Arylos watched the Eikon flying through the sky as a raging fire burned in his eyes. He felt the searing pain rush through his veins like hot blood through a cold corpse. His muscles clenched as his wings flapped, working up a gust of wind as the roaring flames on his back howled with his anger. The burning Titan snarled as he readied himself for the fight, interrupted by footsteps off to the side. Arylos glanced to the side and saw a woman leaning against a building, clutching her arm close.

“Please help me,” the woman whispered in a groaning voice as she shuffled towards Arylos. Arylos watched her closely through his burning glare, cold and silent as a quiet winter night. He watched her closely, examining her wounds and the burns on her shoulders and calves.

“Please,” the woman groaned as she approached the winged Titan, holding onto her arm like something was wrong with it. Arylos continued to watch her as she approached the otherworldly Titan and he found himself unable to shake a thought from his mind; why would she approach a creature like him for help?

Just as the woman let go of her arm and reached out to Arylos, flames bathed his sword as he swung it, the sword screaming through the air as it relieved her shoulders of her head, her body standing still before falling to the ground. Arylos swung his sword back around and looked towards the fallen corpse, recognizing the purple blood and metal armor under the woman’s skin where his sword cut through her. He turned his attention to her arm and saw that the arm she was holding was no longer human; an Eikon’s clawed mechanical hand covered with red blood taking over from below the elbow.

Arylos should have felt angry, sad, afraid. Yet he could only feel disgust and disappointment. He eyed the Eikons corpse with such disgust that he could turn his nose to it. He told himself that the woman she was is gone, dead long before she came to him; killing the Eikon was the only good thing for her at this point. Arylos let out a deep growl as he turned his sword around while approaching the corpse and ran his sword into the Eikon’s chest, flames consuming the body from the inside. The flames tore at the Eikon’s human flesh, slowly ripping it apart and leaving the Eikon’s metallic skeleton.

Arylos then turned his attention to the sky, hearing the screaming roar of the Eikon filling the air once more. He removed his sword from the corpse and with a mighty lunge that broke the ground, he took to the air and took to a light hovering glide, beating his black wings in alternating rhythm to retain lift. He then turned, facing the Eikon flying towards him and screaming in a blood thirsty cry.

Without so much as a growl, Arylos lifted his sword as the flames around it hummed loudly. Cracks formed in his sword arm as flames under his skin pulsed towards the sword as it roared, working up a whirlwind from the heat alone. Just as the Eikon opened its mouth, Arylos swung down with his sword and a waves of flames rushed towards the Eikon, colliding with it in a violent explosion and sending it to the stone streets below with howling screams.

As the Eikon collided with the ground, Arylos flapped his wings and came to the ground with blinding speed, striking the Eikon with his sword and showering the creature’s face in flames and sparks from the attack. The Eikon roared yet Arylos pushed forward, striking the Eikon with explosive hits from his sword that smashed open parts of its armor and punched any opening he got, leaving massive dents in the creature’s metallic hide.

The creature growled as heat radiated from its chest as the panels of its neck began to glow orange from a large heat source from within. As the Eikon picked itself back up to its feet, Arylos flapped his wings again and sent him a distance away from the creature. The dragon howled as a bright red beam of blinding energy burst forth from its mouth. Arylos turned his sword around to quench its flames and dug it into the ground as the beam struck his sword, reflecting off of it and burning the nearby buildings. The Eikon growled as the panels of its neck began to spin like a bladed ring around a finger, drawing air into its neck to cool down as it maintained the attack.

Yet Arylos glared menacingly at the dragon from behind his sword, watching intently as the energy slowly pushed him back as his sword dug into the ground. The dragon began to groan as the metal components in its neck began to glow even brighter and before long, the beam was cut off as the creature gasped for air to cool its red-hot machinery.

Arylos quickly lifted his sword and the flames returned to the sword, brought forth by the fires pulsing in Arylos’s arm. With a mighty heave, a wave of flames launched forward and struck the Eikon, sending armor plates and machinery flying away from the injured machine. The creature howled as the turrets on its back spun back to life and pointed right at Arylos. The Titan corrected himself and grabbed the humming air with his Titanic grip, reaching for the ground and pulling up as rocks levitated from the magic. With the ground held in place, Arylos stomped forward, breaking the earth beneath him and tearing open a large gash in the ground as the displaced ground rushed towards the creature. The Eikon roared as the large rocks and stones struck it and pinned it in the broken earth.

Arylos then reached out towards the trapped Eikon and pulled towards the ground as an intense gravity pulled down on the creature, slowly crushing it as metal creaked and groaned and the ground beneath it continued to break beneath the bone-breaking pressure that only intensified hundredfold with each passing second. The Eikon looked around as the gravity intensified and it saw the destroyed buildings around it, caving from the pressure and the broken earth.

