One more chapter before arc is finished. Let me know your thoughts on it!
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Character Sheet
Name: Artorius Pendrath
Titles: None
Archetype: Leader[Awakened] – lvl 20
Race: Royal-Blood Dragonmen(Homo Draconis)[G-hatchling] – lvl 20
Class: Storybook Squire(House Pendragon)[Tier 0] – lvl 20
Health: 300/310 | Stamina: 300/305 | Mana: 300/330
Stats
Strength - 22+3+3+3→31
Dexterity - 21+3+3+3→30
Constitution - 25+3+3→31
Intellect - 27+6→33
Willpower - 25+3+6→34
Perception - 15+3+3→21
Charisma - 38+3+6+3+3→53
Luck - 27+3→30
Trait: Commander, Stoic, Ambitious
Skills: Inspect, Heroic Blow, Last Stand, Training Regimen
Mutation: Draconic Adaptation, Draconic Communion, Draconic Empowerment
Laws: None
Technique: None
Words of Power: Flame(Song), Crystal(Song),
Looking over his character sheet as the final battle approached, Artorius could see he made great progress. He recalled when he first arrived here and today here he was, coming all the way here.
The Pale Snowfields stretched before Artorius like the surface of a dead world. Wind howled across the frozen plains in long, knifing blasts, lifting plumes of powdered snow that drifted like fading ghosts. The sky above was a bruised, starless iron, a single unbroken dome of storm-clouds pressing down on the land as if trying to smother it.
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/7599893117012068/
Artorius marched at the head of his army in silence. Behind him, 2,500 draconic soldiers padded, marched, crawled, and slithered through the snow. Frost-breaths steamed from muzzles. Armor clattered. Wings rustled. The low, vibrating stomp of thousands of clawed feet filled the air like distant thunder.
And for once, even Ouroboros was quiet. Artorius' feet crunched into the snow, each step sinking a few inches. His human legs would have long ached in the cold, but the Flaming Mantle and the Draconic Adaptability especially to frost kept frostbite at bay.
The silence of their march was oppressive. It wasn't the silence of peace. It was the silence of predators who knew other predators were near. They reached a ridge in the Pale Snowfields of a wall of jagged ice that overlooked a wide basin of frozen earth.
And there they saw them. The enemy. Spread across the white basin like a massive, breathing organism of wings, horns, and gleaming scales. Their banners bone-white, floral gold, deep crimson, radiant blue fluttered in the frigid wind.
They stood at equal numbers but from his scouts he knew they had much more elites, champions, elder dragons they only outnumbered them when it came to noble blooded dragons. Artorius eyed the main powerhouses; Auxithkox, the Radiance Dragon. Isylith, the White Lady. Ravagan, the Crimson Drakonar. Erythra, the Pollen Dragon. And Avendryn, the Moss Dragon.
[High Noble Radiance Dragonling — Level 30]
[High Noble Frost Dragonling — Level 30]
[Noble Moss Dragonling — Level 25]
[Noble Pollen Dragonling — Level 25]
[Noble Crimson Drakonar — Level 24]
The world held its breath. Wind died. Snow froze midair. Even the clouds above seemed afraid to move. Artorius stepped forward, feet crunching softly in the snow. His army followed suit behind him, forming a vast wall of scales and power.
Across the icy basin, Ravagan let out a roar, a massive, earth-shaking bellow of fire and fury but Auxithkox raised one glowing, burning wing. Silence returned instantly. The Radiance Dragon's voice boomed across the plain. "Scaleless One!" The word echoed like a commandment.
"You stand at the head of an army of dragons against our lady, the Fragrance Queen." A pause. "A sin against your betters. If you know what's best, stand down, lay down your arms, and our lady may have mercy upon you."
Artorius did not flinch. "Yeah, really? Or will you just massacre us all and leave us in a unmarked grave!"
Auxithkox's mane flared bright enough to bleach the snow. "You are an aberration. A stain. A mistake. So be it," Auxithkox hissed. "I will bathe these snowfields in your blood."
Ouroboros whispered into Artorius's ear. "He really likes you."
Artorius raised his hand. Roars filled the air, not from one dragon but thousands. Artorius thrust his hand downward. "CHARGE!" His army surged forward like a tidal wave of wings and claws. Golden drakes darted forth. Thunder serpents slithered across the battlefield. Flame-wreathed wyverns leapt into the sky. Black-scaled monstrosities erupted from beneath the snow.
The enemy did the same. The two armies collided in a symphony of sound so violent the ground cracked. A line of frost wyverns slammed into flower-armored toxin drakes, thunder-scaled serpents blasted lightning into the faces of crimson-armored drakes, a pack of moss-laden dragons crashed into black-scaled chargers.
