Returning to his divine realm, Su Cheng immediately began preparations. The threat of Lamov's "Divine Judgment" ritual was a ticking time bomb, and the fastest way to gain the power needed to counter a True God was to conquer the legacy of another. The Ruins of Cyric, the God of Slaughter, were his primary objective.
"A key for a key,'" Su Cheng mused, thinking back on the transaction with the Oracle. Trading the Eye for the Lamov's information and with the bonus information about the coordinates of another key to the ruins of Cyric was a worthy exchange. He analyzed the coordinates provided by the Oracle. The location was not on the main Eternal Continent, but in a desolate, forgotten demiplane, a pocket of reality where a great battle had once concluded.
"A grave is a fitting place for a key to the ruins of a dead god," he thought.
Considering the name, "Grave of the Dragon-Slayer," the choice of which Saints to bring was obvious. A dragon's power would be essential, and a gnoll's divinity would be a powerful asset.
"Kalis. Gedo," his divine will echoed to his two most powerful believers. "Prepare yourselves. We are going on a hunt."
On the Eternal Continent, the two Saints immediately stopped their duties and bowed their heads in reverence. Within moments, they were teleported to Su Cheng's private residence in Chaos God City. He did not need a large army for this mission; he needed overwhelming, concentrated power.
With his two commanders ready, Su Cheng focused on the coordinates and channeled his divine power. The space before them warped and tore open, revealing a swirling grey portal that smelled of ancient dust, cold stone, and old blood.
"Let's go," Su Cheng commanded, stepping through the portal with his two Saints following closely behind.
They emerged into a realm of grey twilight. There was no sun, only a dim, ambient light that seemed to emanate from the very air. They stood on a vast, barren plain of cracked, black earth littered with colossal bones. The skeletons of hundreds of dragons, some of them hundreds of meters long, lay scattered across the landscape like fallen mountains. Their massive rib cages formed arches and caves, and their bleached skulls stared into the empty sky.
In the very center of this draconic graveyard, the source of the name became clear. The equally massive skeleton of a humanoid warrior, easily over 100 meters tall, was impaled by the fossilized claws of the largest dragon skeleton. The giant's own colossal stone axe was buried deep in the dragon's skull. It was a frozen tableau of a legendary, mutual kill from a forgotten age.
"A powerful warrior," Kalis, the Red Dragon, growled, an instinctual hatred for the giant's skeleton in his voice. "And a powerful dragon."
"The key is here," Gedo stated, his divine golden eyes scanning the battlefield. He pointed a claw towards the chest of the fallen dragon-slayer's skeleton. A faint, almost imperceptible pulse of evil energy, identical to the key Su Cheng already possessed, emanated from within the giant's rib cage.
As they began to move forward, the ground began to tremble. A low, rattling sound echoed across the plains, and the soul fire in the eye sockets of the colossal dragon skeleton—the one locked in combat with the giant—suddenly flared to life with a malevolent, green light.
The ground around the dragon's skull cracked, and with a horrifying shriek of grinding bone, the massive undead dragon ripped its head free from the stone axe that had held it for millennia. It rose, its immense skeletal body reassembling itself, the bones held together by arcs of sickly green necromantic energy. It was a Dracolich, the reanimated spirit of a truly ancient and powerful dragon.
The Dracolich fixed its burning green eyes on Kalis, its voice a dry, grating whisper that carried on the wind.
"Flesh... blood... life... TRESPASSERS! This is a tomb, and you will join it!"
It let out a deafening roar, a wave of necrotic energy washing over the plains and causing the very bones of the other dead dragons to tremble.
Su Cheng's expression remained calm. "It seems the grave is not as peaceful as it looks," he said to his Saints. "Deal with it."