Zrosian Capital of Dabangui

Two Days Later

Evening

-

A thick layer of mist filled the ground within the room as roots, vines and other flora grew free all over the walls, pillars and floor. Some even hanging down from the ceiling above, dangling all the way down before him.

A jungle, is what Clayton thought this place seemed like, as the ex-Druvian...now Empire Ambassador, entered through the large iron doors.

Nervous unlike ever before, the Half-Elf still continued onwards.

(“Damn him…making me of all come here…”) Clayton cursed as he walked past dozens of Zrosian warriors, beasts of all shapes and sizes, wielded all sorts of weapons.

Yet each wearing the same design of armour. Plated yet in ways so different from anything he’d ever seen, the Zrosian Samurai glared him down cold as he passed by.

His own gaze then moving to the floor as he dared not look ahead, knowing it to be rude, instead he kept his head low even as he kneeled down before what he knew to be the throne.

Gaining only a glimpse of the being ahead; A young child with a bun of bright red hair, yet coldly narrowed calculative brown eyes, sat over an ornate golden pillow surrounded by dark wooden slabs carved with golden paint.

All around her lay see through blueish curtains with a darker set lying tied ahead and aside, held up by a circular overhang which grew out of the wall behind her. Made of the same wood and inscribed with the same runes as the slabs she rested her arms on, it also wasn’t entirely circular as attached to six corners were golden busts of six animal heads.

The three heads at the back lay broken, not by age but seemingly purposely shattered off their spots. Whilst the three at the front were made up of a wolf’s to the left, a serpent's to the right, and a snarling bear at the centre.

“You may…speak.” Then spoke a gnarly old voice from his left, Clayton barely able to make out the dozen or so attendants who stood to either side of the throne. He glanced up briefly in the voice’s direction, nodding at the old man with sleek smooth greenish skin and serpentine emerald slit eyes.

Looking back down at the floor then, “I am Cla-” he was about to introduce himself.

“Oh skip the blabber and get right to it.” When a young grumbly voice cut him off.

Pausing for a moment, Clayton quickly gathered his thoughts. “Your majesty, I come bearing a message from my liege.” He announced, loud a clear and with little to no given emotion within his tone.

“Liege? Hah!” The young girl chuckled wildly.

“Zrosa does not recognise your master’s title.” Then said the old serpent, one Clayton recognised as the Elder Advisor.

“Oh but go on,” Added the child with great amusement in their tone.

Again Clayton cursed within his thoughts, he absolutely hated these people. “By orders of the Dragon Empire’s first Emperor Erikathyr the White, you are to surrender the lands you’ve unlawfully seized from the now vassal Sinbeni.”

A stifled giggle began as he continued to speak, “These lands include the towns of Dammamas, Abyele and all smaller villages in between.” Rising to uncontrolled laughter then as he finished.

Clayton sighed, as he then rose to standing, finding several a blade then suddenly unsheathing to surround him. “I wished, there would be a different way, yet I knew somewhere inside that none of you would care for my words. But I’ll ask either way, as it is simply proper.” Meeting then the young royal’s narrowed eyes.

“Empress Dabangui Hanae, we offer you mercy under the conditions of complete surrender.” Clayton announced, silence falling within the room at his words.

A silence then broken, by the same childish laughter.

As Empress Hanae rose from her seat, her bear-like brown ears twitching as she grinned widely, showing the sharp fangs within. Still nothing more than a child, yet as she slammed her little fist into the nearest servant, it knocked the poor man six feet deep into a now shattered wall.

Clayton though showed no reaction to her explosive strength, he knew exactly what this creature was.

“Surrender?” She mused, her voice now permeating the entire room as each vine and root within came alive, slithering away suddenly as she moved through.

Nausea filled Clayton’s mind as she spoke, yet he held, remaining standing straight he continued to focus his trained gaze at the royal.

As she now stood mere feet away from him, her smirking stare frozen and meeting his. “For centuries my ancestors prepared for this day, the day those Dragons lost their grasp upon the north. From birth, I was trained and prepared for this…And you ask me to surrender? Hah!” She laughed, a childish yet booming chuckle.

Resonating within his very bones.

“I Elder Beast of the Dabangui clan, will not be known…as the defeated. No, no I will be known as the conqueror of Sinroz!” She exclaimed, as her form shuddered, briefly another seeming to take her place.

Clayton caught only a glimpse of it, of her true form.

True, it terrified him, yet what ordered him to come here terrified him far more.

Having only a glimpse of his plan, Clayton knew he himself was barely a piece on the board that Erik loomed over.

As he turned around, giving the monster that could squash him with a mere touch, his back.

Hearing her growl, Clayton sighed once more.

