Kluxon roared in anger as the last human disappeared into the portal, running at a speed that outpaced even his own breath. His fury boiled over and exploded, his dense black aura bursting outwards in a storm of black, his rapidly recovering eye glazed over with anger.
Mere creatures, cowards who hid away from his family's reign long ago, now stood up against him without fear, striking with power comparable to the wizards of the High Council of Magic. Even piercing through his aura, they were accompanied by what seemed to be wizards who had survived the long years since he last slept. Not only had Kluxon, an Elder Dragon who had ruled the world in the years long past, been wounded and toyed with by such insignificant fools, but they even had the audacity to escape before he could exact his revenge.
Before Kluxon could properly express his anger, however, he heard a roaring noise behind him. His massive head turned to see a blazing ball of fire descending from the sky, burning out of the back of a metal cylinder. Kluxon recognized it as the weapon that annoying wizard had launched into the air in desperation as he bore down upon him, before a puny little dragon plunged her aggravatingly indestructible swarm of swords into his face. The thought made Kluxon furious once more, but he turned his fury towards the weapon, falling gloriously towards the hill behind him.
Kluxon scoffed. The wizard had launched smaller ones at him, and while they were irritating and managed to penetrate his aura and send him into a daze, they dealt no real damage. The burn wounds they caused were already healing, and although this weapon was larger, it had missed entirely.
That was what he thought, before the missile slammed into the sandy dune, scattering sand around it in a massive crater as it detonated. Kluxon inwardly smirked as he charged his breath and prepared to snuff out what meager explosion would emerge from it.
As the black wave of oblivion extended outwards from Kluxon's mouth, the true manifestation of his deep-rooted hatred for all things bathed in light, free from any rule whatsoever, embodying his desire to reduce everything who dared oppose him to nothingness, the world lit up. With a roar that immediately burst Kluxon's eardrums, sending deep red blood spurting out his ears, and a light so piercingly bright that it could overpower a hundred thousand of the brilliant beams that the light gem could produce, and a heat so scorching that it made the fire of his brother, Kygoru, that could even burn the air itself, feel like a cool summer breeze, the weapon exploded. Force beyond that which the most powerful wizard, Kovo, could produce in even his strongest attack assaulted him in an instant.
Kluxon's breath rushed forwards, a wave of force that simply deleted everything before it, regardless of power or strength, but was completely overcome by the sheer power behind the explosion. Before Kluxon could even register the sight, the explosion washed over him. Heat assaulted his scales, burning them off and charring his flesh. Force and sound slammed against him, breaking his bones and sending him flying. Light beamed against his still-open eyes, burning into them the permanent image of pure brightness. The culmination of every element of the explosion compounded upon him, peeled his flesh away from his bones, and tore down every fiber of his being. Agony rushed through his body as he felt even the deepest portions of his body burn from the inside and outside at the same time, feeling his every limb get torn apart by the immense power of the explosion.
When Kluxon regained his consciousness, he was immediately assaulted by a sensation he had not felt since being completely overpowered by Kovo.
Pain.
Pure, unbridled pain.
A rampant beast that was let loose upon even the wisest, strongest, most powerful of beings the moment they felt defeat for the first time.
That's right.
Kluxon had been defeated.
As the agony coursed through what remained of Kluxon's veins, rage boiled up within his mind as he vowed to tear the wizard who created this weapon limb from limb.
Even through the pain, Kluxon was able to hold together this thoughts. His anger remained vividly on the forefront of his mind, offsetting the pain to the point where it was no more than a dull, piercing ache in the back of his mind.
Azor, you liar.
The wizard who woke him said that there was no one left in this age who could stand against the might of an Elder Dragon, but there, right before him just moments before, was a wizard, undoubtedly from the High Council of Magic, who could reduce him to such a state. Kluxon silently vowed to reduce Azor to ashes after destroying the wizard who created that weapon.
That weapon.
Kluxon frowned in his mind.
The weapon that reduced him to this state, the one which could outdo anything even Kovo could produce in his entire lifetime.
Disbelief began to course through Kluxon's bones.
That weapon didn't have any magic power in it.
Kluxon's eyes snapped open.
The spectacle before him was immense. He had been blown to the other side of the desert, and before him lay a crater far greater than the remnants of the city whose name had long since been lost to time, reduced to ashes in a single attack by the child who betrayed his own kin - the Elder Dragons.
The gaping hole in the earth lay there, deep beyond anything Kluxon could ever hope to achieve, carving its path even into the mountain peaks off to the north, no doubt sending them crumbling down into the massive river in the middle of Argean.
Destruction of an entire part of a continent, the devastation that could have reduced the entire capital city of the Elder Empire to ashes in an instant.
The lingering heat and ringing sound, and an uncomfortable buzz that struck at his very bones, remained in the aftermath.
But there was no magic.
All of it was caused by a single weapon that had no magic.
Kluxon looked down at himself and felt a chill run down his spine.
His entire front was melted and charred, flesh peeled and burnt away to reveal shattered bones and barely intact, scorched organs. His legs lay with their flesh seared away, leaving merely bone behind. From the pain on Kluxon's face, he knew that part of his jaw and throat had been blown away, and even his skull was left in tatters, hairline cracks left over from his fight with those aggravating creatures broken open with vengeance, leaving his brain open to the elements.
Such extensive damage was caused, not by magic, but by… something.
Something Kluxon didn't know about.
Kluxon's blood ran cold.
He recognized this.
