The Star Bite drifted above the crystal lakes of the northern Beast vein glades, it's warm phoenix wood hull glowing bright reddish orange in the morning rays.
Ashwin sat in the command alcove, one leg crossed over the other, a cup of still-steaming brewer's mint untouched beside him. Across from him, Marla floated cross legged cultivating the zombie dragon crystal. Ashwin slowly sipped the steaming mint tea and re-read Lord Imperions reply letter to his treaty.
"To the clans of Beast Vein Continent, your pleas have been considered. But the Silver Blood Phage Contract stands as written. The Dominion does not break its covenants. The phage ensures loyalty, stability — and remembrance of who grants dominion."
"Those who challenge this decree will find the silver in their veins no longer dormant."
Marla cursed softly. "He's not bluffing. The phage is keyed to his divine resonance — he could liquefy their organs with a thought."
Ashwin's eyes were unreadable. "Then the clans remain bound. Beast Vein will stay in its gilded cage." He leaned back, exhaling through his teeth. "Imperion's arrogance is older than his empire."
Marla turned toward him. "What are you thinking?"
Ashwin's gaze moved to the viewport, where the stars shimmered coldly against the black. "I plague the capital city of Fin Fang Doom and the inhabitants of the Forgotten continent so badly they want nothing to do with Beast Vein." C'mon Marla lets go to top deck. Ashwin opened the door of captain's quarters and was greeted by a low altitude wind.
Ashwin's hands lifted, palms facing the sky, and the Necro-Flies swirled from his body in a spiraling storm of emerald motes. They stretched outward like a veil of living shadows, coalescing into a massive, stylized eye. The clouds trembled as the Eye of Heaven unfolded above the Forgotten Continent, blotting out the sun. Its iris spun with golden glyphs older than memory, its black pupil a void that seemed to draw the world itself toward it.
Below, the streets of Fin Fang Doom had been in chaos for hours. Citizens poured from their homes, torches and banners waving, voices rising in defiance against the distant throne of Lord Imperion. Soldiers and enforcers moved with rigid precision, forming lines, pushing crowds back, attempting to snuff the fire of dissent. But all of it faltered in an instant.
Gasps rose like a wave as the golden eye eclipsed the sky. Every head tilted upward; every heartbeat stuttered. Imperion's generals froze mid-step. Soldiers gripped weapons as if the steel might protect them from the gaze of divinity. Even the fiercest citizens, chanting and shouting moments ago, went still, eyes wide with an instinctual, visceral dread.
The Eye of Heaven pulsed once, a heartbeat of light and shadow. Whorls of cosmic script flickered across the sky, reflecting in puddles, on rooftops, and in the terrified faces of the city below. The air thickened, pressure pressing into lungs and bones alike.
Ashwin opened his eyes, golden rings revolving around dark pupils, mirroring the Eye above. His voice carried effortlessly, soft yet inexorably, across the city and the armies alike:
"Look upon your reckoning. Ashwin the Plague Wind watches, and I remember."
Below, the citizens stumbled backward. Soldiers quivered. Even Imperion, observing from his prism throne through the palace's crystal windows, froze, his mind screaming that the terror he had thought contained was now alive above his city.
Marla's wings flared as she descended, landing lightly beside Ashwin. Her crimson eyes gleamed like twin storms. "Shall we begin, my Plague King?" she whispered.
Ashwin's lips curved, almost imperceptibly, as the Necro-Flies tightened into a living swarm around him, their hum a prelude to the storm of chaos they were about to unleash. "Let the continent learn what it means to defy the Beast Vein."
The city held its breath. The sky trembled. And above it all, the Eye of Heaven stared unblinking, waiting for the first cries of fear.
The first wave of Necro-Flies detached from Ashwin's orbiting swarm, a writhing cloud of green, luminous insects, each carrying fragments of spirit venom and necrotic energy. They swept down upon Fin Fang Doom like a living shadow, invisible until they brushed against walls and flesh, leaving a chill that rotted the marrow and whispered of death.
Screams tore through the streets as the swarm infiltrated homes, markets, and armories. Citizens clutched at their throats, coughing blood, while soldiers tried in vain to swipe at the swarm—each motion only stirred more of the cursed insects, which penetrated armor and masks alike. The air thickened, turning sweet with the metallic tang of fear and decay.
Above, Imperion's palace erupted in chaos. The Necro-Flies slithered past ramparts and through arrow slits, pooling in the mirrored halls like liquid shadows. Courtiers and generals screamed as the swarm crawled over the floors, walls, and pillars, entering every chamber. Their flesh and armor became canvases of corruption, twitching as if puppeteered by unseen hands. The throne room itself became a hive of horror; the Necro-Flies converged on Imperion's prism throne, draping over the crystal surfaces like living banners of plague.
Ashwin's eyes glowed golden beneath the Eye of Heaven. "Enough," he whispered. The swarm paused at his will, hovering midair, the city trembling beneath their suspended malice.
Marla raised her hands as she stood on the deck of the Star Bite, her wings casting shadows across the hull. She let out a soft, commanding call. The waters of her zombie dragon crystal pulsed violently as spectral tendrils erupted from her aura. From the ether of the continent, a colossal zombie dragon materialized, scales blackened with glimmering green veins of necrotic energy, eyes burning with a hunger born of death. It reared, wings spanning the sky, fangs dripping shadow fire, a roar that shattered the calm orbit of the Star Bite.
Ashwin raised a hand, the Eye of Heaven above him throbbing with divine resonance. "Vorpal Pull," he murmured. The air warped violently, reality bending toward his command.
The dragon hesitated for a heartbeat before the space around it collapsed inward. The Eye of Heaven sucked it into its golden, spinning iris, the necrotic energies of its body merging with the divine light. With a thunderous crack that echoed across the continent, the dragon was yanked through the Eye of Heaven and flung toward the heart of Fin Fang Doom, landing amidst the already blackened streets and choking mists of the Necro-Fly plague.
The zombie dragon's maw opened, and from it poured an even darker tide of reanimated dead. Corpses twisted and reformed, standing with hollow eyes and taloned claws, their rotting forms guided by both Necro-Fly intelligence and the dragon's dark will. They surged through streets and alleys, crushing Imperial soldiers, scattering citizens, and turning every courtyard into a theater of terror.
From the deck of the Star Bite, Ashwin's gaze swept the city. Green motes of the Necro-Flies swarmed in tandem with the dragon, a living, breathing plague that obeyed his every thought. Beside him, Marla's smile sharpened, violet eyes gleaming like knives.
"Fin Fang Doom will learn quickly," Ashwin said, voice calm, deliberate, almost intimate, "that Ashwin the Plague Wind does not bargain."
The Eye of Heaven above continued to pulse, its golden glyphs burning across the black sky, reflecting off shattered spires and burning streets. The city beneath it writhed, suffocated by necrotic light, alive with death, and trembling under the weight of divine wrath.