Jack was tired.
He’d been tired for centuries.
But soon, he wouldn’t have to be tired anymore. Soon, everything he’d been working towards, all the plans, schemes, and puzzle pieces, would fall into place, and he could hold his daughter in his arms again. A tap of his staff froze the spout of molten rock that would have vaporized any lesser man. Another step and yet another section of the glowing, molten sea turned into a blackened, frozen wasteland.
Yes, just one last job and everything would be right in the world again; one more task, and he could rest. He stopped in front of a gargantuan pit at the direct center of the molten sea, held open purely through the power of the one he had come to see.
Jack stared down into the bottomless depths and called out.
“Marici! I have come for your heart!”
A moment of silence passed before a thunderous laugh echoed from the depths, shaking the sea around them and sending out massive waves of molten rock in all directions.
“OH! Have you, my little frozen popsicle? Well, I’m afraid you’re too late; it belongs to another. Besides, I prefer my bedmates to be… warmer.”
Jack frowned.
“That’s not what I meant.” His monotone voice carried effortlessly, despite the crashing red waves around him.
A chilling white light pulsed from the tip of his staff, traveling deep into the pit. This time, a bellowing roar sounded as the being inside felt the invasive chill.
“HOW DARE YOU! Do you know who I am?! I am the Queen of the Sun! The Eternal Flame! I am Life and Death Incarnate!”
Jack’s icy platform shook violently as a massive form erupted from the pit. It rose and rose until it seemed to blot out the entire sky. Its golden, scaled claws the size of castles slammed into the sides of the pit. They were followed by a draconic head, so gargantuan that even its smallest fang would have outweighed Jack by a hundredfold.
“I am Marici! Goddess of Dragons! And you’re just a frozen insect! You want my heart?! You’ll have to cut it from my cold, dead body!”
At that moment, a glacier-sized ice spear slammed into the massive Dragon’s head, driving it back into the molten sea around them.
Jack responded, calm as an untouched snowfield.
“That was the plan all along…”
The battle that followed lasted nearly five years. None that tried to interfere, whether Dragon or Divinity, survived the attempt. It was said that even the mighty Warden only watched from the sidelines to ensure the battle didn’t spill out to harm his other charges. Then came the fateful day it all ended.
Marici, Queen of the Sun, her body broken and her once lustrous golden scales scarred and dull, stared down at the tiny man floating in front of her. Though the robes he wore were torn and bloody and the right side of his body blackened and lifeless, the man’s face showed not a single twitch of pain or tiredness. In fact, in the half a decade they had fought, Marici wasn’t sure she’d seen the man make any face other than that unsettling, blank stare.
His eyes… those deep, empty eyes boring into her like the void. She wasn’t sure there was anything behind them anymore; she wasn’t sure there ever had been anything behind them.
For the first time since she’d hatched as a Solar Dragon — the ultimate lifeform — Marici felt genuine fear.
“Y-you monster! You demon in the flesh! Do you think me a fool!? I’ve heard of you, Jack Frost — of the horrors you’ve committed, of the frozen wastes you’ve left in your wake! Well, it ends now! It ends today! YOU end today!”
With those words, a bright light began gathering in the back of Marici’s throat.
Jack stared, unmoved, his voice as cold as winter’s bite.
“History may remember me as a monster. I don’t care. The Heavens have already taken from me the only thing that ever really mattered. When I take it back, the Heavens will have no one else to blame but themselves.”
Jack then raised his staff, his voice echoing with power.
“All things feel the winter’s Chill.”
“All withers beneath clouded Sky,”
“For I am Frost, and by my Will,”
“Even stars may one day die —”
Marici threw her head forward as an intense beam of light burst forth from her giant maw.
“[Cleansing Solar Breath!]”
The beam shot forward at the speed of light, threatening to engulf the tiny human in purging light. Unfortunately for Marici, she was a fraction of a moment too late. Jack’s staff pulsed with light as his incantation finished.
“—Thus at my word [A̲̞̼̱̟̙ll̬ ̪̲̳̙͕Th͈͚̳̙ͅi̹n̟͉̝̥͈̗g̭̙̗s̲̝̣ ̫̟͎̯̪͖S̠͓̯͚͎ͅt̮͕̰̹̦͎a͓͇̯̙͉ͅn̺͇d ͔̱̠͍͕S̰̙͇̻͈̬͎t͎͇͕il̫͙l̲̹̭̞̤̳̘].”
