Deal, or No Deal?

"Alright, let's see."

Sighing heavily, I drifted through the vined portal and came to a halt in a vast savanna. Looking down on the entire expanse was the vast mountain range that separated the Bodhi Peninsula from Nonus proper. And the scale of it was truly astounding. Being larger in width than the planet I grew up on and taller than any landmass had any business of being, it was a wonder how the range was able to keep from crushing under its own weight.

Attempting to survey the ranges from east to west, I turned, only to halt halfway after seeing yet another marvelous sight. It was… esoteric, almost. Like an abstruse dance performed by formless arcane energy that was both rage and fire, pride and avarice. A cloud of crimson plasma that spun in weaves almost untraceable to the eye, like sentient coronal mass ejections.

An Extreme Mana Zone was my first thought. But, it was… small. As large as a few city blocks, but nowhere near large enough to be called a Zone. And it was out of place. A heart of primal fire in the middle of a barren steppe.

It was something else. What, I didn't know. But I felt as if it could get messy so I sent out a Gravity Domain to encompass the entire area before drifting to the ground.

Its protest came immediately.

Bloodcurdling and vengeful, the shriek of a foul beast pierced the air like a line of grenades had gone off in the distance. A concussive boom followed to shake the air and ground around me before the fields far ahead ignited into a column of flames.

Another boom rattled the air, conjuring another column of flames. Then another. Then another concussive beat after concussive drum beat.

Faster and faster with each passing second, the moving wall of flames covered meters and meters of distance until it was right upon me. And with a final beat, it emerged.

I couldn't believe my eyes and thus stood in place as it belched out a cone of white-hot flames from its maw and proceeded to bank around the grasslands to entrap me in a ringed conflagration before it came to a landing.

It was an actual red dragon. A creature that was far more graceful and majestic than the tales suggested.

While it let out a cackling, infernal derision, I Bamfed over to its side for a quick inspection and it reacted immediately by releasing a scorching burst of mana in the form of a roar. Being immune to both heat and fear, however, I let my senses wash over me with beaming eyes until it thrashed.

I Bamfed at once, reappearing by its hind leg just as its wing slammed into the ground, reducing the grasslands to a bed of compacted and charred topsoil bent on igniting the surrounding lands. Then, it thrashed again.

Intent on keeping my angle of observation, I assumed my Wraith Form to let the tail phase through me and heard nothing but pure carnage behind me while its full magnificence was bared before me.

"Fascinating!"

And it truly was, but it was also angry as fuck. It wheeled around at once to dive at me with its claws and continued Bamfing out of the way without issue, even while I tried my best to flatter it.

"I find myself humbled in the presence of your magnificence."

After coming to the evident realization that it couldn't beat me, the dragon seemed to give up and flapped its great wings in an attempt to flee under the cover of explosions. But I was faster. Much faster.

With a flick of the hand, I sent out a spatial domain to trap the dragon in an Expanse of infinite space.

It flew and flew dozens of meters per second but went nowhere relative to the ground below it. I, on the other hand, lazily orbited around the majestic creature under the influence of an Artificial Well to study its anatomy and whisper sweet somethings in its ear.

It was comparable in size to a large shire. A 3-meter tall shire with great leathery wings spanning an equal distance across its shoulders. A shire, sporting loose-twisted swept back horns colored a sulphuric yellow and a scaly beaked snout with nostrils that glowed like embers and even sent trails of smoke trailing through the air with each breath. One with almost stone-like crimson scales and a thick, frilled tail, and a pair of reptilian eyes that looked down on me with pure burning malice.

Judging by its size, it was a young red dragon. Equal in mental age to a ten-year-old human child, according to the scale.

The most intelligent, cunning, and dangerous child in existence.

And it was fucking adorable.

Even though it smelled like rotten eggs.

"You are absolutely stunning!"

And it truly was. A perfect union of genes that made an apex predator among apex predators. By observation, it was closer to a feline than it was a reptile. It had a digitigrade gait with the proud, majestic grace of a jaguar and even shared a few feline mannerisms and behaviors.

Like the attitude.

But red dragons and humans- mortals were alike in a few ways. They were fueled by greed, power, and wealth.

And I had the means to appeal to all three.

'I hope you're watching, Azrael.' I spread my arms with a warm smile to spread tiny domains of shadow over the scrying eyes around us. "If I may give us some privacy, I'd like to talk." I gestured to the motes before lowering myself into a bow while I descended. "It would be the highest honor to converse with one as grandiose as yourself."

"Of course, it would be! You are wise to know at least this, tiny one." The dragon huffed flames through its nostrils before attempting to bank and only met more expanding space before it landed in a magnificent pose and a burst of mana."

"My name is Amun of the Nox. May I ask yours, o' Great One?" I bowed again.

"Cononthoth!" It proudly said. "For what reason should I spare you from becoming my next meal, Tiny Devil?"

'Thoth. Got it.' I nodded, then pointed to the scrying orb that had reappeared outside of my spatial domain. Then turned to point at the still colossal Bodhi Tree in the far distance. "The humans in that tree tasked me with killing a certain something with no description as to its nature. Now, I don't like taking orders from humans, but I figured the job would've at least given me a chance to increase the power of my army. And then I met your Excellency.

"I turned to fully face Cononthoth with a warm smile. "I couldn't possibly raise my hand against a mighty Red Dragon. One of the other Chromatics or a metallic, undoubtedly. But not the strongest and greatest of all Dragonkind.

"So instead." I peeled my warm smile into a dubious grin. "I'd like to make a deal."

"And I'd like to eat you." Cononthoth snarled. "One day, I will."

"I invite you to make the most out of your meal whenever you believe the time appropriate." I gestured to myself, still grinning. "I'll even add it to the deal. I plan to give you the power to do so, after all."