The sky filled with dragons. The ground filled with blood. The air filled with screams. Artorius sprinted forward with his wings spread wide, wind tore at him, claws slashed near him. A moss-covered beast lunged, he ducked, slashed its throat with his lance and kept running.
Artorius saw one of his silver wyverns get torn in half by a light dragon before Raijin speared that champion through the head with lightning. He saw a blight cloud sweep across a dozen of his frontline soldiers most survived, but three collapsed foaming. He saw Zoklath's shadow cut through an entire wedge of elite dragons, sending their body parts spiraling into the ground.
It was chaos. Beautiful, awful, deafening chaos. And through that swirling storm of flame, frost, sap, radiance, lightning, venom, and shadow, the High Lord came forth.
It was as if the battlefield parted for them. Artorius stepped toward him. The snow steamed beneath Auxithkox's heat. Both armies clashed around them. None dared interrupt.
Meanwhile, his other leaders faced off against their own foes; Viserion turned his head toward Isylith. Raijin met the burning eyes of Ravagan. Shiun antlers glowed as Erythra drifted down like a poisonous fairy. Zoklath hissed as Avendryn came forward, moss writhing. Ouroboros looped through the air above them. The Five Duels of the Snowfields had begun.
Auxithkox towered over him. A large bulky figure of gold-white radiance. Wings like halos. Eyes burning with arrogance. Artorius drew a deep breath. His body tensed. His heart pounded as he prepared himself. Auxithkox's roar shook the heavens. Light exploded. The Radiance Dragon blurred forward, moving impossibly fast for his size. Artorius barely had time to brace.
A wing of brilliance slammed the snow, Artorius dodged left, the ground he had stood on evaporated in a burst of golden light. He rolled forward, stabbing his lance powered by heroic blow through Auxithkox's ankle but radiant scales deflected it like steel.
Auxithkox laughed. "Scaleless. Weak. You think you can wound me?" Artorius grit his teeth, this was going to be tougher than he thought.
Auxithkox stomped, the shockwave blasted Artorius backward. He skidded across ice, caught himself and charged again. They collided, light vs fire. The snowfields erupted in fire and brilliance.
Viserion's wings cracked open like sheets of glacial crystal as he took to the sky, spiraling upward. His breath misted with blizzards. Ice trailed off his talons like fading comets. Isylith lifted her head, pale and elegant, frost clinging to her mane like diamonds.
She did not roar in fury. She simply breathed and the world turned white. A beam of pure frost erupted from her jaws, not a breath but a perfect line, a spear of winter so cold the very air screamed. The light of it bent as it passed, freezing even the wind.
Viserion dove sharply, Isylith's frost lance grazed his tail, turning a chunk of scale to brittle ice. He snarled. She moved in like winter personified, slow, inevitable, unstoppable. Viserion moved like a storm wild, sharp, unpredictable. He inhaled and unleashed a frost breath, a spiraling blast of freezing wind mixed with crystalline shrapnel.
Snow exploded into razors. The sky became a blizzard. Isylith didn't dodge; she stepped through it. Her body unraveled into drifting flakes, momentarily intangible reforming behind him in a sweep of moonlit frost. Viserion twisted too late. Her claws raked across his ribcage. Frost burrowed instantly into the wound. He screamed. She whispered, barely audible: "It was a mistake to betray me!"
In a single, sinuous movement, she spun. Her tail, long and flowing like a white ribbon, cracked across his wing. Bone shattered. Viserion spiraled downward, crashing into the snow in a spray of blood and ice. Isylith descended slowly, silent as snowfall, watching him struggle to rise. Her expression didn't change. It never did. Winter has no sympathy.
Where Isylith was cold precision, Erythra was springtime chaos. Shiun slithered across the ground, golden scales glowing with inner light, antlers shimmering. Erythra danced in the air above her, scattering glowing pollen with every flutter of her translucent wings.
"Pretty little serpent," Erythra cooed, loops of golden-green dust twirling around her. "Are you immune to poison? Or should I test?"
Shiun's eyes narrowed. Erythra blew a kiss. A spiral of pollen shot forward, each speck a micro-spore designed to burrow into the bloodstream and collapse organs.
Shiun's coils snapped tight. She spun, generating a vortex that dragged the pollen upward in a spiral. Her body ignited with golden light making it disappear then she struck fast. A glittering blur. Her antler tipped like a golden needle pierced Erythra's wing membrane.
The Pollen Dragon shrieked, twirling backward in a panic, her pollen dust forming frantic defensive swirls. "You, you savage snake!"
