Lightning crackled around his boots. Wind whirled dust into silver spirals at his feet. The Thunderhoof Stallions calmed in his presence—beasts acknowledging a fellow tamer born of storm.
Charles pulled a rune-etched token from his coat. He flicked it to the earth with precision. It struck stone and pulsed.
Silver and gold rings carved sacred shapes around the obsidian carriage. The air thickened with power.
"Kael, Karel, and Donald. Surge it."
Kael stabilized the array with his longsword. Karel's rapier brought phoenix heat. Donald pushed metal qi into the outer ring.
The array answered.
A searing bolt of lightning streaked from the circle, blasting a hawk mid-flight into golden mist—gone without a sound. The birdsong stopped. The wind paused. Even the air knew something divine had awakened.
The surge continued layer by layer.
The wind howled, flattening grass and pushing out ambient qi. Magibeasts in the bushes crept deeper, avoiding the growing array.
Finally, an energy shield appeared. It was a beautiful dome of see-through electric pressure that protected the carriage and the horses. Lightning slithered over the sentient serpents that looked like shells, and they hissed softly whenever anything came too close.
Coachman Rob calmly went back to his perch, sat cross-legged, and made a porcelain teacup float in the air with a gust of wind. He drank a little.
"This will last until dinner."
Charles said, "Good," and he was happy. "Let's go up."
He turned to the rest of the team and spoke in a calm, commanding voice.
"This animal is by itself. There aren't many signs of other creatures, which means they've learned to stay away. We'll come up quietly and watch first. Everyone waits for my signal before they act," Charles instructed.
"What if it sees us?" Wendy demanded, tension sharpening her voice.
Charles's violet eyes were full of quiet excitement. He put his hand on the hilt of Raijin's Emberfang, and sparks danced across the surface.
"Then I guess we should tell it a good story to remember."
Lightning struck again, this time closer. The storm above started to spin. The mountain peak sparkled with heavy pressure.
The warded carriage behind them hummed like a holy relic.
A dragon was waiting in front of them.
Charlemagne Ziglar, with a smirk full of chaos and a sword full of stormfire, started to climb like a man who had already written the end.
The Dragon's Storm and the Sovereign's Claim
The clearing crackled with restless tension as Charles planted his boot on a moss-lined stone and surveyed the mountainous horizon. Beyond it, just miles above, thunderclouds gathered like restless war drums. The Azure Tempest Dragon was near—too near.
His eyes glowed faintly violet. "Scan confirmed: Core Realm Rank 8. Lightning affinity, wind affinity, territorial, intelligent, violent." He turned to his team. "And solitary. With a nest."
He paused.
His team only suspects he has a rare magical scanning artifact.
"Plan A: we subdue it. Plan B: we slay it. There is no Plan C. We're not running." His voice carried the weight of steel, command, and just the barest glint of mischief.
Borris blinked. "Subdue? As in—what, tame it?"
Charles didn't answer. He just reached into his cloak and began pulling out items like a noble deity at a bazaar.
He laid out sixteen Tempest Steed scrolls, each doubling speed and boosting aerial maneuvers for ten minutes. Eight Divine Fury Pills doubled magical power and attack for ten minutes.
Next came Essence of Infinite Wellspring flasks for instant qi and mana restoration, and eight Pills of Eternal Resilience restoring fifty percent vitality. Value: 46,000 gold coins, acquired by SIGMA.
He laid them out like candy at a child's feast.
Karel whistled low. "Is… is that real?"
Kael coughed. "That's enough inventory to outfit a war party marching on a fortress," he remarked.
Donald's mouth twitched. "Or to buy a duchy."
Charles smirked. "Don't ask. Do use."
SIGMA's Robinhood protocol raided a few interdimensional vaults.
Wendy stared. "You're giving us these?"
Charles threw a scroll at her. "Don't make me change my mind."
She dropped the scroll and squeaked.
He grew serious. "These aren't toys. They're assets for war. We don't fight for fun; we're making history. I—" he drew Raijin's Emberfang, violet lightning dancing along its edge—"don't plan to crawl away with burns and regrets," Charles declared.
