<h2>CHAPTER 89 – HOUR OF THE COSMOS</h2>
When the golden catapults bombarded the gatehouse breach it fractured Mercinestor’s cavalry with his son on the other side, hopefully safe. He scrambled to stay clear of flying debris, his horse still in good condition. It took every last bit of his resolve to shepherd the charge away from the barrage. Mercinestor tried to save as many as he could, but this was pure chaos.
Those in the back ranks retreated at first sight of the barrage. Those with Mercinestor had to curl away from the golden army, everyone in between were split and turned around. Mercinestor had to choose between turning back and corralling his troops in a massive regroup, basically retreating, or pushing forward into the frey and risking the loss of one front, decreasing the odds of survival drastically.
He wanted to push forward for the Arkenoirs. He wanted to end this madness right here and now. The enemy forces proved to be more powerful than anticipated. They had an answer for their surprise reinforcement attack in such a late hour. Mercinestor knew what he had to do. He led his charge back around to where they first broke the darksider lines. The stragglers saw Mercinestor and rallied to his banners. He led them all to where the rest of the cavalry had retreated, just beyond the city limits, in the patch of grass between the sister city and Epitaph Road.
It would take some time to get the cavalry around into a striking position, but the numbers were present. Aside from the Zenfor Archers and Orbalis paladins at the Gatehouse with Cipher, Mercinestor still had the lion’s share of the bannermen they rallied. Commanding a cavalry of this size took patience and intuitive field officers. Mercinestor was blessed enough to have both.
Along the green grass fields getting drenched by the dark rain the serengeti cavalry turned in unison to attack the enemy at the city wall. Without warning, a paralyzingly loud screech could be heard followed by a series of sonic booms. It felt like the entire earth was shaking.
Mercinestor panicked. Right before the dark sky broke he got out of the way as the rest of the cavalry was demolished. Massive solid projectiles crashing into the grassy plains unyieldingly. The impacts rocking MagnaThora to its core. The Dark Lord smirked. For he knew, any further damage from the fallen projectiles would doom the entire world.
The moisture in the air vanished in a snap. What entered the sky above could be seen from inside the courtyard with Axion and Cel’a all the way to the outskirts of the city where Malinor waited. The Dark Lord stood up. The moment he waited for was finally at hand. He called forth his legion of faceless sorcerers, ancient servants of the Dragon Kingdom. The Dark Lord Malinor muttered an incantation in southern tongue “Forno kolo groomdi kine.”
A ball of effervescent darkness, like a glowing shadow, spawned in his hand. He stretched it out and molded it as it grew. The ball grew into an orb larger than his own head as he lifted it up. Malinor spun it and finessed the edge into sharpness. When he stopped twirling his left hand, the shifting black circular saw continued to spin over his right hand. With his left hand Malinor reached back and clutched, moving his fist forward, draining the lifeforce from the faceless sorcerers behind him. They moaned in pain and struggled to stay on their feet. Malinor brought his left hand up and funneled all that power into his disc saw of necrotica. It was growing so immensely he had to throw it up into the air.
As the flying disc, now the size of a city, soared into the sky above Zepathorum, the entirety of the dark cloud evaporated. It happened so suddenly it looked like the black clouds vanished in a puff. The rain stopped but the sun did not shine. The Dark Lord’s necrotica disk prevented the darksiders from burning up. He knew the magnitude of which brought the void of moisture. Behind the vanity mask, the Dark Lord smirked. She actually pulled it off.
The skies opened for their return. Forged from the very same fires that built MagnaThora, these eternal beasts had the capacity to decimate the entire world on impact. Such sheer forces spending all this time plummeting through space would surely have lasting effects on their physical make-up. The stardragons wielded the armor of the cosmos. The Dark Lord did not want to annihilate all of MagnaThora, not yet at least. Malinor smiled only to himself. No, he wanted to rule MagnaThora as the modern day dragon emperor, and turn everything upside-down, in order to see what happens on the other side.
