Kigan had ordered the Maw to prepare a Decay Bastion, but he didn't know if it would make it in time or if it would be enough to survive the Annihilation. To defend the two women from eight Divine Beasts, he had taken quite a beating.

His bones had broken and mended several times already. He had ignited his life force over and over again to burn the incoming spells and heat the air enough to make it breathable for Kamila and Zinya.

His Adamant-coated tail feathers whipped at the maces, taking the brunt of the damage and deflecting the incoming strikes. His wings flapped, releasing wave after wave of Origin Flames. Yet it wasn't enough.

Kigan's best means of attack, turning himself into a living mass of Cursed Elements, and of defense, becoming a living shadow, were useless. One would have killed Zinya and Kamila, the other would have left them open to the relentless onslaught.

'What can I do? What can I gods-damn do?' Kigan's loyalty to the Master forbade him to abandon Zinya just like his bond with Xenagrosh made it unthinkable for him to let Kamila die.

The Annihilation faced the Bastion to a standstill, the clashing anti-Guardian spells illuminating the area for miles.

Alas, the Griffons had chosen that place for the ambush exactly because it was in the middle of nowhere and magically cloaked from prying eyes.

To make matters worse, Kigan's double cores provided him much more mana than a bright violet core, but they were fallen cores nonetheless. They weren't Awakened nor could they Awaken.

Resisting the Annihilation drained Kigan as much as cracking the Bastion exhausted the Griffons, but they could use Invigoration. Behind the safety of their anti-Guardian spell, with every breath they took, the Griffons recovered their strength and poured more mana into the Annihilation.

Kigan resisted as long as he could, longer than anyone would have believed possible but in the end he fell. The anti-Guardian spell pierced through the depleted Decay Bastion and hit the Balor Phoenix in full.

His body was turned into shreds, his flesh vaporized on contact with the seven elemental pillars. Only a few feathers survived, riding the shockwave of the impact to safety.

"Please, stop!" Zinya cried. "We have done nothing to you. We don't even know you. Why do you hate us so much?"

The black feathers gathered, absorbing the surrounding world energy and feeding off any life form they found to fuel their regeneration, even bacteria.

"Damn Phoenixes and their absurd vitality." Zastaf spat. "Fusing with an Abomination made Kigan even more annoying, but nothing we can't deal with. As for your question, woman, we don't hate you.

"I don't know who you are nor do I care. Yet know this. Even if my plan didn't require to leave no witnesses, I would kill you anyway for associating with a monster like the Bloodstained.

"First things first though." He grabbed Kamila, discovering how powerful the Spirit Barrier imbued in the Voidfeather armor was. "I'm sorry, Lady Verhen. I really am."

The Frost Griffon needed his full strength and a bit of Life Maelstrom to crack the barrier protecting the two women. The other Griffons took care of stomping the life out of Kigan's feathers and making sure with Life Vision they wouldn't miss any.

"You have no fault in this but you have to die. Since there's no hatred between us, I won't make you suffer." The emerald sphere fell apart, leaking mana. "Feel free to say your last words if you have any. I will remember them forever and if I can, someday I'll pass them on to your family."

***

"It's a boy."

Before the Spirit Barrier could break into emerald shards of light, a maw too big to be fully visible from so up close crashed into the Zastaf the Griffon, sending him flying with but a nod of the muzzle.

"My baby boy!" The Black Dragon's head reached for the sky while his feet dug through solid rock like it was mud.

"My…" A colossal clawed hand grabbed Kamila and Zinya, enveloping them in an indestructible barrier.

"Baby…" The maw turned up and snatched the falling Griffon between its razor-sharp teeth.

"Boy!" Zalstaf stood to his full height and firmly planted his feet on the jaw while he grabbed the upper teeth with his hands.

The Griffon tensed his steel-like muscles and infused himself with all the Life Maelstrom he had left, but the maw closed anyway, cutting him asunder.

Hard-light constructs, Adamant, and Spirit Barriers were all useless against Leegaain's teeth as they ground Zalstaf into meat paste.

Guardians usually reached 50 meters (164') of height but that was just a choice to optimize their power to their mass. In his fury, Leegaain had grown to the point Griffons were bite-sized.

"How dare you?" The seven surviving Griffons were stiff as if time had frozen, but their twitching eyes and the wind ruffling the grass told a different story. "How dare you threaten my baby boy?"

Dragon Fear coursed through the Divine Beasts and anyone else who wasn't on Leegaain's hand, turning them into helpless statues.

"What boy?" Vhar, a female Silver Griffon, said. "There is no boy. Verhen was rescued less than two days ago!"

"You are wrong." Kamila caressed her womb. "Our little one was conceived yesterday night, but Grandma confirmed us he is going to be a healthy boy."

"Yesterday?" Vhar scoffed in amusement. "That's no baby but a lump of-"

Leegaain's roar of outrage made the ground quake and the sky rumble.

"No baby?" He echoed as a longsword appeared in a burst of emerald flames. "What gives you the right to decide the destiny of my blood? What gives you the right to taint his air with your breath?"

Once a Divine Beast was conceived, there was no possibility of miscarriage and no illness that could harm the unborn baby. Unless an external factor messed with the pregnancy, it would come to term.

On top of that, Guardians could see through Mogar's veil no differently than Valtak while he had been on death's door. Just by being close to Kamila, Leegaain could feel the small life form growing.

He could see what the baby would look like, picture the boy he would grow into, and the man he would become.

In the eyes of Leegaain, the Griffons were threatening the baby he was holding in his arms, the boy to whom he was reading stories, and the young man to whom he would teach the mysteries of magic.

They were threatening a person he loved and cared even though the Guardian had yet to meet him.

It was the reason Leegaain had conjured his personal weapon, Gift of Wrath, instead of the anti-Guardian weapon Worldbreaker. The Father of All Dragons used Gift of Wrath only against those he hated and was determined to kill.

"It's actually our blood, old lizard." Salaark raised a containment field before the fury of the Lord of Wisdom upended the Griffon Kingdom. "So leave something for me if you can. I know that holding back is hard but put it like this.

"The longer they live, the longer they suffer."