Author's Preface
The Dragon God did not blink. Its gaze fixed on Blue as if no one else mattered. The sky above them turned like a great engine, constellations and stars slid into existence.
Yong Ma didn’t look at the god. He looked at Haejin. “This,” his voice was low enough to ground lightning, “is what you’ve inherited, boy. Whether you choose the Demon Cult or Tang. Pay attention.”
The Dragon God’s eyes didn’t leave Blue. “The golden ones chose a mere man? How quaint.” Its lips peeled back. “Then their resistance ends today.”
Yeol and Cheng stepped forward in the same breath, qi rising like a storm. Yeol didn’t bother with titles.
“Hey, you big ugly fuck,” he said. “You’ll have to kill us first.”
“Wu Jin.” Cheng didn’t turn his head.
“I know.” Wu Jin’s voice came from behind Blue. “Everyone back. If he looks at you, look at the ground.”
Blue felt heat at his throat. He glanced down...the pendant he’d he found in the vault, Yoryeon’s pendant... was burning gold. Not hot enough to hurt. Just enough to stay awake.
The Dragon was not a dragon. It was a god... an envoy of the Old Ones. Its body shimmered like black glass, translucent, and across its frame burned constellations. Stars winked in and out with each movement, patterns shifting as if the heavens bent to its will. A flick of its wrist sent the stars swirling.
ORION,” the god thundered. “The archer of the skies. Behold, mortals. I am a God. The stars rise and fall at my command. Today, you will feel their power. Today, your so-called champion will fall.”
The heavens cracked. Hundreds of golden points aligned overhead, constellations knotting into the shape of a great bow. Stars bent, stretched... then sharpened. They became arrows. The dragon laughed as the arrows rained down. The sky split open, golden shafts screamed down toward the three elders. Each arrow carried the weight of a mountain.
Cheng raised his sword, qi flooding the blade. Yeol unleashed a poison mist that boiled against the starlight. Yong Ma’s black fire roared to life, his blade cutting an arc of flame across the sky. But still, the arrows fell. They hit like siege arrows fired from above, each one splitting the ground beneath them.
Cheng moved first... just gone and his blade already cutting. One swing broke into ten as sword-qi fanned from the edge. Arrows split clean and burst into showers that scorched the earth below. Yeol’s sword carved low, Ten Thousand Poison qi filled his blade. “Miasma Fang.” A thrust punctured a falling shaft, the light caved inward and died. He pivoted, flinging a sheet of poison mist that turned three more into black dust.
Yong Ma stepped up and drew a wide crescent. Black flame roared from his blade, met a cluster of arrows head-on, and ate them. “Demon Fire - Ashen Maw.”
More stars shaped into arrows reigned down. One arrow clipped Yeol's shoulder and punched out the back. He swore, ripped it free with his off hand and flooded the hole with qi to stop the bleeding.
The Dragon God watched the three with a flat, satisfied look. “I am a God. I command the stars. Orion hunts.”
Another volley screamed down, skewed mid-fall, curving like they had minds of their own. Cheng slid through gaps and turned two shafts aside with the flat of his sword. Yeol’s poison fog thickened, the bright shafts hit it and rotted. Yong Ma lifted his sword and met four at once, black fire swallowed them whole. Heat rolled across the island.
Above the Orion constellation flickered, then dimmed. The stars on the dragon's body shifted. "Ursa." It roared as it grinned at the elders. A bear took over the sky. Weight slammed down. The elders swords crashed into the earth to keep themselves upright. The island they stood on groaned. In the distance, smaller islands cracked and split apart. Their arms got heavy, legs trembled.
Cheng didn’t fight the weight. He leaned into it, let it load his legs, then turned that load into motion... Silent Edge footwork snapping him forward in a burst that defied the angle. He cut at the god’s wrist on the way by. A thin line opened and a black yet bright fluid oozed out before the flesh tried to close. It didn’t close fast enough to erase the fact that they’d marked it.
Yong Ma walked up the pressure one stubborn step at a time. Black fire climbed his sword and his boots. “You kneel to stars,” the Dragon God said, pressing harder. “You kneel to me.”
Yong Ma smiled. "No one ever learns. I DON'T FUCKING KNEEL!" The dragon's claw fell toward him. He met it with his blade. The impact cracked rock for fifty meters around. Yong Ma deflected the claw and it slid sideways and ripped a trench into the ground. "Black Sun Slash!" Yong Ma followed through and carved a groove across the claw's knuckles.
The weight lessened, the bear in the sky shrank as another constellation appeared beside it. Orion appeared again. Arrows rained down as gravity tried to keep the men tied to one spot.
"Down!" Wu Jin barked to the boys and the demon squad. Blue's hand tightened around his jian out of instinct. His legs did not move. The pendant around his neck burned hotter as his system pinged.
[We will protect you this time. Find the other pieces of the pendant. Time is of the essence, Champion.]
A golden dome snapped into being around everyone in an instant. Runes etched across its surface, a language no one could read. Arrows hit the dome and shattered, light from the stars spilled off the barrier like a waterfall. Everyone saw it. Yeol's head snapped back, Cheng chuckled. Yong Ma looked at Haejin inside the dome and smiled.
The Dragon God’s face tightened for the first time. “Fucking golden gods,” it hissed, voice low. “Interfering again.” It lifted its head to the sky. “Show yourselves, cowards.”
Ursa's gravity weakened as the God's face looked to the sky. Just enough for Yeol to plant himself and lunge toward him. Yeol's blade met the dragons exposed chest. The Tang poison leaked into the wound. The god flinched. Cheng flashed in from the side and laid a mean, short line across the same spot. Yong Ma followed with a driving chop. “Demon Fire - Eclipse.” Black fire wrapped his blade and hammered the wound, forcing it wider before the god jerked back and away, starblood spraying.
The sky rolled. Orion’s bow dimmed and the Bear’s gravity thinned... then they were gone. New stars lit and slid under the god’s hide. “Draco,” it said.
The string of stars wrapped around the islands, coiling between them like a snake. They met the dragons hand and formed a long whip like weapon made of stars. The dragon drew his arm back and slammed the whip into the air. The small islands around it shattered. A loud BOOM shook the elders and the island as the shockwave reached them. The dome stood strong, but the island beneath their feet did not.