The flying disc of necrotica was built not only to replace the dark cloud as the sun’s barrier, but it was also built to cleanse the stardragons of their celestial force. In other words, it slowed their trajectories enough to prevent world destruction. Some exploded before impact. Some crashed right into the serengeti cavalry and died on impact. Others pulled up in time and started unleashing their coldfire flames on the battalions in the field and the city.
One of the smaller dragons that managed to survive the initial crash landing pulled away from the rest of the horde and started making its way towards Malinor on the hill. It didn’t look like the rest. Malinor embraced the return of his sky marshal by unsheathing his reaper sword. Fathom pulled in and landed with grace before Malinor and his vanguard. He called off his guards and let them land.
Zora sat a top Fathom. She struggled to dismount and when she did Zora fell over grasping the grass. She threw her helmet off and clutched at her throat as she turned back into an air breathing human. Fathom also seemed to be back to breathing normally, although he kept some of his celestial features.
“Let me guess…” Malinor said as he walked up to her. “You flew that beast right through my necrotica along with the rest of them.”
Zora sneered at him and said nothing. He thrust the reaper blade down into a killing stroke and it was blocked by Fathom’s tail. The tail quickly countered and whipped Malinor off the hill. His faceless sorcerers stumbled after him clumsily, blindly.
Fathom nudged Zora to get back on, but she shrugged him off.
“No,” she said as she stood up, “He is going to pay for what he’s done.”
Zora drew her sword and held it up high for all to see, as the Dark Lord floated back to the top of the grassy hill.
“You did well, peasant.” the Dark Lord taunted, “Now, know when to die.”
“Imposter! Usurper! You know nothing of the ways or the glory of the south! I will die protecting my home!”
“When I’m through our house will claim dominion of all MagnaThora.”
“You are a traitor to all MagnaThora!”
“I am MagnaThora’s harbinger.”
He attacked again, but before he could close the gap between them he was knocked to the ground by crashing stardragons. Zora got back on Fathom and led her squadron of stardragons against the rest, raising hell upon the countryside. Some of these dragons were so large they attacked the Serengeti with Zepathorum in one fell swoop. In her time sailing the stars she was able to attune Fathom to the senses of some of the more benevolent stardragons. In doing so, Zora developed a kinship with them and knew when the time came, in a moment of need, they would side with her.
Now they fought against their own kind for her. The numbers and size were against them, but it was something. Zora made her decision, and though she brought this hell upon Zepathorum City, she would do her best to save it. When all the dust settled, she didn’t wish to be on the winning side. Zora wished to have a clean conscience and be proud of the life she lived, whether it ended shorter than expected or not. She made peace with herself and Lord Dracobra, the fallen dragon god of darkness.
Malinor did not chase after her. He let Zora escape. Which worried her even more. Together with the faceless sorcerers he conjured up another dark cloud. As he passed it off to the sorcerers to put it into place, his attention turned towards the necrotica disc hovering above the city. The new dark cloud snaked across the glowing necrotica like a fog rolling in on a lake.
Once the dark cloud was back in place he snapped the necrotica disc into perfect fragments of themselves. Everything they hit in Zepathorum turned to ash except those few good star dragons. Malinor spun nine discs around himself, they changed colors, almost rotting into purple mold. He flung them at Zora’s stardragons, and they scattered. A few got caught. The discs quickly dissolved into them but did not turn them to ash. Instead from the point of impact a pure darkness grew around the stardragons, suffocating them, eclipsing them away from the rest of reality. Now wrapped in shadow they only obeyed the lord of darkness. Zora was out of allies and options.
She retreated back into the towers of the city, steering Fathom into narrowly avoiding the remaining discs of necrotica. Malinor once again summoned his dark staff. He hit the floor with it and a loud monotonous echo rang forth into the battle. The stardragons stopped their ravaging and rallied to the Dark Lord. They landed all around him, the smaller ones up front, and the farther back they went the larger they got until so big they hovered over the ground.
