Filial Piety and Finishing Blow

The Time Rift suddenly tore open inside the safe house, and Chromie dragged Onyxia out in an undignified tumble. The Bronze Dragon's twin ponytails had been singed and curled by Deathwing's fiery welcome, with wisps of smoke still rising from their tips.

"Deren!" Chromie shouted through gritted teeth. "Quick!"

Deren did not answer. He pulled down all three switches at once, his knuckles turning white from the force.

The current surged into the detonators at an unimaginable speed. Then, the explosion erupted beneath Deathwing's feet on the other side.

BOOM----------!!!

The shockwave followed close behind, and the entire safe house shook violently like a small boat in a storm. The basement's stone walls groaned under the strain, cracks spreading wildly across them like spiderwebs. The three people and dragons could only cover their heads and endure the blast. Seeing chunks of stone raining down around them, Onyxia got to her feet and shielded Deren and Chromie beneath her body.

After a long while—or perhaps only a moment—the ground finally returned to stillness. Onyxia staggered over and pushed aside the wooden boards covering the basement entrance, only for a pile of rubble to tumble down. She stuck her head out and found utter devastation outside. In the distance, a massive cloud of smoke was rising. Crimson waves of fire churned within the towering plume, dyeing the night sky for miles around blood-red. The ground swept by the shockwave looked as though it had been plowed by a colossal rake, every scrap of vegetation shattered by the blast. The former Fertilizer workshop and Dragonborn residential area had both vanished. Only the enormous Reactors had rolled several hundred meters away, lying crookedly in the swamp mud.

Chromie's little head popped out as well. Seeing the apocalyptic scene outside, she let out a whistle. "This is way more exciting than the Caverns of Time's annual fireworks show."

"Ha!" Onyxia's pupils contracted with excitement. The blood of the Dragon Race made her instinctively revel in this feast of destruction. Claws unconsciously grew from her fingertips, scraping against the floor with a piercing screech.

In the basement, Deren finally let go of the detonator and drew a cross over his chest with trembling fingers—silently wishing Deathwing good luck. The temperature inside the safe house was rapidly climbing, sweat trickling down his temples.

"The yield... the yield calculation should've been right," he muttered. "Five hundred tons of Ammonium Nitrate mixed with Aluminum Powder should theoretically have been enough. But that's Deathwing. He had an entire expansion where he was the main event in the game. He even gave Azeroth a facelift right at the start. You can't deny his strength."

"The shockwave should be over by now." Chromie suddenly wore a sly smile. "Want to make a bet? I bet Deathwing's been blown to pieces. That blast was practically the return of the Titans."

Onyxia licked the corner of her mouth, which had somehow been cut open, tasting her own blood. "I want to give him a proper farewell. He is my old father, after all. As his daughter, I should show a little filial devotion."

Deren silently checked the Armor-Piercing Rockets. Hearing that, he raised his head, suspicion glinting in his eyes. "I bet... he's calling for his master."

"Then let's go take a look." Onyxia eagerly said, grabbing one massive six-tube rocket launcher in each hand as she strode toward the blast center.

Before long, they discovered that the former lair no longer existed—there was now a gigantic crater over a hundred meters across, its edges vitrified and glinting with an eerie glaze beneath the moonlight.

The shadow of the mushroom cloud had yet to disperse, but much of the dust at the blast center had already settled. By the light of the lingering flames, Deren saw the massive crater—

And the black shadow writhing at its bottom.

"No... impossible..." Deren's throat tightened, his voice so hoarse it barely sounded like his own.

Onyxia shoved him aside, her Golden Vertical Pupils narrowing into slits in the dim firelight.

Deathwing was still alive.

But he could no longer be called a "dragon."

Worldbreaker's body was utterly mangled. Both front limbs had been reduced to charred stumps of bone, dragging crooked marks across the scorched earth as he struggled. His once sky-covering dragon wings were nowhere to be seen, leaving only a few bone fragments dangling with scraps of flesh from his shoulder blades.

Most horrifying was his chest and abdomen—much of the Source Armor he had been so proud of had been stripped away, exposing writhing flesh and lava-like blood beneath. The massive explosion had blasted several holes clean through his body, the smallest over half a meter wide. Through one of those gaping wounds, Deren could even see his heart beating inside, corroded into a purplish-black mass by an Old God.

Drip.

A severed section of dragon tail hung behind him like a rag, dragging a trail of blood over the scorched ground as Deathwing writhed.

"He's... he's crawling out..." Chromie's voice trembled, a rare occurrence.

Indeed, despite being injured like this, Deathwing was still writhing toward the edge of the crater. Every struggle sent more lava-like blood spraying from his wounds, burning hissing holes into the ground. His movements were as clumsy as those of a dying maggot, but he was undeniably moving forward.

"Five hundred tons..." Deren mechanically repeated. "Even five hundred tons..."

Deathwing suddenly raised his head.

Though they were hundreds of meters apart, all three of them clearly saw those eyes—the once molten-gold vertical pupils were now bloodshot, one of them already burst, murky fluid running from its socket. Yet the remaining eye still burned with a vicious light that made them shudder.

Crack.

Worldbreaker's jaws suddenly opened, revealing uneven broken teeth. Perhaps the explosion had damaged his throat; his mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

"Monster..." Chromie abruptly took a step back. "He didn't die even after that?!"

Onyxia suddenly turned, dragon scales spreading from her neck. "I'll put him out of his misery."

"Wait!" Deren grabbed her wrist. "Don't get close. Just use the rockets!"

