Chapter 399: A Battle Without End

The mutated dragon, swollen with the power of the void, opened its maw wide. Its jaws snapped shut over an alchemical automaton darting low across its flank.

Steel shrieked against sinew. For a heartbeat, metal resisted scale and fang. Then came the inevitable conclusion: the construct crumpled into a mangled heap of twisted scrap, plummeting lifelessly to the earth.

The dragon wheeled skyward, wings thrashing. Its ascent was stiff and unnatural, as if some unseen thread jerked it along a rigid path.

Around it, more of its kind moved the same way—like mere puppets being jerked around. The automata and hellspawn that had once held them in check now lay annihilated.

Only reinforcements from Skyborne City's forges and the endless tide spilling from the Hellgate remained to contest them. Against such numbers, ordinary troops could accomplish little.

Freed of distractions, the altered dragons fixed upon greater prey: the towering Iron King Bogul, and the infernal lord who had clawed its way out of a titanic demon's corpse to walk the material plane himself.

Bogul's iron fist roared forward. The rocket thrusters on its gauntlet ignited, powering the blow. The charge met the first mutated dragon head-on.

Alloy triumphed over flesh. The colossal momentum pulverized the dragon, its body bursting apart in a rain of gore and splintered bone against the titan's steel frame.

But that was only an appetizer, a taste of what was to come. Iron King Bogul's shoulder plating split wide, revealing banks of alchemical cannon barrels. They whirred into position and locked onto the swarming dragons. Thunder answered thunder as a storm of fire raked the skies.

Explosions blossomed like malignant suns. Several dragons were shredded mid-flight; others tumbled wingless into the dirt.

But many continued to surge through the inferno, wings ablaze, shrieking their wrath as they loosed their breath on Bogul.

A translucent bastion of layered runes flared above the Iron King's helm, resisting the tangled streams of fire, lightning, acid, and frost.

Light blossomed across its surface in violent blossoms of color, trembling but unbroken.

Then the dragons closed in. Some hurled themselves bodily against the shield. Others slipped past its edge, attempting to rake its body directly.

Bogul's fists met them. Mechanized knuckle-spikes snapped into place. Each strike exploded outward in a cone of ruin, hurling dragons from the sky.

Abovehead, a lance of searing light burst from the titan's crown, punching through the shield to vaporize a cluster of attackers.

Yet the respite was brief. The ground beneath shuddered, torn open by talons. More of the void-forged dragons erupted upward, latching onto the titan's legs, tearing, biting, wrenching.

Their breath raked its armored flanks in concert. The plating held for the time being, but who knew for how much longer?

Even Bogul was not immune to their assault. Its metal exterior grew tarnished and susceptible. The mutated dragons' claws seemed to seek instinctively for the hidden core at Bogul's ankle.

The titan's lower plating blew free, disgorging a payload of alchemical bombs precisely to counter such circumstances when the Iron King was beleaguered by a group of weaker enemies.

The bombs detonated in unison in mid-air, blasting apart scores of the dragons.

But abovehead, the swarm thickened once more, endless and inexhaustible. For all its might, the Iron King seemed like a solitary giant beset by a sea of foes.

Then, salvation fell from the sky. Massive steel lances drove into the earth, their impact rippling with stabilizing forcefields that smothered the void's corruption. The mutated dragons faltered, their borrowed strength bleeding away.

At that same moment, from the distant coast, a titanic trident conjured from the very sea began to split into multiple, smaller copies of itself. Each spear, embodying the power of the Lord of Sea and Storm, plunged into the battlefield and swept entire clusters of dragons from the air.

The skies around Bogul cleared. The titan's furnaces roared back to life, arcs of gravitational lightning encircling its crown as it readied yet another purge.

Hellfire swept the horizon. A blade of burning abyss cleaved dragons in twain, their carcasses igniting, never to be quenched.

