The King of Monsters roared a command and all the creatures of the skies shook in dread.

“Kneel before me!” Kairos ordered Mithridates’ dragon with [Beast Tongue], before trying to possess it. “[Warg]!”

His mind psychically lunged at the dragon’s spirit, only to hit a mental fortress of impenetrable magical walls.

[Beast Tongue] and [Warg] negated by [Dragon Rider] and [Absolutism].

“Go, Heliocles!” Mithridates ordered his dragon. The beast roared in defiance and unleashed a caustic stream of poisonous mist. “Vaporize them all!”

“Buckle up, Kairos!” Rook warned as he flew away to avoid the devastating blast, his rider recovering from the psychic attack. The barrage consumed dozens of Kairos’ men as it melted the flesh of their bones and forced them to disperse, though Mithridates was pragmatic enough to stop his dragon’s rampage before it could hit the Orthian pegasus riders.

I have to lure him away before he single-handedly slaughters my entire army! Kairos thought before pointing his spear at Mithridates and firing sharp blades of wind in his direction. They failed to inflict any damage on the dragon or its rider, but they certainly caught their attention.

Mithridates snarled an order and his mount immediately rushed after the griffin. The mighty dragon’s wings blew clouds out of the skies as it pursued Kairos and sent any stymphalian bird or pegasus rider in the vicinity reeling back. After establishing a respectable distance from her ‘ally,’ Queen Euthenia immediately followed after the duelists and positioned herself to Mithridates’ right.

“King Kairos!” A squadron of griffin riders shouted as they broke from the aerial melee to try to catch up after their leader. “We’re here to help!”

Two of the Travian griffin riders readied their bows and fired projectiles at Mithridates. Neither the rider nor his mount paid them any mind, the arrows bouncing off the dragon’s thick hide and the Poison Emperor’s magical armor.

“Capture Euthenia and leave Mithridates to me!” Kairos shouted back as the dragon opened its maw. “Now!”

Bending the winds around Rook, Kairos increased his mount’s speed as they soared through the sky and left the melee behind. As the other griffin riders dispersed to shadow Euthenia instead, Mithridates raised his staff to cast a litany of spells. “[Accel Agility Up], [Accel Strength Up], [Hasten]!”

A magical glow surrounded the dragon and its already impressive speed increased further. Its wings moved so fast that they unleashed a gust in their wake. Queen Euthenia was soon left behind, her spear clashing against those of the Travian griffin riders.

Flying over Boeotia’s countryside, Kairos clenched his jaw as he noticed movement on the ground. As Horace had warned him, Orthia’s army was catching up on the city. A vast column of hoplites and golden chariots advanced along the road to Boeotia, whipped into a frenzy by priests casting healing spells to deter exhaustion. Standard bearers raised the silver dragon symbol of the Thessalan Empire while drums of war thundered.

At the vanguard of the formation rode Orthia’s elite cavalry. A magnificent golden chariot carried by four unicorns led them into battle, driven by a woman and a mighty warrior clad in shining armor. A red kingly cloak flowed behind the latter’s shoulders, signaling their royal status.

Is that King Antipater? Kairos wondered as Rook made circles in the skies in an attempt to lose Mithridates’ dragon. Orthia’s two kings led the army and priesthood, while Euthenia managed civilian affairs. Kairos had thought Mithridates’ puppet Antipater would let the queen lead by herself, but apparently he had chosen to fight in the field. Perhaps he distrusted his fellow commander, or he wished to impress his master.

Glancing at the city walls, Kairos was relieved to see Agron and soldiers occupying them. If he managed to disrupt the enemy army’s advance, the Travian King could give enough time for his troops to get off the ships and fight in the field.

Wait, Kairos thought. Why should I stop at disrupting them?

That was a [Hero]’s mindset, and he was a [Demigod] now.

Luring the dragon away from Boeotia, Kairos and Rook flew lower to the ground towards the Orthian army. Mithridates raised his scepter to once again cast a spell, this time on his foes.

[Illusion] negated by [Sun of War].

