The first day was fueled by revenge.
The second by punishment—yet instead of turning on Xyldrak, they turned on old grudges, striking those they had once hated and never forgiven.
The third day demanded courage.
The fourth tested endurance.
And by the fifth, no one remembered why the battle had begun in the first place.
The assembly ground was ruined. Bodies covered the ground, some burned, some frozen, some crushed beneath debris. Only a handful still stood.
Among them were the surviving dragons of King Tharox, wings torn and scales cracked, barely holding themselves upright. The Ashen parents remained on their feet through sheer refusal to fall. Damien. Reinna. Victor, Ace, Alpha. Derian. And a few dozen others—bloodied, exhausted, still fighting because stopping meant death.
Hanny of the Ashen Line—the twins father, faced King Tharox head-on. Every strike between them carried the weight of generations—ancestral enemies finally meeting without armies to stand between them.
Rachel of the Moonlust Clan stayed close to Damien, intercepting Xyldrak whenever the dragon drew near. She fought carefully, defensively, never striking to kill. Xyldrak snarled and lunged again and again, driven by instinct and fury—but he could not bring himself to harm his master's mother. The hesitation cost him, every time.
Damien, caught between battles, shielded Reinna from the shockwaves of their fathers clash. His focus never wavered. Even when his arms shook. Even when the ground split beneath his feet.
Elsewhere, Victor, Ace, and Alpha were locked in their own fights—against clans, covens, and packs that had chosen this chaos as their moment to settle old grudges.
The war no longer had a purpose.
There was no justice left in it. No revenge either.
Only people who were still standing—and those who weren't.
Rachel's dragon, Lyx, had been brought down in the first two days, when the fighting was at its most brutal. Lyx could no longer answer her call. From then on, she fought on her own, relying only on her failing body and her will to keep moving.
Every step hurt. Drawing on her gem felt like tearing something loose inside herself, but she did it anyway. She knew the cost. If she pushed much longer, she would fall. But stopping meant leaving one of her sons unprotected.
So she endured.
Across the ruined ground, King Tharox remained upright through sheer defiance. His strength was failing, his lower body—gone, yet his laughter cut through the chaos, rough and unsteady.
"You stand here with me," he said, "when your concern should be your sons."
Hanny faced him, swaying but unbroken. He had an arm wide hole deep into his chest, yet his stance did not waver.
Damien had learned that kind of resolve from him.
Neither of them knew how to yield.
"Twenty-one years ago," Hanny said, voice strained but clear, "I chose a risk I knew might destroy me. I chose to reclaim what was taken from us."
His gaze never left Tharox.
"Only one of us walks away from here Tharox," he said quietly. "If not—then neither will."
They moved at the same time, gathering what little strength remained, and closed the distance between them.
One last hit.
Elsewhere, Derian faced the shadow he had been dreading all along: his arch-nemesis.
A Lycan prince.
"We meet again, Pinky," the Lycan sneered, his eyes glinting in the dim light.
"You've been lurking in the shadows all war, waiting to strike when I'm near my limit?" Derian asked incredulous
"You're still sharp as ever. Some things never change," the Lycan replied with a mocking grin.
"And you, Lucian? Still taking pleasure in tormenting everyone?" Derian's jaw tightened.
Lucian tilted his head, his smile widening. "Seems you've forgotten your old buddy Reul. Cause if you haven't, you would've launched at me a hundred times over—Moved on, have you? Found someone… better?" each word was a blade aimed to cut deeper than any attack.
"Shut up," Derian snapped, his hand erupting in a swirling ball of mist. He hurled it toward Lucian—but the Lycan was too quick, leaping aside before it could strike.
The tension hung between them like a storm ready to break, both circling, measuring, waiting for the first true opening.
Rachel finally reached her limit. Her strength ebbed to the point where raising her head—or even forming a strike—was impossible. She sank to the ground, the chaos of the battle fading into distant, blurred echoes.
Boom.
"Hanny…? Are you there?" she called, voice trembling, reaching out through telepathy.
The storm around Tharox and Hanny dissipated, revealing the two of them. Faces inches apart, their exhaustion etched in every line.
"I'm here… I'm here," Hanny replied, he and Tharox letting go of each other—collapsed to the ground.
"I'm worried about Damien," Rachel whispered, eyes straying toward the distant form of Xyldrak.
"Don't worry. I spoke to Hades about it…" Hanny's words faltered. His smile froze, eyes losing focus.
A single tear slipped down Rachel's cheek as the telepathic connection faltered—a silent announcement of loss. Yet she froze there, the first tear suspended in shock, refusing to fall further.
Reinna screamed, her grief raw and unrestrained, all traces of her royal composure shattering like glass.
Damien stood nearby, his own grief locked tight inside, a quiet weight pressing down on him.
Above them, Xyldrak hovered, cloaked from sight in swirling mists. Blue-grey light flared from its maw, reaching a terrifying intensity.
Lucian pounced on Derian, pinning him to the ground—but in doing so, he unwittingly gave Derian a clear view of the light hurtling toward Damien.
"No!" Derian shouted, pouring every ounce of his remaining strength into throwing Lucian off. Just as he turned to rush to Damien, Lucian blocked his path again.
The sky trembled as Xyldrak unleashed its power. Derian could only summon the Komodo construct, watching helplessly.
Damien realized the danger too late. Instinctively, he formed a barrier around himself and Reinna, but the force of the attack was overwhelming.
Time seemed to slow. The battlefield froze in anticipation. The Komodo construct was instantly torn to mere mist, the barrier reduced to shimmering nothingness.
Damien and Reinna were caught in the surge—frozen in place.
Ace, Victor, Alpha, Derian, Lucian, Ramien, and every other witness watched in stunned silence, powerless, as the two were struck by the overwhelming force—intact, the attack leaving them suspended between life and obliteration.
The frozen forms of Damien and Reinna fractured, splintering into fragments of energy.