Immediately the hum is wrong.
It quivers through the throne like a wounded note, dissonant and sharp. I jolt upright, already gripping the Chime before I’m fully conscious. The air is thick with heat, the walls trembling under distant impact. Resin dust rains from the vaulted ceiling like black snow.
Cast stands before me, armor cracked, her tone vibrating too fast to stay steady. “My king, there is a problem.”
The words hit harder than any alarm. I push from the throne, the resonance folding around me. The hum of the Dominion is fractured, layers of panic and pain overlapping into a storm of broken rhythm. Drones scream through the link. Whole corridors go silent mid-note.
“What happened?”
“An attack,” Cast answers, eyes glowing faint gold in the dark. “The Ashwing has come to the castle. It struck the upper galleries before dawn. We are holding, but only barely.”
The sound of her voice shakes with strain. I can feel the echo of the fight through the network, wingbeats like thunder, molten dust slicing through resin walls, the metallic wail of ruptured harmonics.
“How long after I was gone?”
“Minutes. It came from nowhere. The listening posts gave no warning.”
[VioletVex]: Cowards, waiting till he was gone to strike.
[carapace_kid]: that’s not a hunt, that’s an ambush.
[Thrumline]: To attack in absence, against harmony itself… unforgivable.
I don’t have time to think long. I need a plan, one to get this monster off my kingdom and give my Hekari time to recover. We can’t use any of the prepared battle plans with it right on our back. Those were designed for the fight in the caldera. I need to distract it, lure it away.
It must have attacked after it sensed my resonance disappear. It waited till I was gone to strike. I don’t have wings like the Hekari elite, so I can’t keep up with it in the air, but I could provoke it and lead it from the fortress. Scott will be logging in soon, if I can hold till he does we may stand a chance.
I summon the fastest and largest of the Sablehounds, its carapace streaked with molten patterns of black and gold. It kneels as I mount, claws grinding into the stone as I urge it upward. We race up the spiral stair toward the cathedral, the roars and sounds of destruction growing louder until they nearly drown the hum itself.
When I breach into the cathedral, chaos reigns. The walls have collapsed in several places, the map I was so proud of only a night ago lies shattered beneath debris. Bodies of drones and Hekari are strewn about, some cut clean in half by the plasma breath of the Ashwing, others torn apart by brute force. The air is molten and sharp with glass dust.
[VioletVex]: gods… the hive’s heart is in ruins.
[Archivolt]: the resonance is screaming, I can almost hear it through the stream.
[Arbiterofsalt]: The Ashwing will pay for this. Burn its wings, feed its bones to the hive.
I grit my teeth and push through the wreckage, blazing out the northern archway into the courtyard. The Ashwing rips across the sky, its molten beam tearing the ground open, glassing sand into jagged mirrors. Drones and Hekari weakly respond with spears and bell bombs, their tones thin against its fury. They’re only just barely keeping it from landing and tearing into the main citadel.
I can feel its hatred through the hum, vast and hungry, echoing in the back of my skull. The Pale Crown flares hotter with every wingbeat, and I know if I don’t act now, the Dominion will burn.
I kick free of the saddle and run into a clear patch of courtyard. I do not look back, I only will it to be ready, ready to sprint the moment I need to vanish. I feel its tension as my mind brushes it with resonance, its body primed like coiled springs.
I thrust the Dominion Chime head first into the glassy ground and pour everything I have into it. The note that answers is a low, clean thunder, a sound that reverberates through bone and stone. It unfolds outward like an invisible wave. When it reaches the Ashwing the scaled monstrosity falters in midflight, a choking rasp scattering through the sky, its breath weapon sputtering as if some unseen hand pressed against its throat. For one impossible instant it gropes the air, searching for the source of the strike.
I plant my feet and meet its glare. I let every ounce of resonance fill my voice and I shout, loud enough that the Chime answers me, "Your target is me." The Pale Crown over my head heats and pulses with the words, each syllable shearing a path through the creature's rage. It beats its wings hard and climbs, a dark mountain rising, then sheds altitude in a spine-crushing dive that would have killed me if the Sablehoud had not been there already. It slides beneath me, my mount snatching me up as we bolt out through the east gate like a stone flung from a catapult.
[VioletVex]: Our king is the shield, he draws fire so the hive may live.
