Blood of the first Age Chapter 17

 

Chapter 17  The Black Rain

The rain began with a single drop. Black. Warm. And thick as blood. At first the soldiers thought it was ash drifting from the burning dunes. Then another drop struck a Baalanian warrior’s helmet and rolled downward like crimson ink. Another landed across a vampire knight’s silver gauntlet. Then the sky opened. And the battlefield drowned beneath black rain. The Red Dunes had become unrecognizable.

What was once desert now resembled the remains of some dead world: shattered obsidian cliffs, burning siege towers and rivers of mud mixed with blood and corpses swallowed beneath storm floods and infernal fire.

The supernatural storms from the previous battle still raged across the wasteland, refusing to fade naturally. Black thunderclouds churned endlessly above while inferno cyclones burned across distant horizons.

The war itself had poisoned the sky. General Zerafin rode through the flooded battlefield with surviving eastern cavalry while rain hammered violently across ruined armor and torn banners. The water running across the dunes no longer looked clean. It had turned dark red.

One exhausted soldier stared downward in horror.

“…Is that blood?”

Another answered quietly.

“There’s too much of it.”

Across the battlefield, Baalanian survivors gathered near burning war machines while inferno priests attempted desperately to maintain sacred fire barriers against the freezing storm winds. Even they looked afraid now. Because this weather belonged to no god they recognized. Far in the distance

Dragun stood alone atop a broken obsidian ridge. Motionless.

Rain poured across his black armor while crimson lightning illuminated the battlefield behind him continuously. Thousands of shadow bats circled within the storm clouds overhead like fragments of the night itself.

Father Lucian approached cautiously through the mud and blood-soaked dunes.

“Your Majesty…”

Dragun did not answer immediately.

The priest hesitated.

Then looked toward the battlefield below.

Bodies everywhere.

Men drowning in flooded trenches. Burned horses screaming beside shattered siege engines. Soldiers too wounded to move slowly disappearing beneath crimson rainwater.

Lucian lowered his voice.

“This war is becoming something unforgivable.”

Dragun finally spoke.

“They started it.”

The answer came coldly.

Without hesitation.

Without remorse. Another lightning strike illuminated his face.

And Father Lucian noticed something terrifying. 

The sorrow inside Dragun was fading.

“You once protected kingdoms,” the priest said softly.

“You crossed the sea to save people.”

Dragun looked toward the horizon where Baalanian survivors still burned beneath stormfire.

“And now?”

Silence.

Then the Vampire King answered quietly.

“Now I want them to suffer.”

The rain intensified. Black water flooded entire sections of the battlefield while thunder exploded loud enough to shake the dunes themselves. Some soldiers began screaming prayers while others simply abandoned weapons and fled into the storm blindly.

The weather had become alive. Violent. Hateful. And it obeyed Dragun. Meanwhile across the burning western ridges Mehmeth watched the storm with growing fascination.

The Sultan stood beneath giant infernal braziers aboard a moving obsidian war platform while priests surrounded him chanting protection rites against the unnatural rain.

Prince Azrakar approached through the firelight.

“He’s losing control.”

Mehmeth smiled faintly.

“No.”

The Sultan watched lightning devour entire sections of the battlefield.

“He’s becoming honest.”

Then came the flood. A colossal thunderclap split the heavens apart as massive walls of black rainwater descended from the surrounding cliffs into the battlefield basin below. Entire armies vanished beneath violent flood currents carrying corpses, weapons, and burning debris through the dunes like rivers of death.

Panic erupted instantly.

Baalanian soldiers drowned beside vampire knights while inferno war beasts screamed beneath rising waters.

No formations survived.

No command structure remained.

Only chaos. And within that chaos Dragun unleashed the storm fully. The Vampire King slowly raised both hands toward the heavens. Every shadow bat above the battlefield shrieked simultaneously. Then the lightning began falling.

Gigantic crimson thunderbolts crashed endlessly across the flooded battlefield, vaporizing entire warbands in explosions of steam and blood-colored rain. Inferno siege towers collapsed beneath supernatural lightning while rivers overflowed with corpses dragged violently through mud and shattered stone.

The survivors could no longer tell whether they fought an army or a god.

General Zerafin watched in horror.

He had served Dragun for decades.

He had seen the Vampire King angry before.

But never like this.

Never with hatred.

“Mordecai!”

The massive executioner turned toward him silently.

“We need to stop this storm before it kills everyone!”

Mordecai looked toward Dragun standing within the thunderstorm.

Then slowly shook his head.

Even he understood.

Nobody could stop him now. Above the battlefield Tenji drifted silently through the storm clouds. His flowing white robes moved untouched by rain while shadow crows circled endlessly around him beneath flashes of black lightning.

The Fairy watched Dragun carefully.

Sadly.

Because he recognized the signs.

The heavens always changed those who carried too much grief.

And Dragun’s grief had finally begun rotting into wrath.

Then Tenji descended onto the obsidian ridge beside him.

“Enough.”

Dragun did not turn around.

“They burned children alive.”

The rain intensified again.

“They buried entire villages beneath sacred fire.”

Tenji’s silver eyes glowed softly within the storm.

“And if you destroy yourself to punish them?”

Another thunderclap.

Another battlefield consumed by lightning.

Dragun’s voice lowered.

“Maybe monsters are the only things capable of ending monsters.”

Tenji stared at him silently for several moments.

Then finally whispered:

“That is how the heavens lost the world the first time.”

Below them the battlefield drowned beneath black rain and endless thunder. The dead floated across crimson floodwaters. The survivors fled blindly through storms that no longer resembled nature. And far away across the chaos

Mehmeth smiled beneath burning skies.

Because the Vampire King was changing exactly as he predicted.

The protector of kingdoms was slowly becoming a calamity.