When You Gaze Into The Abyss…

When Jeddah opened his eyes, he was in a black space with a red moon above him.

"What the hell is this?"

His magic didn't work, he couldn't shift and his body felt terribly slow and fragile.

He was powerless here.

For a species that is used to being the apex predator like dragons, there is no worse fate.

He could struggle and he could scream but it would change nothing.

"I wonder if this is how they felt…" came a cold voice from the shadows.

"Bastard who are you! What did you do to me?!"

"So you didn't recognize me before you started screaming my wife's name like a mad fool…"

"Wife? Listen here bastard that lesser bitch is mine so- ARGHH"

Jeddah had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before tendrils of shadow pierced his legs and brought him to his knees.

"Mmh! MMPH!"

He tried to let out even more screams of pain but his mouth had suddenly disappeared from his face.

"You do not deserve to speak. Not now, nor ever again."

Suddenly, out of the shadows came a very small child.

He looked to be no older than five with long black hair, bright yellow eyes and bright bronze skin.

'E-Exedra?' Jeddah was horrified.

Why does he look like a child again?

What happened for this brat to suddenly gain this kind of power?

Was this some kind of trick?

"This is what he looked like the day he found her."

He? So was Exedra not doing this?

Jeddah was getting more confused by the second.

"You know since I took this body, I thought he was completely gone and only I remained." Exedra materialized a small rubber ball and a chair and took a seat while bouncing it on the ground.

"But when I first heard about you… I felt him. I felt an anger that was not entirely my own screaming to get out and tear you limb from limb."

At his command, hands rose out of the ground and began to rip Jeddah's flesh and limbs from his body, only for him to regrow them a second later.

"MMMH! MMPH!!!"

Jeddah's muffled screams fell in deaf ears as Exedra watched him with a blank look.

Truthfully, he didn't want to watch something like this.

But that was why he had to.

He owed it to the original Exedra, as well as himself.

He had to kill the small parts of him that were still human.

Killing was one thing but to watch a torture as gruesome as the one about to take place was something only monsters had the stomach for.

And Exedra strives to be a monster.

"I always planned on coming to take your life eventually. Since this body was entrusted to me, I naturally have to live on his behalf as well as my own." He continued as he stared at the once handsome young man that had tears running from his eyes.

"When Lisa told me about you, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to claim your life since I knew you'd come for her." Exedra felt bad about it now since he loved her, but originally, he only saw Lisa as bait and a friend of Lailah.

While he couldn't change the past, he could always make up for it in the future.

"However, I didn't know it'd be so soon… fate is really something isn't she?" Exedra's childlike face broke out into a smile that was not in the slightest bit cute.

Slowly the hands retracted back into the ground and Jeddah looked at the young Exedra with pleading eyes.

In this space, Exedra had complete control of all laws and matter.

The entire time Jeddah was being tortured Exedra made sure that his nerve endings were extra sensitive and could even hold his mind together so that it did not break from the unimaginable pain.

"I want you to know why this is happening."

The small child rose from his seat and grabbed the adult dragon by his hair so that they were looking eye to eye.

"This is because you coveted someone that belonged to him, and because you coveted someone that belongs to me."

POW!

With a kick from his dainty legs, Exedra sent Jeddah flying back several feet into the air before crashing helplessly onto the ground.

Appearing beside him, Exedra place his foot on his head before continuing. "Three months… You abused Lillian for three entire months before she died."

Jeddah wanted to apologize.

He wanted to scream that it was an accident, that he didn't mean it and that he was just sick.

Whatever would help him escape this nightmare.

Snap!

With a snap of his fingers, Exedra materialized something that scared Jeddah to the depths of his very soul.

Ogres.

Everywhere Jeddah looked, there were six feet tall male ogres.

When he saw the strange shape protruding from their loincloths, his eyes trembled before he prostrated to Exedra and silently begged him not to do this.

He banged his head against the ground several times to show his sincerity and desperation.

"Three months…" Exedra scoffed before he turned his back on Jeddah as the ogres closed in on him.

"I'll break you in three weeks."

- 3 weeks later in the inner realm.

Jeddah lay naked on the ground a filthy bloody mess.

For three entire weeks he was tortured in every way Exedra could think of.

