CHAPTER 6 – CIRCLE THE CORPSES AND ROUNDABOUT SHOTS

The Grave Realm – The Ministry of the Dead

***

The Father of all Vampires was silent as the remaining Ministry minus the recently murdered Ardaax the Eternal continued to argue. The idiot Bull-Man had made the unintelligent decision to challenge the Liestra, the Scythe of the Lonely Widow. He deserved what he got by showing no respect to one of the most powerful of the Graveborn Gods. Even he would have avoided a fight with his Old Mentor. His ego wasn’t so large as to think he would have been victorious. He’d always been pragmatic about such things. Know thyself had been some of the first words she’d said to him so so long ago.

As the voices around him continued to scrabble for purchase amongst each other he kept his silence. Vladikar Dracul had no words to add to the argument that was being tossed back and forth between the three surviving members of the Ministry. Everything they had planned to bring them victory over the planet of Erebus for the Unhallowed, cementing their rise finally to ‘S’ Ranked was gone in a moment, burned to ash. He knew the decision to choose the Blood King had been wrong from the first step but the alternatives were even worse.

He knew within himself if they had been able to coerce the Grave Scion to join them their path of victory would have been assured and it would have given them the chance to pull in his old Mentor and once friend Liestra. Against what she thought of him now he never forgot how she took a fledgling God so long ago and taught him everything he needed to survive, more than once, stepping in to protect him against far more powerful adversaries. The arguments around him became a buzz he tuned out as his thoughts raced upon passages of time, memory, better by a large margin then those he walked within the moment of today.

He gazed back through the channels of the past to see where it went wrong, where the idealistic young God he was became the ruthless despot he’d become. He could justify it was the only way to build an empire within a Multi-Verse in the constant flux of war and murder and death. It would be simple to do such, even simpler to understand the decision in the pursuit of power and the diadem with which the System pushed everyone, one of attrition and killing and was he not the Lord of such? Was not the Grave Realm and Soul-Pillar the most avid disciple of that which the System sought? Had he not created endless rivers of it? An ocean of it?

All of those lines of reasoning would resonate with most within the Multi-Verse and yet when his mind went to Liestra and even more so, to her Husband, the infamous God-Killer himself, Lucien Shadowborn, he saw two beings that were at the apex of the Multi-Verse and neither of them had ever entered into the realm of empire or fell in line with what the System’s agenda carved into reality.

Those two by themselves shattered all the reasoning and justification. Liestra had mentioned she was no longer Factionless but if she was still the Goddess he remembered it would be for some long term benevolent reason. His mind whirled. His first choice was heavy but an easy one. It would cost him three times the amount it cost him to give it which had been prodigious to begin with it. It would set him back several thousand years of strength which was a hard pill to choke down but he would still be more powerful then the others just maybe not some of their adversaries. It was a risk but one he was willing to take. Some say the fabric of fate went beyond the power of the Primordials or the System, that it was from before either if one believed the myth that the Primordials were not eternal and there was no better example then the one which was just within this chamber.

The Shadowborn had never admitted it to anyone but one reason he terrified every single Divine Being within the Multi-Verse was the legend that he had killed not one but two Primordials in the old War, protecting his children, Liestra’s children, the Nocturne. That was not a subject one would ever want to broach with anyone ever yet still that legend persisted.

The Shadowborn was one of maybe four or five of the Alpha Prime Generation that still existed, all of them monsters. Vlad had looked into the God’s eyes on several occasions, most of them in ages long past but to him, he believed the legend. There was something within the God’s Aura, his Shroud, his presence that exuded the kind of strength one would only think to experience in the presence of a Primordial. Speaking of which he did not believe the choices he was planning on taking would put him in the good graces of Crypt or his mate Blight and irritating Primordials was never a good decision but he would still take the risk. He hoped their long absence from any interaction with the Unhallowed would continue and if not he would take full responsibility for his path.

