The Elder Dragon Awakens (1/4)
Meanwhile, we see Dakka's sleeping form still locked away deep inside the main keep, and there are a lot of slumbering ants scattered around the room – certainly the dragon's former surveillance drones.
Das walks up to and bends down to the sleeping boy on the ground. He reaches his hand forward with a gentle look on his face and…
PAH!
Das suddenly slaps Dakka so hard on the face that a sonic boom blows away the sleeping Ants. If Dakka had been a 5-horned dragon still, his head would've been crushed flat from the force.
Still, now that Dakka is a 6-horned dragon, a slap from a god doesn't even wake up him up.
"Tch," Das clicks his tongue. Realizing that he'll have to get more forceful, Das starts going all out to attack the dragon.
After slamming the sleeping dragon on the ground a few more times, Das grunts, "Little Dakka? How long are you going to keep sleeping? Your master's in danger. Sorry. Your bro's in danger."
There is no response.
"Fine. I didn't want to do this…"
Das reaches his hand out, and he begins infusing his Death Aura into the boy.
Das can't use Death Aura to directly stimulate growth like Haalfrin can. Instead, he has his own use for Death Aura that no one else can imitate.
Unlike all the others, Das could use Death Aura to make things age faster.
"Hm!" Das harumphs, "An elder dragon's slumber could easily last 10s of thousands of years. Mind as well speed things up a little."
Elder dragons are immortal anyway, so it's not like Das's Aging power could actually kill the beast.
Rather, since 4 horned dragons and above constantly get bigger and stronger with age, Das could technically give Dakka massive power boosts by making him older, though Das wasn't quite thinking of this in particular; he just wanted to wake Dakka up.
In the blink of an eye, the dragon starts glowing brighter and brighter until his skin and scales are hotter than the surface of the sun. Even the Valor Hall's Time locked stone seems like it's shaking… as even space and time itself is being bent and twisted unnaturally around the beast.
Finally, once the bright glow is gone and the room gets dark enough to see again, there is a new figure standing up in front of Das. It is a tall man with scales on his skin that looks more like plated armor, as well as a crown of 6 horns on his head.
Dakka turns his head to the exit, and he doesn't even bother saying "hello" to Das before rushing off.
Das looks outside the small, slitted window, and he hears Dakka's echoing roars, and he feels the great dragon changing into his true form.
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By now, the Queen is already running to the surface from inside the Threshold when she suddenly feels the massive energy spike coming from Dakka's awakening.
In that one moment, the confidence the Queen had for all these years wilts a little. "Can I really defeat this monster?"
The second the Queen exits the Threshold, she looks up in horror at a sight no living being in 10,000 worlds has lived to witness.
There, Queen Fina sees a pair of massive wings unfurl, then wrap around the entire sky fortress, covering it completely.
A long, whip-like tail is draped off the fortress, and it's so long that it stretches down and nearly dips into the blood ocean miles below it.
The dragon's long neck is outstretched so far that he casts a looming shadow over the red waters, like a great overlord surveying his land.
Within moments, Dakka's and the Queen's eyes meet.
Looking into the Elder Dragon's eyes, the Queen feels an unexpected emotion well up in her heart. It's as if… she's feeling reverent… It's especially the crown of horns atop his head that appear particularly holy to her.
Indeed, all dragons have powers written in their Names – the same powers, in fact. 4-horned dragons grow constantly with age, 5-horned dragons can revive those weaker than them, and 6-horned dragons can force obedience from any lesser being who looks upon their majesty.
Most gods aren't even immune to this effect, let alone, a god-candidate like the Queen.
The only reason she isn't completely enthralled by him is because, thanks to her mana farm, her mana pool is slightly larger than his.
Das sees that the Queen isn't completely effected by the innate Power of a 6th Horn, and he clicks his tongue with disappointment. "Not enough. A newly ascended Elder dragon is still not a match for the Queen."
Realizing that he's going to have to interfere some more, he stretches his hands out and ages Dakka even further.
…All while the Queen watches in horror as the dragon starts growing visibly larger before her very eyes.
