Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods

Flaga stood across the fractured glass, her form unstable. Her limbs twitched. Her skin cracked, pulsing faintly. Black veins spread under her surface, glowing with dying energy. She clutched her side, staggering like a puppet with cut strings.

"You were hiding this the whole time…?"

Maël didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

The air around him pulsed.

Not loud. Not angry. Just... heavy. It pressed on the world like the weight of judgment. The mirror maze groaned. Glass webbed with cracks in rhythm with his breathing. The walls trembled as if struggling to stay together.

Then he moved.

A single step.

But it didn't sound like a step. It sounded like pressure. Like a god knocking on the gates of a world too fragile to hold him.

Lyraen clung to her mirror, frozen in place. Her voice was gone. Her heartbeat was deafening. The dreamworld dulled all feeling, but what she saw etched itself into her soul.

Light crawled up Maël's arm. White shimmer like living frost climbed his fingers.

Then he whispered.

"Almost done. Hang on just a little bit."

And somehow, impossibly, she heard it. Like the words reached past the mirror, into her chest.

Her fingers trembled at her lips.

Flaga coughed, half on her knees. She tried to stand, but her body wouldn't obey. Her flesh squirmed, shifting in a panic. The magic inside her twisted and tore at itself. And in desperation, she changed.

The white light swallowed her like a mouth.

When it faded, she stood in soft white robes. Long hair like snow. A delicate face. Gentle hands. A holy image of love.

"Maël," she whispered, voice breaking. "Maël. It's me. Please, stop. You wouldn't raise your hand against your own mother, would you?"

She stood there, draped in her lie, and spoke with a trembling voice no one would trust. Her form was perfect, her words desperate, her timing cruel.

Maël didn't respond.

He only stared.

Marianna.

The mother who once cradled his head with warmth. The one who sang lullabies he hadn't heard in years.

Now she stood in front of him again, soft, kind, pleading.

And still, he smiled. A small, tired curve of the lips.

"Really?"

His voice carried a small laugh.

"My mother was killed by a demon like you when I was ten."

He raised his right hand.

The glow deepened. White so bright it pulled color from the world. Shadows fled from it. Time seemed to hold its breath.

Flaga flinched. Her lips twitched. The mask of Marianna started to crack.

Maël lifted a single finger.

Then his hand moved.

One clean sweep.

Like brushing dust from a table.

The dream was torn apart.

Flaga's face warped, twisted into her real shape. Her eyes burned red, her mouth opened in a final, furious snarl, and then she was gone.

A slash of light cut through everything, brighter than any sun, sharper than any blade. It shattered the maze, burned through the dream, and unraveled the illusion holding it together.

For one fleeting moment, the dream fractured.

And the lie broke.

Everyone caught in the maze, the Sacreds, the Demons, the civilians, saw a sliver of the world beyond the veil.

Real sky. Real wind. No distortion, no shifting colors, no mirrored traps. Just truth. And with it, something else came flooding in.

The senses recovered their primary function.

They froze.

Every being, Sacred or demon, soldier or gifted, felt the auras ripple through them like thunder.

Airi's presence came first, surging like a pillar of fire. Furious. Rising to an astonishing level.

Then Morpheus, a web of fog. Cold, stretching endlessly, everywhere at once. He was fighting, yes, but his presence was everywhere.

And Hypnos. Moving. His steps were mountains falling in slow motion. His aura dragged like chains over the soul, too massive, too slow, too close.

And finally, above them, something far worse.

A stillness. A weight so vast it made the sky feel like a lid.

None could name it, but all felt it: the Demon Lord. The slumbering god above the city.

Kardrax and Astros froze.

But then their focus shifted.

Not up. Not far.

Down.

To the softest glow. The quietest presence.

Maël.

His aura burned, not louder, but clear. A mix of memory of warmth and sharpness of truth. It touched everything like silk and cut through it like a blade.

He was not like the others, not like the other Sacreds, not like a demon.

Completely something else.

Then the breach closed, and the silence returned.

The silence was thick and endless.

Then... air. Cool, still air.

Lyraen's lashes trembled as she opened her eyes. No maze. No mirrors. Just a vast open space bathed in silver. Above her, the false moon hung frozen in the sky, cold and motionless.

She sat up slowly. Her hands touched the shattered glass beneath her. No more maze, no trap. The nightmare was gone, and so was Flaga.

A tremor passed through her chest. She looked at her own reflection in the mirrored floor, half-expecting it to betray her again.

But nothing moved.

She stared at her fingers, turned them over as if to check whether she still existed.

Then a voice reached her, soft as breath.

"You're alright."

She turned sharply.

Maël stood a few steps away, hands at his sides, shoulders relaxed. The fierce light from before had vanished

He stepped forward.

"I didn't break the mirror you were trapped in," he said. "Just the space around it. But apparently the mirrors held their shape because of a space spell, and when I cut the world apart… that spell broke too."

Lyraen stared at him. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. Her mind hadn't caught up. It was still searching for the fear, for the chaos, for the fight that should've still been happening.

But there was none of it left.

He reached out a hand.

She took it, without thinking. It was warm, steady. Too real for this place.

He pulled her to her feet gently, without fanfare.

For a moment, she just stood there, holding his hand, staring at him like he might vanish. Then he gave her a crooked smile.

"Don't fall for me just yet," he said. "We're barely getting started."

Lyraen blinked.

Her brow twitched. That stupid grin. That voice like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't just shattered a nightmare with one hand and killed a demon like a fly.

She punched him lightly in the shoulder.

"Idiot," she muttered.