Book 2: The Man King's Fall

Drozakrahth

I woke to the cool quarter moonlit sky…. While the stars on Nox glowed… he now used magic to search for Harbon… but he was also off my back…. Such fucking Disrespect… I may as well be his wife.

I shifted to sit next to him. My clothes were gone, except the shirt my mate gave me… I selfishly kept it… since it smelled like her still. I put it on, and I got laughed at for it.

“I thought I’d awake to a restored, ravenous beast, but instead, I get a sentimental lizard.” He said eating a human soul’s left leg…

It was a Dragon Slayer… but this was something mortals need not know about…

“Nox… why does his scream make my mouth water?” I asked, not referring to the living, lifeless body… but also the soul that screamed in his fangs… he was taking his time on this one.

Let me remain the villain. I am the devourer of all that is fresh flesh… and he the soul… through him is a greater condemnation… being sent directly to Hell… too weak to be fodder for the vast array of demons here… but none living knew of that, since they cannot see souls as we do….

The lifeless body was one of a young man in his 20s… it held no emotion, nor presence of life in any way… it simply watched its soul be devoured. It made no attempt to do anything… but drank from a water skin since Nox passed it to him.

It held it after it drank, staring at the fire.

“You want some?” Nox offered. Since the soul had only one leg, he could not escape.

“Fuck it, pass me some… I’ve never had soul before.” I mumbled.

He ripped the soul’s heart out, but as a soul, he could not die. “Hearts are babies mash.” He said simply.

It tasted… like nothing but as he shrieked in pain and fear, the energy from it revitalized me more than Nox’s spell….

“This is how Harbon casts magic…. You stupid little mortal.” He said ripping off his other leg. The wail echoed off the dunes… even a mortal would hear that on the sand’s winds. “He was sent as a scout while you slept, thinking my soul fire wouldn’t see him. Hardon is to the west, near Glass Eye… an oasis cave with running blessed water. He intends to defile it, as it leads to Hellion’s capital.” He said sucking the rest of the soul into his maw with a slurp. “I fucking love raspberry.” He smiled. “I have to fight them being so tired, but it’s Worth it…”

“I tasted nothing…” I mumbled.

“Dragon hunters taste like raspberry lemon cake…. And their hearts… they taste like frosting. Every creature from ants to elephants has a flavor…. But none taste better than dragon… so hearty… like a thick bone broth filled with prime meats.” He said honestly.

“Again…. They taste like nothing to me, but then again it was never my habit to do that to a mortal.” I mumbled.

“Come… we are both renewed, and he lays a trap. Let’s get him before he gets us.” He said becoming a beam of light.

I left the soulless body to watch the fire… it could harm no one now. It was just living meat… also… seeing what Nox does unsettled me… it always has.

It only took a few flaps to get there… such beauty was overshadowed by the stench of decay…

The oasis’s top was a smooth layer of sand, but underneath, all the caverns were made of quality bluish clear glass… there was a mine here a long time ago, since it was expensive, but carving already made glass was a little easier…. It was shut down after they found water.

That was back during my first life…. Now it still flowed sweet pure water, but if he could help it, it would be festering….

I flew to the smell of the blessed water, and there were countless undead jumping into the waters to foul them. They caught ablaze, making blue fire that lit up the night, as the end of it flicked rich orange.

Nox hit the ground like a comet, while I landed, causing an earthquake… the ground caved in around the small entrance, but with a scoop of my hands, I dug it out.

Harbon rode atop a giant buzzard, one whose ratty wings and fly-fogged breath told me that it had no control over itself anymore… he flew nearly straight into the air, wielding a sword that Could cut me now.

“You little shit Just Die!” I shouted, blasting a beam of fire so hot it was a white light. The clear night became a tempest from such harsh temperature changes.

Red lightning and black clouds swirled into a lazy cyclone above, and below Nox’s whip of light cut through bodies as if they were lards of butter… he looked almost as if he were dancing, the true form and danger of elves.

“I will taste your blood… and become a real King. That is what man needs.” He hissed.