[Thrumline]: To stand before the storm, that’s what kings are for.
[Archivolt]: classic Tank play, he’s taking aggro like it’s a raid.
[Arbiterofsalt]: fearless, he taunts death itself.
[LifelineV]: He’s got this.
I scream a quick command to Cast over the network, my tone sharp with urgency and a thread of apology, "Forgive me, but I will not let you all die for me. I will draw it off. Marshal, organize the Hekari, move the wounded into the inner keep. Thalos will arrive soon, hold until help comes. I will keep the Ashwing occupied." Her fear threads back through the link, raw and immediate, then hardens into steel. I feel her answer like a struck chord, short and certain, "As you command, my king. Return to us."
The desert becomes a blur of shadow and heat as the sablehound tears across the dunes. The wind claws at my face, carrying the taste of burning glass. Behind us, the Ashwing screams, a blade of sound that vibrates through my spine. I can feel the weight of its pursuit pressing down on us, its shadow stretching longer with every wingbeat.
The sablehound leaps over jagged glass formations, claws scraping sparks from obsidian ridges. Shards the size of trees jut from the ground, and we weave between them in desperate rhythm. Each turn is a gamble, one wrong move and the beast’s molten breath would turn us into slag. I guide the hound through instinct, mind and body locked together in perfect motion.
A column of basalt looms ahead, cracked and smoking from a recent strike. The hound twists around it just as the Ashwing’s breath cuts down behind us, a wave of plasma that melts the air itself. Heat sears my back, the shockwave lifting sand and shards into a storm that blinds both man and beast. We burst through it, half-running, half-falling down the slope of a dune that’s already turning to glass.
The ground shatters under each step. Splinters of obsidian tear through the hound’s hide, but it doesn’t slow. I can feel its heart hammering through the saddle, every beat a defiance against the burning sky. The Ashwing dives again, its wings eclipsing the sun, its breath weapon tracing molten arcs that stitch across the sand like lightning.
I duck low as the blast scorches overhead, close enough to singe the cloak Scott gave me. The hound snaps sideways, narrowly dodging a collapsing basalt pillar that crashes where we had been seconds before. Glass shards rain around us, cutting through the air like knives. The roar behind me builds into a physical force that shakes the very dunes apart.
We sprint toward a field of black spires, jagged and uneven. Perfect cover. I whisper a command through resonance and the hound obeys without hesitation, darting between the pillars as the Ashwing’s fire rains down. Each strike explodes against the stone, sending sprays of molten rock in every direction. My vision fills with red light and shadow, the world reduced to heat, noise, and motion.
[carapace_kid]: this speed is unreal, he’s flying on the ground!
[VioletVex]: my heart’s in my throat, the adrenaline’s killing me!
“Come on,” I whisper through clenched teeth. “Follow me, monster.”
The hound leaps a final ridge, and for an instant, silence. The Ashwing banks above, its massive wings cutting arcs of fire through the clouds. It lets out a roar that shakes the air itself, a sound of fury and hunger and pain. The beast wants blood, and it will not stop until it has mine.
To be fair, I did kick the hornet’s nest. But it took my drones from me first. This is just nature.
We dart in and out of crystal formations, the sablehound twisting like liquid shadow beneath me. The air around us blisters with heat, each blast of the Ashwing’s breath lighting the dunes in molten orange. I force myself to stay visible enough that it doesn’t lose track of me. If it tires of the chase and turns back to the fortress, everything we built will burn. The wounded are still being evacuated below. We are not ready for another strike.
The next blast scours the sand beside us, carving a trench that glows like a river of lava. I yank the reins and the hound vaults sideways, claws digging into a slope of half-hardened glass. We slide down in a spray of sparks, the smell of ozone and blood thick in my throat. The Ashwing circles back, its cry vibrating through the dunes. It’s enjoying this.
The hound cuts between two towering shards of quartz, each as thick as my fortress walls, the tips fused black from heat. The light bends and refracts, turning the world into a prism of fire. I can feel the hum of the Dominion faltering, faint even here. Cast is still alive, still holding, but the network feels stretched thin. I push the thought away and focus on the chase.
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We twist hard around a spine an outcrop of basalt. The Ashwing dives again, but the hound rolls under a slab of fused stone just in time. The plasma beam misses by meters, exploding ahead and turning the ridge into a storm of molten glass. Shards pelt my armor, leaving glowing streaks across the cloak. Every breath burns in my chest, but I don’t dare slow down.
