Part 1: The False Dawn
The silence in the Throne Room was shattered not by a scream, but by the sound of a soul igniting.
King Leonus threw his head back, his mouth opening in a silent rictus of agony that his vocal cords were too paralyzed to voice. The Vial of Holy Essence, empty and discarded on the mosaic floor, was already smoking, the crystal glass turning black and cracking from the residue of the liquid it had held.
The substance Leonus had swallowed was not a blessing in the traditional sense. It was a fuel.
Deep in the obsidian archives of the Vatican of Kailos, buried beneath layers of protective wards and forgotten by all but the High Pope, the "Holy Essence" was listed not under Miracles, but under Ordnance. It was a distillation of pure, unadulterated mana, stripped of the protective filters that usually prevented magic from consuming the caster. It was the metaphysical equivalent of pouring oil directly into a furnace. When ingested, it didn't just grant power; it converted the user's spirit—their animus, their very lifespan, the years they had left to live—into raw combustion. It was a candle burning at both ends, the middle, and the wick all at once, offering a few moments of godhood in exchange for total existential erasure.
Leonus didn't know the exact alchemical cost, but he felt the price immediately. It felt like swallowing a ladle of molten lead. It seared his esophagus, boiled in his stomach, and then exploded into his bloodstream like liquid lightning. The pain was absolute, transcending the physical limits of the human nervous system. It was a pain that should have killed him instantly, stopping his heart and frying his brain.
But the Essence refused to let him die. It gripped his heart and forced it to beat at a rhythm that would shatter a normal man's ribs. It flooded his mind with a manic, blinding clarity, rewriting his biology in real-time. He felt his future burning away—the decades of rule he had planned, the old age he would never see—all converted into immediate, violent power.
The heat radiating from him spiked. The air in the room shimmered, then ignited. The oxygen itself burned, creating a vacuum that pulled the curtains and banners toward the dais. The expensive tapestries hanging on the far walls, masterpieces depicting the hunt of the Great White Stag woven by the blind nuns of the East, curled and blackened before bursting into white, smokeless flame.
"I am..." Leonus gasped, his voice booming with a supernatural reverb that shook the dust from the high ceiling. "I am... THE SUN!"
A shockwave of blinding white light exploded from his body.
It hit Alaric like a physical wall. The massive, armored juggernaut was pushed back a single inch, his iron boots carving deep grooves into the stone floor as he braced against the gale of holy force. The dust in the room was vaporized instantly. Alaric didn't blink. His crimson eye-slits adjusted instantly to the glare, the Sanguine magic pulsating within his helm to filter out the blinding luminescence, focusing entirely on the threat on the dais.
On that dais, the transformation was horrific and magnificent.
The Lion's Heart armor, the ceremonial masterpiece of gold and mithril that Leonus had donned with such shaking hands, was not designed to withstand the heat radiating from the King's body. The gold began to soften. It didn't drip; it flowed like honey, losing its shape. The intricate engravings of lions and crowns smoothed out. The metal fused with the silk beneath, and then, horrifically, with the skin itself. Leonus screamed as the metal became one with his flesh, searing into his pores, plating him in a permanent, agonizing shell. But the Holy Essence flooded his brain with divine endorphins, turning the agony into a euphoric rush of purpose. He felt invincible. He felt eternal.
He floated off the ground, defying gravity. The cape of celestial mane disintegrated into ash, replaced by wings of pure, jagged light that erupted from his shoulder blades, spanning twenty feet. His eyes burned away, the fluids evaporating, leaving empty sockets that poured forth beams of solid radiance.
He was no longer a man in a suit. He was a golden idol brought to terrible life, a fusion of meat and metal burning with the energy of a dying star.
"Look at me!" Leonus roared, pointing a finger at the dark, rusted figure standing among the ruins of the doors. His voice was a chorus of a thousand judgments. "Look at the face of your God! I have accepted the burden! I have become the light!"
Alaric stood amidst the swirling dust. He looked at the glowing entity hovering above the Sun King's Throne.
