Deep within his soul, on the most fundamental level, the mighty water-wyvern dragon lord named Renora was an angry, prideful being. He was a spiteful, vicious being filled with a desire to steadily accumulate more and more power, and more and more influence. Few things inspired the hateful creature more than the thought of inflicting pain on those who opposed him. And as the entity glared at Raul, he felt more anger than he had ever felt.
As he glared at Raul, he willingly gave up a considerable amount of the power he had spent thousands of years acquiring so that his soul could attune to another element, doubling the number of draconic elements that he could control. He did that for the sake of defeating and killing the powerful being who was taunting him, goading the prideful, spiteful, being into a maddening rage. Even as his soul began to burn with the power of cleansing light, the dragon looked down on his enemy, hatefully imagining Raul's blood oozing out of an imagined, defeated, deceased body, and staining the floor underneath him.
"Let's see how you stand up to me... Now!" The dragon roared, his voice exploding out of him and surging across the planet, filling the ears of every living being in the world with the hateful voice of the mighty dragon. Raul's wicked smile grew ever wider and another spear identical to the one the grand adonis had flung at the creature earlier that day appeared in one of his hands.
"I can sense your fury... And that it hasn't fully clouded your judgment. Excellent! Come Renora, let us clash once more." Raul taunted, his eyes filling with power even as he rose the spear in his hand and pointed it at the mighty wyvern-aspected dragon lord. The dragon obliged the adonis by opening his mouth and beginning to gather power, in the form of blindingly bright light, and Raul smiled at him, fearlessly readying himself for the attack to come.
Dragon lords were attuned to one or more of eight so-called "Draconic elements", just like their lesser kin, regular dragons themselves were. The eight "Draconic elements" were fire, water, air, earth, poison, storm, celestial light, and the void itself. Each of these elements had advantages and the single most basic ability possessed by dragon lords was the power to manipulate the elements they were attuned to.
The two strangest and also, arguably, two strongest elements were those of the void and celestial light. Both of those particular elements had distinctive properties that made them stand out in comparison to the remaining six. Celestial light dragons had the ability to bolster their allies and to inflict inordinate harm on evil beings, and dragons attuned to the void could breathe darkness and were deeply resistant to even ascendent-level magic and psionic powers.
The potent, ally-bolstering power of the celestial light element was now beginning to surge through the gigantic dragon lord. It infused each of his cells and was remaking, boosting even the power of his soul. And in turn, he was blessing Noshtex, empowering the mighty archdemoness so that she could free herself from the vise she was in. But even as the dragon regained his strength, and indeed soared past his former level of power, he was not aware that he was playing into the hands of the cosmic deity who had come to free Mirella.
Raul wanted both of his foes to be as powerful as possible. He wanted them to be difficult foes, powerful enemies that he could steal from before he turned them into his allies. He was delighted that his efforts in taunting the two creatures were forcing them to become stronger and stronger, goading them into becoming even more tasty meals for him to "devour" in ways that only he really could.
At the moment the cosmic deity was being swayed more by his darker nature than his usual, gentler side. Due to his ability to end fights without a single blow, which came from his nature as an anael, he could have ended this battle without throwing a single punch but he wasn't that kind. He was ready to feed on and grow empowered by the enemies he was facing, stealing their powers for himself and making them bend the knee to him and recognize his authority. He was fully ignoring Renora, confident in his ability to hold the archdemoness down, or if worse came to worse knock her fully unconscious. He stared openly and defiantly at Renora, a smirk on his face.
Renora had a habit of telegraphing his strikes. He did it again when he launched a beam-attack consisting of the cosmically powerful celestial light, by rearing his head back and then snapping it forward in my direction as he exhaled a tremendously powerful laser beam. I watched the beam strike the ground near me and destroy it, before it began to zip in my direction.
I didn't attempt to move or deflect the strike and kept my eyes locked on Renora's still distant but not quite so much form. My eyes began to glow again, even as the dragon hatefully directed its laser breath my way. Behind me I sensed Noshtex continuing to struggle, even as she grew in power, and I began to audibly laugh.
"That's it! Rage against me. Fill with hatred and fear. It doesn't matter, in the face of my power. I am not just an archdemon..." I uttered, my voice powerfully filling the air around me. Renora's attack continued to make its way towards me, but when it began to get closer to me I closed my eyes and activated a potent, consumptive aura that began to gluttonously drain everything around me of life, energy, and power. My aura was large enough to engulf Noshtex who began to hiss in pain as she felt her bolstered strength begin to be forcefully sapped from her, and when Renora's laser attack hit the aura it immediately began to lose some of its potency.
"I... am a sanguinarch!" I roared, my eyes becoming obsidian spheres as I did something I only rarely did: activated my powers over darkness itself.
