Hello there,
If you enjoy my stories, you can read up to 9 chapters in advance per story on my Patreon page / patreon.com/Samael61.
Readers who enjoy the premise of a strong main character like Ei will definitely like my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
—
The Lands Beyond the Wall
"Fuck," Brandon cursed.
"Lord Governor, what is happening?"
"I don't know. Something just knocked the dragon down."
"That's not possible, is it?"
"Wait, it's getting up."
Brandon kept his eye on the Thunder Dragon. Whatever that pillar of ice was, it did not seem to do any damage to the divine construct. It took off, shaking the snow and ice stuck to its body.
The serpentine construct glowed with lightning. Its roar pushed the air away and dispelled the globe of churning ice. He crouched inside the warmachine, pulling the hatch down. Even inside, the sharp, cold winds bit into their bones.
Once the howling ceased, Brandon tried to push the hatch open. He gritted his teeth, exerting more force than she should have to. He used both hands, forcing the hatch to snap open.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, seeing a layer of ice coat everything in sight. The warmachines were stuck; the trees were breaking down like glass, a fate they no doubt would have shared without the warmachines.
The Thunder Dragon was fighting a White Walker, though this one was different from the rest. Twice the height of one, a thick mist that froze everything it touched to dust.
It fired a white pillar that sucked the heat off his soul at the dragon, who met the attack with an equally large ray from its maw.
"Drive, get us the fuck out of here," he screamed to the men. This was a battle between divine forces. He and his men held no place here.
—
Once sufficiently away from the valley, Brandon turned to watch the battle.
The Great Other, for that creature could be nothing else, was fast. Once the Thunder Dragon's attack pushed it back, it changed tactics, flying around like a bug to strike from different angles.
The dragon was slower by comparison, but it was not defenseless. Sections on its long, serpentine body fired purple lightning orbs at a frightening speed, forcing the Great Other to abandon its assault.
Her Excellency's construct pursued the God of Night and Terror amid the purple orbs, unrelenting, yet unable to. The game of cat and mouse continued with neither side gaining the upper hand.
Then, the dragon stopped.
He did not know why, but it ceased returning fire against the Great Other, simply braving the blinding white pillars. A layer of frost began to cover its head, but the divine construct continued to endure. Brandon's brows furrowed, but the reason became clear in moments.
A section of the dragon's trail sprung out of the ground, behind the God of Night. Detached from the body physically, only strands of divine lightning kept it connected.
The tail wrapped around the Great Other, pulling him down through the hole in the ground. The Thunder Dragon's eyes glowed. Its maw snapped open, shattering the ice. It flew up, piercing the clouds, dragging the enemy to the sky.
Its head came to an abrupt stop, but the body continued to rise. The dragon's tail disappeared above the clouds and came down hard. It unfurled at the last second, slamming the Great Other to the ground.
The hit created fissures like the web of a spider, shaking the war machines. The frozen trees were blasted away, creating a ring of mist around the valley.
The tail rose and came down again. The dragon continued to smash the Great Other to the ground over and over again, each blow widening the fissures.
"Drive away, now!" he screamed once more.
The warmachines moved again, shaking violently under the quakes. They drove far enough to merely hear the sound of the blows, which ceased after agonizing minutes.
Only for the world to turn purple.
The periscopes carried the divine light inside the warmachine, and the crews felt their hairs rising on end. When Brandon found the courage to get out and see what had happened, he found that the valley was gone. Hills on both sides were annihilated for at least a kilometer, leaving nothing but flat, scorched land.
He could see a hole where the great fractures on the land originated from. The depth was not clear from his current distance. However, the sudden warmth he felt, amidst all the ice and cold, made it clear that the Great Other was defeated.
"Fuck yeah!" he cheered to the top of his lungs.
—
Essos
Lys
It was time to sail once more to Volantis this time and end R'hllor. Lys was a bright spot in this otherwise dark war. R'hllor's purpose in causing these massacres and destruction still evaded her.
The answers would not be far from Lys. Volantis and its towns, Volon, Therys, Valysar, and Selhorys, hosted great populations. Volantis alone had over a million citizens, and the towns were close in numbers.
R'hllor's actions could cause a death toll reaching over three million, the greatest to be seen on this side of the planet.
—
Volantis
The city appeared to be eerily calm. There was no one in sight, but she could feel something dangerous brewing inside.
