Shadow Monarch in DC

Chapter 506 506: A Message for the Shadow Monarch

The sky had become a tomb.Once, it had been blue, soft and endless, the kind of sky that poets wrote about and painters tried desperately to capture. Now it was red, orange, black, a bruised and bleeding canvas painted by dragon fire that had fallen like divine judgment. The flames had consumed everything, the meadow, the flowers, the simple house that had stood for centuries, all ash. All memory, all gone.

Dragons filled the sky.

They were not the dragons of myth, their scales were the color of cooling magma, their eyes burned with the same fire that had reduced a world to cinders. They wheeled and circled above the burning landscape, their roars shaking the mountains, their wings casting shadows that stretched for miles.

And at the center of them, one dragon descended, he was massive, larger than the others, older than the others, he crashed into the ground with the force of an asteroid, sending shockwaves across the charred earth, the flames parted around it, bowing to their master.

The dragon shifted, scales receded, wings folded, the massive form compressed, reshaped, condensed into a smaller shape, a humanoid. The Dragon Monarch stood in the center of the crater his landing had created, one hand pressed against his chest, blood, thick and dripping from his lips.

He coughed. "What a tough bastard," he said to himself.

His voice was strained, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His armor, that beautiful, scale-like armor was cracked and broken in a dozen places. His red hair, usually immaculate, hung in tangled strands across his face. His dragon eyes, flickered with exhaustion.

But he was standing, he had won.

He walked slowly across the broken ground, his footsteps leaving imprints in the ash. The flames parted around him. He passed through the wreckage of what had once been a meadow, past the smoking remains of a house that had known peace, toward the shattered mountain range that had been the site of the final battle.

Smoke and fire curled from the mountains, the ground was still hot, so hot that it glowed in places, the rock itself melted and reformed in grotesque shapes. At the center of the devastation, half-buried in rubble, a man lay.

Destruction of the Endless.

He was on his back, his arms spread wide, his eyes open to the burning sky, his body was broken, so broken that it was a miracle he still breathed, still lived, still was. Blood pooled beneath him, his face was peaceful, almost serene, as if he had finally found the rest he had been seeking for so long.

The Dragon Monarch stopped a few meters away, he looked down at the fallen Endless with something that might have been respect.

"Your tricks," he said, his voice carrying across the burning silence, "your magic, your power... all of it is useless against me." He wiped the blood from his lips. "You are weak, you are not exactly 'Endless.' You die. Just like everything else in this universe."

Destruction's eyes flickered toward the voice.

His lips moved, his voice was barely a whisper.

"Elder... sister..."

The Dragon Monarch's brow furrowed.

"Elder sister?" He looked around, his dragon eyes scanning the burning landscape, then his gaze settled on a point in the air, where reality seemed to... act weird.

"Oh," the Dragon Monarch said, his voice flat. "Her."

Death of the Endless stepped out of the space. She appeared beside her brother, and she knelt beside him, her hand was gentle resting on his chest, her face was calm, but her kind eyes held a sorrow that words could never capture.

"Rest, little brother," she said softly.

Destruction looked up at her, his smile was faint.

"I failed, I always knew I would..." he said. "In the end, I still fell victim to my own role." He paused, his voice growing weaker. "To what I personify. Destruction... it was never something I chose, it was something I simply was. And in the end, it consumed me."

Death shook her head.

"Everything has an end," she said. "You fulfilled your part. Now rest and let me guide you."

Destruction's eyes closed, his breathing slowed. His body, the body that had once held the concept of annihilation, the body that had stood against the Dragon Monarch and fought him to almost a standstill, began to fade.

His form dissolved like dust in the wind, scattering across the burning ground, returning to the nothing from which all things came.

A single tear traced a path down Death's cheek.

She rose and her eyes found the Dragon Monarch.

He stood watching her, his expression calm, predatory, interested. His body was broken, his armor cracked, his blood still dripping onto the ash. But his eyes held no fear of her.

"I already got what I wanted, but," he said. "Do you wish to stand in my way as well?"

Death studied him, the flames around them flickered, casting shadows across her face.

"Even in your current state," she said, her voice soft, "you wish to destroy more? You bring shame to that concept. One that you do not understand very well."

Her arms crossed.

"Besides, I do not fight, I simply guide endings. And here, I am just doing my job, guiding my brother's."

The Dragon Monarch's smile was thin, almost pitying.

"What a sad existence," he said. "You Endless are all the same, bound by rules that no one imposed. Chained by responsibilities that no one asked you to carry."

He took a step forward, a single step, costing him more strength than he would ever admit.

"As for my current state," he continued, "you do not have to worry about me, worry about yourself. And the Shadow Monarch." His eyes gleamed. "I can almost smell him on you. You two have interacted before, haven't you? Of course you did, he would also seek you for your concept, he is smart after all."

Death's expression did not change.

"That is not your concern."

"Perhaps not." The Dragon Monarch inclined his head.

Death was silent for a moment. "What is your name again? Or should I call you 'Destruction' now?"

"My human name is not your concern, either," He said. "But I know of the Shadow Monarch. He has killed half of the fools who call themselves Monarchs, a useful development, if you care about such things."

The Dragon Monarch laughed, a painful sound that turned into a bloody cough at the end.

"I also know what he is up to," he said. "I have been watching, and observing. The Shadow Monarch and I are the only ones who are... different. The others are pawns, tools, sacrifices for greater purposes. I am only using them for my goals." He paused. "And he is not the type of person who would be on my side. So I have never made contact with him."

He looked at Death, his eyes burning.

"Since you know him," he said, "give him my message, will you?"

Death waited.

The Dragon Monarch coughed again, a spasm that bent him double, that brought more blood to his lips. He straightened slowly, his smile fixed, his eyes never leaving hers.

"I offer you an alliance," he said. "We both seek strength, we both hate the Monarchs and the Rulers. We both embody a concept now." His smile widened, showing teeth that were just slightly too sharp. "Or rather, I should say... while you Death of the Endless live, he cannot have full control of it."

He spread his arms, gesturing at the burning world around them.

"Too bad," he continued. "In that case, I will always be the strongest. No matter what he does, yet I still offer him to be my ally. We will together get rid of the so-called cosmic entities of the multiverse itself. This is the reason why we are here after all, to rule over them all."

His smile sharpened.

"Refuse my friendly hand," he said, "and your world will burn. The way I burned mine."

Death regarded him for a long moment, the flames flickered, the dragons circled in the sky. "Do not expect me to come back for you," she said, "to deliver a reply."

She then vanished.

The Dragon Monarch stood alone in the burning silence.

Then he laughed. "Not like I want you to," he said to himself.

The laughter turned into another cough, then another. He fell to one knee, his hand pressed against his chest, his body trembling with exhaustion. The blood came faster now, pooling on the ash beneath him.

"Fuck..." he muttered.

He looked up at the sky, at the dragons circling above him, at the burning world he had destroyed.

"Destruction was a formidable foe, if she wasn't bound by whatever binds her, I wouldn't have been able to walk away from this...." he admitted. "I had to use all of my strength for him, and more.." His chest heaved. "It will take a long time for me to recover..."

His eyes glowed red. "But I have control over the concept of Destruction now," he said. "I will be invincible."

He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly.

"You better not decline my offer, Shadow," he said to the empty air. "Otherwise I will enjoy every moment of what I'll do to your world."

He raised his hand.

The dragons in the sky responded, a unified roar that shook the world, that split the sky, that announced the departure of their master, they descended, swirling around him, their massive forms obscuring the burning landscape.

The Dragon Monarch disappeared and the dragons followed.

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