The Abyssal Throne pulsed.Its heartbeat reverberated through the battlefield like a drum of war, the pulse of a world that wanted its invader crushed.
Kael stood tall, Sovereigns flanking him, each radiating the weight of evolution and war. Yet, even together, their presence bent beneath the dragon's.
The Abyssal Dragon was no mere beast. It was a sovereign born of the abyss itself — the will of corruption given scale and fang. Its wings unfurled, blotting out what little fractured sky existed in this dungeon-world. Its scales bled voidfire, and each exhale carried the promise of annihilation.
The pressure came first.
Not claws. Not fire. Not a roar.
Presence.
Like the ocean pressing upon a lone swimmer in its deepest trench, the dragon's aura smashed into the battlefield. Obsidian flesh cracked beneath its weight, rivers of corruption reversed course as if fleeing, and Kael felt his lungs seize as though chains had locked around his chest.
[ Abyssal Pressure Detected. ][ Warning: Sustained exposure will degrade vitality and mental stability. ]
Kael grit his teeth, raising his hand. His mana flared like a beacon, and the Sovereigns answered.
Pyraflame spread his colossal wings, a storm of embers erupting into a shield that hissed and sizzled against the dragon's aura.
Aquara raised a tidal veil, the sound of crashing waves echoing in the abyss, rippling outward like a living bastion.
Luminara shone her halo brighter, light tearing through cracks in the suffocating dark.
Umbra rose higher, shadows writhing, his aura sharpening into a predator's grin that clawed at the edges of the dragon's will.
Terrathorn, Voltra, Zephyros, and Graknar layered their presence, stone, storm, wind, and iron weaving together like a battle hymn.
Eight Sovereigns against one dragon.
The abyss groaned.
The collision of aura shook the battlefield more than any sword or flame could. Cracks split the obsidian ground, voidfire geysers burst, and fragments of ruined spires rained down like meteors. The Sovereigns dug in, each pouring essence into the clash — but the dragon's pressure was endless, an ocean with no shore.
Kael's voice cut through the storm, low and steady."Stand firm. You are my Sovereigns. You are not lesser."
His own aura unfurled — no longer the struggling flame of the boy who had fallen into the abyss, but the honed will of a warlord who commanded armies and carved kingdoms. His presence braided into theirs, a commander's banner thrust into the maelstrom.
For a moment, the ground held.
For a moment, Sovereigns stood equal to the abyss.
The dragon moved.
One step. That was all.
The battlefield cratered. Waves of black flame surged, burning reality itself, yet the Sovereigns resisted. Pyraflame's roar clashed with it, fire against fire. Aquara's water boiled but did not break. Luminara's wings trembled yet pushed back the tide.
Umbra slithered forward, threads of shadow snaking across the battlefield to lash against the dragon's leg — only to burn away like paper against the scale's heat.
The dragon's gaze fell on him. Eyes like black suns. A predator acknowledging another predator.
Umbra froze.
Kael's command ripped through their bond."Move!"
Umbra retracted just as the dragon exhaled, a ripple of corrupted flame scorching a trench across the obsidian plain. The ground glowed red-hot, molten rivers spilling from the wound.
The Sovereigns growled, adjusted, and pressed forward again.
It was only pressure. No blows exchanged, no claws or steel — and yet the battlefield was already breaking.
Kael knew it. The Sovereigns knew it.
The dragon wasn't fighting.It was testing.
"Then test this," Kael whispered, eyes narrowing.
The ground behind them shifted.
Kael's shadow thickened, boiling outward in dark waves. The thirty-five necromanced titans — his boss legion — answered the silent call.
Like puppets of bone and flesh, they rose in unison. Their hollow eyes locked on the Abyssal Dragon. For a breath, they were still, statues of shadow-bound power.
Then, in perfect coordination —
They leapt.
Thirty-five bosses hurled themselves at the dragon's flank, their combined roars shaking the battlefield as corrupted flame, frost, venom, and steel rained against its hide.
The dragon's head turned, slow and deliberate, as if surprised the corpses of its champions now served the enemy.
Kael's lips curled into the faintest smile."Let's see how the abyss enjoys being devoured by its own."
The Sovereigns roared together, emboldened.
