Devouring Dragon Heir

The silence before the storm was deafening. Twenty thousand Falcon soldiers stood frozen, the once-proud thunder of their march now reduced to trembling breaths.

Opposite them, the black tide of twenty-five thousand death monsters waited in perfect stillness.

No clamor, no snarling, just silence, the kind that gripped the marrow of men's bones and whispered of inevitability.

For a heartbeat, the battlefield was frozen in time, two oceans staring across the shore at one another.

Then Duke Albrecht raised his sword. "Falcons! Forward!"

The words were steel and fire, ripping through the army like lightning.

Even after the initial intimidation, the duke's army recovered its bearings under the duke's influence.

Trumpets blared, war drums thundered, and the soldiers roared their defiance. Shields locked, spears leveled, cavalry surged to the flanks.

The disciplined machine of the Falcon Empire lurched into motion, every man drilled to perfection. The earth shook as twenty-five thousand soldiers charged, their battle cry echoing to the heavens.

The death horde answered not with sound, but with motion.

Boom.

The ground split. The death monsters surged forward, a tidal wave of grotesque giants and twisted warriors, their weapons forged of void-black steel.

Their movements were wrong, too fast for their bulk, and too violent for mortal eyes. And as they ran, the very air warped with their presence, a suffocating death energy rolling over the battlefield.

The two forces met like colliding worlds. The first rank of Falcon infantry crashed into the wall of death.

Spears thrust forward, impaling, shattering bones, but the monsters did not fall. With inhuman strength, the death monsters seized the spears, snapped them like twigs, and ripped the soldiers apart with claws and blades.

The duke's men staggered, then tightened.

"Hold!" captains roared as their swords flashed, their banners whipped in the chaos.

Soldiers braced, hacking desperately, cutting down one monster only for three more to lunge forward.

A death giant swung its massive blade, cleaving through five men at once. Blood sprayed the ground, and screams filled the air.

The Falcon cavalry thundered in from the flanks, lances lowered. They pierced into the side of the death horde with devastating force, skewering monsters upon impact.

For a moment, hope flickered. But then the death monsters turned. Like an organism, they adapted instantly.

Some crouched low, dragging riders from their saddles. Others leapt impossibly high, dragging horses down by the throat. The cavalry formation buckled, chaos consuming their lines.

"Archers!" a captain ordered the skilled archers of the duke's army.

Thousands of Falcon archers loosed, the sky darkening with arrows. The volley rained down upon the death army, pinning them with a storm of steel. Some fell, riddled with shafts, but many did not even slow.

Arrows lodged deep into their flesh, and still they advanced, eyes glowing, jaws opening in silent fury. The archers faltered. For the first time, doubt spread among the ranks.

At the center of it all stood Klaus. His black robe embroidered with golden dragons shimmered faintly in the twilight.

He had not moved since his declaration, only watching, as though the slaughter was an entertainment crafted for him alone.

Finally, he raised his hand. From the ground beneath a huge grand throne erupted, made of various elements of fire, ice, earth, and darkness.

Klaus spoke, his voice low yet heard by all, "You dare to mock God? Then drown in despair."

With a mere flick of his wrist, the soldiers who were already dead started rising into death monsters attacking their own previous comrades.

Their speed doubled, and their strikes were much heavier; their presence was overwhelming. The Falcon army's tight formations crumbled under the pressure and sabotage.

Soldiers who had trained for decades, who had fought countless wars, found themselves helpless as they were being killed by their own fallen comrades.

But Duke Albrecht was no child. Riding at the front, his warhorse trampling void creatures beneath its hooves, the Duke's eyes blazed with iron determination.

He swung his great sword in arcs of silver light, each strike cleaving monsters in twain. His aura flared, a crimson inferno that drove back the darkness around him.

"Stand with me!" he roared.

"Falcons never yield!" Around him, soldiers rallied.

His presence was a pillar amidst the chaos, a flame in the night. Wherever his blade fell, dead monsters crumbled into smoke.

The Duke leapt from his horse, landing with earth-shattering force. He cut a path through the void army, his every strike an execution.

His movements were too fast and too precise; this was not a mere mortal general but a warrior who had transcended the limits of men.

