Chương 89: 156 - Fire

Cinereus was a little more dignified in his forcible reawakening than his daughter had been. He didn't suck in a gasp of air and immediately shoot upward. Instead, his eyes opened and he leaned smoothly to a half-upright position, gaze turning calmly left and right as he took in his surroundings. No surprise, fear, or disorientation touched his expression. Even that simple but noticeable change in behavior told Vivi that the Fourflame Amulet had extracted the Cataclysm's influence.

As if the sludge melting out of his face hadn't. It was immensely relieving. Seeing Cinereus ranting, raving, and howling in rage had been grossly uncomfortable. Cinereus's attention lingered on the cage holding the Faceless Legion. The expelled remains of the Cataclysm were disgusting to look at, as wrong and violative as the best of the Fell Apostate's work. Which as far as Vivi knew, very well might be the case.

The residue squirmed and wiggled around, prodding at the barrier and leaving a slick, oily path across the earth beneath it. Finally, Cinereus's gaze settled on her. He climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. The fight had taken a toll, as any combat that could knock the King of Dragons unconscious would. But the man made his bloodied and bruised appearance, with his armor dented and burnt and even punctured in places, seem like typical royal attire. His bearing didn't suffer at all for the mess.

He summoned his sword, which had flown off at some point, and sheathed it. Then offered a nod.

"I see you succeeded, Vivisari."

"As I promised."

"And with naught but a scratch." His eyes flicked to Vivi's shoulder.

"An astounding feat indeed." She glanced at the mentioned injury and nearly frowned. Maybe the lapse in judgment had one silver lining, despite how much she would continue scolding herself. The blood covering her robes made it look like she had struggled more than she had. She'd already proved to the Dragon King that she was outrageously powerful, certainly more so than he himself was, but revealing exactly how high above him she stood might cause problems.

Rafael had hinted to not reveal that she'd broken the level cap—she assumed he'd deduced that—and he had a keen instinct for political relationships.

"Though only after allowing the Cataclysm to bare its fangs in earnest," Cinereus remarked. Vivi paused, then flushed furiously. Not that it touched her cheeks.

"You kept your memories."

"Indeed, Vivisari. I remember in vivid detail."

"I see." Kill me now. Why hadn't she considered the possibility? She wouldn't have been surprised if the possession came with a mind-wipe, but it made an equal amount of sense that it wouldn't. It was his mind and his body, even if they had been commandeered for a time. So, the Dragon King knew precisely how strong she was, and had also seen her sandbag throughout the fight. It might even have seemed like she had risked her life, and thus the lives of everyone in his kingdom, with that bout of irresponsibility.

The beam of red plasma had cut straight through her shields and into her shoulder, so what if it had hit her in the skull? It wouldn't be unreasonable for him to assume even the Sorceress would've died. She wouldn't have, thanks to [Elethelea's Saving Grace]—a spell at the very pinnacle of magic which even he likely didn't know about—but it would have been fair to think otherwise. And she'd taken that risk purely out of curiosity, something he was smart enough to deduce.

She had been trying to observe—steal—high-tier magic from a possessed man. Really not a great look, she thought, wanting to hide her face with both hands. She wondered if the embarrassed heat she felt showed physically. At least she had saved him and his kingdom. That made up for most blunders, however large.

"We should deal with the Cataclysm," Vivi deflected. Her voice, magnificently, came out cool and unaffected.

"Do you need a mana potion?" The foundation of her plan had been squeezing out every drop of energy until the Cataclysm no longer had healthy hosts to draw on. But to her surprise, he shook his head.

"I do not." Her brow furrowed. What did he have planned where he wouldn't need to use his mana?

"A ritual?" she asked. That would be tedious, but also reasonable, considering the problem at hand.

"You will see shortly, Vivisari." He walked up to the container holding the black slime. His eyes were cold and condemning as he studied the monster. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Can it hear us?"

"The cage blocks everything I can think of," she answered.

"Which includes sound. So no. But it would be trivial to modify."

"All beings marked for death deserve to hear their verdict." A little shiver went through Vivi at the disdain in the words. Cinereus had mastered his nature better than most, but he was still a dragon at heart. Something worth remembering.

"I'm not sure if it even can hear, or speak, in that form. But very well." She pointed her staff and made the necessary adjustments. As it turned out, the sludge did have some level of magical manipulation ability while outside its host, because immediately upon the auditory seal being broken, it hissed in a voice reminiscent of Cinereus's, "You are still mine, Mantle-Breaker. I will find my way back to you. Your sons, your daughter, all will be mine.

Every last pathetic creature that breathes and walks in this world."

"You will do no such thing."

