Lightning crackled around his boots. Wind whirled dust into silver spirals at his feet. The Thunderhoof Stallions calmed in his presence—beasts acknowledging a fellow tamer born of storm.
Charles pulled a rune-etched token from his coat and flicked it to the earth with precision. It struck stone—and pulsed.
Rings of silver and gold etched themselves into the terrain. They carved sacred geometry around the obsidian carriage and the six mounts. The air thickened with power.
"Kael, Karel, Donald. Surge it."
Kael, using earth qi, drove his longsword into the center glyph and stabilized the structure. Karel used fire qi to spark his rapier with phoenix heat. Donald pressed metal qi from his knuckles into the outermost ring.
The array responded.
A searing bolt of lightning streaked from the circle, blasting a hawk mid-flight into golden mist—gone without a sound. The birdsong stopped. The wind paused. Even the air knew something divine had awakened.
The surge continued layer by layer.
The wind thickened, humming like a thousand invisible wings. The array pulsed, and a magnetic repulsion burst outward, flattening nearby grass and pushing back ambient qi like an angry exhale. Every foreign signature was expelled within seconds. Even the low-level ambient magibeasts, hidden in the underbrush, slunk deeper.
Finally, an energy shield shimmered into existence—an elegant dome of translucent electric pressure that cloaked the carriage and the steeds in a protective cradle. Lightning slithered over the shell-like sentient serpents, hissing softly whenever anything dared brush near.
Coachman Rob calmly returned to his perch, sat cross-legged, and conjured a floating porcelain teacup with a swirl of wind. He took a sip.
"This'll hold 'til dinner."
"Good," Charles said, satisfied. "Let's climb."
He turned to the rest of the team, lowering his voice to a commanding calm.
"This beast is alone. Sparse signs of other creatures mean they've learned to stay clear. We'll approach quietly and observe first. No one engages without my signal."
"And if it sees us?" Wendy asked, voice tight.
Charles's violet gaze burned with quiet anticipation. He rested his hand on the hilt of Raijin's Emberfang, sparks dancing across the surface.
"Then I suppose we give it a good story to remember."
Lightning cracked again closer this time. The storm above churned into a spiral. The mountain peak shimmered with oppressive pressure.
Behind them, the warded carriage hummed like a divine relic.
Ahead of them, a dragon waited.
And Charlemagne Ziglar, with a smirk full of chaos and a sword full of stormfire, began the climb like a man who had already written the ending.
The Dragon's Storm and the Sovereign's Claim
The clearing crackled with restless tension as Charles planted his boot on a moss-lined stone and surveyed the mountainous horizon. Beyond it, just miles above, thunderclouds gathered like restless war drums. The Azure Tempest Dragon was near—too near.
His eyes glowed faintly violet. "Scan confirmed: Core Realm Rank 8. Lightning affinity, wind affinity, territorial, intelligent, violent." He turned to his team. "And solitary. With a nest."
He paused.
His team only suspects he has a rare magical scanning artifact.
"Plan A: we subdue it. Plan B: we slay it. There is no Plan C. We're not running." His voice carried the weight of steel, command, and just the barest glint of mischief.
Borris blinked. "Subdue? As in—what, tame it?"
Charles didn't answer. He just reached into his cloak and began pulling out items like a noble deity at a bazaar.
First came sixteen shimmering parchment scrolls—Scrolls of the Tempest Steed, flaring with runes of speed and air, each granting the user the ability to move at twice their usual speed and enhance aerial maneuvers for ten minutes. Next, eight violet-glass pills—the Pill of Divine Fury, each capable of doubling magical output and attack strength for ten glorious minutes.
Then came crystalline flasks brimming with a glowing fluid—the Essence of the Infinite Wellspring, legendary for its instantaneous restoration of all qi and mana. And finally, eight bone-white pills etched with gold—the Pill of Eternal Resilience, known to revive a half-dead warrior by instantly restoring fifty percent of their physical vitality. Total cost equivalent to 46,000 gold coins, procured by SIGMA through interdimensional manipulation.
He laid them out like candy at a child's feast.
Karel whistled low. "Is… is that real?"
Kael coughed. "That's enough inventory to outfit a war party marching on a fortress," he said.
Donald's mouth twitched. "Or to buy a duchy."
Charles smirked. "Don't ask. Do use."
SIGMA's Robinhood protocol raided a few interdimensional vaults.
