Solborn: The Eternal Kaiser

The dragon's head dipped, jaws yawning wide, and a torrent of ink-fire spewed down into the chamber. The stench of salt and rot filled the air as the torrent splashed against fractured marble, boiling stone and searing through what remained of Bosch's prison.

"Jump!" Kaiser snapped.

Celestine didn't hesitate. She lunged, one arm wrapping around Ivan's chest as the wave of ink tore across the floor. Kaiser moved at the same instant, hauling Aria against him. The torrent scalded the edges of his cloak as he shoved off with one boot, vaulting upward through a crumbling seam in the ceiling.

Elsie was the only one who didn't wait to be pulled. With a roar of her own, she sprinted ahead, leapt into the spray of dust and debris, and hurled herself clear. Her silhouette flashed and she landed hard on the grass outside, boots gouging furrows into the damp earth.

Behind them, the mansion convulsed.

Stone screamed as it split. Columns buckled, the painted dome sloughing away in chunks. Kaiser and Celestine broke through the roof together, dragging Ivan and Aria into the night air just as the torrent of ink burned through the last of the marble.

They landed rough on the slope outside, dust and plaster raining after them. Aria gasped in his hold, spiders shivering across her arms. Ivan staggered upright with Celestine's help, eyes burning with both fury and shame.

For one brief breath, the group stood together on the hill, the black silhouette of the dragon writhing within the ruin behind them.

Then came the shriek. The dragon's roar ripped the day open. The false sunset overhead cracked, its painted light splitting into ribbons that fluttered like torn silk before evaporating. Bosch's perfect dome collapsed in a storm of glass-light. The house behind them sagged, gutted of its lies, stone splitting and crashing down as though the air itself had betrayed it.

And in that moment, the illusion was gone.

They were not in a painted chamber at all, but outside, on a gray hilltop that sloped steeply toward the city of Logshare in the middle of the night. Its buildings rose like spears in the distance, silver and pale in the moonlight. Beyond it stretched the sea. Green. Sickly, endless green that rolled like a drowned field. Only the thinnest veins of blue still bled across its surface, and those too, were fading with each heartbeat.

The dragon unfurled fully, tearing itself from the corpse of Bosch's house like a beast crawling out of its own grave. Wings beat, vast black sails veined with silver that brightened as it drew breath. Ink streamed from its claws, dripping into the grass where it hissed and smoked. Even weakened by centuries of confinement, it loomed colossal, its presence alone bending the very air.

Kaiser leaned slightly toward Ivan, murmuring something too quiet for anyone else to catch into Ivans ear. After smiling for a second , clones burst from him in white mist, solidifying into bodies that sprinted across the hill in a spread. From their pouches, some took spears, others shields, each one drawing the monster's eye. The dragon's tail lashed, smashing a half-dozen into vapor. Claws scythed, erasing more. But for every clone torn apart, another appeared in its place.

Ivan's true body gritted its teeth. "Come on, look at me," he muttered, shoving another copy forward. "Look at me, not them." And the dragon did. Its eyes narrowed, and it spat a line of ink that carved a trench across the hill, obliterating twenty Ivans at once.

"Good," Ivan hissed, teeth bared. "Stay angry at me."

Aria's bowstring thrummed. From behind Ivan's wall of clones, her arrows cut clean lines, each one singing with spider-silk she wove from her newly learned power. Silk lines snared scales, bit into the membranes of the dragon's wings. One arrow tore through the thin silver vein along its side and anchored into it. The dragon jerked, snarled, ripped free, but its movement stuttered.

Celestine streaked past, golden light curling around her like a halo. Her rapier gleamed as she slid beneath the beast's jaw. One thrust, two, three—each placed with surgical precision between scales where veins glimmered silver. The dragon roared, head whipping down, but she was already gone, golden blur slipping between the rise of its chest and the slam of its claw.

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Elsie laughed and vaulted onto the dragon. "Nothing scares Elsie!" She dug her fingers into the gaps. With a violent pull, she tore a scale free and flung it to the ground like a piece of junk, before jumping down herself. "See? Elsie makes herself useful!"

The dragon's eyes flared. With a guttural snarl, it reared back, raising the other arm. The claw arced in a savage swipe meant to grind her like an insect.

Kaiser was there before it fell. His gauntlet clamped around Elsie's arm and yanked her down just as the claw crashed into him. The impact shattered the ground, spraying shards of grass and soil into the air. Elsie stumbled, caught herself, then barked a laugh.

"Fine, fine—Elsie owes you one. But don't expect Elsie to pay it back, you villain!"

