“Hope?” Axis scoffed. “The only one who has need to ‘hope’ is you and your lot.” Axis stood tall and proud, utterly confident in his ever more failing hope that his summoned army would be enough to save him. “And as for despair? You’re the one who’s going to see that my army has won.”

At Axis’ words, the entire crowd, along with all of the executives of the Alliance, as well as Monarkea herself, burst out laughing. Axis could not fathom why they were laughing, though after a moment of thought he assumed (incorrectly) that fear and despair had taken such a hold that they had all been driven to madness.

“Oh, you dumb little shit…” Monarkea managed to get out before shaking her head in derision. “Father, is that thing ready yet?”

Axis was confused. She was asking for her father? Surely he was dead by now, all thanks to the other shard of the Wardens that had been embedded in his head.

Was she really so far gone into the depths of fear-driven insanity that she had begun to hallucinate her dead father?

“Your mongrel of a father is long since dead.” Axis asserted, only to be met with a shock that caused his stomach to unintentionally drop.

A voice that he knew all too well echoed throughout the underground arena, and it was obviously that of none other than Vyviir the Ancient himself.

“Yes, it is ready.” the old dragon said jovially as he stuck his head through the vertical crevasse that Monarkea had entered through. While the dragoness had been able to squeeze through with only mild discomfort, Vyviir’s body could not, and all that could be seen of his mass was the front of his draconic face that was just about two-thirds of the way through the hole yet occupying more than 90% of the space it had.

“Wonderful. Wonderful!” Monarkea shifted her gaze back to Axis and smirked. “This going to hurt you. A lot. Please try and bear it with all that you can muster, and for all to see.”

Axis scowled and was about to tell the entire assemblage of people that he had already felt the worst that Monarkea and the rest had to offer, but before he could even begin to try and vocalize that assumption something horrible sent him screaming to the floor.

He could not process what he was feeling, as it did not merely affect Axis’ empty body, which the shard of the Wardens was using, but also the shard itself, and it was by no stretch of the imagination something as simple as pain. No, this was worse, far worse, and he could not understand it nor could he hope to.

Though it was a sensation that was, at its core, utterly indescribable, it was a bad sensation, and one that, if one wanted to put words to it, would be like a mix of cosmic, existential, nihilistic despair combined with the collective suffering and malice of a being far and beyond the existence of mere three-dimensional beings. The devs had once again done it when they created that impossibly rare item drop that Vaile had shown off much earlier, and now Vyviir, along with some others of the Alliance, had topped that by making something so utterly insidious.

What Axis was feeling could be called the ‘will’ of the final End-Game Raid Boss of the entire MMO, all bottled up and broadcasted directly into his core, and as such, the systems that governed the New World treated it as it should have been treated. Axis only was exposed to the effects of this prototype weapon for a handful of seconds before the machine failed and destroyed itself and its components, but in that time Axis had felt what, to him, seemed to be a near eternity of undiluted eldritch, cosmic agony of a kind that no being of any shape or form had ever felt before in their life.

And now, mere seconds after activation, Axis was truly, utterly, completely broken.

…

Monarkea had indeed thought of a few backup plans for what to do should the device fail to achieve its purpose, but she was glad that she did not have to fall back on those contingency plans. Now, lying utterly mind-fucked on the ground, drooling like a person who had just had their frontal lobe surgically removed, was Axis Wode.

He had served his part well, and now it was time to bring about that plan that had been thought up by the Alliance. Now that his army was utterly erased, and now that Axis was utterly broken, it was time to deliver one massive punch to the liver of the Wardens.

Monarkea took her more humanoid form again, this time not bothering to go full human and instead taking a fully anthropomorphic bipedal dragon form. She pointed at a guard who had entered the arena mere moments after she had begun to shapeshift, and directed the underling to carry Axis out of the mountain fortress and into the light of day.

Once he was outside, then the real fun would begin.

…

He had been upset when his most beloved Dragon-Lord had told him that he would be the one to carry the defeated bastard after the final act of the plan was set to be enacted, but he had kept his mouth shut, like a good servant and subject. He hated the idea of tainting his body by touching a member of the Races, let alone a puppet of those enigmatic bastards, and he could still feel the taint of those freaks inside of this dumb shit of a Human.

He didn’t carry the Human like he would have carried a wounded or dead member of one of the Alliance’s member-states, and instead merely dragged the mind-fucked husk of a teenager by one foot through the halls and towards the place where he was to be set down. He was just glad that he didn’t have to drag this fucker all through the fortress and out the front door. He didn’t know if he would have been able to wash off the stink of the Races had he been told to do so.

Well, the outside light was coming closer regardless of that, and he was nearly ready to be rid of this asshole and get to a nice, warm, soap-filled bath. No matter what happened next, he was not about to stick around and find out. He just wanted to wash this taint off him, and he wanted to do it fast.