Magma Dragon's Heir

47th of Season of Fire, Year 1197 AL

Dandelion’s pupils widened. He could hear Newt’s words. It wasn’t a vision, but a two-way communication across time.

“It’s good to see you after all these ages.” Newt dissolved his defenses.

He was dying anyway, and his task was done. He had aged. Gray streaked his once red hair, and wrinkles born of pain and frowning marred his face. He was drained, everything he had to give, he gave to the world. He relaxed his right, the rift was gone, dissolved, and the shells in which the outer gods had committed the majority of their minds and souls crumbled.

All that they were, all that they had been, surged into him in a moment of frozen time, and he knew. He knew everything.

“It will take some getting used to.” A familiar voice, the voice of the fifth outer god, the one that had warned him not to waste time, said in a relaxed manner. “And while you are far from omniscient, you can see if you focus.”

Newt did. He focused on his brother, on his miserable life and hollow existence. The amount of madness and filth clinging to his soul was frightening.

“Yes,” Newt said with compassion the likes of which he had never felt for another living being, “I see how you started, and how it got us all where we are now. I have used your gift well, thank you. Now, please accept mine.”

Newt’s left, the hand holding the link with Dandelion, clenched harder, and he ripped at the chains and the shackles binding him to something outside the world.

“He is mine. You can’t have him. Besides, only an elder god such as myself can influence him and his class. You are now but a lesser deity, this world your dominion, but we can talk about that later. Much later. If you really want to help him, I allow you to temper his core. Just look at that pitiful thing.”

Newt looked, and saw. “It says only an elder god can influence your Anarchist class, while my dominion extends to this world alone. In that case, this is all I can do for you.”

Dandelion spasmed in agony, alone, save for an embarrassingly drunken Newt, sixteen years old, angry, lost, and in a timeline that had never happened.

“You can handle it,” Newt encouraged his brother, and pretended he couldn’t see his own embarrassing self, slowly running to impale Dandelion for no good reason. “And I promise you it will be worth the pain and effort. Fare well in this and future lives, and know I never blamed you for leaving me, despite whatever you may think.”

Newt released the ripple in time and space, and the world moved. It moved with slowness, the likes of which he had never experienced. He first scanned the battlefield, and saw the most important thing he wished to see.

Maelstrom was on the ground, unconscious and out of mana, with a hole in her clothes and freshly regenerated, pink flesh beneath.

Many others weren’t so lucky. Greenthorn, Newt’s former master, was gone, as was Maelstrom’s grandfather, and fourteen of their twenty-one exalts. Two thirds dead, and the casualties at the lower realm were even worse.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The saurians had fared better. About half of them survived, with Magminion lying broken and barely alive on the ground. An exalt that looked like a man made of blood was flying towards him to finish the job.

Newt moved faster.

With a disinterested palm strike, he erased the exalt from reality, then moved on to Magminion. A bolt of mana pierced the dying dragon’s body, and first devoured and subjugated all the foreign energies, then used them to repair Magminion’s body.

He opened his eyes, but by that time, Newt had already healed Emeraldstreak, and dozens of others, noting that Rexheart had fallen. True to his name and nature, he bit beyond anyone’s expectations and lay surrounded by the broken bodies of his enemies.

You didn’t have to try so hard, Newt thought, staring at the disfigured corpse. A single thought reshaped the body into a pristine condition, but the man remained dead.

“Don’t even think about it,” the idol from the void said. “Meddling with the cycle of life and death is beyond you, and even once you reach that point, it will come at a cost.”

The idea of bringing Rexheart back never entered Newt’s mind, meaning the idol couldn’t read his thoughts. Newt committed that piece of information to memory and continued moving through the battlefield, saving lives and eliminating those who were about to deliver lethal blows.

He had been at it for what seemed like half an hour to him, but time moved differently for the rest, and the exalts were starting to notice something had happened. Under normal circumstances, Newt would have let them run, but with the ruined bodies of his friends, benefactors, and followers all around, he couldn’t find room in his heart for mercy.

All the exalts died in a single breath, their bodies stored in Newt’s spatial pouch, and from there, the desperate battle had become a slaughter with no survivors on the other side.

While his allies finished off the stragglers, Newt sat next to the sleeping Maelstrom. The inert, mostly ruined amulet hanging around her neck made Newt shake his head. Even after his death, Dandelion was watching out for them.

“I can’t believe you couldn’t find a way to defeat an outer god one-on-one,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’m kind of disappointed.”

Maelstrom chose that moment to open her eyes. “Aren’t you expecting a bit too much from me?”

“Not at all. You have that lightning inside you, you should’ve been the one to seal the rift while I fought. We could’ve done much better.”

Then he remembered that Maelstrom’s grandfather had died and grew somber.

“A lot of people have died. Friends, family, but we’ve won. We’ve won, Mel.” He hugged her and held her tight, resolving himself never to let go.

***

45th of Season of Fire, Year 1198 AL

Newt ignored the celestial flames landing on him as he paced in the garden outside his family treehouse. He didn’t understand why he was supposed to do that, or why he had to wait outside while Lady Monsoon opened his wife’s belly to draw out a healthy baby girl.

Knights beyond the third realm couldn’t give birth the regular way, due to babies being too weak compared to parents, but healers or healing potions took care of any wounds and scars.

Newt winced as Lady Monsoon slapped the girl’s bottom with a palm that could shatter fortifications, but she controlled her strength well.

As soon as the baby started crying, Newt was inside, holding her in his hands.

“Newstar,” Lady Monsoon said, “she needs to eat and spend time with her mother.”

Newt sighed. “Being a father is so tough. Whatever you do, women tell you you’re doing the wrong thing, and they later complain you’re not doing anything worthwhile.”

Both women just glared at him, and Newt handed over the baby to his wife, trying to preserve as much dignity as possible.

“What do we call her?” Newt asked. “I was thinking Pumpkinpie,” both women’s jaws hit the floor. “It’s a great name, right?”

He stared at Maelstrom, face overflowing with enthusiasm.

“No it’s not, and I’m not naming my daughter pumpkin pie, you pumpkin!”