hands together nervously. "Since you're being so cooperative… could you maybe carry me out of here too?"
The dragon curled its immense body.
Its tail shifted.
The skeletal war chariot hanging behind it lowered gently onto the ground before Kael.
Kael nearly laughed from shock.
"Oh, you beautiful horrifying nightmare…"
He scrambled aboard immediately.
The instant he sat down, the dragon surged upward.
The chariot lurched violently as the beast shot through the doorway into the tunnels beyond.
Kael clung to the side rails while wind screamed past his face.
His terror rapidly transformed into manic excitement.
"What in the abyss is happening?"
Then, because Kael Ashvane was still Kael Ashvane even in the middle of a nightmare cavern full of undead horrors, his thoughts immediately became ridiculous.
"That skeletal freak said this dragon used to be some sacred anti-corruption creature guarding the Dread Mire before it got corrupted…"
His grin spread wider.
"Maybe it finally woke up and realized serving undead lunatics was a bad career choice."
A pause.
"Or maybe…"
Kael puffed out his chest proudly.
"…it encountered the overwhelming charisma of the Little Saint-Lord and immediately recognized greatness."
He nodded to himself.
"Yes. That sounds right."
The dragon twisted through the tunnels with impossible grace despite its enormous size.
Then skeletal sorcerers appeared ahead.
A prepared ambush.
More than a dozen undead sprang from side passages, raising black staves as they unleashed waves of dark rites down the corridor.
The entire tunnel filled with screaming black mist.
Kael flinched instinctively.
The dragon did not even slow down.
It smashed directly through the barrage.
Dark magic detonated against crimson bone in bursts of foul smoke and twisted colors, but the dragon remained completely unharmed.
A second later its skull crashed into the undead formation.
Bodies exploded apart.
Bone fragments sprayed across the tunnel walls while the dragon's massive body plowed through the survivors like a charging avalanche.
The corridor became a slaughterhouse.
Kael stared in awe.
"Gods above…"
Two skeletal sorcerers managed to flee deeper into the tunnels.
Kael opened his mouth to shout after them—
—but before he spoke, the dragon had already turned to pursue.
Kael froze.
Then realization hit him.
Earlier, he had merely wished for the dragon to attack.
And it had.
Now it moved before he even spoke aloud.
His heartbeat quickened.
"Can it hear my thoughts?"
Ahead lay another branching tunnel.
Experimentally, Kael thought:
Left tunnel. First passage.
The dragon instantly abandoned its pursuit and glided smoothly into the leftmost corridor.
Kael nearly screamed.
"It really can!"
Excitement exploded through him.
He spent the next stretch of tunnel testing the creature repeatedly.
Faster.
Slower.
Up.
Down.
Turn.
Stop.
Every command answered instantly.
The dragon moved like an extension of his own body.
Kael laughed wildly inside the rattling chariot.
"This used to belong to Lord Ossian…"
His grin became positively feral.
"And now it belongs to me."
Then he spotted movement through a side corridor.
Skeletal halberdiers.
And beyond them—
the direction of the blood-pit hall.
Kael's expression changed immediately.
Lyra.
His earlier excitement vanished beneath a surge of dread.
He remembered the giant mechanism overhead.
The incoming flood.
The armies of undead.
If she was still inside the hall when everything collapsed—
Kael's jaw tightened.
Kill them all.
The thought burned through him with murderous clarity.
The dragon reacted instantly.
It whipped around in a violent spiral and shot after the undead at terrifying speed.
---
Inside the blood-pit hall, Lyra Farrow hovered high above the vast chamber.
Her robes snapped violently around her while torrents of Vitae surged through her Channels.
Below her, rivers of blood churned through ancient trenches carved into the stone.
Above her loomed the giant rotating stone mechanism embedded into the cavern roof.
The heart of the Grief-Binding Array.
The thing was enormous.
Covered in twisting Wards and rotating layers of ancient construct-work.
And it was cracking.
The Heavenly Calamity Wind from Lyra's Lesser Four-Sign Art tore into the mechanism relentlessly. Invisible corrosive force gnawed through enchanted stone while debris rained from above.
The massive structure trembled.
A deep groan echoed through the cavern.
Good.
Lyra narrowed her eyes and poured in more power.
Just a little more.
Then pain stabbed through her body.
Her breath caught sharply.
Something wriggled through her lower Channels like living lightning.
Lyra's face paled instantly.
"The thunder force…"
A hidden fragment still remained.
And now, while she exerted herself fully, it awakened.
The foreign power spread violently through her body.
Electrical agony crawled through her nerves and muscles.
Lyra's breathing became uneven.
Under normal circumstances she could have suppressed it immediately.
But not while maintaining the Heavenly Calamity Wind.
If she stopped now, the mechanism might stabilize again.
Her gaze snapped upward.
Another violent tremor shook the giant stone array.
Huge chunks of debris broke free and crashed into the blood pits below.
Close.
So close.
Lyra clenched her teeth hard enough to hurt.
She continued.
The hidden thunder force grew increasingly savage.
It tore through her insides like barbed wire made from lightning.
Her stomach cramped violently.
Her Channels spasmed.
Vitae circulation began breaking apart.
Sweat soaked her body.
Blood rose into the back of her throat.
Still she forced the technique onward.
The mechanism shook harder.
Cracks spread rapidly across the engraved stone surface.
Then—
CRACK.
A massive fracture split across the giant rotating disc.
Corroded inner stone crumbled into powder.
The entire structure sagged dangerously.
Success.
Lyra's eyes flashed with grim satisfaction.
Then the surface of the mechanism rippled.
Like disturbed water.
The carved Wards twisted unnaturally.
Gray murky vapor poured out from somewhere inside the structure, rolling outward in thick waves.
Lyra's expression changed instantly.
Guardian.
And not a weak one.
The spiritual pressure alone felt monstrous.
Without hesitation Lyra cut off the Heavenly Calamity Wind.
The abrupt withdrawal of power nearly made her vomit blood.
But it was already too late.
The gray vapor condensed rapidly.
A gigantic humanoid shape emerged from within the mechanism itself.
Massive.
Distorted.
Not entirely flesh.
Not entirely stone.
The creature exploded forward the instant it formed.
Lyra barely had time to react before the guardian slammed into her.
The impact hit like a collapsing fortress wall.
Her body flew across the chamber like a broken doll.
Blood burst from her mouth and nose in a crimson spray.
Her vision blurred instantly.
The last thing Lyra saw before darkness swallowed her—
was a crimson Skeletal Dragon bursting into the hall with Kael aboard the war chariot behind it.