Chapter 32: Burial of a Dragon
Iskander
The strain was a physical thing, a screaming pressure in my skull that threatened to crack it open. Holding the Static Void was like trying to contain a star within the fragile cage of my bones.
Blood, warm and thick, traced paths from my nose, my ears, the corners of my eyes. The world was a frozen painting of hell, and I was the single, bleeding brushstroke that didn't belong. But the pain was a distant echo.
My entire being was focused on one thing: escape.
Before this second, impossible Static Void could shatter and unleash the furious temporal backlash, I poured my will into Creation. Not to forge a weapon, not to heal a wound, but to weave a door.
A vortex of shimmering, pale gold light began to form in the center of a Sanctuary Room, its edges rippling with unstable potential. But it stuttered, its growth arrested by the very spell that gave me this chance. It hung there, half-born, a promise frozen in time.
"You naïve mortal!" The voice was a psychic shriek that bypassed the ears and drilled directly into my mind.
Al-Hazred's aetheric form, though frozen, radiated a fury so absolute it felt like the air itself was curdling.
Oh, is this the part where the villain finally loses his cool? I thought with a grim, blood-streaked smirk. The unflappable, ancient intellect was finally, gloriously, enraged.
The pressure spiked. The Static Void was fracturing. I could feel it in the spider-webbing cracks spreading through my consciousness.
"See you, Brainiac!" I shouted into the straining silence, the words a raw scrape in my throat. "Thanks for the training!"
And I let go.
Time crashed back into motion with the force of a detonated sun. Sound, heat, and fury exploded outward. The Crucible erupted around us—a cataclysm of lava, lightning, and the Djinn's incandescent wrath.
But my vortex, now freed from its temporal prison, was faster.
It flared to life, a whirlpool of brilliant gold that swallowed the three of us—me, the shimmering wisp of Sylvia, and the slumped form of Gawain—just as the world behind us dissolved into pure annihilation.
The sensation was not of movement, but of un-being. A deafening roar, a nauseating lurch, and then—
Silence.
Cool, calm, sterile air. The familiar, faint hum of a Sanctuary Room. I collapsed to my knees, retching, the metallic taste of blood flooding my mouth. My body, released from the excruciating strain of the Static Void, immediately went to work.
Aether surged through my channels, a warm, golden tide scouring away the damage. The bleeding stopped, the fractured capillaries mended, the pounding in my skull receded to a dull throb. In seconds, I was whole again, kneeling on the smooth, featureless white floor, breathing in the blessed, empty air.
Sylvia's wisp zipped from my core, her light frantic as she materialized over Gawain's form. He had reverted to his humanoid shape, a mountain of a man brought low, his silver-and-indigo armor scuffed and dull. He lay motionless, his face pale, his breathing a shallow, ragged thing.
"Child, he's dying!" Sylvia's voice was a blade of pure alarm. "His mana core… it's not just depleted, it's shattered. The Relictombs… they're rejecting him! They're trying to finish what the Djinn started! This is fatal for an Asura!"
The Relictombs were trying to kill him. A twisted confirmation that Gawain Indrath was truly himself again—an unauthorized, powerful lifeform intruding on the Djinns' sacred tombs.
A surge of conflicting emotions warred within me. This was the genocidal monster whose memories were scorched into my mind. This was the man who had slaughtered innocents with a cold, devout certainty.
And yet… he was also a victim. A soul enslaved, his body and legacy defiled by a hatred even older and more bitter than his own.
I crawled to his side, my hands trembling slightly. I didn't know if I wanted to save him or bear witness to his end. Instinct took over. I placed my hands on his chest, over the cold metal of his breastplate.
I reached for Creation, pouring my intent into him. I could build him a new core. I'd built my own from nothing, hadn't I? How different could a mana core be? It was just a vessel, a battery. I could forge one from aether, stitch it into his being—
A hand, cold and surprisingly strong, closed around my wrist. I flinched, looking down. Gawain's eyes were open.
They were not the vacant blue pools of the Drone. Nor were they the cold, certain eyes of the genocidal knight from the memories. They were the eyes of a man waking from a long, terrible nightmare. They were weary, deeply ancient, and held a pain that had nothing to do with physical injury.