Zora watched as the Dark Lord systematized a whole new front, albeit a celestial one, against the city. These poor people. Was this really where Mitakahn came from? She flew Fathom throughout the city to get a good survey of the situation. All was not lost. The lion kingdom warriors were putting up a fight inside the city. This new wave of stardragons would crush them. Zora reluctantly directed her dragon back towards the northern gate, searching for a way to help prevent what was about to happen.
Malinor summoned one of the necrostardragons over to be his mount. He raised himself up in the air and settled on a saddle he conjured out of thin air. The closer he got to these dragons the more his essence of Dracobra stirred inside him. It was hard for him to contain the energy within his human form. Now was the time for the final wave. He charged forth and the legion of stardragons followed him down the hill towards the city.
A flash of golden light and a fierce roar from the south happened at the same time. After the flash of light, a heroine stood in the green field between the city and Malinor’s legions. The woman was clad in green armor that was smooth and wrapped around her curves precisely, the armor overlapped like clover leafs and glowed gold around the edges. Her brunette hair was braided away from her eyes and held together by impossible golden circles. The goddess Epiphany stood against the Dark Lord. She made sparks with the gold spinning rings she held in her hand.
Tremors drew the attention away from Epiphany’s arrival. The ground shook and everyone seemed to know to look south. Malinor held his legions back. Epiphany watched with the clarity of a goddess. Mercinestor waited for the source of the rumbling to reveal itself. From somewhere in the city, Cipher and Kara Ventrilles held each other as it came into view. Commander Cel’a and Axion tried to steal a view from inside the courtyard until it was right on top of them. From the top of the Citadel, Queen Adyana and Anilithyistad stood on the Throne Room balcony together, in awe at what they were seeing. The great Lion Lorde himself, the god Magnanimous, had emerged through the Orleop Threshi to come to Zepathorum’s salvation.
As the lion god walked through Zepathorum he released a healing purring hymn. It healed superficial wounds and injuries to people and buildings, putting out fires, resealing cracks, other things of that nature. The darksiders dumb enough to get in his way received a surprise. Without breaking his stride, Magnanimous roared out, bringing sun rays out from the south, towards the Orleop Threshi. This had to be magic. MagnaThora’s sun could never be that far south.
The darksiders burned up Crimson Boulevard, the only street large enough for the giant golden furred lion to pass. He walked through the breach in the Gatehouse. Finally, he stood, all four padded paws on the grass, right next to Epiphany. The goddess and the demigod. Epiphany whistled and took a ready stance with her gold battle rings. Her white wolf bodyguards appeared around her. Zora and Fathom landed next to Epiphany and Magnanimous. The goddess looked at her and smiled. It was a knowing smile. Zora was taken aback by that. Did this mysterious supernatural woman know her?
Malinor stepped forth and laughed maniacally.
“Now this is a true showing. Do you feel important girl? Standing amongst gods?” Malinor taunted. He lifted his free hand up and started another of his incantations.
“Stop him!” Epiphany yelled out.
Zora nudged Fathom back into flight. Epiphany shook a ring into a lasso and grappled one of the pieces of horn on Fathom’s tail. She lunged forward as they flew forward. Suddenly, Epiphany was getting launched right past Zora and the dragon. She threw her other battle ring and the lasso released and formed back into a ring in her right hand. The battle ring almost sliced Malinor’s fingers clean off, but he moved them out of the way in time. Except that is what she was going for. Malinor was forced to stop whatever he was summoning. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Cursed woman! Return to the NetherRealm!” Malinor raged black lightning out of his fingertips, right at Epiphany. She sliced two away and then dodged the others, flipping, twisting, and then having to fly away. Zora and Fathom flew close and doused him in Fathom’s red fire. It didn’t do much. His cloak burnt up and his vanity mask became more of a burden, but he remained unphased.
He went back to starting the incantation, paying no mind to Zora. She turned Fathom around for another run. This time with blue fire. As soon as Fathom got into position, without looking, Malinor’s left fist (the one he wasn’t holding up for the incantation) engorged into a hideous claw and slammed the ground, it caused a ripple effect that launched a ciff of bedrock right into Fathom. He rolled but didn''t dodge it in time and got knocked out. Zora plummeted through the air trying to wake up her dragon before they crash landed.