Kael smiled and took out his two swords. "What's the plan for the target?"
Charles's eyes shone. "Three arrays."
He looked to the twins and Donald. "Kael—you'll trigger the Binding Storm Array. Lock its wings with magnetic lightning and drag it down."
"On it." Kael gave a sharp nod.
"Karel, Donald—you two will raise the Seal of the Abyss. Trap it inside a compressed pocket of space. No escape. No breathing room."
They exchanged nods of understanding.
"Borris and Andy—you two anchor the Earthbind Array. Amplify its weight. Ground its body with gravitational suppression and earth shackles."
"And if that fails?" Andy asked, grinning.
Charles looked up at the sky. "Then we kill a dragon."
He clapped once. "Alright. Everyone, scrolls ready. Talismans bound. Qi steady. We move in two waves. I'll lead the first strike. Wendy, Kael—you're on me," he commanded.
He turned to his belt and drew a final item from a sealed compartment—a silver and violet scroll etched with ancient sigils. The parchment pulsed with divine pressure.
"Plan A's secret weapon," he announced, letting the talisman unfurl. "Soulbinding Talisman of the Tempest Sovereign. If all goes well… this isn't just a battle. It's recruitment."
Borris nearly choked. "You want to ride that thing?"
Charles smiled. "No. I want it to swear fealty."
The Clash Begins
The wind at the mountain's peak was not natural.
It howled with a will of its own, charged with sparks that danced like angry fireflies. The clouds above churned in unnatural spirals, bruised with violet lightning and electric veins that pulsed like arteries feeding a heart of wrath.
By the time Charles and his team emerged from the tree line and reached the jagged edge of the cliff, the storm had taken form—not summoned, not born, but awakened.
A titanic presence loomed in the gloom. They felt it before they saw it.
The Azure Tempest Dragon.
Stormlight shimmered across its sky-colored scales—like polished sapphire. The dragon stretched its wings. Cathedral sails cast a shadow over the entire estate. It coiled atop a broken mountain spire. Talons gouged deep furrows in obsidian stone. In the air lingered the taste of ozone and blood.
And then it turned.
Elegant. Terrible. Divine.
Its eyes were full of intelligence, and its roar seemed to cut through the very fabric of reality.
It felt like judgment when the shockwave hit.
Tree trunks broke; debris fell from the sky. Rocks shattered. Lightning hit with storm-god force.
Charles didn't even move.
He raised one hand, and the fingers crackled with power that was held back.
"Now."
The order cut through the noise like a knife.
The world lit up.
A web of bright blue and white glyphs lit up beneath the dragon. The Binding Storm Array—made of inscribed symbols and elemental rings—flared up, eight layers spinning perfectly. Sigils in Primordic script pulsed, drawing energy from above and below.
Wind screamed. Pressure dropped.
The vortex began.
The air spun into a maelstrom, dragging the beast's wings into it. Atoms twisted around the dragon's limbs with magnetic pull—binding pressure engineered to suppress flying apex-class entities.
Kael roared and slammed his broadsword into the ground, the earth fracturing under the impact. Lightning coiled from his blade into the array, feeding it with raw, uncut elemental qi. Skyfire burst from the runic ring's outer shell, forging a cage of jagged arcs around the beast.
The dragon screamed and thrashed against the cage. It sounded like a tornado screaming through a church.
"Close it!" Charles thundered, authority ringing in his voice.
A second glyph-circle, called The Seal of the Abyss, burst into flames above. This was a spatial array designed to compress and trap targets within a magical barrier.
The sky sparkled when it was under pressure. As Karel and Donald slammed their palms together, their qi spread out like dark stars, and shadows twisted. The space folded. Gravity bent in. A shimmering dome fell over the battlefield like the jaws of a void.
Inside the dome, light warped. Sound trembled. Time hesitated.
The dragon roared. Its wings flared wide, its eyes burning with pure elemental hate.
Then came the tremor.
Andy and Borris stepped forward in perfect synchronization, their muscles glowing with golden circuitry—earth qi, the energy of solidity and gravity, channeled through battle-forged runes etched along their arms and backs. They slammed their palms into the mountain.
