Chapter 105 (Part I): The Last Archmage
Medusa's Gaze
The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
Medusa stood before the Golden Dragon, her veil slipping to reveal eyes shut tight—eyes that had remained closed for centuries. When she opened them, the world dimmed.
This was the legendary "Petrifying Gaze," a curse even gods feared.
The dragon froze mid-roar, its molten glare locked onto hers. Those obsidian eyes, deeper than the Void, swallowed its fury. For the first time in millennia, the Golden Dragon—king of its kind, apex of creation—felt fear.
"No…" The word rumbled like distant thunder.
Petrification crept upward from its talons, gray tendrils devouring gold. The beast thrashed, its wings cracking like glaciers calving. Fire erupted from its maw, but the flames died mid-air, smothered by Medusa's suffocating magic.
"You… dare…" The dragon's voice frayed, its neck stiffening.
Medusa did not blink. Blood trickled from her nostrils, her skin leaching to marble-white. Yet she held the gaze, unyielding, until the last scale turned to stone.
The Golden Dragon became a monument to its own hubris, jaws forever parted in silent rage.
The Cost of Victory
Medusa crumpled.
Bennett caught her before she hit the ice. Her breath came in shallow rasps, eyelids fluttering as if desperate to shut. "Cover… my eyes…"
He tore his cloak, wrapping the fabric tightly around her face. Her skin was cold, her pulse thready. "Stay with us," he whispered, though he knew she couldn't hear.
The old mage staggered over, his staff splintered. "Foolish child," he muttered, though his tone held no bite. "To challenge a Golden Dragon alone…"
"Is it dead?" Bennett asked, staring at the statue.
"Dead?" The mage barked a laugh. "The Golden Ones are never dead. Only delayed."
As if summoned, faint glyphs ignited across the dragon's stony hide—ancient wards flaring to life. The ice beneath their feet trembled.
"Go. Now." The mage shoved Bennett toward Hussein. "Take them south. Do not look back."
A Knight's Oath
Hussein leaned on his shattered sword, his left eye a ruin of clotted blood. Still, he stood straight. "You plan to face it alone, Gandolphus?"
The old mage—Gandolphus, last of the Archmages—smiled grimly. "Someone must light the way."
Bennett's throat tightened. "We can't leave you to—"
"Enough!" Gandolphus's voice cracked like a whip. He thrust a weathered satchel into Bennett's hands. Inside hummed relics older than kingdoms: star charts, spellshards, a vial of liquid starlight. "My apprentice… protect her. She'll need you."
Before Bennett could protest, the mage flicked a finger.
Control Threads.
Bennett's limbs locked, his protests trapped in his throat. Hussein hoisted him over one shoulder, the knight's remaining eye blazing with grim resolve.
"Farewell, old friend," Hussein said.
Gandolphus nodded. "Make sure the boy lives. The world will need his… peculiar gifts."
Grimgrin's Revelation
The rat-like Grimgrin hesitated, whiskers twitching. "Archmage… I know what you are. The Council declared you dead centuries ago."
"And you'll keep that secret," Gandolphus said lightly, though his gaze hardened. "Unless you wish to explain to the Azurite Order why you fled their massacre in the Frostspire?"
Grimgrin flinched. "How did you—"
"Ten-level metamorphosis." The mage cut him off. "That's what you need to regain human form. Stay with the boy. He's your best hope."
The rat-mage bowed, lower than Bennett had ever seen. "It was an honor, Lord Gandolphus."
As Grimgrin scurried after the retreating group, Gandolphus turned to face the cracking statue. Golden light seeped through its stony shell.
The Archmage's Sacrifice
The dragon's roar shook the tundra.
Gandolphus raised his broken staff, its fractured core igniting with borrowed starlight. "Come then, worm! Let's remind the stars why they feared us!"
The Golden Dragon burst free, stone shards raining like meteors. Its remaining wing hung mangled, but its fury burned undimmed.
"MORTAL!"
