## Chapter 12: A Message Written in Terror
Leo stared down at the five broken scouts groveling on his throne room floor. Moloch. Fifth. Sending spies like some cheap thug checking an empty house. It was… irritating. Like a buzzing fly interrupting a good game. He sighed, the sound heavy with profound boredom.
"Alright," Leo said, waving a dismissive hand. "Enough groveling. It's tedious." His gaze shifted to Obsidian, standing immobile beside the throne. "Ignis . Take these… things back to Moloch."
The scouts flinched, hope warring with terror. Back? Were they being released?
Leo continued, his voice casual, almost conversational, but carrying the weight of absolute decree. "Tell him this: 'Stop sending spies. Stop bothering me. If you or your lackeys distract me one more time...'"
Leo paused, meeting Obsidian's molten gold eyes, ensuring the message was seared into his mind. "'...I will come to Gorgoroth myself. And I will kill you.'"
Silence. Thick, suffocating silence.
The five scouts froze. Their trembling ceased momentarily, replaced by utter, bone-deep shock. Their yellow, slit-pupiled eyes widened impossibly.
*Did… did he just…?* The thought couldn't even fully form. *Kill… Lord Moloch? The Fifth?* It was blasphemy. It was insanity. It was a death sentence pronounced with the casualness of ordering lunch. They stared at Leo, then at each other, disbelief warring with primal terror.
Ignis, however, merely inclined his head, a picture of calm obedience. "As you command, Master Azrael." His deep voice held no surprise, only unwavering resolve.
The leader scout found his voice, a strangled croak escaping his bruised throat. "B-but… Great Lord… Lord Moloch is… he is Fifth! He is—"
Ignis silenced him with a look. Then, without fanfare, without a shimmer or a roar, Obsidian simply… changed.
One moment, the tall, dark-haired warrior stood beside the throne. The next, reality seemed to buckle. The air screamed as space compressed and expanded violently. A shadow darker than the deepest abyss bloomed, vast and terrifying, filling the cavernous throne room. Obsidian scales, harder than adamant and blacker than void, rippled over impossible muscle. Wings, like storm clouds woven from night, unfurled with a thunderclap that shook dust from the high ceiling. A neck thicker than an ancient oak lifted a head larger than the throne itself, crowned with horns like shattered obsidian spears. Eyes like twin supernovas, molten gold and burning with ancient, terrifying power, fixed upon the five insignificant specks on the floor.
The scouts recoiled, scrambling back like beetles exposed to light, their earlier injuries forgotten in the face of this primal terror. The leader stared, his broken horn forgotten, his mottled skin paling to a sickly grey. His voice, when it came, was a whisper of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Y-you…" he stammered, pointing a trembling claw. "The Black Dragon King… Ignis?"
The name hung in the air, charged with dread. The other scouts gasped, recognition dawning like a death sentence. Ignis! The ancient wyrm! A force of nature older than many Demon Lords! A being whose name was whispered with fear even in the depths of Moloch's citadel! A creature who bowed to no one… now he was calling the figure lounging boredly on the obsidian throne as master.
Here. Serving the Ninth. The "weakest." The cognitive dissonance was shattering. Their world tilted on its axis. Before their terror could fully crystallize into understanding, one massive, obsidian-scaled forelimb shot out with impossible speed.
Claws, each longer than a man, closed around the five scouts with terrifying gentleness, yet unbreakable strength. They were lifted effortlessly, like a handful of pebbles, pressed together in the cool, unyielding grasp. The leader caught a final glimpse of the throne room shrinking below – the vast, empty hall, the grimy floor, and the utterly ordinary-looking young man already reactivating his glowing blue game interface, completely unconcerned by the ancient terror holding them or the apocalyptic message they carried.
Then, with a beat of wings that generated gale-force winds within the throne room, Obsidian surged upwards. The massive entrance doors, reinforced and ancient, exploded outwards in a shower of shattered obsidian and twisted metal as the colossal dragon forced his way through, carrying his terrified cargo into the smoke-choked sky.
Leo barely glanced up as debris rained down near the doorway.
He snorted. "Whatever. Priority: Fix Trollhammer's flight path." He refocused on the pixelated wyvern, the fate of the Fifth Demon Lord and his broken spies already fading from his mind like yesterday's news. The bloopsb and zaps of Play Space Alpha filled the shattered silence once more. Outside, the shadow of the Ascendant Wyrm, carrying a message written in terror, blotted out the sun as it arrowed towards the domain of Moloch.