An iron beetle king slammed into a cluster of undead ghouls, crushing them beneath its clawed legs, mandibles slicing through bone and rotted sinew. Its armored carapace fended off arrows and spells alike, and with a screech, it gored a mummy, snapping its spine. Yet even as the beetle reared in triumph, a hurled boulder smashed not far away blew up and a part of its flank, shattering its shell in a spray of blood and shards. The beast collapsed, twitching. Before its corpse cooled, the purple-black fog seeped into its wounds, animating it again. It rose, split in half, dragging its shattered body forward as undead ichor dripped in thick trails.
In another place a Undead beetle, its legs blown away by an exploding bolt, continued to crawl forward with its remaining limbs, mandibles clamping on a gray dwarf's arm and ripping it away as the dwarf's comrades hacked at it with rune-axes. Blood spattered across the walls as the dwarf screamed, but no one flinched. The Gray Dwarves did not waste pity—not on themselves, not on their kin.
Sarath, seeing this unholy cycle of death and rebirth, clenched his blade tighter until his knuckles whitened. His eyes burned hotter, his cultivation roaring as if his very veins carried molten steel. The rage within him twisted, pushing him toward the threshold of another realm of power—a killing state born not of training, but of despair and wrath. His aura, sharp as razors, carved against the oppressive necrotic fog.
Above it all, Arthas watched with cold calculation. The gray dwarves' weapons were devastating—the only true threat to his unending tide. The insects were fodder, expendable, even as their deaths fed his army with more abominations. But the siege engines—those were weapons worthy of destruction. With every quarrel and boulder, they bled his forces faster than the fog could replenish them.
"The power of those engines is too great," Arthas growled, his voice rumbling like stone breaking beneath the earth. His gauntleted hand rose, fingers crooked like talons, pointing toward the obsidian walls of Phoenix City. The command rolled across the battlefield like thunder, carrying above the clash of armies.
"They must be destroyed before they bleed us dry. Five among you—go forth. Tear them down!"
The thick, roiling purple-black fog stirred like a living sea, answering the will of its master. Shapes the size of mountains shifted in the gloom—dragons, forty in all, their wings folded close, their titanic bodies coiled like shadows given flesh. Their massive eyes ignited like molten jewels, colors piercing through the shroud: emerald, sapphire, amethyst, crimson, silver.
For a moment, none moved. Even among dragons, the task was perilous. The Gray Dwarves siege engines had already caused the undead host with devastation—hurling boulders that exploded into razors, bolts the size of rooms detonating with fire and lightning, crushing even giants and war-beasts. The gray dwarves, masters of toil and rune, had made weapons that could wound even wyrms.
And yet, when Arthas commanded, none could refuse.
Five stepped forth, wings unfurling, scales shimmering in the fog.
Freya, the Silver Dragoness, scales glistening like mirrors reflecting phantom light, her beauty a cruel contradiction to the nightmare unfolding.
Izanami, the Black Dragoness, her serpentine body dripping with trails of venomous smoke, her wings blotting out what little glow the Underdark had.
Chernobog, the White Dragon, his pale scales so deathly they seemed carved from ancient frozen bone, his presence a chilling silence.
Hannah, another Black Dragoness, but fiercer—her roar promised torment, her eyes burning with malicious delight.
Radha, the Red Dragoness, smallest of the five but radiating fury, her heart a furnace that glowed through her throat with each breath.
They were not the strongest nor the strongest of the fourty, but their kin did not contest them. Together, they rose, wings slicing through the suffocating fog, scattering shadows as their colossal bodies were revealed in full for the first time.
A ripple of shock ran through the battlefield.
From the walls of Phoenix City, gasps broke the grim rhythm of war. Gray dwarves, their discipline carved from centuries of toil and tyranny—momentarily faltered.
"Dragons! There are dragons in the sky!" one soldier cried, his voice cracking in disbelief.
"By the Deep Gods—it's true! Dragons!"
"No… no, it's impossible! Chromatic and Metallic—together?!" another spat, shaking his head in denial. "It has to be sorcery—it must be a trick!"
But the skies did not lie. Five draconic titans, metallic and chromatic, flew as one. Such a thing had not been seen since the myths of creation. The Gray Dwarves's iron hearts clenched in shock, in fear—yet no dwarf broke from their post. They were sons and daughters of the Underdark. Fear was a luxury they had long since buried. Their jaws set, their pale eyes hardened. If death had come, then they would carve their names into it with axe and rune.
And then the heavens fell upon them.
Izanami was the first. The Black Dragoness spread her wings wide and let loose a torrent of acid, a storm of green-black death that rained down in sheets upon the walls. The air hissed as the liquid struck, dissolving armor into slag, flesh into slurry. Gray Dwarves screams rose as beards and skin melted from skulls, eyes burst into sockets, and bones sloughed apart. Where the acid struck stone, the ancient fortress walls itself groaned—masonry hissing and cracking, the proud obsidian walls of Phoenix City scarred as though eaten alive.