Another dive. The hound swerves, paws barely touching the ground before launching off a broken ledge. The sand here is crystallized into serrated ridges, sharp enough to cut even chitin. We skid across it, the hound bleeding from its legs but refusing to falter. I whisper a single tone of encouragement, feeding it strength through resonance. It answers with a growl and pushes harder.
That’s when I notice it.
The horizon is changing. The field of glass spires has closed in around us, narrowing the path with each blast. The Ashwing hasn’t been missing, it’s been planning. Each strike collapses a route, seals another exit. The air hums with molten tension, pillars falling one by one until the sky feels smaller.
The hound stumbles to a stop, chest heaving.
We’re surrounded. Walls of broken crystal rise on every side, fused together by the creature’s breath into jagged curtains of black glass and obsidian. Jets of molten sand harden before my eyes, sealing the gaps. The Ashwing circles above, its wings stirring the air into whirlwinds of burning glass.
It roars again, triumphant.
[VioletVex]: oh no… he’s trapped, it caged him in!
[Archivolt]: the beast shaped the field itself, this is deliberate!
[Arbiterofsalt]: it thinks it’s won? good. let it gloat before he breaks it.
I run a hand across the sablehound’s neck, steadying it. “Well,” I murmur, raising the Dominion Chime and planting my feet. “Looks like running isn’t much of an option now.”
The Chime hums, answering the resolve in my voice. “Then we fight,” I whisper, “and we hold as long as we can.”
For a moment I am taken back to Victor’s laughter on the other end of a headset, the kind that filled the room like light even when it was three in the morning. He had been shouting over the clack of his mechanical keyboard, voice all grin and heat, reminding me of that one raid where I tanked the boss for twenty five minutes straight while the rest of the guild cycled cooldowns and patched each other up. He’d called it my special talent, proof I could outlast anything. He never knew that holding wasn’t bravado, it was desperation, the way I learned to measure time in tiny windows of safety and intention.
All I have to do is that again, I told myself as the hound’s flank heaved beneath me, only this time I would feel the hits, and I would be alone. In the old fights we had five others with me to catch the holes, to trade aggro, to stand where I could not. Tonight I had to be the anchor for forty minutes, maybe longer, until Thalos or reinforcements arrived. I tasted blood, and the math in my head said the margin was thin.
I slide off the sablehound while its still panting, whispering one tight command, go and disappear, keep the path clear. It looked at me with that animal intelligence, an answering growl in its chest, and turned like it understood. The thing had already given me everything, its sides steaming with tears of sand and resin. I hated that I had to send it away. I needed it alive, but it was too close to collapse.
I pinged my location to Cast across the resonance, a single bright note with fear braided through it. Her reply came back like a struck chord, raw and immediate, not words so much as a flood of feeling. I could hear her sorrow and her rage in the tone, she wanted to be here, she wanted to be my blade, not the one left to patch the wounds while I got burned. I felt the weight of that want in my bones, the way a hand on a string can vibrate the whole instrument.
[VioletVex]: no no no, don’t fight that thing alone!
[carapace_kid]: HE’S SOLOING A DRAGON! this is madness!
[Thrumline]: one king against the storm, song of the last stand.
[VioletVex]: please just get back on the dog, you can still run!
[LifelineV]: if there were anyone who could solo a boss like this, it would be him.
The ashwing lowered itself with the mockery of a god, wings folding out like thunderclouds. It hovered ten feet above me, each beat of those wings kicking up razor glass that sliced the air into bright knives. The sand stung against my face, a million tiny abrasions, and for a stupid second I thought, what kind of tank does not wear a helmet. The thought was barely fully formed when the Pale Crown replied. Light folded and hardened above my head, and a gleaming white armet snaps into place, smooth along my skull, cool against my sweat. I touched the rim with a fingertip, amazed at the calm it offered.
If it could do that without me asking, what else can it do? I catch my mind wandering, thats a thought for later. Later could be a thousand small fixes that let me live through nights like this. Now isnt the time to worry about that. Survival is all that matters now.
[carapace_kid]: DID YOU KNOW IT COULD DO THAT?!
[Archivolt]: he just spawned a helmet mid?fight?? what kind of gear is that??