The first choice. His eyes emanated the energy of death as he raised his hand and a gray blood laced stream of power shot upwards penetrating the ceiling of their domain as if it didn’t exist. He felt the System answer his demand and a massive chunk of Divine Levels and power ripped from his Soul. He fell off his throne and for a moment shifted to a drake made of bones with dark gray corpulent veins intertwined along the bones, his size so massive he shattered his throne as he writhed. He vaguely heard first the silence of the incessant arguing then gasps as they fled his thrashing form. After a few seconds the agony and torture of having a portion of his Divinity ripped out of him settled and when his mind was coherent enough he stood once more, shifting to his usual shape as opposed to his true form the act had forced him into.

With a thought his power took the death that made up his throne and reassembled itself then sat upon it once more. The other three were on the far side of the room. The Banshee Queen’s echoing voice slithered out.

“What did you do my Lord?”

He didn’t deign to answer as he knew his subordinates well enough to understand the ego of the Lich Lord would for him. The pile of bones ability to analyze and discern almost all uses of power went even beyond his own. And on cue his dry parchment voice rang out in arrogance as if he was talking to a child, directed at the Banshee Queen. He had taught the man a long time ago what would happen when he spoke to him in that tone. It was a lesson that only needed to be taught once.

“He stripped the failed mortal of his Blessing fool.”

The Banshee Queen as always was the cautious one. The Lich King was stronger then she was and she was well aware of that fact so stayed silent at his rebuke and just nodded. The Mother of Hags though was ever aggressive in her opinions with no thought to reprisal or consequence it was a surprise sometimes how she still lived. She was mildly entertaining as a foil against the others and that went a long way to her survivalbility. Her voice was the voice of decaying swamps.

“Was that wise Lord, not only in the amount of power you must have had to give to the ever greedy System but even with the idiocy the mortal has displayed we might have been able to salvage our endeavors upon Erebus? None know the truth behind the value of the newly integrated planet save for possibly the Primordials themselves but just the sheer volume of powerful Citizens it’s core of System energy is producing is beyond anything ever seen in the history of the Multi-Verse. We can not in good conscience cede our position with no attempt to remedy and rectify the disaster the mortal has created. I also have the Prime-Arch of the Unhallowed querying what they should do? We depleted the Faction’s resources heavily with the support we offered the foolish self-proclaimed ‘Blood King’.”

The Father of the Vampires listened and knew it for truth. In fact the Hag was underplaying it. The Faction’s resources were dire and if he didn’t make the right choice they would be falling across the Multi-Verse, losing a vast swathe of planets to the Draconian Empire and the Sanctum who bordered the coalition of galaxies that housed their vast rule. The Abyss bordered them as well but they had a trade treaty with the fiends though he knew better than most that the Demons would be the first to jump on them if they sensed weakness.

The last of the Factions on their border was in decline but was the one road he saw through all of the turbulence of this disaster and within it he felt the Strings of Fate being plucked. His voice for the first time this session carved into the expecting silence of his subordinate Gods. He directed it at the Lich King.

“Set up a meeting with the Shadow Council in my name. I will come to them.”

Shocked muttering slipped out of all three. The Lich King himself looked at Vlad as if his head had just fallen from his shoulders. His parchment aged response slipped past his desiccated lips before he’d mastered himself.

“Why Lord?!! We have not fallen so low as to pander to…”

His words fell to the tombs of non-existence as the Father of Vampire’s eyes flared the deep red of blood swallowed by the gray of the endless ravine. He bowed deeply.

“As you command so shall it be done.”

Vlad nodded than waved his hand in a definitive dismissal.

***

The Iron Church – Sanctum – Erebus

***

The Iron Lord removed his faceless mask and put it down upon his desk. His magnificent armor was covered in blood and meat and filled with dents. He leaned his crimson covered maul against the same desk. The Rare ranked Light Healer they’d had with them in the Iron Dungeon had already healed the entire party.