"Lady Sylvia?" His voice was a dry rustle, like wind over long-dead leaves, but it was clear.
There was no fear, no shock. Only a profound, unshakeable calm. The calm of a soldier who has long since made peace with his own mortality.
"Sir Gawain." Sylvia's voice was thick with an emotion I couldn't name—grief, relief, a terrible, aching pity. Her light pulsed softly above him.
I felt the terrifyingly rapid decay of his life force, a candle guttering in a hurricane. Without thought, I did the only thing I could. I let my aether flow into him, not to heal the unfixable, but to act as a crutch. A temporary sustainment, a few more precious moments of borrowed time.
His gaze, those tired, ancient eyes, shifted to me. "Who is this?"
"He is my son, Sir Gawain," Sylvia said immediately, her tone leaving no room for argument.
Gawain's eyes softened almost imperceptibly. He gave a slow, weak nod. "A new member of the Indrath royal family was born during my enslavement? This… is something to be festive about."
The formality of his words, spoken even as he was dying, was both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring.
I opened my mouth to protest, to say I was no Indrath, that my blood was a cocktail of Vritra malice and human frailty, but Sylvia's voice cut through my mind, sharp and pleading.
'Not now, Child. Not a word. He is dying. Let him have this peace. Let him leave this world with a measure of ease.'
She was right. This wasn't about justice or truth. This was about mercy. This broken dragon before me had suffered a fate worse than any execution. He had earned this moment of peace.
Truly, the God of Misfortune had fun playing with him, torturing him.
"You do not need to waste your breath on someone like me, young lord," Gawain said, his eyes drifting to the blank white ceiling. "I felt it. Throughout our… conflict. Your disdain. Your revulsion for Lord Indrath's actions. And so, you rightfully despise me as well."
The breath caught in my throat. Sylvia's light flickered in stunned silence. He was conscious. He had been aware, trapped behind his own eyes, forced to witness his own body used as a weapon. The horror of it was unimaginable.
"And yet," he continued, his voice gaining a sliver of strength, "you found it within yourself to show me mercy. To grant me this… freedom, at the end. That speaks more of your character than any lineage ever could. It is a shame you inherited most of the Vritra Clan's outward traits, but that does not make you any less an Indrath in spirit."
'He doesn't know, Child,' Sylvia whispered in my mind, a somber realization. 'His life ended before Agrona's rebellion. He doesn't know what the Vritra have become. He thinks you are just a half-breed.'
He was fighting a war that was already over, judging a world he no longer knew... it wasn't much different from Captain America, wasn't he? I scrolled my head cutting the thought. Not now.
Then, with a resolve that stole my breath, Gawain moved his hand. He ignored my presence, my flowing aether, and plunged his own gauntleted fingers into his chest. Not with violence, but with a grim, purposeful precision. The armor parted, not torn, but almost… yielding to his will.
"Gawain!" I cried out, instinctively trying to stop him.
He silenced me with a look. It wasn't a command of power, but one of experience—the look of a master who has seen countless battles and knows how this one ends.
"I am about to die, young lord. I am no fool. The Djinn… he left something inside me. A final piece of his design. A lure, meant for you and your… unique authority over aether."
My skin crawled. A toy for me, Al-Hazred had said. The bastard had planted it inside him. The violation was so profound, so intimate, it made me feel ill. And yet, after performing a lobotomy on myself, did I have any right to feel squeamish?
Gawain's hand emerged from the lightless cavity in his chest. He was not bleeding; his body was too far gone for that. Clutched in his grasp was a rectangular object. It was fashioned from a strange, irregular grey stone, its surface rough and encrusted with what looked like fossilized barnacles.
It hummed with a deep, ancient power that resonated with the core of my being. A Relic. Just like the Heart Relic that had given me Creation.
He pressed the cold stone into my palm. His grip was firm, final.
"Take my armor as well, young lord," he said, his voice beginning to fade. "The Djinn strengthened it, reforged it with aetheric principles. It will be a worthy defense for you."
