Within a valley just south of Silicia, the capital of the Nidhogg Empire, where the rivers flowed and trees waved in the wind, wolves of varied sizes, a common sight in the Alfheim Continent, roamed the savage woodlands.

Some among them towered over buildings, others were no bigger than a man, but they were all numerous.

These beasts, usually the undisputed masters of these lands, were at present steering clear of a cave atop the cliffs.

There lay the Red Dragon and her master, Rosa of Tiamat.

The night was pitch dark, but the woman did not fear the darkness.

Instinctually, one’s fear of the dark is due to the knowledge that danger often lurks within.

There’s no greater representative of that threat than the nocturnal wolves of these valleys.

Yet in spite of this Rosa, who lay upon Tiamat’s curled up body, obviously had nothing to fear.

Her eyes opened with a start in the night.

She sat up, her companion took notice.

The dragon’s supreme eyesight saw Rosa’s face full of confusion and even a hint of dread.

The girl turned to face the north.

She rose to her feet, stepped down from Tiamat’s body and walked towards the cliff edge.

The dragon’s tail gently stopped her from stepping over the edge, but the girl would not have crossed that threshold anyway.

“Tia,” She said, and the dragon listened, “We need to go. Now.”

She wasn’t far from the capital, she would arrive there by tomorrow, yet something startled her, something she could not explain.

The dragon sensed this, it stood up and raised its wings to take flight.

They would arrive at full sprint to the capital, even if it had to exhaust itself the beast would see it done.

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This night, same as every night, he emerged.

Avance, General of Jupiter, parted his body from the scales of the pitch black dragon and crept through the shadows to approach the chains binding his companion beast.

With a tug then, he tested the strength of the very last chain.

None were yet broken, but all of them were brittle.

He peered at the half melted metal and concluded that it was time now at last for the Black Dragon to spread its wings once more.

The man turned towards the palace, the balcony where Gudrun, Mistress of the Emperor, could be sighted from time to time.

Tonight it was quite late, she would already be in bed.

He clenched his fingers into a fist over his heart.

He was feeling uneasy about what was about to happen, what he was about to do, it's true, but he had his reasons and knew it had to be done.

“Fafnir,” He said, and the Black Dragon opened its azure coloured eyes, “it’s time.”

Hearing those words, at long last, made the beast release a grunt of relief.

The dragon lazily stood up as its wings began to tug at the chains.

The metal bonds began to release sounds of struggle.

The guards did not even peer over, their expressions full of certainty.

They had become quite confident of late that the chains would not break, that was their complacency.

Finally, the inevitable happened.

The guards heard a snapping sound and the echo of metal rings striking the earth.

Their reactions were sluggish, they did not manage to raise the alarm, not that it would’ve made any difference.

The black dragon’s maw opened towards the humans who made it suffer such indignity for over half a year, it offered them only a swift demise.

The gaps of its scales began to glow as sapphire embers crawled out of its throat and melted the concrete like acidic saliva.

The colosseum shook, General Avance leapt to the beast’s crown and stood proud and aloft for all to see.

The beast spread its wings and let loose a bellowing roar.

The air itself shook, the earth trembled and then in an instant the colosseum was turned to ashes beneath an ocean of blue flame.

The walls filled with fire until they burst, the streets beyond were drowned in flame, even the surrounding buildings collapsed.

What could melt did melt, what could burn did burn, what could only be destroyed was turned to dust.

Ashen rain poured down as the beast flapped its wings, the pitch black night was illuminated with an eerie blue light as bright as the daytime.

Avance stood upon the dragon’s crown like a king overlooking all the world.

Within this place, at this time, it didn’t matter how many men opposed him, Fafnir alone could kill them all, and as its master he was by no means its inferior.

Tonight, the Nidhogg Empire's fabled capital would bathe in a maddening cacophony of blood, embers, ash and fire.

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The Imperial Mistress stirred in her bed.

The dragon’s bellow drew her gaze towards the window as it was illuminated by the light of an eerie blue glow.

The building shook and the baby who lay by her side started to cry.

Finally she heard the alarms sound high, but that came far too late and from a place far too distant.

She sensed the threat and reached out to embrace her child in a panic.

The slave girls serving her opened their eyes from where they stood by the wall.

The earth shook, a mighty tremor resounded.

Something heavy had just slammed down upon the ground.

The beast’s thundering bellow roared once more into the heavens.

The wind scattered all the dust from the walls as powerful wings whipped it up once more.

Whatever else was true, Gudrun was still a Platinum Class, she perceived outside that something big had just lunged itself at the building and she sensed that its trajectory was terrifyingly close to her room.

She scurried out of bed as the walls cracked and collapsed.

The ceiling fell in, but nothing managed to touch her or her baby.

She tackled open the chamber door and then ran at a speed far beyond the norm.

She was no soldier, but she was not weak, no woman living in this chaotic world could afford to be truly weak.

She ignored the slaves who stood still like dolls as the building caved in and crushed them without mercy, their fate, to that aforestated fact, was clear testimony.

Her body accelerated, she summoned her Ash to envelop her and then tackled down the wall at the furthest end of the hall.

The wall collapsed, she was airborne now, she rolled to disperse her momentum as she hit the ground at speed, her child firmly secured in her embrace all the while.

Ash cocooned the baby, shielded it, but left the mother unguarded and prone to injury in return.

Gudrun stood up, she snuggled her child close to her breast and the barrier of her crimson power hardened around it to an extreme degree.

The dragon’s loud bellow then drew her gaze.

She saw the beast standing up on the rooftop over what once was her bedchamber.

