He saw it long before he heard it coming.
The earth at his feet simply
shattered, as scales of whitest marble rose like a tide, upturning the earth at his feet and then some, extending for hundreds of miles in all directions. Kouri had to hang on for dear life as Tenrof fixed himself to the white surface, reaching out to grasp
Kthell by her belly and pulling her into his side. The white ground continued to rise, enough he could spy the boats along the far river like how
humans view ants on the ground. He could see people disembarking, approaching with speed from those vessels.
Quite dramatic for an entrance. If he could imitate sarcasm, it would be oozing from every word. At his current height, everything was disappointingly small.
The roar that sounded afterwards was powerful in its sheer auditory scale, a wall of sound and air slamming into him hard enough to destabilize his position. But with a mighty stomp he hung on, the action not even registering due to the size and strength of the scales. This time he would not fall, even as the ground further upturned and split open, the gargantuan tail flexing to its full length, an endless line of white scale and spine. He would think, and the World would
comply. He would not fall.
And with a subtle shift, his will was made manifest upon the World. A minor alteration, and unfortunately, what he could expect at his current capabilities.
Turning behind him, to where he supposed was the remaining body of the beast before him, he identified the entity as a dragon. He had been... partly right. Originally he had guessed it had been daemons of
Pandemonium, or perhaps even other cosmic horrors that ravaged the world when it was young. Horrors sealed away in the Golden Age. Not by his hand, but he had encountered such entities while he would journey through the Beyond. But this... he did not expect a dragon of such size and scale. Compared to it, mountains were but
dwarves, and its own kin would be whelps.
A World Wyrm, he'd title it. For it was certainly large enough. Poor Kouri.
He had underestimated something for the first time. The only loss was the lack of ground and footing, but they were solved. He paused as the motions at his feet grew subtle, enough for him to examine what he stood on.
What he saw, only solidified his thoughts.
'Underestimated indeed. For one of such size, such seals would have to be absolute.'
He had been looking at the magic which concealed the seals of this creature, When the entity he sensed and whispered that accused epithet had been chained beneath locks that were near-absolute in their bindings. Only broken during auspicious events, such as the aligning of stars of today. Either this entity had been sealed in the hopes a future civilization could rise up to the challenge, or hope it was permanent.
He guessed the latter. What could any imagine of feeling when matched against this entity but despair? Desperation? Even he, a being of cold logic, could only envision himself retreating against something of this scale... as he was now. However, he would not take that option yet. The creature was not worth the effort, and he had survived far, far worse. So now he searched for an alternative, and it did not take long for him to find. Looking down the dragon's tail, he spied the cracked remains of a structure he surmised as an instrument for reading the stars. A mere dot, at his current height and position. One he could cover in a minute's time.
Then he looked straight down, through the scales, flesh, and bone, to the dark lands in the earth. Two paths, two choices. But time was short. The dragon may have stopped in its tracks, but there was no telling when it would move again.
And there was still how this entity had spoken that title... it was one streaked in blood. Ten thousand years of war in a single night, with enough bodies to build mountains and so much blood it drowned oceans. It was ancient enough to have seen the
Age of Wonders pass, for sure. If this dragon had any sort of lucidity, he would question it. For now...
"Young Kouri, where shall we go?"
The spirit, still trembling with fear, he calmed with strokes to the head and back, comforting it with his stone-like touch. It gazed into his lone eye, and seemed to come to an answer, trembles slowing to a rise of breath. Tenrof, reflecting on its birth, felt it was... miscalculated. He had expected the dark to remain beneath in the depths, but clearly it chose otherwise. Nevertheless, this was the age he had chosen, and he would do its best to ensure it could survive. Whatever it took, save his own restrictions.
The spirit guardian pointed down. Straight down.
Very well.
"We shall descend into the pits where this dragon came, Kthell. Perhaps in the defunct chains that bound this creature we can find a way around your own bonds."
He dislodged from the dragon's thigh, and fell straight for the abyss beneath that awaited them, with only his own eye and Kouri's feeble light to guide the way.
