Prologue: Eron the Last Collecter

Eron, the last Collector, covered his ears as the earth heaved and shook as if in great agony. This explosion was too loud, even with the wards set on his ears. His wards explicitly filtered out loud sounds like explosions. He was an expert at sound-based blending. Of course, even wards couldn’t handle everything. Tapping and blending weren’t all-powerful art.

The war this time was one of the worst. No one had seen it’s like for thousands of years. And the explosions that not even his wards could handle seemed to reflect the ferocity of this war. Of course, no one had fought against the dragons in known history. They were like gods to men, and in some ways, they were. But soon he would be the one to become a god.

He crept forward, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible towards the frontline where the battle was most ferocious, and as he did so–he collected as much Drogen as he could, filling himself to the brim. With the amount of power he was holding right now, he could sunder a mountain with the flick of his wrist.

Eron expanded his spiritual sense, fused with the sensory zone, using the power within him that twisted and turned—a tempest that beckoned him to act. A sensory zone gave him a perfect awareness of his surroundings. He could see and feel everything happening within its range. He was too close to the frontline for his comfort. Anything could hurtle towards him, and he wasn’t a god yet.

Eron felt something behind him. He spun on his heels and saw a man that seemed to be carved out of wood and vines and leaves. It had emeralds for its eyes and ferns for its hair. Vines erupted and undulated around the thing, ready to attack him.

‘A Vineling,’ Eron thought, twisting his mouth in disgust. It was one of the beings on the planet he hated the most. He waved his hand, creating a sonic–boom that no ears could hear, shattering the Vineling as if it was glass. He did not give the thing a second glance and walked onward to his destination. Eron did not want to waste his time on such a frivolous thing. He had more important things to do today.

A few minutes passed by as he walked onward. He had already killed three Vinelings and seven Stonecreepers. ‘Why did they have to get in my way? Today of all days,’ Eron thought, a bit annoyed. Treacherous things, Stonecreepers were. Hard to detect, they could blend into the stones. But to his sensory zone, they were just sitting ducks. He spotted another and waved his hand at it, sending it to the Kingdom Come.

With something like a snarl, he continued on his way. Every obstacle he faced was like an annoying itch he had to scratch.

As he walked further and further, the amount of Drogen shooting into the air was getting thicker by the minute. Previously, the drogen in the environment was just a thin, dying mist. Now, however, it was like a bellowing cloud roiling around him. Of course, the energy didn’t obstruct his vision. He could see both the energy and his surroundings.

He walked forward, collecting all that power into him. That was why his kind was called the collectors—and he was the last of his kind. A dweller could tap into the Well of Drogen, and filter and blend a very limited amount of the energies within to create spells. A collector, however, couldn’t tap into the well. They had to collect the residue of spells and use it as the source of their spells. A collector could collect Drogen into themselves almost perpetually—there was a limit to it—and release all that power at once, making them very dangerous. Fearing the powers of a collector, the five Empires had come together to cull the mankind of all the collectors in the world. And he would see their fear come to life today.

As he got closer, the earth shook constantly. And the sound was almost unbearable. He increased the power within his wards to filter out the sounds.

A bolder the size of a mountain top came flying towards him at an incredible speed. There was no time to dodge, so he stood his ground. Tapping into the power within him, he blended fire law and wind law just to create something similar to the sonic blast. He added a touch of earth into it to empower the spell. He punched the incoming boulder whilst releasing the spell. The boulder exploded into a dust cloud. He waved the dust cloud away with the simple wind.

Now that he was close to the Dragons’ Valley, he could see everything that was happening. Well, not exactly. He was still too far away. However, he used a spell that could enhance his eyes to see everything. Eron saw that the amount of Drogen in the environment had increased again. Now it was like a thick jelly. Giggling like a fool, he collected them all. He watched the war unfold. More than a million Dwellers and other species, all clad in various coloured armour, commanded by the five emperors, were showering nasty spells at creatures of various shapes and sizes, The Dragons’ army—there were only a thousand of them. After more than an hour of booms and bangs, the dragons’ army was dead aside from the dragons themselves.

