Cami was a shadow on the battlefield, her movements almost ethereal. With her spear and buckler, she danced around the gnolls, striking with deadly accuracy. Her Shadow Step spell allowed her to move like a wraith, appearing behind our enemies to deliver devastating blows before they could even react.

  The gnolls fought with a ferocity born of desperation, their spears and arrows finding little purchase against my nearly impervious scales. One managed to get close enough to attempt a biting attack, but I responded with a swift headbutt, the impact of my skull against its head sending it reeling. The blood running down its head spoke to a much more serious injury, but the monster never got the chance to suffer as I crossed the distance separating us and ripped his throat out with my own brutal bite.

  Meanwhile, Cami deftly parried a spear thrust, spinning under the gnoll's guard to

  The battle only lasted less than a dozen seconds. Our movements were simply that efficient. The archers didn’t get off more than a single arrow. Cami's buckler was a blur, deflecting arrows and blows alike, her spear a deadly extension of her will. She moved in perfect sync with my own attacks, our tactics interweaving seamlessly. We were a storm of destruction, unstoppable and unyielding.

  Still, it felt longer, but not in a bad way. I reveled in seeing that both my new power, a power which only belonged to a dragon monarch and the savagery of our battle. It was confirmation that our training had paid off. We were more in sync than ever before.

  As the last gnoll fell, the corridor fell silent once more until Cami looked at me. “That was easier than I expected. I almost feel like it’s cheating when we get XP for that.”

  I laughed. “Never turn down your due, else how will we build the world’s greatest hoard? XP, gold, or DKP are all treasures for us to collect.”

  She joined me in laughing then. “You would get XP. I forgot you have that cheat ability to get DKP even when there was no real threat and I know there wasn’t any threat because the system didn’t award me even a single DKP. At least the XP was good. They were pathetically weak for being level peak Tier 2 monsters.

  I glanced at our shared notifications.

  You have slain six peak Tier 2 gnolls.

  You have gained 6 DKP and 420 XP

  Cami has gained 660 XP.

  Not a bad haul, but there was still a great deal to handle. We continued down the hallway a few more feet until it opened into a circular room with three hallways running off of it. Around the sides of the rooms were sickly looking wet pods a little larger than a human, a total of twelve in total.

  They rapidly pulsed and right before our six of them began to spit out fully formed gnolls. As I looked deeper, I could see soul energy being fed into the pods from a deep vat of blood in the center of the room. Tendrils from each pod were draining sustenance from the vat in order to force the rapid production of gnolls.

  Stepping from the middle tunnel, a skeletal knight laughed. “The master said you’d be foolish enough to come. Perhaps your soul will be the one which finally enables him to claim his place as a god above.”

  “Oh, so that was his game. I was wondering. Thanks for saving me the trouble of asking him before I snap all his bones.”

  The knight only laughed, then raised his hand. A black sphere of necrotic energy began to form in the palm of his outstretched hand. Apparently, he didn’t feel like talking any longer.

  Chapter 41 - Beginning of the End

  I had one fleeting thought. It had been foolish of me not to wait for Galbrecht and Lisella to get here. Now it was too late, though.

  Regret was such a human emotion. It was driven from my mind as a crackling sphere of black energy rushed toward us. The deep, hollow voice of the skeletal knight pronounced the chant of his spell.

  Death Sphere

  I felt all the vibrant life force around me being sucked into the Stygian darkness of that hole in the world. The newly produced gnolls fell over dead. Their bodies withered as fluid and vitality were equally sucked from their bodies.

  I only had one way to respond.

  Anti-Magic Pulse

  I pushed more power than ever before into the pulse which shot out of me. The sphere was struck, and I saw the weaves of magic wither from around it. The knight barely managed to shout before my anti-magic power struck him and began to undo all of the spells which animated his corpse and bound his soul to his body. Then the sphere of oblivion absorbed the rest of my pulse, combatting it, and the skeletal knight righted himself.

  His voice was filled with what I could only assume was shock and fear, “What have you done?”

  Even once my pulse was absorbed, there was a struggle as the bands of magic tried to stay together, fueled by a power separate from the magic of Ileria, but in the end it wasn’t enough. Not that I could focus on him as the black sphere he had created had not disappeared. It had rather become unbalanced. Its perfect shape was lost, and it began to distort the world around me like reality itself was being shifted.

  There were no longer any magical tethers around it yet I recognized the power that was in it. I’d felt the touch of oblivion on my soul, an emptiness which could never be filled.

  Cami shouted, “I’ll handle him. You deal with that.”

  Then she burst forward, shadow stepping to close with her foe. Her spear blazed with the both pure elemental fire and the power of a soul that was no longer entirely human.

  The skeletal knight swung at her with an oversized great sword. “Handle me? You’ll handle me? You know most humans run in terror at the sight of me.”

  I only barely saw how Cami used a thrust of her spear to deflect his strike off line and then step in to bash his boney face with her magical buckler. Magic flared from her as she shot Force Missiles straight into the undead’s flaming eye sockets.

