I am always surprised by the arrogance of mankind. They ink out their way in the world, everywhere they can. From the Mer who hold me high, to the Wardens who rule the skies, they all have crafted for themselves such marvels of ingenuity. Even as a hatchling, I, Dominus the Subjugator, Dominus the Unbound, Dominus: True God of Monsters, was enamored by this. Even now, as my feet stomp down in the desert of Amaranthine, uncaring of what ruins i smash below or knock over as I make my path, I can appreciate its fleeting symbol of resilience and perserverance.
During my time as a noble steed to the now almighty God of the Sea, I never ventured here. It was never my intention to go where she had no intention of going. Farthest to the east I have seen was our home, Luhkan's Landing, and even now the dry heat and scrambling wurms annoy me more than I thought. So why am I, Dominus, vassal of Maria here? What had drawn her ire that she would loosen the first manifestation of her wrath upon the Eastern world? The answer lies not in what but who: Sevastiana. As I waded through the winds and sandstorms coming only up to my neck, the image of a massive disease spewing gorgon filled my mind. I knew only where, but not how she looked. I was being drawn there by the force of my will alone, and she had to sense my presence. I had no intention of hiding it, as the monsters gathering ahead of me must have realized.
I opened my mouth to speak a single word. A word that rumbled through the ground. "Move." The creatures before me shivered as the mile high sky scraper spoke to them in such a guttural tone. They were of nothing I had seen before. Joints that moved impossibly, tentacles and geometric shapes beyond my comprehension. Life was complex. These creatures were beyond that. But like all things, even the God's, monsters feared death, and these would come to find me a dealer of such fates. A blue line of light slowly traveled up the spines on my back, energy gathering and welling over. They backed away tentatively, but not at the sight of my charging breath-attack. I saw here there, infintely small in size but massive in power. Another god of my hiearchy, the one beholden to the actual title God of Monsters. Kamilla, former techno Queen. She rose into the air before me, and her monsters felt reaffirmed. A few yards ahead of my eyes the woman stood on my nose, looking at one of my car sized eyes inquisitively. I puffed cold air from flared nostrils. She was undaunted. "Kamilla. I will not say it again. Clear. My. Path." She furrowed her brow, licking her tongue over her fangs as if sizing me up. Claws seemed to bare, but she knew not that I wasn't hear to root out her and her ilk. Her question stopped the climbing energy, my signature warning like the bright colors on a coral snake. "Why have you come? Why do you crush my lands below your feet?" "I am here for Sevastiana. Her power ravages my home land Kenai, it has begun to spread into the oceans and infect Los Anthos. She has made herself an enemy of the plane, and I do not take well to those kinds of threats. Neither does the Sea Goddess, and I wouldn't reccommed you, too, get on her bad side, else I truly will come to stomp you out. Now, for fear I am repeating myself once more, I command you clear the way forth." Kamilla seemed to smile, a knowing smile.
I was not intersted. "You will find her domain, the Plaguelands, to the northeast near where Makassar sits on his gaudy throne. I feel obligated, as we are two monsters beholden to greater forces, that she and Makassar have become... friendly. I wish you luck, God of Domination." She was gone in a small burst of energy before I could question her further, but her monsters lurched aside and allowed me passage. The time to get here had passed painstakingly, and now as I drew nearer through Valghast and into the desert infested with Wurms, I became anxious and excited. Since Elessia, I had not had a reason to flex my bones, not truly. This would be a hell of a chance to prove I am still the Unbound terror, the a**-kicker below Maria I had always been.
I reached my goal finally, and had to admit it was an odd sight. This placed looked like it could have once housed millions of people comfortably. It had streams flowing in from four directions, what looked to be decaying walls from lack of care that could once have housed the aristocracy. The surrounding buildings were large enough that even I could lean on them. But at my touch, most of them fell as I approached the center of this once great land. I could all but smell the virulence of disease in the waters pooling in the irrigation systems of old. She was here without a doubt. I approached the walls around the center of the city tentatively but confidently, and I felt something swell on the inside. I spun swiftly, sending my wrecking ball tail at the wall and utterly crumbling it before giving a hearty roar that echoed for miles around. A black cloud formed and took the shape of a woman in the skies, frowning down at me. "You would dare come here, Dominus? To challenge me where I am strongest? In my own domain!?" She rose a hand into the sky and a black cloud scattered. A ring of smoke rose from my nostrils and I flexed my muscles.
"You have put yourself in the crosshairs of Mazdakism. Your actions spreaddeath and ruin in the west, and for what reason? TO fuel your love for death? You would dare draw the ire of Dominus? Of Maria Kal?" Sevastiana laughed as a black rain began to fall, some form of disease that would seek to infect me while she herself aimed a sickly, decaying hand at me to direct a blast of black corruption. My hand intercepted the blast, stopping it from hitting my face as the rain pelted my iron-hard skin. "I serve a purpose that you might find surprising. I work alongside one infinitely more powerful than any of you new gods. Worry not, Dominus, as you will not live to SEE OUR PLAN!" she screeched as a second ray of doom began assailing my body. I took a knee as her power assaulted me, pushing me back while surrounding me ina sort of cocoon that ravaged my skin. She was truly a force of godly intrigue, and in her domain she was the master. For any other god, coming here alone would be suicide: she held a clear advantage and one born of sickness that would be difficult to withstand when focused, even perhaps for some tier three gods.