While this was all going on Magnanimous took the opportunity to attack the stardragons. They danced in the fields, and he jumped fifty feet in the air. He grabbed one by the neck, landing, and decapitating. Magnanimous roared so loud he stopped making noise that could be recognized by human ears. His roar became even louder and turned to a beam of energy shooting out of his mouth. Like a spear of light, it struck the largest stardragon, causing it to fall dead instantly.
Epiphany wrangled her two rings over Malinor, flicked them down and then tightened them, snapping his arms down by his sides, rendering him harmless for the time being. She got closer to inspect him. She didn’t know who he was… Interesting. Malinor smiled under the mask. The goddess was going for the vanity mask! Malinor squirmed to reach into his belt pocket.
Epiphany reached forth and grabbed the vanity mask by the chin. She began to lift it off and Malinor’s “NO!” shook the entire Serengeti. His body stopped being human for the moment. The dragon deity inside him emerged and mutated his presence in his rage. His eyes went blood red and the vanity mask fused onto his face, making it impossible to remove. Epiphany’s golden rings began to hiss. Something was wrong with them. Malinor’s rapid increase in size put a tremendous burden on the battle rings. The bottom one broke first. Malinor quickly grabbed the top ring with his now freed hand and broke its hold on him.
Epiphany rubbed her hands together, creating a bright light. From that light she forged two long daggers. She spun the daggers in her hands. It had been a long time since she got to fight like this.
Once Malinor caught wind of what was happening he freed the stardragons of his bidding and enraged them. They set upon the city like a storm. The great lion god chased after them. This left Epiphany for Malinor. They lunged for each other and for a second Epiphany felt a very human emotion…fear.
Malinor drew on her fear like a berserker. He smirked. The white wolves howled and behind her a legion of behemoths attacked, led by the mad genius Spangalore. The white wolves attacked. Epiphany made the calculations in her head. Her drones might not be enough. In the brief half of a second her eyes twitched back to check on the wolves Malinor was upon her. Epiphany parried and dodged his black sword with her two long daggers.
Malinor went for an overhead sword strike. Epiphany stretched her arms out as far as they could go, snapping a golden rope straight that connected the daggers. As soon as the rope snapped straight it turned everything in Epiphany’s hands into one double-pointed spear. She spun it around and the momentum of the fight changed in the goddess’ favor.
Malinor lost his reserve and in an act of frustration grew his arms back into claws trying to crush Epiphany between them. When Malinor released the goddess looked okay. It did not appear to have any effect on her. Then Malinor tried to smash her again with his giant dragon claws and she dodged flying out of his range.
It was not until Epiphany got out of range that she remembered her mission was to distract him from his summoning spell. By the time Epiphany got back to the Dark Lord it was too late. Over on the quiet shores of Lake Niobi the gem known as the Nimbus Clint harnessed on the Emissary’s chest flew into the air, quickly making it’s way to Malinor’s hand. It landed just as Epiphany reached Malinor.
“You recognize this?”
The goddess said nothing.
“You do… I can see it in your eyes. You’re one of them aren’t you? A founder god. As I live and breathe. You must let me kill you.” Malinor smirked, approaching her with the stone. Epiphany could not take her eyes off of it. She knew that gem. She knew that turquoise color and exactly who was trapped within. Epiphany could not let Malinor release that Incapsulate Impernum. Luckily, Zora and Fathom were back on the offensive, having narrowly escaped their freefall from before. The blue fire poured out of Fathom’s mouth. It didn’t damage the Dark Lord but knocked the gem out of his hand.
Epiphany attacked and together with Zora they kept Malinor from picking up the gem. Malinor pulled a piece of the dark cloud down into two slivers that coiled around his wrists. Once in place, he threw his hands forward, open-palmed causing a current of wind to knock Zora off Fathom. Malinor controlled the air with his cloud coils and threw Zora into Epiphany. He pulled the gem back to his hands. The coils released, and like phantom snakes they crawled down his hand and fingers onto the gem, covering it.
A flash of light and explosion and there was a turquoise cloud taking the form of a man.