Stories he had heard when he was young, ones he disregarded as mere rambling of the wizards to entertain children.
Stories that filled any normal creature with dread, ones that were even passed down to the ignorant creatures hiding in their forest to the north.
Stories of a land where magic did not exist, and society was not determined by strength, but by intelligence.
The Beyond.
The land the wizards came from.
Memories began to run through Kluxon's mind as the stories returned to him, laid bare and raw before the devastation he had just witnessed.
Stories of weapons developed by the people of the Beyond.
Weapons that lent power equivalent to a wizard to anyone who wielded it.
Weapons that could devastate an entire city in an hour.
Vehicles that could fly better, move faster, and create destruction more extensive than any dragon.
Vehicles that could be driven or piloted by just anyone, being merely the size of a teenage dragon like the blue one with the swords Kluxon just fought, carrying dozens of those weapons within it.
As the stories rushed through Kluxon's head, a sensation he had long since forgotten, one that he did not express even while every single Elder Dragon teamed up against and brutally lost to Kovo in a single night, rose up within him and dominated his mind.
Fear.
Kluxon, the great Elder Dragon, the Dark Dragon who nobody could approach lest they be consumed by his mere aura, was afraid.
It didn't matter that Kluxon was able to greatly nullify most of the damage from the explosion with his breath.
It didn't matter that Kluxon's aura had blocked almost all of the harmful radiation, force, and heat that would have killed him in an instant.
It didn't matter that Kluxon's immense size and durability had allowed his vital organs and skeletal structure to survive, relatively intact.
It didn't matter that Kluxon had regeneration powerful enough to restore him to peak condition, even from this crippled, near-dead state, in mere days.
What mattered was that Kluxon had been defeated, thoroughly, utterly, and completely, not by magic, not by skill, nor even by teamwork, but by a single weapon created in the Beyond.
As Kluxon lay there, fear coursing through his veins, any and all rage that rose up, be it vengeance at the wizard who launched the weapon, anger at the creatures who distracted him long enough for the wizard to finish the weapon, or even fury at the group's cowardly escape, was completely and utterly suppressed.
It was all snuffed out by fear.
Fear of the Beyond.
-
As Xenon, Axel, and Kyle had finished explaining what a nuke was, the Gem Keepers fell into shock. Even Ido was angry, asking why Xenon had decided to launch the missile in the first place.
"It wasn't as powerful as an atomic bomb," Xenon explained. "I was too rushed for that. The warhead, however, was still nuclear. It probably devastated Kluxon, but it probably won't kill him."
"It would've killed us if Axel wasn't so fast at warning you all," Ido hissed. "If you want to die, do it alone."
"I saw no hope for us in that battle, not after Qassot fell," Xenon said, glancing at Qassot, who was lying, breathing still ragged and uneven, on a rock slab nearby. "I decided it would be best to do the most damage I could."
Ido sighed and lowered his gaze into a glowering glare. "If you want to gamble, go to a casino. Don't bet on people's lives, especially if they're not your own."
"That blow would have crippled Kluxon at the very least. I just bought us some valuable time." Xenon met Ido's eyes strongly, refusing to back down, with a stance that insisted that he had made the right choice in the time he had.
"Where even are we?" Aavern asked suddenly.
Axel glanced over. The Gem Keepers were crowded around Qassot, making sure she was recovering well. Surprisingly, Axel's emergency treatment had done her some good, as she now felt moderate agony when just sitting still instead of the monstrous, all-consuming pain that she felt before. It was a surprise she managed to stay conscious the entire way through.
Axel glanced around. It was a forest. Rows and rows of trees he had not seen before, but what his mind insisted that he had, lined the clearing they had landed in.
"Ask Kyle," Ido replied. "I sped up the portal formation by using Kyle's memory as a guide. I don't know this place."
Kyle looked around at the forest, then looked at Axel.
There was a strange look on his face.
"What?" Axel asked.
"Do you not know?" Kyle asked. His voice carried a faint sense of nostalgia, and an underlying current of disbelief, carrying with it a torrent of joy, excitement, and a powerful sense of belonging with which it was evident that Kyle did not know what to do. His fingers were twitching rapidly, and the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards as his eyes opened wide.
"Do you really not know?" Kyle repeated.
Axel looked around, then back at Kyle's excited face.
Axel's breath suddenly started coming in ragged gasps. Despite how confused his mind was, the back of his brain started screaming at him, pounding against his skull and rallying his heart to beat powerfully against his bruised ribs. A mixture of nostalgia, sadness, and happiness washed through his mind. Axel struggled to search through his limited memories, but could not find anything. His mind remained stubbornly blank, even amongst the immense emotions coursing through him.
"We're in the Beyond," Kyle said, his face finally breaking out into a massive grin. "This is Earth. We're back home."
As the Gem Keepers around Axel began to panic and speak frantically for some reason, filled with some generational fear passed down from parent to child for a thousand years, Axel's knees buckled under him. All noise blurred around him, and his sight coalesced into a blur.
Axel couldn't remember it specifically, but this was where he belonged. This was his home. He had been taken from this place far in the past, fought in a war for a country that wasn't his, fought alongside creatures wielding powers out of a fantasy book, and faced off against primal monstrosities that could threaten the world.
But now, he was home.
His body and mind were ecstatic, jumping about for joy, but his memories were empty. Axel remained there, on his knees, leaning with his back against a tree, staring blankly into space as Kyle stood nearby, staring up at the familiar night sky, struggling to dig up anything that could explain his feelings.