(Title Theme: "The Dragon's Gambit")
The sky was torn open in ash and fire. What remained of the Phoenix Guild drowned in smoke. Their fortress—once towering with hope—now lay in molten ruin. Ash fell like snow, burying the bodies of the fallen. Three Arcs still stood.
Valen's breath frosted in the infernal heat, his arms trembling as ice rose from scorched ground. "Hold the line! For the Guild!"
Across the cracked earth, a towering figure loomed—Supreme-tier Infernal Dragon. Its molten claws flexed lazily, bored. "Your defiance... entertains me. But it ends now."
Sera's lightning cracked the air as she hurled it with a scream. It split the sky, surged through the battlefield—then vanished. The dragon absorbed it, glowing brighter.
Rykon darted forward, daggers of shadow whistling toward its core. They didn't even reach. The aura melted them midair.
Valen encased the terrain in permafrost, a last desperate surge—but the dragon's breath melted it like candle wax.
"Your sparks cannot ignite ash," the beast mocked.
Then came silence, broken by a hiss.
The dragon's molten spear impaled Valen clean through the chest. He staggered, blood boiling, breath catching.
"The Guild... burns eternal," Valen rasped before collapsing.
Rykon didn't scream. Just vanished into shadow. He reappeared mid-strike, blade piercing the dragon's clavicle—the first wound it had known all battle. The beast flinched.
"A worthy strike," it said, almost... respectful. "Die with honor."
And so he did. The blast turned his body to ash.
Sera—last to fall—gathered her storm into a single, blinding nova. It engulfed her, her scream lost in the blinding light.
"Burn… with us!"
The dragon roared through it, laughing. Its scales regenerated before the flames faded.
"PATHETIC."
Kaito's hands shook as he stitched his own flesh with dragonbone needles. Each movement was slow, methodical. His veins glowed faintly, blackened from overloaded core energy. The suit flickered beside him—readings at 60,000kg.
"Not enough…" he muttered. "Need more…"
A sudden crash. A high-tier True Dragon—serpentine, crystalline, eyes sharp as razors—emerged from the cliffs.
"Your methods fascinate me," it said. "Let me dissect them."
Kaito staggered upright, gripping a broken blade. "You damn… lizard."
His irises flared purple.
The suit screamed past its limit—98,000kg. One leap, one strike—and the dragon's head rolled across the ice. He panted, swaying.
"Not now!"
Readings surged—110,000kg. Core energy: 8%.
But fate had no mercy.
The Supreme-Tier True Dragon emerged without warning, obsidian-scaled and colossal. One strike sent Kaito flying into a glacier. Bone snapped. Blood gushed.
"Your calculations end here," it growled.
"BREAK!" Kaito roared as he fought to rise.
The suit exploded at 120,000kg. Golden serum hissed out. His limbs barely moved. The dragon pinned him. Snow swallowed them both.
"Not… like this…"
Far away, the frozen forest hummed with static. Akari's crimson lightning sliced through trees as she trained, breath visible in the cold. Her golden eyes burned.
Then—an ambush.
A mid-tier Infernal Dragon descended in silence, its gaze focused on her horns.
"Golden eyes… the Emperor's prize."
"You… die here."
Her horns shattered in a cryless scream. Crimson Nova erupted. The dragon didn't even have time to retaliate—just vaporized.
Her tracker blinked red, then flatlined.
"Kaito—!" she gasped, eyes wide, tears freezing on her cheeks.
Lightning surged. She rode it like a storm, carving a path through the blizzard. The battlefield cracked as she landed, bolts lancing the Supreme Dragon's flank.
"AWAY!"
Inside a mountain cave, she lit a fire with trembling fingers, dragging Kaito in from the cold. Healing gel hissed as it touched his skin. His veins remained black.
"Why… why isn't this working?" she whispered. Her horns were broken stumps now. Her blood crusted gold down her cheeks.
Somewhere, a crow landed on a snowy branch. A scroll in its claws.
"Phoenix is destroyed. Retrieve the Eclipse before the Emperor does."
The shadowy figure—tall, cloaked, masked—took the scroll, reading silently.
"The hunt... begins."
Back on the battlefield, the Infernal Dragon stood alone. At its feet, a grave of ash and blood. It planted its molten sword into the ground beside Rykon's remains.
From the scorched ground, the blood shimmered—shaping itself into a phoenix, standing tall in silent defiance.
"Your legacy burns here," the dragon muttered. "A worthy grave."
Inside the cave, Kaito stirred. His breath rattled. Mary's voice echoed inside his head—an illusion, a memory, a ghost.
"Patterns... sometimes lie."
He coughed. "Akari… run…"
Snow shifted.
The cave darkened.
At the entrance stood a silhouette wrapped in storm and shadow. The crow mask was cracked. Purple eyes glowed behind it. The pressure in the air thickened until the cave's stone began to crumble.
"The Eclipse… mine."
Akari rose. Her crimson blade slid from its sheath, casting light over the ice.
"What do you want!?" she roared.
The shadow stepped forward.
Kaito's pale, unmoving face lay on one side of the cavern, veins spiderwebbing in black, suit readings flatlined at 0kg.
The other side—those purple eyes gleaming through the storm, claws raised, ready to strike.
Orion's Comment:
"When the storm swallows the spark… who reigns?
The next move is theirs. But the endgame? Yours to witness.
See you in Chapter 14."OwO