by Dante King
Ji-Ko and his monks, who now all had undead minions of their own, bowed low before me.
“This is the greatest battle our order will ever face, God of Death,” Ji-Ko said. “Each and every one of us monks is ready to die on this day, and our deaths with be glorious! Tell us what you want us to do, and we will walk the path of righteous death with joy in our hearts and honor in our staves!”
“Advance with this small army we’ve got here,” I said. “Draw the Blood Army’s attention away from the fleeing civilians, get them to focus on you. Draw them back that way, fight a slow retreat, get the Blood Army to move toward the ocean. I know you’re outnumbered by a thousand to one, but draw them in and fight like cornered beasts.”
“Where are you going?” Anna-Lucielle asked.
“Aren’t you going to fight alongside us?” Rami-Xayon asked anxiously. “I used up all my power to summon the hurricane that brought us here with such speed. I can’t even conjure up a minuscule fist-sized tornado that would blow away a mosquito now. We need you with us!”
“I’ll be fighting with you all, don’t worry,” I said. “I’m gonna be attacking from inside the Blood Pyramid.”
“Inside it?!” Rami-Xayon gasped. “Have you gone mad, Vance?”
“I trust that you know what you’re doing, Lord Vance,” Rollar said warily, “but please, please tell me that your undead army is nearby. If they do not emerge from the ocean in time, that Blood Army is going to crush us like insects under their terrible red boots. As strong as this group of gods and warriors is, we cannot resist the might of that army, not outnumbered by a thousand to one.”
“Just fight a steady retreat and draw them toward the ocean,” I said. “Trust me on this. I can’t waste any more time talking; I’ll see you all on the other side!”
With that, I directed a harpy to pluck me from the ground and fly me toward the Blood Pyramid. I had sensed a tremendous amount of death there and knew that there had to be plenty of corpses inside the pyramid: all the people who had been sacrificed in recent weeks and months to swell the power of Elandriel and the Blood God. And those corpses would take their revenge against the entities responsible for their deaths, for I would be turning them into a Death Titan.
To cover my approach, I directed my entire force of hundreds of harpies to attack the Blood Army, diving at them as they advanced. Dozens of harpies swooped down and snatched up Blood Demons, flying them hundreds of feet up into the air before hurling them down again. I flew above the attacking harpy horde, veering in a wide arc to get around to the rear of the Blood Pyramid.
When I came closer to the vast structure, I saw that there were a number of doors leading to the interior, and none of them were guarded. Why would they be? Nobody would be suicidal enough to try to get into this place. Nobody but me, of course.
I landed on the side of the pyramid, near the base, and left the harpy there in case I needed to make a quick escape. Then, feeling almost as if I was in the middle of some surreal nightmare, I walked in through the open door. A stone passage led me to the interior of the Blood Pyramid, which I quickly discovered was mostly hollow. Inside was a massive chamber, the size of which made me feel like a flea in a cathedral.
At the center of this chamber was a smaller pyramid. It was not small—it was the size of a huge cathedral—but in comparison to the much larger pyramid that contained it, it was small. The slopes of it were drenched in blood, all four sides, and on the floor around it lay mounds of corpses, thousands upon thousands of them. Two huge vats of blood stood on the floor. From the blood insie these vats, two Demogorgons had fully formed.
Standing on top of this pyramid was Elandriel, who, I was pleased to see, was still crippled and missing the limbs I’d lopped off his body. Intense crimson light shone from his upraised hand. It seemed that he was the source of the great column of red light that was blasting up into the sky and turning it red.
He hadn’t noticed my presence, so I cocked my wrist crossbow and took aim at him. If a single shot could end this war, I figured I may as well try. I loosed the bolt, and it zipped through the air and slammed into his neck. He gasped and staggered forward, and the flow of red light was cut off.
“Elandriel, you sick fuck,” I said, “this ends now.” I blasted out my entire supply of bolts into him, riddling his feeble body with them.
He fell to the ground, writhing in agony and shouting out in pain, but it didn’t take him long to shake off the Tree magic and get back onto his feet.
