Page 84 of Scorching the Alien Empire
My fire flickersuselesslyin the void.
Frustrationboilswithin me.
I strike again. And again. My flameswhipthrough the emptiness—nothing but a hollow shadow.
“FIGHT ME!” I demand, unleashing my fury in a flurry of blazing attacks.
The entity does not dodge. It does not block. It is simply there—an orb of nothingness, a mockery of all that exists. I hate it. I want it to suffer. I want it to bleed.
“Absorption,” the ancient voice intones, flat, devoid of emotion.
A pull. Faint at first, merely a whisper against my flames. Then it grows, a relentless tide drawing me toward the abyss. My blow veers off course. I thrash, molten hatred seething within me, but it’s useless. The void pulls, inexorable, unstoppable.
My fire dims. The darkness thickens. A creeping chill slithers through me, invading where only blazing heat had burned moments ago. Tendrils of my flaming body unravel—goldenthreads spiraling away into nothingness, swallowed without trace.
“EXECUTE: SPARK OF CREATION.”
The words vibrate in my mind, fuzzy and distant, as if echoing from the end of time. My flames, my fury—all being erased, piece by piece. I lash out, but I am weightless, untethered, unable to break free. Helpless.
“ANNIHILATION.”
The void devours everything—my hatred, my memories, my very soul. I blaze hotter, igniting the abyss itself with my fire, but the more I burn, the faster it feasts.
“OBLITERATION.”
A terrible cold grips my core. My fire sputters, my light dims to a dying ember.
Then—I feel something.
A fragile hand. Distant. Not in this void, but somewhere beyond. A gentle touch that blazes with fire more intense than anything I have ever known.
“Flip a coin with enough precision,” a voice murmurs—a ghost in my mind, hazy and distant. Ignixis. “And it will land on its edge.”
Through his touch, through me, an eruption bursts forth. Molten power surges from within, searing, blinding—a flood of liquid fire so immense, so impossibly hot that even I cannot look upon it.
Rivers of magma spill from my form, consuming the void, drowning it in an ocean of molten fury. The void strains, recoiling, unable to hold back the burning flood.
“The edge of hope, a cycle of rebirth,” Ignixis whispers, his voice both near and far. “This is your fate, Dracoth. Your glorious destiny. The one I foretold—the eternal death of the dreamless night.”
“Ignixis?” I roar, my voice lost in the hissing tides of magma.
Finally, the eruption ceases, and I rise from the churning inferno. Around me, the void is no more—only fire remains.
The endless abyss burns like Arawnoth’s realm—a world of unrelenting heat and rage, stretching as far as the eye can see. And from the flames, a behemoth emerges.
Arawnoth.
His molten form looms impossibly vast, wings of fire unfurling, tongues of flame cascading like falling stars. His presence ignites the air itself, bathing the entire space in a roaring symphony of orange and crimson light.
All except the entity.
It remains a speck of darkness against the flames, a blemish upon his divine light.
Adoration blazes in my molten heart. This is my God. This is Arawnoth. The one who chose me, who burns within my soul. He is rage, he is strength—his passion cannot be denied, his fire cannot be extinguished.
“SPARK OF CREATION.” The ancient voice booms, a whisper against the raging storm.
“Now is our chance to kill that voiding bastard!” Ignixis’s voice echoes in my mind, raw with pain and fury. “For what it’s done to us, for what it’s taken from me—from all of us! Let it burn in Arawnoth’s divine wrath! Let it die a million agonizing deaths for every child, sister, mother, daughter, Mortakin-Kis! For all our suffering, all our pain—Arawnoth, we beseech you!”