“Even illusions, eh?” Mithridates chuckled, his voice cutting through the noise. He must have had the [Speech] Skill too. “I’m surprised you decided to strike my lands without your [Golden Fleece]. Did you truly think I wouldn’t come for your head?”

“I know your Legendary Skills bypass [Poison] and [Disease] immunities,” Kairos replied as he ignored the jab, having left the fleece with Sertorius. In truth, the Travian King was no longer as reliant on the artifact as he once had been. His upgraded [Poison Brewer] Skill had allowed him to craft powerful antidotes replicating the same effects, which he had applied to himself before the battle even started.

Not that it would make any difference. A drop of Mithridates’ poison would almost certainly kill Kairos, protection or not. He was a [Demigod] specialized in toxins after all.

“[Heartseeker 4],” the Travian King whispered to himself as he empowered his spear with power. “[Spear Fighting 4], [Spellblade 4], [Sun of War].”

Your chances of inflicting a critical hit have increased; you can affect intangible targets, and inflict [Instadeath] on a successful critical hit.

Your spear strikes cannot miss unless blocked by magic or if your target is out of reach.

Your weapons will inflict 80 percent more additional magic damage.

Your weapon will inflict additional [Light] and [Fire] damage; if hit by a solar weapon, any creature vulnerable to sunlight will be instantly incinerated.

Kairos’ spear shone like the heart of the sun, its tip burning with flames and magic. Mithridates’ dragon was a sunsteed of the late Helios, so it was probably immune to additional sunlight damage… but it didn’t hurt to try.

Turning to face Mithridates, Kairos raised his spear and aimed at the Poison Emperor. Putting all his strength in his arm, the griffin rider threw his weapon like a javelin. Mithridates, too careful not to dodge, had his dragon dive down to avoid the attack.

Guided by Kairos’ skills, his weapon’s trajectory bent downward as an invisible force guided it to its target. Mithridates raised his sword to deflect the Dawnspear, but it managed to find its way to his chest all the same. A devastating blast of solar flames burst from the impact point and swallowed the Poison Emperor, his dragon letting out a shriek of surprise.

Kairos summoned the spear back to his hand, his weapon teleporting to his side once more. The sight of Mithridates emerging from the cloud alive dashed his hopes for a swift victory. A scar had appeared on his rival’s silver-adamantine armor’s chest plate, but not deep enough to touch the flesh underneath.

“That’s cheating!” Rook complained loudly as he floated two dozen meters above the dragon. “We can pierce through a Nemean Lion’s skin, but not this silly piece of junk? It’s not even that shiny!”

“I can ignore all magical protections and damage resistance, but adamantine is the world’s toughest metal,” Kairos grumbled. Mithridates’ armor alone was worth a kingdom’s ransom, though his rival noticed that the silver parts of it had heated up from the flames.

The dragon, however, had proved less resistant than its rider. Although Kairos’ flames had died down, the beast’s silver scales had grown tarnished around the blast’s location. It resisted the spear’s magic, but it wasn’t immune to it.

I would rather have subjugated the beast for my war effort, Kairos thought as the dragon regained altitude, its jaw snapping angrily at its foes. But it will be easier to take out than its rider.

Recovering his bearings, Mithridates raised his sword in his rival’s direction. The blade’s surface coursed with divine lightning.

“Zigzag!” Kairos ordered Rook, his griffin deftly moving left and right as the Poison Emperor’s blade fired thunderbolts at them. None of them hit the mark, but it gave the dragon enough breathing room to slowly catch up.

Turning his gaze away from Mithridates, Kairos glanced at the Orthian army, which was now below the duelists. Having noticed the fighters in the skies, the troops were quickly assembling into vast battlelines. Thousands of hoplites formed an unbreakable phalanx, while chariot cavalry gathered in wings around the tight formation. King Antipater rode from one side of the battle line to the other with his sword raised.

“Raise your spears!” he ordered with a thunderous voice. “Defend the land of our ancestors! Down with the Griffin King!”

His soldiers raised their javelins and bows, pointing them at the skies.

“See?” Rook mused. “I told you it would catch on better than Sellsword King!”

