Beneath the Nest, a vast shadow-network began to take shape with old tunnels reopened, forgotten passages reclaimed, and new routes being dug daily where none had existed before. What had once been abandoned hollows and collapsed arteries of the world became arteries again, pulsing with quiet activity. Messages flowed. Supplies moved. Dragons vanished from the surface and reappeared leagues away, unseen and untracked.
It was not a single hideout, but a web. Cells within cells. Each node knew only what it needed to know. If one was compromised, the rest endured. There below the surface his forces were preparing. Weapons were stockpiled, armor reforged, supplies prepared, great siege equipment made and tested. Dragons trained for their final great fight, honing coordination and skill.
The underground also became a place of refuge. Those fleeing Karma's grasp from escaped soldiers, broken champion blooded, entire tribes or bands were hidden, moved, and absorbed. Some were sheltered and sent onward to deeper sanctuaries. Others were folded into the growing resistance. Every arrival carried news, fragments of intelligence, rumors of which biome had fallen silent and which still resisted.
The Nest above grew harsher by the day.
Surveillance tightened. Patrols multiplied. Entire biomes were invaded under the pretense of bringing order or for harbouring him. But below, the network adapted, rerouting itself constantly, shifting routes faster than they could be mapped. The more the Karma Dragon tried to close its fist, the more resistance slipped between its fingers.
This was not an uprising yet. It was preparation. A slow, deliberate refusal to be erased. And Artorius stood at the center of it not as a visible king, but he might as well be. He was the quiet gravity well around which the rebellion gathered.
Every tunnel dug, every message sent, every force trained in silence carried the same unspoken understanding: If the Nest was going to fall, it would not do so without a fight. And when the moment came, they would rise and fight.
However, Artorius knew with a clarity that bordered on dread that none of this would be enough. His armies, networks, preparation, the rebellion he was building in the shadows… all of it mattered, all of it was necessary, but there was a key missing.
One in which if they did not get they would still fail against the Karma Dragon like he did before. The possessed being at the heart of the Nest was not merely another tyrant to be overthrown. It was something well beyond them. Especially as it wields a severed immortal corpse as both symbol and weapon. Against that, numbers meant little.
What could stand against such a thing were dragons who can call down a Great Dragon. The Imperials and there were precious few left.
Once, the Nest had been ruled by seven Imperial Dragons due to his help and the Karma dragon two was dead; War who fell to him and Life that fell to the new immortal descendant dragon. Then there was one who was captured, the Star Dragon, the only imperial dragon on his side.
That left four. Summer. Space. Plague. Dream. Each one was powerful enough to tilt the Nest with the help of their parents. However getting them on his side would be tough since just not too long ago they were fighting and trying to kill each other.
Artorius intended to reach out to them anyway. That is why he was heading to where they were last spotted. Summer was first on his list because she was the most powerful of them. Her domains still burned brightly across scorched savannas and solar dunes, defiant in their refusal to dim.
Even now, with the Karma dragon bearing down on everyone, her territories flared with heat storms and migrating fire-dragons. She was clashing with the puppeted army and was holding her own.
Space was the opposite. Where Summer burned, Space vanished. No one knew where she had gone. She had no territory to begin with as she was mostly just a wandering nomad hopping around the Nest. Space had always ruled through absence rather than dominance, and now that trait had become its shield.
Plague lingered on the margins. Her lands were quarantined long before Karma's rise, which made them some of the few regions not yet fully infested with puppet forces. Rot-clouds and bio-hazards served as both warning and protection. Plague's loyalty was the most uncertain but desperation had a way of rewriting old grudges.
Dream was very dangerous but she had kept to herself. There had been no word of her putting up a fight as she locked herself in her land. Any attempt to approach her was very risky as he could be trapped in her land for a very long time. But Dream also knew things. Had always known things. If any Imperial understood what Karma truly was, it would be Dream.
While he prepared himself for this undertaking, the rest of the Nest was being reached out to by other hands. His Royal Dragons had already dispersed. Ocean, Sky, Psychic, Twilight, and Dawn each battered, tired, and facing impossible odds had taken on the most delicate work of all. Reaching out to the other Royal dragons.
Once, there had been thirty-five Royal Dragons in the Nest. Powers unto themselves, rulers of great biomes and vast armies with many powerful followers. Now, twenty-two were either dead, or bound to Artorius through fear, oath, or shared survival. Thirteen remained.
Thirteen Royals who had kept to themselves as the dragonfall happened which he had to say was smart with how disastrous that event was. Now they were all that were left with the rise of the Karma dragon. They were now hiding out of fear. Some out of calculation. Some waiting to see who would win before choosing a side. However there would be no waiting any longer.
Below that level, his Noble Dragons were in motion as well. Artorius' followers spread out through every biome with the Paper Dragonesses even looking through old libraries for the trials of more nobles that went elsewhere.
Raijin carried messages across area too violent for any regular dragon to reach. Zoklath infiltrated hidden forces, making contact with those holdouts who had barely survived. Viserion reached isolated biomes which were under locked-down.
Every Noble under Artorius' banner carried the same message, delivered without embellishment or mercy: This is your final choice. Hide forever. Kneel forever. Or stand one last time. No promises of survival were made. No threats were issued. The truth itself was more than enough.
Meanwhile, his elder-blooded and champion-blooded dragons operated on a different scale entirely. They reached out to those far removed from courts, thrones, and established biomes. They went where no banners flew.
They reached out to the forgotten areas of the Nest, the places that had never truly belonged to Imperials, Royals, or even Nobles. Places where dragons survived not by lineage or dominance, but by cohesion, adaptation, and stubborn refusal to die.
They sought out solitary bands; small, mobile collectives of dragons who traveled together for mutual survival. Scavenger flights that moved along battlefields and ruinss, wild tribes that lived in place not tamed at all. Free companies always looking for work and blood, nomads who followed migratory patterns of prey beasts across multiple biomes, never lingering long enough to be claimed.
Across the Nest, some responses trickled back in, fragmentary and cautious, others eager and hopeful while countless others were still being worked. Signals flared briefly and went dark. Pacts stirred with some hesitating. Whole bloodlines deliberated in silence, weighing extinction against defiance.
Some did not answer at all. Some hid deeper. Some prepared to sell themselves to Karma's order in hopes of survival. Others delayed, believing they could wait out the storm. Artorius' network did not pause. It could not afford to. Every hour mattered now.
And the possessed Karma Dragon's worked behind them, his grip tightening against them like a noose. Patrols were everywhere. Entire sites were locked down. Biomes were declared to be purified as fighting was thick there.
Yet for every path closed above, two more opened below. For every message or force intercepted, three more slipped through. The Nest was fighting itself now: control versus survival, domination versus defiance. Artorius' envoys pushed outward into every corner of the Nest.
And through it all, Artorius felt the pressure building. Like a lung drawing in one final breath. Like a trap slowly closing. They needed to make their stand as soon as they could, time was running out. The Nest was being cataloged, claimed, threaded, and once that process was complete, resistance would become impossible.
Soon everything would fall under the control of the karma dragon. And by then it would be too late.
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Author Note: The Nest is becoming a dystopian police/surveillance state!
Meanwhile the dragon elders who are supposed to oversee everything are drinking tea & betting who will win.