"You think you can stop me, little lizard king? We are not the same. Immortal? You die the same as the rest. I am truly eternal."

"Do you think," the Dragon King said, "that you are the first thing I have killed that cannot die?" A short pause, then another scornful response.

"You have never seen something like me."

"All abominations are unique in their own way, I will grant that. But you are soon to die. I swear it."

"Empty words."

"I am far too old for such things." He raised a hand to cut off whatever the reply might be, and a ripple of mana sealed the barrier once again. Apparently Cinereus wasn't completely drained. It was hard to empty a lake such that not even a drop was left. He faced Vivi.

"It goes without saying that I owe you a great debt, Sorceress. I will repay you now, in part, in the way I know you care most about." She almost insisted that they were already even, as she had tried doing several times, but then his words registered. The way she cared most about? After the display she'd put on, he would have a good idea of what that was. Magic. He turned back to the squirming black slime, and it was the impassive gaze of a hangman that he wore.

He spoke down to the Faceless Legion with his hands clasped behind his back, almost casually.

"Let me tell you a story, you wretched thing, about the first true eternal I killed." A moment of steady breathing followed, perhaps to pick his words. If the monster had a reply, Cinereus's magic prevented them from hearing it.

"The first of the phoenixes, the Mother of Fire, is not like her children. She is old, older than me, a thousand times and a thousand times again. We call them Primordials, those creatures, as no better name exists. I am not a babe to her so much as the flash of a firefly. She opened her eyes in the light of the very first dawn and will live to see its last. Within her, she holds a flame so pure that all things can be unmade, even those without beginnings or ends.

In a sense, the Fires of Creation are her, and she is them." He crouched beside the barrier, voice solemn. His orange eyes held such unwavering conviction that, if Vivi had possessed a shred of doubt, it would have evaporated right then.

"We were friends once, she and I, in an era lost even to your creators. She came to me in grief one day, more than eight thousand years ago. Her son had been corrupted by…" He trailed off.

"It matters not. A monster worse than you, whose name is best forgotten.

"But he had been corrupted. The Mother of Fire cherishes each of her children, and yet he was lost in a way that even the absolution of rebirth could not cleanse. Doomed to suffer without reprieve, a malignancy grafted onto his soul following him through each of his infinite lives. A terrible fate, and one she could not bear to witness. There was a single solution. With those flames she carries in her heart, she admitted to me, she could unmake that which she had designed to never know an end."

He exhaled and leaned back, shoulders slumping. Vivi was taken aback by the glimpse of vulnerability.

"She is a soft woman, the mother of phoenixes, and always has been. Raising a sword against her child is unthinkable, no matter the mercy of it. So yes, she sought me out. Me, who even in my gentler youth had never once hesitated to swing the executioner's blade. She begged me to take that sin upon myself, and I agreed." A dark expression crossed his face.

"Perhaps that is why she chose me. It is a sin, a staining act, to kill something as old as the stars, and I have committed atrocities before." A lingering silence. The goo writhed and pulsed within its barrier. It seemed mocking. Cinereus didn't appear to mind.

"Thus, so that I might carry out this task, she carved from her heart a sliver of that primordial fire and entrusted it to me. As I said, we were friends back then. The trust was misplaced." He stood.

"Heed these words, worm, for they are a great shame of mine, and also your doom. Under her guidance, I wielded the Fires of Creation and slew that which should never know true death. And afterward, I did not do as I had promised. I did not return everything she had given. For I am only sometimes kind, but always farsighted." He cupped his palms in front of him.

"Yes, I kept a spark for myself." A white flame blossomed deep within the bowl his hands had made, so brilliant that the rest of the world went dark, like a switch had flipped. Goosebumps erupted up and down Vivi's arms, and she fought the urge to take a step away. Wherever that radiant light touched, all color disappeared, black shadows carving into the surrounding landscape and onto the air itself.

The sun's illumination was a pathetic thing by comparison, false and sickly in a way that Vivi wouldn't be able to unsee. The Dragon King stoked the flames growing in his palms, and an ember swelled into a bonfire. The hard lines on his face, joined with the shadows cutting strange shapes into the air behind him, formed an otherworldly image. Her heart slammed in her chest, and she was suddenly on edge. She wondered if she should flee.

That fire, she knew, would cut through her shields—any magic—like dawn devouring the night. Saving Grace would break without a whisper of resistance. And she and Cinereus were only something like allies. The black sludge of the Faceless Legion had begun thrashing, seeking a way out of Vivi's cage. Even he could now see the truth of Cinereus's words. Anyone could.

"Let us see which of us is correct, then," Cinereus murmured, "you snake that bit the lion and thought yourself his equal. Bathe in the fire of our world's genesis, and be unmade."