And the mountain responded.
The Earthbind Array detonated beneath the surface with a quake that sent eagles fleeing into the sky. Obsidian slabs burst upward like titans' ribs—massive chains of blackrock, coiled and jagged, spiraled around the dragon's legs, wings, and neck. They cinched tight, each link etched with suppression runes, each loop powered by deep-earth leyline anchors.
"Down," Borris grunted, veins bulging, teeth gritting. "Stay… down."
The dragon screamed—one wing ripped free of its constraints, blowing apart part of the vortex. It surged upward, a column of raw fury rising to defy the storm.
Kael didn't hesitate. He launched into the air, spinning with the full force of a thunder-kissed leap. His twin blades curved with wind and lightning, slicing in tandem.
CRACK!
The beast's wing buckled under the strike, and it crashed back into the vortex, howling.
"Speed scrolls!" Charles snapped.
They vanished.
A sonic snap echoed as the Scrolls of the Tempest Steed activated. Wind surged under their feet. The battlefield blurred—each step a streak of motion, each movement faster than thought.
Wendy struck first—because of course she did.
She ducked under the dragon's thrashing tail, her Windblade Daggers a blur. She launched upward, her foot finding purchase on a floating shard of obsidian mid-leap. With a feral grin, she flipped over the dragon's spine and drove both daggers into the weak spot near its shoulder.
Ice, blood, and wind exploded outward.
"Too slow, lizard!" she cackled, vaulting off its back before a lightning discharge could tag her.
Charles dropped from the air like judgment.
Raijin's Emberfang was a falling star in his grip—pulsing with twin cores, one of lightning, the other of violet flame. His cloak flared like the banner of a god descending from a war council.
"Hey, ugly," he called, voice gleefully irreverent. "Meet your new boss."
He plunged the blade into the space between two armored scales—deep into the dragon's spine.
BOOOOM.
An eruption of thunder and violet fire detonated from the point of impact. Lightning screamed outward in branching arcs. The dragon thrashed, its stormlight bleeding from the wound like liquid lightning. Its body convulsed. The mountain cracked beneath it.
One swipe of its tail flung Donald like a rag doll into a cliffside. Karel dove midair, firing an arrow mid-dive that exploded into flame, catching Donald mid-fall and redirecting him to a snowy slope.
"You're welcome!" Karel shouted.
Kael barely dodged a divine lightning bolt that split a peak in half behind them.
The dragon's inner storm had awakened.
Wendy skidded to Charles's side, panting. "What now, genius?"
Charles grinned, blood dripping down his cheek.
"Now?" he said.
"We get serious."
Kael barely dodged a bolt of divine lightning that split a nearby peak in two.
The dragon's inner storm had awakened.
"Hold formation!" Charles barked. "Wendy, rotate to the left flank. Arthur, suppress the right eye with fire bolts. Twins—stay aerial, lightning control only. No full frontal."
"Define full frontal!" Kael yelled as he launched a spiraling arc of thunder.
"The kind that gets you killed!" Charles snapped back.
He ducked under a swipe of the dragon's claws and somersaulted across the creature's snout, slashing a deep red gash across its upper eye ridge. The beast reeled. Sparks flew. But it was not yet near defeat.
"SIGMA, status?" Charles whispered.
[Arrays holding at 62% power. Earthbind stabilizing. Dragon qi turbulence is increasing. Recommend execution of Plan A: Soulbinding.]
Charles's expression tightened. His team was bruised, not broken. But the storm was rising again. They were running out of time.
He flicked his wrist, and a golden scroll unrolled into his hand—glowing with arcane sigils, the parchment humming with a power far older than any in their group.
"The Soulbinding Talisman of the Tempest Sovereign," he murmured, and flames danced in his eyes.
Wendy's voice crackled through the wind. "You sure about this?! If it backfires—"
"It won't," Charles said coldly. "This is a sovereign class binding sigil. Crafted to subjugate tempest-class aerial beasts."
"And if you fail?" asked Arthur, deflecting a thunderbolt with his blade.
"Then we're all dragon barbecue. Hold the line!"