Thanatos avatar emerges

As Nethrath and Arelon intensified their manipulations, a strange sensation began to spread through the atmosphere.

It was a feeling that something was watching them, that a force far older than the dragons themselves was beginning to awaken.

Nethrath, absorbed in the manipulation of the timelines, felt for the first time a disturbance in the flows that he controlled with ease. Arelon, prey to his own concentration to wreak more chaos, had no idea that the shadow of the god of Death would soon appear.

Then, in that gray sky, a rift of darkness and light exploded BOOM! , then a huge figure emerged. The Avatar of Thanatos. The apparition was of a majesty. His dark eyes stared at the two dragons with icy intensity.

The voice of the avatar of Thanatos, deep and authoritative, resounded:

«You dare to disrupt the order of death, intruder?»

The avatar took a step on the ground, and the earth shook under his feet CRRRAAAK! With each of his movements, there was a rain of ash that fell in swirls from the sky, symbolizing the imminent end of this world.

He had long black hair and a serene but quite intimidating expression. His torso was partially naked and adorned with glowing markings evoking his connection to demonic forces.

He wore a richly decorated red and black robe with dark patterns. Black diamond jewelry, like a necklace, was around her neck, while the bracelets on her hands added a touch of opulence to her personality.

With each movement of the Avatar, the landscape slowly decomposed, his mere presence reducing the matter itself to dust PSSHHH! The trees were crumbling under the impact of his passage and the stones were cracking even before they were hit CRAAACK! .

Nethrath felt the weight of the avatar's aura rest on him. He was frozen in contemplation of this being, but he knew that this was only the beginning of a titanic fight.

Arelon: «We upset the balance, it's true, but we will never back down from such a confrontation.»

Arelon raised his arms, and then a halo of dark energy formed around him. It was not a simple explosion, but a tearing apart of reality itself, the laws of physics cowering under immense weight. Waves of black light came out of his palms and devastated everything in their path WHOOM! .

Then he swept the air with a gesture, and the entropy concentrated in a black sphere that stretched out like a bottomless pit. When he threw this sphere, it warped into space and left a trail of void behind it Zzzzzoom.

Everything that came into contact with the sphere disintegrated Shhhhh! and turned to dust before he even had time to resist.

When the black sphere got closer to the Avatar, the Avatar would just raise his hand and a black mist would escape from his body. The black sphere froze the instant it touched this mist and was absorbed. Pssssh. Arelon felt a growing resistance.

Arelon (enraged): «This is not the time to falter! But when I hit, he reacts even before I act. He anticipates everything. What am I missing?»

The Avatar of Thanatos seemed to feed on the destruction that Arelon was causing, which reinforced his own power. He did not respond immediately with violence, he preferred to observe, analyze and understand the intention of these two dragons first.

Thanatos avatar: «You think you can destroy me? How could a cloud put an end to a mountain?»

With each new attempt by Arelon to manipulate entropy, the Avatar absorbed the destruction itself. Vrrrmmp. Nothing was left behind, neither the chaos, nor the hope of seeing a moment of weakness in the Avatar.

Arelon had understood that this being was much more than just a divine manifestation: it was an embodiment of the fundamental laws of Thanar, an entity that maintained the balance of the world through its mere existence. And if the world were to change, the very structure of this balance would first have to be broken.

Nethrath moved his fingers and with a precise movement, the invisible threads of time began to vibrate around him like a spider's web that he was spreading. Ziiing. He would pull on one of these threads and reality would bend, slowing down everything around the Avatar for a moment.

Time shifted around them as Nethrath focused all of his power on manipulating the timelines. Fwoooosh. But as he twisted time, he felt a resistance that grew stronger and stronger.

Nethrath: «I've never felt that way. There's something older here, something that even I can't control. Time no longer obeys... Why doesn't it work? »

Thanatos avatar: «Time is only a fleeting dream. You struggle against the inevitable, like children who believe that their arms can stop the sea. I am the end of all things. I am Death. And you cannot fight against it. »

Under the shadow of the Avatar, the earth was withering. Cra... crack... The withered flowers were falling and the rivers were frozen, life itself was receding in the face of the arrival of Death.

In a desperate effort, Nethrath forced a moment of the past to come to the surface like a blurred image on film from an old projector to alter and influence the present. Chrrrr... The ground beneath Thanatos' avatar feet was covered in a temporal mist, as if reality itself hesitated between two moments.

This attempt had been set up by Nethrath to change an event and gain an advantage by using the memory of a crucial moment. Bzzzzt... ziiiip.

By forcing a moment from the past to reappear, he sought to exploit a weakness in Thanatos avatar and interfere with the flow of time for his own ends. But, with a simple movement of his arm, Thanatos exploded this attempt by sending Nethrath back to the present reality.

Nethrath: «It's not possible. With each attempt, I feel time slipping away from me... What remains to be done?»

Suddenly, dark silhouettes emerged from the shadows of Thanatos' avatar. Fwoom! They were spiritual entities, guardians of death. The guardians were not simply servants of Thanatos, they were fragments of Death incarnate.

Their existence was not frozen in time; Each of their movements embraced the very essence of the end, each moment was their last and each gesture was a dance with nothingness.

Their bodies were dressed in black tunics with an absence of flesh. They wore masks of bone, representing grimacing faces distorted by suffering. With each breath they took a black mist from their mouths, their very existence was fueled by despair. Hooohhh...

Some of the guardians had long, jagged black wings. Craaaaack! Others were surrounded by flames that slowly devoured the air around them.

Their presence exuded an energy that sought to counter the destabilizing force of the two dragons. They were not there to negotiate, but to eliminate any threat to the established order.

They stretched out their arms towards the dragons, and immediately, chains made of lost souls, Chiiiink!, wrapped around them, preventing them from moving. Each soul screamed in a silent whisper, and every movement of the dragons caused the captured beings to suffer, weakening their will.

Arelon used a purification spell to soothe and free these lost souls, Shhhhhhhh!, thereby reducing the strength of the bonds. The two dragons freed themselves from the chains and prepared their counterattack.

But before they could act, one of the guards would raise his hand and the time around them would warp. Vwoop! Vwoop! The moments were distorting and repeating themselves.

Nethrath and Arelon felt the moment that was about to come to an end; they were caught in a loop where the seconds were superimposed. Everything around them moved to the rhythm of a dying heartbeat. Thum-thump... Thum-thump...

Nethrath counter-attacked by provoking a paradox. Fzzzzzzt! He projected himself into an alternate version of himself and altered an essential element of the loop, allowing him to destabilize the control the guards had over them.

Arelon, freed from the grip of time thanks to Nethrath, smiled. He would let out a piercing cry, Kyyyyaaaaaaaahhh!, and the spirit creatures would dissipate in an explosion of black light. Boom! But others immediately appeared, Whoosh!, another ghostly army ready to defend their master.

Arelon (amused): «Others?! They really think they can stop us with that?! »

Nethrath understood that this was not a simple confrontation. The Avatar was not there to annihilate them immediately. He was a defense of the world against their intrusion.

If dragons wanted to succeed, they would have to attack his very essence, the root of his power. And it required more than temporal or chaotic manipulations.

Nethrath: «This is our end, Arelon... We can't compete with that. »

Combat was no longer a simple matter of manipulation. It had become a clash between primordial forces of the world.