Aranor remained unmoving, standing like an ancient statue carved into the heart of the Primordial Mountain. With his sword raised toward the heavens and his eyes closed, he seemed to have abandoned the fury of the battlefield to enter a higher plane, bound in silent trance with Dontar himself. Around him, the air trembled—thick with ozone and the scent of fresh death—yet he did not shift so much as an inch, as if the world had learned to turn around him.
Rajkal, the necromancer, had no intention of granting him such respite.
High above, astride his ice dragon, he lifted a skeletal hand and uttered the final command. The winged beast climbed dozens of yards, its silhouette carved against a convulsing, wounded sky, then plunged downward like a blue spear forged in eternal winter. The dragon's shriek detonated like a cursed thunderclap, driving nearby soldiers to their knees as they pressed bleeding ears and cried out for mercy. But Aranor did not blink.
Before his first great trial as a hero, as the monster's shadow swallowed the light of his world, Aranor's life passed before his eyes. He remembered distant days when no blade weighed in his hands or dictated his fate—when weapons were other men's stories, not promises of blood—and he was nothing more than a mortal named Gabriel. He remembered the scent of old paper, the silent dreams of an orphaned child, and the doubts that, drop by drop, had tempered him into the warrior who now wielded Antherion, the Sword of Light.
The dragon descended with talons outstretched, as if seeking to rend not only flesh and bone, but the very fabric of reality. Aranor did not know whether that instant would bring victory or ruin, yet a profound peace enfolded him. He understood then that destiny is not a path laid out in advance, but a fire forged at the threshold of the unknown—where fear and hope burn together.
And just before darkness and light collided, time itself seemed to fold inward, and the warrior returned, for one eternal heartbeat, to the beginning of all things.