“Did you honestly think those puny trinkets could stop us?” he roared, and the voice that came out of that feeble, wrinkled body was like the combined shout of ten thousand northern barbarian berserkers. “God of Nothing, welcome to hell! First, we will destroy you. Then we will destroy … everything!”
“Not if I can help it, you piece of shit.” I raised both my arms like a puppetmaster and cast the spell that would mass-resurrect the thousands of corpses into a Death Titan.
As Elandriel started chanting his own spell, the corpses twitched and jerked and convulsed as Death energy filled them with fresh life. Then they started piling on top of each other, like iron filings drawn to a massive lodestone, and forming a titan twice the size of the one I’d used to defeat the Warlock.
While it was forming, I rocketed my spirit off the Black Plane and pulled out all of the energy I could from the Gray Sentinel. This titan would not only be twice as large as the one I’d defeated the Warlock with, it would be four times as strong.
“You are too late, you ignorant little fool!” Elandriel hissed when he finished his incantations. “Behold, the terrible majesty of the Blood God taken physical form in this realm once more, after millennia!”
All of the blood coating the sides of the inner pyramid began to run upward, first coating Elandriel’s pathetic, wrinkled body. Then, as the red light began to intensify, he grew and swelled, ballooning in size. Additional limbs began sprouting from the grotesque blood form he was becoming. Three new, horrendously ugly heads began to emerge from his torso. Every second he doubled in size. Before long this foul creature of blood would be bigger even than my Death Titan.
Below him, the two fully formed Demogorgons stepped out of the vats of blood. They were massive red demons with powerfully muscular bodies covered in red scales, grotesque horned heads, and glowing red eyes.
“Kill the God of Nothing!” Elandriel—who was now the Blood God incarnate—roared at the Demogorgons. “Then lay waste to all around you! Now is the dawn of the Blood Age!”
My Death Titan was now fully formed, towering over the two Demogorgons. I jumped across the gap into my creation’s head, feeling a jolt of power as my doppelganger’s body and my spirit merged with the Titan’s form. I filled the Titan’s fists with furious power, creating Death Fists the size of wine wagons. If I could vaporize a Blood Demon with one punch from a human-sized Death Fist, I figured I could do some damage to the Demogorgons with Death Titan-sized fists.
The two monstrosities blasted supercharged Blood Lightning at me, but I punched both veins of lightning with my Death Fists. The impact of the immense Blood power colliding with the Death power caused an explosion so enormous that it blew out one exterior wall of the Blood Pyramid. Thousands of house-sized red boulders flew hundreds of feet through the air to come crashing down on the Blood Army, squashing and popping hundreds of Blood Demons at once.
My Death Titan stood head and shoulders above the Demogorgons, but they were almost as powerful as my titan, and there were two of them, in addition to the Blood Titan form the Blood God was taking. The best I could hope to do here was delay them long enough to get the dragon resurrected, and maybe kill one before the three destroyed my Death Titan.
“Let’s dance, motherfuckers,” I growled, then charged the two Demogorgons with my Death Fists swinging.
I decided it would be best to focus the entire force of my attack on just one Demogorgon, because then I could at least be sure that I’d take one out completely
, rather than just injuring both of them before my Death Titan got destroyed. I charged the nearest one, ignoring the blast of red lightning the farther one rocketed into me, which blew a huge hole right through the torso of my titan, and started laying into the beast with my fists. I pummelled it with furious blows, each Death Fist punch packing enough force to level a castle. The Blood God, who was not yet fully formed, screamed out a wall-shaking bellow of fury as he witnessed the destruction I was visiting on his creation.
Behind me, the other Demogorgon roared and pounced on my titan from behind, tearing chunks of my titan body out with its massive clawed hand. My focus, however, was on the Demogorgon in front of me. I didn’t care that I was being ripped apart by the other one. I felt my titan’s right leg being ripped off, but I carried on punching, slamming my Death Titan fists into the Demogorgon in front of me in a frenzy of destruction. The giant demon was taking such a beating that it couldn’t even fight back.