He wasn't offering gifts; he was discharging a final duty. Bequeathing his tools to the next generation.
I despised the man he had been. I hated the crimes he had committed. But kneeling there, holding the cold stone and watching the light fade from his eyes, I could not hate the man he was now. A broken knight, free at last, seeking only to pass on what little he had left to someone he believed would forge a better future.
Sylvia's light hovered close, a silent vigil. "We are so sorry, Sir Gawain. We cannot save you. I am… deeply ashamed."
"Do not weep for me, Lady Sylvia," he murmured, his eyes finding hers for a last, fleeting moment. "If it is not too much to ask… I would know the name of the young lord. Your child."
The question was directed at me. I met his gaze, seeing no monster there, only a weary soldier seeking a name to hold onto in the dark.
"Iskander," I said, my voice low but clear.
A faint, almost invisible smile touched his bloodless lips. "Then, Lord Iskander. I hope… you will pave a way for a brighter, fairer future… for our glorious Clan."
The light in his eyes dimmed. The hand that held my wrist went slack. The last breath left his body in a soft sigh. Sir Gawain Indrath, the Sword of Kezess, the butcher of the Djinn, the enslaved Drone, was gone.
He did not fear death. He did not curse his fate. In his final moments, he had thought only of atonement and a hope for a world better than the one he had helped create.
And in that moment, as I reached out and gently closed his sightless eyes, I forgave him.
A long silence stretched in the sterile room, broken only by the hum of the walls and the echo of his last words.
"You should take his armor, Child," Sylvia said softly, her light dim with sorrow. "It is his last wish. It would honor him."
"What? No," I said, the refusal sharp and immediate. I stood up, turning away from the body. "It's not just disrespectful, Sylvia. I will never wear the crest of the Indrath Clan. I am not one of them."
The thought of adorning myself with the symbol of the genocidal regime Gawain had served, however repentant he was at the end, felt like a betrayal of everything I believed.
"Child, be practical!" she insisted, her light zipping in front of me. "Your regeneration is formidable, but it is not infinite! A direct strike from a powerful enough weapon could still end you! This armor, enhanced by a Djinn and worn by an Asura warrior for centuries, could mean the difference between life and death!"
I looked back at Gawain's still form. The problem was more immediate than that. If we left his body here, Al-Hazred would find it. He could reclaim it, reanimate it, subject Gawain's shell to another eternity of slavery.
The thought made my stomach turn. We had to dispose of it. But to strip his armor and then… destroy the body? It felt barbaric. A final, ugly desecration.
"We have nowhere to go, Sylvia," I said, the weight of our situation crashing down on me. I ran a hand through my black hair, the gesture tired and familiar. "The Relictombs are actively hostile to us now. Al-Hazred could be waiting around any corner with an entire army of Asura Drones. I barely survived a year against one. What chance do we have against a legion?"
The silence that followed was heavy with the same dread I felt. Then, Sylvia's light brightened, a sudden, determined spark.
"Seris. She offered you a cover identity in the city of Aedelgard, did she not?"
The memory surfaced through the fatigue and grief. The sharp, calculating look in Seris's eyes, the cold bargain she'd offered. "Yes. I am still Iskander Briand, an Ascender from Sehz-Clar."
"Then that is our path," Sylvia stated, her voice firming with resolve. "We use a Descension Chamber. We find one linked to that city."
"How?" I asked, the practicality of it daunting. "I have no idea how to navigate to a specific exit. Last time, I relied on Serven entirely."
The last time I'd roamed the Relictombs, I'd been a desperate, powerful but unskilled refugee. Now… now I was something else entirely. Forged in a crucible of hatred, tempered by pain, and bound to a dragon's soul.
I was strong. Truly strong. I didn't know the path, but I had the power to blast through walls to make one.
I looked down at the strange, Barnacled Relic in my hand, then at the armor on Gawain's body. Two legacies of violence and hope. Two tools for the path ahead.
"Okay," I said, my voice quiet but steady. I turned back to Gawain's body, my expression grim but resolved.
"Let's get to work." The respect would be in the efficiency, not in the ceremony. We would honor his last wish by surviving.