Chapter 25: Filial Piety and the Finishing Blow

A time rift tore open inside the safe house, and Chromie dragged Onyxia out as they tumbled onto the floor in a heap. The bronze dragon’s twin tails were singed and curled from the intense heat of facing Deathwing, with wisps of smoke still curling from the tips.

"Dren!" Chromie shrieked, baring her teeth. "Do it now!"

Dren did not answer. He pulled three levers simultaneously, his knuckles turning white from the strain.

Electric current surged into the detonator at an impossible speed. A moment later, the explosion erupted from beneath Deathwing’s feet on the other side.

BOOM!

The shockwave followed instantly, causing the entire safe house to sway violently like a small boat in a storm. The basement’s stone walls groaned under the pressure, and cracks spread across the surface like spiderwebs. The three of them had no choice but to cover their heads and endure the blast. Seeing rubble raining down, Onyxia stood up to shield Dren and Chromie with her body.

After a long while—or perhaps it was only a moment—the ground grew still. Onyxia stumbled toward the basement entrance and pushed against the wooden planks, only to have a pile of debris fall on her. She poked her head out to find the landscape in ruins. In the distance, a massive mushroom cloud was rising. Crimson fire surged within the pillar of smoke, staining the night sky for miles in the color of blood. The ground, raked by the shockwave, looked as if it had been plowed by giants; all vegetation had been reduced to fragments. The former fertilizer workshop and the drakonid settlement had vanished, with only the massive reactors having been rolled hundreds of meters away, lying crooked and broken in the swampy mud.

Chromie poked her small head out as well. Seeing the apocalyptic scene outside, she let out a low whistle. "That’s way more impressive than the New Year’s fireworks show at the Caverns of Time."

"Ha!" Onyxia’s pupils contracted with excitement; her draconic bloodline instinctively relished this feast of destruction. Sharp claws extended from her fingertips involuntarily, scraping against the floor with a harsh, metallic sound.

Back in the basement, Dren finally let go of the detonator, his trembling fingers tracing a cross over his chest—silently wishing Deathwing luck. The temperature inside the safe house was rising rapidly, and sweat trickled down his temples.

"The yield... the yield calculation should have been correct..." he muttered to himself. "Five hundred tons of ammonium nitrate mixed with aluminum powder... theoretically, it should have been enough... but this is Deathwing. There was an entire expansion pack in the game dedicated to him. He literally gave Azeroth a makeover the moment he appeared. His power is beyond dispute."

"The shockwave should be over," Chromie said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna bet? I bet Deathwing is nothing but scraps now. That explosion was like the Titans returning."

Onyxia licked the corner of her mouth, where a cut had appeared at some point, and tasted her own blood. "I want to say a proper goodbye to him. After all, he is my dear old father; as a daughter, I must show some filial piety."

Dren checked his armor-piercing rockets in silence, then looked up, his eyes flickering with doubt. "I bet... he’s calling for his master."

"Then let’s go see," Onyxia said excitedly. She grabbed two massive six-tube rocket launchers in each hand and strode toward the epicenter.

Before long, they found that the original lair was gone—it was now a crater over a hundred meters in diameter, the soil at the edges turned to glass, shimmering with an eerie glaze under the moonlight.

The dark clouds of the mushroom cloud had not yet dispersed, but the dust at the center had settled enough. By the light of the remaining fires, Dren saw the crater—and the black shadow writhing at the bottom.

"No... that's impossible..." Dren’s throat tightened, his voice sounding raspy and strange.

Onyxia shoved him aside, her golden slit pupils narrowing into thin lines in the dim firelight.

Deathwing was still alive.

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

The World-Breaker’s body was a ruin. His two forelimbs were reduced to charred bone stumps, carving crooked tracks into the scorched earth as he struggled. The wings that once blotted out the sky were gone, leaving only bone fragments hanging with shreds of flesh at his shoulders.

Most shocking of all was his chest and abdomen—the pride of his elementium armor had mostly peeled away, exposing the writhing flesh and magma-like blood beneath. The massive blast had punched several holes through his torso, the smallest of which was half a meter wide. Through one of the gaps, Dren could even see a heart pulsing, corrupted into a sickly purple-black by the Old Gods.

*Thump.*

A severed length of dragon tail hung behind him like a piece of wet rag, dragging through the ash as he crawled.

"He... he’s crawling out..." Chromie’s voice trembled, a rarity for her.

Indeed, despite his injuries, Deathwing was dragging himself out of the crater. Each struggle caused more magma-blood to spray from his wounds, sizzling as it burned holes into the ground. His movements were as clumsy as a dying maggot, but he was undeniably moving forward.

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

Deathwing suddenly looked up.

Although they were hundreds of meters away, the three of them could clearly see his eyes—the once molten-gold slits were now bloodshot, one of them ruptured, with murky fluid streaming down his orbital socket. Yet, the remaining eye still burned with a terrifying, malevolent glare.

*Click.*

The World-Breaker’s jaw snapped open, revealing jagged, broken teeth. Perhaps the explosion had damaged his throat; his mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.

"Madman..." Chromie stepped back abruptly. "How is he not dead?!"

Onyxia turned around, dragon scales beginning to spread across her neck. "I’ll give him a quick end."

