A Templarian; a fallen goddess of war and bloodlust.

A Templarian-Mortal hybrid; descendant of the god of light Helion.

A Titan; an unknown spirit beyond comprehension.

The group of the three inhumans marched towards the eastern mountains, unified as one and with a single goal in mind; to end this now. Iris couldn’t help herself but think about everything that led to this moment. She had a normal, uneventful life, and now she’s going to save a kidnapped girl with a fallen goddess and a Titan. Everything was simple before, her complaints about her possibility of becoming matriarch of Nageki seemed like a child whining in comparison to her new world.

What would her father think? Her mother? Was her mother aware of her father’s true nature? She had so many questions that only the dead could answer, and the dead do not speak.

She affirmed her resolve. Arylos did promise to tell her everything one day and she still had questions, but she at least knew more.

The group eventually entered a clearing at the foot of the mountain range under the moonlit night. Iris saw that the grass had a worn dirt path in it leading up to the rocky mountain face. That must be where the soldiers came from.

“Something’s coming,” Arylos warned the group and readied his burning sword. The other two followed suit.

A roar.

A loud ear shattering and air breaking roar sounded through the night; a howl of a creature of hell. After the sound subsided, a group of twenty soldiers like before came forward, but Iris was horrified at what she saw.

The men wore the same black armour, but their skin was pale and some of it turned to stone-like scales. Their eyes burned orange with slit pupils and their faces elongated with toothy maws and black horns coming through their skulls. On their back were bat wings, no, dragon wings, that were black and grey. They carried only battle axes in their clawed hands. They foamed at the mouth with animalistic growls, like wolves that had cornered their prey.

One of the mutated men came forward and his orange eyes turned purple and a black aura surrounded him.

“Ahhhh,” the man gasped as if he was enjoying the scent of the night air, speaking in a voice that resonated on the air just like Arylos’s when he transforms. “To be graced by the Great Father. Surely you find pride in my work.”

“Pride?” Arylos growled, “why the hell would I take pride in this?”

“To see our species evolve,” the man answered in his bellowing voice, “to see the great progress we have made. That the natural order is maintained. No more will these mortals suffer their own pained existence.”

“So, you’re the one behind this,” Arylos concluded.

The man laughed and Bellona started to come forward, ready to behead him but Arylos moved his arm out to block her.

“What are you doing?” Bellona asked. “We can end this here and now.”

“No we cannot,” Arylos answered. “He’s only possessing that body to speak with us; killing that body will get us nowhere.”

“You are more than welcome to try, Great Father,” the man answered. “I would love to see how my creations stand against you.”

“Who are you?” Iris called out to the man. “Why are you doing this?”

The man laughed once more before answering. “I am the Destroyer King, the Blackest Night, the Sword of War and the Hand of Death.”

“Those titles belonged only to one,” Arylos cut in, “but you are not him.”

The man’s smile turned sour as he responded. “And I have you to thank for that. I may not be my father, but I am everything he was and could have been.”

“Father?” the group repeated in unison. Arylos lowered his sword, understanding just who this foe is. “I get it now,” he told the man. “You’re the lost son of Kalndahvok; Oldalthur.”

“So the Great Father knows of me,” the man mocked as he did a polite bow.

Kalndahvok? Iris thought to herself. As in the dragon king that plunged Kaiyumi into war three thousand years ago? This is his son?!

Arylos gritted his teeth and sheathed his sword and as he did, red and black flames grew from his body as he began to grow his four black wings like he did before.

Oldalthur stared in awe as Arylos began to take his true form like before, Arylos growling and roaring as his body became less human. He laughed as Arylos’s wings of flames grew and he glared at him with burning red slit pupil eyes and his clawed hands sharpened.

Oldalthur laughed a bellowing laugh. “Lo do I gaze upon the Great Father in his might!” he called out in a mocking voice, reciting some ancient scripture. “The flames of damnation itself hath come to me and as I gaze into the searing flames, I see an ocean of screaming souls calling out for blood and vengeance! The sight of such terror and the knowledge that such a creature exists in this world fills my soul with dread, and yet I gaze upon the beauty of destruction in awe and worship!”

“Silence!” Arylos called out in his resonating voice, gritting his teeth in anger and clenching his clawed fist. “If you truly believe you are worthy to rule, then step forward and prove your worth.”

Oldalthur lifted his axe and called for the other soldiers to attack. The horde of dragon hybrids pushed forwards to the group, their howls filling the air. Bellona readied her sword into a hammer and Iris lifted Helion. Arylos approached Oldalthur, delighted in the challenge.

Iris brought her sword down on one of the soldiers but he made no attempt to block and Helion hit his head with a resounding thud; the stone scales on his skin providing armour. He laughed and kicked Iris in the gut and hurled his sword towards her but she was able to block the blow.

I will watch your back, Helion reminded Iris. A second soldier came up beside her and she moved out of the way of yet another axe coming towards her.

At a safe distance, Iris could feel a surge in her veins. Not quite the power she called upon before, but familiar. Her divine blood must be taking effect now. Her eyes let out a soft blue glow as she ran towards the soldiers, howling in defiance of defeat and she struck faster than sound, harder than stone, knocking back the hybrids away.

A third one came up and readied to attack her but she spun and kicked him away, as if her body took on an instinct of its own.

“Helion, are you doing this?” she asked.

