The Dracolich's roar was a sound of pure hatred, a torrent of necrotic energy and millennia of malice that washed over the desolate plains. The colossal skeletons scattered across the graveyard trembled, and a sickly green soul fire ignited in the empty eye sockets of the lesser dragon remains, causing them to stir and rise with a clatter of ancient bones. The very ground seemed to groan in agony under the weight of the ancient dragon's awakened fury.
As the lesser skeletons began to shamble forward, Su Cheng, who stood observing near the portal, simply raised a hand. A wave of demonic and slaughter authority, invisible but absolute, washed over the plains. The nascent soul fires in the lesser dragons' eyes were instantly extinguished, their bones clattering back into inert piles. They were a distraction he would not permit.
"Flesh... blood... life... TRESPASSERS!" the Dracolich's voice grated, a sound like stone grinding against bone. "This is a tomb, and you will join it!"
Su Cheng's expression remained calm. This ancient dragon was powerful, its aura firmly in the high-tier of the Sanctuary rank, but it was facing beings who had transcended that very limit. "Deal with it," he commanded.
His command was all that was needed. The Red Dragon Kalis, his own form radiating the vibrant heat of life and fire, roared back in defiance, a challenge from one dragon to another. "You are a disgrace to the dragon name, bone-whelp! I will grant you the true death you have long been denied!"
Kalis took to the sky, his massive wings creating powerful gusts of wind that blew away the necrotic dust. Gedo, the King of the Gnoll Demons, did not fly. He simply stepped forward, the ground beneath his feet turning to black, demonic rock. His divine, golden eyes were fixed on the Dracolich, analyzing its every movement.
The Dracolich did not wait. It opened its skeletal maw and unleashed a torrent of green-black energy—a breath of pure decay. The attack wasn't fire or frost; it was a wave of necrotic acid that sizzled through the air, causing the very space it passed through to wither and die. The black earth it touched turned to a foul, bubbling sludge.
Kalis met the attack head-on. He spewed a river of his own white-hot draconic flame. The two breaths collided mid-air with a deafening hiss, a violent explosion of conflicting energies that sent shockwaves across the graveyard. Fire and decay fought for dominance, the holy power of a living dragon battling the profane energy of the undead. The resulting blast vaporized several of the smaller dragon skeletons nearby.
While the two attacks negated each other, the Dracolich had already moved. Despite its skeletal form, it was impossibly fast, its bones held together by dark magic that defied the laws of physics. It used the cover of the explosion to launch itself at Kalis, its bone claws, each the size of a small house and sharpened with dark magic, aimed at the red dragon's throat.
Kalis, being a true dragon of flesh and blood, was heavier and slightly slower. He twisted in the air, avoiding a fatal blow, but the Dracolich's claws raked across his side. The sound of metal on stone echoed as the bone claws scraped against his tough scales, but the necrotic energy they carried was potent. Deep gashes were torn open, and a dark, festering poison immediately began to eat away at the living flesh.
Kalis roared in pain and fury, swiping back with his own claws, which were imbued with the sharpness of a sanctuary-level weapon. The black, shimmering energy of the enchanted claws left deep gouges in the Dracolich's rib cage, sending shards of ancient bone flying. But the undead creature felt no pain.
"Flesh is weak! Pain is a memory I have discarded!" the Dracolich shrieked as it prepared another attack, its tail whipping around to try and shatter Kalis's wing.
But it had made a fatal error. In focusing on the magnificent dragon in the sky, it had completely forgotten the silent, more dangerous threat on the ground.
"Your mistake," Gedo's voice was a low growl from directly beneath the Dracolich's exposed underbelly.
While the two dragons had clashed in the air, Gedo had moved with inhuman speed, his form a blur against the black earth. He now stood beneath the colossal undead, his hand raised. His Demonic Domain did not need to be fully unleashed. He channeled its power, concentrating it into a single point. A spear of pure, blood-gold energy, crackling with divine power, formed in his hand.
With a mighty heave, Gedo thrust the spear upwards. It pierced through the ancient, magically-reinforced vertebrae of the Dracolich's spine with ease, the divine-demonic energy erupting inside its skeletal frame like a miniature sun.
The Dracolich let out a true shriek of agony this time. The attack had not just damaged its body; it had struck its phylactery—the hidden container of its soul—which it had foolishly integrated into its own skeleton for safekeeping. The pure, divine energy of Gedo's attack was poison to its soul fire.
Its movements grew sluggish, and the green light in its eyes flickered violently. It tried to turn its head to bite at the Gnoll Demon King below, but Kalis did not waste the opportunity. The red dragon descended with the force of a meteor, his jaws clamping down on the Dracolich's neck. With a final, triumphant roar, he twisted, and the sound of a mountain cracking echoed through the demiplane as the Dracolich's massive spinal column was severed.
The green soul fire in the Dracolich's eyes dimmed for a moment before flaring one last time in a final, desperate act.
"IF I AM TO BE UNDONE, I WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME!"
A wave of pure, explosive necrotic energy erupted from the collapsing skeleton, a final curse meant to annihilate everything in the graveyard. But Gedo was prepared. He raised his hand once more, and a perfect sphere of his Demonic Domain enveloped him and Su Cheng, effortlessly absorbing the deathly explosion. Kalis, shielded by his own formidable draconic resistances, was merely pushed back by the force.
When the green light faded, the Dracolich's body crumbled into a pile of inert, ancient bones. Floating where its skull had been was a single, pulsating crystal of pure, malevolent green light—its soul fire—and nestled within the ribs of the giant dragon-slayer's skeleton, a small, dark object now pulsed with an evil light, its location revealed.
The key.