Their pursuers caught up with them, coming from everywhere. Haru and the others stared wide-eyed as they were quickly surrounded, the broken bridge behind them.
But Ran was not worried. This great host of Dragon Knights assailed against them did not scare him.
Calmly, he walked to the edge of the broken bridge at their end. He slashed his hand and released a red wave that formed a basin beneath the broken edge of the bridge. The wave swelled and the basin was filled with sulfurous fire.
He turned to his kinhood, Kigana, Erisa, and Haru. He gestured at the basin of sulfurous fire. "Our very own brimstone hearth. We are getting off this place. Let's all meet at the City of Severance. Bleed into it and jump."
Kigana frowned, staring at the basin. "First time jumping off a bridge," she muttered.
Ran looked at all of them sadly and removed a strand of hair off his head. A red hue spread around the hair strand and transformed it into a gleaming, razor-sharp, silver dagger. He handed it off to his cousin. "Here you go. Hope you know what to think about for your destination."
"I…I've read enough books," she said nervously.
Ran took the dagger back quickly and handed it to Haru. "Guide them. I don't think Erisa has ever been to the City of Severance herself, either." The pink haired girl shook her head to confirm his supposition.
Haru looked at the knife Ran handed him like it offended him. He heard the Acolyte whisper, "And when you get to the river jump last."
Erisa heard him also and both of them gave their Acolyte friend a confused look. Haru met his eyes and offered the dagger back. "You go with them first. I'll be right behind you."
Ran licked his lips in worry. He didn't know how but it seemed like Haru had an idea of what he was about to do here.
He opened his mouth to argue but Erisa shut him up by glaring at both boys. "Why don't we all leave together, wouldn't that be best? And before either of you argue, the dragons are starting to head here."
Ran looked and indeed they were coming, they took to the air and we're approaching cautiously. It seemed they were aware that his cores were no longer chained. Perhaps they could sense it?
He didn't have the time for guesses. And he didn't have time to argue with his friends. He needed to remain here in order to expose the rise of Lucifer to the rest of the world.
So, without a moment of hesitation, as the Dragon Knights drew nearer, a dozen black tentacles sprouted out of this body. He used them to grab his friends, used one slice to open Haru's shoulder so he'd bleed into the brimstone fire.
"Ran, don't do this!" Haru called, trying to resist by placing his glowing hand on the tentacles wrapping around him.
If he was doing anything, Ran felt nothing. He ignored Erisa glaring at him more intensely now and Kigana gaping in confusion.
"Sorry for this, my friends. We shall meet on the other side." Not waiting for their response, he threw them off the bridge and right into the fire.
They disappeared and the fire immediately winked out. Ran sighed, grimacing at the heavy smell of sulfur in the air.
Now he stood alone on the broken Bridge of Dragonhearth which stretched across the Abyss like an arch over a canyon, suspended over the endless roar of molten fire. Beneath, the river of lava boiled and churned, flowing out of the jagged mouth of the bottomless pit of dragon souls.
He closed his eyes and basked in the heat which rose in waves, licking the underside of the stone, while ash and sparks fell like black snow.
Ran stood in the middle of this fractured span, his chest heaving, four halos of color igniting around him in spectral light as he called forth all his cores, save one.
Red. Silver. Black. Blue.
From the sky above, the winged knights descended. Hundreds of them. Their steel glimmered in hell's crimson glow, their wings vast and leathery, some armored like false angels of judgment, others already splitting apart, scales surfacing beneath their skin as their dragon heritage bled through. Fangs bared. Claws unsheathed. The bridge trembled under the thundering crash of their arrival.
They had indeed sensed his unchained powers and some had resorted to assuming their true form for this battle.
Well, not to be arrogant, but it was not going to help them. Ran is going to stop at nothing until Dragonhearth was a pile of ash and the Abyss so shaken every being in Naraku would have felt the tremors.
His red core's aura blazed. He lifted his hand, and the bridge itself obeyed. Stone spikes with tips enveloped with the fire of severance shot up from the cracked floor, from both sides of the divide, skewering the first ranks of knights.
The air itself folded in his grasp, gusts and shards of earth tearing through wings. Lava erupted at his command, fountains of molten fire swallowing those who tried to fly low.
Yet the silver silhouette of Mukoku's protection clung to him like a second skin, a shimmering cloak. Spears of steel, tails lashing like whips, dragon talons raking down and none pierced him. Sparks rained harmlessly, his body gleaming invulnerable under the silver sheen.
Unharmed, Ran waded into their numbers; untouched, unbroken.