"Ha! At last these vermin can be killed!" the infernal lord thundered, swinging his colossal blade in sweeping arcs. "Why did I not realize sooner that these wretched voidspawn were so... persistent? They're annoying and weak, but endless in number."

He had been taking advantage of his own overwhelming strength to cut down those void dragons that approached him. Given his rich combat experience, he was among the strongest combatants on the battlefield.

Yet he quickly noticed that, despite all his efforts, the dragons were simply reforming no matter how many he cut down. Their attacks were weak and laughably ineffective, but were stacking up given their impossibility to defeat.

With Skyborne City's material anchors finally repelling void energy around the isle, they perished for good. The simultaneous offensive of the tridents of the Lord of Sea and Storm cleared out a large swathe of dragons in an instant.

The abyssal lord's mood soared as he unleashed carnage, his firebrand reducing dragon after dragon to ash. His assault was even able to protect the neighboring demons all around him.

Yet no one noticed what was happening right before their eyes: the carcasses of the slain dragons were slithering underground in droves, converging toward some hidden place, gathering for a purpose yet unseen.

Meanwhile, high above, Sieg and Aurelian reunited, two dragons in tandem against the void.

Silver radiance became a storm of blades that rained upon the puppet-dragons, while Sieg's mechanized warframe unleashed its arsenal like a storm cloud. Their fury matched the mutated dragons' and even Milos's dragonbreath.

Milos itself flickered in and out of sight, threading through the seams of reality and seeking the perfect moment at which to strike.

He appeared behind Sieg in a blur of claws, slashing at the dragon's exposed back, where one well-placed strike could mean death.

For a fleeting instant, when Sieg first appeared on the battlefield, Milos had hesitated. It knew that dragon. It had seen that dragon before through the eyes of the archbishop of the Church of Dragonkind. Even now, some nameless threat emanated from it—an instinctive dread he had felt only in the presence of Aurelian... and of the Dragon God.

Without hesitation, Milos had sacrificed the archbishop of the Church of Dragonkind to cast Sieg, the dragon at his side, and the two humans traveling with them into the Eternal Prison sealed within the Tidewall.

Yet now, that same dragon had reappeared before him. The faint unease he had once sensed deepened into a tangible menace. Instinct drove Milos to speed up what he was doing across the entire island. There would be no more half-measures. He would gather all his strength to obliterate these two dragons who had slipped beyond his grasp.

Milos's talons raked across Sieg's back. Armor plating shattered instantly, great slabs shearing away and tumbling through the air. But Sieg had evaded too quickly, and far fewer plates should have been struck.

The next moment, the detached armor exploded in the air, the blast engulfing Milos in the process. The plating was reactive armor, primed to detonate against any foe who dared strike at Sieg in close range: an automatic and immediate riposte.

The eruption struck true. Even Milos's monstrously resilient body faltered, staggered for an instant by the shockwave.

And an instant was all the time that Aurelian required. Her silver form blurred and reappeared above Milos. Radiance blazed between her talons, coalescing into a colossal blade of argent light that she brought crashing down.

The radiant edge tore through Milos's shoulder, biting into the juncture of wing and back. Flesh split in cascades of gore until unyielding bone stopped the cut. Even so, the blade lodged deep. It was a wound too grave to ignore.

Sieg's conscious assault followed his automatic defense. Though he lacked the support of his living dragon armor, the alchemical armament fused to his body had transformed him into a more versatile engine of war.

Vents opened along his back, discharging energy in a roaring column of crimson flame. The breath of a red dragon, magnified by alchemy, blasted at Milos's chest in searing, molten annihilation at point-blank range.

Even Milos could not emerge unscathed. Its abyss-forged body cracked and blackened beneath the strike.

Below, the mutated dragons surged skyward, desperate to break their master free.

Foremost was a massive black dragon, a brute whose flesh had weakened under the alteration of the void—but who, in return, bore unnatural powers no black dragon should possess.