I shrouded the grand room I was still inside of in mystical, supernatural, solidified darkness able to block even Renora's potent beams, disappearing from the dragon lord's view, even as his beam continued to hit the room, but now doing nothing more than failing to penetrate the darkness I had created and wreathed myself and the room in. I turned away from Renora and floated over to Noshtex as she began to be able to move a bit more, still raging against the telekinetic bonds I had her in. With a smile on my face I placed a gentle hand on her head, touching the top of the evil creature's head and activating one of my powers.
In the midst of the darkness the two ascendents gazed at each other. Noshtex attempted to glare at Raul but found himself unable to do so, much to her shock and astonishment. Raul gazed at her warmly, even as his touch began to make the demoness glow a surprisingly warm shade of pink light.
"While I won't take away your hatred of me just yet, I can at least make you more fun to fight in the short-term." Raul muttered, as he began to beautify the archdemoness. She couldn't bring herself to glare at the cosmic deity even as her body began to change, shrinking to a human-size and also began to become quite aesthetically pleasing.
The demon-lord was helpless in the face of Raul's overwhelming power, especially after having a fair portion of her own might sapped by the vampiric deity before her. As her body shrank and changed she began to resemble one of the mighty "High-elves", but one with a beautiful, feminine face and hair that was redder than even Fara's.
She was forcibly shrunk down to a size much shorter than Raul, only a bit taller than Calantha's own height, and found that she immediately began to quite like her new form, though she knew that she should have hated it. She was still able to feel hatred towards Raul, her newest mortal enemy and one she intended to devour, if she could get a chance to do so.
When Raul was done changing her body to fit his own aesthetic preferences he smiled at her. As he did he began to reveal just a fragment of his true power, his reality-altering inner beauty, and in doing so for but a moment even Noshtex's deep hatred of the cosmic deity vanished, unable to be sustained while gazing at his soul-alteringly beautiful form. Exposure to even the tiniest portion of Raul's real power was enough to permanently change those who beheld him.
Raul wasn't done though. He gazed into Noshtex's eyes and rather effortlessly stole her remaining power, utilizing nothing more but the very powers she had attempted to use on him and his allies minutes ago. The archdemoness's mastery over the sin of gluttony flowed out of her and then seeped out of her all at once and into the cosmic deity, filling him with every ounce of power she once possessed, allowing the deity to become an altogether more powerful and dangerous entity than he had been minutes ago while leaving her with little more than an ascendant's raw physique.
"That was... delicious." Raul uttered, even as his cells were supercharged and he gained a plethora of new powers related to absorption, gluttony, and hunger. At the same time, the strange manifold ascendant being felt an immense hunger well up deep within him and so he turned his back on Noshtex, turning to face the massive dragon lord who was still firing his celestial light beams at the shroud of darkness that engulfed the room Raul and Noshtex were in.
"I am still hungry Renora!" I roared, even as I turned my attention fully to the dragon lord, ready and eager to devour him. My potent aura grew in strength as I focused on the dual-elemental dragon lord. I dissipated the darkness that had shielded me from the creature's attacks and roared inarticulately at him, causing him to roar back at me in fury. We glared at each other, hate filling both of our eyes. I rose one of my hands and pointed it at him, immediately causing his roar to turn from one of fury and hate into one of pain and weakness.
Noshtex had been an overlord of gluttony, someone who had mastered her powers, even if she lacked the intelligence to know how to effectively utilize them. Her powers, including her mastery of gluttony, now filled and empowered me, making me extremely adept at draining even ascendant level powers and abilities from my foes. That combined quite naturally with the empowerment I received from other acts of gluttony, as well as my servants gaining gluttonous abilities of their own in the midst of their battle against the forces of Noshtex and Renora, which they immediately began to use liberally, empowering and feeding me in doing so.
"If you are so hungry... Eat this!" The dragon lord roared, firing a potent beam of hateful light at me. I rose my other hand and reformed the mouth that had once been on it. The mouth opened and the light was sucked into it, not at all harming me but instead feeding me a healthy amount of raw, destructive power.
"Happily!" I roared, even as the dragon lord recoiled in the face of my expanded power. I began to fly towards the beast, and when its muscles tensed in preparation for it to turn around I released my telekinetic grip on Noshtex and instead captured the gigantic dragon with my mind, utilizing a truly superhuman amount of mental strength to lock the dragon and keep it from escaping. The beast roared at me in fury and fear, its pride beginning to melt away and its fear empowering me substantially even as I neared it.
"Your soul... With your soul, I shall gain the power to become a dragon lord!" I informed the dragon, even as my absorptive abilities weakened the beast and made it easier for me to keep him contained. As I closed in on the creature I sensed his hatred of me increasing and his ability to resist me decreasing since every nanometer I drew closer to him brought him further under the draining power of my absorptive abilities.
"Damn... Damnit!" The infuriated dragon lord roared, as he felt more and more of his own power slipping from his grasp and into me, even and including his new, light-based abilities. The smile on my face grew wider and wider as the dragon lord and I neared each other, and as I felt its potent powers seeping into my soul, altering it further and pushing me nearer and nearer to another ascension, the one that would finally allow me to become a dragon lord.