Wendy stared. "You're giving us these?"
Charles threw a scroll at her. "Don't make me change my mind."
She fumbled the scroll and squeaked.
He turned serious. "These are not trinkets. These are war-tier assets. When we go in, we're not fighting for sport. We're making history. And I—" he unsheathed Raijin's Emberfang, violet lightning dancing across its serrated edge, "—don't intend to crawl away with scorch marks and regrets."
Kael grinned, drawing his twin swords. "What's the target strategy?"
Charles's eyes gleamed. "Three arrays."
He looked to the twins and Donald. "Kael—you'll trigger the Binding Storm Array. Lock its wings with magnetic lightning and drag it down."
"On it," Kael nodded.
"Karel, Donald—you two will raise the Seal of the Abyss. Trap it inside a compressed pocket of space. No escape. No breathing room."
They exchanged nods of understanding.
"Borris and Andy—you two anchor the Earthbind Array. Amplify its weight. Ground its body with gravitational suppression and earth shackles."
"And if that fails?" Andy asked with a grin.
Charles looked up at the sky. "Then we kill a dragon."
He clapped once. "Alright. Everyone, scrolls ready. Talismans bound. Qi steady. We move in two waves. I'll lead the first strike. Wendy, Kael—you're on me," he ordered.
He turned to his belt and drew a final item from a sealed compartment—a silver and violet scroll etched with ancient sigils. The parchment pulsed with divine pressure.
"Plan A's secret weapon," he announced, letting the talisman unfurl slightly. "Soulbinding Talisman of the Tempest Sovereign. If all goes well… this isn't just a battle. It's recruitment."
Borris nearly choked. "You want to ride that thing?"
Charles smiled. "No. I want it to swear fealty."
The Clash Begins
The wind at the mountain's peak was not natural.
It howled with a will of its own, charged with sparks that danced like angry fireflies. The clouds above churned in unnatural spirals, bruised with violet lightning and electric veins that pulsed like arteries feeding a heart of wrath.
By the time Charles and his team emerged from the tree line and reached the jagged edge of the cliff, the storm had taken form—not summoned, not born, but awakened.
A titanic presence loomed in the gloom. They felt it before they saw it.
The Azure Tempest Dragon.
Stormlight shimmered across its sky-colored scales, each one like a polished sapphire. It stretched its wings—cathedral sails that cast a shadow over the entire estate. As it coiled atop a broken mountain spire, talons gouged deep furrows in the obsidian stone. In the air lingered the taste of ozone and blood.
And then it turned.
Elegant. Terrible. Divine.
Its eyes blazed with sentience, and in a voice that seemed to tear through the fabric of reality itself, it roared.
The shockwave hit like judgment.
Trees didn't just fall—they exploded. Ancient trunks snapped, spinning through the air as wooden shrapnel. Rocks cracked and burst, raining debris across the ridge. Lightning screamed from sky to claw, forming a wrathful circuit that danced like choreography by a storm god.
Charles didn't blink.
He raised a single hand, fingers crackling with restrained power.
"Now."
The command cut through the chaos like a blade.
The earth lit up.
A spiderweb of blinding white and blue glyphs ignited beneath the dragon. The Binding Storm Array flared—eight rings spinning with precision. Each layer is interlocked with sigils in ancient Primordic script. The glyphs pulsed under glass, drawing energy from sky above and mountain below.
Wind screamed. Pressure dropped.
The vortex began.
The air spun into a maelstrom, dragging the beast's wings into it. Atoms twisted around the dragon's limbs with magnetic pull—binding pressure engineered to suppress flying apex-class entities.
Kael roared and slammed his broadsword into the ground, the earth fracturing under the impact. Lightning coiled from his blade into the array, feeding it with raw, uncut elemental qi. Skyfire burst from the runic ring's outer shell, forging a cage of jagged arcs around the beast.
The dragon thrashed against the cage, shrieking—a sound like a tornado screaming through a cathedral.
"SEAL IT!" Charles bellowed, voice laced with command.
A second glyph-circle erupted overhead—The Seal of the Abyss.
A second glyph-circle erupted overhead—The Seal of the Abyss. The sky shimmered under pressure. Shadows twisted as Karel and Donald slammed their palms together, their qi radiating like dark stars. Space crumpled. Gravity curled inward. A shimmering dome dropped over the battlefield like a void's jaws.
Inside the dome, light warped. Sound trembled. Time hesitated.
