Blood of the first age Chapter 29

 

Chapter 29  Fire Against Moonlight

The city died around them.

Baalania burned beneath fractured heavens while silver fire rained endlessly from the widening Black Veil above the world. Entire districts collapsed into the abyssal ruins beneath the capital while demons, eldritch horrors, and dying armies slaughtered one another across streets flooded with ash and blood.

And at the center of the apocalypse

two kings walked toward each other.

The Ember Palace stood half-destroyed atop the highest cliffs of the capital, its obsidian towers cracked open by storms and celestial bombardment.

Once it had been the throne of an empire.

Now it resembled a funeral pyre for the world itself.

Dragun ascended the shattered palace steps alone.

Black storm clouds spiraled violently around him while shadow bats darkened the ruined heavens overhead. Crimson lightning crawled across his silver-black armor with every step he took.

Behind him, the battle still raged.

Ahead of him

waited destiny.

At the summit of the palace stood Baalaniah Mehmeth.

The Demon King watched the burning city calmly from the broken throne platform while inferno winds moved through his black and gold robes like living flame.

The Sultan’s eyes glowed like furnaces.

Ancient.
Unyielding.
Tired.

For a moment

neither spoke.

The storm screamed around them.
The heavens cracked above them.
The world ended around them.

Yet silence remained between the kings.

Then Mehmeth finally spoke.

“So.”

His voice echoed softly through the ruined palace.

“The Blood Sovereign reaches my throne at last.”

Dragun’s crimson eyes never left him.

“You burned half the world to stand here.”

Mehmeth looked toward the burning capital below.

“And you drowned the other half.”

Lightning exploded across the sky overhead.

Far above them, gigantic silhouettes moved behind the fractured heavens as the Wardens descended slowly through the Black Veil.

But neither king looked upward.

Not yet.

Their war came first.

“You could have united humanity,” Dragun said coldly.
“Instead you chose conquest.”

Mehmeth’s expression hardened slightly.

“Humanity has always required fear to survive.”

Inferno fire ignited around the throne platform.

“And monsters to rule it.”

Dragun drew his sword.

The storm answered instantly.

Thunder erupted across Baalania as hurricane-force winds exploded outward from the palace cliffs, shattering towers and sending burning debris spiraling into the skies below.

At the same moment

Mehmeth raised one hand.

And the desert ignited.

A colossal inferno storm rose around the capital instantly, walls of black fire, molten sand cyclones and rivers of burning ash.

The temperature across the battlefield soared violently while crimson lightning collided against infernal flames high above the city.

The apocalypse itself seemed to recoil.

Then the kings vanished.

Their first clash shattered the palace.

Dragun crossed the distance faster than sight itself, black lightning trailing behind his blade as he struck directly toward Mehmeth’s throat.

The Sultan blocked with a sword forged from burning obsidian.

The impact detonated like a meteor strike.

The entire throne platform exploded apart beneath them.

Shockwaves tore across the capital.

Mountains beyond Baalania cracked open.
Entire fortress walls collapsed instantly.
Thousands below looked upward as the sky itself flashed crimson and gold above the palace ruins.

The duel of kings had begun.

Dragun attacked relentlessly.

Every strike carried storms: lightning explosions, freezing winds oceans of shadow bats tearing through inferno flames.

His sword moved like living moonlight through the chaos while thunder roared continuously overhead.

But Mehmeth matched him blow for blow. The Sultan fought like wildfire incarnate.

Every movement unleashed catastrophic heat capable of melting stone instantly while black inferno magic consumed entire sections of the ruined palace around them.

His blade carved rivers of molten destruction through the battlefield.

And his eyes never left Dragun’s.

“You still believe yourself a savior,” Mehmeth snarled during another earth-shaking clash.

Dragun forced him backward through collapsing obsidian pillars.

“I protected my people.”

“You ruled them through fear!”

“And you burned yours alive!”

Mehmeth erupted with rage.

Black fire exploded outward from his body in colossal waves, vaporizing entire towers while molten sand spiraled into the heavens around him.

The inferno storm expanded across Baalania violently.

Entire mountains outside the city ignited.

Dragun answered with the full wrath of the storm.

The Vampire King rose into the sky beneath spiraling thunderclouds while millions of shadow bats darkened the heavens behind him like a living eclipse.

Then he raised his sword.

And the world drowned.

Crimson lightning struck the desert continuously for miles in every direction while hurricane winds ripped siege beasts from the battlefield below and hurled them into burning fortress walls.

Black rain flooded the capital.

Not water.

Blood.

The two storms collided above Baalania.

Inferno against moonlight.
Fire against thunder.
King against king.

The battlefield below ceased entirely.

Both armies watched in horror as the duel above them destroyed the world around them.

Demons fled.
Eldritch creatures screamed.
Even the Wardens descending from the heavens paused to observe.

Because this was no ordinary battle.

This was legend.

Mehmeth launched himself upward through the inferno storm and collided with Dragun high above the capital.

Their swords met again.

And the heavens cracked wider.

The explosion split an entire mountain range beyond Baalania in half.

Stone disintegrated.
Oceans of sand erupted skyward.
The shockwave flattened surviving armies for miles across the desert.

Dragun slammed Mehmeth through the burning remains of a floating tower before unleashing a torrent of black lightning directly into the Sultan’s chest.

Mehmeth crashed through multiple palace levels before stopping himself within the inferno below.

His armor smoked.

His blood burned.

And still

he laughed.

“You finally fight like a king.”

Then he raised both hands.

The inferno storm transformed instantly into a gigantic burning vortex surrounding the capital.

Within the flames appeared faces.
Screaming.
Writhing.
The souls of countless dead consumed by Mehmeth’s fire magic across centuries of conquest.

The storm itself had become alive.

Dragun stared into the burning cyclone silently.

And for a brief moment

he saw Vahsravia inside it.

The dead.
The ruined kingdoms.
The countless lives destroyed by both their ambitions.

Mehmeth descended slowly through the inferno toward him.

“We were never heroes, Dragun.”

The Sultan’s voice echoed through the storm.

“We were merely stronger monsters.”

Dragun said nothing.

Because deep within himself

he feared Mehmeth was right.

Then the sky screamed.

Both kings looked upward.

The Black Veil had fully opened.

A colossal silver fracture now stretched across the heavens above Baalania while gigantic celestial structures descended slowly through the breach.

And at the center of the light

something enormous emerged.

Winged.
Armored.
Godlike.

A Warden greater than the others.

Its arrival alone caused the world beneath it to tremble.

Entire cities collapsed from the pressure of its presence.

Even the black suns dimmed.

For the first time during the entire war

fear appeared in Mehmeth’s eyes.

The colossal Warden lowered its faceless gaze toward the burning world below.

Toward humanity.

Toward the kings.

Then it spoke.

And every living thing heard the words inside their minds simultaneously:

“THE FIRST AGE IS OVER.”