Due to lack of reader engagement and advice from Reddit, I will be suspending this novel indefinitely for a rewrite.

thanks to all of you who have made it this far.

below is a discarded prologue due to character constraints.

Wyrvos hovered in the void, his ancient eyes were fixed on the distant stars. Already, he could feel his mana beginning to slowly ebb from his body in a perceptible stream, like blood seeping from a wound. His emotions were in turmoil. He was the Great Wyrm! The father of a race! When has he ever been subjected to such abuse? They had pursued him even this far—to his very home?

Wyrvos roared in anger, the sound reverberating through the emptiness as distant memories flooded to the surface. He’d lost count of how many times he’d battled this race; the scenes of his defeats and injuries were fresh in his mind. Even now, with all his experience, he could not think of a method to counter their horrible ability. He lifted his gaze once more, shaken from his reverie by the loud roars coming from the Helcyr.

The Helcyr emerged from the void, twisting their necks and gnashing their sharp teeth. Their thick, curved horns glowed with runic carvings, radiating a palpable air of power. As he looked on, for the first time, Wyrvos felt small. Their numbers were greater than his, and he distinctly sensed a trace of threat. He wasn't sure he could win. Countless of his race would fall. But despite this, he was the oldest and the most powerful of Awenar. If he fell here, there would be no one left to hold up the sky.

He thought of the Druids, the Fae—how weak they all were. He had scoffed at their frailty before, but now, with the fate of Awenar on the line, their survival weighed heavily on his mind.

A moment of hesitation was swiftly replaced by determination. From the deepest recesses of his mind, Wyrvos accessed his ancient memory and shuddered. His mana would not support him much longer, not in the presence of these…parasites!

With a heavy breath, Wyrvos broke his ancient oath. A strange whisper dripped from his maw, laced with terrifying energy. A curse, bound by such laws that it emerged from his throat guttural and raw. It scratched at his heart and burned in his soul. He growled in agony, but the sound didn’t stop—the slaken curse, once uttered, escaped all control. Wyrvos roared once more as the curse exacted its toll. His massive body jerked, and he lost his strength, falling toward the distant planet below.

The sky above the battlefield was dark, choked with clouds thick as ash. The air crackled with the remnants of Wyrvos’ curse, a heavy, oppressive weight that bore down on everything beneath it. The Great Wyrm’s absence was palpable, a gaping wound in the world that his kin could feel in their very bones.

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Luraen, the youngest of the Wyrms, staggered as she lifted her massive head. Her wings, once vibrant with the energy of Awenar, drooped lifelessly at her sides. The curse had drained her, sapped the strength from her veins until she could only float helplessly in the void. She could feel the others, scattered across the battlefield, their roars of pain and confusion echoing in the distance.

But there was something else—an unsettling sensation creeping through the air, like the festering stench of decay. The Helcyr, those dark, relentless predators, were not untouched. Luraen saw it in their eyes, a flicker of hesitation, of confusion. Their movements were sluggish, their once-gleaming horns dimmed, the runes carved into them dull and cracked.

She watched as one of the Helcyr swayed, the strange beauty of the beast had become unsightly as it lay dead, drifting in the void. The beasts let out a guttural snarl, but it lacked the fury, the raw, unstoppable power it had once commanded. The curse was working its way through them too, corrupting their mana, twisting it into something vile, something unstable.

For a brief moment, hope sparked in Luraen’s chest. If the Helcyr were suffering too, maybe—just maybe—they could still fight. But the hope was fleeting, crushed beneath the weight of her own failing strength. The curse had taken too much from them, from all of them.

Luraen forced herself to raise her head, to move, even as every fiber of her being screamed in protest, she wanted to see. The Helcyr that had collapsed was struggling to rise, its wings trembling from the strain, its eyes wide with a new, unfamiliar emotion—fear. But even weakened, they were still a threat, and there were so many of them.

The curse had poisoned the battlefield, turning it into a place of despair and death for all who fought here. The Wyrms, mighty and ancient, were crumbling under the weight of it, their bodies failing, their spirits breaking. The Helcyr, though still deadly, were now plagued by the very power they sought to destroy.

Luraen saw another of her kin fall, the life flickering out of his eyes as the curse claimed him. The Helcyr that had brought him down staggered back, its victory tainted by the blackened veins that now marred its once-pristine hide.

“Is this what he wanted?” Luraen murmured in a muted whisper, her voice trembling. “A world where none would stand unscarred. Where power itself would betray those who sought it.”

The Helcyr circled her, their predatory instincts dulled but not extinguished. They were still driven by the hunger for mana, but now that hunger was twisted, desperate, tainted by the curse that ravaged their bodies.

Luraen knew she couldn’t fight them—not like this. But she didn’t have to win. She only had to survive, to outlast them. The curse would do the rest.

As the first of the Helcyr lunged at her, Luraen summoned the last of her strength, not to attack, but to endure. The battlefield became a graveyard of broken bodies, both Wyrm and Helcyr alike, as the curse did its work.

Meanwhile, far above, Wyrvos plummeted through the void, his immense form shrinking as the mana that had once sustained him ebbed away. His consciousness was fading, the darkness encroaching, but a single thought pierced through the void of his mind.

“I regret,” he thought, the words echoing through the emptiness. It was a simple, sorrowful realization, a final confession to the world he had left behind.

His form vanished into the abyss, leaving only the distant echoes of his final regret behind.

The loss of Wyrvos cast Awenar into turmoil. Clouds of mana gathered in the sky and erupted with fierce storms. Fire and lightning fell, tracing a path of destruction. The mana grew dense until creatures inhaled it in every breath.

Far away, within the Murmuring Glade, Taliesin clutched at his chest and a deep, soul-stirring sob escaped his lips. He lifted his head towards the void, and his eyes seemed to pierce into the distance.

His face pale, he slumped back in his throne.

“The Great Wyrm’s have perished,” He whispered softly, as a profound ache gripped him from within.