Air split like a scream.
Atlas and Veil were flung like teors. The sky beca a tunnel of pressure, the stars re blurs above them. Atlas’s cheeks rippled from the force, teeth clenched as if the air alone could shatter bone. Wind cut like glass, sound fell away, and all that remained was speed and heat.
His vision blurred, not from tears, but from sheer velocity. Each breath he drew was a war. He didn’t feel like a man anymore—he felt like a weapon being hurled toward inevitability.
Beside him, Veil thrashed, part-shadow, part-screaming manifestation of panic.
"YOU FUCKING PSYCHOS!" he roared. The wind tore the words from his throat.
Atlas didn’t respond. Couldn’t. His eyes were fixed on the sky ahead.
There they were.
The dragons.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of them.
Wings wider than rooftops. Scales black as sin. Eyes burning like coals stoked by hate. They moved not like animals but like soldiers. Precise. Focused. Directed.
These weren’t beasts.
These were weapons. Loosed with purpose.
And that purpose was Berkimhum.
His people.
His kingdom.
His sister.
Atlas’s rage boiled in his chest, mingling with the fear he would never speak aloud. A fear that he was too late. That even this desperate launch wouldn’t be enough.
But fear ant nothing now.
Only action mattered.
"Veil! Blade mode, now!"
"I will never forgive you if we survive this!" Veil scread, but already he was transforming. His form twisted in midair, collapsing into a sleek, runed blade wrapped in living shadow.
Atlas gripped him tightly and flipped. Gravity answered with cruelty.
Then ca the first dragon.
It roared—an ear-shattering sound that vibrated through bone.
Atlas struck.
Veil pierced through the beast’s skull. A gout of blood, black and steaming, sprayed out like a geyser. The dragon’s wings faltered, its roar curdled into a death rattle.
Another ca at him from above. Atlas flipped upward and slamd Veil into its wing joint. Bone cracked. The dragon spiraled down, shrieking.
The sky burned.
All around him were wings, fangs, fire, and death.
Below, the capital’s barrier pulsed faintly—gold light like a dying heartbeat. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. It was going to collapse.
Unless—
He moved like fury incarnate.
Atlas leapt from back to back, using dragons as stepping stones. His body moved without hesitation. He severed wings. Smashed snouts. Drove Veil through scale and sinew.
Veil snarled in his hand: "We are so going to talk about this later!"
Then they saw her.
From the southern wall.
A figure walking through fla.
Lara.
She moved as if untouched by the chaos. Her cloak caught the wind like a banner of war. Her armor shimred with defiance. Her blade—ancestral, glowing—was gripped with silent authority.
Atlas landed on the palace tower beside her. He didn’t need to say anything.
She didn’t look at him.
But she felt him.
Together, they moved.
Atlas leapt high, cleaving down into another dragon’s chest. Lara dashed forward, carving sigils into the ground with her footsteps. Runes burst with golden light.
The sky scread.
Dragons descended.
Lara raised her sword.
And the capital answered.
Bells tolled. The barrier flared. Light returned to the city.
Atlas joined her, Veil howling as the blade split another beast from shoulder to tail. Blood rained like molten hail.
They fought back-to-back.
Lara whispered: "You took your ti."
Atlas grinned through the blood. "Didn’t want to miss the party."
She spun. He flipped. Together they moved like rhythm, like mory. One body of wrath split into two souls.
Another dragon fell. And another.
Veil groaned, half-dissolved. "I’m going to need therapy."
"Get in line," Atlas muttered.
Finally, the last beast turned. Its wings were torn. Its eyes wide with sothing dragons should never feel—fear.
It fled over the mountain.
Silence fell.
Atlas landed hard, knees hitting stone. Blood trickled from his mouth. Veil reford beside him, breathing hard.
Lara stood at the palace steps. She turned slowly.
"Brother," she said. "Welco ho."
Her tone didn’t waver.
Her eyes didn’t shine.
Not warmth. Not cold.
Just steel.
Atlas t her gaze.
But said nothing.
Because even words would be too loud.
A single ember drifted between them, suspended in golden air.
And in that stillness, he understood:
This wasn’t peace.
It was a pause.
sothing shifted.
Atlas landed on the neck of another dragon, driving Veil into its spine—only to feel no resistance. No recoil. No scream. The beast simply kept flying, eyes locked forward, mouth closed. As if it didn’t care.
"What the hell..." he muttered.
Lara noticed too. Her strikes no longer provoked roars or counterattacks. Dragons were folding under her blade without trying to dodge, without trying to kill. One even passed by her without a single swipe, crashing instead into the barrier like a living missile.
Atlas’s gut twisted. He leapt again, slashing through another pair of wings—no retaliation.
"They’re not reacting!" he yelled across the battlefield.
Lara glanced skyward, her blade dripping dark heat. "They’re ignoring us."
Atlas turned mid-air, watching the swarm reorganize—spiraling, diving, all angled toward the sa breach in the southern barrier. Not at the palace. Not at the command center. Just the weakened do.
Then it clicked.
"They’re not here to win. They’re here to ’break through’."
Lara’s expression sharpened. "A dragon siege... with their bodies as the battering ram."
Atlas’s blood ran cold.
Below them, the do cracked louder—groaning like glass under pressure. One dragon slamd into it at full speed, exploding into fire and bone. Another followed. Then ten more.
Each impact chipped away the do’s integrity. Magic pulsed weaker with every strike. And behind that burning cyclone of suicide runs, sothing stirred.
Sothing waiting.
Then the sky cracked.
Not with thunder.
But with a sound that didn’t belong to wind, magic, or beast.
A hum.
A resonance—low, ancient, vibrating through the marrow of the world.
Atlas staggered mid-flight. His muscles seized. Veil vibrated in his grip, groaning like a blade set too close to a bell.
Lara gasped, her knees nearly buckling. She reached out to steady herself against a nearby tower, but the stone itself trembled beneath her fingers.
Then—
A voice.
Not spoken. Not heard.
’Felt.’
{{{Children of ash and oath... you have forgotten your first covenant.}}}
The words rang in their minds like a lullaby spoken by a dying god. Not loud. Not commanding. But inevitable—like gravity or guilt.
Atlas fell to one knee atop a shattered balcony, blood ringing in his ears. The dragons—what was left of them—halted mid-flight, mid-breath. Even the dying stopped roaring. Their wings hovered, waiting, stilled by sothing older than instinct.
{{{You burn your skies to keep your crowns... and then wonder why storms answer your call}}}
The clouds above shifted.
Not dispersed—’parted’, like curtains drawn aside by hands too large to imagine.
Sothing moved behind them.
A shape.
Coiled.
Sleeping.
Waiting.
Atlas raised his head just enough to see a slit-pupil eye, golden and endless, peering down from beyond the storm like a judgnt passed from before ti.
Lara’s sword dimd.
Magic bent.
Atlas clenched his jaw, teeth grinding. "You’re... controlling them?" he rasped aloud.
{{{They are not mine to control}}} the voice whispered, and now it was closer. In his bones. In his spine. ’Inside’
{{{They are mine to mourn.....Now Die my Children....}}}
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