But the Black Dragon is being tortured into a new power-up by everything Lithava and her drakes are doing; Hedda’s wights roar around the space as they heave and roil with those same black-violet runes searing upon them a hundredfold, their rising power pushing Lithava’s vicious coupling with her drakes towards its climax.
As all Lithava’s drakes take her with terrible, roaring voices and madness in their sigil-darkened eyes, their fingers gone to cruel talons that cut into her flesh as they fuck, I can’t even imagine how any drakaina could take such abuse.
But that darkness floods Lithava, too, spiraling through her in vast waves as the power of their cruel fucking floods up into the Black Dragon. As they couple upon the Rift, harnessing it to do Hedda’s will, the black ring upon Lithava’s finger lights up, diabolical. It spirals all through with caustic violet-black runes now.
As I feel Hedda’s mind take control.
Hedda calls her drakes back into her creature, as they screech in athousand terrible voices; all that furious black smoke is just diving into the Black Dragon now, as it inundates the Usurper in a terrible vortex of writhing crimson-black devastation.
The creature screams; there is no other word for it. And then all that vile darkness is fully imbued inside it, as violet-black sigils light up all through it now, like hellfire come alive.
As the Black Dragon powers up a hundredfold, its power explodes out like an atom bomb, hurling me and my drakes into the skies. We watch the Rift’s black taint boil from the cavern like the depths of hell itself, as the Black Dragon rises from that seething madness like the darkest star of the ages.
A black hole in the cosmos, the Usurper roars its terrible supremacy to the world as it is super-powered back to its fullest might. No part of it is dead or Frankenstein-looking anymore. Sleek, shining and terrible with its crimson-dark and caustic ultraviolet runes, it rises renewed from the cradle of its birth.
The second ritual to restore the beast is almost complete. Hedda has only to fully imbue herself into the Usurper before it is totally renewed and unstoppable, as I’m cast out of the vision now from the all-consuming force of that roar.
It has Hedda’s full awareness now, however; and she doesn’t want me near her creature until she feels I’m ready to take over. Some of her has been kept inside Lithava’s black ring, though most of her soul is back inside the Usurper now. My drakes and I are slammed back into our bodies now, as we shake from the vicious aftershock of being hit by that diabolical wave of magic.
We huddle upon the bed, touching each other not for sex anymore but to make sure we’re all still alive after what just happened. Because the last thing I saw before the vision snapped out was the Black Dragon’s caustic ropes of cursed magic seething out to infinity in a whirling vortex of its own black hellfire.
And the leviathan tentacles of the Black Rift exploding out withit.
“We’re too late!” I gasp, as my drakes and I heave hard breaths in an acrid sweat now, like we just ran a marathon from our deathbeds. As a terrible tremor strikes right through my soul, both my inner dragons gnash their teeth and roar inside me.
The noose of fate tightening all around me, as it cinches around our necks.
“Easy, Rikyava…!” Wrapped around me, Ström brushes sweaty hair from my temple as Mikkel and Baldur support each other, shaking.
“Jesus, that thing was insane!” Mikkel gasps as his eyes flare with dark fire.
“Power like I’ve never felt in the Void… tied right to that infernal division energy.” Baldur’s blue eyes are beyond dark as he stares right into the Void, still seeing what’s happening there.
“It’s like staring into the maw of hell itself,” Ström says darkly as he holds me, then gazes around us all. “We need to move out at once. Hedda’s waiting for Rikyava; she hasn’t fully imbued herself into the beast yet, and she won’t until she’s ready for Yava to take over—which still gives us a chance to work our plan. We need to take advantage of that, while it?—”
As I heave up to snatch Heathren’s gilded Intercessoria smartphone from the bedside table, however, a bomb suddenly goes off inside my head. I jolt, tumbling out of bed, as Ström rushes in to pick me up.
I’m blacked out, though, blinking away starbursts as he holds me. I hang my head with my fists on the stone floor, disoriented, because that blast wasn’t here—it was somewhere else. Terror fills me now as I feel Bjorn come back to consciousness from that same blast.
Far away at the Grand Palace in Stockholm.
As I understand what just happened, a horrible roar like pummeling thunder and nails screeching down a blackboard assails me. I know I’m hearing it from Bjorn, as he floods our Bloodbond open wide—to pull as much energy as he can from me and my drakes, for an attack.
I stare up in horror now, seeing with Bjorn’s eyes, as the gargantuan form of the renewed Black Dragon hangs in the skies over Stockholm. Itscursed ropes of leviathan darkness seethe everywhere over the city. Bjorn stands in an enormous hole, an entire section of the palace blasted away, as the Black Dragon inhales again in its terrible wrath.
As the Usurper slams a hard drive from its wings right at the towering Throne Hall of the palace now, I realize what that bomb was which sent Bjorn reeling. This next hit from the Black Dragon bursts the towering roof beams of the Throne Hall like matchsticks from its pure, ferocious power; as stone andsilberskrae, thatch and tile scatter in hurricane winds, I know this is worse than any hurricane could ever be.
As the Black Dragon inhales again, opening its giant maw and spewing its terrible hell-oil right down into the entire Throne Hall now, the entire palace is devoured by its infernal hellfire. The Usurper pours its black fire down upon the entire city now, as Bjorn shifts up alone from his blasted-out spot in the ruins.
To fight it.
He’s not alone, however, as countless Grand Palace Kingsguard shift up now to battle the Black Dragon in the skies above Stockholm with him, protecting their King.
The King and his most loyal Jarls have shifted up also; the crimson and gold dragons of King Huttr Erdhelm and his son, Prince Halfdir, roar up in towering rages of Berserk might, as they burst from the oilslick hell of the Grand Palace, to battle the behemoth in the skies.
A glorious and massive crimson dragon with gold spikes, King Huttr fights next to his eldest son, a crimson dragon with storm-blue, viciously serrated scales. Both brutes in a fight, our King and Prince smite their enemies in towering waves, as they work to keep the Black Dragon away from the palace and the city center now.
But even as they do, a force ten thousand dragons strong careens in from a massive portal just above the Black Dragon’s head. Far more than what Lithava brought to the Old Palace, kin turn on kin now as they crash into each other in the skies, and the Jarl’s Revolt begins.