“You’re killing them,” the Eikon warned Arylos as it tried to pull itself back up.

Arylos furrowed his brow, carrying an anger the Eikon believed him incapable. With a beat of his wings, he launched towards the Eikon with his sword drawn and aimed right for the Eikon’s eyes. The Eikon growled and barely managed to move out of the way as Arylos’s sword ran in between the plates of the creature’s neck, spitting sparks as his blade cut loose several parts and sent a shocking pain down the creature’s body. Arylos took his sword with both hands and twisted it, carving the creature from the inside.

The Eikon howled as it turned its neck and lurched forward, trapping Arylos under its crushing body as the gravity ensnared both of them. The Eikon relished in the sound of Arylos’s dying flesh cracking like porcelain as he pushed back against the crushing Eikon. The Eikon watched Arylos as their burning eyes glared at each other as glowing orange blood began to pour from Arylos’s nose and mouth. The Eikon laughed as Arylos released the crushing magic and the engines on the creature’s back roared to life. Before Arylos could grab something, the Eikon launched forward while grinding its body against the ground, causing Arylos’s orange blood to splatter everywhere as his body was crushed and torn. Yet even in this state, he still pressed on as flames from his sword began to pour into the Eikon’s body, slowly heating the metal of the creature’s armor until it was soft to his touch and could be peeled back.

Before Arylos could try an attack, the Eikon lifted its head and rammed him repeatedly into the ground, slowly grinding his body to dust as his stone wings themselves began to crack and break. The Eikon then spun around its neck and Arylos lost his grip on his sword and went flying into one of the buildings, slamming through the stone walls as his orange blood slowly cooled to a deep black like cooling lava.

The Eikon took its chance as it widened its mouth and a bright red beam of light struck the ruin where Arylos landed, searing the building and the Titan inside with unrelenting power. The Eikon kept the beam up for as long as it could as the energy incinerated everything in its way and filled the air with a deafening buzz that even threatened the Eikon’s own hearing. As the Eikon reached its limits, it closed its mouth and watched the smoldering ruin closely, watching for any sign of the creature. Yet the only thing that greeted it was the silent crackle of fire and a deafening silence.

The Eikonic dragon snorted and turned away as its engines returned to life. As it lifted its wings, it heard a loud hum in the air and felt a violent force grab it by the neck and pull it to the ground. The Eikon growled as it struggled against the mysterious force trying to pull back as its growling turned to roars and its engines fired repeatedly to break it free. Yet this strange force would not let go as the humming became louder than the beam of light it shot Arylos with. As it struggled, the ensnaring force pulled the Eikon around back towards the building it destroyed.

The Eikon watched in horror as it saw a broken shape of the Titan step out from the ruin, only ruined parts of him caked in black blood left yet they remained floating in the air as if the body they were a part of was still intact. One hand covered in black blood was reaching for the Eikon as an orange light glowed underneath his broken skin like a paper lantern. The Eikon looked into Arylos’s piercing and churning red and orange eyes that looked at him with a haunting and hungry light, untouched by the Eikon’s attack entirely.

Slowly, the flames burning around Arylos began to coalesce around him, consuming many of the corpses that laid in the street as they returned to their master. As the flames consumed Arylos, his black blood returned to the glowing orange it was before and his body began to slowly piece itself back together, reforming from the ashes, flames, and orange blood around him. Slowly, the Titan returned to his feet as his six wings unfurled around him once more.

The dragon snarled and roared a loud and haunting scream that filled the air with a humming energy. Before long, the dragon could see the familiar purple glow of its brethren surround Arylos, foaming at the mouths and growling in inorganic tongues as their bodies tore away to bare claws, swords, guns, and saws. Arylos looked around him, his disgust heavy on his face as he watched the fellow Kaiyumae he once shared a home with surround him like blood-thirsty wolves. Arylos turned over the hand he held the Eikon down with and snapped his fingers. The force holding the dragon down let him go just as the surrounding area was consumed with searing hot flames that softened its metal hide nearly immediately.

The dragon roared as its engines sputtered to life again and it took to the air with a mighty wingbeat, stopping only to look back down below at the Titan. The otherworldly monster looked back up at the Eikon as arms of fire reached out and clawed at the Eikons around him as burning chains lashed them, slowly cleaving and ripping them apart. The Eikon watched as Arylos slaughtered its kin without so much as an inconvenienced sigh as the flames consumed the human parts that were left and destroyed anything remotely resembling a machine.

The Titan was actively consuming the Eikons without so much as lifting his finger. The Eikon stared blankly at Arylos and stammered as it began to realize a horrible truth; that Arylos had disregarded survivors on purpose. No matter how many Eikons it raised against him, he would consume them and empower himself. The longer this fight dragged on, the more dangerous he became.