That is, dangerous by this world's standards.
"Your Excellency?" the admiral asked, waiting for orders.
"Stay here. Something is happening inside; I will investigate by myself," she said, leaving the bridge.
"At least take us with you," Chiyo said, walking to catch up with her.
She put a hand on the oni's shoulder, stopping her. "Whatever is in there is out of your league."
"Be careful," Chiyo said, squeezing her hand.
"I will be."
—
She soared over the outer wall, heading for the inner part of Volantis, where the source of magic she felt resided. She did not have to reach there, for the creature inside flew out to meet her.
Crimson flames took the shape of a cobra's head over a humanoid body covered in dark, glossy plate armor. It carried a scimitar and a shield and was twice her height.
"The foreign god. The one whose origins are unknown."
"R'hllor, I presume," she said, inspecting this god.
It was nothing like the gods she had seen in this land. Even the Drowned God shared similarities with the old gods, from what she had seen of them, yet R'hllor was a foreigner.
Just like her.
"You presume correctly, interloper. You have meddled in my ascension for the last time, and you will pay for it."
Musou Isshin's handle left her chest, and she swung the blade at the serpentine god. R'hllor was fast. It managed to dive down quickly enough to avoid Musou no Hitotachi, though the now-ghost city of Volantis suffered the full brunt of her divine might.
Her attack carved the city in half. The gorge she left in the land pushed the two parts of the city apart as the electro-elemental energy created violent explosions.
R'hllor turned around, seeing the destruction a single swing caused, its serpentine eyes wide, its throat bobbing.
Ei prepared to strike again, and the so-called god of light ran.
She lowered her sword, watching her enemy abandon the shell it was using. It transformed into a serpent and split into three, trying to fly away. Each one was fast, leaving shockwaves behind as the air collapsed.
She gave chase, faster than the serpent.
A purple comet appeared next to the snake escaping towards Valyria. It was already dead by the time it realized escape was impossible. She struck the middle one heading towards the Dothraki Sea. It suffered the same fate as the other.
The last one, the actual consciousness of R'hllor, was flying to Qohor. She brought her blade, ready to cleave the head from the body.
As a last-ditch effort, R'hllor separated its soul from the power, leaving behind an empty shell and disappearing into thin air. She destroyed the not-quite-divine energy left behind, but her quarry had managed to scurry away like a vermin.
Ei's lips twitched. Regardless, all the power R'hllor had gathered was gone. Hunting the spirit down would be simple since she had its signature.
—
"Is it dead?" Chiyo asked. The battle was short and hopefully meant victory.
"No. Its spirit managed to escape but left all the power it had behind. It is nothing more than a bug to be crushed now."
Sasayuri was quick to get the armed forces into motion. "Admiral, approach the city. We'll keep away from the gorge and search for any sign of life."
"As you command, general."
"All that massacre and dead humans, yet it proved to be useless," Kage said. How had R'hllor been so weak after consuming all those souls?
Ei huffed. "The gods of this world are weak compared to the Archons. The Dendro Archon was not a fighter, yet I am certain she could have defeated them."
"What do we do now?" Chiyo wondered. Certainly, they would have to hunt R'hllor down. But they did not know where it escaped.
"Qohor has to be secured, as are Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen."
"Kage and I can take ground forces to march to Qohor and secure the city," Chiyo offered. She was getting bored aboard the ship; it would give her a chance to stretch her legs.
"Then we will sail to Freedom's Bay."
—
"What has happened, worm? Why has our arrival been delayed?"
It cowered before the pulsing flames. "The interloper god. She is too strong. She almost slew me with a single strike."
"Useless. You had one chance and managed to fail after all these centuries."
"Wait. The mortal souls are untouched. She has yet to reach them. I can still open the portal."
"Then there might be a use for you yet. Return to the soul cage and open the portal."
"At once."
"If you fail us once more, there will be nowhere for you to hide."
—
Volantis was empty, as she had sensed. The civilians were gone, consumed by R'hllor most likely. She would find and kill the creature for its transgression against humans.
They would send scouts to check the Volantene towns, but if the city itself had fallen, the settlements did not stand a chance.
At least good news was approaching her.
Above the skies of the city, the Thunder Dragon circled down to land. There was something between its teeth, a creature that was nothing but cold and a void that smothered all heat.
It was almost dead.
The dragon opened its jaw, dropping what she assumed to be the god of night and terror on her feet.