Finally, with one mighty right cross and an explosion of force that blew out another of the pyramid’s external walls, I hit the Demogorgon with a punch so hard its head exploded in a spray of blood and shattered bone. Its lifeless— and headless—form crashed to the floor, shaking the entire pyramid. Then I turned to take on the next one, which, at that moment, tore my titan’s left arm off.
I couldn’t beat this one, not now, not half-destroyed … but I had a creature that could beat it. I lunged for the Demogorgon’s throat, slamming the fingers of my titan’s remaining hand around it, and I gripped it tight, pulling all the Death power I possibly could into that grip. The Demogorgon writhed and roared, gripping my Death Titan arm with both of its massive, muscular red arms, trying to tear my arm either off its throat or off my body, but the force of my Death magic held it firm. Behind us, the Blood God was almost fully formed. Once that happened, my Death Titan would be history, and the only thing that could defeat him was the dragon, which was not yet resurrected.
I had to act fast.
Now that two of the walls of the pyramid had been blown out, I was able to get a view of the ocean two miles away. A grin came across my face at the sight that greeted my eyes. For out of the breaking waves, my Undead Army was marching. They had arrived. Tens of thousands of undead troops. Skeletons and zombies, undead barbarians on direwolves, Frost Giants and undead panthers, and tens of thousands more, were emerging from the waves.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Now, motherfucker, you die too,” I snarled at the final Demogorgon.
Then, pulling every ounce of Death power I could grab from all over Prand into my Titan, I concentrated the entirety of this power into my arm and hurled the huge Demogorgon toward the ocean. The massive red demon, bigger than any cathedral, hurtled through the air in an arc that temporarily blotted out the sun. Behind me, the Blood God assumed his final form and blasted torrents of red lightning out of his dozens of hands, blowing my Death Titan to smithereens and sending my body—the actor’s body—flying hundreds of feet up into the air.
A harpy swooped down and caught the actor’s body in mid-air. Through his eyes, I watched as the Demogorgon plummeted toward the ocean. And then, as the massive red body was about to hit the water, hundreds of huge kraken tentacles broke the surface to catch the demon. My undead kraken grabbed the falling Demogorgon and hauled it under the waves, ripping it to shreds.
On land, the entire Blood Pyramid exploded as the Blood God stepped out of it and began laying waste to everything around it. He was a grotesque, towering titan made entirely of flowing blood, with multiple heads and limbs,
“We are ready,” Yumo-Rezu’s voice entered my mind. She was speaking to my actual body, where it was located on my warship, and I could hear her voice like a distant call.
I hauled my spirit out of the actor’s body; it was time to resurrect the dragon. The final phase of the battle had begun.
In the ship’s hold, Yumo-Rezu had finished the ritual, and the Dragon Heart was in place. All that was needed was for me to resurrect the dragon.
“I’m ready,” Friya said. They had broken the huge jar, and she was waiting with her hands on the Dragon Heart.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
As it always was when resurrecting a dead thing, I needed a portion of my own life-force to start the process. The chunk of life-force needed to resurrect a dragon, though, was bigger than any I’d ever had to use, even with Friya’s strong life force already being present. It felt as if I was ripping my own heart in half and losing half of my strength, vitality, and power instantaneously, but it had to be done.
I injected the massive chunk of life-force into the dragon’s heart and fused this new energy with the two waiting souls—the dragon’s and Friya’s.
Friya let out a terrible howl, and it looked as if the Dragon Heart was absorbing her, like a giant slug devouring her. Then, however, something incredible happened: organs started to form inside the torso, flesh started growing on the dragon’s bones, and scales grew over the flesh. All of this happened in mere seconds, and soon there was a living, breathing dragon filling up the entirety of the ship’s hold.
“A black dragon,” Yumo-Rezu murmured, struck with awe and wonder. “A Death dragon!”
