Magma Dragon's Heir

47th of Season of Fire, Year 1197 AL

An hour had passed since he had sounded the retreat, and Twinstrike stared at the rift above him. There was no doubt, the breach in reality was shrinking. It was hard to tell at first, with the haze of white flames obscuring it, but after an hour, the change was perceptible even through the obstruction.

“He is closing it,” the fanatical ghostqueen hissed, glaring at him and spitting venom.

“He is, but he is too slow. I estimate he shrank the rift by a tenth in one hour. The gods will return in eight hours, long before he is done. Once they take command, they will have an army they are far better at utilizing than I am.”

He didn’t really believe that. The alien creatures seemed to struggle with anything from physical reality, including organizing labor, but the proficiency with which they found and dug into the world’s mana vein was beyond human ability.

Twinstrike didn’t even know the world had rivers of mana flowing dozens of miles underground. The outer gods found them and dug their way to them in less than an hour after appearing in the world, and then they started feasting on it.

“You must agree that I am insignificant before them,” he continued with an argument the ghostqueen couldn’t deny. “And, since we have the time, isn’t it better to preserve the army so they can direct it once they arrive? For all we know, sealing the rift won’t harm them in any way.”

The ghostqueen could refute his words, but kept glaring at him.

“I don’t trust your traitorous kind.” She turned around and left.

As if you people are straightforward and trustworthy…

***

Newt was in a strange place, his consciousness floating in a limbo between three states - that of a human, that of the void, and that of the world’s will of pure mana.

The human was afraid when faced with two infinite forces. The void was hungry, seeking to pour into the world, devour everything it had to offer, and disperse it through an infinite expanse where the finite existence would become nonexistence. And finally, the world was defiant and unwilling. Powerful enough to fight, but lacking the mechanism to do so. The world’s nature was that of nurturing, of helping things grow, and with enough time, even an infinitely weak entity could drain it of all it had to offer.

Newt understood his situation. Everything about his existence became clear. He had stumbled upon a treasure under fortunate circumstances that allowed the world to force it to accept him. By taking in the power of the magma dragon with the blessing of the world during the celestial alignment of extreme flame, he had become a part of the heavenly seal, a star in the making.

The energy exchanged between the stars should have destroyed him outright the following year, but with Gatemaster Greenthorn’s intervention, and with the world filling him with enough mana to keep him stable, he endured and grew until he had truly become a part of the stellar alignment.

He was a minor part, and he knew that if he flew closer to the fiery stars, they would burn him even at his current level of power, but he would grow over the millions of years and become their peer.

One day, he would wield power equal to the sun’s infinite warmth.

The world promised him that and much more, but first, Newt had to keep the void at bay, to sever the hungry mouth seeking to devour the world’s mana.

The problem was the outer gods. His world naively considered them agents of the void, but Newt could clearly tell from their behavior that they weren’t a united force. He had seen enough alliances of convenience to recognize one from afar.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

As seconds turned to minutes, he knew he should have run out of mana, but he was still as full as he was when he had first approached the golden crack. The mana he was using was like that inside his realm, the ambient itself covering the cost of what he was doing.

While the world was helpless to defend itself, it certainly had the power to nurture its champion. Newt could even feel the offer for mana to expand his realm, but Newt refused. He preferred to expand his realm the proper way, using celestial flames mixed with the world’s purest earth energy.

The edge of the golden rift flaked off, and without him doing anything, the world moved that energy towards Newt’s body. It entered him, then flowed towards his core, carried by the flood of mana feeding his realm. When it touched the core, the motes dissolved and bound themselves with the mystical organ; they were neither the energy of the earth nor that of the heavens, murkier and yet purer than either.

“Man,” the world whispered. The crack was formed through countless sacrifices, their energies refined. It wasn’t really man as the world named it, that was an imperfect translation to fit Newt’s vocabulary. He meditated on it for a second before labeling it as something similar to refined, concentrated sentience more than anything else.

Newt’s human condition evolved. Not like humans when advancing their realms, since that wasn’t a natural process for humans, but more like saurians, which truly evolved and changed with each realm. He became something more. Organs not used for centuries changed in nature. They burned and left his body as flakes of ash. His lungs became a crystal mesh meant for capturing mana, and when he tried to follow the change deeper, he sensed his attention slipping from closing the rift, so he let the changes to his body happen while he performed his task.

After a moment of focus he realized it wasn’t that his attention was slipping. The three thick umbilicals connecting the outer gods inside his world with their bodies outside the reality were shaking and fighting back. Newt grit his teeth and fought them, time becoming a meaningless concept.

***

A heavy, unnatural pressure landed, and Maelstrom’s heart shook. The imperial forces had retreated over five hours ago, and while things were quiet, her side’s seal scribes, artificers, and mechanists were shoring up their defenses without stopping, as they prepared for the inevitable conflict.

“Prepare for battle,” the orders came. “The outer gods will arrive in under two and a half hours. Make sure you’re in your top form then.”

After fighting mere hours ago, only those with manarium could reasonably reach their peak states. As for everyone beyond the seventh, meditating when the enemy was mere minutes away was impossible.

Instead, Maelstrom circulated mana through her threads, priming them for battle where the speed of her actions would decide her life or death.

While it wasn’t official, ninth-realms knew of the Grand Scholar’s fall, and it served as a good warning that even the mightiest of them might fall at any moment.

She looked up at the second sun burning in the night sky, incinerating and reducing the crack. What was a mile in diameter had shrunk to six hundred yards, and the rate at which Newt was cauterizing it seemed to increase as time passed.

“You needn’t worry about him,” her grandfather said as he landed next to her.

“I’m not worried,” she lied. “They won’t just turn around, right? We expected they would fight us to the death, and they retreated, so I can hope…”

Maelstrom trailed off as her grandfather shook his head. “This is a battle to the death. They retreated after witnessing Newstar’s power, but they did it to wait for those that can fight him. Otherwise, they would’ve fled already.”

They stared towards the enemy camp, illuminated in the white light of the burning dimensional rift.

“Grandpa,” Maelstrom said with familiarity she rarely showed her grandfather. “Thank you for everything, for putting up with me, for helping me go through the hard times… Thank you for being there.”

“What’s that nonsense you’re talking about? You’re my granddaughter. It was my duty to look after you when you couldn’t fend for yourself.”

Maelstrom knew that wasn’t the case. There were thousands of grandchildren the old exalt hadn’t even seen, let alone intervened on their behalf or took the time to raise them. The only reasons her grandfather had even looked at her when she was a child were the prophecy and her potential.

“I want you to know I’m grateful. That’s all.”

She summoned a bottle of wine from her spatial pouch, and the old man frowned.

“Relax, it’s a commoner-grade wine. Without mana or anything that can impact our bodies in any way. It’s got an aroma I like, how about we share a glass?”

Maelstrom poured for them, and while her grandfather kept his dissatisfied frown, she could tell he liked it. She looked at the enemy camp, a glass in hand, her husband shining in the sky like the sun, and remembered the prophecy’s words.

She gripped her grandfather’s hand for what she knew was the last time and wondered whether she could have led a better life.