He much preferred her healing to Teerin’s. His Beastkin Second had wanted to bring another damage dealer arguing she could heal well enough and they had a large cache of Life Elixirs from the Master-Alchemist Forge Born they’d enslaved. That had been a good find by his Liberators after being clued into the small Village from Deckard and his scouts. How the man had not been a Scion was absurd as under duress applied by Dikembe’s resident torturer he admitted to having an Affinity of 91% and an Epic Class. Luckily he also had a family.

He was a human from Detroit, a Bio-chemist in the Old World and he’d somehow found his wife and one of his three children after the Tutorial. Not that Dikembe cared beyond giving them easy leverage to use against the man. His skills and Abilities were all focused on alchemy so he’d become one of the most powerful tools of the Iron Church in a short span of time. They were just beginning to portion BP to creating a factory where his creations could be mass produced with a slight loss of efficacy from the original. It would make them a lot of money upon the System Market.

He willed his armor and gauntlets off himself and put on a simple robe though simple was relative as it was threaded with gold and made of a silk like material. The accommodations and benefits of power. The Old World, the New One, many things were the same. Strength here literally equated to money in the Old One but the result was the same, the haves and have nots and the Iron Lord had always made sure he was on the right side of that divide whoever he had to murder.

He was ruining his robe but he was too tired to drag himself to the shower which said a lot as Body was his highest Attribute by a good distance. The Iron Dungeons were a heavy chain to break. It had been the first attempt and they finished it but it’d been a slog. It had been some wilderness biome once you entered the slit in the ground that was the entrance. It reminded him of the Tutorial.

Once you slipped through it was like an entire new world was created just for the Dungeon and it was a good size, a bit bigger than his settlement which was a bit over twenty miles. It was also filled to the brim with Nature Soul-Pillared beasts of all types from living trees whose branches were animated with sharp thorns and bark almost as hard as metal along with camouflaged hunting cats and the worst of the bunch and one of the main themes of the place, gorilla laced humanoids like they got pulled right out of the Planet of the Apes films and their story created adversaries, bird people.

They were at war with each other, the bird people, though bird was a loose term as the pathetic creatures couldn’t fly but were covered in feathers and sailed real nice when you hit them right, were supposedly locked in some century long conflict. His mind went back to the images of the birds flying after his maul connected. He chuckled at the thought.

In their defense they weren’t completely worthless. They were highly agile and quick as sin. They were also far more numerous then the gorilla people and the only reason they were able to make it a fight as the Gorillas were built like tanks. Their cultures were both rather primitive but they were considered Citizens, not beasts and they had Classes which made them difficult to deal with. None except the leaders were anything above Common Ranked besides a few of their Elites who were Uncommon so doable even though all their warriors were in low Iron. He could imagine though the Factions would not be able to conquer an Iron Dungeon, even if the parties were made of Elites without losing people unless they waited till they were at least Mid-Tier Iron. And any party less than Rare Ranked would need to be High to Peak-Tiered Iron to have a shot.

IT had him a bit worried if they were going to be able to get this Second Challenge done in two months. He was the most powerful individual on the planet and it had been a two and a half day slog to get one Iron Dungeon finished. And they lost someone doing it. He’d pulled a devious Infernal Mage out of Deckard’s people who could throw a lot of heavy damage hellish flames around in addition to creating walls of flame to funnel enemies. It wasn’t a huge loss as Deckard seemed to find more cruel, heavily lacking in morals people every other day it seemed like.

The Rogue always sent a couple scouts with his Liberators in every to every new village they took. And every time his people would sift like-minded individuals out of the crowd like magnets for lowlifes. His Second might have a point when she bitched about the threat Deckard and his Slave-Mercenaries posed. Dikembe had ignored her complaints for a while but he was now beginning to realize the meat of them. They almost matched the numbers of his own forces and more of the Rogue’s people were in the settlement than his own at all times as Teerin had the Iron Church’s Liberators everywhere, spread out, seeking more slaves to add to the population of the Settlement.

