In the sprawling, war-shattered lands of the Second Realm, where tyrants built fortresses upon rivers of bones and power often meant cruelty, Zaxton's name was no longer whispered — it was spoken with caution, and occasionally, reverence.
Ashguard had risen. Trade routes bowed to its prosperity. Even empires acknowledged its independence, begrudgingly or diplomatically. But Zaxton was not finished.
With his son, Jin Sori, guiding the First Realm's tides, Zaxton turned his gaze deeper into the Second.
---
Two Years of Ascension
He vanished from the public eye for two years.
Many thought he had died. Others hoped.
But in truth, he was cultivating at the edge of the world, in the high, frozen ridges of the Obsidian Maw, where cultivation itself grew wild and volatile. The winds there were said to tear open the soul. No maps, no paths, just legend.
There, Zaxton pushed through two levels of cultivation — using not brute force, but methodical mastery, marrying First-Realm precision with the chaotic energies of the Second.
> Zaxton (meditating as cosmic light wraps around him):
"You are not supposed to break through realms… You are meant to reshape them."
At the peak of his enlightenment, as lightning storms swirled in constellations above, the ground shattered, and from the abyss rose a creature lost to time.
---
The Dragon in Chains
Draknyr, a thousand-year-old Stormforged Dragon, born when the sky still remembered its name.
Once a guardian of an ancient Gate, he had been sealed by frightened mortals after refusing to obey corrupt emperors. He had been slumbering in silence, his prison tied to a celestial faultline — until Zaxton's breakthrough split the seal.
The dragon awoke angry. Proud. Ready to destroy.
> DRAKNYR (thundering):
"Who dares call down stars in my grave?!"
Zaxton did not flee. He stood, robes in tatters, energy swirling like molten galaxies.
> ZAXTON (calmly):
"Not your grave. Your beginning again."
What followed was not a battle. It was a contest of will, of spirit, of presence.
Three days passed.
And then, the dragon bowed.
> "I have flown above kings and devoured tyrants. But I have never seen a soul like yours. I will not serve you. I will fly with you."
Zaxton and Draknyr bonded, not as master and beast, but as partners bound by respect and purpose. The act resonated across the leylines of the realm, and cultivators everywhere felt the sky shudder.
---
A New Height, A New Name
Zaxton returned from the Obsidian Maw with the dragon at his side — silent, massive, and terrifying. He no longer walked into cities. He descended from the clouds.
Scholars called him the Stormbearing Lord.
Commoners knelt not in fear, but in awe.
His cultivation aura had matured into something that stilled lesser powers at a glance. And when he reentered Ashguard's council hall, even his own ministers bowed lower than before.
> "Master Zaxton has returned… changed."
"No… not changed. Ascended."
The Empire That Dared
Whispers Before the Storm
When the Yin Empire received news that Zaxton had returned from the Obsidian Maw, bonded to a dragon said to predate empires, they scoffed.
> "A show of force," they said.
"A circus with scales," they mocked.
"A beast to hide the fear in his heart."
But when the skies over their borderlands turned black for nine nights straight, when lightning began falling in patterns matching the ancient runes of war, and when their outer cities began to vanish beneath thunderclaps, they stopped laughing.
Zaxton had not come to negotiate.
---
The First Strike: Storm of Declaration
Zaxton's voice echoed across the Yin Empire without him ever stepping into its capital.
From the skies above Yin-Hara, the mountainous fortress-city that housed the Yin Emperor's war council, he appeared — cloaked in skyfire, standing atop Draknyr's back, eyes glowing like celestial dawn.
> Zaxton (broadcasting across the realm):
"You sent assassins. You dishonored the summit. You defiled a Gatekeeper.
I will not allow your name to be written in history.
I will erase it — from stone, from memory, from the stars."
Then he raised his hand.
And the first storm began.
---
Month One: The Walls Collapse
Zaxton did not charge in blindly.
His first target was supply routes and communication towers. With Draknyr acting as both siege weapon and mythic terror, Zaxton flew across the Yin sky like a comet — landing where he pleased.
Cities were left in silence, their defenses fried, their generals captured alive and dropped at the borders of Ashguard with messages carved into their armor:
> "You still have time to flee. Use it."
By the end of the first month, seven provinces had fallen.
The northwestern trade region, once thriving with silver mines and spirit crystal farms, was now under Don Guard control.
---
Month Three: The Fall of the Blade Court
Yin's famed Blade Court, an elite force of soul cultivators who once ended rebellions in days, was sent to ambush Zaxton mid-flight. Their trap spanned an entire mountain range — spirit-dampening fog, cursed air, even dragon-warding talismans.
Zaxton landed among them alone.
Draknyr circled above, silent.
The fight lasted eight minutes.
None survived.
When the sun rose the next day, the range itself was gone — shattered into a new valley now known as "The Scar."
From that point on, Yin generals began deserting. Some poisoned themselves. Others pledged loyalty to Don, begging Zaxton for mercy.
Most were denied.
---
Month Five: The Breach of the Crimson Gate
The capital of the Yin Empire — Xiehong, the Crimson Capital — was surrounded by an ancient spirit wall known as the Crimson Gate, said to have been crafted by the founders using their own lifeblood and sealed with the essence of ten dragons.
Zaxton studied it for one week. Said nothing.
On the eighth day, he had Draknyr roar once.
And the gate crumbled like chalk, the dragon's ancestral magic undoing the very bindings that made the wall eternal.
Then came the march.
Not with armies — with storms.
Zaxton walked through the capital's main avenue as the skies wept lightning behind him. He passed nobles cowering in temples, soldiers dropping weapons at his feet, and children who stared in awe rather than fear.
> "We thought you were a destroyer," one monk whispered.
Zaxton looked at him and said, "No. I am your reckoning."
---
Month Six: The Erasure of the Yin
The Yin Emperor was found hiding beneath his ancestor's tomb, trying to awaken a forbidden entity of the void.
Zaxton ended it with one strike — no drama, no monologue.
The body was cremated on the steps of the palace.
Then came the decree:
> "This land is no longer the Yin Empire.
It is an open territory under Don's protection.
Let all who live here begin anew — or leave forever."
Zaxton made no attempt to rule it — only to erase the corruption and cruelty that once claimed dominion.
He left behind one message burned into the stones of the former imperial plaza:
> "This is the price of pride when stained with blood."
---
Legacy of the Storm
When Zaxton returned to Ashguard, the Second Realm trembled.
An empire erased in six months.
With a dragon at his back and Gatekeepers rising, some now called him Realm-Splitter.
And across the Third Realm — watchers noticed.