by Sain Artwell
His doubts relented, giving way to a smile. “Fair. If that is your wish. But I must warn you. To control your vis, I must also control your body. In mind and flesh, you will be my slave for the duration of mastering your vestiges and building your dragon-core.”
“Uh-oh. What a dreadful fate. Forced to endure pleasure and bliss for months on end.”
His laugh was a gentle rumble. “But first, food. You’ve slept for half a day. Would you like to join me on the scavenge trip outside?”
“Do you need my help?”
“No. I’d like your company.” He offered his big, warm hand.
Sofi was happy to take it. “Okay, let’s. Don’t fly too swiftly then, or else I won’t hear you.”
“I’ll take it slow and steady.” He led them outside for a strangely entertaining tour to find dinner.
Days were long walks along the seabed. Nights were long and indulgent. Life was as pleasant as it could be during a cataclysm, for a time. Three months passed in a lustful haze. Sofi’s vestiges bowed to Alron and fused to a dragon-core, and the day of bonding was at hand.
That day, it rained iron and ice. Thunder roamed the heavens. Although cold air seeped into the cavern home, Sofi was warm. More than warm. She was burning.
Alron’s weight pinned her to the ground. His cock pierced her and his dragonsoul reached into her source. Her three vestiges throbbed, excited and eager, just like her mind and body. To make her receptive for the bonding, they had had to tease her into a state of submission.
The downside of it was that Sofi’s brain felt like cotton. Holding onto any thoughts besides the sexy kind stretched her focus to its utmost limits.
“Are you ready?” Alron asked. Stars, just the way he looked at her sent tingles down all the places. Sofi felt his eyes traipse down her exposed body, painting a meandering line of desire across her.
“Yespleasehurry…” she mumbled, summoning every ounce of her willpower not to begin touching herself already.
“Then… Try and relax.” He leaned down for the sealing kiss.
His dragonsoul, a presence of vis as indomitable as the man himself, wrapped Sofi’s dragon-core and chained it to his will. Both she and her vestiges accepted their place as his. Contrary to all the dreadful risks Alron had ascribed to bonding, the experience was positively toe-curlingly fantastic.
Sofi might’ve cum, screamed, and moaned, and a great number of things may have happened around them. None of it registered to her brain at that moment. All she knew was a wholeness, a blissful unity of belonging, and soft babbling voices in her head.
H-hello?
Hello there, Sofi. That one belonged to Alron.
Sofi tried to reply with her physical lips, but managed only an incoherent gurgle. She relented and thought the words out. Did it work, or am I about to die?
“The bonding is done.”
“Now wah?” Sofi blinked. Ceiling was starting to look like a ceiling again. Figures emerged from the blurred world.
“Now comes the fun part,” said Fei, grinning wickedly.
Sofi’s eyes adjusted to the light to see herself surrounded. Alron, that hard muscle tower of a man, loomed above her. Oqhizt—a more feminine muscle tower with curves—knelt beside him, her long tongue rolled around his erection multiple times. Behind Sofi stood Fei, peeking at her over her breasts. The dragonized tool she liked to use on the other women stood above Sofi’s face.
“Now, we solidify the bond. Would you like a gag or a cock?”
Sofi laughed nervously, biting her lip before she reached out to lick the toy and lift her hips for Alron’s benefit. The rest of the week followed a comfortable script, though beneath pleasure and leisure was a long-winded goodbye said on the off chance that Alron would fail.
Chapter 34 - Scaling the Gods
His three bonded women stood behind Alron. His source brimmed with vis. His dragon-core rumbled with power. Over a dozen vestiges were echoed by it, beside his own two heartstrings. He had not felt as sated and rested in a century.
Several layers of dragonized sinew, hide, and scale covered his body. Only his eyes were bare—a pair of azure glowing slits. Behind his back spread two pairs of long wings as sharp and deadly as his tail. In one hand, Alron grasped his jadegold glaive, and in the other, Apocalypse. Full of spin-energy, its core rotated quick enough to glow white.
Excluding gods, he was likely the most powerful being to ever walk this world. And yet, standing in the shadow of the cosmic divinities, Alron could only hope that his might sufficed to tilt the scales.
