Corwyn's sight tore open.
Not like waking.Like a wound splitting.
He found himself suspended in a sky the color of fresh blood, thick like smoke, swirling in slow, choking spirals. Lightning coiled through it in golden veins, ripping cracks through the clouds.
And there — in that bleeding sky — two dragons faced each other.
Real dragons.
Old as mountains.
Older than ruin.
He didn't see them with eyes.He felt them, their presence pounding against his ribs, shaking his bones from within.
Placidusax shone first.
Five heads.Five minds.Five voices humming with divine contempt.
Gold armor of scale and light.Wings that turned wind backward.Lightning playing along his spines like tame serpents.
He radiated authority the way fire radiated heat.
Then the other rose.
Bayle.
Not gold.Not divine.
A dragon forged in spite.
Black scales cracked with inner red glow, each fracture burning like a vein of magma. His fire simmered at the edges of his jaw, dripping sparks. Along his neck, lightning crackled — gold lightning, stolen, unstable, shivering under his skin like a thing that wanted to escape.
He was smaller.Rougher.Scarred.
But his eyes burned with something Placidusax did not have.
Defiance.
Placidusax spoke first.
Five throats, one verdict:
"Curse you Bayle! You shame your kind."
Bayle's wings flared, spraying red fire downward.
"I shame you."
Placidusax lowered his central head.
"Know your place."
Bayle roared — a harsh, ripping sound full of old humiliation.
"I choose my place."
The fight started instantly.
Bayle launched upward, jaws open, fire trailing behind him like a comet.Placidusax answered with a bolt of divine lightning — pure, gold, world-splitting.
Bayle didn't dodge.
He took it.
The lightning slammed into his side, ripping half the flesh from his ribcage, sending him spinning. Corwyn felt the agony in his own ribs, like metal lodged inside him.
But Bayle twisted mid-fall, stole the lightning into his chest, and flung it back — a wild, corrupted arc of gold.
It struck one of Placidusax's heads.Bone cracked.Scales flew.
Bayle hit the head a heartbeat later and ripped it off.
Four remained.
Placidusax screamed, a sound that tore clouds apart.
He struck back with blinding speed.Two golden heads snapped onto Bayle's wings, tearing through membrane.A third bit deep into Bayle's leg.Claws raked down his back, splitting scale and sinew.
Bayle roared in pain, flames gouting from his chest.
He fired a blast of red fire straight into Placidusax's leftmost head.It didn't kill it — but it burned deep enough that the head sagged, half-blind, one eye melting.
Bayle didn't stop.
He blasted fire again.And again.
The weakened head tore away under the assault.
Three remained.
Bayle dropped, half-falling.
Placidusax gave chase, divine and furious.
Lightning rained down around them like spears.Corwyn felt every impact like a fist behind his sternum.
Bayle lashed his tail upward, catching Placidusax across the muzzle.Then he opened his jaws…
…and summoned a new lightning.
Not divine.
Not pure.
Stolen. Mangled. His.
Gold arcs flickered violently, dancing across his torn ribs. He hurled the lightning into Placidusax's middle head.
The skull cracked.The gold dimmed.The head slumped.
Two remained.
Placidusax staggered.
For the first time… he looked old.
Vulnerable.
Bayle hung in the air, bleeding out.
"You mocked me."
"You were lesser." Placidusax hissed through two throats.
"And still… I ended you."
Placidusax didn't roar.Didn't deny it.
He simply began to fall.
Slowly.
Painfully.
His wings failing.
His power fading.
Bayle's lightning — a stolen spark — had undone a god.
Bayle tried to follow him down, shattered wings beating once… twice…
The third beat failed.
He collapsed mid-air, crashing into the storm, tumbling through red clouds like a broken ember.
Corwyn felt the snap of wings, the ripping of sinew, the flash of white pain.
Bayle nearly died.
He should have died.
But he lived.
Barely.
Enough to crawl away.Enough to breathe.Enough to pass on memory.
Enough to curse the age of ancient dragons.
Corwyn collapsed onto the temple floor.Air punched back into his lungs.He spat blood.
The Heart above him went still.
In the darkness of the ruined chamber, something ancient whispered:
"They laughed at me."
"But it is my children who survived."
"Rise, little flame and embrace my heart, the heart of Bayle the Dread"