“It’s nice of them to gather in one place,” Kairos replied as he raised his spear. “So that I may wipe them out in a single strike.”

Kairos had Rook dive down straight at the enemy army right as Mithridates prepared to launch another thunderbolt. The dragon pursued him with the hunger of a falcon hunting its smaller prey as they descended perilously close to the Orthian army.

If the hoplites were surprised by Kairos’ strategy, they didn’t show it. The Travian King let out a roar as he pointed his burning spear down, an avenging fury falling from the skies.

[Terror] negated by [Orthian Education].

“Fire!” Antipater shouted.

Always stalwart in the face of death, the Orthians threw a volley of javelins and arrows at the Travian King. Their dizzying numbers turned the world below into a sea of wood and steel.

Realizing the danger, Mithridates had his dragon pull back before he could suffer friendly fire; he didn’t allow his mount to unleash its breath either, as the poison would have hit the soldiers on the ground. Kairos himself summoned a shield of swirling wind around Rook and himself, deflecting all projectiles.

The hoplite phalanx was famed as one of the best formations in the world, so compact that not even war elephants could punch through them. The Orthians raised their shields as he powered through their barrage, as if their feeble bronze shells could resist what was to come.

A few hours ago, Kairos had summoned a [Heat Wave] to burn the coast to cinders. But it was far from the only weather condition his spear could generate. There was one in particular that Kairos never dared to use because it would destroy everything in the vicinity indiscriminately. Only now, away from his troop and the city he hoped to conquer, did he feel safe in unleashing it.

If he had been closer to a population center or facing civilians, Kairos would have stayed his hand. But the Orthians were soldiers, knowing they had signed on to kill and die for their country. Kairos would give them no quarter, and expected no mercy from them.

The Travian King spoke a single word as he flew over the Orthian army, and his Dawnspear twitched at his command.

A single curse that had ground cities to dust and inspired fear of the sky in all human beings.

“[Hurricane].”

His spear trembled as the winds bent to his will. A mysterious, magical air current spread around him and twisted into a spiral in the midst of the Orthian army. It was no stronger than a breeze at first, but quickly picked up strength. The grass below the hoplites’ feet sang as the wind howled; the Orthian horses panicked as they sensed their end approaching; and Mithridates’ dragon, realizing the danger, flew as fast as he could back to the city.

The moist air from the sea and the dry wind summoned by the heat wave converged like man and woman to create something new. Something terrifying.

And the hurricane screamed to life like a newborn.

The tornado rose in the middle of the phalanx, tossing shields and spears aside… and soon, it spirited away the men holding them too. Antipater’s horses panicked and screamed as they tried to flee, only to have the wheels of their chariot lifted up by an invisible pull. The Orthian King frantically asked his co-charioteer to do something, but their time had run up.

Once caught in a storm, the wind never let go.

The hurricane raged as it grew into a pillar tearing the skies apart. The Orthian hoplites, who had shown stalwart dedication a few seconds ago, panicked as the winds uprooted them like trees. The spiral of wind pulled them towards the heavens and shattered their battle lines before drawing clouds of smoke from the city into itself. The Orthian battle lines collapsed in seconds as the storm devastated the entire army.

And Kairos flew in the middle of the chaos, a blank expression on his face.

You have changed the weather to [Hurricane]! [Wind] abilities are strengthened and all creatures will take massive [Wind] damage as long as they remain inside the storm! The weather effect will last seven hours!

[Air Superiority 4] activated. You and your mount can see through [Hurricane] and will not suffer any adverse effect from the weather.

To Kairos and Rook, the hurricane felt no more bothersome than a breeze. They had to be careful to avoid debris, but they flew through it as seamlessly as fish swam in calm waters.

Kairos had summoned a hurricane before to destroy Orichalcos, though he had needed to summon the power of the [Protogenoi] Ouranos to do so. This storm, though a pale imitation of the disaster that he had caused back then, was his doing alone. And while the devastation of Orichalcos had filled him with sorrow for the senseless loss of civilian life caught in the crossfire, he felt only the thrill of victory upon bringing ruin to this enemy army.