Radha followed with fire. Her small form belied her wrath; when she exhaled, a tsunami of molten flame swept across the walls. The inferno clung to steel, melted iron, and ignited the very stone. Siege crews burned alive with their weapons, their blackened skeletons fusing with melted crossbow beams. One heavy ballista, proud and ancient, groaned under the heat—its iron bands glowing red, then bursting apart in an eruption of molten shards. The dwarves who manned it died screaming, their bodies reduced to smoldering shadows against the wall.
Chernobog, the White Dragon, took his turn. His jaws split wide, and from them came not flame, nor acid, but the screaming silence of frost. The air crystallized instantly; the wall turned white, then blue, then cracked in thunderclaps as the sudden cold sundered its structure. Gray Dwarves who survived the fire, froze mid-motion, their eyes wide, lips still forming curses, before shattering into statues of gore when his wings beat once. Their bodies splintered into crimson snow, painting the wall in frozen entrails.
Hannah swept in next, her wings slicing the haze, her breath a toxic deluge of bile and choking mists. Unlike Izanami's searing acid, Hannah's gift was faster, crueler. The mist crept across the battlements, seeping into every crack and lung. Dwarves coughed, gagged, and clawed at their throats, blood bursting from mouths and nostrils as their lungs dissolved from within. Armor buckled as the corrosive fog ate from the inside out. They died choking, their last moments spent in silent, thrashing agony.
And then came Freya. The Silver Dragoness exhaled her argent annihilation, a breath of crystalline frost laced with radiant purity. Where it struck, the fortress itself screamed. Stone crystallized into fragile ice, enchanted metals warped and shattered, and Gray Dwarves warriors encased in silver ice froze in poses of defiance before fracturing into diamond dust. Even the enchanted bolts of the heavy crossbows cracked, their runes undone by the cold purity, glowing sigils flickering and dying as weapons failed one by one.
The five dragons wheeled together, their wings stirring cyclones of ash, frost, and smoke. Again and again they strafed the walls. Acid carved trenches into the battlements. Fire reduced proud weapons to glowing slag. Frost shattered dwarves and stone alike. Bile choked the strongest of warriors. Radiant ice silenced enchanted bolts.
The once-mighty siege engines—those ancient creations of Gray Dwarves pride, products of millennia of toil and rune-labor—were reduced to ruin. Heavy crossbows lay twisted, their beams cracked and charred. Stone hurlers split asunder, their arms frozen or melted, their enchanted stones scattered across the walls in useless rubble. The dwarves who manned them were annihilated—burned silhouettes, frozen statues, heaps of corroded flesh.
The dragons circled above, the ruins of Phoenix City's pride smoldering beneath them, their roars drowning the wails of the dying.
The gray dwarves watched, horror etched upon their hard faces. Yet they did not weep, nor break, nor curse their gods. They clenched their axes tighter, their pale eyes glaring hate at the skies. They were Gray Dwarves—descendants of pain, keepers of grudges. The dragons had shattered their walls, but they had not yet broken their will.
From the fog below, the other dragons watched in silence, their massive forms hidden, their glowing eyes like stars in the mist. Not one moved. Not one spoke. They simply bore witness as their sisters and brother brought devastation upon Phoenix City walls, their destruction echoing across the Underdark like the wrath of forgotten gods.
The walls of Phoenix City still burned, froze, and wept acid where the five dragons' first assault had torn the siege engines apart. The once-proud Stone Hurlers, masterpieces of dwarven craft, lay cracked and scattered, their runed projectiles reduced to slag or frost-shattered rubble. The Heavy Crossbows, ancient as the kingdom itself, once spitting bolts wreathed in fire and thunder, now hung ruined—beams melted, bands burst apart, their crews reduced to charred husks fused to their weapons.
The Gray Dwarves who had operated them were annihilated in grotesque detail: some blackened silhouettes stamped into the wall by dragonfire, others frozen in silver ice, still others melted into heaps of rust-stained gore by acid and bile. The Undead tide, once kept at bay by the thunderous bolts and hurling stones, now surged unchecked, the purple-black fog swelling to swallow the battlefield. Within it, countless corpses stirred. Bug chitin cracked as half-eaten carapaces twitched and rose, mandibles dripping with rot but obeying the dark will. Insects that would have butchered mortal armies now marched willingly into death, only to rise again, endless, unfeeling.
The battlefield, already a nightmare, grew worse.
From the heart of the Gray Dwarves host, the ground thundered. The clang of gears, the roar of magic. And then they appeared—the Metal Giants, national treasures of the gray dwarves.
Towering more than ten meters high, clad in black iron plates thicker than fortress gates, they strode from the formation like weapons of war. Their movements made the earth quake, every step ringing with centuries of toil. Eyes of burning scarlet flared to life, runes igniting across their colossal frames. Their hands opened, palms glowing red-hot, as if magma itself had been bound inside.
These were the Gray Dwarves's last pride—metal magic golems, animated by soul-forging, each one a walking arsenal. They had slept in vaults beneath the Underdark for generations, unleashed only when the kingdom itself stood at the edge of ruin. They were not simply weapons. They were symbols.