He felt the heat. It was intense enough to blister skin at fifty paces. The red moss on Alaric's armor, usually thriving on the damp cold of the grave, hissed and withered. It pulled back into the crevices of the black metal to hide from the holy radiation, shrinking away like a living thing in pain. The metal of his pauldrons began to glow a dull, angry red, soaking up the thermal energy.
But Alaric was not impressed. He did not cower. He did not shield his eyes.
He had seen true power. He had looked into the eyes of the Blood Hag in the depths of the swamp. He had seen the infinite, hungry void of the Sanguine depths where light went to die. He had seen the machinery of the universe stripped bare. Compared to that, this... this was just a man setting himself on fire and calling it a sunrise. It was a tantrum of light.
"A lantern," the Hag whispered in Alaric's mind, her voice bored, dismissive of the display. "A bright, noisy lantern. It burns hot, my pet, but it burns fast. Put it out. It hurts my eyes."
Alaric took a step forward.
Leonus saw the movement. The manic joy in his heart spiked into fury. How dared this creature not kneel? How dared this abomination not burn in his presence?
"You dare approach?" Leonus laughed, a sound like chiming bells that grated against the stone. "You, a thing of rust and mud? You think you can touch the sun without burning?"
Leonus thrust his hand forward.
A lance of concentrated holy fire, thick as a tree trunk, erupted from his palm. It wasn't just fire; it was condensed plasma, hotter than the forge that had made Alaric's armor. It crossed the distance in a fraction of a second, ionizing the air as it passed, leaving a vacuum trail of silence before the thunderclap.
BOOM.
The beam struck Alaric dead center in the chest.
The impact was cataclysmic. The floor beneath Alaric cratered, shattering into a spiderweb of cracks that ran for twenty feet in every direction. The thermal shock turned the air into plasma. Molten stone sprayed outward like shrapnel, embedding in the walls and melting the gold leaf on the pillars.
Leonus held the beam, pouring his soul into the attack. He felt his life force draining away, years of potential existence consumed in seconds to maintain the output. He felt the cold creeping into his extremities even as he burned with fire. But he didn't care. He was purging the world.
"Burn!" Leonus screamed, his voice cracking. "Burn away the sin! I cleanse you! I save you!"
The beam lasted for ten seconds. In a magical duel, ten seconds of sustained bombardment was an eternity. It was enough energy to melt a castle wall. It was enough to vaporize a squadron of knights. It was enough to boil a lake.
Leonus cut the flow, panting, his chest heaving as the liquid gold of his armor rippled with his breath. Smoke filled the room, thick and acrid, obscuring the target.
"It is done," Leonus whispered, floating ten feet in the air, his wings pulsating. "The nightmare is over. I have won. The stain is removed."
The smoke began to clear, blown away by the intense heat currents swirling in the room.
Standing in the center of the crater, glowing cherry-red from the heat, was the Dog.
Alaric hadn't moved. He hadn't fallen. He hadn't retreated a single inch.
The black metal of his breastplate was glowing, pulsing with the absorbed energy. The Sanguine moss, which had withered moments ago, was now blooming aggressively, feeding on the residual magic. The stolen vitality of the Council, of Hareth, of Torian—it was all acting as a heat sink, absorbing the damage that should have vaporized him. The armor converted the holy fire into raw kinetic potential. The heat that should have killed him only made him stronger.
Alaric took a breath. The vents of his helmet opened.
HISS.
He vented the excess heat. A cloud of superheated steam, red and angry, shot out from his back and shoulders, cooling his armor instantly from red back to the abyssal black.
He looked up at the floating King.
Alaric raised one armored finger and beckoned.
Part 2: The Moth and the Furnace
Leonus stared at the unblemished monster. His mind, addled by the rush of power and the burning of his own neural pathways, couldn't process the reality. That attack should have turned a dragon to ash. It should have scoured the soul from the body. Why was the Dog still standing? Why was he still mocking him with that absolute, terrifying silence?
"You... you defy the light?" Leonus stammered. Then, the confusion turned to a petulant, cosmic rage. "You glutton! You always took everything! The glory! The strength! The attention! And now you try to take my divinity?"