He tapped into the nightmare of hell within him, unleashing eldritch might. His arm twisted, lengthening into a grotesque limb, stone-hard hide crawling over his skin, claws erupting where fingers once were. From his back, thick tendrils lashed out, tentacles, veined with eldritch blaze, writhing like serpents from a nightmare. They smashed Dragon Knights aside, wrapped around throats, and slammed bodies into the ground with an eldritch force that cracked both armor and bone. One knight screamed as the Ran's blackened tendril crushed his chest, sending echoes bouncing through the abyss.
The Dragon Knights howled. Those who had abandoned their human shells entirely, wings snapping wider, bodies distended until the bridge shook under their full, terrible forms, readied themselves for him. Their fire lit up the air in torrents of orange and gold, scorching, suffocating, searing the void.
That was when he decided to fully show them the power of the fire of severance as blue flames ignited around him.
The fire burned wrongly, it was unnatural. It shimmered like sapphire glass, and wherever it touched, existence peeled away. A single swing of his hand erased a knight's wings. Not burnt, not destroyed, but severed from both flesh and spirit. The knight collapsed screaming, clutching at air where his wings had once bound him.
Ran shaped the flame with his red aura, forging it into blades that shimmered with cruel beauty. He slashed, and knights fell, body from soul, flesh from essence, ripped apart by fire that could cut both life and the tether beyond.
Both sides of the Bridge of Dragonhearth became a storm of carnage as he took Erisa's lesson to practice and didn't deny himself some aerial maneuverability.
Stone shattered under Lagarakei claws, wings beat against the choking ash, the roar of dragons echoed with the river below. Ran saturated the environment with an aura of red that shifted gravity itself and let him move like lightning, every aura flashing around him, red stone spikes erupting at his command, silver shielding his flesh, black limbs striking with monstrous savagery, blue fire cutting through scales and spirit alike.
Corpses flew around him, some flaking off to ash. A thousand strikes hit him and the ones that passed through Mukoku's aura of protection were quickly countered and healed by his Fey nature.
He fought to kill, he fought to destroy, and destroy he did. He raised his hand to the sky while equipping a bubble of red aura around him that warped gravity to shield him. From his raised hand shot out a stabilized bolt of lightning.
His eyes burned as the world flashed white. Ozone joined the heavy smell of sulfur in the air. He let go of the lightning and let it fade. When his eyes healed he saw chaos and ash all around him.
Only the Dragon Knights who had been fully transformed dragons survived the attack. Dragonhearth itself looked like it had kissed the sun and only half of it lived to tell the tale, with the other half being molten slag.
The bridge itself, though it held, was completely carbonized.
Ran grinned and faced the remaining dragons. But they did not relent even as he charged and continued with his slaughter. For every one torn down, another filled the gap. For every dragon sundered by the fire of severance, two more shrieked in vengeance. The air grew thick with heat, smoke, sulfur, ozone, and the screams of war.
Then it came. Faster than lightning.
A familiar, bright figure rose up from above the battered Dragonhearth. His body glowed, his form shedding flesh for radiance. In his hand, he carried an attack like no weapon the Ran had seen. It was a living star forged of dawn itself. It shone with every hue of dawn, a brilliance too pure for the pit, too fast for his eyes to track.
Ran only saw it launch, gravity tearing out of its way. His figure blurred, Mukoku's silver aura shimmering as he made to dart aside with gravity propelled speed. But the light was faster. It found him.
The impact was like the sky breaking open. All he saw was light, pure and blinding light.
The living star of dawn struck his chest, shattering his defenses. The silver aura cracked, then shattered into sparks. His red aura flared, stone rising in desperate shields, but the light tore through them like paper. His black tentacles lashed, grasping, only to be burned away. His fire of severance slashed at the star, severing parts of its light, but the brilliance was endless, unyielding, infinite.
The force hurled him backward. He looked over the edge of the bridge and swallowed. The battle had moved him from the area of the bridge over the lava river right to the part above the Abyss itself from which the lava river flowed.
Should he fall, it'd be right into the Abyss for him. Enhancing his fear, the star flared. He skidded across the broken bridge, heels digging furrows in the stone, every ounce of his will resisting. But the light pressed on, merciless. Step by step, he was forced to the edge.
And then there was nothing beneath his feet.
Ran was driven over the edge of the broken bridge, the star still burning against his chest, shoving him down over and across the drop from the Bridge of Dragonhearth.
The last thing he saw was the endless glow above, bright as dawn, as the Abyss swallowed him whole.