  Then I was too busy dealing with the sphere of uncontrolled oblivion. It wasn’t connected to some other plane. Rather, it was a concept that was separate from the magic of Ileria. It had nothing to do with the solid matter or even the energy of my world. I could feel its wrongness and yet a part of it resonated within me.

  That nascent link within me tried to flare back up. I had pushed it back by growing and then working to seal my soul and body against any such curse, but this was the very nature of the horrors. It was the antithesis of existence in every form. It was a wonder that it didn’t implode and take out the entire dungeon with it, for I could feel how the physical world screamed at its presence.

  I reached out with my connection to Ileria and tried to seal it away behind a wall of impenetrable power. Even with my increased power the strain on my mind was like a mountain had been dropped upon me. It wanted to flatten me, but I wouldn’t allow it.

  This emptiness wanted to destroy my world not because it was hungry. I realized my mistake. I had tried to identify with oblivion as a hunger. It was the closest parallel that a living being might know. This wasn’t anything which was alive or had ever been, it was the backside of creation.

  The power of Ileria surged through me, making me even stronger. I saw the power of the black oblivion spreading even as I sought to make everything around me mine.

  You have expanded your understanding of this domain.

  You have upgraded your dragon monarch level.

  You are now a Grand Noble.

  You now possess a permanent domain. Your personal field: A Father’s Heart has grown stronger. Your range is now a 10-mile radius. The power of this world is yours to harvest. While you are no longer a Balance Warden, you must still find balance.

  Contest of continuation has begun. Find balance within your soul.

  In a single instant, I gained greater power and then found myself facing what felt like an impossible challenge. My soul was being strained; no it was being shredded. Oblivion stood at the entrance to my hoard and didn’t want to wait, it was coming to take all I treasured.

  A brief image flashed before me. I saw Tiamat again, but she seemed smaller. Or rather, it wasn’t that she was smaller; it was that my soul had grown. I was better able to fill up her presence in the dream.

  I saw her exalted minions. I saw how they pledged themselves to her. I saw how she pushed bits of her soul into them.

  Her soul, how it sparkled. It was vibrant and alive, the power of a dragon empress, a goddess in the flesh, rather than a god in spirit. She was a force of nature, the very nexus through which the magic of Ileria flowed. And that soul… it was from beyond Ileria. Ileria was a place that her soul was bound to, but her soul, like all others, was made by Eternity.

  Then she dared, she dared to do what no mortal being could do. She pushed and infused power into her minions. These twelve were the most loyal, the ones who she had exalted above all others. I could feel her affection for them as favored pets. They were the ones who had given everything for her and turned their backs on their old worlds to form a new home on Ileria.

  A kaleidoscope of color exploded around Tiamat in the dream. I was rocked by it, feeling the pain, disorientation, and outrage just as she had. What was wrong? She was trying to raise up a new tier of guardians for her world. She was severing soul from body and creating those who could oversee all of the lesser races which had sworn to her.

  Yet for all her power, Tiamat was only a goddess in flesh, she was not the creator. She could shape life. She could wield all magic, dragon, human, elven, dwarven, and orcish. She had flown all these paths and laid claim to all the powers of creation, but they were not hers. Her understanding failed her. In my vision, I felt her confusion and even a hint of despair.

  Arrogance cost her. And her new creations were ruptured. Instead of twelve there were twenty-four gods in spirit which rippled out from what she was trying to forge. Light and darkness in equal measure, creation and destruction. Tiamat was unbalanced on her own. She knew life. Vitality coursed through her and her connection to Ileria was something that even now I could never have hoped to match. She was at the dizzying heights of a mountain I was still learning to climb.

  She also knew violence and death, for she had dealt in both. But neither hunger nor violence was what made up oblivion. Tiamat seemed to be missing something. She was unbalanced and thus what she sought to shape was unbalanced.

  I tried to see more, but the dream was ripped away from me. I felt my connection with my race fraying. The link of oblivion tried to engulf me. My domain wavered and cracked. Fear raced down my tail and I knew what I was looking at. Oblivion was an end, not just to life, but to the soul, to all things.

  It was not as the horrors might have claimed the purpose of all which existed. It was simply the flip side. It was the empty nothingness which balanced the power of life and magic and dare I even say friendship. It was loneliness which had been driven into my kind as a result of our mother’s flaws and the Pact which sought to hang on for another day.

  Oblivion couldn’t be destroyed. It had to be accepted. Life would end. Ileria would end. My hoard would end. Cami would end. Even I would end. It might be tomorrow. It might be in a million years, but all things came to an end. Some would be recycled. New things would be created to replace what was lost, but everything came to an end, even time.

  Nascent balance has been found.

  Your link to creation and oblivion has been balanced upon the tip of a claw.