Leonus flapped his wings of light. He ascended higher, hovering near the diamond-studded ceiling of the Throne Room, thirty feet above the ground. He wanted distance. He wanted to rain judgment from above, where the monster couldn't reach him. He felt safe in the air, detached from the mud and blood of the floor.
"If you want the fire," Leonus shrieked, his voice losing its human cadence, becoming a harmonious, terrifying screech of burning light, "THEN CHOKE ON IT!"
Leonus unleashed a storm.
Bolts of holy lightning rained down from the ceiling. They weren't aimed with precision; they were carpet-bombing the room. The mosaic floor exploded, sending shards of tile flying like bullets. The statues of the ancestors lining the walls were decapitated by stray blasts, their stone heads rolling on the floor. The Sun King's Throne, the seat of the dynasty, was struck, the ancient dragon bone splintering and charring under the assault.
Alaric began to run.
He didn't run away. He ran through the storm.
A bolt struck his shoulder, staggering him. Alaric didn't stop. He leaned into the blast, absorbing the impact, his shoulder pauldron glowing briefly before the moss ate the energy.
Another bolt struck the ground in front of him, creating a smoking pit. Alaric leaped over it, his heavy boots crunching onto the unstable stone.
He was a juggernaut. He was the inevitable end of the story that Leonus was trying desperately to rewrite. He was the consequences of a thousand bad decisions coming home to roost.
Alaric reached the massive stone pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling. These pillars were five feet thick, carved from solid marble and wrapped in gold leaf, standing as testaments to the strength of Gaan.
He didn't hide behind one. He punched his fingers into the stone.
With a roar of exertion that sounded like tearing metal, Alaric ripped a massive chunk of the pillar free—a block of marble weighing easily a ton. The structure of the room groaned, dust falling from the ceiling. His strength was not mechanical; it was the stolen strength of a thousand men, channeled through the runes of the Hag.
He pivoted on his heel, the armor plates grinding together.
He threw it.
The marble block flew through the air like a catapult shot, spinning end over end, aiming straight for the glowing figure of the King.
Leonus saw the projectile coming. He sneered.
"Mud! Stones! Is that all you have? You fight a God with rocks?"
Leonus slashed his hand through the air. A blade of light sliced the marble block in half mid-air. The two pieces flew past him, crashing harmlessly into the wall behind the throne, embedding themselves in the fresco.
"I am the sky!" Leonus gloated, spreading his arms wide, the light intensifying until it was painful to look at. "I am untouchable! You are just dirt! You belong on the ground!"
Alaric didn't wait for the debris to settle. He was already moving.
He wasn't throwing another rock. He was climbing.
He dug his iron fingers into the masonry of the wall. He climbed with a terrifying, insect-like speed, hauling his massive bulk up the vertical surface towards the balcony that overlooked the Throne Room. He ignored gravity. He ignored the bolts of light singeing his cape. He ignored the physics that said a thing of iron should not move like a spider.
Leonus realized too late what was happening. The Dog wasn't trying to shoot him down. The Dog was getting to the high ground.
"No!" Leonus shouted. He gathered a sphere of concentrated plasma in his hands. "Stay down!"
He hurled the sphere at the wall.
Alaric let go.
He dropped from the wall just as the sphere impacted, vaporizing the stone where he had been a second ago. The balcony collapsed in a shower of molten rock.
But Alaric didn't fall to the floor. He landed on the top of the ruined Sun King's Throne.
The massive chair sat on a high dais. From the top of the throne, Alaric was almost level with the hovering King. He balanced on the charred skull of the dragon, a dark gargoyle perched on the ruins of the kingdom.
Alaric didn't pause to respect the seat of power. He stood on the dragon's skull. His boots crushed the gold leaf.
He bent his knees. The Sanguine energy coiled in his legs, a supernatural spring loading with potential.
"Jump," the Hag commanded.
Alaric launched himself.
He flew through the air, a missile of black iron. It was an impossible sight—a creature of that weight defying the earth, propelling himself into the King's domain.
Leonus's eyes—the beams of light—widened. He tried to fly up, to get out of range. He flapped his wings of light frantically.
He wasn't fast enough.
Alaric's hand closed around Leonus's ankle.
