Inside, he found a sight that would have melted even the coldest of mortal hearts. A mother bear, broad and strong despite the fear shivering through her, lay curled protectively around two small Earth Splitting cubs. The cubs pressed their faces into her fur, their tiny claws clutching at her as though she were the only anchor in a world gone terrifyingly still.
These were not just any creatures — Barbatos knew them well. The mother bear was Pear's mate, bound to him by more than instinct. The cubs, barely a few weeks old, carried Pear's bloodline with Void Blood in them. Pear himself, the Earth-Splitting Bear who now stood at Barbatos' side, bore a Soul Chain that tied his life to Barbatos' will, allowing the Black King to 'see' his condition no matter the distance. And so Barbatos had always known of the mate and cubs, even though Pear — out of fierce loyalty and obedience — had instructed them to avoid entering this section of the cave that contains the entrance to Underderk.
Not because he feared for them, but because he feared what their presence here might mean. Barbatos' territory was sacred ground. To trespass without sanction was to court exile.
Barbatos' gaze shifted to the narrow cave mouth. His voice rolled out like distant thunder.
"Now… let me widen the tunnel."
The air trembled as the earth itself seemed to listen. Stones quivered, soil loosened, and the ground underfoot gave a deep, groaning sigh. Barbatos' will summoned the elemental veins of the land, and the surrounding rock began to fracture and fall away.
Beside him, Salon, the Blue Dragon whose scales were like granite flecked with blue, stepped forward when heard his father's words. The earth elements gathered around Salon in a swirling vortex, answering his innate affinity. Then, with a deep roar, he drove his claws into the ground. The soil and rock at the entrance shuddered violently before cascading away in a controlled collapse. The forest shook with a rolling quake as the cave mouth expanded, widening again and again until it could accommodate not just Barbatos in his true draconic form, but the entire assembly of dragons that had gathered behind him.
When the quakes finally ceased, Barbatos took one slow, deliberate step forward. With nothing more than a thought, he summoned another power — a gift of his own path. Nature itself responded to him.
Roots thick as warships erupted from the ground, coiling upward like serpents, weaving themselves into the newly exposed walls of the tunnel. Branches bent, vines stretched, and the living wood anchored the stone until the cave mouth was not just widened, but fortified into something grand and enduring.
It was no longer a simple cave. It was a gateway — an entrance worthy of a king.
Pear stared, his small eyes wide with astonishment. To him, this was nothing less than sorcery of the gods. What Barbatos had wrought in moments could have taken mortal builders centuries. The sheer precision of his control left even the mighty bear at a loss for words.
But among the dragons, there was no such surprise. To them, this was merely another expression of their father's inexhaustible and unfathomable might. They knew that Barbatos was not only their strongest Lord, but their source of ascension — the one who had, just five years ago, bestowed upon many of them gifts they should never have possessed.
These were Ancestral Gifts, fragments of his own dominion and essence, tailored to each dragon's nature, profession, and bloodline. The Golden Flame Mage Gonzalo had been given Magic Flame, transforming him into a Pyromancer whose flames could be sculpted into any form, burning hotter than the demon flames itself. With his mutated strength, far beyond that of any of the same-tier gold dragon, he could batter down fortress gates with a single strike and burn armies to ash before they could draw their weapons. Even among the six strongest dragons the five dragons of his tier could not defeat him outright — they could only harry him until his mana was spent.
Eirlys, the White Dragoness and Barbatos' firstborn, had been granted Black Water — a suffocating, crushing liquid heavier than lead, deadly even to the merfolk of the deepest seas. She had mastered the fusion of this breath with her innate frost, creating glacial torrents that froze and crushed her foes simultaneously. Her Knight and Mountain Monk professions gave her endurance, raw strength, and psychic might unmatched in her tier, allowing her to defeat dragons a level higher.
But Gonzalo and Eirlys were far from the only ones.
The Bronze Dragon Karyos had been given Purple Thunder, lightning infused with void energy. His strikes tore through armor and scales alike, leaving even magical defenses crippled.
The young but fierce Brass Dragoness Serath had been gifted Poisonous Aura, a miasma so potent that even a brush of its edge could rot flesh and sap willpower, making her a nightmare for close-quarters combatants.
The massive Red Dragon Valgrith bore the Wind Control, giving him control over air — not as isolated powers, but in a devastating combination.
Even the lean, sharp-eyed Copper Dragon Nethros had been blessed with Vibration Perception, granting him an omnidirectional sense of movement through matter, allowing him to predict attacks before they were even made.