Green and purple energies danced in the upper atmosphere, not to the lulling tunes of dusk or dawn, but the rage of lightning and storm. Earthquakes continued to sculpt the seafloor with deeper ravines and explosive geysers. Corecrawler’s jaws remained tight on the stargod’s body, tethering it to the Great Den.
“Time to go,” said Alron.
Sofi wrapped her arms around him for a brief hug, and said, “You better win. I’ll be waiting here.”
Alron nodded.
The women exchanged their goodbyes with Sofi, then turned into fire and blood and joined Alron’s body. He cast Sofi one last smile before spreading his wings. Jets of blue dragonfire blasted from all four of them.
For a split of a flicker, air solidified before his face. A loud sound popped in his ears and the wall cracked. Sofi soon turned into a tiny speck atop a hill, then faded into the grooved geography of a former ocean floor. Mountainous clouds obscured Alron’s view, yet he continued to climb. Horizon began to turn from a straight line to a curve. Sky darkened, and the stars brightened. Outlines of the dead dragongods appeared, like mismatched patches on the quilt of the world.
Air is getting thin. Oqhizt sounded concerned.
I noticed. It had begun to affect Alron ever so slightly, slowing his vis regeneration.
Fei snorted, incredulous. How do they breathe up there?
I doubt they breathe at all. Lifeforms make up forests and seas. Forests and seas make up dragongods. They are not alive the way we are.
They were drawing closer to Corecrawler. Stargod-Yuvera was beginning to shift from horizon to overhead. In terms of height, they now flew at roughly one tenth the distance up Corecrawler’s neck, which stretched deep into the black space beyond the heavens.
We could turn back and have Sofi figure out a solution for the air problem, Fei offered.
No. She’s done enough. Did we defeat Carrion Scourge by going home and asking others to solve every setback for us?
No. No, we did not.
No, Alron confirmed. Nor shall we now.
Heck yeah! Let’s go!
Still. We do need air. You have a plan?
There will be creatures within the gods. We shall burrow into them and steal their air.
You mean I will do it?
Yes. Oqhizt will steal us air.
Very well, I like this plan.
Despite cruising the skies at incredible speeds, the journey to Corecrawler lasted many hours of idle chatter. Then, when Alron began to make out the features of its mountain-sized scales, they reached the outer edge of the heavenly battleground.
Streaks of liquid white starlight rained from the star-god above. The fist-sized droplets hissed like rabid beasts when they melted against Fei’s soulfire. Near Corecrawler, the rain grew from a drizzle to a punishing downpour. Bright streaks bore holes into the dragongod’s mountain-sized scales. From what were proportionally tiny wounds to a god bled entire rivers of magma.
Alron landed between one such river and a mile-tall scale. Oddly, despite standing upside down compared to the Great Den, Alron didn’t need to brace himself not to fall. He felt lighter, buoyant, somehow tethered to Corecrawler as one would be to solid ground. Even the atmosphere itself seemed confused by this odd phenomenon, because clouds lingered by the scales as if they were true mountains, coating the dragongod with a thin atmosphere.
Breath problem solved.
Now the god problem! Oqhizt c
himed, excited. Let’s get it on!
It was as good a place to begin as any. Alron struck Apocalypse down, unleashing half of its stored spin-energy. and held on tight. Fei and Oqhizt transformed his body into a hybrid of solid fire and malleable liquid, so that he wouldn’t shatter from the acceleration.
Rock crumbled to dust. Alron cut straight through the scale, burrowing miles deep into the innards of a dragongod, until, with a loud ding of metal, Apocalypse embedded itself on a pulsing line of dragonized jadegold in the floor of a tall, tube-like cavern. The wound he’d carved yawned above him like the lips of a canyon. Molten rock bled from countless ruptured vessels on its cliffs, all of them infected by soulfire, which ate at the dragongod’s vis. For a first strike, it was a good one.
Huh? Always thought they’d regen quicker, Oqhizt mused. This is a lazy effort for a god.