“It will make you drunk with power!” I boomed…. I was casting Armogeddos without the word…. I did not realize I was that angered… the glass below exploded, as its namesake…. There was a lot of glass under the sand… tons of it…. And now it was a great glass hole in the ground… one that would fry the undead in the morning… but also the spring water.

Fuck me.

He had little advantage up here, as this was My territory.

“I DO FOR MAN!” He screamed. “ARROS,” He said tossing his sword with all his might.

He got me in the right eye. He was aiming for my head, but buried deep was the sword…

I screamed as anyone would, but I did not stop my flight path. He thought it would stop me, and I did a bit of a flip in the air, hitting him with all my might with the end of my tail.

The impact of him hitting the ground made the nasty rotted bird rupture into bits of flying guts, rotted feathers, and maggots, but he still lived…

Though his armor was crushed.

He was undead… he Would Not die until he was dealt with….

But I felt dizzy… the sword was likely coated with something… Fuck.

I screamed in frustration, being forced to land, and for a split second, I saw my last death… The periling view of my toppling head, plummeting to the ground before it exploded…. And when I blinked, Nox had a hundred undead on him, grasping at him while he devoured the putrid green soul of Harbon…

“Eat his body.” He shouted. “End this!”

My head was heavy, and I took one large drunk step… I ate it… and swallowed sand.

I immediately shifted.

The undead all dropped, and Nox fell too…. Fighting to eat the soul from the legs up…

The soul Nox was forcing himself to eat laughed. Harbon wanted this…

“Die! Die and rise again! All the work I did was for my people!” He screamed.

“Eat him faster Please.” I wretched… his body was clawing at my innards…but he would Die today if it was my last act.

“Again you are Selfish…. Look at them.” Nox forced him to look at all the dead bodies around him… jackals slowly, fearfully were attracted to the stench… it was free food.

“I did the work.” He mumbled. He fought Nox hard, it was why he could not end it, while I threatened to throw up any moment…

“Who’s work?” I countered. “Even the Adversary would be angered by this… These are Innocent humans you twisted to do your ‘work’. When they die they go to the sun…. Solis will be angered because he dearly loves his little children…. But your soul… I see theirs… they are all blues and whites…. Yours is Green with Sickness… You unleashed a new disease unto the beastkin…

“That they slash you.” He hissed.

“What of the little children? What future do they have dead? What of the farmers… What world will be without grain? What happiness would they have with no dragons, elves, or anyone else, yet there isn’t even a Fish to eat, nor water to drink?” I asked.

“…. a dead world. Said Nox. He reached into the soul’s chest, and ate his heart… he was now limp. “A dead world with a dead king…. And dead people… not even the animals… a Hollow World… that is what you did you litch.” He growled.

“A world where humans can be free… it was all I wanted.” He said shedding black tears, though now Nox could eat him properly… so many souls shot up to the sky then, but I closed my eyes.

So did Nox.

I refused to vomit, using all my strength to bury the glass…. The shockwave even in this form threw most of the bodies out of the great pit… and into the dirt. The sand that covered the caverns could be fixed by drakes. They could reform the glass and redirect the flow of water back to the city….

The dryness of the sands would mummify the remains… But that would be after they found my great dying body….

I hope they don’t try to skin me….

I awoke where I expected. The dark red sky, black soil under my claws, and distant screams spoke all I needed to see and hear… I was in hell again... though this time my neck was not in chains. However,… I was literally in the spot where I was tormented…

“Well done my little one.” Said Nocturnus… He stood in front of me while I was a dragon… he’d taken me here body and all….

I was before the Great Void… the Night Father…. The Horned One… his stature was of a 13 foot tall man, with large ram’s horns… though his wicked smile made me literally shake…

What would he do to me this time?

I thought I was Good…. Well as good as a dragon could get….

Fear.

Unedited, unbridled fear.

I couldn’t even raise my snout to bow… I had no words; my throat was too dry…. But I vomited at the great god’s feet… he looked like he was expecting that.

“Good job little one, now begone.” He said waving his hand away as if I were a bug… but he reached into the filthy sand and snatched the body out of it. “Take this to the pit.” He said to no one…

I didn’t see who or what he’d ordered that too, but everything after that was blackness.