Dikembe knew Deckard feared him as an individual and was right to do so, he’d wipe the floor with the scrawny rat but the warlord wasn’t stupid enough to think he couldn’t be overwhelmed by numbers alone. The skinny man had a lot of elites under his banner and though the Iron Lord had enough of his soldiers here to make the losses astronomical maybe it was time for him to listen to his Second and have more of his troops stationed in the Settlement.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The pickings were becoming few and far between anyway and until he could somehow figure out how to create portals that would allow them to roam freely across the world it was time to restrain his Liberators and focus more on the Dungeons. He knew for Erebus to push through the Second Challenge it would require a herculean effort on the part of the Iron Church in addition to his insatiable need to take the number one slot of the Faction List and own both as the most powerful entity and Faction upon the planet.

He stood and stretched his knotted and still sore muscles. The Gorilla’s strength had proven enough to even hurt him when there were enough of them pounding on his armor and the Boss of the place, a Rare Brute who could cause the Earth to explode and cage and control it’s enemies. It had been a pain in the ass he’d had to take on his own as the rest of his party kept it’s trained Monkey Men contained.

He started taking steps toward the shower when his door burst open and his mind immediately called up [A Sinner’s Chains] red and gold energy coursing his hand. He let it go a moment later when his Second in a barely closed Robe, breasts almost falling out and Beastkin hair on her chest leading down to what he was sure was treasure, exploded in. He could feel his cock rising. He’d always had and always would have a taste for the exotic. Her eyes went from irritation to gazing below his waist then looking down at her ample and exposed breasts then a grin followed by her lacing her hand along her own curves before shutting the window. Her eyes switched to the serious gaze of his Second.

“Hope you got your fill Lord cause that’s as close as you ever gonna get to my charms.”

The Iron Lord could tell it for the lie it was. He saw her gaze down below but with her he was willing to show patience. She’d be a right gem to get in the sack. He knew that deep in his gut. He twisted his features to that of the Iron Lord. His voice echoed that choice.

“So what made you barge into my private quarters unannounced and half-naked. I should make you suck my cock just for that alone.”

Her stone demeanor broke at that and a small part of her lip up-tilted before she snagged it back down to the merciless killer she was.

“I’d bite it off before I’d suck it Iron Lord now quit spitting out your fantasies. I came because this would not wait and I had my own shower interrupted when the Sub-Commander pounded on my door. You weren’t the only one covered in blood and guts. Do remember it was I standing next to you when we conquered the Iron Dungeon.”

She had it right there. She was a real beauty when it came to battle. She got his blood lust up whenever they fought together and it had been that way since the Tutorial. She was vicious and merciless in death dealing. His kind of woman in more ways then one. Her appetites almost matched his own in all ways. Her voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“Would you like to know what the Sub-Commander had to report Lord or would you like to keep thinking about my breasts? I can leave you alone if you’d like to get that out of your system then we can get to business and I can finish my shower in the meantime.”

His voice snapped out quickly violence pushing to the fore.

“You just went one step too far Second. It was mildly amusing for a moment but know your place or I will teach it to you harshly.”

He could see her own ego flare and he thought for a moment they would both go at each other in their bath robes but then she bowed her head slightly. He gave her an out.

“Report Second.”

He gave her the respect she’d earned a hundred times over as she flipped a switch, stood straighter, all business.

“One of our long range squads of Liberators came across more of the Undead Scavengers, not anything we haven’t dealt with before as we have clashed with them often as you know, both of us in the slave hunting business picking in the same fields.”

He was aware of the reports and had known for a while their Settlement Sanguine Necropolis was somewhere within several hundred miles of their location just as he knew the Angelic Whore was somewhere close as well but attempting to find locations of other Settlements through the System and its Network was an act of futility at least this early in the Integration. His last communication with his Sponsor Faction said that would change with the Third Challenge but until then the System wanted as many participants as possible still in the game. He nodded letting her know to continue.