"I am a Red Dragon!" Cononthoth roared. "I am the most powerful creature in all of creation! What can a tiny devil like you do to grant one such as I more power!?!"

"Well, I guess that makes us kindred spirits." I shrugged with a smirk. "You are the pinnacle of all creation." I gestured to it, then to me. "I am the paragon of destruction. I am the Master of Shadows. The Sovereign of Death. I am Void Incarnate. I am the fabric and structure of existence itself. I can give you the glory of becoming the progenitor of a new class of dragon. And, I can provide you with refuge from what all mortals fear the most.

"A slow death."

"I would not be the first dracolich to exist," Cononthoth growled, forcing plumes of fire from its nostrils.

'Dracolich?' My mind shook in response to the words. But I maintained my image on the outside. An amiable grin and a knowing shake of the head. "I speak of no mere dracolich, o' Great One. I speak of the glory of becoming the first Shadow Dragon in existence. And, I can give you something far, far greater than that of lichdom."

Cononthoth stayed silent for a long while. Their massive head tilting this way and that like a ship on rough seas while it growled- purred ever so softly.

Then it grumbled. "Tell me."

"Here are my conditions." I filled my hand with darkness to mask the umbral mana leaking into my voice. But of course, the dragon saw it. "If you choose to give me ancient or arcane knowledge, I will invest in your horde." With the darkness imbued into my hand, I opened my Shadow Pocket and used an Artificial Well to withdraw ten million gold and pulled it into an orbit around the both of us. "If you decide to grace me with your presence as I travel the realms." I let a bit of void mana flow into my left eye and allowed Cononthoth to catch a glimpse inside my Twilight Domain. "I will accelerate the rate of your growth and keep you in the ancient stage of your life cycle in perpetuity.

"Regardless of when or if you decide to share knowledge or explore with me." I continued before it could protest. "My end of the bargain is to give you the power of darkness and to grant you dominion over the Dark World. If you agree to my conditions, our spirits will remain close, even while our bodies are apart. This link will ensure I can uphold my end of the bargain. And, of course, it will give you the means to devour me whenever you so please."

"The Tiny Devil thinks himself mighty enough to scourge the Realms?" The dragon snickered in infernal laughter. "He thinks himself able enough to live in perpetuity?"

"I do, Conontoth." I grinned. "And I will. Because I have all the time in the world. And so too do you." I pointed, then opened up my palm towards the dragon and the shadow magic lingering in the air followed. Cascaded into my palm to inscribe the clauses of our agreement into my flesh.

"So, deal or no deal?"

After a long, tense moment, Cononthoth crouched low and let out a roar that sent heatwaves rippling across the orbiting gold. Then it lunged. "Dig your grave!"

Taking it as an agreement. I reached in with the Chrono Dial tuned down to give Cononthoth's claw a firm shake. And the moment I did, my Mana Well exploded.

Much in the same way as in my experiences with Curse Spells, the sum of energy within my Well poured through my Void Core and flowed out the side as pure Shadow Arcana that cascaded down my arm and into the dragon's claw, where it spread though its veins like venom. It began thrashing about in protest at that moment but the darkness, ever-increasing in its deluge, inhibited both its movements and screams.

A few seconds went by and the concentration of darkness reached a critical mass. Plumes of shadow began billowing from my hand, spreading to encompass the burning fields and the spinning bands of gold coins that surrounded us until suddenly, the flow of arcana shifted within me.

A small stream broke off from the current to carve a path through my void core and emerged out the other side as a worm that burrowed up to my eye, filling my vision with pictures of radiant skies and toiling black clouds and streaks of deathly lightning.

The Gates of Twilight were now wide open.

Like an airlock had been opened in a spaceship, the darkness and gold surrounding Cononthoth and the dragon itself vanished in an instant, leaving a whirlwind of darkness cascading into my eye along with the gravity, spatial, and temporal magics I spread across the environment.

But it wasn't over. It was just the beginning. My stream of arcana was shut off from the darkness and had nowhere else to go but through the Void. Out and out and out it poured and released from my detached body until I felt my sense of self expand in the strange way it did when I became Void.

I was formless and omnipresent. But changing. First into the form of an ever-expanding sphere before I morphed into an elliptical shape that stretched and continued stretching both above and below.

Into the skies it reached. Into the Darkworld it loomed. So high above and far below until I felt as if I were a part of the Mortal Plane itself. Like a tree made of Void, I fed off of the corrupted mana found throughout the Darkworld. I felt it soak into my roots. I guided its flow up my immense body and spread it through the web of waving void branches that were somehow both under and outside of my control.

Like branches without leaves, the tendrils whipped through the air without relent, stealing oxygen and clouds and earth and trees and rock from the Mortal Plane to thrust them through the Gates of Twilight. In they went and out went streaks of deathly lightning and umbral clouds to take their place.

Any and everything this particular void touched was rent and sent asunder. What remained was left transformed and tainted and left to drift under the forces of anti-gravity and torrential winds that carried them skyward. Upward and around and down they fell. Round and around into a rapid orbit around the Void Tree until they too were pulled into Twilight.

Seconds, minutes… I cared now how long it took for the flow to cease- for my Mana Well to deplete. For Twilight's Gate to close.

But like all things, it did. But only the Gate.

Still, the Void Tree remained. Waving and bending under my full control towards the Bodhi Tree. Towards the courtyard to come to a gentle rest at the edge of the tiled stone. Where, like I was a waiter backpedaling through a door, I left the void and it followed. It cascaded into my left eye like an ocean draining into an eldritch chasm in a single instant to reveal a jungle expanse to my rear and a spacious courtyard to my front.

And then came the flash of light.