The contact was violent. The heat of Leonus's "divine" form burned Alaric's gauntlet immediately, fusing the metal of the glove to the fused gold of Leonus's leg. But Alaric didn't let go. He clamped down with the force of a vice.
"Get off me!" Leonus screamed, kicking at Alaric's face with his other foot. The kick connected, denting Alaric's helmet, smashing the sensory array on the left side, but the grip held.
Gravity, which Leonus thought he had conquered, suddenly remembered him.
Alaric didn't just fall; he pulled. He used his mass to drag the "Sun" out of the sky.
They fell together, a tangle of gold light and black rot, plummeting toward the dais.
CRASH.
They hit the stone.
The impact shattered the Sun King's Throne completely. The ancient dragon skull splintered into bone shards. The dais collapsed under the combined force of the impact. The shockwave blew the remaining glass out of the windows.
They rolled across the floor, crashing through the debris, a ball of violent energy.
Alaric ended up on top. He straddled the glowing, burning body of the King.
The heat was unbearable. It was like sitting on a stove. Alaric's inner thighs were cooking inside his armor. The red moss was screaming, dying and regenerating in a frantic cycle, the smell of burning ozone and rotting vegetation filling the air.
But Alaric didn't care. He raised a fist.
He punched Leonus in the face.
The blow cracked the fused gold mask of the King's face. Light spilled out of the crack like blood.
Alaric raised his fist again.
Part 3: The Weight of Sin
The beating was savage. It was primal. It was the rejection of magic in favor of brute, undeniable physics.
Each time Alaric's fist connected with Leonus, the sound was different. The first few hits rang like metal on metal. Then, as the gold fused to Leonus's skin began to crack, the sound became wetter. Crunchier. It was the sound of a statue being dismantled by a sledgehammer.
Leonus was screaming, but not in pain. The Holy Essence numbed the pain, turning it into distant information. He was screaming in confusion.
"I am a God!" Leonus shrieked, bucking his hips, trying to throw the monster off. "Why don't you burn? Why don't you die? I am the anointed one!"
Leonus unleashed a pulse of energy from his chest—an omnidirectional blast of pure white fire.
It blew Alaric off him. The Dog tumbled backward, skidding across the ruined mosaic floor, smoke rising from every joint of his armor.
Leonus scrambled to his feet. He looked broken. The gold skin on his face was cracked, revealing raw, glowing flesh underneath. His wings of light were flickering, sputtering like a dying torch. One wing was shorter than the other now, leaking light like bleeding gas.
The Holy Essence was demanding its price.
Inside Leonus, the fuel was running low. He had burned his entire youth. He had burned the possibility of ever being an old man. Now, the Essence was starting to burn his motor functions. His left arm twitched uncontrollably. He felt a cold numbness spreading in his chest, a void where his heart used to be.
"You..." Leonus panted, pointing a shaking hand at Alaric. "You are just a stain. I will scrub you out. I will burn you until there is nothing left but shadow."
Leonus looked around for a weapon. His ceremonial sword had melted during the transformation. His hands were empty.
His eyes fell on the Royal Scepter.
It lay in the rubble of the throne. It was a rod of white gold, tipped with a massive, uncut sunstone the size of a fist. It was the symbol of the King's authority to rule over magic itself, the key to the city's defenses. It was said to have been a gift from the Angels during the First Dawn.
Leonus grabbed it.
As his hand touched the scepter, the Holy Essence resonated with the sunstone. The scepter lit up, turning into a blade of solid, humming light. It extended four feet from the tip, crackling with divine power. It was a weapon of pure authority.
"Kneel!" Leonus screamed, charging.
He moved with supernatural speed. He was a blur of light.
Alaric was just getting to his feet when Leonus arrived.
The scepter swung.
Alaric raised his forearm to block.
SZZZZT.
The scepter cut through the outer plating of Alaric's armor like a hot knife through butter. It severed the internal sinew of the Sanguine weave. It cut deep into the meat of Alaric's arm, searing the flesh instantly.
Alaric grunted—a low, guttural sound of damage—stumbling back. Red fluid—a mix of his own preserved blood and the Sanguine oil—sprayed out, sizzling on the floor.