Every dragon bore their father's mark in some way, and those who had received these gifts revered him almost to obsession. To them, Barbatos was not merely king; he was the axis upon which their fate turned. Even though they knew — for he had told them — that somewhere in the vast Star Multiverse there were beings far greater still, none of them truly believed it would for forever. To them, he was and always would be the ultimate, unchallengeable apex.
Barbatos could have slipped through the cave with ease by assuming his half-dragon form — a transformation that sacrificed none of his grace, but much of his raw size and power. But outside the intimacy of mating — and he had been… prolific in such matters of late — he had no interest in diminishing himself before the world.
And so, the King of Dusk Island stepped forward in his true form, the roots and stone bending aside to let him pass, while his dragons followed in a silence that was not fear, but the awe of children watching a god walk the earth.
---
"Underdark…"
The word slipped from Lyanna's lips in a quiet breath as she followed Barbatos into the vast subterranean expanse. Unlike most, she was not overwhelmed by what she saw. In her mind, such places had always existed — eternal realms beneath the surface, untouched for thousands of years. This was not revelation, merely confirmation.
But for the others, it was different.
The dragons behind her — especially the Dragon Beasts ones without inherited dragon heritage — had only ever read of this place in dusty tomes or heard it whispered in bardic tales. Now, they found themselves in a world where the sky was not blue but black stone, where rivers of phosphorescent moss flowed like starlight across cavern walls, where entire cities clung upside down from the ceilings like glowing constellations.
Some craned their long necks, eyes gleaming with childlike wonder. A copper-scaled dragon pressed his snout close to a glowing cluster of crystal fungi, watching them pulse faintly with bioluminescence. A green-scaled dragon Nosoi tempered his curiosity, trying to lap at a trickle of shimmering water only to recoil at its metallic tang.
The true dragons, however, moved forward with barely a glance. They had inherited the memories of their kind — and to them, this was simply another Underdark, one of many scattered beneath the multiverse's worlds. Impressive to mortals, yes, but to a creature who had soared over starfields and nested on mountains older than continents, it was little more than a curiosity.
Soon, their massive procession passed over the dark spires of Charles City, the jewel of this section of the Underdark. Below, streets wound like spider silk between high arching bridges and towers carved from obsidian. The scent of incense drifted upward from open temple courtyards where black-robed priestesses prayed to the Great Goddess of Spiders.
From the largest of these temple-fortresses came Elise, the Drow Mistress of the city. She was flanked by her hand-picked retinue of high-ranking dark elves — women in flowing spider-silk gowns and armor etched with silver web motifs with red spiders on their little bit of exposed chests. Their long white hair shone against the blackness, and their crimson eyes flickered like coals in torchlight. The few male drow present walked behind, their gazes kept low, their voices silent; here, rank was not spoken but lived.
When Elise saw him, her composure faltered.
The last time she had laid eyes upon Barbatos, he had been a formidable beast of around sixty meters. Now, he loomed at more than double that size — a black-scaled colossus whose shadow swallowed entire city blocks. His wings, even half-furled, stretched like night across the cavern, and his eyes burned with the same crimson as when they had first met.
Even prepared for change, Elise found herself staring in trance-like awe.
And then she saw the others.
An army of dragons followed him, their sheer number and size staggering. Some were so immense she could not believe they were not already ancient dragons; others carried strange auras, their gifts so potent that even standing near them made the hair on her neck rise. Their ranks blotted out the city's skyline, and for a moment, the oppressive weight of their collective presence pressed down so heavily that it felt as though the Great Goddess herself had stepped into the mortal realm.
Around Elise, the noble class of Charles City reacted much the same — lips parted, hands twitching towards weapon hilts or prayer beads. Even the stoic Matriarchs, draped in one-piece ceremonial robes and heavy with jewelry in shapes of Spiders, could not keep the flicker of fear from their eyes. The Priestesses of the Spider Goddess gripped their staffs tighter, their knuckles pale against ebony skin.
If it were not for the towering black dragon at their head — the one every other dragon seemed to follow — chaos might have erupted. The sight of so many dragons would have sent the populace scattering into the web-like tunnels of the city, fleeing for their lives.
But Elise… Elise was not afraid.
Her relationship with Barbatos went beyond mere fealty. She had learned long ago that while others might quake before the dragons, they all bowed to him. These great winged beasts, no matter how fearsome, were but his subordinates.
The other drow, however, did not share her calm.
Heads bowed. Conversations ceased. The air thickened with unspoken tension. Many could not stop their eyes from straying toward the dragons' multicolored gazes — some curious, some predatory. The weak felt a chill coil through their bones, their legs trembling despite their attempts at composure.
They were puzzled, too. How had the dragons changed so much? Why were so many here together — some from opposing breeds and temperaments — without tearing each other apart? None dared to ask aloud. Such questions were for those of higher standing.
