Solemn draconic speech reverberated through the sealed space. Walls cast from molten iron tolled like an ancient bell. Endless echoes beat against Adelaide’s ears, pain tearing like silk.
Fear didn’t come from the pressure. It came from those eyes.
Adelaide had seen dragon eyes before. In the palace, she had once stared at a severed head that would not rest. Even dead, those reptilian giants held heat like flame. A mere brush ignited Dalahaman’s leather glove—proof those “myths” of dragon malice weren’t lies. Before a crusade, Heroes wear blindfolds; a glance alone makes small human bodies kneel.
To etch such terror into the blood of nearly all life—those are Dragons, the peak of flesh and mana.
Yet Sormaidon carried more than that inborn pressure. Its pupils opposed Dalahaman’s wyrm completely. They weren’t burning gold, but coal-ash gray. In that pallor, an unnamable dread pooled. From the central black slit, something kept spilling, rending its living core. It rolled, assimilated, then was pressed down by a vaster surge.
If a normal dragon’s gaze is drawing near the sun, Sormaidon’s is sinking into seafloor quicksand. You want to fight, but invisible water-pressure locks every muscle. You can only feel the self unstitched and melted into nothing.
Inside Adelaide, the Blood Mage’s instincts called. A faint kinship brushed her, and she flinched. She grasped the thing trying to tear free from Sormaidon’s eyes—Chaos.
So this is the price of bowing to Chaos? That pure negation outshone dragon majesty, rising to a concept.
Instead of submission, everyone felt a crushing haze. With weaker talent, Kabos and others went glassy and still.
“—coiva (wake)!”
A single word through Menglan’s lips carried force enough to defy the void. Everyone jolted awake, reason flooding back into their eyes. They raised weapons and aimed at the mountain-sized presence.
Sormaidon showed no trace of alarm. Its serpent neck stayed coiled as it looked down on the small folk.
“How unfortunate. In my mercy, I was going to let you climb these steps, lay down your guard, then swallow you in one bite. That way your last heartbeat would brim with victory.” It spoke with a blade of irony. “Yet you spurn my kindness and insist on tasting despair’s thrash. That is the saddest thing under heaven—no matter how long, your Nacha Tribe won’t drop that useless ‘honor’ and accept my grace.”
It didn’t attack. It spread its vast bone-wings, a show of every inch of its frame.
“Since this is how it ends, I’ll respect your choice and follow your dull ritual. I am Soul Devourer Sormaidon, King of Dragons, sole master of the Nacha multitudes and of this subterranean palace.”
Then its dragon gaze locked onto Queen Dreamlan.
“Of course, Your Grace needn’t introduce yourself. We already know each other.” It turned to Adelaide. “But I am curious. Which human lady sensed me?”
It tilted its head. “Oh, don’t mistake me. I’m not displeased with you. Another beautiful, clever soul will become my collection today. I’m delighted—astonished, even. Yet your face is strange, and still familiar. Could it be that you—”
“—Sormaidon. When did you wake?”
Menglan cut in. It leaned closer, wearing a reptile’s twisted grin.
“Honored Elven Queen, rest easy. Your deduction stands. Before slumber, I set my awakening condition. By fortune, I was stirred decades before your arrival. Otherwise I’d have missed claiming the Lionheart Hero and the Queen’s souls together. Unthinkable!”
Menglan ignored the prattle. “What was the condition?”
“The condition? The glorious revival of My Lord, Chaos. The moment the seal loosens. I answered His summons—and it seems He’s prepared my first gift.”
It stared at Menglan, greedy. Saliva threads spilled from man-tall fangs. Menglan only narrowed her eyes.
She parted her lips, about to speak. Her voice was so small that even Adelaide heard only a moth-buzz. Sormaidon dipped lower to catch the words.
What met it instead was a blaze of gold surging from behind its head.
A heartbeat later, concentrated mana detonated with a thundercrack. Varie’s arrow, drawn to the full, struck.
At Sormaidon’s attempt to strike, Adelaide couldn’t yank Varie to her side. Varie was too fast. In that blink she slipped into the far shadows, took the high ground while Sormaidon droned on, and Menglan’s whisper baited the opening. No word was shared, yet both read each other without effort. They sprung the ambush as Sormaidon shed its guard.
Neither wore the ease of success. Menglan swept up a green curtain to block the blast’s shock. Her other hand closed the spellwork she had been quietly priming. Threads of mana shot into the churned dust the golden blast left behind. She called to the group.
“Move!”
Adelaide and Mira had begun to weave arrays, ready to chase and finish Sormaidon. They froze. A dragon-roar hit, a peal that shook the whole Magma Forge. Sound sheared the smoke around Sormaidon in a blink, revealing a gray-white wyrm, unscathed.
It extended its serpentine neck. The threads tied to its bone-wings snapped like cobweb. On its back skull, where Varie’s arrow struck, a layer of translucent fluid gleamed. Not a single scratch cut the true scales.
What was that liquid? The question formed in Adelaide. The answer arrived with her bones quivering. Sormaidon’s roar didn’t just weaken and scatter magic. It called.
Cold slid over her ankles. She looked down. The same stuff flowed around her boots. Its source was that “Sormaidon” lying upon the mountain of treasure.
They had known from the start that heap wasn’t the evil dragon’s body. They hadn’t known what it was, not until now. The vast dragon-form melted at speed into that translucent medium. Soul-shapes thrashed within, like the drowning reaching up, only to break and join the fluid. The surge climbed Sormaidon, sheathing it from claw-tip to crown.
It happened in a breath. Adelaide and the others understood the nature of that liquid.
It was the source of Sormaidon’s strength beyond its kin. The reason for its pride, its certainty it could crush four peak powers.
They were the hundreds of thousands of Nacha Tribe souls it had swallowed.