Dakka's tail snakes longer and longer until it dips deep into the blood ocean. It even hits the ocean floor, then starts curling around itself.
Dakka's wings grow so large that when he unfurls his wings, the entire visible sky is completely shrouded in his shadow.
His long neck stretches so far that soon, his head is so close to her that he could swipe her off the Threshold walls if he were to stick his tongue out and lick her.
As the Queen stares at him in growing fear, the pressure the dragon gives off becomes stronger and stronger.
And at last, she bows her head to him in submission.
Feeling that he didn't get this powerful on his own, Dakka looks around with his sharp gaze until he spots Das, who is hovering in the air above him – despite the god having a concealment spell on.
"You…," Dakka hisses, "Stop making me grow bigger."
It's always a source of pride for a dragon to be larger than everyone else, since it means you were able to grow older without being defeated.
If any of his brothers – or even his father – saw how big he had become, then they'd assume he was… WAY older than he really is.
Truthfully, Dakka would feel awfully embarrassed if they were to mistake him as their elder.
Seeing that Dakka is unwilling to be made older, Das stops his flow of magic, and the dragon stops growing.
Dakka then turns to the Queen and tells her, "Out of respect for the fight you've put up all this time, I'll give you one chance to defeat me; I'll fight fair."
The Queen stares deep into the dragon's eyes, and she feels a strange sense of surrender, as if whatever this dragon chooses to do to her would be all right…
…but she doesn't know that this was just a result of an Elder dragon's innate ability to demand respect from those weaker than them.
So, the Queen bows her head again and says calmly, "I will listen to you."
"Since most of my large size came unwanted," Dakka says with his rumbling voice, "I will fight you at the size and power I held when I first awakened, before the god of decay enhanced my age. I would rather fight you with my own power and the power my friend gave me."
The Queen noticed just now that Dakka had stopped calling Haalfrin "master" or "bro", but that detail quickly goes to the back of her mind as she prepares for battle.
Das sees Dakka start shrinking back down to size, and he slaps his forehead. "Idiot! Dragons and their STUPID sense of fair play!"
Obviously, some dragons have this affliction worse than others, but it's all the same. "Fair play" was a trait that ran strong in Drakavar, and she passed this piece of her soul into the Drakin when she created them.
After a few moments, Dakka shrinks back down to the size he had before, when he first awakened. Even though he is still terrifyingly huge, he looks tiny compared to before.
Dakka stands perched atop the Hall of Valor – waiting for the Queen to get ready for battle… He even let her take the first move.
The Queen, who is perturbed by this situation (for good reason), looks at the dragon cautiously.
Fina considers just letting the dragon kill her, then reincarnating as a random ant. She knows that Dakka doesn't know about this ability of hers yet, so she could use that opportunity to try running away.
But… what would she do after that?
The Queen suddenly senses that the dragon is starting to grow impatient. She realizes then that she can't think indefinitely about this without pissing the dragon off.
It's time to attack; she can think later.
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Dakka watches as the Queen sends a large plume of energy at him. He instinctually knows that this is an attack meant to test him, since he KNOWS she doesn't like to use more mana than she needs to.
Overkill is always one of the worst ways to waste mana, after all.
So, Dakka ignores her strike. After her fireball fizzles out on his scales, he slithers off the sky fortress and lets himself fall towards the blood ocean.
The second the dragon lands in the huge blood lake, a great tsunami surges up from the water and sweeps the Queen off the tower she was standing on.
Screaming in a high pitched voice, the Ant Queen is carried into the blood below, and she lands with a loud splash.
The second she orients herself, she looks around frantically, and… she can't find the dragon. Where is he!?
In that moment, the Queen has an unprecedented sense of fear. The idea of swimming in deep pool with a big predator really does make her feel terrified on some instinctual level.
The Queen gets even more frightened when she sees the blood lake surging and rippling, as if there were something massive beneath the surface swimming around. Every now and then, the Queen sees long finned spines poke out of the blood before dipping back in.
Out of instinct, the Queen immediately issues a flight spell, and she shoots out of the water, just in time to avoid a huge pair of jaws snapping shut where she was a second ago.