Shiun lunged again. But Erythra snapped her wings open and unleashed pollen that exploded outward in a flower-shaped shockwave, coating Shiun's entire body in luminous powder. Shiun froze mid-motion. Her muscles locked. Her breath hitched. Erythra giggled above her, back in control. "Oh, don't worry. You won't die immediately. It will be much slower and sweeter!"
The air grew thick. Heavy. Rot-scented. Moss writhed across the snow in patches as Avendryn lumbered forward. Her body was a walking garden of moss every step tearing new furrows in the earth.
Zoklath's eyes narrowed as his jaw opened and black flame blasted outward, the breath turning the snow to sludge. Avendryn braced, moss thickening and forming a dome.
Heat surged. The snow sublimated into steam. Ravagan advanced slowly, each footstep cracking the earth. His scales glowed molten, each plate a piece of living magma armor. Raijin hovered above the ground, lightning crackling along his limbs. Thunder rumbled overhead. Fire rumbled below. Ravagan bared his fangs.
A pulse of superheated fire exploded outward, Raijin sent out his own pulse of lightning. Ravagan lunged, claws dripping fire, and slammed Raijin into a snowpile. Lightning jolted wildly through the snow. Raijin coughed, shaking his head. "You hit hard, old man."
Auxithkox vanished, a streak of light reappearing behind Artorius. Artorius barely twisted aside as a blade of pure radiance carved across the snow, the light nearly cleaved him in half. Artorius closed distance immediately slashing upward with Heroic Blow.
The impact was much more powerful now due to how the battle was going as it shook the frostlands. Auxithkox slid back a few feet, talons carving molten lines in the ice. His eyes widened slightly. "…You are stronger than your insignificance suggests."
Artorius spat blood. "You talk too much." He lunged. Auxithkox's wings snapped open, a light explosion blasted Artorius backward, tumbling through the snow. Auxithkox's voice boomed like the sun itself: "Crawl back to the dirt you came from."
Artorius rose again, panting. He wiped blood from his mouth. His Lance howled with the Word of flame. He charged. Auxithkox welcomed him. Their next collision sent up a pillar of white fire.
The frontlines were grinding each other down. Dozens of lower-ranked dragons already lay broken in the snow, frostbitten, melted, crushed, torn apart. Artorius's army held formation, but the Queen's elite vanguard was pushing them steadily back.
A wedge of crimson and light dragon soldiers carved through the middle. A pack of moss-armored dragons advanced, uprooting frozen ground. A bloom of pollen dragons leaked poison into the air, forcing Artorius's soldiers to retreat in coughing fits. Thunder fell in the distance. Fire roared. Frost shrieked.
The battlefield was tilting and it was not falling in Artorius's army favor. Seeing this Ouroboros knew it was time to fall up this ace in the hole. "You want to show yourself!"
A presence slid from the darkness. A massive shadow stepped forward, tattered wings, missing scales, scars across its body, wounds still weeping dark mist. A single huge eye glowing with dark-light. The battlefield froze. Dragons stopped mid-roar. Even Auxithkox paused.
As Xytherion, the Oblivion Dragon, stepped fully into the world. His voice rumbled, "So good to see you all." He grinned. Despite half his jaw missing. The moment Xytherion, the Oblivion Dragon stepped fully onto the Pale Snowfields, the air recoiled.
Xytherion inhaled, the hole in his throat whistling like a broken flute. Spheres of nothing formed along his wing and flew down into the army below. It detonated. The world went silent then warped inward like a lung collapsing. A dozen elite dragons from the Queen's side, crimson-plated Drakonar, flower-armored pollen drakes, moss-coated dragons were simply… gone.
Just a circular crater in the snow, rimmed with frostless, perfectly smooth glass. Surviving dragons staggered back in horror. More blasts of nothing launched outward. It hit a formation of light dragons, the beam bending their outline into thin, impossible shapes before folding them into microscopic dust.
Xytherion laughed, gurgling and broken. He fired again and again and again. Each blast erased swaths of enemies. The battlefield fractured into scattered shockwaves of panic. Artorius, still locked with Auxithkox, felt the air tremble each time. Quickly stopping the Radiance Dragon in his tracks as he tried to disengage and put a stop to the Oblivion dragon.
Artorius let him continue with his brutal slaughter since the tide of war flipped instantly. Where the Queen's elite had been pressing forward with systematic, disciplined slaughter, they now broke formation.
Moss dragons retreated into the earth, pollen dragons fluttered wildly, trying to shield themselves with clouds of poison. Lightborn dragonlings attempted to channel shields around their commanders. None of it mattered.
