Chapter 137: 137. Gornak, The Lich

The call came as they were preparing to leave Drak’thar.

Owen had been in the Hatchery, watching the first light of new eggs form in their nests, when Leah’s roar tore through the dimensional pocket. He found her in the courtyard with her claws digging trenches into stone.

“It’s Sael,” she said. Her voice was barely controlled. “The beastfolk continent. There’s a demon general. He’s been there for weeks. While we were in the dungeon, while we were hunting Malachar, while we were doing everything except watching our own lands.”

Owen’s blood went cold. “What!?”

“The Pride-Mother has been holding him off. The other clans too. But they’re losing. They’ve been losing since we left.” Her amber eyes met his. “We have to go back. Now.”

—

They flew without stopping.

Owen pushed his juvenile form harder than he’d ever pushed it, his wings beating against the air barrier, his mana reserves draining faster than they could recover. Behind him, Leah clung to his scales, her face turned toward the horizon where smoke was already visible.

The Auric Savanna was burning.

They had crossed into beastfolk airspace at dusk, expecting to see the usual scatter of village lights, the distant fires of hunting camps, the warm glow of a continent at peace. Instead, they saw a wound. Fires stretched from the central plains to the eastern mountains. The capital was dark. The Pride-Mother’s territory was a scar of ash and ember.

“We …should have stayed,” Owen said. His voice was raw. “After Azmireth. After the second dungeon. I should have stayed and made sure there weren’t more of them.”

“There were always going to be more.” Leah’s voice was steady, but her claws were digging into his scales. “You couldn’t have known. None of us could.”

“I could….I could… have looked. could… have searched some more…Instead, I left. I took you with me to chase fragments while your people were dying.”

“You didn’t take me. I chose to go.” She leaned forward, her breath warm against his neck. “And I’d choose it again. The fragments matter. Drak’thar matters. What we’re building matters. My mother understood that. She was the one who told us to go.”

“And now she’s fighting alone.”

“She’s not alone.” Leah’s voice hardened. “She’s Pride-Mother. She’s been fighting her whole life with the pack. She doesn’t break.”

The fires grew closer.

—

The Auric Savanna was burning.

They crossed into beastfolk airspace at dawn, expecting to see the usual scatter of village lights, the distant fires of hunting camps. Instead, they saw a wound. Fires stretched from the central plains to the eastern mountains. The capital was dark. The Pride-Mother’s territory was a scar of ash and ember.

And there, where Vashari had stood, was something else.

A fortress of black bone rose from the ruins, its walls pulsing with sickly purple light. Skeletons moved along its parapets—beastfolk skeletons, dwarf skeletons, the remains of everything the demon had killed and raised. The air stank of death and corruption.

“That’s… new” Leah breathed.

“Necromancy!” Owen said. He could feel the demon now, a presence like cold water seeping into his mana sense, spreading, consuming.

They found Sael at the fortress’s edge.

The Pride-Mother had dug in where the council hall used to be, her warriors holding a thin line of rubble against waves of undead that seemed endless. Her mane was dirtied and Her armor was cracked and yet Her amber eyes held the same fire Leah’s had when Owen first found her in Eckstein’s dungeon.

She stood at the front of her line, a spear in each hand, killing anything that came within reach.

“Mother!” Leah transformed mid-leap, landing beside Sael in a shower of golden light.

The Pride-Mother’s expression flickered—relief, grief, something that might have been pride—before settling into the same prideful expression she normal has. “You came back.”

“Yes mother. We retrieved the final fragment and now, We have come to fight.”

“You should have stayed with the fragment. You should have—”

“We’re here, already!.” Leah’s voice was iron. ” And We’re staying. Now tell us what we’re fighting.”

Sael looked at Owen. “Gornak. He emerged from the eastern mountains three weeks ago. He’s a lich, a necromancer. He doesn’t fight himself. He raises the dead. Every warrior we lose becomes his soldier. Every village he burns adds to his army.”

“Damn, a lich? Isn’t he basically immortal since we have no holy attacks?” Owen asked.

“No. Young dragon. His core. Liches bind their life force to a physical object. Destroy it, and he dies.” She pointed at the fortress. “His core is in there. Somewhere. I think. We’ve been trying to reach it for three weeks. We’ve lost a lot of folks already”

“And the other clans?”

“The Ironmane fell back to their holds. The Dusk Claw are fighting a holding action on the coast.” Her jaw tightened. “We’re the only ones still in the field. We’ve been buying time. Waiting for you to succeed in the third dungeon.”

Leah stepped forward. “We’re here now. What do you need?”

Sael looked at her daughter. At the transformation she wore like a second skin. At the dragon who’d flown her across an ocean.

“An opening,” she said. “Gornak doesn’t come out of that fortress. He sends his army to do his fighting. If we’re going to reach his core, we need someone to punch through his defenses. Someone whose power he can’t ignore.”

Owen understood. “He’ll come for me. A dragon carrying Dominus’s and Vorthraxx’s blood? He’ll want my core. He’ll want to present it to Vorthraxx when the Desecrator returns.”

“You’ll be bait then” Leah said.

“Yeah, I’ll be the worm on the hook for the big fish to bite on.” Owen met her eyes. “Can you find the core if I draw him out?”

Leah’s jaw tightened. She looked at Sael—at the exhausted warriors, the burning capital, the fortress of bones rising where her home used to be.

“I’ll find it,” she said. “Just keep him busy.”

—

Owen flew alone.