"Yes!" Leonus laughed, swinging again. "You bleed! You are nothing! You are just meat in a can!"
He struck again. A downward slash.
Alaric dodged, but not fast enough. The scepter grazed his chest, carving a glowing furrow across the black breastplate. The heat cauterized the wound instantly, but the structural integrity of the armor was failing. The red moss hissed, recoiling from the divine blade, unable to consume the concentrated holiness.
Alaric backed away. He was heavy, slow. Leonus was fast, light, powered by the drug.
"He is burning out," the Hag observed, watching the fight through Alaric's eyes. "But he is dangerous in his death throes. Don't let him cut you apart, Alaric. Ground him. Take his toy away."
Leonus pressed the attack. He was a whirlwind of golden violence. He struck high, low, high again. Alaric was forced on the defensive, using his armored gauntlets to deflect the blows, sacrificing metal to save his core. Every hit peeled away layers of Alaric's defense.
"Where is your silence now?" Leonus taunted, swinging for Alaric's head. "Where is your judgment? You are just a slow, stupid beast! I am the King!"
Alaric saw the opening.
Leonus was overcommitted. He was drunk on the success of the scepter. He swung a wide, horizontal arc, aiming to decapitate Alaric.
Alaric didn't duck. He stepped in.
He took the hit.
The scepter struck Alaric's neck guard. The metal sheared. The blade of light bit into Alaric's neck muscles, burning flesh, cutting dangerously close to the spine.
But Alaric didn't stop. He ignored the lethal wound.
He grabbed the shaft of the scepter with his good hand.
Leonus's eyes went wide. He tried to pull the weapon back, but Alaric's grip was absolute.
"Let go!" Leonus screamed. "It belongs to me!"
Alaric looked down at the King. The red light in his eyes flared brighter than the gold.
Alaric twisted his body. He used the scepter as a lever. He swung Leonus off his feet and slammed him into the nearest standing pillar.
CRACK.
Leonus hit the stone back-first. The impact knocked the wind out of him. The wings of light vanished completely. He slid down the pillar, gasping.
Alaric didn't let go of the scepter. He ripped it from Leonus's grasp with a savage yank that nearly dislocated the King's shoulder.
He held the symbol of the King's power. The sunstone glowed brightly in his rusted fist.
Part 4: The Breaking of the Sun
The loss of the scepter broke something in Leonus. It wasn't just a weapon; it was his identity. Without it, he felt naked, exposed, a fraud wrapped in burning skin. He huddled at the base of the pillar, clutching his empty hand.
He stared at the scepter in Alaric's hand. That stone had been the heart of the kingdom's wards. It was older than the palace. It was the promise that the Sun would always rise on Gaan. It was the proof that he was the rightful King.
Alaric looked at the beautiful object. He looked at the King cowering at the base of the pillar.
He brought the scepter down on his own iron knee.
SNAP.
The Royal Scepter broke in two. The sunstone shattered into dust. The blade of light vanished, plunging the room back into the grey gloom of the night, lit only by the flickering fires of the burning tapestries. The divine hum that had filled the air died instantly.
Alaric dropped the broken pieces on the floor. They clattered like common junk.
"Broken," Alaric rumbled.
Leonus scrambled backward, his hands slipping in the dust and debris.
"You..." Leonus wept, the tears sizzling as they touched his burning cheeks. "You destroyed it... you destroyed everything! Why won't you just die? Why do you have to ruin everything I built?"
Alaric walked toward him. He was limping. The wound in his leg from the fall was deep. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the tendons severed. His neck was a ruin of torn metal and flesh, leaking black ichor.
But he was still coming.
He reached down. He grabbed Leonus by the throat.
The gold skin of the King's neck was hot, but cooling. The Essence was fading. The fire was dying down to embers. Leonus was no longer a god. He was just a dying man in a melting suit. The golden light in his eyes was dimming, revealing the terrified human pupils beneath.
Alaric lifted him up. He pinned Leonus against the pillar.
Leonus clawed at Alaric's hand. His fingernails, now fused gold talons, scratched harmlessly at the iron.
