The tunnels reeked of blood and charred flesh. Runes glowed faintly on the walls, etched with trembling hands and fueled by life drained from unwilling victims.
Kael's shadow flowed ahead of him, a silent tide that swallowed torchlight wherever it touched. In the cells that lined the passage, frail forms stirred — elves, skin pallid, eyes glassy from repeated experiments. Not one word left Kael's lips, but his shadow reached into each cage, swallowing every prisoner in silence.
One by one, the captives vanished into the sanctuary of his Summon Space, hidden from sight. By the time Kael reached the chamber's heart, not a single soul remained. Only the stench of spilled life lingered.
From the darkness, footsteps echoed — deliberate, theatrical.
Lord Maldrake revealed himself, his robe heavy with alchemical glyphs that pulsed faint green, veins crawling under his pale skin with the same glow. His smile was sharp, lips drawn back over teeth that had been filed to points.
"You enter my sanctum cloaked in shadows," Maldrake hissed, his eyes narrowing. "You don't even announce your name. Good. Names are for men. You are no man, are you? You reek of… something older."
Kael said nothing. His hood masked his features, his aura buried beneath a wall of suppression.
Maldrake's hands swept wide, displaying the chamber. "Here, I craft immortality. With elf blood — pure, eternal — and glyphs that bind flesh to will, I have touched the edges of godhood. You dare trespass in my temple?"
His laughter echoed, sharp and ragged, like steel dragged over stone.
With a gesture, the vats surrounding the chamber cracked open. Green liquid spilled onto the stone, hissing as it burned through rock. From it crawled the abominations — hybrids of elf and beast, flesh bound by black glyphs, eyes hollow yet burning with enslaved hatred.
They screeched in unison, an unnatural chorus of agony and rage.
Maldrake raised his hand. "Behold my Eterna-Born! Ageless. Tireless. Perfect."
Kael's fingers twitched slightly. His shadow writhed, stretching across the floor until it touched the feet of the nearest abominations. The glyphs binding them flickered. Maldrake frowned.
"What are you—?"
The abominations froze mid-lunge. Their bodies convulsed as Kael's necromancy gripped them, intertwining with the glyphs. For a moment, Maldrake's will clashed with Kael's abyss-forged command. The glyphs glowed, sputtered, then dimmed.
Slowly, the creatures turned. Not toward Kael. Toward Maldrake.
"Impossible," Maldrake whispered, his voice trembling.
Kael finally spoke, his tone low, carrying the weight of the Abyss.
"Your glyphs are a child's scrawl. Watch, alchemist, as I show you true mastery."
Kael raised his hand. The abominations surged forward, howling as they obeyed their new master.
Maldrake's face twisted into madness. "You think to turn my creations against me? I am their maker! Their god!"
He snapped his fingers, flooding them with glyph-light. Their veins flared, muscles doubling, claws lengthening as his glyphs fought to drag them back.
The chamber quaked as the clash of wills escalated. Green glyph-light warred with Kael's abyssal shadow, each abomination tearing itself apart in the struggle — until Kael exerted himself fully.
The Abyss Dragon's Core within him pulsed, releasing a flood of power. Shadow surged through the glyphs like a tidal wave, burning them black.
Every abomination fell silent. Their heads snapped toward Maldrake.
Then they attacked.
The city screamed.
Three Abyssal Bosses rampaged through the streets, summoned hours before. No blade pierced their hides, no flame slowed their march. Towers toppled, walls shattered, soldiers died screaming beneath their weight.
Greyspire, jewel of the frontier, burned in the night.
Veterans who once believed themselves unbreakable faltered. If three of these things could do this, what army lay hidden in the shadows beyond?
Back below, Maldrake staggered as his "Eterna-Born" ripped at his robes, clawing at his flesh, their glyphs inverted into chains that bound them to Kael's will.
His laughter returned, high and cracked, though flecked with blood. "Yes… yes! You are no man. No mage. You are death itself given flesh."
He stumbled to the dais at the chamber's center, where a massive cauldron boiled with glyph-lit liquid. "But let us see if death can devour eternity."
He plunged his hands into the brew and drank deep. His body warped, veins bursting, bones snapping as flesh bulged into new shapes. His scream twisted into a roar as metallic scales crawled across his skin, fangs burst from his mouth, and a serpent's tail split from his spine.