I am not; your body is rejecting my interference, Helion replied.

Like a graceful yet furious warrior, she easily parried the soldier’s attacks, following up with powerful attacks of her own that began to break their armour and chip away at their scales and cut the parts of flesh that were exposed.

One of the soldiers readied his axe again, but Iris discovered that he was too slow. She struck him in the gut with the butt of her sword and brought it up across his chest, leaving an incision that was burning with white and blue flames. She then brought the sword back down and it cleaved through his shoulder and deep into his chest as if the stone armour of his skin was reduced to paper.

She smiled and pulled her sword out and blocked another attack from behind. She was in control now.

She rolled out of the way to get more space to work and she saw the other two’s progress. Bellona was struggling just as much but was holding her own. Arylos had Oldalthur by the neck and crushed it, separating head from body. Once he did so, one of the other soldiers began to radiate the same black aura and his eyes turned purple.

Arylos was right, Iris thought to herself, Oldalthur is just possessing bodies; this is a wasted effort on our part.

I have a theory, Helion called out. I believe he is unwilling to fight us at full strength. We have not rested since the first attack so any further fights will drain our strength.

“So he’s just trying to drain our strength,” Iris concluded. “Which means we must be near his base; he wants us weakened if we continue forward.”

That is my theory, Helion confirmed.

“Helion,” Iris continued, “you can communicate with Arylos, right? Can you relay that to him? If we push forward instead of fighting everything off here, we’ll have a better chance of winning.”

Understood, Helion replied.

Iris continued fighting off the soldiers as best as she could. She wanted Helion to tell Arylos so Oldalthur could not hear and change his plans. Iris looked towards Arylos and that’s when she noticed something.

Arylos’s body had deep wounds from the fighting, but none of it was healing like normal. He was losing black blood like a waterfall. He was out of breath and his legs were struggling and his flames were weaker.

He’s already losing strength, Iris realised. She then realised that she had never seen Arylos use this strength for this long and this consecutively.

I can force more of my strength through this body, but it would be similar to tearing clothing that was not sized properly.

Iris remembered Arylos talking about how his body limits him. This must be it; the glove that was too small is now tearing.

Arylos caught his breath and looked towards Iris. The flames on his body burned brighter and all he did was nod to Iris. He got the message.

Father said ‘look away now’, Helion warned.

Iris complied and turned away. She felt a blast of heat strike her back and the air was painted red with a bright burning light. A roar of screams filled the air; like thousands, millions of souls crying out in agony and wind rushed past Iris. With the roar, she heard the sounds of the soldiers screaming in similar agony, chilling Iris’s blood.

One came into Iris’s view, backing away from the burning lights. The soldier looked like he wanted to turn away with all of his might but couldn’t. He then froze in place and screamed as flames erupted from his eyes and mouth, the flames streaming from his body and flowing behind Iris to where Arylos was.

Remember; don’t look behind you, Helion reminded.

Iris wanted to see what was going on, but a part of her didn’t. She could only watch the soldier convulse in pain until the flames faded and he fell to the ground in a broken mess, smoke rising from his eyes and mouth.

After agonising moments, the lights and the screams subsided, silence and darkness filling the air. Iris thought it was finally safe and turned to look at what happened.

Arylos stood alone, flames no more than embers as he was barely standing and his wings lowered to the ground. Around him, all of the hybrids lay dead with their eyes burnt out just like the soldier Iris saw. Smoke filled the air, accompanying the dreadful silence that made Iris’s ears ring. She saw Bellona stand up from a hunched over position and face Arylos as well, her eyes filled with dread and worry.

Iris imagined what happened but could only think back on Oldalthur’s mocking words. An ocean of screaming souls calling out for blood, the sight filling the soul with dread but one cannot look away from the beauty of the destruction.

Was this another side to Arylos being a Titan?

Arylos fell to his knees, gasping for air in a growling breath, blood still pouring from his wounds. He was losing his strength. Iris approached him from behind. The flames that once burned brilliantly were now smouldering across his body. Iris knelt down and hugged the exhausted Arylos. She could say and do nothing but the least she could do is be of some comfort to him, remind him that he still had his friend.

Arylos’s pained growls faded into weak panting as his wounds slowly began to heal and the smouldering embers faded. He rested his hand on Iris’s arm, comforted by her presence.

Arylos stood up as Iris let him go, his black wings folding back under his skin.

“I’m sorry you had to experience that,” Arylos told Iris and Bellona as she approached.

Bellona scoffed and tried her hand at a smile. “I actually wish you did that first; it would have saved us a lot of trouble.”

Arylos returned a smile; he knew she was trying to lighten the mood.

“Are you alright?” Iris asked, coming back up to her feet.

Arylos shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. What about you two?”

“None the worse for wear,” Bellona answered, pounding her chest.

Iris nodded in response. “I got a better sense of my divine blood, but I can’t use it properly yet.”

Arylos rested his hand on Iris’s shoulder. “You will soon,” he told her, “and I want to see when you do; let me see those brilliant white flames of yours.”

Iris smiled and nodded, newfound determination filling her heart.

However, their moment was cut short as the same ear-shattering roar from earlier filled the air once more. The group looked towards the mountain and saw a giant black shadow of a dragon flying towards them.

“After all, we may need those flames,” Arylos told Iris, watching the shadow come closer.