Beneath the Nidhogg Capital there lay a chamber.

Crimson rivers lined the walls as blood dripped from the body of a dead dragon.

That dragon was the oldest of them all, the Nidhogg itself, whose crimson blood carried Grimnir’s curse.

There were people chained to the platforms being forced to drink that blood.

Those who did so became slaves with no will of their own.

Then down below, in the chamber filled with a deep ocean of blood, lay those who were bathed in the curse instead.

Their bodies had half turned into beasts, the dragons of a new generation.

Upon the corpse sat the God of Nidhogg, Grimnir, whose form was anomalous.

He resembled robes of crimson fog around a bald figure with dark skin.

His glowering eyes glanced through a waving crimson hood southward as Fafnir spread its wings to chase the fleeing Tiamat.

The capital’s royal palace was in ruins above his head.

That man came, wrought chaos and then left all in the span of just a couple of minutes.

The army’s Wyverns met him in the sky, their Behemoths chased him from the ground, but they could not succeed in stopping him, they could but hope that with every battle they wore him down just a little bit more.

The Crimson Vanir sighed as he peered towards the sky, his true body, a titanic yet not fully formed sphere, watched over the land from the heavens on high.

The Ash from the fallen masses was sucked into that body like a giant well of souls.

He closed his eyes then, and he did not open them again.

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The crimson dragon parted the clouds with her weighty wings.

Her speed was unmatched as she headed south, she escaped from the capital of the Nidhogg Empire, which now lay in ruins far behind her and returned to the valley full of wolves.

Heavy fog set in amid the morning light.

Upon the beast’s back sat its master, General Rosa, and the confused and shaken Gudrun too.

Held in the arms of the latter, now weeping into the wind, was the baby girl, the second princess, Alyssa.

With a heavy brow, Rosa glanced upon the shrieking child.

Everything had happened so suddenly that she didn’t quite have time to process it all.

The capital was in ruins, and Gudrun hadn’t said a word since she’d picked her up and fled.

Their emperor was out at sea and his Empress was far away at the border, she was the only person who could conceivably fix any of this, yet she had no idea where to even begin trying.

The child stopped crying, it started staring back at her with a look of curiosity that left her at a loss.

Rosa chuckled then, she patted Tiamat’s back as the red dragon flapped its wings once more.

The shock of losing the capital had not yet set in but sadly the world would not slow down for her just because she needed it to.

She had to keep moving, she had to find a place that she could call safe.

This valley was like a second home to her, Tiamat always brought her here when she needed time to herself.

Yet today it was too close to the capital, too close to the chaos caused by the enemy general.

“Mistress,” She said, calling out to Gudrun, “Can you please tell me-”

With a thunderous echo, a pillar of cloud rose high up from the fog below.

The general fell silent, she turned her head to sight the black beast as it spread its wings, burning blue flames erupted from its maw.

Upon its back stood the man who had caused all of this, the person she right now dreaded most of all.

“How did he!?” Rosa cried out as Gudrun held her child close to her breast.

The baby resumed her shrieking as the black dragon’s bellow silenced all other sounds in the world.

The man upon the dragon’s back shook his head as his target fled, he understood one thing above all,

“You can’t escape.”

The black dragon was built for strength while the red dragon was built for speed, this was true.

When he gave chase he could not have hoped to catch her at even Fafnir’s top speed; that would be the case under normal circumstances, but not today.

Rosa hadn’t noticed it, she had not realised that Tiamat was slowing down.

Out of the Ten True Dragons of old of course she was the fastest, but she was also the one with the least amount of stamina.

The Black Dragon opened wide its maw, it turned the sky from dim crimson to bright azure with a new ocean of fire.

The crimson dragon dived, it wanted to fight back but Rosa kept commanding it to flee.

The young woman stared at the baby still weeping in her charge’s arms.

She commanded the red dragon to dive faster until it descended down through a mighty valley and began to navigate the cracks and faults left by a flood from centuries passed.

The black dragon followed after, it did not lose sight of her.

Avance muttered something into the wind, with resigned eyes he raised his hand and conjured a tiny speck of Ash that then began to rise into the sky as it expanded.

The Black Dragon ceased its chase and turned its neck to meet that sphere of fire with its own blazing breath.

With that then the sphere exploded, it’s mass had seemed tiny but the reaction of its flames meeting with Fafnir’s unleashed a power of truly gigantic proportions.

Under the influence of gravity, those flames that had turned into a gargantuan hailstorm of falling fireballs descended ad nauseum upon the valley.

Devastation reigned on a truly massive scale.

Rosa did not see any of this through the fog, but she knew from the sounds that something massive was collapsing the valleys.

This place, her second home, where she was confident she could flee even blindfolded if she must, was being torn asunder and reshaped by those violent flames.

Her heart ached, but she had no time to think about it for the moment.

“He’s trying to flush us out,” She said half panicked as the dragon under her control leapt from the valley to avoid a crumbling pillar of stone.

The Black Dragon roared through the wind as it continued to give chase.

Rosa then realised the true peril of the situation; she could not fight, hide nor flee from this foe, all her efforts only helped to delay the inevitable.

For a split second, she pondered how her peer, Ahzi, had bested this monster, and she grumbled at how that man wasn’t sent here in her stead.

‘I don’t need him,’ She told herself, and then once more she looked upon the baby’s crying form, ‘I...don’t need anyone,’ She reached out to pat the scales of her fire breathing companion, a firm resolve burned in her eyes, ‘Except for you...you alone.’

The dragon seemed to hear her thoughts, it paused in the air and then turned to face Fafnir.

Truth be told it knew this was a suicidal idea, and so did Rosa too, but still they faced the Black Dragon and its master with bravery to the end.