For the first time, Klaus's eyes narrowed. This man was not ordinary prey.

A young Falcon infantryman, barely twenty, stood in the chaos, shield trembling in his grip. Blood smeared his face, his comrades falling one by one beside him.

He looked up. Before him towered a death beast, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of jagged teeth. It raised its axe, ready to cleave him in half. The soldier's body locked in terror.

He thought of his family, of his home far beyond this battlefield. He wanted to scream, to run, but then, a streak of crimson light cut past him.

The monster's head exploded. He turned to see Duke Albrecht standing like a giant, his blade dripping with blood. "Stand, boy!" the Duke barked, grabbing him by the collar.

"Your blood feeds the Empire today!" The soldier's fear transformed into fire. He raised his sword with shaking hands, screaming as he charged back into the fray.

---

High upon the ridge, the masked painter's brush moved in a frenzy.

His parchment now depicted a storm of chaos, humans and monsters clashing, the earth littered with corpses, and the sky choked with smoke.

At the center, Klaus and Albrecht are moving toward one another.

The man's eyes gleamed behind his mask.

"History" he whispered. "No… myth."

The fight raged for hours, but Duke Albrecht did not fight Klaus head-on; if he did, his army would disappear too fast.

For hours, the battlefield had raged, and the Falcon army had fought valiantly, their discipline keeping them from collapsing entirely.

But with each passing moment, their numbers dwindled. In front of his eyes, ten thousand had already fallen, their bodies shredded, devoured, or dissolved into the void.

Still, they fought. Duke Albrecht cut down his hundredth foe, his armor drenched in blood and ichor.

Around him, his personal guard fought with suicidal fury, protecting their lord at all costs.

Even after striking so much panic in his foes, Klaus had not moved from his place. His expression was calm, detached, like a god watching ants struggle beneath his gaze. Finally, he stepped forward.

The ground rippled with each step. Darkness bled outward, swallowing the sunlight, turning the battlefield into night.

"Your strength is admirable, Duke," Klaus said, his voice echoing across the plains.

"But against God, strength is meaningless." He raised his hand. From the heavens themselves, countless giant meteors fell on the battlefield, causing destruction.

It struck the earth with apocalyptic force, erasing hundreds of soldiers in a single instant. The shockwave tore through both armies, dust and fire rising into the sky. Even the death monsters staggered, though they did not fall.

Duke Albrecht stood his ground, his cloak whipping in the storm. His eyes met Klaus's. "So," the Duke growled, lifting his sword, "you finally decide to join the battle."

The battlefield stilled, as though both armies recognized the significance of what was about to occur.

Klaus and Duke Albrecht advanced toward one another, the tide of soldiers and monsters parting around them. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Their first clash was purely physical, it shattered the earth, the impact echoing like thunder. Waves of energy rippled outward, flinging soldiers and monsters alike into the air.

Albrecht struck with brutal strength, his great sword fueled by unyielding will.

Klaus countered with fluid grace; his lost echo sword moved like water.

Every strike lit the battlefield, arcs of crimson and black colliding, sparks raining across the field. The shockwaves alone killed dozens nearby, tearing the ground to molten glass.

But during the clash, Klaus realized the overwhelming strength of the transcendent rank.

With each clash with the duke, his hands absorbed a great deal of shock, giving a wrecking pain in his arms.

"Falcons fight for honor!" Albrecht roared, slamming his sword down in a devastating arc.

"Honor is ash in front of absolute power," Klaus replied coldly, sidestepping with impossible speed before driving his blade forward.

Their duel no longer felt human; the commanders at the side, who were pseudo-transcendent themselves, were shocked at the side.

They had never imagined that a pseudo-transcendent being could match a real transcendent like this. They thanked God that the duke made a move himself.

They fought toe-to-toe, but no one could get an upper hand, and for some reason the duke wasn't using magic, and neither did Klaus. Maybe they wanted just raw combat.

By nightfall, the plains outside Riverdale were unrecognizable. Corpses carpeted the earth. Rivers of blood ran through the trampled soil.

The once-proud Falcon banners lay torn and burned, trampled beneath clawed feet.

The Falcons had lost fifteen thousand men till now. The death army's losses were meaningless, every fallen monster was replaced by another, crawling from the shadows.