“Then you decline our offer, as such, military action from our part begins now.” Clayton announced loud and clear, his words not entirely meant for those within the room…

As sounds from the outside suddenly began to fill their ears, coming in from the surrounding halls and windows, the sound of panic and chaos reached them.

“What now!?” Hanae exclaimed, shaking her retainers out of their own confusion, as one rushed to the nearest of the large windows that lay across the room’s walls.

Speaking back then in Zrosian, “The sky…” the servant’s eyes were wide with shock as he turned back to them.

Growling further, Hanae suddenly raised her hand forth, and each servant rushed out of her way.

As the wall she pointed at suddenly twisted and changed, the window expanding from its tall rectangular shape to a massive circular hole covered in vines. Each within the room then gazed at the outside, eyes wide at what they saw within the sky above their city.

Tendrils of greenish smoke filled the sky, like a cloud yet in constant motion as it was made up of hundreds of serpentine figures slithering about. Wide open wings, a long serpentine tail and a snouted head with horns. The smoky serpents took the formation of a massive winged dragon, marking the sky with the Empire’s emblem.

“It begins.” Clayton mused in Zrosian, chuckling as he himself saw the mark.

“W-What begins!?” The Elder Advisor demanded, grabbing him by the collar of his fine shirt.

As suddenly a reverberating sound rumbled through the entire city and its surroundings.

“You move to invade Sinbeni lands,” Clayton explained, watching with great interest as the draconic mark then scattered, raining serpents of poisonous smoke upon the entire city. “This is retaliation.” He mused, watching as serpent after serpent clashed with rising pillars of stone, expanding tree roots and cyclones of wind.

“Hah!” Hanae laughed, “Your petty tricks won’t get through our def-” She began to say, then watching as every serpent of smoke destroyed only scattered further, falling as a large cloud of death upon the streets and homes below.

Watching her eyes widen, Clayton chuckled as he turned away. “This is the real message, I was sent here to interpret.” He said, raising a glass of fine wine he found lying on a table nearby, “That no matter who you think you are, choose mercy. Else…”

Taking a quick taste, he turned back to facing the now silent room, yet filled with the screams and chaos of the outside. “Your titles, your riches, your lands and even people. Erikathyr comes to take it all.”

-

-

Elsewhere within Zrosa

The river lands between Dammamas and Abyele.

Sunset.

-

Dimming rays of sunlight barely filled the large encampment as torch-light began to replace it. Large tents had been set up for storing equipment and resources out of the sunlight, yet the soldiers themselves also had scattered hundreds of smaller ones surrounding them.

Movement within the Zrosian warcamp had died down as warriors and workers returned to their tents, shared between groups of many. Having had a long day of marching back from securing Abyele for their kingdom, each were weary from battle and travel.

And with another two longer days of travel ahead before returning to Zidao, even the night watch was sparse.

As silence began to fill the camp the lower the sun fell, only the sound of flickering torches and the occasional bestial breaths could be heard. Beasts so large, they seemed like hills of fur and mounds of snake-skin scattered across the encampment. Their looming bodies rising and lowering as they slept, three kinds could be made out from the larger species who lay unrestrained while dozens more kinds of smaller carnivores lay in make-shift pens.

From massive hairy four-legged birds known as gryphons to almost serpentine six-legged reptiles large enough to carry a dozen. Yet the largest of them all were the mountains of fur, mammoths so large that constructs of wood and stone lay built upon their backs. These monsters slept while standing as they surrounded the camp, a fortress of living muscle holding up actual siege towers.

The night watch mostly filled those towers, watching the camp and its surroundings from high above.

Keens eyes, but blind to the shadows that stalked behind them, becoming aware all too late.

As dying croaks filled the towers, a quick flicker of shadow followed by the splatter of blood.

Silent as the night, Xilfir enclosed around the camp.

As the shadows already inhabiting it came alive right then.

Taking form from shadow as she stood surrounded by sprawled out corpses, Makaela faced the shuddering of reality before her.

Appearing out of nowhere just as well, the figure faced her too.

Wearing tight black clothing with long dangling sleeves, the figure also had four belts in total strapped across his body riddled with weapons and tools of all kinds. Yet every move he made, not a sound was heard, as each object lay expertly tied to his person.

His face was covered by a crimson red mask depicting a horned fiend, while only his eyes were perceivable through the holes made just for them. Serpentine in nature, they were a light green set of slits, focused now entirely on Makaela as their gazes met.

Makaela stood alone within this tower and sensed about two dozen of these figures surrounding her, yet she grinned widely as she stared at the only visible one who she knew to be their distraction.

Raising her index finger to her plump lips, “Shhh…” She shushed them, summoning ethereal blades all around her person then, floating in mid-air like ghostly apparitions.

And as such, the silent battle between the Dreadblades and Zrosian Shinobi Unit, began.