Alron resumed his physical form and picked up Apocalypse. Mountains were always the best places to find vestiges to improve strength and endurance. If a live dragongod’s structure is anything like that of the dead ones, regenerative vestiges will reside in its blood…
On cue, fiery light and infernal heat rushed at them from both ends of the tunnel. A flood of molten rock rounded the corners. From the roaring hot waves rose shapes brighter than the surrounding magma, some of them wyrmkin-like, others bestial in appearance. White eyes and jaws snapped open in a chorus of roars. The spawn of Corecrawler lurched forward.
Limbs splattered against Alron’s scales, and magma rushed past his knees, up to his waist. He stood still, unfazed. The echo of Sofi’s claw vestige made the stone-melting heat feel merely hot enough to cause mild sweating.
Fei, they are yours.
Soulfire swelled explosively. Half-solid claws of azure fire grappled corespawn, and members of Fei’s Dreamfire Parade rose up to join her in the hunt. The creatures howled like vats of boiling metal as Fei’s flames consumed their vis.
Mmmmnnh… Del-icious taste of dirt and rock.
Heh! If it’s any help, the blood tastes like shit too. It’s got solid-ish air in the lava. Well, I say lava, but it’s more like blood. Anyhow, we won’t choke down here.
It’s a slight comfort, Fei admitted to Oqhizt.
Just to confirm, Alron attempted to dragonize the ground and lava around him. His vis was rebounded as if it was a droplet of oil in the sea, unable to transform the ground. That was to be expected, though.
Oqhizt, I need to see, said Alron, as lava reached his chin. Fei was forced back to his side, as her flames could not penetrate molten rock.
Let’s see… Lava’s not exactly transparent to any kinds of eyes, so… Aha! Oqhizt borrowed Alron’s heat-resistant vestiges to manipulate his blood, reaching out into the lava with thread-thin tendrils covered in sensory organs. Alron’s brain quickly pieced the information into a projection of the lava-flooded vein. Oh. Wow. It worked. I mean. There you go, of course it did.
What now? Fei asked. We make mayhem?
Very good. Thank you, Oqhizt. Yes. Now we make mayhem. Alron dug his feet and wings into the sides of the stone tunnel, and began to wade against the viscous current of molten rock. At every crossroad, he took the direction of greatest resistance. Next destination was obviously the dragongod’s heart, or, barring that, whatever vulnerable organ was responsible for its blood circulation.
The dragongod responded as expected: With fury and violence.
Corespawn swarmed the narrow veins and threw their claws at Alron. At first, he assumed them to be some form of autonomous response, as the swarms were dispatched with little to no effort. Then, little by little, he noticed the patterns changing.
Each swarm evolved from the last—stronger, faster, smaller, larger. They tried different abilities, different variations of high pressure lava spitters, regenerative powers, and a whole jungle’s worth of variations in claws and teeth. By the fifteenth iteration, a corespawn darted for Alron like blade coated bullets. Speed made them nigh invisible to his net of sensory whiskers. One landed a glancing blow on his scales.
On it! Don’t worry, I got it. Oqhizt began to change the architecture of her blood-whisker-web.
Alron sensed them coming now. Ten eyeless lava-eels resembling sabres with barbed tails shot towards him. He raised the Apocalypse. They clattered against its flat side, and were quickly dispatched with a soulfire coated strike of his wing.
True trouble began two iterations of defenders later. That swarm of sleek blade-armed swimmers came at Alron like jousters, landing cuts from a safe distance and circling back for return attacks. Whilst he didn’t suffer lasting damage, Alron had to burn more vis than what Fei’s soulfire was siphoning from the dragongod.
Hey Alron… Oqhizt sounded a touch worried.
I know.
Yeah, just to be sure. You know they might overwhelm us if we let them keep spawning?
I know.
Q, he knows.
Yeah, yeah, just checking. We gonna do something about that?
Mmm. This might be time for a detour, depending on how long we have till the heart…
We’ll see. Given the swift response, their source can’t be far. If we’re lucky, the heart and source are one and the same. Alron paused at the next crossroad of veins.
Corespawn, of course, did not come from the direction of the heart. Alron took the path leading to their source. For ten iterations of corespawn, he fought his way through the submerged filled veins, eventually arriving at a fort-sized chamber lined with hot, pulsing egg sacks. Immobile, helpless egg-sacks filled with evolved versions of those thrice damned vermin.
