I stood across the cooled molten chamber and looked upon my rival and the scars across his chest and belly. Aside from the new scar from our last encounter, he looked unchanged. Just a hulking Charr with epic anime hair, but my divine senses picked up the truth. Waiting just under the surface of his skin was a loosely chained beast made of pure power praying for his chance to come to the surface and wreck mother fuckers.
"You who showed me the way of the sword." He greeted, "Let me show you the way of the fist."
Stabbing his greatswords into the ground, my rival clenched his muscles and began screaming. The chamber shook and loose rocks began flying away from him as a golden flaming aura erupted around him and his tiger fur changed from orange to gold and his eyes became a deep teal.
He had truly delved deeply into the power of anime.
"Yeeesss!" I roared as I covered my body with radiant Rc Cells and leapt at my foe.
Our fists crossed each other on their way to our faces, both of us landing a cataclysmic strike at the same time that generated light and heat while producing a shockwave that cratered the ground beneath us and tore apart the chamber at the heart of the Citadel of Flame.
We began exchanging attacks at speeds no other in this world could ever hope to achieve. A hundred exchanges in the time it takes sparks to fly off flint striking steel. Nothing was held back and our clash reshaped the landscape as we crushed mountains and dug up ravines and canyons with our bodies. I dragged him through rivers of lava and he punted me into the sky. He shot out yellow bolts of ki from his hands and I fired off luminous crystal spikes from wings. I breathed an oceans of flames from my mouth and he parted it around him with a primal scream. He rose into the sky and put his hands in front of his chest joined at the wrists with his fingers arched.
"Hame!"
"Yes!" I screamed in joy as I felt him creating a power that threatened the whole world, "This is how a rivalry between gods should end!"
I took up a javelin throwing stance and condensed every once of my strength into one perfect spear of light, holding all the power of the world's justice that burned with the radiant light of the Fire Beast himself, banishing the night all across the world.
"Hame!"
"A single brilliant clash with the fate of the world on the line!" I roared, "I've wanted this moment more than anything my entire life!"
"Haaaaaaa!"
"Die!"
My spear of light split the blue beam of death in twain and vaporized my foe as his split beam scorched the land around me for miles and miles. With his presence annihilated I fell to my knees and wept at the passing of such a beautiful being.
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I spent the next few months in a fugue state and didn't come to until I stood on the bow of the Kruban Bound IV, the magitech ship I built for destroying the Elder Dragons as large as Zhaitan himself sporting not one, not two, not even three, but four anti-dragon MEGA-LIT Laser Cannons because I am all about more dakka.
Someone had taken the time to condition and braid some gold into my long hair and beard so that I didn't look like a hobo in my resplendent armor atop my golden orichalcum warship.
Explosions sounded in the sky around us as our anti fighter cannons tore Zhaitan's flying minions to shreds and off to my left the equally sized but far less impressive Glory of Tyria joined me in my air assault on the Undead Dragon.
Zhaitan himself was a disgusting beast made of rotting flesh stretched out across multiple giant wings with his lower jaw replaced by a nest of long lesser dragon necks each sporting a small dragon head. His mouths and eyes glowed with the neon green fire of Tyrian death energy and over all he was an ugly mother fucker I had no problems firing my lasers at.
Sometimes when you kill a dragon you feel sorry at the destruction of such an epic beast. It is how I will definitely feel about Kralkatorrik's passing and Jormag and Primordus too. Mordremoth less so because the closest thing to an actual dragon fight in his case is the Mouth of Mordremoth dragon champion and that thing is hideous.
Zhaitan died swiftly under the assault much like he did in the game, but far more important than a completely lack luster boss fight was the eruption of primordial death energy that swept across the world upon his demise. An energy that all the other Elder Dragons could snatch up, but so could gods.
I began absorbing this energy, increasing my power, as did Jack, Medusa, and most importantly Wanda. Though she had the least divinity between us, she had archetyped as the class with the greatest affinity with the energy, meaning she was more than ready to accomplish great things with the new power source.
Zojja was nearby scanning the release and our absorption of it in the hopes of furthering her research into the creation of machines capable of maintaining the magical balance in Tyria that kept things within the All's tight parameters.
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While the rest of Tyria celebrated, my family was deep within the core of Rata Sum in our secret base, watching Wanda work her magic.
One hundred live human sacrifices, two vials of blood, two sets of urns containing both the ashes and souls of our dead lovers, and one demigod necromancer juiced up on death dragon energy brought back Kat and Linda.
The Spartans were fully restored rather than undead, their bodies created and brought back to their former power with the living flesh of the sacrifices and the divine power pumped out by our ritual.
"I don't remember you being so ugly." Kat snarked as she identified me despite the change in body since her death.
"It was an adjustment, for sure." I grinned, "But it seems you will have to go through an adjustment phase of your own. After all, I have a brand new virginal bride to break in."
"Virginal?" Kat scoffed.
"Fresh as the driven snow, my dear." I replied.
"Then we had best get to tainting this body as fast as possible." Kat led me away from the ritual site with a sway of her glorious round ass cheeks.
It's good to have her back.
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We managed to build our own version of Omadd's Machine and get Kat and Linda entrenched into their archetypes as a Scrapper Engineer and a Deadeye Thief before Scarlett and her merry men began their rampage across Tyria with the various villainous factions she brought together to achieve her ultimate goal.
I was far more interested in studying the special effects she managed to create by fusing various factions together such as the Molten Alliance made between the Flame Legion and the Dredge. While it was like… a total bummer that the Molten Alliance were taking slaves to work in their weapons factory - and that is exactly what I told Bram Eirsson of Cragstead about all his kidnapped neighbors - I actually wanted to take these people as my worshippers.
They came to the fusion of Fire, Blood, Metal, and Noise all on their own making them my people.
Rushing to their facility, rather than battle it out, I set up a giant stage outside and hooked Jack's guitar up to some major amps.
Then she started to play.
"What is that sound?" Asked a Charr as he came out of the factory with a few dredge following behind him.
"It's a devil screaming." the first dredge answered.
"It's an angel singing." answered the next.
A huge molten effigy came out of the, "It is the pounding of creations hammer on the anvil of time."
The Charr threw up the horns and banged his head, "It's fucking awesome!"
I provided the truth to these wayward souls, "It's called… Heavy Metal."