Vol 2. Prologue: The Chosen and the Pious (1)

The world of Arte.

A gorgeous, wondrous place filled to the brim with as much magic as it has love, home to beings of many shapes and sizes burning with a radiant soul capable of many wondrous things, and fantastical vistas capable of taking anyone’s breath away time and time again, a truly worthy reflection of the one who created it.

The Goddess of Love, Nerinne.

My dear, dear friend.

Ever since she breathed life into it, she has not stopped loving it, caring for it, nurturing it, and of course… protecting it.

Yet, some ungodly tools would think she was weak due to her domain. A naïve, rose-tinted fool who cares too much about her livestock, deserving of being robbed of everything... even her life.

But they would be wrong.

They were wrong.

While she almost died, her divine blood pouring all over her beloved world, aiding the cursed, strengthening the courageous, and crystalizing itself as the very proof of her love to all her creations, she beat one of such ungodly tools who dared try to take her world away from her, unaware of the true strength behind her domain.

Such ungodly tool does not deserve to have their true name uttered.

Not in song, not in prose, not in whispers, not even in written word.

They are only the Evil God, and they are unworthy of it all, for they dared. They dared to corrupt and pervert, to befoul and invade, and they almost succeeded in taking it all for themselves. But they failed and they were sealed in Arte’s spire by their would-be victim and the Divine Council, never to be seen again. Just like their Emissaries were sealed by her Knights of the Ever-Burning Will despite their many, many sacrifices.

Thus, the world of Arte was supposed to never be tainted with the influence of the Evil God and their foulest creations ever again. Or so we believed, for the stench of their influence has taken roost in one of Arte’s most beautiful and yet most treacherous and wild lands.

Draconia.

The merciless land of dragons.

A place only known to Arte’s Allied Nations through old documents and the testimonies of those who barely managed to escape. It is a land where might makes right, where being weak turns you into prey, into power ripe for the taking, and where being a prisoner from the Draconic Front turns you into entertainment or food.

There, deep in the center of its continental expanse, and surrounded by nothing but unbelievably different biomes, influenced by the very dragons that reside in them, was a twisted city that not only shared the same name as the land it was on, but also the same nature.

One could even say that it was nothing more than a show of strength in the form—no, the mockery of a city made by its one horned Abyssal King.

Still, there were three things that made it differ from the apparently ‘untamed’ wilds.

First, those considered weak had the chance to band together and conspire against the strong, given that a city, even a twisted one, was a place for people to gather and connect. This led to the strong becoming as the weak and having their power taken just as any other prey.

Second, concepts such as loyalty existed there, but they were as twisted as the city itself, for true, ardent loyalty was only won there through overwhelming strength and cunning.

Which leads us to the third thing, them. The ones at the very top of Draconia, who lorded over the many, many dragons and dragon lords that resided both within and without its walls.

The ones who sought the Evil God’s power to fulfill their own machinations and plunge Arte back into an age of fear and death. They were the will that they all followed, some fiercely so.

They were the ones who pointed their kin’s fangs and claws towards the world at large.

They were unbeatable, unreachable, untouchable.

They were… the Chosen.

But a dent in such an image had appeared as of recently. A dent that caused those who still desired to challenge them to do as such, sieging the Abyssal Palace one after the other, only to find themselves publicly annihilated one by one at the hands of the Chosen’s Leader, the Abyssal King, Xetant, who used their slaughter as both warning and entertainment to the disloyal and loyal alike before feeding their corpses to the foul, black, bloody stones that filled his palace with a particular miasma, an… evil one.

One that kept the Goddess’ eyes and ears away from that place in another show of their might. Yet, a dent was still a dent. Regardless of their apparent strength, they had been harmed in a way that had never happened before. They had lost. In more ways than one. Thus, Xetant summoned the rest of the Chosen to his palace, for such a loss had to be discussed.

The first one to arrive did so through the magic of her very own protégé and servant, who weaved water and space together to create a large, round water mirror portal that suddenly appeared near the entrance to the battle-scarred hall.

Though she wasn’t the first to come out from said watery portal. Instead, it was her protégé, a masculine looking masked dragon lord with horns like fins growing from their scalp, sapphire blue scales, and an attire that was like a butler’s, who respectfully bowed and remained like that as they extended their hand to their Master on the other side, waiting for her to grab it in silence.

It was only then that she crossed over to the other side of the portal, as she grabbed her protégé’s hand in a way that imitated a high-class woman, just like her very attire, and proudly walked into the hall, drowning it with her presence as she haughtily uttered “thank you, Ao.”

