Hamid's Flight

"Hurry!" "Get out of my way!" "Curse it, that dragon is right behind us!" "Lord of Flames preserve us..." "How dare he devour our kind! Does he not fear the Great Sultan's wrath?!" Crowding through the brass palace gates, the efreet surged outward, howling, shoving, and fleeing desperately from this deathtrap. As they flew, billowing plumes of gray smoke and burning embers trailed behind them. "Quick! Shut the gates! Trap that red dragon inside! Don't let him out!" Hamid roared as he flew. The salamander slaves guarding the entrance, weighed down with heavy iron chains, threw all their strength into turning the winches. With a screeching grind of metal, the brass gates slowly swung shut. The efreet cast spell after spell, sealing the barrier with Arcane Lock to temporarily hold the terrifying dragon at bay. CLANG! A deafening metallic boom rang out. The brass gates bulged violently outward, marred by deep claw gouges, but held fast. The efreet breathed an immediate sigh of relief. "Th-thank goodness..." "He won't break out anytime soon! We can use this chance to—" BOOM! The next instant, the colossal red dragon smashed straight through the thick wall, bursting from the palace amid billowing smoke and embers. The structure behind him collapsed with a thunderous roar. Cassius beat his wings, lunging toward the panicked efreet as he roared, "Since you chose to make yourselves my enemies, you shall pay the rightful price—with your lives!" "He broke out!" "Run!" "No—!" "What kind of fire is this?!" The red dragon breathed a torrent of raging flame, turning the surroundings into an ocean of fire whose breadth engulfed nearly all the efreet. Perhaps karmic retribution had come at last. The efreet, who delighted in raiding the Material Plane and Elemental Planes, purging mortal homes with fire, finally felt what it meant to burn. Dragonfire coiled around the efreet, unraveling their bodies in an instant and devouring their fiery elemental essences. Such was the dragonfire of a progenitor dragon: possessing all the properties of flame, yet infused with an inherently superior magical essence. Hamid kept flying, trailing thick smoke behind him. His efreeti kin had bought him precious time, allowing him to put several hundred meters between himself and the palace. He glanced back from time to time, shaking his head in disbelief, muttering under his breath. "Impossible..." "What kind of fire is that...?" Even across hundreds of meters, he could feel its terror. Whenever the flames drew close, the magic inside him seemed to evaporate, slipping from his control. Hamid felt with visceral certainty that this power transcended the mundane. That devastating flame struck sheer terror into his heart. Fire of such exalted majesty was something he had seen only from the Efreeti Great Sultan of the City of Brass, or the Elemental Prince of the Temple of Ultimate Combustion. "I must... get out of here." "I-I'm going back to the City of Brass to report this to the Great Sultan!" The efreeti noble stammered in terror. He slashed his scimitar through the air, and a portal began to manifest before him. "Burn to cinders—" Cassius rampaged through the City of Pig Iron, his massive draconic frame plowing through buildings with ease and leaving a trail of ruins in his wake. The red dragon beat his wings. Everywhere he passed, fire raged and swept forward, completely devouring the panicked efreet. Before an atavistic red dragon over thirty meters long, these efreet—who strutted around like tyrants on ordinary days—became just like their past victims. They were lambs to the slaughter, utterly powerless, left with nothing to do but pray incessantly for divine salvation. In mere breaths, dozens of efreet had been reduced back to elemental fire essences, absorbed by the red dragon. Even as he indulged in this feast, Cassius activated the Crown of the Supreme True Dragon atop his head—or more precisely, the Wind of Bahamut within it. Divine power of Order wrapped around his fearsome head, keeping him from succumbing to Rage and losing his mind. "Heh..." "A portal?" Sensing the spatial fluctuation in the distance, Cassius narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth curving upward. He extended a claw and pointed from afar, loosing a streak of dark green magical ray. Spell Wither. "Hurry, faster..." "By the Lord of Flames, as long as I make it back to the City of Brass, the Great Sultan will protect me. He'll kill this dragon for sure..." Hamid watched the portal take shape before him in frantic anxiety, muttering prayers over and over. SWOOSH! The dark green ray struck true, unraveling the portal in an instant and restoring calm to the space. "No, no, no..." "There's still a chance..." The efreeti noble shook his head frantically, his rugged face twisting in sheer horror. Seeing the spell fail, he didn't dare look back, flying forward with desperate speed as heavy ash trailed behind him. "Fleeing?" "You chose this fate long ago!" Cassius's roar rolled through the air like thunder. SWOOSH! The red dragon beat his wings with immense force, whipping up a scorching gale strong enough to level buildings, his massive body crossing a hundred meters in an eye-blink. Hamid didn't dare turn around. He just flew for his life, yet he could already smell the sulfurous breath and feel the roaring gale bearing down upon him. Finally, he reached the city gate. "Lord Hamid?" "That's—" "By the Lord of Flames!" The efreeti guards watched Hamid's panicked flight in bewilderment, only to be struck dumb with terror when they saw the dragon trailing right behind him. "Get out of my way!" "Release the pyrohydra! Hold him off!" Hamid bellowed. Scrambling in flustered panic, the efreet hauled open the massive portcullis in the wall. A terrifying, monstrous beast crawled out. It was a pyrohydra, its colossal body over ten meters long, with five heads perched atop serpentine necks. Legend held that they were born of the blood of a dragon deity named Lernaea, slain by Tiamat, Queen of Evil Dragons—and the fallen god's hatred kept them perpetually starving. The unleashed pyrohydra was beside itself with excitement. All five heads reared back simultaneously, howling toward the heavens. It was ready to gorge itself on a feast. "ROOOOAR!" Yet very quickly, it felt a terrifying aura sweeping toward it from afar, accompanied by the thunderous boom of displaced air. Confusion flickered in all five pairs of the pyrohydra's eyes. BOOM! The next moment, Cassius swept past at low altitude. His form, far larger than that of the pyrohydra, mercilessly crushed it in passing. Gore and severed flesh splattered everywhere. Where the pyrohydra had stood, only a few stray feet remained; the rest of its fleshy bulk had been pulverized. A beast of unspeakable horror in mortal eyes was nothing more than a ragdoll made of paper before the red dragon. A severed reptilian head rolled across the ground, its eyes still brimming with bewilderment. "Lord of Flames protect me..." "I hope that gluttonous idiot buys me a little more time." The efreeti noble prayed silently as he continued flying as if his life depended on it. Yet reality betrayed his hopes. The howling gale stuck to him like a shadow, and a gargantuan silhouette fell over the ground ahead. Hamid felt the world go dark before his eyes, and the next moment, his entire body was seized by an overwhelming force. The efreeti slowly lifted his head, trembling from head to toe. The flame crowning his brow flickered, his terrified face contorted almost beyond recognition. "M-my lord, I'm sure there's... there's been some misunderstanding between us..." The red dragon held the efreeti noble firmly in his talons, a wicked grin spreading across his terrifying draconic face. "My esteemed Hamid 'the Fingerless,' please give me a single reason not to kill you."