“You’re hogging them all.” Niiya pouted from her cross legged position atop Yugal’s shoulder as they flew through the glittering night sky on the back of Frosthowl. The greatwolf’s paws made audible thumps with each great leap as it loped along the frozen clouds. “I want the mini dragons.”
“Wyverns...” Yugal corrected, but conceded the point when the girl gave his mustache a deliberate tug. “Alright, I get it.” The titan chuckled.
The trio were tailing the flight of wyverns as the beasts fled with all their might far above the frozen tundra. They were fast natural flyers, but Frosthowl was far faster.
“They’re descending.” Yugal noted, loud enough to be heard over the wind rushing past. “Be ready to trap them.”
“Mm.” Niiya grunted determinedly. Yugal felt the barely perceptible shuffle as the cat girl stood up.
A moment later, they broke through the thick clouds. The predawn light revealed a great lake, still frozen and covered in a thin layer of drifting snow.
The ground loomed, and the silhouettes of the white wyverns were hard to distinguish against the snow covered ice. They were only a hundred meters or so from the ground when Yugal signaled Niiya, and prepared for her Domain to rush out to cover the region.
Nothing happened. Yugal began to repeat himself when he noticed something else. The clouds that carried Frosthowl had vanished. They were no longer flying, they were falling. He dismissed the wolf with a great roar, and grabbed Niiya, holding her protectively to his chest with his left arm.
“What’s happening!?” Niiya’s muffled voice was panicked and confused.
“It’s a trap!” Yugal shouted back. “We can’t use any spells!” He made a split second decision, and yanked the Greatsword of Surtr from his back, relieved to see its flames still roaring mightily. “Deep breath!” He roared to the frightened cat girl.
He swung downward in a powerful slash, sending an arc of white hot plasma ahead of them. The ice vaporized, and Yugal fell through the thick cloud of steam before impacting the weakened ice. They punched through into the dark and frigid water below, Yugal’s momentum carrying them down dozens of meters. Yugal felt himself passing out of range of the spell blocking effect and urgently used his telepathic link to inform Gray that they had fallen into a serious trap. He hoped fervently that Niiya was still conscious as his momentum carried him so deep that his great feet touched the bottom of the deep lake. He fortified his body with primal earth magic and mentally called for Cinderwyrm. His concerns for Niiya were slightly alleviated as he felt the distinct aura of her Domain flood out from her in every direction. Cinderwyrm burst through the lake bed a second later, and Yugal stood upon the serpent’s snout. Yugal prepared for one more fraction of a second, and gave a firm command.
Cinderwyrm rocketed through the water, and back through the already closing hole in the ice with an earth shaking explosion. Ash poured out with them, and Yugal quickly scanned their surroundings for their yet unseen assailant.
While they were still several meters in the air atop Cinderwyrm’s scaled snout, something unbelievable happened.
The lake simply vanished. They were left a hundred meters above a bed of dry silt, connected to the ground by Cinderwyrm’s great serpentine body. The water and ice hadn’t actually disappeared, but rather had been reduced to tiny particles which rushed up all around them to form impossibly high walls that converged in a dome above and blotted out the sky. The dome froze solid, and emanated a powerful aura as though it were a living entity.
Yugal and Niiya stared in utter shock at the spectacle. They were so overwhelmed that they both failed to notice the two figures that were suddenly levitating just above and in front of them.
“Ragnarok Titan and Ash Huntress.” A strange buzzing and metallic voice shocked Yugal and Niiya back to reality. "It seems your informant wasn't exaggerating after all."
The speaker was a lanky humanoid covered in a shiny blue exoskeleton so dark as to be nearly black. Its face was a smooth, featureless mask. The words it spoke seemed to be vibrating from within its chest.
“Amazing.” The other man replied. He was obviously an imperial, based on his height and facial features. He wore golden plate armor and a shimmering black silken cape. “That explains the northern horde’s annihi-.”
The armored stranger was interrupted by a furious slash from Yugal’s immense flaming sword, which he narrowly avoided. Unfortunately for him, the strike had been a distraction. A spray of dark blood spurted wildly from the man’s neck as Niiya’s obsidian claws knifed through muscle and artery like butter.
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Yugal and Niiya turned their focus away from the dying man, ready to deal with the alien enemy.
“Amazing.” The would-be dead man spoke again, in the same tone as before.
Niiya and Yugal both blinked in confusion. They were back in the spot they had been before attacking. The gold armored man was completely unharmed.
“What is this?” Yugal growled.
“You’ll soon realize that the world is a far vaster place than you imagined.” The armored man replied with an easy smile. “You may continue to attack me if you like, it’s quite entertaining.”
“Lord Kutris, an intruder is attempting to use a spatial ability to enter my domain. Their destination appears to be the Ash Huntress, just as you predicted.” The alien creature interjected. The name he spoke made Yugal and Niiya start.
“Take him to Blödgard.” Kutris said, clearly enjoying the reaction to his name being revealed. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The creature gave a slight nod, and then a blood red distortion appeared next to Niiya. She saw Gray’s silhouette for a fraction of a second, and then he disappeared along with the strange being in a flash of white.
“Gray!” Niiya screamed, reaching out to the empty space where he had briefly been.
“He can’t hear you.” Kutris said. “On the bright side, Neferthotep’s Time Lock has gone with them. You may just be able to defeat me now. I’ll allow you to use all of your magic so entertain me well!”