"Wait!" Dren grabbed her wrist. "Don't get close, just use the rockets!"

Onyxia shifted into her dragon form, hooked two rocket pods onto her claws, and took to the sky. She circled, aiming at Deathwing at the bottom of the crater.

Dren nudged Chromie. "Help me pin the old black dragon down so the rockets hit their mark."

The bronze dragon nodded and waved her staff. Deathwing spotted them and desperately tried to flee, but in his heavily weakened state, he was easily handled by Chromie. A time-stasis spell locked him in place. In the sky, Onyxia took the opportunity to dive, aiming at Deathwing and firing all twelve armor-piercing rockets at once. While there was no massive explosion, Deathwing, having taken several more high-temperature metal jets, struggled and rolled in agony before finally lying still.

Onyxia slowly descended, the airflow from her wings dispersing the ash on the ground. Her slit pupils stared fixedly at the once-arrogant World-Breaker—now, he was nothing more than a pile of broken bones and charred meat. Magma-like blood gushed from dozens of puncture wounds, pooling into a burning lake at the bottom of the crater.

Was he dead?

The thought had barely crossed their minds when Dren’s hoarse roar echoed from afar:

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

Onyxia’s dragon muzzle curled slightly. She suddenly realized she was starting to like Dren’s cautious, almost paranoid style. She flew back to the safe house, where there were still several launchers in the basement already loaded with rockets.

By the time the Black Dragon Princess returned with the rockets hooked to her claws and circled over Deathwing again, the black dragon king, who had been feigning death, finally felt fear.

Deathwing had indeed been playing dead.

His consciousness was floating in an abyss of agony, barely clinging to life through the corruption granted by N'Zoth. Purple-black granulation tissue writhed deep within his wounds, attempting to repair the organs shredded by the metal jets.

Just a little longer...

Just a little longer...

But with new rockets circling overhead, the World-Breaker’s heart—if that mass of Old God-corrupted flesh could still be called a heart—twitched violently.

Fear.

Pure, primal fear.

He had never imagined that one day he would fear... a follow-up strike.

"Dau... ghter..."

His voice was hoarse and broken; the sound from his partially repaired throat was like rusted blades rubbing against each other.

Onyxia hovered tens of meters in the air—safely out of reach of his dragon breath. Her slit pupils watched the once-invincible World-Breaker coldly, looking at his mangled limbs, his exposed viscera, and his...

Pleading eyes.

"We... share the same blood..." Deathwing’s throat clicked, and his shredded vocal cords emitted a wheezing hiss. "Spare... your father..."

Onyxia’s dragon claws trembled slightly.

A thousandth of a second of hesitation.

*That was the moment!*

Deathwing’s only remaining eye suddenly flared with a murderous glint, and the residual magma in his chest gathered frantically—

"Time Lock!"

Chromie’s voice exploded from the other side. Golden sand poured down like a storm, wrapping around every inch of Deathwing’s broken body. The World-Breaker’s movements froze instantly, even the dragon breath about to be unleashed stalled deep in his throat, extinguishing his final struggle.

Onyxia’s hesitation turned into pure fury.

"You dare speak of bloodlines?!"

Her roar shattered the scorched earth for a hundred meters around.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!!!*

Twelve armor-piercing rockets roared out, trailing fire.

"No! N'Zoth, save me!" Deathwing feared death. His body could no longer withstand the impact. He had no choice but to beg his master, N'Zoth, for salvation.

Chromie suddenly grew alert. "Wait! Void fluctuations! N'Zoth is—"

She didn't finish her sentence.

BOOM!

The space in the center of the crater suddenly twisted and tore. Countless purple-black tentacles surged from the rift, wrapping around Deathwing’s broken remains. Void energy flooded the crater like a tidal wave, scouring every inch of the scorched earth.

"No!" Onyxia roared, taking to the air, the rocket launchers glowing coldly beneath her claws.

It was 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 diving down with death in her talons, a trace of spite flashed in the World-Breaker’s lone eye.

"You... will all..."

His final curse was drowned out by the scream of the incoming rockets.

The teleporting space rift should have protected Deathwing from the final wave of rocket fire. But for some reason, the otherwise smooth transmission stuttered in the final stage, as if interfered with by something.

*Whoosh—BOOM!*

The warheads dove inside just before the space rift closed. A muffled thud echoed from the distant void, followed by half a charred dragon tail falling out of the vanishing rift, slamming heavily onto the crater floor. (Azeroth is smirking in the shadows.)

Onyxia slowly descended, her claws grabbing the severed tail. The scales had long since lost their luster, and at the cross-section, one could see bone stumps shredded by the metal jets.

Dren slumped to the ground. It was all over. Deathwing was truly something else; to escape alive from such a kill-box was unbelievable. Chromie floated beside him, her small face pale. "Did we... did we win?"

Dren nodded and patted the little gnome’s ponytail. "Of course. This Deathwing is now nothing but a hairless, tailless old dog. He’ll be too busy hiding and licking his wounds to ever cause trouble again. Don’t worry. We’ve achieved a great victory."

Onyxia did not answer.

She looked up at the dispersing mushroom cloud as the first rays of dawn pierced through the clouds, illuminating the scorched earth of the Dustwallow Marsh.

The dawn of a new era. This was her new era—an era without fear or worry, a free and happy new era.