The dragon roared. Its wings flared wide, its eyes burning with pure elemental hate.
Then came the tremor.
Andy and Borris stepped forward in perfect synchronization, their muscles glowing with golden circuitry—earth qi channeled through battle-forged runes etched along their arms and backs. They slammed their palms into the mountain.
And the mountain responded.
The Earthbind Array detonated beneath the surface with a quake that sent eagles fleeing into the sky. Obsidian slabs burst upward like titans' ribs—massive chains of blackrock, coiled and jagged, spiraled around the dragon's legs, wings, and neck. They cinched tight, each link etched with suppression runes, each loop powered by deep-earth leyline anchors.
"Down," Borris grunted, veins bulging, teeth gritting. "Stay… down."
The dragon screamed—one wing ripped free of its constraints, blowing apart part of the vortex. It surged upward, a column of raw fury rising to defy the storm.
Kael didn't hesitate. He launched into the air, spinning with the full force of a thunder-kissed leap. His twin blades curved with wind and lightning, slicing in tandem.
CRACK!
The beast's wing buckled under the strike, and it crashed back into the vortex, howling.
"Speed scrolls!" Charles snapped.
They vanished.
A sonic snap echoed as the Scrolls of the Tempest Steed activated. Wind surged under their feet. The battlefield blurred—each step a streak of motion, each movement faster than thought.
Wendy struck first—because of course she did.
She ducked under the dragon's thrashing tail, her Windblade Daggers a blur. She launched upward, her foot finding purchase on a floating shard of obsidian mid-leap. With a feral grin, she flipped over the dragon's spine and drove both daggers into the weak spot near its shoulder.
Ice, blood, and wind exploded outward.
"Too slow, lizard!" she cackled, vaulting off its back before a lightning discharge could tag her.
Charles dropped from the air like judgment.
Raijin's Emberfang was a falling star in his grip—pulsing with twin cores, one of lightning, the other of violet flame. His cloak flared like the banner of a god descending from a war council.
"Hey, ugly," he called, voice gleefully irreverent. "Meet your new boss."
He plunged the blade into the space between two armored scales—deep into the dragon's spine.
BOOOOM.
An eruption of thunder and violet fire detonated from the point of impact. Lightning screamed outward in branching arcs. The dragon thrashed, its stormlight bleeding from the wound like liquid lightning. Its body convulsed. The mountain cracked beneath it.
One swipe of its tail flung Donald like a rag doll into a cliffside. Karel dove midair, firing an arrow mid-dive that exploded into flame, catching Donald mid-fall and redirecting him to a snowy slope.
"You're welcome!" Karel shouted.
Kael barely dodged a divine lightning bolt that split a peak in half behind them.
The dragon's inner storm had awakened.
Wendy skidded to Charles's side, panting. "What now, genius?"
Charles grinned, blood dripping down his cheek.
"Now?" he said.
"We get serious."
Kael barely dodged a bolt of divine lightning that split a nearby peak in two.
The dragon's inner storm had awakened.
"Hold formation!" Charles barked. "Wendy, rotate to the left flank. Arthur, suppress the right eye with fire bolts. Twins—stay aerial, lightning control only. No full frontal."
"Define full frontal!" Kael yelled as he launched a spiraling arc of thunder.
"The kind that gets you killed!" Charles snapped back.
He ducked under a swipe of the dragon's claws and somersaulted across the creature's snout, slashing a deep red gash across its upper eye ridge. The beast reeled. Sparks flew. But it was not yet near defeat.
"SIGMA, status?" Charles whispered.
[Arrays holding at 62% power. Earthbind stabilizing. Dragon qi turbulence is increasing. Recommend execution of Plan A: Soulbinding.]
Charles's expression tightened. His team was bruised, not broken. But the storm was rising again. They were running out of time.
He flicked his wrist, and a golden scroll unrolled into his hand—glowing with arcane sigils, the parchment humming with a power far older than any in their group.
"The Soulbinding Talisman of the Tempest Sovereign," he murmured, and flames danced in his eyes.
Wendy's voice crackled through the wind. "You sure about this?! If it backfires—"
"It won't," Charles said coldly. "This is a sovereign class binding sigil. Crafted to subjugate tempest-class aerial beasts."
"And if you fail?" asked Arthur, deflecting a thunderbolt with his blade.
"Then we're all dragon barbecue. Hold the line!"