Despite her words, she did not even glance at her protégé and instead she simply kept walking towards the cracked round table and the four thrones lying at the very center of the hall, her eyes set on the presence barely hiding behind the one that belonged to the seemingly late Xetant, and scoffing at them with a disdainful “hmph, disgusting. I wanted to try drowning you today too but look at you, already hiding behind that throne, trembling and crying. Ugh, you ruined my mood. Truly, I do not know why Xetant keeps you.”

“T-That’s… y-you kno-know why L-Levina—”the presence, panicked, tried to sheepishly respond, but was cut off by her verbal assailant in a murderously cold manner.

“Silence, failure. Do not utter my name when I do not care for what you have to say, or I shall drown you like I did with the fairies and their Kingdom.” She threatened, and not just with words, but with actions, for the presence fell silent in terror as they saw a massive serpent of water already coiling around their body, which proved to be entertaining enough for the haughty dragoness to undo her spell and let out a satisfied “good, you at least remember your place as my terrified toy, Haife. Huhuhu~.”

Such was the sick nature of Levina, the Dragon Lord of the Merciless Flow, and one of the Chosen. She who had used her ruthless waters to drown the old Kingdom of Fairies, Faerum, was a haughty, sadistic woman with slanted eyes and hair that shared the same sapphire color. Meanwhile, her gorgeous horns seemed like ever-flowing waves due to their particular, gem-like shine, undulated shape, and their many shades of blue.

As for her draconic scales, there were none to blemish her perfect, brown chestnut skin, for she was the very image of a full-fledged dragon lord, and she was proud of it. Proud of her power. Proud of her beauty. Proud of her cunning. Proud of everything that made her, her.

However, the same could not be said of the presence behind the empty throne, Haife, save for one thing. She too was a full-fledged dragon lord, for she looked just like a white-haired human woman except for her draconic fangs, her red dragon eyes, and most importantly… her downwards-pointing white horns. They surrounded her head like a lamenting veil and had many pointed thorn-like protrusions.

Suffice to say, there were also no scales in her creamy white skin or any other sign of lesser-ness to justify the kind of treatment she was receiving, not that such kind of abuse could have any justification in the first place.

In any case, such seemed to be the general dynamic between most of the Chosen and her, as the arrival of the next one, preceded by the many earthquakes caused by the flaps of his wings, which shook not just the hall, but the entirety of Draconia, made Haife more scared, to the point that she dropped to her knees as she, in abject terror, sputtered “n-no… he’s coming… Brother, why aren’t you here yet? He’ll… he’ll…”

Suddenly, she was interrupted by the dragon lord in question as he assumed his humanoid form and entered the hall through the balcony near her while belligerently spouting “I’ll what, wretch?”

Just like Levina when she arrived, his brown eyes were dead set on Haife as he unleashed his crushing presence upon the hall… and her, forcefully pushing her face-first onto the cracking floor and making every single part of her body scream in agonizing pain.

“Urk… Ghhh… Nn!!”

“Come on, wretch,” he snarled. “Don’t just squirm like that, answer my question and give me an excuse to start playing seriously with you.” Yet, he got no response from her, much less the one he wanted, just more gasps of pain and Levina’s mocking giggles, which irritated him. “Fine, I’ll ask again, wretch. I’ll even be nice and help you up. C’mere.”

Haife yelped as the massive, dark-skinned muscular dragon lord placed his clawed hand on the top of her head, gripped it with nigh-crushing strength, and brusquely lifted her up to his eye level before pulling her ever so closely that if he wanted, he could bite her face off in an instant, and asked again. “I’ll what?”

For a moment, Haife didn’t respond. She simply looked at him, at his mane-like horns that almost looked like they had been carved out of a meteorite, at the strange inner glow they had that made them look incandescent, and his battle hungry eyes that screamed for her to give him a reason, any reason to try and crush her for the nth time, and she… she simply smiled. Meekly. Resignedly.

Then, she answered, quaveringly so. “N-Nothing… Great Siegnir. D-Dragon Lord of the Crushing Brutality. Shatterer of the Beast-man Republic of Ailioa. S-Saintess Slayer. Chosen. The-they’re just the words of someone too weak to matter… and unworthy of your s-serious strength…”

Disappointed and even disgusted by her response, Siegnir pulled away from her and shook his head repeatedly. “You… Ugh… forget it. That attitude of yours is nauseating. How can you be so un-dragon-like while still being like us, a dragon lord amongst dragon lords? Just… how?”