  There was no quest reward, no stat boost, no sudden flood of power, just a relief which came with acceptance. I would strive. I would succeed. The foes of this dungeon were not my end, but I had found acceptance in the fact that an end would come. I understood the horrors a bit more and saw the flaws of Tiamat for what they were. I wasn’t sure if the gods would go quietly, but I knew the course I must fly.

  For now, though, the physical world came crashing back down on me. I looked up and saw Cami, fighting for her life. She was beautiful in a way that I would have never thought to see a human. Her dragon wings were spread, and she blazed with elemental power. Her spear spun as she blocked blows from a hoard of undead trying to fight their way into the chamber.

  Judging from the mound of bones at her feet, she had been at this for a while. The first skeletal knight had been but one of many. I pushed out with my domain and felt the world around me. It was mine to control, more than ever before. I stepped backward and called out, “Just one more second and then jump out of the way!”

  Cami didn’t waste words calling back to me. Her battle was too fierce.

  I transformed into my full form, filling up the large circular chamber. Movement would be all but impossible. Then I sucked in a deep breath while sending her the mental command, “Now.”

  Spectral Tether

  Her ability activated, and she was behind me, upon my back as I opened up my maw, and forced my head forward. I crushed the undead in my way and my mouth opened to cover the doorway that opened into this room. Behind it, stretched a hallway with a seemingly endless army of undead. Individually, they were nothing, but they’d been wearing Cami down over time.

  Now they were… what was it that the humans said… oh yes, fish in a barrel?

  I poured more of my being into my breath weapon than I’d ever used before. I willed all of the electrical energy in the area to join the massive lightning bolt which issued forth from my maw. For an instant, it was as though all matter froze and the bolt was so powerful it would have seared the eyes of anything living which looked upon it.

  The force of the bolt ripped down the hallway and destroyed the undead by the scores. They had nowhere to flee and not even the sense to try. The bolt coursed from me for a full five seconds. Five seconds seemed like an eternity as I scorched the halls of the dungeon and slew my foes.

  You have defeated 217 skeleton. You have defeated 13 skeletal knights. You have defeated 9 skeletal mages.

  You have gained XP: +52,700.

  You have gained 239 DKP.

  Cami has gained XP: +204,680

  Cami has gained 41 DKP.

  You both have sufficient XP to advance your class.

  I ignored the notifications. There was still a foe in this dungeon waiting me. I hadn’t been sure before if he had come, but apparently, the man who had sought to pit himself against all dragons had decided to face me. I was ready. I felt the tendrils of death and soul magic as they crept back to him. He was connected to all the undead creatures I had just ended.

  I exulted as I heard his outraged cry from deep within the dungeon. He’d thought to overwhelm me with skeletons, pin me with powerful skeletal knights, and burn me to a crisp with his skeletal mages who were themselves a lesser version of himself. But I had destroyed the bulk of them.

  Then a spell carried his voice from deep within the dungeon to me. “Don’t think you’ve won lizard. I’ve already conquered the core of this dungeon. I can create new armies. This is your grave, but it will be the marker of my ascension.

  “You can crawl on your belly if you like through the narrow halls. Find my traps. Face my minions. I’ve got time. Come to me. Come as a supplicant, bleed yourself for every room you gain.

  “Come forward. I can taste the power of your soul. It will give me what I deserve.”

  He was clearly insane, but he did know what he was saying in part. I could feel him spawning more monsters in the dungeon. Gnolls and undead alike. The hallways and landscape of the dungeon would force me to reduce myself again. I’d have to be less than my full self and would have to play his game.

  Or perhaps not.

  My domain had settled. I felt the dungeon around me. It was a pocket of reality which practically sizzled with magic of Ileria. I felt balance and connection. I could make or unmake.

  So I reached out and began to reshape the hallways, widening them, then erasing them entirely as room after room combined to create a singular space which was the entirety of this pocket dimension. The dungeon resisted at first, but my will was not to be denied. I would shape the world around me. It felt like all the magic of Ileria flowed through me, yet I knew it was only the beginning.

  Chapter 42 - Reality and Revenge

  The dungeon moved as I willed it. All around me the walls shifted as up became down and down turned sideways then upon its head. Space and form become a singular concept as the entire dungeon reshaped to fit my will. Gone were the stone walls and the heritage of what might have been a world long gone. Whatever it had been, it was but fuel for my dominance.

  Your Anti-Magic Domain has evolved a sub-ability: Reality Domain. Practice will be required, but in the right circumstances, the magic of Ileria may undo the physical world around you and mold it to your desire.

  Beware: This path has had negative results in the past.

  Then I heard Cami saying, “Should I level up before we fight?”

  I paused and held the form of the dungeon around me in a frozen moment of stasis. I ignored the notification for now. It worked, but I’d learn more about this Reality Domain later. For now, Cami had a point. The dungeon had fed us an unnaturally high amount of XP from the kills. Then I realized what I was feeling. As I had transformed the dungeon, all of our foes were crushed, except for one annoying little level 36 lich, who I could feel all too clearly like a sore on my gums where I liked to gnaw on a bone.