A Journey That Changed The World

The Draconian lifted his head. One eye was swollen shut, the other blazed like a furnace. ”Abandoned?”

A laugh tore out of him, ragged and wet with blood. ”Archer the Great never abandoned a single soul who carried his colors. He pulled my village out of famine when your kind taxed us into the dirt. He broke the slavers’ chains in the south and hanged their lords from their own gatehouses. He gave widows pensions and orphans schools. He walked into plague tents with his own hands when your priests locked the doors and prayed from afar. He stood in the rain with us, shoulder to shoulder, while you counted coins in your warm halls.”

The duke’s face hardened. ”Pretty words for a dying empire.”

The Draconian smiled then, a terrible, bright thing that made the nearest rebels step back. ”Kill me, Leonard. Cut me down right here on the bones of my men. It changes nothing.”

He leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the silent courtyard. ”Because he’s coming. Archer is coming. And when he flies through these lands, he will not come for land or gold. He will come for us. For every name you erased today. And on that day you will learn what it means to be afraid.”

The injured commander tilted his head back, baring his throat, still smiling. ”Do it. Send me to him with your message. He already knows the way.”

The duke raised his sword. The Draconian closed his eyes, and the last sound he made was soft, almost tender. ”For the Emperor.”

When death didn’t come, he opened his eyes only to see the back of a man he respected appeared in his time of need. The emperor turned to him with a smile. ”Well done, Arthur. Now leave the rest to me.”

***

Archer’s hands clamped around the bull-beast’s horn. Veins rose along his forearms as he wrenched. Cartilage tore with a wet pop; the great head came away in a blood geyser that painted the clearing red. He did not roar at first. The sound built inside him, low, grinding, older than language, then detonated outward.

A concussive wave that splintered nearby trunks and sent needles of pine raining from the canopy. Still gripping the severed head by one cracked horn, he spun once and flung it. It arced, trailing blood like a comet’s tail, and struck the front line of the horde with the force of a siege stone. Skulls burst.

Ribcages folded inward. Bodies were hurled backward into their own ranks, limbs tangled, momentum broken. Silence fell, sudden and absolute. Then the kneeling began: a ripple that started at the blood-soaked front and swept rearward through the mass of horn and claw and fang.

One after another, the beasts sank, bellies to the earth, throats offered to the ground in perfect, trembling surrender. In the span of a dozen heartbeats, the wilderness itself seemed to bow. He stood alone amid the ruin, chest heaving, knuckles dripping, the taste of iron thick on his tongue.

Hundreds had come to wake the wrong storm. He had captured even more monsters, shuffling them into the Domain while waiting for the seal to break so he could escape this place.

Archer was having some good sleep, which annoyed him, leaving a red ring of corpses around him and silence where roars had ruled moments before.

”You will serve me from now on as punishment for your brazen attack!” he exclaimed.

Archer opened a portal to the Domain and issued the order. ”Enter and find yourself a new home, now!”

The colossal beasts thundered through the shimmering rift without hesitation, vanishing into the emerald haze of the primordial forest beyond. Archer strode forward, shoulders squared, expecting the same passage. His boot met empty air, then slammed into something harder than adamantine.

Seconds later, the impact jolted up his leg and rattled his bones. He staggered, snarling, and drove a fist forward. It stopped dead inches from the threshold, as though the world itself had solidified into invisible iron. Through the rippling veil, he could see the ancient canopy swaying, smell the wet moss and distant blood.

He could hear the triumphant bellows of the monsters already inside, yet the realm refused him. An unbreakable wall of nothing held him back, sealing the primal wilderness from the one being who had just bent it to his will. Archer stood there, chest heaving, golden eyes blazing at a barrier no claw or fang could mark.

”The damn seal won’t let me escape this place,” he growled. ”At least I can collect more monsters now.”

Right then, a faint whisper brushed his ear, someone calling his name, but Archer just snorted and kept pushing through the dripping, primeval jungle, snatching every damn thing that moved. The first few days were a slaughterfest. After he’d made half the local monster population disappear into his Domain, the rest learned fast.

You’d see a wyvern spot him from a mile off, squeal like a kicked dog, and vanish into the canopy. Didn’t matter. Nothing outran stayed hidden for long when he decided he wanted it. Weeks bled into months. He lived off the land, tamed or broke whatever beasts caught his eye, and murdered any tribal humanoid dumb enough to attack.

All the while, the Dark Gods’ seal inside him kept breaking, thread by thread. Power crept back into his veins like poison he actually welcomed. By the time the sixth month rolled around, the seal was thin enough to snap. Archer grinned, felt space bend to his will again, and ripped open a gate straight back to the Domain.

When he stepped into the treehouse he was flooded by thousands of his peoples voices calling for his help, this sudden influx of emotions overwhlemed him as he called out to the harem through the tattoo. ”What the fuck is going on!”

The ladies went silent as they felt his emotions were spiralling at the attacks, thy decided to let Ella talk first. ‘Arch, don’t lose your temper or get angry but Pluoria is in full rebellion, your father is leading the charge alongside Larka, who abandoned Draconia when news of your vanishing spread around the world.’

Archer lost it, and lost it bad. He teleported to the real world, appearing on Pluoria’s highest mountain, he took a deep breath and let out a enraged roar that the entire world heard, signalling his return but it was a battle in the far distance that caught his attention, every Draconian apart from one was slaughtered.

Without thinking, he teleported to that lone soldier, catching his fathers blade as he stared at the older man with a look that turned Leonard’s blood cold. Archer ignored his father and turned to the soldier who he remembered from his first battles with Draconia. ”Well done, Arthur. Now leave the rest to me.”

Following that, Archer turned back to his father, an evil smile corssing his face as his Dragon eyes glowed with fury. ”You know being my parent won’t save you? Just like that cunt Larka, who I will burn into nothingess for betraying the empire!”

”Don’t speak of your mother like that!” Leonard snapped. ”She’s been through enough!”

Once those words left the older man’s lips, Archer appeared in front of him and punched his father in the chest, a loud clap was heard as he flew into the commanders behind but that was just the start. He slaughtered every rebel soldier, implaining their squirming remains until a feild of staked people coule be seen for miles.

By the time he finished, thousands hung in the air from wood created by him for the purpose of sending a message. Archer glanced at the three survivors and growled. ”Tell every rebel you come across this will be their fate when I capture them.”

The two men and woman nodded like beaten dogs before rushing off as he approached the injured Leonard who was trying to get up but he put a stop to that. He waved his hand, creating stone pillars to destroy his fathers legs, a agony-filled scream ripped through the air thanks to the pain.

Archer waved his hand over the older man, healing him just enough so the rest of the rebel army could see their leaders downfall. While walking toward the camp in the far distance, Agripinna and Brooke materialized beside him, the Elemental beauty spoke first. ”What do you plan on doing with him, husband?”

He didn’t answer but glanced at the brunette whose green eyes were stuck on the screaming mess that was once her son. ”Does it bother you, Brooke? That I’m finally dealing with this idiot father of mine?”

”No, my little light,” she responded, smiling. ”I realized this one always hated me and clearly joined the enemy.”

Agrippina looked shocked at her friends words, causing her to speak up. ”Can’t we just lock him away? It’s your child Brooke.”

”That I was forced to give birth to due to an arranged marriage,” the older woman retorted before turning her gaze in his direction. ”But I’m thankful for it because it brought me to you.”