"You can't kill me," Leonus gasped, his eyes darting around the room, looking for a savior that wasn't there. "I am the King! The Gods won't let me die!"
Alaric tightened his grip.
"They are not here," Alaric said.
He leaned in close. The red slit of his visor was inches from Leonus's face.
"I am."
Leonus stared into the void of the helmet. He saw no mercy there. He saw no brother. He saw only the reflection of his own sins.
"Please," Leonus whispered, his voice cracking. "Alaric... old friend... I'm scared."
Alaric paused.
For a second, the Hag was silent. For a second, the monster remembered the boy he had played with in these very halls. He remembered the oath of brotherhood they had sworn. They had been equals. They had been partners. He remembered saving Leonus from a wild boar on their first hunt. He remembered Leonus laughing as they raced horses along the riverbank.
But then he remembered the Copper Grove. He remembered the chains. He remembered the feeling of his own soul being flayed to keep the lights on for one more year. He remembered the look on Leonus's face as the door closed—not sadness, but relief. He remembered the betrayal.
Mercy was a luxury of the living. Alaric was dead.
He pulled his right arm back. The Sanguine moss pulsed, concentrating all its power into his fist. The arm trembled with the contained violence of a coiled spring.
He prepared the final blow. He was going to punch through Leonus's chest. He was going to rip out the heart and eat it, ending the line of Gaan forever.
He was the victor. The King was broken. The fight was over.
Alaric's confidence swelled. He wound up for a massive, overhand strike—a move he had used a thousand times in the training yard. It was his signature breaker, a blow that overwhelmed defenses with sheer power. Whenever he used it, Leonus would flinch, cover up, and be knocked to the dirt.
It was the move that ended every sparring match they had ever fought. It was the move of the stronger brother putting the weaker one in his place.
Alaric swung.
Part 5: The Mockery of the Dead
It was a mistake.
For twenty years, Alaric had been the stronger fighter. He had been the protector, the shield, the hammer. In the training yards, he had always pulled this specific punch at the last second to avoid hurting his best friend. He had conditioned Leonus to expect the heavy swing, the wind-up, the crushing impact. He had trained the King to expect mercy.
But Leonus was not just a friend anymore. And he wasn't just a man.
The Holy Essence was fading, yes, but it wasn't gone. It had burned away his future, his potential, his soul. But it had left one thing behind: Instinct. Hyper-accelerated, god-tier reflex.
And Leonus had seen this punch a thousand times.
In the fraction of a second that Alaric wound up, time seemed to stop for Leonus.
He saw the shift in Alaric's weight. He saw the shoulder drop. He saw the elbow flare. It was the "Hammer of the North," Alaric's favorite finisher.
In the past, Leonus would have cowered.
But the Essence flooded his nervous system with white-hot lightning. The drug whispered to him, screaming the counter-move.
I know this move, Leonus thought, clarity piercing his panic. He overcommits. He leaves the neck exposed. He still thinks this is a sparring match.
Alaric's fist came down like a meteor.
Leonus didn't block. He didn't cower.
He moved.
With a speed that left an afterimage of gold light, Leonus ducked under the swing.
Alaric's fist hit the pillar where Leonus's head had been a millisecond before. The marble exploded, dust and stone spraying outward. The force of the missed blow threw Alaric off balance. He stumbled forward, his massive chest exposed, his neck guard already sheared away by the scepter.
Leonus was behind him.
The King didn't think. He didn't hesitate. He acted with the efficiency of a machine.
He stiffened his hand into a spear-hand strike. The fused gold on his fingers formed a jagged, razor-sharp point.
He channeled the very last dregs of the Holy Essence into his fingertips.
"Checkmate," Leonus whispered.
He struck.
He drove his hand into the back of Alaric's neck, right at the base of the skull, where the armor had been compromised.
CRUNCH.
It was a wet, sickening sound. The sound of vertebrae snapping. The sound of the spinal cord being severed.
The golden hand punched through the meat of the neck and severed the connection between the brain and the body.
Alaric went rigid.
The red light in his eyes flickered violently. The vents hissed one last time and then fell silent.
