Location: The Obsidian Enclave, Command Terrace.
Time: 12:00 Hours.
Dante sat in a wheelchair, wrapped in a heavy thermal blanket. He looked less like a King and more like a battery that had been drained dry. His skin was translucent, the veins visible beneath the surface. His new white hair hung limply over his forehead. His mechanical arm lay dead in his lap, the runes dull and gray.
"Drink," Valerius commanded, handing him a cup of nutrient broth laced with mana-salts.
"I'm not an invalid," Dante grumbled, his hand shaking violently as he took the cup. "I'm just... recharging. The battery is at 4%."
"You used your own life force to filter a city's worth of air," Valerius noted dryly. "If you try to stand up, you will faint, and I will not catch you. Sit still and let us do our jobs. Being a King means knowing when to sit down."
Aurum paced the terrace, checking his datapad with frantic taps.
"The plague is cleared," Aurum reported. "But we burned through 40% of our medical supplies. And the mining lasers are offline for cooling. If they hit the walls again right now, we're using sharp sticks and bad language."
"They won't hit the walls," Dante whispered, his voice raspy. He looked at the grey, churning sky. "The Necromancer tried the ground. He tried the air ducts. He has one vector left."
SCREEEEEEEE.
The sound tore the clouds apart. It wasn't the shriek of a banshee. It was the roar of something massive, ancient, and very hungry.
A shadow fell over the Enclave, blotting out the pale sun.
Emerging from the clouds was a nightmare. A Bone-Dragon.
It was colossal—easily the size of a frigate. Its wings were not skin, but tattered canvas stitched between massive rib bones harvested from leviathans. Its body was a fusion of rusted iron plating and calcified vertebrae. Inside its chest, a furnace of green necro-fire burned, visible through the gaps in its ribs like a trapped star.
"Dragon!" Commander Lyra screamed from the lower ramparts. "Scatter!"
The dragon opened its maw.
WHOOSH.
A stream of green balefire strafed the city. It didn't burn like normal fire; it accelerated time. An obsidian watchtower didn't melt; it crumbled into dust in seconds, aging a thousand years in a heartbeat.
"It's targeting the generator!" Silas yelled from the comms. "If it hits the geothermal core, the whole city goes dark! We lose the heat!"
The Flak Trap
Dante watched the beast bank for a second run. He didn't panic. He couldn't; he didn't have the energy for adrenaline. He tapped his comms.
"Havoc," Dante croaked. "Tell me you calibrated those toys Aurum bought."
"Calibrated, loaded, and eager, Boss," Havoc's voice came back, sounding giddy. "I've been waiting for this my whole life."
On the western ridge, camouflaged by holographic nets, the ground shifted.
Four massive Quad-Barrel Flak Cannons rose from the hidden bunkers. These weren't alchemical constructs; they were pure industrial kinetic firepower, bought from the heavy foundries of Sector 4.
The Dragon dived, aiming for the palace. Its jaws opened.
"Wait for it..." Havoc whispered over the channel. "Wait for the belly..."
The Dragon pulled up at the last second to unleash its fire, exposing its underbelly.
"NOW!"
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
The cannons roared. The sound was deafening, shaking snow off the mountain peaks.
The sky filled with black smoke and flak shrapnel.
The Dragon flew straight into the kill-box. High-explosive shells slammed into its skeletal chassis. Ribs shattered like glass. The iron plating on its wings was shredded. One shell punched straight through the green furnace in its chest.
The beast shrieked—a sound of twisting metal and breaking magic.
"Direct hit!" Aurum cheered, pumping his fist. "That cost me twelve million gears! Worth every penny!"
The Crash
The Dragon was dead—or at least, its flight capability was destroyed. But momentum is a cruel mistress.
It didn't fall into the canyon. It spiraled downward, trailing green smoke, straight toward the city center.
"It's going to crash!" Valerius shouted. "The Market Plaza!"
"Evacuate the square!" Dante yelled into the mic. "Move!"
It was too late.
CRASH.
The Bone-Dragon slammed into the Obsidian Enclave. Buildings shattered. The main suspension bridge collapsed. The beast plowed a trench through the market district, finally coming to a halt against the base of the Palace wall.
Dust and debris choked the air.