And for the first time — the Abyssal Dragon shifted, acknowledging the war had begun.
The thirty-five bosses struck first.Flesh warped by Kael's necromancy slammed into abyssal scale, fangs gouging sparks, venom and rot sinking into cracks. Bone-beasts tore at wings, shadow-twisted giants hammered claws into armored hide, and corrupted sorcerers rained black flame across its back.
The Abyssal Dragon staggered. Not from pain — but from insult.
It let out a sound.Not a roar.Not a growl.Something older.A low, resonant note, a sound that seemed to come not from its throat but from the abyss itself. The battlefield rippled, and three bosses were instantly vaporized, their forms reduced to ash under the pressure of raw abyssal resonance.
But the damage was done.
The Sovereigns moved.
"Now!" Kael's command snapped like a whip, and eight Sovereigns launched forward as one.
Pyraflame, wings ignited, surged head-on. His maw opened, vomiting a storm of crimson fire that curled and twisted like serpents of wrath. The blaze did not aim to burn the dragon — it sought to blind, to consume its vision in roaring flame.
Aquara followed, the tidal veil collapsing into a razor-sharp spear of pressurized water, its force carving straight toward the joint of the dragon's foreleg. Where flame failed, water cut deep.
Terrathorn slammed the ground. Spires of jagged stone erupted in a cage around the dragon's legs, anchoring it in place, slowing even its impossible strength.
Voltra soared overhead, lightning splitting the fractured sky. Bolts hammered the dragon's wings, crackling across its body in chains of radiant agony.
Zephyros spiraled with the storm, blades of compressed wind slicing scales open where lightning left them vulnerable. The dragon hissed, its armor not impervious but tested.
Luminara descended, halo blazing like a miniature sun. Beams of condensed radiance struck the dragon's head, searing its vision. Where Pyraflame's fire blinded, Luminara's light burned.
Umbra was already there — a living shadow on its back. His claws were daggers of night, carving runes of entropy across the dragon's wings, leaving trails that festered like rot.
And Graknar, the Beastlord Chieftain, charged with a primal fury that shook the abyss itself. His axe, forged of Sovereign iron and soaked in countless victories, struck at the dragon's hind leg, the impact echoing like a war-drum across the throne's battlefield.
The Sovereigns had not fought together often.But under Kael's command — they moved as formation.
Fire and water struck together.Stone anchored where wind cut.Light seared where shadow poisoned.Storms raged where steel hammered.
Eight wills, braided into one.
The dragon's scales split. Not fully, not mortally — but enough. Blood, black as night yet burning like magma, spilled from cuts and scorches, sizzling on the broken ground.
The beast reared, wings spreading wide. A vortex of abyssal flame erupted from its chest, and with it came a shockwave that hurled half the necromanced bosses away like broken dolls.
But the Sovereigns held.
Aquara's veil thickened. Terrathorn raised walls of stone. Luminara's radiance shield blazed, and Pyraflame's fire clashed head-on with abyssal flame, two infernos colliding in midair with an explosion that fractured the battlefield further.
Umbra, clinging to the beast's neck, whispered shadows into its wounds.Zephyros and Voltra raged above, a hurricane of lightning and cutting winds.Graknar roared, axe carving another strike that split flesh and scale.
The Abyssal Dragon snarled for the first time.
It acknowledged them.
Kael stood amidst the storm, cloak snapping in the hurricane of power, his eyes blazing. He raised his skeletal staff, shadows coiling around his fingers, his aura braided into every Sovereign's strike.
This was no longer the clash of predator and prey.This was war.
His voice carried, unshaken by the roar of the abyss."Press the advantage! Break its footing! Do not let it breathe!"
The Sovereigns roared in unison, their cries shaking the battlefield, each voice a different element of creation, yet together a harmony of destruction.
Eight Sovereigns.
One Dragon.
The battlefield itself strained under the weight of their clash, spires collapsing, rivers of molten corruption surging wild, the throne-world howling as if resisting the invader's will.
And still Kael pressed forward, his hand raised, his legion burning their power in perfect synchronization.
The Sovereigns struck as one.
And for the briefest of moments — the Abyssal Dragon staggered back.