“I am the Travian Dawn!” Kairos roared, his fearsome voice one with the raging storm. “I am Kairos, slayer of the sun and ruler of the skies! I am the wind that brings down mountains and shatters the land!”

King Antipater answered his declaration with a scream as the winds broke his chariot into pieces and dragged him to his demise.

Kairos watched as the storm rampaged around him and devastated the Orthian army. He would let it run rampant for a while and disable it before it could destroy the region’s farmlands.

Now, for Mithridates, Kairos thought, only to quickly realize that his nemesis had long fled. Emerging from the storm, the Travian King looked around the swirling skies and devastated land for a hint of a dragon’s shadow.

He noticed it flying above Boeotia’s port.

Mithridates had taken a page from his rival’s book and moved to attack Kairos’ army while he was distracted!

“That treacherous bastard!” Kairos snarled as he created a wind tunnel before Rook. “After him!”

“Forward!” Rook replied as he flapped his wings as fast as he could. The duo closed the gap between the hinterlands and Boeotia, flying above the fallen corpses of pegasi, griffins, and monsters lying beneath its walls. Kairos’ aerial forces were routing Euthenia’s flying brigade, who had lost the will to fight after watching their allies devastated in a single attack. The queen herself was nowhere to be seen, but the Travian King trusted his men to apprehend her.

Kairos watched Agron slaughter the city’s automaton defenders on the walls, but that was the only good news. By the time Rook managed to fly back to Boeotia, the Travian fleet had been in the middle of unleashing its soldiers on the port…

And Mithridates had fallen upon them.

Dozens of ships dissolved into the water, their wood and flesh cargo devoured by noxious fumes. More followed as the dragon bombarded them from above with his caustic breath, his rider assisting with devastating thunderbolts. True to their training, Kairos soldiers tried to retreat to the city in good order or attack the dragon with arrows and spells. Both bounced off the beast’s thick hard scales.

Most of the fleet remained intact for now, but at this rate, Mithridates would single-handedly devastate it.

As he watched the port’s waters turn into a poisonous graveyard of ships, Kairos took a look at the ravaged Boeotia and the hurricane he had summoned. Even though he decided enough was enough and canceled the weather effect, the damage was done. Orthia’s army was in shambles and Sertorius’ troops along the coast would mop up the survivors.

This was a war of [Demigods].

A conflict that broke nations and redrew the maps.

A screech echoed across the city as a flying monster challenged Mithridates’ dragon for supremacy.

The Foresight flew straight towards the port with Andromache at the helm. The living ship opened its maw to bombard the dragon with flames, while the spellcasters on its deck assisted with magical projectiles. Mithridates interrupted his bombardment to pull back, flying away from the city and above the sea. None of the projectiles inflicted much damage, but the attack saved the fleet from annihilation.

Having finally caught up, Kairos exploited the dragon’s distraction by flanking it. Activating his Skills, he threw his spear at the animal’s left eye with all of his might. His weapon adjusted its flight as it soared through the skies before hitting its mark.

The Dawnspear pierced the dragon’s eye in a burst of flames, and the beast screamed in pain.

“Focus!” Mithridates snarled angrily, treating his dragon like a servant rather than a friend. He raised his scepter and cast a spell. “[Heal]!”

Kairos summoned his spear back to his hand, causing the dragon’s eyes to explode in a shower of blood. Though Mithridates’ magic quickly stopped the bleeding, it couldn’t let his dragon regenerate nor soothe its pain. The dragon roared uncontrollably as it hovered in place, letting the Foresight close in.

Kairos’ living ship immediately rammed into its equally large rival, its sharp teeth sinking in the dragon’s flank and through its tough scales. Mithridates’ mount roared as it struggled to escape the grip, while its rider covered his head to protect himself from Andromache’s thunderbolts.

This is it! Kairos thought as he raised his spear to target the dragon’s other eye. The end!

“Kairos, above!” Rook shouted a warning.

Kairos looked up, and watched a fearsome pegasus rider falling upon him at full speed. He raised his spear to meet her own, but the impact blew them back down a few meters.