He ripped through the clouds, wings snapping, arms spread wide as he lunged for Sieg. The steel wings at Sieg's back flared, his alchemical thrusters igniting at full force. Their backward blast struck Milos in the face even as Sieg hurtled upward.

One descending and the other ascending, the two dragons met head-on. With alchemical engines at his back, Sieg was the faster of the two.

The collision caused the very air to detonate. Without pause, Sieg's thrusters flared again, driving him and the black dragon downward in a meteoric plunge.

The black dragon's talons clamped tight around Sieg's throat. Sieg's own claws locked onto its wrists as he strained to tear them apart. The two dragons were on even footing—until another power ignited within Sieg's body.

Fighting spirit. It surged like fire through his veins, doubling his strength in an instant. Fighting spirit, for those who could wield it, was an amplifier that could multiply the strength of flesh and force beyond natural limits.

Sieg had revealed this gift once before in Aleisterre. Though his weak magic had long branded him an oddity among dragons, his body had always been that of a true red dragon, unyielding and terrible.

With his power doubled, Sieg easily forced the black dragon's talons apart.This amplification was far stronger on dragons than human knights. Perhaps the Pompeii of before could have faced Sieg directly, but not this void monstrosity that wore his frame.

Sieg's thrusters shrieked. Together they plunged, Sieg driving his foe downward—straight toward the corrupted red dragon below, and the material anchor thrust deep into the ground.

Caught unaware, the red dragon could not evade. Sieg slammed the black dragon into him, and all three bodies plummeted toward the material anchor. It detonated in a storm of fire, temporarily quelling the void in a large range around the anchor.

As the blaze cleared, Sieg alone burst free, much of his alchemical armaments torn away. The other two dragons, void-corrupted and reforged, lay broken and unmoving.

Sieg had quickly realized that these aberrant dragons had never been as strong as they initially appeared. Their bodies had already perished in battle against Milos. What remained, rebuilt by the void, was little more than a mockery. Though they were tougher than most altered dragons, they were far from invincible.

High above, Milos again slipped into shadow, leaving Aurelian to meet the remaining bronze and white dragons. His plan to divide them and sow hesitation had failed. Sieg and Aurelian knew the truth: these mutated dragons, their erstwhile comrades were already dead. They wouldn't hesitate to attack.

Silver brilliance gathered around Aurelian, shrouding her body in radiant, high-energy matter. She dove headlong through the bronze and white dragons' twin breaths, her shield of light blocking their assault as she tore through.

She struck the white dragon full-on, releasing her gathered energy in a shattering burst. The shockwave consumed both dragons, tearing through flesh, rupturing organs, and splintering bone. Their broken bodies fell from the sky.

Sieg awaited them below. Snatching up one of the fallen anchors, he hurled it upward with all his might. The anchor met the falling dragons in mid-air. There, another eruption of stabilizing force ended them utterly.

Aurelian descended beside Sieg, silver wings folding as she landed shoulder to shoulder with him. Her eyes fixed upon a point in the void. Through her bond with that abyssal current, she could sense Milos's hidden presence.

Milos tutted. "How unexpected... My greatest hindrance seems to be these trifles that block the void. But this island remains my dominion."

Metlos plunged downward even as Sieg and Aurelian prepared their next strike.

Two deafening explosions thundered in the distance, drawing Sieg and Aurelian's attention for the briefest of moments. They turned. What they beheld sent a chill through their hearts.

Somehow, two colossal abominations had emerged on the horizon. They were grotesque amalgamations, stitched together from the mangled remains of countless dragons. They were twisted, misshapen, and monstrously strong.

Though hideous, their hulking forms still bore the silhouette of dragons. Milos's bond with dragonkind ran too deep; no matter what power he manifested, draconian marks would always shine through. These creatures seemed to have the combined strength of all the mutated dragons that made them up.

From behind, one of the monstrosities' tail speared forward, piercing the heart of the infernal lord in a single savage thrust. With a contemptuous flick, it hurled the dying demon into the yawning Hellgate. As the demon collided with the gate, it shattered in a storm of blinding fire.