I, however, am not them. I stood suddenly, roaring louder than before with a burst of energy that overcame the aura of corruption and eliminating it, while also clearing the clouds above and staggering her beams of corruption. "What is this power?" she inquired pointedly, realizing that whatever advantage she held had been leveled out. I smirked now. "You know of me. I am the God of Domination and Subjugation alike. Your domain is this small pocket of land. All that I walk upon is my domain. You have no more power here than you would anywhere else when it comes to me. Now, allow me to retort your little greeting, and remind you how I came to be." I clapped my hands together suddenly, and the force blasted away a large portion of the city, and Sevastana herself was knocked away. My energy formed a lance in one hand born of all the moisture in the area and I held it like a javelin. Sevastiana waived her hands shamanistically, and from the black aura surrounding her like a cloak a barrier formed just as I heaved the massive weapon at her like a ballista arrow. The barrier just barely held, btu the blast of ice and water was akin to a rainfall all around. I ran at her, a comical sight to be sure as my size is in of itself, hard to swallow, and she took the challenge, calling another blast of raw death down from her hands at me. I opened my mouth and from within a blue blast of energy hit it, stopping my momentum and clashing with her own power, slowly over taking it. In the last second before she was hit, her body teleported to the ground below, gathering her power from the sickness of her own domain.
So far as either of us were concerned, we were evenly matched as of yet. Energy blasts were ineffective, and despite my size it was difficult for her to simply avoid tail swipes or stomps. The battle sent reverberations through the east, scarred the barren lands around us. When finally I became tired of the needless posturing, the blue energy radiating from my spines began to charge with red, starting from the tip of my tail and climbing like a thermometer. "This game tires me Sevastiana. For your transgressions against the mortal plane, I hereby sentence you to die." I said stomping my foot. The woman didn't realize it, but had used something I learned to do as a god: I had stunned her ability to use her own energy. She came to realize this when she tried in vain to teleport, and then raise a shield as I opened my maw once more and this time my Godly Atomic Breath tore a red line through the skies towards her. She just barely erected a shield in time to defend herself, but with the power I was channeling she had no chance of sustataining it against my awe inspiring power. When the well for that attack had run dry, I panted a little after snapping my jaw shut, looking on to see what became of her, if anything. To my absolute shock, there she was, along with another, standing proud while the ground to their left and right had been torn into down far enough that you could see lava thousands of feet below the surface. Somehow they'd split the energy ray. And whow as that man?
"I see the Mazdaki have decided to interfere? That is... most unfortunate for them. Carry a message to them Dominus. Makassaar will suffer no threats from them." He held something out ahead of him. An item that I have no words in my mind to describe, and suddenly something tore into my chest, scattering my blood from the wound and my mouth across the woman's domain and flinging me through the air. As my vision blurred, I realized the trajectory was sending me crashing into the Great Ocean. What could possibly have that much power? The cold water embraced me at once... and I began to sink. An hour passed before I crashed into the ocean floor, right beside a shipwreck that the Anthosii had long since turned into a hotel of some kind. Immediately, I was set upon by worshippers and healers, but I was too dumbfounded even now to speak, too hurt to move. This man, this Makassar. He was far beyond anything I had ever been exposed to. Farther even than Elessia perhaps.
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Makassar had no intention of chiding Sevastiana for nearly dying. Dominus was a force to be recknoed with and the fight could have swung in her favor just as easily as his. Instead, he empowered her suddenly, sending her to the skies above. She knew what to do. It was time to begin. First, was to lock out Maria from interfering further, and so with a great deal of her power, she sent out a swarm of infected fish from the clouds above the great ocean, which burst and spread a plague far mroe deadly than the one ravaging kenai all across Los Anthos.
Maria had taken Dominus, by this time to her Domain near the gate of hell, and was tending to him, learning what he knew through their mental bond and growing more and mroe irate by the second. Her guards, the massive monsters of the depths that answered only to her, Lovecraftian horrors galore, would watch over him as he regenerated while she took Kalypso, her Bident born of Zachariah's and Kaminae's similar wepaons, and took off like a rocket towards the surace. Now, she would kill Sevastiana and Makassar both. But along the way she stopped, hearing a roar of prayers in her mind that was hard to ignore from her people. All around she realized that the plague had worsened, and was spreading to her people. she sucked her teeth, knowing they had planned for her to sense this, banking on that she would not abandon her followers... or even the Vos Kominae. "Damn them!" she thought as she began to exude her own power, growing to the size Kaminae had been and inhaling deeply to suck the energy of the plague into her own body. Water hardened around her body in the center of the great ocean as she curled inward, holding her abdomen in pain and gasping bubbles that became hurricanes and sea-storms above her. Red hair turned grey, colorful skin became pale, and godly aura quieted. Maria turned to stone ever so slowly, but she contained as much of the plague within her own body as she could, and then encased her form in a malestom of sorts below the surface no mortal could hope to breach. Anyone passing above her in the sea would be safe, but they would also see her pained expression clear as day thousands of feet below the surface. A warning to steer clear, and a call to arms for her own people.
Maria and Dominus, the first line of defense, were as of now neutralized, and Makassar could reign freely, loosening his plans with nothing to stop him.