Xytherion opened his maw and breathed a continuous stream of oblivion, a cutting ribbon of annihilation that carved through the snowfield like a world-eating blade. "Stop him!" Ravagan roared, molten claws slamming into the ground as he tried to charge the Oblivion Dragon.
He made it ten paces before he was stopped by his foe, Raijin. The same for the others except for the White Lady. Already she had been making short work of her half-brother with a smack of her tail that sent him flying; she flew up to face the Oblivion dragon.
She landed in a graceful arc of shimmering moonlit frost, her presence colder than the surrounding biome. Her mane streamed like a comet trail of powdered diamonds. "It's good to see you, Xytherion. I thought you had pitifully died."
"Ha, I am a lot harder to kill than you imagine. I'm sure you can attest to that." Before he could finish, Isylith aura burst outward, temperature plummeting so sharply the snow itself cracked. Her wings snapped open. A tidal wave of pure winter crashed into Xytherion.
The shock of the impact shook the snowfields. Xytherion slid backward, claws digging into the ice. He wasn't laughing anymore. Oblivion gathered in his mouth. Isylith inhaled. Snow around her rose like a cyclone. And then their beams collided. Frost and Oblivion. Absolute cold vs absolute nothing.
The world cracked between them, a jagged seam of broken reality. Shockwaves rocked the armies, sending dragons tumbling. Artorius shielded his eyes as white-blue frost and black void collided.
Xytherion skidded forward with glee, tail whipping. "YES! FINALLY! A FIGHT WORTHY!"
Isylith's eyes narrowed. "I am not here to amuse you." Isylith vanished. She re-materialized above him, spinning downward, tail lined with jagged ice.
Her blow cracked through the remains of his skull, snapping his upper jaw further open. He reeled. She pressed the attack with mechanical precision, no wasted motion, no unnecessary fury. Her fighting style was winter itself: cold, inevitable, deadly.
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The Pale Snowfield had always been quiet but today the sky was burning. A column of white fire lanced through the clouds and split the heavens. Not lightning, not magic, Light. The purest, most tyrannical form of brilliance.
Artorius staggered backward, feet skidding across frost as the beam carved a line through the glacier behind him. The entire chunks of it were vaporized into a rain of glowing illumination. Artorius had no time to appreciate the destruction as Auxithkox opened his jaw and shot another beam.
The needle-thin ray of light screamed toward him, cutting through air like the world was paper. Artorius threw himself sideways but the beam clipped his arm. His sleeve disintegrated. His skin blistered. His bones glowed through the flesh. Pain flowered in his mind, bright and blooming, but he gritted teeth and rolled into a crouch, shaking the numbness off.
He was more than glad that he decided to train his resistance to light, if not he would have long been dead. Auxithkox seemed to snap as he roared, "Why wouldn't you die, you little gnat!"
"Ha, maybe try a bit harder," Artorius retorted as he didn't hold back. He built up enough energy in his harness from all the damage he suffered and powered up his lance with a Heroic blow along with adding the Word of Flame and Crystal that he fused into one, Plasma.
Back to the other main fight, the Oblivion dragon refused to go down and the White lady lost her patience. Isylith lifted a single claw and the relic her father had given her appeared in her hand. "You have been a thorn in my side for a very long time, Xytherion. It's time to end this once and for all."
The Ossuary Shard floated up, a bleached ancient bone. The pressure it emitted made dragons scream and clutch their heads. Even Auxithkox staggered mid-duel with Artorius, same with him as he felt something beyond his mortal comprehension coming from it.
Xytherion recognized it instantly as his one eye widened. "You are cheating," he roared.
She broke it. The world inverted as from the sky a giant bone claw appeared. It was massive and gnarled, the soldiers fled in terror. Xytherion seemed to be unable to move so he did the only thing he could. "Father! Save Me."
However nobody answered as the bone hand closed its fist. Artorius watched as every single bone flew from out the body of every dragon under the purview of the claw. It was a grotesque sight as only flesh and muscle was left and they collapsed without the aid of the bone structure to support them.
The one who suffered the brunt of it was the Oblivion dragon as he was simply gone. The White Lady lowered the relic with a soft exhale. "It is done."
The battlefield fell silent. One of Artorius's strongest allies was gone. And Isylith… turned her head to face him, her expression unchanged a winter's face. Artorius felt ice crawl down his spine. She was now free. Free to kill him. Free to join Auxithkox. Free to destroy everything.
The Radiance Dragon opened with a burst of radiance that was like a miniature sun erupting from his chest. The White Lady also joined as she conjured countless spears of ice. Together they were an unstoppable force.
