Chapter 133: 133. Heaven’s Wrath

They had hours to prepare again, it wasn’t enough.

The wounded were moved to the deep shelters. The dead were left where they fell—there was no time for honors, no time for pyres, no time for anything but survival. Dwarven engineers reinforced the walls. Elven mages layered every defensive enchantment they knew. Druids coaxed new growth from the battlefield’s blood-soaked earth, creating barriers of thorns and thicket.

Fairies scattered across the plains, watching, waiting, counting.

The count came back grim.

“The celestial army will be here before dawn,” Asteria reported, her tiny form hovering before the war council. “They’ve accelerated their march. They know we’re weakened.”

“How many?” Chronara asked.

“More than we can fight. More than we can count.” The fairy queen’s usual sharp smile was gone. “They’ve brought everything. The Arbiter’s chosen. Angelic hosts. Beings of pure light that I haven’t seen since the beginning.” She paused. “And the humans march with them now. The crusade joined forces with the celestials three hours ago. They’re coming as one.”

The chamber fell silent.

Zephron stood…or tried to. His wounds had been bandaged, but he moved like someone held together by will alone. “Then we fight. What else is there?”

“You can’t fight.” Verida’s voice was harsh. “Look at you. Look at all of us. We’re exhausted. Depleted. We have maybe a hundred dragons left who can still fly.”

“Then a hundred dragons will fly.”

“And die.”

“Better than hiding.”

Chronara raised her staff. “Enough.” Her voice cut through the argument. “We don’t have time for pride or despair. The celestials will be here in hours. We need a plan.”

They found one. Barely.

The dwarves would hold the walls—their heaviest infantry, their sturdiest shields, their most durable formations. The elves would provide supporting fire from the ridges. The druids would use the terrain itself as a weapon, creating obstacles, traps, killing grounds. The fairies would harry the celestials’ flanks, forcing them to divide attention.

And the dragons—what remained of them—would meet the angelic host in the sky. Would buy time for the others to retreat when the line broke. Because the line would break. Everyone knew it.

“We’re not retreating,” Borin growled. “Dwarves don’t retreat.”

“You’ll retreat if I order it.” Chronara’s voice allowed no argument. “The deep shelters can hold everyone. If we fall, if Drak’thar falls, you go underground. You seal the doors. You wait.”

“For what?”

“For…..” She paused and didn’t explain further. Couldn’t. The futures she saw were too dark, too uncertain.

Owen watched from the edge, still witness, still recording. He’d filled pages of mental notes—names, faces, moments of courage and grief. He knew most of these people would be dead by tomorrow. Knew that the world they were fighting for would be reshaped beyond recognition.

But he watched anyway. Because someone had to remember.

—

Dawn came.

The celestials crested the horizon not as an army, but as light. Pure, blinding, unbearable light. It spilled over the plains like liquid fire, consuming shadows, erasing darkness, leaving nothing but radiance in its wake.

And within that light, shapes moved.

Angels. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Their wings were blades. Their eyes were flames. Their voices were choruses that spoke directly to the soul, demanding submission, promising judgment.

At their front rode beings that dwarfed the angels: archangels, perhaps, or something older. Each one carried a weapon of pure light, and where those weapons pointed, reality itself seemed to flinch.

Behind them, marching in disciplined ranks, came the human crusade. Knights in gleaming armor. Priests bearing holy symbols. Mages wreathed in protective blessings. They sang hymns as they marched, their voices joining the celestial chorus in terrible harmony.

The allied forces watched them come.

Elven archers nocked arrows that would pass through angelic forms like mist. Dwarven warriors gripped axes that couldn’t wound light. Druids called on powers that flickered and dimmed in the celestial presence.

And the dragons—the remaining hundred—spread their wings and rose to meet heaven.

—

Zephron led them.

His wounds didn’t matter. His exhaustion didn’t matter. He flew at the front, lightning crackling from his good hand, his voice roaring challenges at the approaching host.

“FOR DRAK’THAR! FOR EVERY DRAGON WHO’S FALLEN! FOR EVERYONE WHO STOOD WITH US!”

The dragons answered.

They hit the celestial line like a storm.

Fire met light. Claws met blades. Dragon roars mixed with angelic choruses in a sound that defied description. The sky itself seemed to break apart, reality straining under the collision of powers that shouldn’t exist together.

Zephron carved through angel after angel, his lightning finding hearts of pure radiance, his claws tearing wings that were made of light. But for every angel he killed, two more took its place. For every step forward, he was pushed back.

Behind him, dragons fell.

One by one, they dropped from the sky like flies—not screaming, not dying, just ceasing. Angelic weapons didn’t kill like normal weapons. They unmade them. Erased them beyond regeneration or healing. Left nothing behind.

Owen watched from the walls, his Dragon’s Eye tracking every fall. Young dragons who’d barely lived. Old dragons who’d survived centuries. All gone.

The dwarven lines broke.

Not because the dwarves failed but because celestial power didn’t care about shields or courage or stone. Angels walked through walls. Passed through armor. Touched dwarven hearts with fingers of light, and dwarves simply… stopped.

Borin Ironfoot roared defiance until the end. His axe swung at an archangel, passed through its form without resistance, and then the archangel’s hand touched his chest. He fell unconscious.

The elven archers fired volley after volley, but their arrows passed through angelic forms like light through glass. Sylnara ordered a retreat, but there was nowhere to retreat to. The celestials were everywhere.

Druids transformed into beasts of claw and fang, but celestial light burned through their shapes, forced them back into mortal forms, left them vulnerable and screaming. Elder Mosswood was fatally wounded trying to protect a grove of wounded. Caelen dragged his body away, tears streaming down his face.

Owen understood why the druid from before was wary of him now.

Fairies flickered and died in swarms, their tiny forms no match for the overwhelming radiance.

And in the sky, Zephron fought on alone.

The dragons were gone. All of them. A hundred had risen; zero remained. Only Zephron still flew, still fought, still refused to fall.

An archangel met him at the battle’s peak.

“Submit,” it commanded. “Your kind is finished. Your king is broken. Your world will be purified.”

Zephron laughed. Blood dripped from a hundred wounds. His lightning had faded to sparks.

“My kind…” he said, “…does not submit!”

He dove straight at the archangel.

Their collision lit the sky like a second sun. Lightning and light merged, expanded, consumed everything in a radius of a thousand meters.

When it faded, both were gone.

—

The line broke.

What remained of the allied forces retreated in chaos. Dwarves carrying wounded elves. Druids dragging fallen comrades. Fairies herding survivors toward the deep shelters.

Chronara stood at the shelter entrance, counting as they passed. Counting the living. Mourning the dead.

Verida appeared at her side, her grounded wing dragging, her toxic aura barely visible. “Zephron?”

“Gone.”

“And the others?”

“Mostly gone.” Chronara’s voice was steady, but her hands trembled. “We lost. We lost everything.”

Below, in the deep shelters, the last survivors huddled in darkness. Hatchlings clutched their mothers. Dragons who couldn’t fight, wouldn’t fight, would never fight again.

And above, on the surface, the celestials gathered. They had won. Drak’thar was theirs.

But Chronara could feel it now, a pressure building. Something vast and ancient stirring in the depths of reality.

The Will was waking.

And when it did, none of this would matter.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep