Thousands of massive Magnussen dragons fight against our allies, along with the highly accomplished brigades of the False Knights. It’s a battle of Magnussen versus Eriksson, bitter clan rivals for millennia, in addition to False versus True Black Dragon Knights, opposite in their ideals of protecting our world.
Lithava’s forces have the Black Dragon, however—and I am not there to waylay it as it wreaks ruin now, decimating the dawn skies. As the Black Dragon lays waste to the Old Palace, I see how much it has regenerated. The first ceremony to restore it has already taken place. Most of the creature has been repaired now, from the glossy oilslick black of its scales to the powerful sinews and tendons beneath its skin.
Killer talons tear from its feet, as viciously serrated spines protrude all over its skull and back. Every scale is utterly deadly, as the diseased oilslick runes of the Black Rift course all over it in whirling, flowing patterns.
Those ancient curses of Hedda’s, coupled with the Rift’s power, ripple and flow with the creature’s every movement now. Finally restored all over its ungodly, gargantuan body, those terrible back sigils burn a caustic violet-crimson as it streaks through the skies, shedding ruin.
The only thing still not alive about the Usurper is its eyes. Bone-white and filmy, they’re still dead as dead can be—the only thing that tells me the behemoth is not back to full power yet, as it terrorizes the dawn.
My drakes and I watch helplessly from the Void, fighting our own life-or-death battle, as a similar one takes place below. As the True Knights and Eriksson brigades engage the Magnussens and False Knights, the lithe green and red dragons of Ström’s sisters, his aunts and uncles, and his grandmother Annika fight in close formation with the small green and crimson dragon that is Jarl Jorg.
My stepfathers fight with them, plus Svanhild Magnussen, Captain Olander Mortensen, and Mikka Halsbrand. My gut churns now to watchthem barely miss getting caught in a volley of seething acid-ropes from the Black Dragon, only to get hit hard by the Magnussens as they rush and dive through the skies.
It’s not a raid; it’s a full-on war, as the Magnussen clan finally has the advantage over their neighboring Erikssons. Coordinated brigades of Magnussen dragons follow every flood of cursed black ropes from the Black Dragon.
As Lithava and her First Bloodmate, Jarl Oggi Magnussen, marshal their forces in a one-two punch, the False Knights are wielded by Lars Dure and Arvid Fenstrom from the High Council of the False Black Dragon Knights to clean up whatever’s left.
It’s not much, as Ström screams now in the stars, watching his kinfolk fall like wheat to the scythe. We can do nothing, trapped by the diabolical energy that holds us, though we roar and writhe, trying to raise our auric fire and burn this terrible energy off us.
My drakes and I are separated, though, and cannot raise enough energy to feed my Bloodwalker power and hurl this leviathan taint off. We watch the Old Palace and city burn now as the Black Dragon opens its great maw, spewing forth black flame filled with its cursed acid, burning everything it touches.
Ström’s scream becomes ballistic then, his heart torn to pieces as Bjorn’s shreds also, rage consuming him from what his father has done. We thrash and fight, but we are weak; our very soul-essences are nearly gone to the stars now, thanks to whatever this sundering energy is doing to us.
Hedda just laughs through it all, her infernal voice ringing in my ears. The Soulstone’s containment runes are nearly gone; I barely see them blaze at all now, as its fiery starlight gutters, weak.
Hedda’s drakes thunder, heaving against their failing containment; it’s only a matter of time before their containment breaks, as we watch the decimation of the Old Palace, everything burning now.
But a terrible shudder through the stars suddenly makes me focus on one particular area of the battle. Far below, the Magnussen contingent has gotten a small group of Eriksson dragons separated from their kin, surrounded.
In that tight group, I recognize four of Ström’s sisters with Mormor Annika, fighting like banshees now to protect another youngling. But even the old Bloodwalker Matriarch is not strong enough to weather the thirty Magnussens that entrap them—including Jarl Oggi.
As I watch in horror now, three of the younger Erikssons go down, felled by the Magnussen Jarl. Ström wails in a way I’ve never heard from him, as I understand those were three of his sisters.
A small, spring green and gold drakaina still fights against Jarl Oggi with Mormor Annika—Ström’s youngest sister, Mathilde. As Jarl Oggi whirls in now to kill both Eriksson Bloodwalker drakainas, a flash of quick-fire green and brimstone wrath is suddenly before them, opposing the Magnussen Jarl.
Jarl Jorg Eriksson has jumped in to protect his youngest granddaughter and his daughter via one of his sudden portals. Even as he gets in front of them, blocking them off from the Magnussens in a masterful maneuver and erecting a furiously spiked green-gold Bloodshield all around to keep them safe, Jarl Oggi Magnussen barrels in again.
Making right for Jarl Jorg, Jarl Oggi does something tremendous in the Void now with his power. I don’t know where he got that kind of magic, as something horrible suddenly explodes from him like a bomb.
It lights up the vicious white tattoo on his dragon-neck like a seething wildfire as it concusses with a howling, demonic wind of power in the Void. Far down in the battle, it blasts an insane drive of terrible, concentrated magic right into Jarl Jorg’s shield, like a barbed harpoon of death.
Lancing right through Jarl Jorg Eriksson’s heart.
I watch Ström’s great-grandfather drop from the sky as Ström screams. Ström’s terrible roar of heartbreak reverberates through the entire Void; as does Bjorn’s roar of endless rage, at what his father just did.
Jarl Jorg has been claimed by cursed crimson-black sigils from that blast; diving right into his heart, they stop that most precious organ forever, just like the Black Dragon can do.
No one is there to counter that power, as Jarl Jorg falls. His dragon-body hits a burning tower of the Old Palace. Even from far up in the Void, I hear thecrackof countless bones breaking as his body is devoured by cursed black flames.
The Jarl is already dead, though; I can feel it from where I writhe and roar out in the Void. But the Void of Ancestors is empty of the great drake who should be here. Now pulled into the belly of the beast, I feel Jarl Jorg’s soul roar in agony, having entered the Black Dragon’s Void from Jarl Oggi’s heart-cursing strike, rather than this one.
I don’t know what deal with which devil Jarl Oggi Magnussen made to wield the Black Dragon’s heart-killing power; but even though the evil white tattoo no longer glows upon Jarl Oggi’s neck, the deed has been done.
Whether because Jarl Jorg backed us at the Trial of Truth, or simply because Jarl Oggi has always wanted him dead, Jarl Oggi roars his triumph to the skies as the Eriksson Jarl falls.
Trapped, Ström goes ballistic as his great-grandfather and Jarl dies. Bjorn does as well, insane with an incalculable firestorm of rage against his father.
As my first two drakes destabilize now, diving into their worst places from what just happened, I feel their hearts blacken. Both dive into their darkest places at once, as I see their beautiful scales turn utterly black in the stars.