He looked surprisingly human. Pale blue skin, sharp ice spikes for hair, donned in crystalline armor, and a very human yet not-quite face.
"Is he dead?"
"Almost." She flicked her finger, sending a small bolt of electricity to wake the creature up. He flinched, opening his light blue eyes.
"The God of Eternity they call you," he said with a breathy voice. She could see that the dragon had beaten him to the edge of death. Couple more blows, and it would have certainly perished.
"Indeed." She pulled her sword, ready to finish what her creation had started.
He raised a trembling hand with great effort. "Before you kill me, you must know the truth."
She considered his words and lowered her blade. "By all means, enlighten me." He was not pleading for his life; she could see that much.
"R'hllor, it's not a god. It's a monster from another realm. It gathers souls, the purer the better, to summon its lords and their armies to this world."
His words chilled the atmosphere more than his powers ever could.
"And your purpose in this historic battle?" Ei asked. Killing R'hllor was a matter of existence now, if she were to believe his words.
"To destroy the souls so it cannot use them. Better a dead world than one left to their mercies."
"I can think of better ways for you to stop R'hllor, mainly by not being the enemy of the humans in the first place." Though, she sensed there was more to it than merely not considering the option.
"It was not possible. My essence kills them slowly even by being near them."
"My apologies then."
"But you are different. I felt R'hllor's power wane before yours. You can finish what I could not."
"I intend to."
Ei erected a barrier around the God of Night and brought her blade down to his heart. The explosion of bone-chilling cold was contained, and another god came to an end.
If his words were to be believed, then R'hllor was indeed a foreigner to this world, just as she was. She did not know where it came from, but if it wanted to bring more of its kind to this planet, she would stop it. Only four cities had left to check, and the enslaved souls could be in any of them.
The stakes had just risen higher than ever.
—
Come morning, the fleets sailed and the army marched.
She did not know where R'hllor kept the souls, but they would find them. She sent the dragon with the army for support. In its weakened state, the false god was easy prey for any of her friends.
Sailing southeast at the edge of Valyria, she gazed at the shattered home of the dragon lords of old. Her gaze pierced the Smoking Sea to see what had remained of Valyria.
Nothing.
The volcanic eruption was so violent there was nothing that resembled any sign a civilization ever existed in the peninsula.
The expeditions sent to the island would not find anything, though; the crews would die from the toxic fumes before they could realize that fact.
A cruel, slaving empire annihilated by nature itself, where their superiority meant nothing.
Poetic.
—
A brazier was lit atop each city, extending R'hllor's influence, no doubt the means it used to enslave the mortal souls. Sasayuri took down each with one shot before the ships approached.
With the haze covering the cities gone one by one, she found them to be abandoned, with nary a sign of a human.
Plenty of blood, viscera, and corpses were left behind, however.
Three more cities dead with over a million humans gone.
—
South of Qohor
Her aide for this operation, a Northerner sergeant, rushed up, saluting. "General Chiyo."
"What is it?"
"Our scouts report a massive horde of undead humans marching to our location."
"Are they sure the enemy are monsters?"
"Yes, most of them are naught but skin and bones. They are just charging ahead mindlessly."
"Numbers?" Qohor had a population close to half a million. If R'hllor had enough power to create an army out of corpses, then the enemy would outnumber them significantly.
"It is difficult to count due to their state, but more than a million by estimate."
Chiyo snorted. It explained where all the dead in abandoned cities were gone.
"Have the warmachines and the light cavalry create a line in front of the troops. Get the artillery and mortars ready. I want as many heavy weapons as possible on elevated platforms."
They might be outnumbered, but this would merely slow them down.
"Yes, General."
—
Notes: What do you guys think about how this story is going so far? I racked my brain for a believable way to make the Targaryens declare a war without outside influence, but nothing came to mind that didn't make them some dumb villains who would ignore the fact that their enemy was a god.
—
In the next chapter:
She watched the purple spots leave holes in the grey and black mass, only for them to be quickly filled. She tilted her head, lowering the binoculars to rub her eyes. Artillery wiped out dozens, but the size of the horde did not seem to shrink.
"You noticed it too," Kage said.
"Something else is at play."
"We need another reconnaissance flight."
Chiyo nodded. "I'll get the dragon ready."
Curious about the next chapter? Please consider supporting me on Patreon.