The Abyss, layer 422: the Scorched Wasteland.
A land that burned forever.
Thick smoke and flames blotted out sky and earth, hiding the sun, moon, and stars. Cracked lava and deep ash covered the ground.
Volcanoes rose along the wasteland's edge. Rivers of magma wound across the land, and clusters of charred ruins lay scattered here and there. No one knew whom they had once belonged to.
Fire, ash, sulfur, lava—
That was all the eye could see.
An ordinary creature from the Material Plane would scarcely survive three breaths here.
Flame Demons, Fire Salamanders, fire elementals, and red dragons were regular visitors to this wilderness. Many of them were intelligent.
Among those intelligent beings, a legend circulated.
According to the legend, anyone who leaped into the grandest volcano, let the lava burn their body, and crossed the searing ocean might reach the realm of a fire deity.
Now, a figure stood before the largest volcanic crater.
She had the appearance of a female Dragonborn.
Her face was striking and her figure tall. Scales ran from her chest to her knees, tracing the curves of her full body. A long dragon tail swayed slowly behind her, and five horns of different colors rose from her head.
Red, blue, green, black, and white—they formed a crown.
Her pupils were narrow slits. Nobility and wickedness blended strangely within her.
She was Tiamat, the Evil Dragon God.
More precisely, she was an avatar Tiamat had formed.
She glanced down at the churning magma in the crater. Then, as though testing the legend, she leaped in without hesitation.
Boom!
Lava splashed up and swallowed her.
But the lava, steeped in the aura of the Abyss and a peculiar sense of destruction, failed to destroy her body.
Tiamat's avatar kept sinking.
She passed through what