Kaiser didn't answer. His crimson eyes were locked on the dragon. Frost burst from his palm in a flood, racing up its forearm once again. Ice bit into scale and tendon, locking the joint mid-swing. The beast howled, shaking its limb, but Kaiser's frost clung stubbornly.

"Strike at the same arm again," Kaiser said, voice low but absolute. "We will cut one limb before the rest."

Celestine didn't hesitate. She flashed up, leapt high, and drove her rapier down into the frozen joint. The blade sank deep, shattering through ice and scale alike. The dragon bucked, the joint collapsing beneath its weight, and it stumbled half a step back.

Aria's arrows drove in again, webbing the leg to the ground. Elsie grabbed two and yanked, forcing the dragon to stumble even further down, his head now low enough that Ivan's next wave of clones swarmed onto its snout, stabbing and clawing, buying precious seconds before being obliterated.

For the first time, the beast faltered.

But with every roar, it fed.

The silver veins across its body brightened, thickening into rivers of light. The ice melted faster now, the arrows burning free of flesh. The clones died quicker, dissolved before they could even strike. The air grew heavy, metallic, saturated with Sol until every breath hurt.

Aria staggered, her silk lines snapping one after another. "It's getting stronger fast!"

Kaiser's jaw tightened. "It appears Bosch was not only holding it captive, but also weakening it as well. Now that he is dead, the beast will only grow more and more powerful, until it reaches it former strenght."

The dragon opened its maw and vomited a storm of ink-fire across the hill. Ivans were erased by the dozens. Elsie braced, arms crossed, shielding Aria behind her as the torrent slammed into her. She skidded back, boots furrowing the dirt, but when the tide ceased she was still standing, black smoke rising from her arms.

"Elsie is not so easy to burn!" she shouted, teeth bared. Her grin wavered for half a breath, but she forced it wider.

Celestine's eyes flicked upward. The moon had begun to rise further over the sea, silver spilling across the horizon. Its light glimmered on her blade. She steadied her breath, her voice a whisper. "Not even a fake sun anymore... No matter, I have no choice!"

She leapt skyward, higher and higher, golden light curling tight around her frame until it wrapped her wholly, blazing. Each heartbeat drove her further up, a spear of brilliance carving through the newborn night. Her Sol Core thrummed with hunger, demanding more, more, more. She obeyed. The rapier drank, veins of fire pulsing down its edge, glowing too brightly to hold.

But the light was devouring her as much as she wielded it.

A crack split across her Sol Core. Pain ripped through her chest, tearing a scream from her throat. "GGAAAHHH!!!!"

Her ascent faltered, brilliance stuttering into broken sparks. The rapier juddered in her grasp, overfed with power, its golden radiance fracturing like glass. She had climbed higher than any Saint should, but now, mid-flight, her glow collapsed into a ragged flicker.

The dragon below tilted its massive head, silver-veined eyes narrowing. It saw her weakness, and the world itself seemed to lean toward her fall. Sol gathered in its throat, a white star swelling behind its fangs, the air warping under the charge.

The beam was coming, and Celestine, trembling in the night sky, could no longer stop it.

But before anything could happen to her, Kaiser moved. He launched upward, cutting through the wind like a black spear. His hand slammed against Celestine's shoulder, hurling her down with a brutal force. She fell, crashing into Ivan's waiting clones who caught her with their bodies before vanishing in mist.

The dragon fired, and the beam swallowed Kaiser. For an instant, he was the brightest thing in the sky. His armor turned to ash, plate by plate. The blue gem at his chest shattered into nothing.

Kaiser was carried higher and higher, until he was a dark speck in the night, his body torn and burned, his armor gone.

On the ground, Celestine gasped in Ivan's arms, clutching her chest, golden eyes wide with tears. "He—he saved me—"

Aria's hands trembled as she drew another arrow. "He tends to do that often."

"Aria… aren't you worried for him?"

Aria didn't answer at once. She steadied the trembling in her hands, drew another arrow, and finally turned her gaze toward Celestine. Through her own tears, a small smile tugged at her lips, one that was fragile, but certain.

"No. He's Kaiser after all," she said simply, her voice steady in spite of the quiver in her chest. "Of course not."

The words struck deep. Celestine blinked, stunned, and for a heartbeat the panic in her eyes softened. The raw hurt of her cracked core still throbbed, her body trembling under the weight of it—but Aria's quiet conviction lit something within her.

Her breath steadied. The golden fire in her eyes flickered back to life. She lowered her gaze, whispering, almost to herself:

"…You're right. He is."