As one, they raised their hands. Runes blazed. Scarlet beams of raw destructive fire energy erupted from their palms, sweeping through the battlefield. The beams cut swaths through the undead host, vaporizing hundreds in a single blast. Skeletons disintegrated, armored ghouls burst like overripe fruit, and war-beasts were cleaved into molten fragments. The air shook with explosive thunder as the beams detonated, gouging trenches into the earth.
Gray Dwarves warriors roared in grim pride from the walls:
"The Giants awaken! The Kingdom endures!"
"By the Forge-Father's wrath, let them break!"
For a heartbeat, the tide shifted.
But the undead were numberless. For every thousand destroyed, more crawled from the fog—rotting insects, reanimated trolls, stitched horrors, and the endless bones of old battlefields reclaimed by Arthas' will. The fog itself crawled like a living thing, and within it, shadows twitched and laughed without voices. The undead army did not bleed.
And the dragons circled overhead.
The giants' scarlet eyes tilted skyward. They had burned countless dead, but they knew their true quarry. The dragons.
Freya was the first to notice. Her argent wings glittered against the black fog as she broke formation, a mocking grin curling across her scaled maw. She had previously faced similar challenges posed by inferior replicas created by Vic and the goblins' tinkering, which were based on the designs of Silver Base Advanced Biological Structure. Those had been clumsy, half-made, good for plowing soil or standing guard. These, however, were built for war. True war.
The giants locked onto her, beams igniting, and the air turned red. Freya's wings snapped once, and her silver form blurred through the deadly light. It scorched past her, trailing sparks across her scales, and in a heartbeat she was upon them.
Her claws slammed into the shoulder of one golem, digging into the seams where black iron plates met. The giant staggered beneath her weight, servos shrieking, dwarven runes flaring to resist her strength. Freya did not give it the chance. Her jaws opened, breath misting with cold beyond death, and she exhaled.
The cone of silver frost lanced directly into the gaps. Ice spread like veins inside the construct, filling gears, joints, and core. Metal screamed as it froze, brittle fractures spreading across the giant's frame. Its red eyes flickered once, then dimmed, before Freya tore free with a triumphant shriek. The golem fell like a toppled tower, crashing into the ranks below, crushing dwarves and undead alike.
True-blooded Gray Dwarves already utilised their talents, their bodies grown huge thick and brutish with their equipments—rushed forward with iron nets glowing with glyphs. They hurled them across Freya, chains binding her wings, the nets hissing with molten runes to burn and hold.
Freya only laughed. Her claws flexed once. The chains snapped like string, the nets shredded into useless fragments, glowing sparks scattering across the battlefield. She rose into the air again, her wings scattering Gray Dwarves like ants.
"Pathetic," she hissed, her voice mocking, terrible.
But she was not alone.
Chernobog swooped down, the White Dragon's maw opening wide. A golem raised its palms, red light gathering—too slow. Chernobog exhaled a hurricane of absolute frost, the kind that froze even sound. The beam struck the giant full on. Black iron frosted white in an instant. Runes flared desperately, resisting, cracks glowing red as magic warred against magic. But even dwarven craft could not hold. The giant froze solid, its glowing eyes dulled to pale glass, before Chernobog's tail lashed once, shattering the construct into shards of ice and iron.
Radha, smallest but fiercest, dove with fury. Her fire was molten wrath incarnate, pouring down upon a third golem. The metal giant staggered, plates glowing red as runes trying to resist the heat, then white, then beginning to melt. Its arms raised to counter, but Radha slammed into it with her full body, claws digging deep into the softened metal, tearing plates free. Her fire poured directly into the gaps, igniting the arrays carved inside. For a heartbeat, the giant's chest blazed with runes—then it exploded, a fireball tearing through the battlefield, incinerating dwarves and undead alike.
Izanami descended like shadow. The Black Dragoness slithered across the air, acid dripping from her maw. She sprayed the nearest giant, the corrosive liquid pouring into joints, gears, and cracks. The golem bellowed, its runes flaring, but its arms sagged, its chest splitting open as the acid ate through the core. With a hiss, it toppled forward, burning holes into the stone as it collapsed.
Hannah swept across the last of them, her toxic mist rolling like a tide. The giant's eyes glowed red, its arms raising to release another deadly beam, but the acid crept inside, clouding arrays, corroding the very spells carved within. Its light flickered, stuttered, and died. Hannah's claws struck its neck, tearing its head free in a shower of sparks and ichor-stench smoke.
The Metal Giants of the Gray Dwarves, their nation's pride, their kingdom's treasures—fell in ruin within minutes.
The dragons wheeled above, their roars shaking the walls. The Gray Dwarves below screamed in rage, their voices echoing like steel on stone, but they did not break. They would die before fleeing. Their kingdom had stood for millennia in the depths of the Underdark, its walls forged in blood and rune, its pride as unyielding as the earth itself. Even as their giants crumbled, their eyes burned with hate and defiance.
Sarath, watching from the walls, clenched his axe with trembling hands. His voice cracked with disbelief.
"Why… why are there five? Five dragons, and not one kind… but metallic and chromatic… together?!"
No answer came. Only the roiling fog, the endless dead, and the dragons above—terrible, beautiful, unstoppable.