But just the thousands of those creatures had taken out thousands upon thousands of their enemies. It was incredible. But the human army didn’t relent. They attacked the dragons with renewed vigour. Lightning stabbed at the six dragons from the clear sky. Showering spells shattered the land beneath the dragons with a deafening explosion strong enough to level more than a mountain.

Fire Dragon Ember—with its gold and red scales, with spikes like a burning flame running along its back, roared, drowning the Dwellers in a sea of gold and blue flames. The land was reduced to molten lava. Of the dwellers drowned in flames, no sign remained.

Wind Dragon Zephyr—white like the moon soared into the sky, bringing whirlwinds in its wake, shredding thousands of its enemies apart.

Earth Dragon Aaron—stumped hard on the earth, and it rang like a huge gong. Spikes erupted from beneath the thousands of Dwellers, impelling them to their deaths.

Water Dragon Tasi, blue like the ocean—followed by Ember and Zephyr, soared high into the sky, circling each other. They roared together. It almost sounded like a song to Eron.

The sky darkened. Storm clouds roiled and churned with unprecedented fury. The wind howled, hurling boulders and uprooting trees into the air. The humans managed to stay afoot, obviously using some kind of spell. But it wasn’t their lucky day. Purple lightning the size of a tree trunk stabbed at the humans with a deafening boom. Thousands of lightning began to decent upon them like a spear of heavenly judgement. It filled the land with the crescendo of thunderclaps. None of the humans stood a chance against the lightning. Those who were struck died instantly.

‘Such Power,’ Eron thought. He continued to stare at the unfolding war, mesmerised.

A few minutes after the lightning strikes, the humans erected a barrier. The lightning strike exploded harmlessly many feet above the army. The lightning strikes seemed quite useless now. No single person should be able to produce a barrier like that. Low-level humans could not converse their spell together, which meant humans at the higher level of advancement must have come together to erect that barrier.

After a while, the lightning strikes stopped, and the sky cleared. Not even Dragons could maintain a spell as powerful as that for long.

Using the mayhem of lightning strikes, a group of dwellers had circled around the valley, behind the Spirit Dragon Elani, green like a jade—who was being protected by the Space Dragon Stellar. Wherever the Space Dragon looked, the midriff of the humans seemed to warp and twist at an unnatural angle and rip themselves apart, humans’ innards spilling everywhere.

The Dwellers who had slithered behind the spirit dragon struck with several nasty spells. When the dust clouds settled after multiple booms and bangs, only a pile of bones and mush remained. The space dragon roared in fury and the humans who had killed the spirit dragon were ripped apart. They did not stand a chance.

With the spirit dragon who had been healing and enhancing the bodies and spells of the other Dragons dead, the army of the Dwellers was finally making some progress against the Dragons.

After quite a bit of struggle, the dollars manage to fell the wind dragon. It crashed into the ground, shaking the entire valley.

Thousands upon thousands of Dwellers threw themselves at the stone dragon, who looked like a statue of a dragon, carved from marbled stone. The stone dragon had the strongest defence, and they had to sacrifice thousands just to remove a chunk of flesh from the dragon. But after sacrificing a lot of their numbers, they managed to remove enough chunks of the dragon to kill the thing.

The Water Dragon was killed rather unceremoniously. Out of the million-strong Dweller army, only seven thousand remained. The only one now leading them was the emperor Javah of the Seraphim Empire. The fire and space Dragons, who were still alive, roared. Both sides were at a standstill before the final clash.

Eron decided it was time to make his grand entrance. After collecting so much Drogen, his mind had expanded to an extent. He could now do things that once required his time and effort almost instantaneously. It had almost been nearly two thousand years since he had held this much power.