At that moment, everything stopped. Even the dragonbreath, a weapon that could erase entire continents instantly, had frozen in place, mere inches away. Jack stared up at the Dragon, his face as empty as it had been the day he started down this path, an expression frozen in time. Then, with a tap of Jack’s staff against the frozen flames, Marici, Queen of the Sun and first Dragon god, shattered, crumbling away to reveal a glowing, floating dragonheart, still beating in defiance.
Jack flew up and grasped his prize, the last piece he —
Lian Peng sighed and closed the book the merchant had given him as an extra gift. He knew how the story went from here; the man known as Jack Frost would later complete his magnum opus, the culmination of tens of thousands of years of work:
The [True Resurrection] of his daughter, Iris.
It would also spell the death of the greatest Winter Mage ever seen before or since, as well as the rise of the plague that, to this day, still terrorized every world of the Grand Firmament:
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Iris, The Living Lich, Mother of Undeath.
Every child in the Nine Worlds had heard the story in some fashion, or bits and pieces at least. The story of Jack and Iris was a warning about the dangers of obsession and the lengths one would go to realize their ambitions. No matter the cost to others.
Unfortunately, that message seemed lost on the younger generation, especially among the Cultivators. It was… disappointing, but none of his concern.
Lian Peng was a Lunar King; one of only nine in all the worlds of the Grand Firmament. His job wasn’t to question the young blood’s morals or methods. He was there to ensure they didn’t get themselves killed the moment they stepped into the Celestial World. Bah! He was a glorified travel agent! This wasn’t what he’d been promised when he took up this position! Damn the Celestial Council, and damn the Warden for tricking him into this!
Still, it did come with its perks. Lian Peng couldn’t stop the grin that split his face as he pushed the book away and pulled the floating, golden, fist-sized fragment closer. It glowed with an inner light that both soothed and terrified him.
A fragment of [Marici’s Final Flame], still frozen in time, preserved in all its glory and power. It was a treasure that even Divinities would fight over, let alone a High Celestial like himself. If Jonathan, the merchant who’d sold it to him, hadn’t been his brother-in-law, he’d have called it fake and had the man flogged for daring to trick him. Hell, he almost had Jonathan flogged simply for bringing him something so dangerous.
If anyone found out he had this… No, he couldn’t think about that. What to do with it, though? Simply using it as an energy source was a waste. Maybe he could craft it into a proper artifact and use it himself? Most fools thought solar and lunar energies were directly opposed and, thus, incompatible. But his people, more than most, understood that they were simply two sides of the same power. With the proper technique and skill, a Lunar Mage, or Cultivator, could use solar energies to great effect, and vice versa.
An artifact crafted with this frozen dragonflame would imbue unimaginable solar affinity into any skill channeled through it and maybe even a tinge of dragonfire itself. No, that would be too dangerous; Lian Peng would have to take the proper steps to conceal its origin, and if he ever got found out, his life was forfeit. He’d have Divinities knocking down his door before the day was done.
Maybe if he gifted it to the right person, he could finally get off this lifeless rock and step back into the Celestial Court. Yes, that could work; he even had a few options for those desperate and powerful enough to make it worth the sacrifice. The only question was, what should he make? A simple focus might be the most versatile, but that was boring and hardly worthy of such material.
Hmmmmm, maybe I could…
Knock, knock, knock!
With one swift motion, Lian Peng spirited the shard into his storage ring before calming his pounding heart and answering.
“Enter.”
A nervous-looking fellow shuffled into the room — a newer member of his staff, if he recalled correctly, one assigned to parameter security? The man’s eyes were bloodshot, and he looked haggard, as if he hadn’t slept in a long time.
“S-sir!! I’m h-here to make an urgent report!”
Lian Peng frowned; they had protocols for this kind of thing. Why was the issue coming directly to him? He rolled his wrist, telling the nervous man to continue.
“Three m-months ago, we lost contact with a patrolling void beast. That isn’t t-too unusual, given how hostile open void can be and how new the teleportation formulas are.”
“Yes, yes, nothing I don’t know already; get on with it, man.”
Unlike the older, more reliable teleportation arrays, the new ones operated via Dragon Stream, those mystical grooves in reality through which many forms of energy gathered and flowed. Traveling the Dragon Stream had many benefits, but the greatest was the ability to fuel the entire cost to do so from the stream itself. This meant they could travel vast distances in times never conceived. Unfortunately, this also made it far more dangerous, as even the slightest miscalculation could see one slamming into the Grand Firmament — the cosmic barrier surrounding the Nine Worlds — that not even the strongest of Divinities could pierce.
