The chamber of Floor 910 shook so violently that dust fell from ceilings forty levels above. The corruption had thickened, turning the air into a heavy, tar-like darkness. In its center, Danny and Bones' agent Dar'kan faced each other in a circle of vibrating stone.
Dar'kan hovered, arms spread, obsidian shards orbiting him like a halo of razors.
Danny stood still—golden aura flickering softly around him like the beginnings of dawn.
The two forces were polar opposites.
Creation.
Destruction.
And the tower trembled under the weight of their clash.
Dar'kan Strikes First
A shriek of tearing existence split the floor as Dar'kan launched forward.
He didn't move physically.
He broke space.
One instant a shadow, the next a violet explosion in front of Danny.
A spear of void cut down.
Danny crossed his arms, golden light flaring—
BOOM.
The impact cratered the floor, sending shockwaves in spirals across the chamber. Stone split like fruit. Runes ruptured. Violet and gold collided, shrieking like two dying stars.
Danny skidded backward, boots gouging trenches.
Dar'kan surged again.
A dozen shards spearheaded a spiral attack aimed at Danny's throat, heart, and spine simultaneously.
Danny weaved between them—barely.
His movements were precise, but this time even the tower's chosen struggled to keep up.
Dar'kan's voice cracked like splintering ice:
"You weaken!
You flicker!
Creation dims before annihilation!"
Danny exhaled slowly, centering himself.
"No," he said quietly. "Creation adapts."
Golden flame gathered in his palm.
He thrust forward—
a blast of radiant warmth erupting like a newborn sun.
Dar'kan countered with a tide of void—
And the collision tore open the floor itself.
The Tower Shows Him a Memory
The two were thrown apart.
Danny struck a wall, sending fractures through it.
He pushed off, ready to counterattack—
—but the tower seized him.
Golden light wrapped around him like a cocoon, freezing him mid-motion.
Time slowed.
The chamber dimmed.
And a voice—not Dar'kan's, not the tower's normal hum—
rose from below his consciousness.
A memory.
Not his.
A memory older than the tower.
Older than every living dragon.
The memory of the Golden Dragons themselves.
Danny gasped as his vision dissolved into blinding light.
The Golden Memory
He stood on the surface of a primordial world—
lush, untouched, beautiful.
Above him soared beings made of pure radiant flame and immortal majesty.
Huge golden dragons, each hundreds of meters long, wings woven from creation fire.
They circled the planet, exhaling starstuff, shaping continents with their breath.
But Danny felt their emotions.
They were not proud.
They were not triumphant.
They were broken.
Their voices rolled through the sky like thunder layered with sorrow:
"Our children… destroyed each other."
"We gave them flame to build."
"They used it to burn."
"We granted freedom."
"They forged chains."
"We taught them creation."
"They learned destruction."
A dragon landed beside Danny—
so large that mountains quivered beneath its weight.
Its eyes, vast molten gold, stared into him.
And for a heartbeat—
Danny felt everything it felt.
Millennia of watching civilizations rise only to collapse into ruin.
Species twisting creative power into weapons.
Worlds that should have flourished dying under war.
Humans, dragons, machines, wolves—
every creation eventually found a way to destroy.
Loss.
Disappointment.
Grief.
The Golden Dragons had not been defeated.
They had given up.
Not because they lacked strength—
but because their hearts shattered watching their creations kill themselves.
And so, with wounded souls,
they abandoned the worlds they shaped
and left creation to fend for itself.
The voice of the ancient dragon whispered inside Danny:
"Creation… cannot stop destruction.
Not when its own children choose to destroy."
Danny's breath shook.
Then he clenched his fist.
"No," he whispered. "You were wrong."
The dragon's vast eyes widened.
Danny stepped forward—no longer the small figure in that memory, but a rising flame matching their intensity.
"You forgot something.
Creation doesn't fail because destruction exists—
creation fails when it gives up."
The world around him brightened.
Danny's voice rose with certainty:
"The only way to defeat destruction…
is to create something stronger than fear."
The memory shattered.
Danny returned to Floor 910—
burning brighter than before.
Dar'kan Reacts
Dar'kan froze mid-strike.
His shards trembled.
His flame pulsed erratically.
"What… changed?" he hissed.
Danny raised his head.
Golden light streamed like a river from beneath his skin.
For a moment, his silhouette flickered—
a human outline
overlapping with something vast and draconic.
"I remembered," Danny said softly.
"What my ancestors lost."
Dar'kan stepped backward, involuntarily.
"No…
No, no—this is not allowed.
Creation cannot rise.
Bones forbids—"
Danny vanished.
A golden flash.
He reappeared directly in front of Dar'kan.
And struck.
A single open palm, glowing like the heart of a star, sank into Dar'kan's chest.
A sound like shattering glass and ruptured space echoed.
Dar'kan screamed as his obsidian shell fractured—
but Danny didn't strike to kill.
He struck to purify.
Golden flame surged into the void core, burning away corruption, unraveling Bones' tether strand by strand.
"STOP!" Dar'kan howled, voice breaking.
"You mend what must be broken!"
"You restore what must be destroyed!"
"You deny annihilation!"
Danny pressed harder.
"No," he whispered.
"I deny despair."
Golden light erupted—
not an explosion,
but a sunrise.
The tower walls glowed.
Cracks healed.
Corruption turned to dust.
Dar'kan collapsed, dissolving into fragments of shadow trying desperately to reform—
but Danny was already walking toward him.
"You don't have to serve destruction," Danny said. "You can end this."
Dar'kan's core flickered like a dying heart.
"Bones… will devour me if I fail."
Danny kneeled beside the collapsing entity.
"Maybe.
But I won't."
The words struck Dar'kan harder than any blast.
For the first time, the agent hesitated.
Then—
Bones' wrath surged through the tower.
A violent pulse erupted through Dar'kan's body, twisting his form, forcing a final monstrous shape.
This was no longer the agent.
This was Bones himself reaching through a fragment.
A deep, ancient voice rattled the chamber:
"CREATION CANNOT SAVE WHAT IS ALREADY MINE."
Danny stepped back, eyes blazing gold.
Dar'kan's body contorted, growing jagged wings of obsidian, a tail of broken blades, a jaw splitting to reveal void fire inside.
Danny inhaled.
The golden flame rose.
Around his body, light spiraled—
gathering at his shoulders,
wrapping along his spine,
forming arcs like the beginnings of wings.
His pupils slit.
His hair lifted in a fiery breeze.
Golden scales began appearing across his arms and neck.
Dar'kan roared, launching forward in a storm of void.
Danny braced—
and spoke two words that made the tower shudder:
"I remember."
Golden light exploded from him—
the first stage of his true Golden Dragon transformation beginning to manifest.
Dar'kan, empowered by Bones, crashed into that light—