[VioletVex]: Normally I’d pout about him hiding that beautiful face, but for this I’ll make an exception.
I moved forward slowly because motion was a way to buy time. Each step forward towards this monster is a question in its mind. Its eyes deep with intelligence, it reads my motions anticipating my actions. Each step a wasted breath on the creature’s clock. It wanted me to move, so it could read me, so it could time the strike. It spun with a cruelty that made the sand sing, tail whipping like a bludgeon of molten stone. I twisted the Dominion Chime up to block, the resonance vibrating through my arms like thunder. The impact threw me backward, armor ringing with strain. I barely landed on my feet before the beast’s claws crashed down where I had been. Each blow of its talons carved furrows of molten glass into the earth, every strike testing my rhythm and resolve.
I swung the Chime in counterpoint, every strike answered by a crash of sound that bent the air. The beast lunged, and I ducked under its wing, slamming the haft into its ribs. The note that followed cracked through the air like a bell struck too hard, a ripple of pressure that shattered a nearby spire. Still, it did not falter. The Ashwing leapt into motion, its claws raking sparks from the ground.
A feint left, then its head snapped right, jaws dripping with molten dust. The breath came again. Searing, white-hot plasma that splashed against the cloak Scott had made me. The garment held, but the edges of my vision darkened with pain. My knees buckled under the weight of the impact. I was thrown back head over feet tumbling across the glass arena's floor. The sand around me rippled with heat, and the glass surface beneath my feet glowed. Scrambling to my feet as fast as I could, I rolled out of the way just as the Ashwing's tail slammed into the earth where I was, the glass crunching with a sickening sound. I cant stop moving, movement means death, but the tempo is too much. I feel my own cadence slowing. I have to push forward.
I charged in again, forcing the Chime into a brutal rhythm, striking the beast’s legs and wings, anything I could reach. It batted me aside with a wing, the impact sending me spinning through the dust. My armor screamed as I rolled, but I rose again, breath torn from my chest. We circled one another, the hunter and the challenged prey, each waiting for the other to make the fatal mistake.
Then it spun with renewed fury, a twist that made the sand itself sing, tail whipping like a bludgeon of molten stone. I jumped, too slow in the air to dodge cleanly, and the world folded. I saw it too late, the white hellish glow building in its maw, and the world came to a standstill. I was going to die here and now.
The plasma beam tore a corridor of heat through the air towards me. Impact came from the right, sharp and sudden, a force that should have been fire, but there was no heat where it landed. I hit the ground hard, taste of sand and copper and in my mouth. When I rolled, I heard a note of the song go silent before the sight burned into me.
My sablehound had thrown itself into my side to knock me from the beam. Its body had been a shield, half of it seared and gone from hip to shoulder, a raw rag of chitin and flame. It lay still, steam rising from the wound, no breath, no cry. Just silence.
[VioletVex]: oh no! not the hound ; -; it saved him…
[Thrumline]: a noble end, the truest companion’s song.
[Arbiterofsalt]: I want that beast’s head for this.
[BarBros4Life]: it killed the dog?! NO MERCY, end that thing!
Rage is a precise engine. It stripped everything clean, left only the need to answer. I rammed the Dominion Chime into the glass. A tremor tore through the canyon of pillars, a low keening that felt like tearing metal. For a heartbeat, realization struck through the red haze: the Dominion Chime’s pale metal was the same as the Crown itself. If the crown could form armor at my will, could the Chime do the same? Could I shape it, make it sing to my command? Rage became focus. The resonance listened.
I poured everything, anger, grief, the dying hound’s song, into the note. The chime vibrated under my palms until it was no longer sound but intention. The hum thickened, folding the crown’s tone into it. The world answered back.
I called the process Composing without knowing why, singing the shape I needed into being. The metal flowed like liquid harmony, threads of white light twisting down the haft, stretching, curving, rebalancing. My voice trembled as I willed it to become a weapon worthy of vengeance.
“Sing me a weapon that can slay a dragon,” I roared, and the air itself shuddered in reply.
Then, like a thought finding shape, the resonance took the chime and the crown and my anger, and it reshaped the metal.