“Well this time. The Deadies they ran into were running for their lives. They killed all of them but two and put them to the Question. What they revealed was thought imperative enough to bring to our attention so they sent their Messenger to bring it to us quickly”

She grinned quickly at that as it was her idea after some of the debacles they’d had mostly with the dead Assassins and his other Scion lost in the chase to take out the Angelic Whore. Every Squad of Liberators now had a Messenger, most of which were not skilled in combat but had several Abilities that allowed them to travel long distances quickly and to flee in case of overwhelming force whether through subterfuge or stealth or what have you. His time for games was long gone and he now tired of her presence and her ego.

“Wrap this up Teerin. Your presence is beginning to irritate me.”

Again the flash of violence. Her lack of fear he did value but she was also intelligent and knew she would not win that confrontation.

“Sanguine Necropolis has fallen by the hands of the Temple and Umbra Mortem or at least the Elites of Umbra Mortem. The War Crow was sighted as was the Angel and the Loud Mouthed fellow, Giovanni Marcos.”

His teeth started grinding but it wasn’t the War Crow doing it though his presence was surprising, it was the damn Ex-Mobster from New York. After the World Council he’d had his people scour every source of information they could find on the man. It took the Iron Lord’s every ounce of restraint to not take the man’s head when he stood in the middle of the Council and threatened everyone. His greatest wish at the moment was to get him and that man in a room so he could beat the arrogance out of him inch by inch. His mind though forever and always was a scheming ruling one. If his sadistic pleasures had ever supplanted that truth he would have died long ago in the war torn lands of his home in Ethiopia.

“Why would the War Crow have been there? As far as our logistics have determined his Settlement is nowhere near this area.”

She smiled, a smarmy arrogant smile. He was torn between wanting to punch her or fuck her or both.

“The idiocy of the Blood King knows no bounds. He kidnapped the War Crow’s Woman, the Grave Scion who turned down his and his Faction’s offers.”

Well he could at least respect the man. If he had a woman and a pathetic worm like that had stolen her he would do the same. He was still going to kill the War Crow, right after that loud mouthed Giovanni but still he could respect his enemies. It also helped them inadvertently. It meant his Liberator’s job was not quite done. There were always rats that escaped the sinking or burning ship.

“This actually could be a boon for us. Send out Liberators with a good stash of Slave Collars and round up the running dogs. I see a boost in our slave population coming soon. Also see if any of them know the location of Umbra Mortem and how the hell they all have Bloodlines. We could possibly take it for ourselves.”

He could already see her devilish mind moving. Having access to an absurd amount of Elite warriors with Bloodlines under his command would go a long way in curbing Deckard’s hungry eyes. It was time to raise up a second Slave Mercenary band. He would find one of the Undead he could work with and give him the carrot of being top dog and lead them. Yes, the War Crow and the Temple actually helped his plans. And if she could grab the other two goals it would just be more tools if they could get them.

He’d have to remember to thank both the War Crow and the Angelic Whore before he killed them.

Teerin still stood there her robe once more open as her mind burned with strategies, her breasts more exposed then when she first arrived, one dark hairy nipple fallen out. She finally snapped out of it and caught his hungry gaze then looked down at her breast. This time she looked back with her own hungry gaze and down to the erection of his huge meat. Her robe dropped to the ground and he smiled, a predator’s gaze lit.

***

A Cave System near the ruins of Sanguine Necropolis -- Erebus

***

The battered Blood King, Ex-Leader of the ruins of Sanguine Necropolis looked around the dank and dark confines of a small cave System and wondered how the hell everything went so wrong. He was surrounded by the corpses of both slaves and what used to be his most loyal soldiers. He’d had to feed on them all to even get back up to High-Yellow Health. The only thing slightly moving near him he hadn’t drained into dry husks was two of Alissa’s bone white spiders she’d enlarged to guard the passage that led to the entrance and the woman herself who had her own much smaller pile of slave corpses near her.

He was tempted to add her to the pile of the dead around him, could even imagine his fangs dropping into her succulent neck, the half-lidded groans of pleasure from her lips as she became another desiccated bag of bones and skin but he hadn’t fallen so low yet as to return absolute loyalty with a slow burn of ends.