And Barbatos?
He was unmoved. His eyes swept over the sprawling city and saw only unfinished work. The development here was far from complete. Deeper still lay the kingdom of the gray dwarves, and perhaps beyond them, gateways into other deeper realms.
But for now, the Underdark offered too little.
Its gold essence veins had already been stripped nearly bare, and the other minerals remaining were not worth his personal attention. On the surface, richer resources awaited — and his ambitions were not bound to these lightless halls.
Perhaps the gray dwarves' kingdom held more promise. If so, when he struck, it would be swift and decisive. One blow. One victory. One claim.
His wings shifted slightly, sending a ripple of shadow across the city below. The message was silent but unmistakable:
"Elise," Barbatos' voice rumbled through the stone halls like distant thunder, each syllable carrying the weight of command, "the purpose of my coming this time is to deal with the Gray Dwarf Kingdom. The main force will be Arthas and his legion. You will take your clan, gather all resources at their disposal, and store them in the central warehouse."
The black dragon's crimson eyes gleamed faintly in the Underdark gloom. His tone left no room for argument.
He did not intend for the drow to interfere in this war. There was no practical reason to mix them with Arthas' undead army — the two forces were as oil and water. The drow were treacherous by nature, and the undead rigid in discipline; placing them on the same battlefield was an invitation for chaos.
Better to let the drow keep their hands clean, gather supplies, and receive their share when the war is over.
In the past, Elise might have welcomed such an order. Why risk your life in open battle when you could claim spoils in safety? That was how the drow had survived for millennia — letting others bleed while they reaped the rewards.
But this time was different.
A pressure coiled in her chest, a quiet panic she could not easily name. Lord had grown stronger with frightening speed. In less than fifteen years — a blink in the life of an elf — he had ascended to a height they could barely comprehend. If she stayed behind now, she feared she would be left hopelessly behind.
"Lord," she said suddenly, stepping forward. Her voice echoed in the cavernous chamber, drawing the eyes of her fellow drow. "Others of my kin can remain behind and wait for your command, but as the Mistress of Charles City, I cannot. I request permission to join you in this war."
She sank to her knees in a slow, deliberate motion, the proud tilt of her head yielding as her silver hair cascaded like liquid moonlight over the cold obsidian tiles. The tight, city-mistress corset pressed her full breasts forward, the sheer priestess one-piece leaving just enough exposed skin to tease and tempt. A jeweled spider emblem rested snugly above her cleavage, its legs curling possessively around the curve of her soft flesh.
The dark choker at her throat bore another spider sigil, glinting with cruel elegance, while the coiled whip at her side whispered of punishment and devotion. Every inch of her attire—every silken thread, every polished jewel—screamed fealty to the Spider Goddess, turning her into both an object of worship and a weapon of seduction.
A low, thoughtful hum escaped Barbatos' throat. His head tilted, the movement sending ripples through the air. From above, his gaze pinned her like a predator assessing prey.
To him, the drow were useful but limited. Their might had once been considerable, but the strongest among them had fallen years ago. The survivors were shadows of their former glory. And due to their long life, it will take a long time before they get the power without his push. He had planned to transform them in time — to infuse them with his Void Blood, reshaping their bodies and souls into Void Grey Angels, so they were able to walk freely beneath the sun and unshackled from the Spider Queen's web. But until then, they were hardly worthy of the front lines.
Yet Elise's request was… unexpected.
He reached beyond the surface of her words, brushing against the currents of her thoughts. What he found there was not only the subtle compulsion of the Twisted Seed he had given her, but a will entirely her own — ambition, pride, and a refusal to fade into irrelevance.
For the first time, Barbatos considered that Elise might be more than a pleasant diversion and bed warmer. She could be forged into something greater.
"You may join," he said at last, his voice carrying finality like a closing door.
Her head snapped up, silver eyes wide. "Thank you for your great generosity, Lord!"
Excitement lit her features, though in the shadows of the hall, another reaction stirred.
From across the chamber, Maya, the high-ranking drow, stiffened. Her heart skipped. Elise — whom many believed had fallen out of favor — had just secured a place at Barbatos' side for the coming war. The implication was clear: her influence was far from diminished.
Around Maya, a cluster of noble drow women exchanged quick, calculating glances. In their world, alliances were knives, and Elise had just acquired a sharper blade than most.
Maya's stomach knotted. The careful network of support she had built these past months suddenly felt fragile — like a web in a storm, one violent gust from tearing apart. That was the truth of power without strength: it existed only so long as no one stronger chose to take it.
The dragons, meanwhile, were barely paying attention to the political undercurrents.