Rise of the Devourer
Book 4: Chapter 38 — Divine Vessel

The flight across the kingdom's burning landscape was a nightmare of smoke and devastation. From the back of his nightshade wyvern, Noah could see the true scope of the destruction below—entire districts reduced to ash, corrupted creatures roaming the streets, and in the distance, the massive form of the dragon moving with inexorable purpose toward the city's first and strongest layer of defense—the towering walls.

"There!" Kaelan shouted over the wind, pointing toward the outer wall where clusters of people could be seen fleeing in panic. "The civilians need help!"

Averos's voice carried across the wind as his thunder wyvern banked toward the evacuation points. "We’ll handle the rescue operations! You get to that dragon!" As he said so, he gestured for the Royal Guards—as sparse as they are—to follow him.

They needed the numbers, if they wanted to deal with the results of the Watcher’s Night being unleashed so suddenly, if they wanted to save any lives at all.

"Be careful!" Aurelia called back as the wyverns carrying Kaelan's group peeled away, diving toward the chaos below.

Noah urged his wyvern higher, racing toward the colossal dragon that dominated the skyline. But as they approached, his eyes picked up movement that made his blood run cold. The creature wasn't their only problem—it was crawling with defenders.

Lunar cultists covered the dragon's back like parasites, but these weren't the scattered rabble they'd fought in the castle corridors. These were organized, disciplined, and powerful—clearly the leaders and the top brass. Blue-robed figures stood in ritualistic formations along the creature's spine, their staffs glowing with energy. On the dragon's shoulders, cultist leaders in elaborate regalia directed their subordinates with military precision.

"By the gods," Erwest breathed, his face pale as he counted the enemy forces. "There must be dozens of them."

The first attack came without warning. A massive bolt of corrupted lightning erupted from the dragon's back, crackling through the air with enough force to vaporize a building. Noah's nightshade wyvern twisted desperately to avoid it, the bolt passing so close that Noah could feel his hair standing on end from the residual energy.

Suddenly the sky erupted with hostile magic. Cultists all along the dragon's form began casting in unison, their spells weaving together into a deadly formation of destruction. Bolts of necrotic energy lanced through the air like black lightning. Spheres of concentrated corruption expanded outward, seeking to engulf anything living. Chains of shadow materialized from nothing, lashing out to entangle the wyverns and drag them down.

These lunar cultists seemed more than ready to tap into the powers of the void to assist them, and when they did… They became even more deadly.

His nightshade wyvern was already moving before he could say anything to help guide it, its instincts taking over.

The creature dove and rolled through the magical bombardment with lethal grace, each attack almost seeming to cling to its form and before it slipped away between gaps that were razor thin. But there were too many spells, too many angles of attack. A bolt of corrupted ice clipped the wyvern's wing, sending them into a spinning dive that they only managed to recover from when Aurelia used her flames to melt the ice.

Aurelia and Vyxirax, too, weren't faring much better—any lapse of attention on her part, even just to help Noah or Erwest, was proving lethal. The massive rocky wyvern was tougher but less agile, and several necrotic bolts had already struck its armored hide. Aurelia was channeling her flames to burn away the corruption before it could take hold, but Noah could see the strain on her face, and the pained howls of Vyxirax rang out every few seconds as she did so.

Before he could think of a way to help her, Erwest's frost wyvern shrieked as a chain of shadow wrapped around its leg, the corrupted magic beginning to spread like gangrene across its ice-blue scales. The paladin raised his sword to sever the chain, but more were already forming, reaching out from multiple cultists working in coordination.

"We can't get through!" Aurelia shouted over the chaos, ducking as another wave of spells filled the air around them. "There are too many!"

As if it wasn’t enough, that's when Noah saw them. Climbing onto the dragon's head were three figures whose very presence made the air around them distort. Cultist leaders, each one radiating enough dark energy that even the dragon’s fossilized skin began to darken on the places they stepped. They didn’t cast direct attack spells like their subordinates. Instead, they began weaving something far more complex and deadly.

The leader in the center, raised a staff crowned with a pulsing crystal. The other two flanked him, their own implements glowing with sickly colors as they chanted words that Noah could hear, despite being this far away. The spell they were creating wasn't aimed at Noah or his companions—it was targeting the sky itself.

"What are they—" Noah began, but his question was answered as reality began to tear above them.

A light white rift opened in the heavens, not the controlled portal of a skilled mage, but a jagged wound in space that bled corruption into the world. From within the rift, things began to emerge—creatures in shades that ranged from white to black, spirits to demons to horrors that merged both. A horrific mix of lunar and void cult spells, one that was a pain to deal with.