The chime stretched, not with violence but with the inevitability of tide pulling a sandbar. Bells along the haft elongated into a line of tiny, ringing eyes, each one holding a note. The head narrowed, widening into a broad lance with an edge that held light the way ice holds sun. The haft throbbed with harmonics, humming through bone. The weight when I lifted it was perfect all at once. It felt like a command in my hand, like the world could be prodded and would answer back.
[VioletVex]: the song itself just gave him a weapon?!
[carapace_kid]: he sang a spear into existence, that’s unreal.
[Archivolt]: composition complete, dragon-slayer forged in pure resonance.
I did not think about elegance. I thought about wings. I drove forward, launching myself into the air with the lance aimed at the ashwing’s mode of flight, the soft joint where membrane meets bone. My strikes landed with the sound of bells in a chapel, each hit sending a clean, ringing note into the creature’s wing. It shrieked, a sound like glass being broken in slow motion, and for a moment I felt the thing’s flight falter. Pain flared through my arms, a hot braided rope, each hit sinking through muscle and into bone. I could feel the sablehound's loss in the back of my throat, in the way each step I pushed was paid for with loss, and the world narrowed to bell, impact, blood, and the single stubborn rule that I would not let the Ashwing turn back to the fortress while breath and life could still hold.
The weight of the lance was a promise and a punishment, heavy with the price paid, bright with the hammer of survival. Each blow was a vow. I remembered the twenty five minutes Victor loved to tell people about. This was longer, meaner, and somehow smaller, because if I failed now everything behind me would be ash. I hit again, and again, and the desert answered with the clatter of falling scales, with a sky torn and bleeding, and with the slow, terrible knowledge that I would have to hold until reinforcements could turn grief into victory.
The fight rages on. I can barely parry the dragon’s attacks, my resonance near its limits. What was once a clean struck chord is ragged and flat. Blood mats my hair, mixing with sweat, my left eye sealed shut. Every motion is agony, every breath another test of will. I can’t tell how long I’ve been fighting; time is only marked by the numb ache spreading through my body and the exhaustion pounding behind my eyes.
[VioletVex]: How is he still going?! This fight’s been an eternity, hold on my King!
[carapace_kid]: every swing looks slower, he’s bleeding bad… come on Kyris!
[Arbiterofsalt]: don’t give in, make it pay for every drop!
[BarBros4Life]: Thalos why’s it taking so long?! our king’s tougher than steel, hold on for backup, keep pushing!
[Thrumline]: the song stumbles but it hasn’t broken yet, he still stands.
The dragon slams its claw toward me, and I leap to evade, but my foot lands on a patch of fragile heated glass that shatters beneath me. I drop to one knee, my body refusing to answer the command to move. I can only stare as the creature’s shadow rises before me, the molten light in its throat building to unbearable brilliance. My strength is gone. I scream at my limbs to move, but they only tremble. The monster’s next strike comes in slow motion, inevitable, final.
I draw a single breath and close my eyes. The heat washes across my face as I brace for the killing blow. At least I bought them time, I think. If my death keeps the fortress safe, then this is the right end.
"LOOKS LIKE IT’S TIME FOR THE OFF TANK TO TAP IN!” The voice crashes through the chaos like thunder, and my eye snaps open. A flash of gold streaks past on my right, a storm of sand and sound. The impact comes a heartbeat later, a massive upward swing that meets the Ashwing’s claw with a crack like the sky splitting in half. The dragon’s hand bends at an impossible angle, bone splintering, blood and molten glass spraying into the air.
[BarBros4Life]: THAT’S OUR GUY! THE OFF TANK IS IN!
[GainsGoblin]: SUN KING JUST UPERCUT A DRAGON LET’S GOOOO!
[carapace_kid]: THALOS! TAG-TEAM UNLOCKED!
[VioletVex]: It’s okay, my King, you’re safe now.
[LifelineV]: Finally. I’m going to have to teach Thalos a lesson for showing up late.
Thalos stands ten yards ahead, gleaming in sunlight, his weapon humming with radiant power. Beside me, Hamu’s flank presses against mine, keeping me from collapsing. The resonance folds around me again, and I hear Cast’s voice, sharp and terrified, calling through the song. My right eye closes, darkness crowding the edges of my vision. As I slump against the great cat’s side, I manage a faint smile.
I did it. Held until reinforcements arrived, I think with an exhausted gratitude.
Then the dark folded around me like a lullaby.