The sky darkened further, rolling with vicious force. Lightning carved the heavens as the barbarian rose into a fusion of storm and flesh. Midnight blue scales drank the wicked light while a mantle of pale feathers rippled like a blizzard given form.
Twin obsidian horns curved from his skull, framing eyes that burned with cold, merciless intelligence, as if the storm itself answered to him. Each beat of his colossal wings shattered the air with thunder, and in his presence the world seemed to bow, caught between awe and the instinct to flee.
But the massive storm bird did not linger in its transformation. It took to the sky, and the lightning followed, crashing down into the dark fog that shrouded the Tempest Spire. The storm swelled around it in violent, consuming waves, darkening even the stretches of sky the fog had not touched.
That, however, triggered the Tempest Spire.
The dark fog was not decoration after all. It was a mechanism of defense.