If they could work the kinks out, it would revolutionize travel between the Three Sisters, the three primary celestial worlds, turning a trip of months into one of hours. As the Lunar King for the only mortal world orbiting the youngest of the Three Sisters, it was his job to field test the new arrays and report any issues. Lian Peng broke from his grumblings as the nervous man continued.
“… Well… two weeks ago, the signal was detected falling out of the Dragon Stream….”
Lian Peng raised an eyebrow; now that caught his attention. It was one thing to lose a scout; they were always losing scouts. It was another thing for them to suddenly reappear from nowhere. That suggested something else at play. The only question was, what?
“Were we able to gather any information?”
“Unfortunately not, sir. The signal appeared near the edge of the Grand Firmament, nearly two weeks away. None of our other scouts are close enough to get a visual, and we don’t want to risk another Dragon Stream teleport, given the oddness of the situation.”
“No information from the scout itself?”
“No, sir, the scout in question was one of Beast King Marjatta’s experiments, using a Million-Stars Auroric Squid as a base. The creatures can naturally make short jumps through the Dragon Stream, so it was theorized they might adapt to the new arrays better. Unfortunately, they’re fairly stupid creatures, and while the void beast’s signal has reappeared, its handler’s… has not.”
Lian Peng slammed a fist into his desk, denting the dense wood.
“Then get someone out there! Why are you wasting my time with this?!”
The nervous man flinched, fear flashing through his eyes briefly.
“Th-that’s the thing, sir! T-the signal was only active for a few hours, and then it vanished again! The signal was also changed from a distress and retrieval beacon to an ‘under fire’ signal before its disappearance.”
Lian Peng furrowed his brow.
“We think it came under attack? How? By whom?”
Every moon of every mortal world was under the direct control of the Warden, a powerhouse even the greatest among the Divinities didn’t dare go against. Who in their right mind would be dumb enough to attack a Lunar Scout? Sure, there were the occasional pirates or unorthodox sects who would prey on people making the trip through the void to other celestial worlds, but to attack a Scout? That was signing your own death warrant.
No, something was wrong here. Could it have been a wild void beast? Maybe it had sensed the scout falling out of the Dragon Stream and gone to investigate. But given the vast distances involved and the short timeframe, what were the chances of that?
“Sir, there’s more.”
Lian Peng sighed in annoyance, rolling his wrist and urging the man to continue.
“Since the incident, our detection arrays have picked up ‘something’ headed our way, originating from the general area where the distress signal last appeared.”
“Just ‘something’? Can you not be more specific?”
“Sir!… We… we’re… not sure what it is…”
Lian Peng growled, his patience wearing thin.
“Explain…”
The other man gulped, wiping a bit of sweat off his face with the hem of his garment.
“The object, whatever it is, gives off no spirit or mana signatures. We can’t even get physical eyes on the object; it’s so far away. The array only picked it up because of how… massive it appears to be.”
“How… massive?”
The man looked around the room, seemingly at a loss for words. The sound of cracking wood as Lian Peng gripped the arms of his chair finally pried the words from him.
“A-according to the array, th-the unknown object seems t-to be several… kilometers, in length….”
“WHAT?!”
Lian Peng shot from his chair, the power of his voice warping the air and causing the other man to cower.
How could that be?! Several kilometers? That was impossible! Even the Warden’s flagship, the largest void ship ever constructed, was barely a few hundred meters long, and it was a force whose mere presence dominated a battlefield. To suggest that someone had not only created something several magnitudes larger but done so secretly?
If he told any of his peers this, they’d laugh him out of the room.
“How certain are we of those readings?! Who took them?!”
The other man, now shivering, stood and answered.
“Sir! I-it was Master Engineer Igor, sir! As soon as the original data was collected, it was sent to him, and he ran the numbers at least a hundred times, sir!”
Damn it! It had to have been Igor. That man was the best Array Master on the Youngest Sister, let alone the Lunar Palace. If even he had run the numbers that many times, then there was no doubt of their authenticity. Lian Peng stood silently for a long moment, grinding his teeth as he tried to plan the best course of action. Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke, his voice much calmer.
“Send a message to all branch heads; I’m calling an emergency meeting. I expect to see them all in the war room within the hour.”
The nervous man saluted.
“Yes, sir!”
Then he dashed out the door, grateful to be free from the wrath of the Lunar King.
Lian Peng slid back into his seat, leaned over his desk, and massaged his temples. This bloody job would kill him one day; he already knew it.