Kutris waved his arm, and the great ice dome shattered. Waves of chaotic force swirled and collided all around them. All three combatants exploded into action as chunks of ice as large as buildings fell. Niiya was seemingly everywhere all at once. Twenty ash clones flew and ricocheted off of the falling ice as her Domain expanded around her. An army of flying ashen knights joined the onslaught, burying the armored man.
Kutris accepted the innumerable attacks, laughing as thousands of shallow wounds opened all over his body. From each of those wounds, tendrils of animated blood shot out, each seeking one of Niiya’s minions. Each time a tendril touched an ashen minion, it froze, and a tint of crimson slowly crept over the dark ash. These crimson minions then turned against Niiya and Yugal, attacking with even more speed and ferocity than normal.
“I can’t get them back. Break them!” Niiya shouted, seeing Yugal hesitate.
Yugal instantly complied. He used the skill that changed his sword into its second form, the Greataxe of Annihilation. A single swing of the ice-handled, and lava-headed axe sent out a wave of utter destruction which annihilated most of the hijacked minions. He then reversed the swing, and sent a second wave at the smirking Kutris.
“Delicious.” Kutris licked his lips as he greedily absorbed the rampaging destructive energy. “More!” The word was deeper and more powerful than should have been possible.
Kutris began to grow then, ignoring the furious attacks of the duo. His height quickly surpassed Yugal’s, and soon his feet even touched the dry lake bed far below. His head nearly scraped the clouds, and his eyes lit up like twin suns. For the first time since his death at the hands of the foul Fairy Queen, Kutris allowed his full power to rampage.
Cinderwyrm finally recovered from the stunning effect of the Time Lock spell, and coiled her great body around Kutris. More than a kilometer of her great length emerged from the ground to lock the colossal Kutris in place. It looked like an oversized python attacking a human. Kutris actually let out a small grunt of pain as Cinderwyrm snapped her immense jaws around one castle-sized shoulder.
“That’s enough playing around.” The voice was so deep and powerful that it sent waves of force ripping through the area, causing avalanches in the distant mountains and clearing a wide hole in the clouds above.
Kutris reached a hand up to Cinderwyrm’s head and clamped down. The serpentine body spasmed once, then went completely limp. Cinderwyrm fell into a contorted heap around the giant Kutris’ feet.
Yugal flew into a rage, launching an onslaught of primal elemental magic and physical attacks. New canyons were carved into the landscape, and whole sections of earth were upended in the ensuing chaos. Through it all, Niiya flitted all around Kutris, slashing and stinging like a swarm of angry hornets.
Minutes later, Yugal and Niiya had nearly exhausted their arsenals. Niiya’s Domain was little more than a few wispy shrouds of ash, and Yugal’s Soul Energy was nearly depleted. Nothing seemed to hurt the monstrous Kutris, and they were getting desperate.
Kutris raised his hand high, palm up. A ball of light sparked into existence above his palm, like a tiny star struggling for life. It quickly stabilized and began to grow in size and intensity.
“I should thank you.” Kutris’ voice shook the entire area once more. “The hordes you extinguished returned many brands to me. Without that power I may have struggled here. I had planned to make servants of you, but it seems your power is tied to his Brand. The weak have no place in the coming age. To oblivion with yo-...”
Kutris trailed off in confusion as something was dropped onto his shoulder by another something that silently flew above.
Leifa flew over the unnaturally massive Kutris and hoped that Leza had found her target. They had flown furiously in this direction after feeling the terrible disturbance caused by the titanic struggle. The energy building above the titanic being’s palm felt like it could level a country, and the Cambion leader hoped fervently that Leza would be able interrupt whatever it was in time.
Kutris was ready to drop the orb of destruction, and abandon this duplicate body. His main goal of trapping Gray had been executed to perfection, and he wasn’t too disappointed that the Ragnarok Titan and Ash Huntress would lose their power when he killed the man. That fact also meant that destroying the upstart Gray would conveniently remove his troublesome subordinates.
Such were his thoughts when a light brighter than his own building spell glowed briefly at the corner of his vision. In spite of his absolute confidence in the safety of his main body, the word ‘Death’ flashed through Kutris’ mind an instant before Null Roar engulfed his head and part of the arm holding up the annihilating sphere.
Yugal and Niiya looked up in disbelief as their vision returned a second later. Kutris’ head was now a grinning skull. All of the flesh, hair and even eyes had been obliterated without a trace. The arm holding the orb of light was missing all of the flesh of its upper arm, and it was slowly collapsing.
“Unexpected.” The distorted voice came from all around them. “Unacceptable.” It continued, a shade of anger darkening the normally cool tone.
The wounded colossus dropped down to one knee with an earth shaking crash. The orb in its hand was now flickering, but was still exuding incredible power. With unexpected speed, Kutris hurled the weakening orb directly at Yugal and Niiya before the immense body simply fell apart. The presence of Kutris vanished, yet the horrible star still fell. It streaked like a comet, too fast for them to flee in their weakened state.
Yugal acted purely on instinct and grabbed Niiya, holding her close as he turned to put his great body between her and the oncoming calamity. She pushed away and squirmed. She yelled out something, but it was too muffled for Yugal to make out. Yugal held her tightly and used the very last of his energy to encase his dear friend in a cocoon of primal earth and ice. The orb struck him in the back, and Yugal felt an agony that twisted the very foundations of his soul. The pain lasted only a moment, then came the flash as the orb exploded. Yugal offered a desperate prayer that Niiya would survive before everything went white, and then black...