He was no longer defending Sentoraya from an Eikon; he was intent on killing the Eikon attacking Sentoraya by any means necessary.

The dragon howled as it pointed as many turrets at Arylos as it could and readied power from inside it to fire. Yet before it could open fire, it felt a powerful grip on its neck that nearly pulled it to the ground. The Eikon watched as the sword jammed in its neck slowly pulled out and returned to its master’s hand, ripping out a large chunk of the dragon’s neck with it that hit the ground in a solid thud that crushed a building underneath.

The Eikon pitched backwards and fired its engines full blast and took to the skies, leaving Arylos behind with its horde. As it moved to fly higher, it felt something strike it hard, leaving a crater in its armor as it crashed to the ground in a heap. The Eikon struggled to its feet just as a familiar older man in silver armor stained black with soot approached with his sword at the ready.

“You have a lot of nerve coming to a city of dragon killers,” the man said in a mocking voice.

The Eikon laughed as it rose back up and looked towards the man, letting its mechanical eyes focus on him more clearly. “Is that a threat?” the Eikon asked, returning the man’s mocking tone.

“Are you not threatened?” the man asked, lifting his sword to ready himself.

“Would you feel threatened by ants?” the Eikon asked as its laughter continued. “You failed to kill me once; do you really think you can do it again, Mendasar? Or should I call you by your real names; ‘King of the Slaves’, ‘The Broken God’, ‘Lord under the Mountain’.”

Moviron lowered his sword as he began to recognize the Eikon for what it truly is. “Kalndahvok,” Moviron whispered softly as he dropped his sword and backed away, fear beginning to take him.

“There you are,” the mighty dragon returned with an evil laugh that chilled Moviron’s blood. “Even broken slaves still have their use.”

“No, no,” Moviron whispered over and over again as he watched the Eikon get closer. As the Eikon opened its mouth, a bright orange light bathed Moviron as flames gathered in the creature’s mouth. Before the Eikon could attack, a burning sword ran through the creature’s neck, bringing a scream forth from the monster as Arylos ran his sword through the gaping hole in the creature’s neck.

Arylos pulled his sword out and continued attacking the creature, drawing pained screams from the creature as it backpedaled. As the creature turned, its engines spun up again and it launched itself into the sky again. Before it could get too far, Arylos lifted his sword and threw it towards the Eikon. The sword collided with one of the creature’s engines and it blew up in a deafening explosion that blew the engine apart. Arylos and Moviron watched as the screaming creature fell from the sky and landed in the buildings in the horizon.

Arylos turned back towards Moviron and glared at him with his burning eyes. Moviron could see the cracks in his skin widening, showing the orange blood under his skin and coursing through his veins like an ocean’s tide. “You shouldn’t be here; go back to where you are needed,” Arylos said in a deep growl that Moviron struggled to recognize.

“And what about you?” Moviron asked, shaken from his trance by Arylos’s words.

Arylos growled and turned back around to where he could still hear the Eikon and Moviron could see flakes of his skin fall off. “I have a job to finish; I can’t let that thing continue to kill people.”

“It’s Kalndahvok; it’s my responsibility,” Moviron said sternly as he knelt down to pick up his sword.

“Not this time, old friend,” Arylos said in a cautioning voice. “He is now called ‘Vortex’, a Sage.”

“Wait, like that thing you fought in Inamura?” Moviron asked out of concern.

“Only this one won’t be satisfied with just destroying half of the city,” Arylos said in his usual deadpan voice. “The Kalndahvok you know is gone and replaced by Vortex, the ‘Lord of the Burning Sky’ as they call him.”

Moviron turned his gaze upwards to the burning red sky as ash fell in the cold air, a reminder of the life he lived before becoming divine. “And you expect me to hide out in a hole with my people?”

“An Eikon is my responsibility, and mine alone; not even Iris can share that burden,” Arylos said as he rubbed his forearm, flakes of his burning skin falling like ashes of a bonfire. “Is she safe?”

Moviron thought about his words for a moment, wondering what explanation to give the furious Titan. “We parted ways not long before firing those windlances. Since then, I have not seen her.”

Arylos sighed and Moviron could see a light hint of an emotion that faded just as quickly before he could identify it. Arylos then took a deep breath and turned his attention towards where Vortex landed, a soft growling filling the air as he stoked the fires within him. Without another word, he walked forwards towards the crash site with a determined pace.

“Wait, where are you going?” Moviron called out to Arylos.

Arylos turned around and smiled with a smile that told Moviron exactly what Arylos was thinking. “I’m gonna go get my sword back.”