Rape, dismemberment, electro shock, whips, drowning, he tried it all.

Exedra had returned his mouth for the ogres to use, but stripped him of his vocal cords so that he couldn't utter a single sound.

"Haaa… so this is my limit huh."

With the use of two of his most powerful spells back-to-back like this, even if Exedra had gotten some buffs recently, he was still feeling some exhaustion.

Exedra took one last look at the broken body of Jeddah before he prepared to end his spell and return home.

He felt like it'd been forever since he'd seen everyone but in reality it'd only been a few seconds.

"We did it Lillian… I'm sorry it took us so long…please rest well now."

Exedra brought his hand to his breast were he felt a warm feeling inside his heart and smiled faintly.

With that, the entire space shimmered before it cracked and disappeared.

-

When Exedra's mind came back to the real world, the first thing he noticed was the sensation of needles piercing his left eye.

Unwilling to cry out, he simply ground his teeth as a single tear of blood slid down his cheek.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Jeddah fell to his knees.

With a look of pure horror, he uttered one final word before he lost consciousness. "Monster..."

Bang!

The chains binding Jirai finally snapped and he rushed to check on his injured son.

"Jeddah?! Jeddah!! Wake up son!"

Jirai looked toward Exedra and saw he had a blank expression and his anger burst forward. "You! What did you do?!"

Exedra's cold eyes lingered on Jeddah's crumpled body before he looked into Jirai's hate filled ones.

"Not nearly enough."

Boom!!

An icy pressure exploded from Jirai's body and turned the ground beneath him into pure ice.

A violent snowstorm whipped up around the room with Jirai at its center.

Yara, Lailah and Iori conjured magic barriers to protect the guests from the brutal cold while the dragon lords tried to reason with their fellow ruler.

Tiamat : "Jirai! Calm down look at what you're doing!"

Lotan : "Bastard you froze my drink!"

Seras: "If you cause a scene here the dragon king will not forgive you!"

Jirai couldn't hear them.

His sons soul was damaged terribly with his body not far behind.

Even though his body had no visible injuries, his breathing was shallow, and his pulse was weak.

Even though he was an absentee father, he still loved his son very much and considered him to be one of his treasures.

And a dragon will not sit idle if it's treasures are harmed.

Even though Exedra was much weaker than Jirai, he didn't back down from this monumental challenge.

Three pitch back portals appeared in front of Exedra and out of them came three black nightmarish looking hounds as big as horses.

Exedra had used what was left of his dwindling mana to summon these hounds to help even the odds if only slightly.

He retrieved his corrupted Shu's razor from his ear and changed its form into a golden spear that swirled with a black mist.

He twirled his spear in the air before pointing it at Jirai seemingly daring him to come forward.

He didn't know how he would win but he knew he had to.

He couldn't leave his wives and daughter behind.

He couldn't die before he accomplished his goals in this world.

He would win by any means necessary.

Seeing that Exedra was openly provoking him, Jeddah's anger reached a new high and the snowstorm reached a new ferocity.

"I'LL KILL YOU!!"

"Will you?" A new voice asked.

Suddenly, the bitter cold was melted away by an unimaginable heat.

Iori and Yara's pupils contracted to the size of needles when they heard the voice, they both knew all too well.

They both turned to each other and flashed confused looks.

"Did you...?"

"No, I thought you did you're his favorite after all."

With one synchronized movement, everyone in the room, turned their heads towards the entrance where their jaws collectively dropped.

Standing at exactly seven feet tall was a man with bronze colored skin and snow white hair.

He wore an flowing pink and gold robe with white bottoms and wore no shoes on his clawed feet.

On his chest was the tattoo of a mythological creature and behind his back swung a thick golden tail with a blade at the tip.

His bright golden eyes caused everyone who looked into them to instinctively flinch in fear.

He leisurely held his finger up in the air where a single bright white flame no bigger than that of a match was radiating an intense heat that was simultaneously melting the ice and causing everyone present to break out in a sweat.

The weaker members of the crowd immediately fainted from the heat.

Next to him was the announcer who'd been too stunned to do his job properly.

"I-it is my h-honor to introduce to you the sovereign ruler of Antares!"

"T-the dragon demigod of endless war!"

"K-king Helios D-Draven!