"Mortal?" The Archmage laughed, blood staining his teeth. "Tonight, I am death."
He slammed the staff downward.
The ice split, revealing a chasm of swirling astral fire—a gateway to the Celestial Forge. The dragon lunged, but Gandolphus leapt into the abyss, dragging the beast with him.
Their duel vanished into the void, leaving only echoes:
"FOR ROLAND!"
"FOR GLORY!"
Then silence.
Chapter 105 (Part II): The Dragon's Requiem
The Storm's Judgment
The petrified Golden Dragon shuddered.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its stony hide, golden light bleeding through like molten lava. The ancient runes encircling its body—once symbols of divine suppression—faded into nothingness. With a roar that split the sky, the Goldscale shattered its stone prison, reborn in radiant fury.
Northward, the heavens convulsed. The tempest, held at bay by brute magic earlier, now returned tenfold. Black clouds clawed at the earth, swirling into a vortex that devoured light itself. The air reeked of ozone and doom.
Gandolphus watched calmly, blood staining his beard. "Old friend," he murmured, "even the Dragon God's Benediction cannot save you from this."
The Goldscale flexed its restored wings, its voice thunderous. "You think storms frighten me? I will feast on your bones before they touch me!"
The old archmage smiled. "A century's worth of magic, compressed into minutes… Even you cannot outrun divine reckoning."
The Last Archmage's Gambit
Gandolphus rose, his tattered robes billowing. His aura dimmed, yet his eyes burned with resolve. "You forget, Goldscale. Magic is not my only weapon."
He spread his arms, chanting in a tongue older than kingdoms. The words were not human—not elvish, not draconic, but raw nature.
The Goldscale recoiled. "Druidic sorcery?"
Gandolphus's body warped. Bones cracked, flesh rippled, and scales erupted from his skin. In moments, the frail mage vanished, replaced by a crimson-scaled dragon—smaller than the Goldscale, but fierce.
"A shapeshift?!" The Goldscale hissed. "You dare mimic my kind?"
"Not mimic," rumbled the red dragon, its voice Gandolphus's own. "Become."
Druidic law bound them now. By ancient decree, dragon against dragon could wield no magic—only tooth, claw, and primal rage.
The Goldscale snarled. "Clever… but futile!"
Claws of Honor
They collided.
The red dragon's talons raked golden scales, drawing ichor. The Goldscale retaliated, its jaws snapping shut on Gandolphus's wing. Bone snapped, but the crimson beast clung on, teeth buried in its foe's throat.
"Release me, worm!" The Goldscale thrashed, hurling them both into a mountainside.
Gandolphus's vision blurred. Blood pooled beneath him, crimson against snow. Yet he laughed, the sound guttural and triumphant. "Look… look!"
The storm had arrived.
A wall of black wind swallowed the horizon, grinding ice to dust. The Goldscale froze, torn between vengeance and survival.
"No!" It roared, tearing free from Gandolphus's grip. "I will not flee!"
The red dragon lunged one last time, seizing its leg. "Then… perish with me."
Farewell, Gandolphus
The tempest struck.
Hurricane winds shredded scale and stone alike. The Goldscale's defiant screams drowned in the maelstrom. Gandolphus closed his eyes, his draconic form dissolving into embers.
Forgive me, Roland…
When the storm passed, only a crater remained.
The Goldscale lay half-buried, wings mangled, its golden luster dimmed. It howled—not in pain, but rage. "GANDOLPHUS! YOU COWARD!"
No answer came.
Far south, Bennett stumbled, a sudden weight crushing his chest. He turned back, though Hussein gripped his shoulder. "Don't," the knight said, his voice hollow. "He's… gone."
Medusa tilted her head, veiled eyes unreadable. "The stars weep," she whispered.
Echoes of Legacy
That night, under a comet-streaked sky, two events shook the realm:
The Archmage's Soulgem Shattered
In the Magic Guild's sanctum, the crystalline orb housing Gandolphus's essence crumbled to dust. Guildmaster Yargo-Daug collapsed to his knees, whispering the eulogy of an age: "The last archmage… is no more."