Onyxia transformed into her dragon form, hooking two rocket launchers onto her claws before soaring into the air. She circled above and took aim at Deathwing at the bottom of the crater.

Deren nudged Chromie. "Help hold that old black dragon in place so the rockets can hit more accurately."

The Bronze Dragon nodded and waved her staff to cast a spell. Deathwing noticed them and desperately tried to get away. But with his strength so greatly diminished, even Chromie could easily handle him. He was instantly frozen in time. Onyxia seized the opportunity to dive from the sky and fire twelve Armor-Piercing Rockets in a simultaneous volley at Deathwing. Though there was no more violent explosion, Deathwing had taken several more high-temperature metal jets. He writhed and rolled in agony, then lay still.

Onyxia slowly descended, the airflow from her dragon wings blowing the ashes off the ground. Her vertical pupils remained fixed on the once-arrogant Worldbreaker—now, he was nothing more than a heap of shattered bones and charred chunks of flesh. Lava-like blood gushed from dozens of holes through his body, pooling into a burning lake at the bottom of the crater.

Was he dead?

The thought had barely surfaced when Deren's hoarse roar came from afar:

"Don't get close! Load another round of rockets!"

Onyxia's dragon maw curled slightly. She suddenly realized that she was starting to like Deren's cautious, almost paranoid style. She flew back to the safe house, where several launchers already loaded with rockets remained in the basement.

When the Black Dragon Princess returned with rockets hooked onto her claws once more and began circling above Deathwing again, the black dragon king who had been playing dead finally became afraid.

Deathwing had indeed been playing dead.

His consciousness floated in an abyss of agony, barely sustaining his life through the corruptive power bestowed by N'Zoth. Purplish-black flesh buds writhed deep within his wounds, attempting to repair the internal organs shredded by the metal jets.

Just hold on a little longer...

Just a little longer...

But as fresh rockets circled overhead, Worldbreaker's heart—if that Old God-corrupted lump of flesh could still be called a heart—violently twitched.

Fear.

Pure, primal fear.

He had never imagined that one day, he would fear... a finishing blow.

"Daugh...ter..."

His voice was hoarse and broken. The sound from his barely repaired throat was like rusted blades grinding against one another.

Onyxia hovered dozens of meters overhead—just beyond the range of dragon breath. Her vertical pupils coldly watched the once-arrogant Worldbreaker, watched his mangled limbs, his exposed organs, watched his...

Pleading eyes.

"We... are bound by blood..." Deathwing's throat bobbed, and his shredded vocal cords produced a hissing rasp like air leaking through a crack. "Spare... your father..."

Onyxia's dragon claws trembled slightly.

A hesitation lasting one-thousandth of a second.

Now!

A vicious gleam suddenly flared in Deathwing's intact eye as the remaining lava within his chest cavity gathered madly—

"Time Lock!"

Chromie's voice exploded from the other side. Golden grains of sand poured down like a torrential rain, wrapping around every inch of Deathwing's ruined body. The Worldbreaker's movements abruptly froze; even the dragon breath about to erupt was stalled deep in his throat.

His final struggle was extinguished.

Onyxia's hesitation instantly turned into fury.

"How dare you speak of bloodlines?!"

Her roar shattered the scorched earth within a hundred meters.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh—!!!

Twelve Armor-Piercing Rockets screamed out, trailing flames behind them.

"No, N'Zoth, save me!" Deathwing feared death as well. His body could no longer endure any more damage. All he could do was desperately call for help from his master, N'Zoth.

Chromie suddenly became alert. "Wait! Void fluctuations! N'Zoth is about to—"

She did not get to finish.

Boom!

The space at the center of the massive crater suddenly twisted and tore apart. Countless purple-black tentacles surged from the rift, coiling around Deathwing's broken body. Void Energy washed over every inch of the crater floor like a tide.

"No!" Onyxia roared as she shot into the air, the rocket launchers beneath her claws gleaming coldly.

Too late.

Half of Deathwing's body had already been dragged into the rift, leaving only his mangled dragon head exposed. When he saw his daughter dive toward him carrying death itself, a flicker of venomous resentment flashed through the Worldbreaker's one eye.

"You... will all..."

His final curse was drowned out by the shriek of the rockets.

The spatial rift in the midst of teleporting should have been able to protect Deathwing from the final barrage of rockets. But for some reason, the previously smooth teleportation was suddenly disrupted in its final stage, stuttering for an instant.

Whoosh—Boom!

A warhead slipped through just before the spatial rift sealed shut. A muffled blast sounded from the distant void, followed by half a charred dragon tail dropping from the fading rift and crashing heavily onto the crater floor. (Azeroth was snickering.)

Onyxia slowly descended and grabbed the severed tail with her dragon claws. Its scales had long lost their luster, and shattered bone fragments twisted apart by the metal jet could still be seen at the cross-section.

Deren slumped onto the ground. It was all over. Deathwing truly lived up to his name—he had still managed to escape alive from such a certain-kill trap. Chromie floated beside him, her little face pale. "Did we... win?"

Deren nodded and casually rubbed the little gnome's ponytail. "Of course. Deathwing is now an old dog with his tail cut off. He won't even have time to hide away and nurse his wounds, much less dare come out and cause trouble again. Don't worry. This was a great victory."

Onyxia did not answer.

She raised her head toward the dispersing mushroom cloud. The first ray of dawn pierced through the clouds, shining upon the scorched earth of the Swamp of Sorrows.

The dawn of a new era. Her new era—an era free of fear and worry, an era of freedom and happiness.

Third update. Please keep voting and adding this to your collections.