{Fifteen Minutes Earlier}
Drake collapsed to his knees before the obsidian throne, his scream tearing through the void. The pain wasn't physical - it was the agony of a thousand dying stars flooding his mind, his soul fracturing under the weight of centuries of betrayal.
WITNESS.
The command wasn't heard - it was branded into his very being.
When his vision cleared, Drake stood on the battlefield he'd seen in countless dreams. The air tasted of blood and rain, the twin suns casting everything in a hellish crimson glow. But now he wasn't just watching - he was there, the heat of combat washing over him, the metallic tang of blood thick in his throat.
Before him stood the silver-haired warrior, his magnificent armor in ruins, crimson ichor dripping from a dozen wounds. Yet his grip on the dragon-hilted sword never wavered.
Opposite them, the betrayers advanced:
-Dravonir, once-brother, now wreathed in golden lightning, his handsome face twisted with righteous fury as he brandished the cursed blade - a weapon so vile it made Drake's stomach churn just to look upon it.
Selverix, his glacial blue eyes now burning with twin runes of frost, his movements leaving trails of frozen air that crackled with barely-contained power.
Kaelzhar, the black-eyed enigma whose very presence seemed to warp reality around him.
- And somewhere unseen, the fourth attacker -
The lone warrior turned, and for the first time, his ancient crimson eyes locked directly onto Drake's. In that gaze, Drake saw millennia of sorrow, of betrayal so profound it had shattered worlds.
"At last," the lone warrior whispered, his voice like the crumbling of mountains, "you have come to witness the truth of our fall."
---
[SKY LAW: SOVEREIGN'S JUDGMENT]
The heavens themselves screamed as Dravonir summoned his wrath. A pillar of golden lightning so vast it dwarfed mountains coalesced into his hand, forming a spear that pulsed with the heartbeat of a dying star. The very air rippled with its power, Drake's hair standing on end as static crawled across his skin.
"For the new dawn!" Dravonir roared, hurling the spear with world-ending force.
The lone warrior moved to evade -
[COSMIC LAW: GRAVITY'S WRATH]
Kaelzhar's violet light slammed down like the hand of God itself. The warrior's knees buckled, blood erupting from his wounds as bones groaned under the pressure. Drake felt his own legs give way in sympathetic agony.
The golden spear struck true.
The explosion shattered Drake's senses - a light so brilliant it burned through closed eyelids, a heat that blistered skin, a sound that wasn't sound but the universe itself screaming. When his vision returned, miles of battlefield had simply ceased to exist, replaced by a glassy crater that reflected the bloody sky.
From the smoke, a figure emerged.
The lone warrior still stood, though his armor hung in tatters. Blood - thick and golden - poured from the cursed wound in his side, each drop sizzling as it struck the earth. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps, but his eyes...
His eyes still burned with defiance.
"You always did rely too much on spectacle, Dravonir," he coughed, wiping crimson golden hued blood from his lips. "Like a child playing with fire."
Selverix struck next.
[FROST LAW: JOTUNHEIM]
The world turned white. Drake watched in horror as reality itself froze - the very air crystallizing, time slowing to a crawl. The lone warrior's crimson aura flared, battling against the inexorable advance of absolute zero.
For a moment, he held.
Then the curse took hold.
Ice crept up his legs, his arms, his sword arm freezing solid. Drake's heart pounded - this was it, the moment from his nightmares -
[DRAGON LAW: EMBERS OF DEFIANCE]
A sound like shattering glass.
The lone warrior's veins ignited, his aura exploded further burning through the frost with the last embers of his divine blood. The ice exploded outward in a storm of razor-sharp shards.
He moved - not with speed, but with the certainty of a falling star. One moment he stood frozen; the next, his blade was at Selverix's throat.
Kaelzhar intervened.
[COSMIC LAW: SUPERNOVA ASCENSION]
Space itself screamed in protest. Kaelzhar's fist became the focal point of a dying star's last breath - a singularity of destruction that erased everything in its path. The shockwave sent the lone warrior flying, his body carving a trench through the battlefield before he twisted midair, landing in a crouch.
Blood poured from his wounds now, the golden ichor steaming as it struck the cursed earth.
Dravonir attacked again, lightning dancing across his remaining blade -
[LAW OF ANTITHESIS: EMBODIMENT OF STAGNATION]
To Drake's awestruck eyes, the world seemed to stop.
The lone warrior moved between heartbeats, his blade flashing faster than thought. Dravonir's remaining eye widened in shock as steel came for his throat -
"NO!"
Maeyles, the fourth attacker materialized from nowhere, yanking Dravonir back. The sword meant for his neck took his left eye instead.
SPLURT!
Golden blood arced through the air. Dravonir collapsed to his knees, clutching his ruined face, his screams raw and primal.
The battlefield fell silent but for his agonized cries.
The lone warrior stood amidst his enemies, swaying slightly from blood loss. "Maeyles," he rasped, "how fitting that you finally show your true face at the end."
---
The final assault came then - not with grand declarations, but with the quiet desperation of murderers who knew their victory would forever be tainted.
Blows that could shatter continents. Strikes that warped the fabric of reality. The lone warrior met them all, his sword moving with the grace of a dying star's last dance.
Until at last, the curse took its due.
COUGH!
A spray of golden blood. The sword slipped from numb fingers, embedding itself in the blood-soaked earth. The lone warrior fell to one knee, his breath coming in wet, ragged gasps.
Before him, his betrayers hesitated - even now, some part of them feared what they had done.
The warrior looked up at the twin suns - the same suns that had witnessed his birth, his reign, and now his fall. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of epochs:
"A throne built on brother's blood will never stand firm."
A shuddering breath. Golden tears mixed with blood on his ravaged face.
"You traded our covenant for hollow promises, thinking their lies worthier than our oaths." His gaze swept over them, lingering on each face he had once called kin.
"But remember this in the long night to come..."
The wind carried his last words across the ruined battlefield, soft as a father's lullaby:
"When the winter comes for you - when your new masters show their true faces - know that my hands were the ones that held back the frost... and that I would have forgiven you."
Dravonir staggered forward, the cursed blade trembling in his grip. "For... for the greater good," he whispered, as if trying to convince himself.
The dagger rose -
Then fell.
The moment it pierced the warrior's heart, the twin suns dimmed. Golden light erupted from the wound, not blood but something purer - the last of his divinity escaping.
As the light faded, his lips formed one final, silent word:
"Brothers..."
Then -
Silence.
And Drake returned back to the throne room.