Artorius crossed his arms, bracing against the damage. As much as his draconic adaptability was useful it could not keep up with the countless attacks sent his way. He was blasted backward, tumbling across the snowfield, carving trenches into the frost as he struggled to stay conscious.
More abilities were launched at him, the radiance dragon appearing before him with impossible speed. Claws glowing with light as the blow came down to end him, unable to escape as he exhausted all his options, Artorius caught it with both hands.
The ground shattered under his feet as he was seared, the White Lady drifted closer and also added to his suffering as she froze the air all around him. "You've lost," she said.
"Submit," the Radiance Dragon echoed.
Artorius laughed bitterly. "Do I look like the type to submit?" He really wished he had his Last Stand skill available but it was still under that cooldown even after all these weeks and months.
"No," the White Lady whispered. "Which is why you must be broken." The Radiance Dragon inhaled, radiance swirled and he used his strongest ability. The sky cracked open with holy brilliance. A pillar of tyrannical radiance descended, swallowing Artorius whole.
Every nerve lit on fire. Every bone glowed white-hot. Every drop of blood turned incandescent. His vision flashed to static. His kneecaps buckled. He was alight and all he could do was scream. The Radiance Dragon leaned forward. "Your resistance is admirable. But even the strongest shadows bow to light." The White Lady watched, expression unreadable.
It was at that moment, Viserion who had been toyed by the White lady and put out of commission by her came in to assist. With a roar that split the stormed sky, ice and snow whipped around him as he hurtled toward the White Lady, a desperate gamble.
She simply raised a hand, a graceful motion of her taloned hand as a devastating winter bane erupted. Viserion's charge met it in an implosion of raw, cold energy. Ice shattered in spirals around him, snow turned to steam, and a soundless explosion froze the wind itself. When the cloud of freezing mist cleared, the dragonling hung limply, frozen and fractured, a husk of crystalline blue and silver.
Artorius clenched his jaw until teeth cracked. His hands dug into the snow. He let go. Not of control. Not of sanity. But of limitation. His mutation stirred, the one he had kept dormant, fearing what it might become. Draconic Empowerment.
He aimed not for the radiance dragon energy or white lady, not his followers or enemies. He reached downward. Into the bones of the world. Into the Pale Snowfield. Into the long-dead Dragon Lord whose body was this biome. Power surged through him. Cold. Ancient. Immeasurable.
The ground trembled violently. Ridges of bone cracked open. A rumble echoed through the frozen valleys like a sleeping titan inhaling. The Radiance Dragon stepped back. The White Lady's eyes widened as she muttered, "He's draining the entire biome!"
Worse, he couldn't stop and something was awakening. The cold of ages, the stillness of ancient winters, the silence of a dead god, all of it poured into Artorius's veins in a tidal crush.
He screamed as his spine arched backward. Blue light blazed through the cracks splitting across his skin. His muscles pulsed like glass cooling too quickly.
Artorius rose slowly, steam pouring from his mouth. His skin fractured like porcelain heated too quickly, glowing blue beneath the cracks. The land continued trembling as each dragon soldier held on for dear life as the snowfields cracked open.
The corpse of the Snow Dragon Lord, the ancient dragon whose body had become the Pale Snowfields themselves shivered as if awakening from aeons of slumber. The wind stilled. The world held its breath. The Radiance Dragon whispered:"…Impossible."
Ouroboros shook his head, "I told him to start off small!"
Artorius opened his eyes and something else looked back. His eyes glowed white-blue, pupils like a blizzard. The raw energy of the long-dead lord surged through him. And then, he felt it, a second presence, ancient and cold, awakening inside him.
Then he spoke, his voice became dual-layered, a harmony of himself and the Snow Dragon Lord. "I… I am… COLD. I… I am the Snow." It was terrifying, unnatural, a voice that could command snow, frost, and ice alike.
The aura around him expanded rapidly. The air quivered. Every dragon on the battlefield instinctively stepped back, wings flaring. Even Auxithkox, his radiant mane like a sun burning, felt instinctive dread. The White Lady's frost paled in comparison to the dominion now radiating from Artorius. She hissed, claws digging into the snow.
The other dragons fared much worse as the snow falling all around him from seemingly nowhere touched them and froze them solid. The wind that picked up also froze some more and the pressure coming from him shattered them.
Deep inside, Artorius's true consciousness flickered. He was infinitesimal. A candle burning inside a world-sized glacier. He felt himself fading. Felt the Dragon Lord awakening slowly from its centuries of slumber. He was nothing compared to this vast consciousness.