A pain they could not currently afford.

All of them spread their wings and dove toward the wyverns with inhuman shrieks. It’d not take much to separate Noah's group and drive them into the waiting spells of the cultists below.

"This is impossible," Erwest said, his voice tight with strain as he fought to keep his wyvern airborne while fending off both demons and cultist magic with his holy magic. "We'll never get through all of this."

Noah was about to reply when he saw something in the paladin's eyes—not defeat, but grim determination. Erwest's hand moved to his chest, as he closed his eyes.

"Noah," Erwest said, his voice carrying a finality that made Noah's heart clench. "When I give the signal, you fly straight for that gap in the dragon's neck. Don't look back, don't hesitate. Just go."

"What are you—"

"Hellion," Erwest interrupted, his voice rising above the chaos of battle, "I call upon our sacred covenant. I offer myself as your vessel, that justice might be done and the innocent protected."

The transformation was immediate and terrifying. Light erupted from Erwest's form—not the gentle glow of healing magic, but the blazing radiance of divine judgment made manifest. His armor began to change, shifting from simple steel to something that looked forged from starlight itself. Wings of pure light spread from his shoulders, and when he opened his eyes, they burned with the white fire of absolute justice.

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The goddess had answered his call.

Erwest—or rather, the divine being that now inhabited his form—spoke with a voice that carried the weight of law. "In the name of justice, let the corruption be cleansed."

He leapt from his wyvern, divine light burning behind him as he dove toward the dragon's back. The cultists' spells struck him and simply evaporated, unable to exist in the presence of such pure divine energy.

The first cultist leader never had time to react. Erwest's sword—now a blade of crystallized divine will—cleaved through both the leader's staff and his body in a single stroke. The dark crystal atop the staff shattered, sending shockwaves that staggered dozens of lesser cultists.

But there were still dozens of them, and now they all turned their attention to the divine avatar in their midst.

Dark and light spells erupted from every direction, a concentrated barrage of corruption that should have been able to fell even a minor deity. Erwest raised his free hand, and a barrier of pure light sprang into existence around him. The cultists' magic struck the barrier and was not just blocked—it was converted, transformed into more divine energy that made Erwest's radiance burn even brighter.

"Impossible," one of the remaining cultist leaders snarled, his voice carrying harmonics of the abyss. "No mortal vessel can channel that much divine power!"

Erwest's response was to point his sword at the speaker. A lance of light erupted from the blade, crossing the distance between them in an instant. The cultist leader raised his own defenses—barriers, both lunar and void, both physical and nonphysical, but.

The divine light went through them like they were made of paper.

All the cultist leader could do was scream as he was cut into pieces.

While Erwest carved a path of destruction through the cultists' ranks, Aurelia wasn't idle. She could see that even with the goddess's power, Erwest would not be able to get through dozens of enemies. The divine energy was incredible, but it was burning through his mortal form like fire through paper. He needed support.

"Vyxirax!" she shouted to her wyvern. "Get me closer!"

The massive rocky creature responded by diving toward the dragon's back, its stone-like hide absorbing the cultists' attacks while Aurelia prepared her own assault, channeling everything within her, focusing, concentrating.

She leaped from Vyxirax's back while they were still fifty feet above the dragon, her body wreathed in flames that were so hot and pure that even the cultists’ spells simply burned away when they got close to her body—and unfortunately for them, Aurelia was getting closer and closer.

Aurelia hit the dragon's back like a meteor, her impact creating a crater in the corrupted scales. The cultists closest to her landing point simply disintegrated, their robes and flesh unable to withstand the purifying heat of her enhanced flames.

"Come on then!" she roared, her voice carrying across the battlefield as her aura of ash and ember expanded outward. "Who wants to burn?"

The cultists' response was immediate and overwhelming. Dozens of them turned their attention to her, weaving every spell they could manage to take her down. But if there was at least one thing she’d learnt from Noah—it was that sometimes the best defense was overwhelming offense.

She moved like wildfire given form, leaving trails of purifying flame that burned weaker cultists in their wake, and using her fists like hammers to get rid of the ones that were stronger. A cultist tried to grab her with his chains—and he was successful—but Aurelia simply grabbed them directly, ignoring how they began decomposing her flesh despite the protection of her fire, and dragged.

He came flying towards her, and his flesh burnt away into ash a second later.

But for every cultist she destroyed, two more seemed to take their place. Dark and lunar filled the air around her, forcing her to constantly move, constantly fight, constantly burn. She could feel her strength beginning to ebb, her berserker abilities pushed to their absolute limit.