Alron raised Apocalypse cheerily. Halfway through bursting open and sucking the concentrated vis from within the sacks, Oqhizt alerted them to a large entity entering the flooded chamber.
Four times Alron’s height, the creature resembled a wyrmkin with the lower body of a wormwyrm. With speed rivaling the Knights of Myrwing, it slammed its claws together.
A pulse of cold solidified molten rock in an instant and spread outward.
Alron was encased in stone.
Oqhizt’s sensory tendrils snapped as the creature approached them, sliding through solid rock.
Alron poured vis into the echo of Sofi’s claw. His scales flared up with metal-melting heat. Stone softened into a viscous goo, and Alron brought Apocalypse to the fore.
The creature slammed against it, retreated beyond Alron’s quickly diminishing range of vision, and charged again, this time from a blind-spot. Claws raked Alron’s back. Before he could strike back, the creature retreated. Within that battleground of solid stone, the battle favored it heavily.
The situation grew from challenging to worrisome when freezing metal fangs bored into Alron’s ankle and canceled his superheated scales. He used a fraction of Apocalypse’s stored energy to shatter the surrounding rock, and saw a glimpse of the culprits.
Eyeless worms of icy metal surrounded him and the half-wyrmkin. Their freezing skin turned magma to solid in an instant., and they swam through stone as effortlessly as the large creature.
Troublesome. These were no mere mindless spawn of the dragongod. This being, this tall half-worm with white hair, possessed ancient cunning in its gaze.
For untold eons it had protected the innards of Corecrawler. It was backed by a dragongod’s infinite source of vis, and equipped with all the possible vestige combinations imaginable.
This was not a battle Alron could win.
Brace for movement. We’re leaving. He poured all of Apocalypse’s remaining power into an upward thrust.
In a rush, they punctured several miles of rock, and veins of metal and lava. Alron tumbled into a silent black vastness, much higher above the world than he’d ever been.
The Great Den curved sharply beneath a blanket of shimmering azure. Ruins of the Ascendancy opened now into the molten center, from whence Corecrawler’s body arose. Away from the world, deep into the depths of the starry void, stretched a grappling match of three impossibly large beings. Co
recrawler coiled around stargod-Yuvera’s amorphous body of tentacles, which in turn fought to burrow into him. Above the two, Voidwalker buried its claws into the stargod, and tore at its tentacle with its jaws.
Alron’s wings regenerated and he stabilized to float above Corecrawler’s scales.
Did we at least hurt it? Oqhizt asked.
Surely we must’ve, Fei said.
Magma rushed up to fill the exit wound Alron had dealt. Where animated shapes tried to rise from the bubbling stonebroth, flickers of soulfire consumed their vis, returning them to shapeless slag. Some damage had been dealt, though not much.
Though a god, it is still a dragon, and its power is made of vis and vestiges. Rest assured, we can hurt it. Alron began to recharge Apocalypse.
Fei groaned. This’ll take a while, won’t it…
Fret not. There will be pauses.
He dove back into Corecrawler, Apocalypse in hand. Mountains shattered with each blow, and where the dragongod bled, soulfire igniting regions the size of cities to consume vis from the blood. From these wounds crawled out monstrosities to defend their creator. Brewed within the deepest bowels of Corecrawler, these spawn of living stone and metal raced to evolve so they might match Alron’s might.
Armies of alien beings came for him in thousands and hundreds of thousands. But out here, on the surface, Alron too could adapt his strategies. He became an invisible comet of destruction, sprinkling Corecrawler with town-sized craters and ravines, flying far too fast and unpredictably for the creatures to ever catch him.
Days passed.
And then weeks.
On the rare nights they managed to rest, Alron and his two women fucked and slept within secret caverns atop the tallest of Corecrawler’s scales. They feasted upon the flesh and vis of stone creatures, and continued surviving. Eventually, Oqhizt learned to absorb nourishment and breath directly from their enemies and distribute it among them. It was a small blessing; at least they didn’t have to eat stone anymore.
Over the span of months, Oqhizt redesigned Alron’s bones and vessels, and re-organized the very strands of muscle and nerve. Though more bestial in appearance, Alron grew mighty indeed.