The creature looked more magnificent than I ever could have imagined. Its scales were jet black, shinier than polished onyx, and each shimmered with an iridescent glow. The dragon was immensely muscular, with a powerful neck and a long tail the same length as the rest of its body. Its reptilian head was covered in thorny spikes and horns, and its batlike wings, for the moment furled up against its body, looked like they would each be twice the length of its torso when unfurled. The mighty beast opened its mouth, revealing rows of enormous teeth of a size and sharpness that rivalled the wyrm’s. Most striking about the dragon, though, were its eyes, which were like those of a snake, yet glowing with swirling veins of bright colors.
And in those eyes, I saw Friya. She was the dragon now, and she was proud and joyful … and ready to kick some ass.
On my hands, the Dragon Gauntlets began to glow, and tiny arcs of lightning crackled between their fingertips. I felt, through the gloves, a bond being created between my soul and the dragon’s.
“We are one,” Friya’s voice spoke inside my mind. Another voice, though was also speaking, echoing her every word, a voice that was deep and ancient. “The dragon and I … I am the dragon, and the dragon is me. And I have never felt stronger or more magnificent. Come, God of Death, and Goddess of Dragons … we have an enemy to destroy.”
“Percy!” I yelled out. “Get your men off this ship into lifeboats! Once this dragon unfurls her wings, it’ll rip this ship in half!”
“Aye aye, Cap’n Chauzec!” he yelled back. “We’ll abandon ship and see you on the beaches. My boys and I will land our lifeboats and charge those Blood Demon bastards alongside your undead troops!”
“Good luck, Percy! I’ll see you on the other side!”
“Come, Vance,” Yumo-Rezu said, filled with awe. “We have an ancient god to destroy.”
She climbed onto the dragon’s shoulders, and I followed her, sitting in front of her. With the bond that had been forged with the dragon’s soul, via the Dragon Gauntlets, I could control the dragon in much the same way as I did my undead creatures, although the dragon, unlike my minions, retained much of a will of her own, and could refuse to obey my unspoken commands if she wanted. With Friya’s soul in there, though, I was sure that the gargantuan beast would cooperate.
The dragon unfurled her mighty wings, and since her huge body already took up the entirety of the ship’s hold, this action split the whole ship wide open, as I’d predicted. The beast beat her wings, and we rose up out of the sinking wreckage, while Percy and his pirates cheered us on from their lifeboats.
I’d experienced flight many times before with my harpies, but this was on another level. The speed and power of the dragon made the harpies seem like clumsy flying beetles bumbling hopelessly around. In mere seconds,
we were among the clouds, looking down on the battle below from such a height that it was as if the opposing forces were two different armies of ants from rival anthills.
The Blood God was stomping across the battlefield, using his multiple arms to blast out dozens of thick torrents of red lightning. Each of his magical attacks tore up a town-sized crater in the earth and blew thousands of my undead troops away simultaneously. The Lord of Light and everyone in my party was hitting him hard with all of their powers, but even the Lord of Light’s intense sun rays were barely doing anything more than scorching him.
My Jotunn smashed Blood Demons left, right, and center. My other undead troops swarmed across the plains and crashed into the ranks of the Blood Army. The demons were immensely hard to kill, though, and my skeletons and zombies were being ripped apart by the Blood Demons.
“Let’s give the fuckers a taste of dragon fire, shall we?” I directed the dragon into a downward swoop, to make a low pass over the Blood Army.
We hurtled downward, tearing toward the ground at an impossible speed, yet flying with as much precision and control as an eagle. The ground rushed up to meet us, and for a heart-stopping second, it seemed as if we would crash into it. At the last second, the dragon pulled up, to make a low pass over the Blood Army. The speed and momentum of the mighty beast was so great that it hit the Blood Army like a hurricane wind, bowling troops over as we swooped a mere few yards above their heads.
Then I commanded the dragon to unleash her fire, and a gushing river of pitch-black flame blasted out of her jaws. The heat of the black flames tore a passage of total destruction through the Blood Army, not only incinerating every Blood Demon in its path, but burning a furrow in the ground dozens of yards deep.
In a few seconds, we’d swooped over the whole army and burned thousands of Blood Demons to a crisp …
And now we had the Blood God’s attention.