If it hadn’t been for her he’d be another tally to the kill marks of the War Crow. Mortally hurt herself she’d had her spiders fling both of them out the window before the explosive had taken the entire Fortress. And it had been her and her inviolate Will that had seen panicked soldiers pull themselves together long enough to gather a cadre of stunned slaves and more soldiers to carry them out of the City once they’d seen the overwhelming collection of Temple forces overrunning the place.

It had been a long torturous journey that lasted several hours before they’d found the cave which had been artfully hidden behind a dip in the ground and covered from casual observation by a large oak that stood sentinel above the sliver of an entrance. Luckily the cave system expanded once you shifted your way in and a few of his soldiers had to kill a few huge snakes who’d chosen it as their home but it had allowed them to stop, rest, and for them to pay back the soldiers loyalty with death when the slaves had not numbered enough to keep them alive.

The only reason either had made it at all was due to their Bloodlines which had a built in get out of the jail of death free card but it only would work once a month. He was finally feeling coherent enough to actually utilize his mind. He tossed it up.

[Inherent]The Re-Birth of the Grave-- Ancient -- Passive – One time per Month not even death can put down that which is born from the grave. When taking enough damage to end their existence their Bloodline will sustain them for one hour but within that hour they must heal over double their original Health Level to grant them continued existence and bring their Health to Low-Red after which they will still be within a Crippled Condition. They suffer -50% Healing for the next six hours once they get past the first hour but they will still have escaped their final rest.

His Bloodline had three Passive Racial Abilities, the aforementioned as well as a natural regeneration though that only worked when under no System debuffs and when surrounded by darkness or the Moon and then finally a preternatural Danger Sense which had alerted him to the attack from the War Crow and had meant nothing as the black silver lightning had utterly obliterated him and if it had not been for his Bloodline his end of the line would have been punched then and there. Alissa’s lesser Bloodline had the Ability as well but only once every six months and had saved her from the ravaging she’s taken from the metal dog. She also had the regeneration which did not work while they were under the debuff given to them by the first Ability.

He took a breath as he finally opened his eyes to see Alissa staring at him with a lost stare, everything they’d built gone, the wondrous Settlement of Sanguine Necropolis, their paradise, all ash, and no doubt their Golden Goose, the Lesser Soul Stone, taken or demolished. He’d been too out of it having to be carried out like a bag of potatoes to remember much but the Captain of their guard before he’d sucked him dry had told him the Fortress had been a pile of rubble and corpses. He couldn’t bare to see the woman who’d been at his side since the beginning look so hopeless. She was a woman meant to have hunger, passion, excitement in her eyes, even cruelty and violence made a home there but not sorrow, not confusion, not the lost sheep gaze. He found his voice.

“Don’t fret love. We will rebuild and take back all that we lost. You and I are still two of the most powerful individuals on the planet. We can sell our services if need be to one of the other Factions, the Unchained or better yet, one of the Independents, possibly the Dragon’s breath and than when the opportunity is right, take it right from under them.”

He said it so much conviction he saw a spark reemerge in her eyes. Lying had always been one of his greatest skills not that he didn’t think they could do what he’d just outlined but it would be much more difficult than he insinuated. The Dragon’s Breath was a conglomerate of hardened criminals so probably their best bet but they were led by a man who used to be the head of one of the major Yakuza families. Now that hadn’t been a part of his old life of being a neurosurgeon beyond watching movies but he didn’t imagine the man would be an easy mark and he also held the Title of Karmic Scion.

Still he knew with Alissa at his side just like in the Elite Tutorial they would prevail and regain all the power they’d had ripped from them and then he would make sure both the Temple and the War Crow would taste retribution. As his mind filtered into thoughts of vengeance he realized Alissa’s eyes had started to lose their glow as the reality of their situation stuck in a cave surrounded by the corpses of their own people they’d cannibalized to survive was a long road from the goals he just laid out.