The great Hellgate, the tether binding the demons to this plane, was unmade. Instantly, the legions of demons it had disgorged were cast out, repelled by the laws of the material plane and banished once more.

The second abomination grappled with the Iron King. Two titans clashed, their immense strength rending the ground. Gravity magic lit their forms, each exerting a pull in opposite directions. This gave Iron King Bogul a momentary advantage as he forced the monster back step by step.

But the tide of battle wasn't in his favor. A horde of mutated dragons which had yet to be merged into the twin abominations' bodies swarmed over him. Already straining against his foe, Iron King Bogul had no strength left to fend them off. In moments, he was overwhelmed.

Recognizing its plight, Skyborne City loosed long-range bombardments in its defense. But the aid came too late. Before the artillery could strike, Iron King Bogul had made a choice. Channeling its full might, it detonated, dragging both the horde of altered dragons and the abomination itself into the firestorm.

When the flames cleared, a charred colossus staggered forth, its flesh torn away in gaping hunks. From the battlefield, mutated dragons swooped in, tearing open their own bodies to graft themselves into the monster's wounds. In moments, it stood whole again.

With their foes dispatched, the two abominations turned their gaze upon the vast silhouette of the Skyborne City suspended in the heavens, its cannons pouring fire down upon them.

But the bombardment could not slow such monstrosities down. Their bodies healed ceaselessly as more altered dragons hurled themselves into the wounds, sealing torn flesh with their own.

Their vast wings beat at the air, raising hurricanes as they ascended. Soil, stone, and trees were torn from the earth in their wake as they reached for the sky.

Skyborne City unleashed all it had: armies of alchemical automata and torrents of firepower. Nothing could halt the advance of the two abominations. They were small compared to the city itself, yet their high-energy cores could not be ignored. If they were to reach the city proper, the devastation would be beyond imagination.

"That city meddling with the void must be destroyed," came Milos's voice, cold and cruel. "Otherwise, things might grow troublesome. Don't think of slipping away."

Sieg and Aurelian wheeled about. They had been trading blows with Milos, each covering for the other. They belatedly realized that the abyssal horror had never once unleashed its full might. Only now was it revealing its true power.

Blood streamed from the great wound Aurelian had carved in his body, her face as grim as Sieg's as she darted through the skies. The sheer strength of Milos's true form, coupled with his manifold summons, was staggering.

Even the mightiest of dragons could not afford distraction in its presence. One misstep, and they might well die.

The two abominations climbed higher, wings thundering. The gap to Skyborne City was shrinking fast. Cannons roared. Heavenfire, Skyborne City's strongest weapon, was charging up—but at this range, its blast would scorch the city itself. Still, the city had no other choice.

The great cannon roared. The monsters surged on. The clash seemed inevitable. And then, at that instant, something occurred that no being present could have foreseen.

Before the path of the charging beasts, the earth shuddered. Stones burst skyward. In the next heartbeat, a mountain thrust up from the ground, tearing itself from the depths.

Too massive to halt, the abominations crashed headlong into it, burying themselves hundreds of feet deep. Then the mountain exploded outward, hurling the creatures back in a storm of rubble and flame. Their titanic bodies smashed into the plain, carving out craters where they fell.

From the shattered heart of the mountain, a shadow rose. And for an instant, everyone on the battlefield stared in shock. This could not be. It was impossible.

The Dragon God—the King of Dragons himself, Wendel Myx, whose body Aurelian had once sundered with a single strike—had reappeared. Yet the mighty wound was gone, and his body stood as pristine as ever. His presence alone blanketed the battlefield in awe and terror.

"Never thought I'd get the chance to pilot such a being, ever. This is great!"

Wendel Myx's colossal body rose into the heavens, a cloak of night and stars billowing behind him though no wind stirred. Between his talons, crimson lightning gathered, condensing into two vast spears of thunder that plunged from the firmament like the wrath of the gods.