“I’m sorry… I wish I knew, but…” Haife looked down at the floor, her eyes watering, and her lips trembling. “I do not know… this is just how I am… how I was born…”

“That was not a”—he sighed in exasperation—"Whatever. Stop talking. You are going to make me puke. Even mortals have more backbone than you.” Sickened by Haife’s display, Siegnir lost all interest and dropped her on the dusty floor like a piece of trash. He then started walking towards the broken throne that belonged to him, which was across from Levina’s, but not before hearing Haife’s lament as she tried to get up.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“Stop saying sorry,” he growled as he felt his anger mix with his disgust in a loathsome bile that he decided to push down, for the opposite was not worth it. “Just tell me one thing, wretch. Where’s your… ‘brother’? Where’s Xetant? He summoned us here, yet he is nowhere to be found.”

“Ah! B-Brother is currently meditating in the room above us,” said Haife as she finally managed to stand up from the dusty floor and returned to her place behind Xetant’s throne. “H-He will arrive shortly, oh great Siegnir…”

Siegnir scoffed. “He better be, or”—his voice turned murderous—"my interest on how much of you I can break before your little ‘nothing happened’ trick happens will find itself reignited, brutally so.”

“N-No… n-not again… please…”

“Huhuhu… maybe I’ll join too. We have been trying to kill you on our own for three centuries now. Who knows? Perhaps something different will happen if we cooperate. It’ll even make for a fun game. Don’t you think so, Ao?” Levina joyfully turned to her servant, who silently nodded, not caring one bit about the unwilling participant of such a game.

“N-No… that’d be… too much… Levina…”

“You! What did I tell you about saying my name?! I will make you understand even if I have to drown you a thousand, thousand times! O’ raging—" Just then, something stopped Levina from unleashing her fury upon Haife for her oh so terrible slight. It was the hall’s massive doors opening on their own, almost as if obeying the will of the one entering.

No. Not almost. It was that, for a one-horned dragon lord crossed the portal without any signs of having touched the doors themselves. And he did so while dragging the mangled body of another full-fledged one. “There is no need for that, Levina. Quash that spell or be quashed.” He commanded as he slowly made his way to his throne, forcing the haughty dragon lord to reluctantly stand down.

Meanwhile, someone was happy for his arrival despite him not being someone who should incur such feelings. And that was none other than Haife, who warmly welcomed him despite her now disheveled state. “Brother… welcome back.”

Truly, such… filial love was strange among dragons, as it was reflected in the disgusted expressions of Levina and Siegnir towards Haife and the way she caringly referred to Xetant, her twin brother. Even when his only response was a cold and seemingly indifferent command, told as he solemnly sat on his throne and handed her his newest victim, never giving her more than a glance. “Take care of this… would-be challenger and come back, Haife.”

“Yes, Brother. Consider it done.” Still, she happily complied, smiling warmly at him as she grabbed the body and left the hall.

As for Siegnir and Levina, their disgust hadn’t dissipated. In fact, it was always worsened by the fact that Xetant and Haife were indeed one of the rare cases of draconic twin siblings. Or in draconic parlance, shell sharers, referring to them coming from the same egg. They were so similar in some ways yet so different in others that it always boggled their minds.

After all, he looked almost identical to Haife, but rather than sharing her albino traits, he was the opposite. His skin, unblemished by lesser scales, was of an ashen black. Meanwhile, his cold eyes were of an ever-glowing blue rather than red. As for his horns, one was broken and gone, with only a stump remaining where it once stood, while the remaining horn was similar to Haife’s horns. It surrounded the right side of his head and had many pointed thorn-like protrusions, but its orientation was different. Rather than pointing downward, it pointed upwards, making it look almost like a black crown that had been broken in half. A black crown of thorns.

The similarities ended there, however. For while Haife’s presence was that of someone fearful, insecure, and seemingly weak, Xetant’s was the complete opposite. He was coldly indomitable, firmly overpowering, and commanding. He was strength. He was authority. He was the pit that devoured all who challenged him. He was the accursed King of Draconia. He was Xetant, the Dragon Lord of the Abyss.

And it was only after Haife completely left the hall that Xetant coldly uttered, “Violet Death is dead. The Emissary sealed under Kyrie is gone. Our Benefactor’s Blood in that Kingdom is as good as lost, as well as the Goddess’. And all due to the actions of one.” Yet, despite the apparent coldness, the pressure and killing intent he exuded intensified with every sentence, bathing the entire palace and its vicinity with it, and causing those in the area to either fall to their knees or outright faint, including his very subordinates. Even then, his expression didn’t change. That is… until he mentioned her.

“The King of Storms.”

To be continued...