The massive, iron bulk of the monster collapsed.
BOOM.
Alaric hit the floor face-first. He didn't move. He didn't twitch. The Sanguine moss turned grey and dormant. The red glow faded from the vents. He was paralyzed, a god of war turned into a statue of scrap metal.
Leonus stood over him, panting, his hand dripping with black ichor.
The King stared at his hand. Then he looked at the unmoving body of the beast.
He started to laugh. It was a breathless, wheezing sound. The Essence was still humming in his veins, keeping him upright, but it was eating his mind now. The euphoria of survival twisted into mania.
"I... I got you," Leonus choked out, wiping black blood on his ruined chest. "You stupid dog. You always used that move. You always... overextended."
Leonus began to pace around the fallen body of his best friend. He kicked Alaric's helmet.
"Look at you!" Leonus shouted, his voice echoing in the ruined hall. "You thought you could judge me? You thought you were the righteous one? I am the King! I am the Sun! I burn the shadows away!"
Leonus stopped pacing. He leaned down, bringing his glowing, burnt face close to Alaric's ear.
"You know, they were right about you," Leonus whispered, his voice dripping with cruelty. "The nobles. The Court. Even the stable boys. They called you my dog. 'Here, Alaric! Fetch, Alaric! Guard the door, Alaric!'"
Leonus laughed again, a sound devoid of sanity.
"And you always did. You barked at my enemies. You bit who I told you to bite. You were a good dog, Alaric. Loyal. Stupid. Obedient to the end."
He spat on the helmet.
"But a dog is only useful as long as it hunts," Leonus sneered. "And you failed. Just like her."
Alaric's system remained silent.
"She cried for her dog, you know," Leonus mocked, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The night you left for the Grove... I went to her. I stood by her bedchamber door."
Alaric's consciousness, buried deep in the dark, flickered.
"She was screaming your name," Leonus continued, savoring the memory. "She was clawing at the sheets, coughing up black blood. 'Alaric, please! Alaric, save me!' It was pathetic. I watched the life leave her eyes, Alaric. I watched her breath stop. And do you know what I did? I did nothing. I let her rot. Because a dog doesn't need a wife. A dog needs a master."
Silence fell over the Throne Room. The dust settled on Alaric's unmoving form.
Leonus stood up, wiping the ichor from his hand, feeling the triumph wash over him.
"You were always too soft," Leonus sneered, turning his back on the corpse. "Too soft for the throne. Too soft for... Elara."
The name hung in the air.
And then, the air shattered.
Deep inside the casing, something snapped.
It wasn't a bone. It wasn't a muscle. It was the dam holding back the Sanguine Ocean.
The sound of her name—the final, ultimate trigger—bypassed the physical paralysis. It bypassed the severed spine. It bypassed the biology entirely. The rage that erupted was not of this world. It was cold. It was absolute.
The temperature in the Throne Room dropped forty degrees in a heartbeat. Frost flash-froze the pillars. The dust on the floor stopped swirling, pressed down by a crushing, invisible weight.
Leonus stopped walking. He looked around, his grin fading into confusion. "What... what is that?"
A low, vibrating hum began to emanate from Alaric's body.
It wasn't the red steam. It was something else.
A dark, heavy aura began to bleed out of the armor. It was the color of dried blood, thick and viscous like oil. It poured out of the vents, pooling on the floor, defying gravity. It began to rise, swirling around the room, blotting out the moonlight streaming from the ceiling.
The shadows lengthened. The light from Leonus's body was swallowed by the encroaching darkness. The Sanguine moss turned black.
Alaric didn't move a muscle. He didn't need to.
The room began to boil with his hate. The very stones cracked under the pressure of his fury.
Leonus stepped back, the mania replaced by a sudden, primal terror. He looked at the black fog rising around him, choking the light.
"Alaric?" Leonus whispered.
From the floor, a voice spoke. It didn't come from the helmet. It came from the aura itself. It came from the walls. It came from the dark.
"ELARA."
The red light in Alaric's visor didn't just flicker. It exploded into a beam of solid crimson hate.
The Dog was not done feeding.