And as the brief opportunity passed, the dragon unleashed its caustic breath on the Foresight’s flank. The poisonous substance melted the hull’s outer layer and damaged the wing, forcing the living ship to release its wounded prey. The dragon pushed the wounded Foresight back before turning its deadly attention to Kairos.

“You bastard…” Euthenia snarled as she struggled to hold back tears as her spear clashed with Kairos’. She had lost her helmet and her armor was covered in scratch marks, but she refused to surrender the fight. “How many people have you killed with this stunt!”

“How many of my soldiers have I saved? You would have done the same in my place, if you had the power!” Kairos locked eyes with her, once again attempting to crush her will. “[Telchine Sorcery: Charm].”

Charisma check successful! [Charm] status inflicted!

His curse took over her mind, and Euthenia’s defiance turned to obedience.

“Surrender to my men on the outer walls!” Kairos ordered as he pushed Euthenia back, the mind-controlled queen meekly flying away.

No sooner did he focus back on Mithridates that Kairos found himself facing a cloud of poison.

Reacting on instinct, he blasted the noxious smoke away with a blast of wind, only for the dragon to emerge from it. Rook attempted to fly away as the beast snapped its jaws in their direction.

He failed.

The dragon’s jaw closed on the griffin’s right wing in a sickening crack and pulled him down.

The shock almost threw Kairos off his friend’s back… but the surprise was nothing compared to Rook’s screech of agony as the dragon’s teeth sank into his beautiful feathers. Poisonous saliva infected the flesh, making it rot before Kairos’ eyes.

Although the dragon refused to let go of its prey, it couldn’t maintain control of its flight either. Both flying beasts fell towards the ocean below.

Mithridates, in a last-ditch effort to slay his foe, raised his lightning sword at Kairos. The Travian King reacted fast and blasted him with fire and wind, sending the sword flying. Then he continued, relentlessly drowning the Poison Emperor in a sea of fire.

Adamantine couldn’t burn.

But silver could melt.

Mithridates let out a roar of pain as the vulnerable parts of his armor heated up under the pressure and burnt his flesh underneath. Smoke came out of his helmet’s visor, while drops of molten silver dripped over the adamantine.

“Die, Mithridates!” Kairos snarled, his voice brimming with undying hate. “Die, you treacherous bastard!”

He would have continued to cook his nemesis alive if the dragon hadn’t shaken Rook, forcing Kairos to hang on to Rook. Worse, both kept falling into the sea to their doom.

“Damn you… Kairos!” Mithridates cursed him as he looked at his dragon’s flank. The Foresight’s teeth had left mortal wounds, the beast’s guts falling out as it struggled to regain control of its flight. The Poison Emperor didn’t look any better, his armor so hot that it had turned searing white and poisoned blood mixing with the melted silver. “So many years of work… all ruined…”

Kairos would have finished him off if he could, but he instead turned his attention to breaking the dragon’s teeth holding Rook prisoner. “Come on!” he snarled as they fell closer and closer to the sea, but the beast’s teeth were as hard as stone. “Come on!”

“Enjoy… your victory,” the grievously wounded Mithridates whispered as he touched a necklace around his neck with one hand and raised his scepter with the other. “For the few seconds… you have left to live.”

His curse was two words long, but as fearsome as Kairos’ hurricane.

“[Sacrifice Thrall].”

Mithridates vanished from sight, teleporting away and leaving his dragon to its death. The beast let out a mighty roar as it fell on the Travian King and his wounded griffin, its scales glowing brightly. The divine magical power that bound the dragon to Mithridates ran out of control and threatened to erupt in a fatal burst of sorcery.

The Poison Emperor only avoided friendly fire when his thralls had a use left.

“I’m sorry, Rook,” Kairos apologized with tears in his eyes.

Unable to cut the dragon, he had no choice but to sever his friend’s wing to save them both. Rook let out a terrible screech as his spear cut off his flesh, separating them from the dragon. With no way to fly away, Kairos summoned a shield of wind around them right as they hit the water in a last-ditch attempt to survive.

All of them hit the sea’s surface in a devastating crash, and poisonous flames covered the world.