He circled the fortress once. Twice. Let his scales catch the firelight, let his shadow fall across the bone-white walls, let every undead creature in the valley see what was coming.

The fortress shuddered.

A rift tore open at its base, and Gornak emerged.

He wasn’t like Azmireth. He wasn’t like Malachar. He was something older, vastly not humanoid with a purple skin, something that had been dead longer than it had been alive. His body was skeletal beneath robes of blackened stitched flesh. His eyes were points of purple fire in hollow sockets. His hands, visible at the ends of too-long sleeves, were nothing but bone.

But when he spoke, his voice was smooth. Cultured. Almost kind.

“The Dragon King’s heir, the master’s brother…” He spread his arms. “I’ve heard so much about you. Azmireth spoke of your fire. Malachar wailed of your determination. The Desecrator himself has mentioned you in his commands.”

Owen landed fifty meters from the demon. “Didn’t know I’m so famous.”

“Hmm, yes little celebrity” Gornak gestured at the fortress, the army, the burning savanna. “The seal on the demon continent weakens slowly and i have emerged. No army. No support. Just myself and my arts.” He smiled, a rictus of bone and shadow. “And Look what I’ve built.”

“You’ve built a graveyard.”

“Yes. And soon, you’ll be part of it.”

He raised his hands and the earth erupted.

Skeletons clawed their way out of the ground, They came by the hundreds, then thousands, forming ranks, raising weapons, marching toward the dragon who’d dared to challenge their master.

Fwoosh!

Owen breathed fire.

The first wave of skeletons were incinerated. The second wave stepped over their ashes. The third wave kept coming.

He used his Sovereignty of Space-Time to slow them, freeze them, push them back. But for every skeleton he destroyed, two more rose. Gornak wasn’t just raising the dead, he was creating them. Pulling bones from the earth, from the ruins, from the very ash that coated the savanna.

“You can’t win…” Gornak called. “Every skeleton you down is rejuvenated in this sea of bones. Every moment you fight, my army grows. That’s the beauty of death, young dragon. It always wins.”

At this moment, Owen stopped fighting the army. He flew straight at Gornak.

The demon’s eyes flared. He raised a wall of bone and Owen tore through it. He summoned spirits to drag him down, but Owen burned them. He reached for the death that lived in every creature, tried to claw at Owen’s heart with Miasma from a distance….but wasn’t successful

Because Owen was already there. His claws closed around Gornak’s throat. His fire built in his chest.

“Your army doesn’t matter,” Owen said. “Your fortress doesn’t matter. You’re the core. Without you, all of this falls.”

Gornak laughed. “You think I’d be stupid enough to carry my heart into battle?”

“No. But your heart is in there.” Owen nodded toward the fortress. “And while you’ve been playing with me, someone else has been looking for it.”

—

Inside the fortress, Leah ran.

She had shed her transformation since it was too big and too visible. She moved through corridors of bones as she’d once moved through the savanna, hunting. Her mother’s warriors followed, silent, deadly, killing anything that rose to stop them.

Gornak had hidden his core well. At the fortress’s heart, behind walls of fused bone, behind traps that killed the first two scouting parties, behind a giant bone structured door.

Leah found it. A sphere of black crystal, pulsing with the same purple fire as Gornak’s eyes, suspended above a pit filled with the remains of everything he’d killed.

She raised her claws. Her transformation blazed.

And she struck.

—

The fortress shuddered.

Gornak’s grip on Owen’s arm loosened. His eyes flickered.

“No—” he breathed. “My…My heart—”

Leah struck again.

The crystal cracked.

Gornak screamed, a petrifying screech, it wasn’t a sound that should exist in a world that still had hope. His army froze. The skeletons that had been marching toward Owen crumbled to dust. The fortress began to collapse.

Owen held him. Watched the light fade from his eyes.

“You lose, Lich” Owen said. “Death doesn’t always win.”

Gornak’s face twisted. “The Desecrator will return…. He will find you… He will Purge his world and from it’s ashes ..he will….”

“He will do what he always does. Fight. Lose. Fall.” Owen tightened his grip. “And this time, there won’t be anyone left to raise him.”

He let go and Gornak fell.

—

The battle was over.

Owen found Leah in the ruins of the fortress, standing over the shattered remains of Gornak’s core. Her transformation had faded. Her hands were bleeding. But she was alive.

He moved beside her. And They walked out together.

Outside, Sael was already organizing her warriors, directing them toward the wounded, the survivors, the long work of rebuilding. She looked at her daughter—covered in ash and blood, still standing—and something in her face softened.

Sael nodded as she looked at Owen. Then She turned back to her people.

“Now help us rebuild.”

—

Owen helped clear rubble, bury the dead, tend the wounded. He used what little healing he could spare, gave what comfort he could offer. Leah moved among her people, speaking to families who’d lost everything, warriors who’d lost friends, children who’d lost parents.

On the next day, a messenger arrived from the elven-dwarven borderlands.

“Another demon, it is moving faster than we expected. Yuki’s team needs support.”

Owen looked at Leah. “Do you want to stay?”

She looked at her mother. At her people. At the long road of rebuilding.

“No,” she said. “They’ll handle it. And when they’re done, we’ll handle the next one. And the one after that.”

Owen transformed then She climbed onto his back.

Behind them, Sael watched them go.

The Auric Savanna was burning. But it was also, slowly, healing. And in the ruins of the fortress, the remains of Gornak’s core crumbled to dust.

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