[center][h1]Nero Capital City[/h1][/center]
[hr][@Rai][@13org]

Yes. Good. The little ants were trying so hard to protect themselves. Oh how adorable! In the millenia that had passed, it would seem that the arrogance and zeal of mere cattle had come to know no bounds.  From tunnel of shadow mist emerged heavily armed warriors, their souls far stronger than anything else this pitiful excuse for a city had to offer.  They looked truly…. DELICIOUS.  But let them have their moment, for souls that experience hope, only to have it ripped away in their final moments tasted far better than normal.  Over a hundred more troops joined the stronger ants in their ‘assault’.  Chains bourne of magic and darkness reached out from the abyss helplessly wrapped around the dragon’s body.  Though he could tear through such petty bindings with ease, he allowed them to engulf him as tiny warriors rushed toward his hulking form, followed by a volley of massive arrows…

From the ground, it would seem as if the day had most nearly been won by the efforts of the Neroan troops. They couldn’t have been more wrong.  Mere inches from their mark, the entire volley of dragon-slaying arrows was swept away by a spontaneous gust of wind.  To the dragon, this was the equivalent of flicking away an insect.  A vile sound; horrible enough to make even the bravest of souls soil themselves filled the air.  The dragon’s amused laugh echoed throughout the streets, a powerful feeling of dread fell over all who heard it.  This wasn’t a fight, it was a GAME; the monster was merely toying with it’s food.  
 
With a violent jerk, nearly seventy of the city’s defenders became pale and lifeless, their very life essence robbed from their bodies.  Those who didn’t fall immediately faced another consequence, a crushing pain constricting their chests as they collapsed to the ground, many fainting from the sheer feeling overtaking them.  Troops fortunate enough to be furthest from the dragon would feel a slight pressure on their being as they felt a sizable amount of their strength evaporate in response to the dragon’s might.  Only Sleeth and his hand-picked elites would remain unaffected, only detecting a trace amount of the otherworldly pressure brushing over them.  [color=006666]”Is that all? I expected something more…  SATISFYING.[/color] the dragon tauntingly huffed as it looked directly at the King of Nero, a mad grin spreading across it’s terrifying face.  Moving slowly forward as if to challenge the elite troops, the beast tore through the chains like wet paper mache, they were clearly inconsequential to this monster.  

Could it truly be stopped? 

It’s slow approach was accompanied by a sudden, otherworldly cold that invaded the air.  The typically temperate city dropping to freezing temperatures.  If that wasn’t unsettling enough on it’s own, even more disturbing was that any non-magical temperature reading devices would detect any difference, any form of magical device intended for communication, navigation, or temperature reading would be driven haywire, typically ceasing function altogether.  The otherworldly cold seemed to defy all reason, piercing all means of clothing and armor, creeping its way deep into the bones of all that felt it, the only physical sign of the cold’s existence being the foggy breath of the living.