What stood before Kael was no longer a man. Maldrake had become his final abomination — a towering, steel-scaled serpent-man with a body powered by glyphfire.
"I… AM… IMMORTAL!" the abomination roared, shaking the chamber.
Kael's shadow spread wide, answering the roar with silence.
"You wanted eternity," Kael murmured, his voice as cold as the Abyss. "Let's test it against the power of a dragon's heart."
The clash began.
The chamber's air was thick with the metallic tang of blood, glyph-fire, and ozone. Maldrake's abomination towered above Kael, scales glinting, claws drumming against the stone floor, tail coiling with lethal intent. Every flicker of his eyes radiated madness and defiance, a challenge made flesh.
Kael's shadow stretched, stretching across the chamber like a living tide. He inhaled slowly, feeling the Abyss Dragon Core thrumming within his chest, a heartbeat of pure, unfathomable power. He had spent ten long years mastering himself, yet nothing compared to this raw potential.
Without summoning a single ally, Kael stepped forward, voice barely audible over the deafening hum of energy.
"Let's see if your eternity can survive a dragon's heart."
Maldrake lunged first, claws slicing through the air with supernatural speed. Kael sidestepped with effortless precision, his form a shadow barely perceptible. Each movement left a trail of blackened air, residue of the dragon-core energy searing the stone beneath his feet.
He struck once, a single punch infused with the abyssal might coursing through him. Maldrake staggered, scales cracking under the pressure, glyph-fire sputtering from his skin. He countered with a swipe, the chamber rattling, walls fissuring under the force.
The fight became a blur — shadow against scaled flesh, bursts of dragon energy against glyph-fire infernos. Kael's attacks tore through Maldrake's defenses without mercy: his blows unrelenting, precise, and terrifyingly fast. Every strike carried the weight of hundreds of his previous battles, multiplied by the raw essence of the Abyss Dragon Core.
Maldrake roared, fury and disbelief mingling in a sound that shook the stone ceiling. He unleashed glyph-fire in a sweeping wave, trying to overwhelm Kael with overwhelming force. Kael absorbed the blow, letting the energy wash over him, then countered with a palm strike infused with his fully awakened strength. The shockwave sent Maldrake crashing against the far wall, cracking the stone beneath him.
Kael's mind was a calm storm. He had not summoned a single creature, yet every fiber of his being radiated destructive potential. The core pulsed, feeding his muscles, his reflexes, his very aura.
"Do you see it, Alchemist?" Kael murmured. "This is not the power of your glyphs. This is a dragon's heart… in human form."
He gathered his energy, channeling it into a concentrated strike. The chamber lit with a blinding flash as dragon-core energy erupted from him, forming a jagged lance of black and crimson light.
Maldrake's abomination barely had time to react. Kael's strike tore through his torso, shattering glyphs, cracking scales, and splitting muscle. The force sent him flying into the ceiling, stone exploding outward.
The abomination tried to rise, dragging itself with shattered limbs, glyph-fire sputtering uncontrollably. Kael advanced, his presence alone bending the air, radiating immense pressure.
With a final surge, Kael let the Abyss Dragon Core's energy reach its apex. His shadow expanded, wrapping the entire chamber. Glyphs, steel, and flesh could not withstand the concentrated might.
Maldrake's body erupted in a cataclysmic explosion, scales and glyphs vaporized in a wave of energy that shook the ground for miles. Kael did not move; he stood as the blast washed over him, untouched, a terrifying calm at the eye of destruction.
Silence followed. Smoke and rubble filled the chamber. Kael's chest rose and fell slowly. His eyes wandered over the scorched remains, then upward at the stone ceiling cracked in a thousand places.
Not once had he summoned Pyraflame, Aquara, Umbra, Luminara, or any of his other forces. Not a single minion had been needed. Every blow, every counter, every strike — it had been him.
His breath caught. He stepped back, hand trembling slightly. The Abyss Dragon Core had made him strong… impossibly strong.
For the first time in a decade, Kael felt fear — not for himself, but for the sheer magnitude of what he had become.
He was a one-man storm. A force capable of annihilating everything in his path. And if that power ever ran unchecked… what could stop him?