The Huntsman’s body twisted, spasmed, then reformed antlers erupting like spears, eyes glowing with ancient forest-light, limbs warping into thorn and crown. Oberon had arrived. Not fully, not bodily but enough. The Avatar of the Faerie King had descended, puppeting the slain Huntsman’s shell as his vessel. The sky dimmed. The stars flickered. The castle groaned. And Rhydderch Pendrath, wounded and panting, faced not a rival but a god.

From the corpse's mouth, a voice emerged one layered in countless eons of command, neither loud nor whispered, but inevitable. “AHHH, how wonderful to taste the air of Mother Gaia after so long.” Then turning to face the Red Wrym, he sported a grotesque crooked grin.

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Image: https://mythos-and-legends.fandom.com/wiki/Oberon

“My, didn’t you make short work of my champion. It's good to see that you Dragonmen still burn with that old fire even in this mana starved carcass you call a world.” 

Rhydderch didn’t flinch. His voice was gravel and hard steel. “King Fly,” he growled, “you have some gall to tread this soil… breaking the Concord before the System even arrives.”

The puppet waved his hand lazily, dismissive. “It will be here soon. No matter.” Then his smile disappeared as quickly as it came as a dark and viscous look came upon him. “Anyways it will be a price well worth paying to wipe out your despised blood from this world before you get thoughts of clutching at crowns again you shouldn’t be. It will be my pleasure to burn your lineage from the ledger.”

This time, it was Rhydderch who wore a smile on his face as he answered. “We are many, we are hungry, and we are wrathful, Halcyonae. It is not only my King who wishes to destroy you and your fellow vile gods.”

With nothing more to say, the two of them clashed just two great powers; one born of glamour and dominion, the other of flame and oath colliding like stars and this time all who bore witness to it simply disappeared as if their eyes were not worthy at what they had seen.

Oberon moved first, attacked with elegance and horror. Every movement broke logic. Every gesture unraveled reality like thread. Rhydderch fought back but was pushed back. Pressed from the outer courtyard into the inner sanctum, through the broken wards and dying fires, until he stood at the threshold of the Crown Crypt. Nowhere left to run. No more knights to shield him. Only his oath and the fire deep within him. He closed his eyes and whispered. “Forgive me, my son.” And then he changed.

The fire within the blood awoke. His skin cracked. His bones broke. Wings burst from his back in trails of flame. His mouth opened wide with a sound between thunder and mourning. And from broken flesh came flame made manifest, a dragon. The Red Wyrm!

Not a metaphor. Not a symbol. A dragon, ancient and apocalyptic, crowned in burning horns, scales forged of steel, blood, and wrath. The castle shook, the world quailed. Oberon, even inside his stolen body, hesitated before the great beast in front of him.

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/15410823720259992/

Wyrmfire met glamourstorm. Claw met illision. Roar met magic. Oberon struck with forest-born spears, illusions carved from stars, and truths so heavy they could break mountains. Rhydderch answered with wings like storms, tail strikes like falling worlds, and a breath of flame that turned forests into ash. The sky cracked. The mountains trembled. The World itself stirred, sensing something that should not be, a power from a forgotten age. 

The power from the dragon was too great, and the dead corpse was too weak to house all of the might of the Fey King and so cornered, he had no choice but to show his hand. From the broken shell of the Huntsman’s chest, Oberon drew a single shard black and shimmering, jagged and alive. The Thorn of Reverie.

Not a blade. Not a spell. A concept. A remnant from the First Dream of Earth, when all things were one. He cast it right at the heart of the beast, And with one strike, Rhydderch screamed. The transformation cracked. The Red Wyrm collapsed. Flesh returned. Wings burned away. The dragon was undone, cast back into a broken man gasping at the base of the castle. But not dead. Not yet.

Oberon approached, his Avatar's form all but destroyed as it was ready to dissolve into mist and starlight. But the damage was done and he had come up on top with Rhydderch beaten. 

The red wyrm bled from a hundred places. He couldn’t stand. And still, he smiled. Seeing the Fae God approach to finish him off he spoke to his spear, “My old friend, do you have one more strike for me?” As if in answer the spear lit up in dragonfire. 

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/36943659438121466/

“You will die nameless,” the Fey King called out as he raised one hand, not to strike, but to erase. “Your line ends here. Albion’s dream ends here.”

But the world… disagreed. From beneath them the earth stirred. The world itself opened its eyes. Albion, the child of Mother Gaia, remembered him and his bloodline. Rhydderch Pendrath rose on one knee, raised a hand soaked in blood and flame and struck one final time. “You hear that invader. This is my world. You are not welcome here!”

The strike held everything he had in him, he poured all his power, all his blood, and even his soul into it. A lance of flame, wrapped in earth’s hatred and memory, drove through Oberon’s puppet-form, through glamour and divinity, through ancient song and unmade it.

The Avatar screamed in pain, in agony and in fear as it was exiled. And was gone.

The castle stood silent. The fae were gone. The Wild Hunt broken. Only embers remained with dead knights everywhere. The Fae rift collapsed, folding in on itself like a bleeding wound. The forest beyond still burned. And then, beneath shattered skies and bloodied stone, the last dragon of Albion stood there dead.

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Author Notes: The Pendrath family takes inspiration from the Black Knight in Marvel. There is more to them which I will expand on. 

More info: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Dane_Whitman_(Earth-616)

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