That's when she heard Erwest's voice, carrying across the battlefield with divine authority: "Aurelia! The ritual circle on the dragon's head! They're trying to complete something!"

She looked up to see what he meant and felt her blood turn to ice. The remaining cultist leaders had given up on attacking Erwest directly and were instead focusing on a massive magical formation carved into the dragon's skull—clearly to fill the hole in its neck, to prevent Noah from being able to enter.

Dark energy poured into the circle from dozens of lesser cultists, and as it filled, the dragon’s flesh began to knit.

"Noah!" Aurelia screamed, looking up to see her friend still circling overhead, waiting for an opening that might never come. "You have to go now! We can't hold them much longer!"

But even as she spoke, the sky around Noah erupted with renewed fury. The cultists had given up on taking both of them down and hence began dealing with the true threat—every spell, every demon, every ounce of their remaining power was being directed at preventing him from reaching the dragon.

Bolts of corrupted energy filled the air like a deadly storm. Noah's nightshade wyvern twisted and dove with desperate skill, but there were too many attacks coming from too many angles. A sphere of necrotic energy clipped the wyvern's tail, sending them into a spiral that nearly ended with both rider and mount plummeting to their deaths—if not for Noah using his blood to heal his wyvern successfully.

"I can't get through!" Noah shouted, his voice barely audible over the chaos. "There's too much—"

His words were cut off as Erwest's divine form suddenly appeared in the sky above him, wings of light spread wide as he positioned himself between Noah and the worst of the cultist barrage. The goddess's power flowed through him like a river of starlight, creating a barrier that absorbed or deflected the incoming spells.

"Go!" Erwest commanded, his divine voice carrying absolute authority. "I'll clear the path!"

What followed was a display of power that was worthy of being remembered in songs for generations. Erwest raised his sword toward the heavens, and light erupted from the blade in a column that pierced the clouds themselves. The divine energy actively sought out and destroyed the cultists' magic, unraveling their spells before they could fully form, incinerating cultists in streaks of white.

But Noah could see the cost. Even empowered by the goddess herself, Erwest was beginning to ooze blood. His armor was beginning to crack, leaking light along with his blood, and his movements were becoming increasingly desperate.

This was their only chance.

Noah urged his nightshade wyvern forward, racing through the corridor of divine light that Erwest was maintaining through sheer will. The dragon's massive head loomed before them, its maw opening to reveal a throat that glowed like the heart of a volcano.

The roar that emerged wasn't just sound—flames erupted from the dragon's throat in a stream of white-hot death, a torrent of fire that could have melted mountains. The heat was so intense that the air around the flames itself could melt people, creating a wall of flame that stretched across the sky.

Noah's nightshade wyvern reacted at the last moment, folding its wings and diving, dropping like to escape the worst of the flames. But even its speed wasn't enough to completely avoid the dragon's breath. The edges of Noah's cloak began to smolder, and he could feel the heat searing his skin even through his enhanced constitution.

He kept his eyes focused towards the goal—the gap in the dragon's neck where corrupted scales had been absent, revealing the pulsing black ‘flesh’ beneath. It was barely large enough for a person to fit through now, with the cultists doing their best to cover it, and it would only be accessible for seconds as the dragon's head moved.

"Now!" Noah roared, and his wyvern understood immediately.

They shot forward with a burst of speed that made the world blur around them. The gap rushed toward them, growing larger but also moving as the dragon's massive neck shifted. Noah could see corrupted ichor that formed the flesh drip out of the hole, practically taste it—

Behind him, he could hear Aurelia screaming as the cultists overwhelmed her position, even as she burned them away, even as there were only a handful of them left, and Erwest's divine light beginning to flicker as the goddess's power reached the limits of what his mortal form could contain.

At the last possible moment, as the gap began to narrow again, Noah leaped. Tony!

Master! Tony responded instantly to his need, the symbiotic parasite extending tendrils that formed into wings—the wings gave him just enough control to angle his dive perfectly, threading the needle through the closing gap.

He hit the inner wall of the dragon's throat and immediately activated his runic chains, the metallic tendrils digging into the corrupted flesh to anchor him in place. The interior of the beast was a nightmare of white and black flesh and fossilized skin, lit by an eerie bioluminescence that cast everything in sickly greens and purples.

Behind him, through the gap that was already beginning to seal, he caught one last glimpse of his friends. The last three cultists were attacking Erwest and Aurelia in a suicide attack, and even Erwest's divine form was beginning to collapse, he still cut them into pieces, Aurelia using her flames to burn at them even as she swayed on her feet, looking barely conscious.

Noah grit his teeth. They had given everything to get him this far. Now it was up to him to make their sacrifice worthwhile.