She was surrounded by walls and buildings in a giant square courtyard, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Her eyes widened in horror when she noticed him, the man atop the dragon’s head who should already be dead, the General of Jupiter, Avance of Mercury.

The Emperor’s Mistress turned and fled as the beast’s wings spread.

She held her child tight to her breast, her barrier thickened, turned ten times harder, and then the entire garden was erased by a sea of azure coloured fire.

Her surroundings shifted, she smashed into the concrete, then rolled along the earth.

She collapsed into the streets, her night clothes were singed and torn, her skin was bruised, burnt and cut up.

She closed her eyes and breathed steady.

Her heart grew quiet as her wounds, even her clothes, began to regenerate.

She was not well practiced, it took her significant conscious effort to restore her broken flesh, effort which, if she hadn’t needed to do it, would’ve been better spent running away.

The beast smashed through the crumbling walls, seeping fire still dripping from its maw.

The barrier on her chest glowed with crimson light as it thickened once again.

She opened her eyes to find the street engulfed in flames and the buildings turned to dust, she could not see the wounded, nevermind count the dead.

She stood up with a limp and then turned to face the beast.

Fafnir stared back at her in silence, its body looked ready to pounce, its maw was primed to unleash another ocean of fire.

She jumped into the alleyways, then ducked and dived as torrents of flame erupted from the dragon’s maw.

The crumbling buildings collapsed to bar her path, she was trapped and there was no escape.

She heard a sound then, the echo of a man’s boots as they crunched down upon the ash coated ground.

She turned and saw him there, that general of Jupiter, the dragon’s dreaded master.

He looked toward her, and her child too, a hint of pity clear in his tired eyes.

“I’m sorry,” He said, and she could sense he was sincere.

Indeed, he was sincerely sorry, but that availed her nothing as the dragon still launched itself towards her.

She could do nothing to avoid it, she couldn’t fight back, nor could she flee.

She closed her eyes and held tight the barrier protecting her child.

“I’m sorry too,” She said under her breath.

She knew who Avance was, she could infer what he wanted and she could guess why he was here.

Truly, she was sorry, sorry for her child who had to get embroiled in the mess that was her life.

Proper food and a soft bed, it was all too good to be true in the end.

Everything happened too fast, the dream-like life of comfort she would not have even dared to want until the day that Sigurd found her had collapsed so very quickly.

Not ten minutes of time had passed since Avance and Fafnir started their rampage, the local military didn’t even have much time to mobilise.

Yet even so they were not a weak Empire, it took only so long for them to get their act together.

Fafnir’s charge was countered by another, a Behemoth, the lowliest of the dragonkin.

That alone only made him flinch, but then ten more marched through the collapsing buildings and together they forced him back.

Gudrun opened her eyes, she beheld the brawl of mighty beasts before her and saw a frustrated Avance turn to face her.

She climbed over the nearest pile of rubble, one of the many collapsed buildings, and then fled at full sprint.

The general followed after her, he leapt into the street beyond and beheld a formation of countless soldiers.

Gudrun ran towards their ranks, they raised their arrows and took aim.

She looked back, she looked towards Avance, who had an expression of disbelief upon his brow.

Relief filled her heart, she felt she was safe at long last.

Yet when she turned back to face the archers what she saw stopped her feet in an instant; a wall of arrows came down upon her, not only her pursuer.

Her mind drew a blank, she couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

Only Avance realised that this was Brynhilda’s doing, else the doing of her supporters.

The old General grit his teeth as he imagined the Empress playing a game of chess with their lives, it irked him past the line.

His body changed swiftly, scale-like armour covered his skin as his attire changed shape.

He leapt forward, propelled himself with the power of Ash and then waved his arm.

Powerful blue flames enveloped the arrows and turned them all into dust.

He leapt past Gudrun, who stood stunned and unmoving, and engaged the knights of her own country to protect her from their assault.

She took a step back, confused and in a panic.

This scene made absolutely no sense to her, no sense at all.

Then, at that time, she heard the flap of mighty wings on the wind.

She raised her head to see not Wyverns overhead, but something larger, something more than that.

Crimson wings spread wide as emerald embers swarmed the land.

Avance turned back to watch as the Crimson Dragon, Tiamat, shielded Gudrun’s form in her embrace.

Rosa leapt down from her beast’s crown, she saw the General of Jupiter facing off against her countrymen and then shot him a murdering glare.

She stepped forward ready to fight but Gudrun seized her by the wrist.

“Get me out of here!” Cried the Mistress of the Emperor, who faced her own men, her own army, with greater dread than even the enemy.

Rosa wanted to argue, she wanted to ask why Gudrun was so intent on fleeing when they had their enemy surrounded.

Before she could ask this question however a thunderous bellow shook the night.

The Black Dragon burst through the buildings barring its path.

Behind it lay the corpses of many of its lesser kind.

When that beast turned its eye upon the army the Crimson Dragon responded by giving a cautioning echo.

Once that happened even Rosa was forced to concede their advantage, else defy the warning of her sword friend.

Tiamat was smaller than Fafnir, its body was clearly more fit for swiftness of flight than a battle of might.

Should a brawl begin, she could not win, she knew it, her mistress too now realised it was true.

Rosa seized Gudrun in her arms and then leapt onto Tiamat’s back.

She couldn’t win in a fight, sure, but in a race she could never lose.

Avance turned to watch as the Crimson Dragon spread its wings.

The wind tore into the earth as Tiamat took flight.

Fafnir charged forth, it bellowed towards the fleeing company but could not stop them from getting away.

“So be it,” Avance said as his Ash formed a sword.

He stepped forward, faced down the soldiers who had interfered at the last moment and then decided their fate without mercy nor delay.