Shaking his head, Eros streaked forward like a comet, trailing smoky white light behind him. He then landed like a feather in the breeze between the two dragons and the army of the Dwellers. It had taken him less than a few seconds to land there.

“WHO ARE YOU?” Space Dragon, who was blacker than the night, demanded in a booming voice that was louder than a thunderclap.

“IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO HE IS,” the Fire Dragon roared louder than the Space Dragon. It was an impressive feat, even for a dragon. “HE LOOKS HUMAN ENOUGH TO ME.”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter who I am to you dragons,” Eros said.

The fire dragon opened its maw, probably preparing to engulf him in flames. Eron slashed his hand vertically, as if bored. The Dragon was sliced in half from between its eyes. The two symmetrical halves of the Dragon crashed to the ground with massive thuds, shaking the entire valley. Blood and entrails made a massive pool around the dead dragon.

Space Dragon roared, and Eron felt the space where his midriff was beginning to twist. Eron didn’t panic. No, in fact, he almost laughed at the attempt. He felt for the drogen that was fuelling the spell to twist the space and collected it. The spell collapsed in on itself and vanished. Before, he couldn’t even dream of doing something like that, but with the amount of power he was holding right now—it was like a child’s trick.

Eron pointed his two fingers at the head of the Dragon. A concentrated mass of vibrational energy the size of a small pebble shot out from his fingertips. When it struck the head of the dragon, the head along with half its body vanished. The Dragon slumped, spraying blood like a downpour.

With that, Eron spun facing the army of around seven thousand Dwellers. He waited. As he expected, Emperor Javah approached Eron as if he owned the word. Perhaps he did, even if it was only a fraction of the world.

Emperor Javah bowed to him. It wasn’t a deep bow; it was a bow shared among equals. He didn’t return the gesture. Him, equal to this wannabe emperor? Him, who was far more powerful, older, and knowledgeable? It was a Joke.

“Friend, thanks to your timely arrival, we managed to survive this hurdle,” Javah said, with a deeper bow. “May I invite you to our tents? We would be most honoured. A mere thank you won’t do. We must show you our appreciation properly.”

Eron didn’t reply. He merely stared at the emperor. Had his ears heard wrong? But when the emperor’s words hit home, he burst out laughing, tears in his eyes. “You think I did it to save you lot?” His laughter turned into a twisted frown. Eron Waved his hand and the land where the army of seven thousand Dwellers stood was engulfed in a sea of golden flames.

When the fire winked out, there was no sign of the army. The jagged landscape had turned into a smooth and glassy plain.

The emperor stared at Eris in disbelief. “Who are you? What have you done.”

He didn’t reply. He was too busy relishing the fear and frustration dancing in the emperor’s eyes.

Javah unsheathed his sword and screamed—half hysterical. “Answer me.”

Eron looked at the emperor amused, “Do you really think you can stick a sword in me?”

“Who... Are... You? How can you do this to your own kind? Don’t you have a shred of humanity in you?”

“That’s rich coming out of your mouth. How dare you for forgot our kind,” Eron hissed. “It hasn’t even been ten years yet.” Eron twirled his wrist and the sword in Javah’s hand shattered.

The emperor stumbled back, wide-eyed, shaking like a frightened animal. Good. This was what he wanted. He wanted to see the fear in the emperor’s eyes.

“How?” Javah said. “We killed everyone. We checked everyone.”

“Not me.”

The emperor trembled.

“Once I’m through with you, I’ll burn this world to the ground.”

“Please, do not punish the innocent for our mistakes,” the emperor pleaded.

Eron snorted. “Did anyone raise a helping hand when the five empires slaughtered my people? Did anyone raise a voice against it? For the greater good, you said. You people even have a festival to celebrate our deaths. No, Javah, there are no innocent people in this world.”

Eron raised his hand, and the emperor screamed. The screams didn’t stop for hours. The emperor died from the pain. With a final shake of his head, Eron went on to claim the Dragonheart. The power that was guarded by the dragons. The power that would make him a god.