He pushed his mind to move his still healing body. He’d at least gotten past the threshold, both of them had, a few more hours and their regeneration would kick in then they would leave these caves. They were still far too close to the ruins of Sanguine Necropolis for his liking. He had no idea whether the Temple would send out squads to scour the countryside. The two mastiff sized spiders shifted a bit to watch his movements, their loyalty to their mistress not him. He ignored them.

He pulled himself up on unsure legs as he took two steps forcing himself to appear as strong as he could dropping to a knee and reaching out a hand to his woman. His fingers brushed her cheek and she leaned into them her own fingers sliding out to hold his other hand.

“You need to have faith in me love. Together we have conquered everything that has been thrown against us. This shall be no different. I am still Champ…..”

He fell back as bolts of System energy hit his frame and he felt like his bones were being ripped out of his body. He wanted to scream, ached to scream, to vocalize the excruciating torture running through his everything but it was intense he couldn’t move, think, anything other then curl up, shaking. Alissa was on her feet and even still injured had green and black necromantic energy within her palm eyes scanning for an attacker as her two spiders trilled and chirped aggressively as they spun a 360 seeking prey.

Once the Spider Mage realized what was happening was System and internal not an external threat her worries and the weight of failure and worthlessness rolled back hard upon her shoulders than her King opened his eyes and screamed.

“He took it!!!! He took away his Blessing!!!!! I am no longer his Champion!!!”

***

The Umbral Realm – Home of the Shadowborn

***

The God Killer, the Wanderer, the Lone Wolf, Lucien Shadowborn, laughed and laughed and laughed some more as he watched the replay from the Issian Network Recordings as he sat back against a luxurious couch made of shadows in a dim lit room of stone sculpted from darkness. Liestra, leaning back into him held a smile upon her face as the invisible camera drones took in L’Sana’s blood thirsty grin as she fought side by side with her hero against the last remnants of Sanguine Necropolis, wounded heavily but with a joy in her eyes as she leapt on their last adversary, a large male Revenant in plate with no helm as her claws wreathed in green/black flames took his head clean off as she roared like a lioness.

Lucian screamed with an intensity and passion Liestra hadn’t seen in so so long.

“Did you see him tearing through them in the Fortress and the bomb he left as a present!!!!!”

Liestra looked back at her Husband with a deep and abiding love and a fervor of battle lust that matched his own.

“Yes Husband. He is beyond worthy of carrying our lost Children to life once more!!!!! Did you see her ferocity!!???? Did you see her claw her way through all that stood before her to get to her baby!!!!???”

He smiled and kissed her hard both silhouetted with flashes of Shadow Dragon and Spectral Drake then gone. His voice held pride, passion, mirth as it was ever so and told her deep in her heart and spirit the old him was back, the one she fell for in ancient days, the empty dark that he’d become, gone. His voice stirred her like burning embers roaring to an inferno as fuel was poured into her soul.

“She is worthy ‘Mother’, of you, of him, of herself. Together they shall bring back something lost for too long, our children, and something more. We must have everything ready for when it is time.”

She could see the pride in his eyes when he looked upon Gideon Sho, the same pride he’d had when he gazed upon their First Born, Balduroh, the first of the Nocturne. It was from their Son they used their Divinity to create the race. That had been the death that rode him the hardest.

Some day Drassik the Mad would find his days ended for that act and his Primordial Parents who ordered it would follow and this time Liestra would be by her Husband’s side as it should have been on that ancient day. The Mad One had already been punished with the Great Betrayal but that was not enough by a long measure.

Her eyes burned as they both watched L’Sana stumbling back to Gideon and Ari and the others, her little Dragonling healing her as she retold the story of her battles. She saw the burning love Gideon had for her Daughter in Spirit and it warmed her heart. Her voice was the echoes of long dead women who fought against that which would bring them low.

“We shall be more than ready my love. My new children shall join our old and the Multi-Verse, the System, even the Primordials, shall tremble.”