"Damage report!" Dante coughed, waving the smoke away.
"Casualties unknown," Lyra reported, her voice shaky. "The beast is down. It's not moving. The fire is out."
Dante looked at the wreckage. The green fire in the dragon's chest was flickering out. But something felt wrong. The Necromancer wouldn't sacrifice a dragon just to crush a market.
"It's a Trojan Horse," Dante realized, his eyes widening. "Valerius! Get down there! Don't let it open!"
The Belly of the Beast
In the ruined plaza, the Onyx Guard surrounded the carcass of the dragon. They held their spears ready, trembling.
The dragon's skull lay sideways, its jaw slack.
Then, the ribs began to crack. Not from the impact, but from the inside.
SNAP. SNAP.
The ribcage burst open.
Pouring out of the dragon's chest like maggots from a corpse were not skeletons.
They were Death Knights.
Twelve of them. Seven feet tall, clad in black iron armor, wielding greatswords that dripped with green ichor. They hadn't been killed by the crash; the dragon's body had cushioned them like a drop-pod.
And in the center of them stood a figure in ragged grey robes, holding a staff made of a spinal column.
A Lich. A lieutenant of the Necromancer.
"The walls are breached," the Lich hissed, its voice magical and cold. "Slaughter them."
The Death Knights charged.
"Hold the line!" Lyra screamed.
It was a massacre. The Death Knights were elite. Their armor deflected the obsidian spears. Their greatswords cleaved through shields and armor alike.
Valerius landed in the plaza, dropping from the palace balcony. He didn't have a weapon—he had left his spear in the infirmary.
He grabbed a discarded sword from a fallen guard.
"To me!" Valerius roared. "Defend the Civilians!"
He engaged the lead Death Knight. It was a clash of titans. Sparks flew as Valerius parried a blow that would have cut a car in half. But there were too many.
Up on the terrace, Dante gripped the arms of his wheelchair. He tried to summon the War Engine, but his vision blurred. He had nothing left.
"They're inside," Dante whispered. "And I can't stop them."
Aurum looked at the carnage below. He looked at Dante.
"We don't need magic, Dante," Aurum said, pulling a radio from his belt. "We have leverage. And we have insurance."
Aurum keyed the mic.
"Havoc! The flak cannons! Can you depress the angle?"
"Negative! They're anti-air! They don't point down!"
"Then improvise!" Aurum screamed, losing his composure. "I paid for explosions! Give me explosions!"
Havoc paused.
"Silas! Is the mining grid still hot?"
"The emitters are melted!" Silas yelled.
"Not the emitters," Havoc said. "The payload. The mining charges under the square."
Dante's eyes widened. "The plaza... it's built over the old mining tunnels."
Dante grabbed the mic.
"Havoc! Blow the plaza! Drop them into the pit!"
"With pleasure, Boss."
The Floor is Lava
In the plaza, Valerius was losing ground. He was fighting three Death Knights at once, bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
"Fall back!" Valerius shouted to the Onyx Guard. "Get to the stairs! Clear the floor!"
The Guards retreated, pulling the wounded. The Death Knights pressed forward, cornering them against the palace gates. The Lich raised its staff to cast a spell of mass decay.
CLICK.
The ground beneath the market square shuddered.
BOOM.
Havoc detonated the mining charges buried deep in the rock.
The entire floor of the plaza collapsed.
The Lich looked down, confused, as the solid stone turned into a gaping hole.
The Death Knights, the dragon carcass, and the Lich fell.
They plunged two hundred feet down into the old mining shafts—shafts that Silas had reconnected to the Geothermal Magma Flow.
There was no splash. Just a hiss as the undead armor hit the molten rock.
The Lich screamed as it incinerated. The Death Knights sank, their heavy armor dragging them to a fiery grave.
Valerius stood on the edge of the crater, the heat singing his eyebrows. He looked down at the glowing red pit.
He looked up at the Command Terrace.
Dante slumped back in his wheelchair, letting out a breath he had held for a minute.
"Remind me," Dante murmured to Aurum, "to give Havoc a raise."
"I'll double it," Aurum agreed, wiping sweat from his brow. "As long as he stops blowing up my real estate. That plaza was a historical landmark."