“Enjoy your reunion with what I imagine is your brother…Quarrel. I have business in the city.”
Malinor moved past Epiphany. She did not flinch. The goddess watched as her most hated brother birthed back into the physical realm. Just like her, the god oozed and engorged as he gained control through the primordial goo of his manifestation. In a sudden regret, Epiphany felt she should have found one of her sisters first. It didn’t matter now. She was going to deal with Quarrel’s meddling once and for all.
The emerging man from the warped cloud screamed in pain. It was loud, no wait, it was just close. He tackled Epiphany and with one more scream the warped cloud exploded into a flash of light and they were both gone.The ground around them sizzled in an oddly symmetrical pattern, some of the blades of grass still lit aflame.
The giant lion met the Dark Lord in the field. What happened next, the demigod did not expect. Malinor finally let loose, he allowed the essence of Dracobra to take over. His hands and arms turned back into that of a dragon, but it did not stop there. The Dark Lord’s entire body began morphing into a big belly dragon. The Dark Lord’s dragon form was a colossal black dragon with gray stripes on his belly and red eyes. Malinor’s dragon form grew in size until matching Magnanimous’ height. All that remained of Malinor was the infused vanity mask on his dragon-face. Now it was a fair fight.
They pounced at each other, but Malinor stayed in the air when they collided, lifting Magnanimous off his feet. They started flying up when the great lion roared, deafening Malinor’s dragon form. Malinor lost his grip on Magnanimous, and he started falling back to the ground. Malinor flew down and intercepted the lion, slicing at his back with his claws. Magnanimous bit the dragon in retaliation for the scratches.
The Dark Lord’s dragon form began to grow even more in size, until it was able to grab the lion by the neck with ease. “I don’t think you understand.” Malinor said to Magnanimous, “I’ve already killed one of you with my own power, and now I have double that.” The dragon kept growing and pinned the golden lion down by its foot.
The Dark Lord in his dragon form closed his eyes and took a long breath in. His forked tongue wiggled in a reptilian mouth. “I am the god of darkness and shadow. I am death.” His right and left claws didn’t exactly close but clenched. Then they motioned down as if pushing off. The ground besides the top of the lion god’s head plummeted fifty feet down. The dragon mouth opened and poured fire onto the lion. He resisted the red fire, and the yellow, and even the blue. But when the fire spewing out of the dragon turned black it began to erode Magnanimous'' divine facade. The lion desperately tried to break free. The black fire finally turned amethyst and took with it the lion’s mane and fur. All that remained was the demigod in its original form, the rubbery sea lion head. The dragon summoned the Dark Lord’s reaper blade. It appeared already enlarged to match its master''s size.
The lion tried to summon the light to burn this demon away, but it was too late. The reaper blade hit its mark. The lion god Magnanimous’ head flew clean off its body. It burned up before hitting the ground.
Malinor shoved his dragon claw into the lion’s chest. He ripped through flesh and found the lion’s heart, severing it. Malinor pulled it out and torched it with the fire from his mouth. It remained unharmed. Malinor tried the black fire and then tried the amethyst, having to go up the levels each time to get hotter. Malinor’s dragon form could not damage the lion’s heart.
● ● ●
From within the city, running through the wreckage and fighting, Kara Ventrilles and Cipher Casterosi led the Zenfor Archers to the center of town. They hit a corner and the enemy attacked. Cipher cut down his darksider opponent in one strike. Kara’s opponent was slightly more advanced. The darksider squirmed and spat at her as it parried her attacks. Her archers were all fighting for their own lives. She took a step back to grab an arrow from her quiver when the darksider pounced on her. Cipher got in between them and snapped its neck. The dragon warrior fell dead on the ground. Cipher looked at her and smiled.
“I happened to be in the vicinity, my lady.”
Kara watched as Cipher’s face dropped.
“What’s wrong?”
Kara was facing North of Cipher. What he saw behind her he could not handle. Kara turned back to see what it was. The royal lion Maximus lay dead off in the distance. The only reason they could tell so far away was due to how badly the poor lion’s body was broken.