A Hunt Begins
A decree bearing the golden olive branch sigil spread across the continent:
"Locate Bennett Roland-Lyn at all costs. Alive. By order of the Guild."
Meanwhile, in the Frozen Wastes, four figures limped onward—a knight, a noble, a veiled serpent, and a rat-mage. Behind them, the Goldscale's roars faded. Ahead lay the dark heart of the Frostspire Forest.
And deeper still… answers.
Chapter 106: Echoes of the Fallen
The Canyon of Whispers
The Frozen Wastes stretched endlessly, their jagged ice teeth gnawing at a leaden sky. Bennett's ragged party staggered into the canyon—once Medusa's sanctuary, now reclaimed by treants. The towering arboreal sentinels watched in silence, their bark creaking with ancient sorrow.
Hussein leaned heavily against a frost-rimed boulder, his left eye shrouded by a bloodstained bandage. Beside him, Medusa sat motionless, her serpentine hair limp, her veiled face pale as ash. The Goldscale's wrath had hollowed them all.
"Ten days," Bennett muttered, staring at his blistered hands. "Ten days, and we're still barely alive."
The canyon's healing springs had mended flesh but not spirit. Hussein's sword arm trembled when he lifted a waterskin; Medusa's once-piercing gaze now flickered like a dying candle. Even the air tasted of defeat.
Relics and Regrets
In the treants' hollowed sanctum, Bennett knelt before Gandolphus's legacy—a weathered satchel humming with latent magic. His fingers brushed its clasp, releasing a scent of aged parchment and bitter myrrh.
What did you leave me, old man?
The contents spilled forth: vials of iridescent elixirs, a cloak stitched with stormcloud threads, a hat that dissolved light itself. But it was the crumbling scroll that seized his breath—Druidic Taming: A Treatise on Communion with Natural Spirits.
Memories ambushed him: Gandolphus whistling to summon snow-wolves, the old mage's cackle as Bennett faceplanted into a drift during "flight practice." Now, the laughter lived only in echoes.
Bennett's throat tightened. "You knew," he whispered. "You knew all along."
The Torn Prophecy
The fragment fluttered like a wounded moth, its edges jagged where Gandolphus had ripped truth from destiny:
"…he will inherit the Last Archmage's legacy…"
Bennett's fist clenched. The prophecy's ink glared accusingly. Aragon's damned script. A puppet master from the grave.
Yet Gandolphus had chosen this path—chosen to die so Bennett might live. Chosen to hide this final line, as if sparing him one more chain.
"Coward," Bennett spat, though whether to the dead mage or himself, he couldn't say.
A Letter from the Grave
The envelope bore no seal, its wax still soft.
Dear Bennett,
If you're reading this, I've either triumphed spectacularly or failed gloriously. Either way, pour a drink for me—preferably that awful rotgut you swiped from the innkeeper back in Frosthold.
You'll hate what comes next. Prophecies, destiny, the whole tiresome song. But remember: Aragon's shadow is long, yet yours stretches farther. Break the sword. Burn the crown. Or don't. Surprise me.
P.S. The cloak's for flying. Try not to crash into a tree this time.
—G
Bennett laughed—a raw, broken sound that startled a treant into dropping icicles.
The Weight of Dawn
By week's end, the party regrouped. Hussein drilled sword forms one-handed, adapting to his blindness. Medusa coaxed embers from deadwood, her magic a fragile thread.
Bennett stood at the canyon's edge, the Cloak of Zephyrs billowing. Below, the Frostspire Forest yawned, its shadows writhing with unseen terrors.
"Ready?" Hussein rasped.
"No," Bennett said, adjusting the Veilhelm. "But neither was he."
As they descended, the treants sang a dirge in their roots' deep tongue. Somewhere, a comet streaked—a farewell, or a warning.