In a sudden jerk, Cipher threw his sword away. He looked at his arm like he couldn’t control what was happening. That same arm shot up, lifting him in the air slightly and then throwing him down. Cipher scrambled. Kara tried to help but had no idea what was going on. Finally, Cipher got his other hand on his right wrist, where his new switch-wrist was, and cranked the switch. A pocket portal opened up and the Ignaleos Cor was in his hands. The Cor was raging. There were shockwaves coming from within it turning the color of the stone all sorts of blues in constant varying degrees, it looked like lightning inside a hurricane.
“Something is seriously wrong with the Cor.”
Kara asked, “What do we do?”
“I don’t know. I hope the big guy is alright.”
“You think this has something to do with Magnanimous?”
Cipher stared off at the fallen lion in the distance. “It''s more like a feeling wrapped in some empirical qualifiers. Like how we witnessed the god walk by before and those rumblings, which have seemed to stop now.”
“Then we must take the Cor back to Threshi.”
“You want to go all the way back to Arunidawa now?”
“Can you use the Cor to take us there?”
“Have you seen what inside of it looks like!?”
“We have to try,” Kara Ventrilles said as she grabbed Cipher’s hand.
“I suppose it knows the energy signature, but I was hoping for a chance to build a prototype-”
“Cipher, just turn the damn thing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he smiled. The smile immediately faded, yielding to nervousness as he gave her the Cor. Kara held the Ignaleos Cor with gentle grace. She held it with one hand and placed her other hand around Cipher’s arm, holding it firmly. Cipher cranked the switch-wrist backwards, sending them and the Cor hurtling through the Corscape.
The voyage felt like their flesh tore from their body and reapplied itself a million times within one second. They burst forth in Arunidawa before the Orleop Threshi. Cipher tripped on entry and involuntarily jerked Kara forward, sending the Ignaleos Cor tumbling. It landed between the two cosmic thresholds. The pocket portal refused to close. The Ignaleos Cor spun in place and the switch-wrist on Cipher lifted him up by the arm again. He scratched at it as it took him off the ground. Kara crawled towards the gem on the ground.
“Kara! No!” Cipher screamed with all his might. “DON’T!” He undid the switch-wrist and fell to the ground barely bracing his fall. He had already floated too high up. Before he could even limp over to her, Kara picked up the Ignaleos Cor and ran with it into the Orleop Threshi. The two portals screamed and expanded until incorporating into each other and bursting, dispensing throughout the underground chamber. Cipher lay crouched over crying, alone in the dark. Broken.
● ● ●
The dragon bit into the lionheart and the rest of the lion’s body dissipated. The Dark Lord drained the lion’s heart dry, but not completely. When the primal dragon tossed away the lion’ heart-husk, it shriveled up, collapsing in on itself into metamorphosis, it turned into a shining pebble of blue light. The husk blew away and the gem lifted into the air to be lost forever until such a time that the essence of Magnanimous was ready to return through the pebble.
Malinor’s eyes began to glow bright. He shook and shrank back down and into his human form, still with his glowing yellow eyes. Malinor returned to his human form with the mask and cloak and twitchy armor, everything back intact. He held out his hand and stopped the shiny pebble in midair. When he squeezed his two fingers together the shiny pebble exploded into radiant dust.
The Dark Lord drew in a long breath inhaling most of the dust, or at least, that’s what it looked like as he consumed the god’s everlasting essence, its divine immortality. What little that managed to escape, too miniscule to differentiate from air, floated off on the winds. For not even a godeater could completely eviscerate the incarnation of courage and pride. To destroy the god would be to destroy the concept. Neither was possible. Malinor tapped into the raw potential that contradiction offered of paradoxical energy during his lionslaught and only grew more powerful throughout the process.
He fell to the ground and couldn’t help but lose consciousness, not before letting out a ground shaking scream of agony. The faceless sorcerers surrounded the downed Dark Lord in a circle and watched over his metamorphosis. The Dark Lord Malinor now held the power of two out of the four MagnaThoran demigods.