The Eight Elemental Blades...

In The Galactic Conquest there are 13 Lords and Avatars. Eight of them required constructs to keep them in sentient existence, had they not created these items they would fade in to a force of nature. The other five did not need constructs but ended up creating their own to ensure universal stability. The eight beings that needed constructs were the lords and avatars of light and darkness, fire and water, earth and electricity; wind and ice. Each bladed was forged out of the creation of the avatars. The sword does the respective wielder's bidding, but can only harm the wielder. 

When the avatars were created to stabilize the comprised lords, the blades and constructs were also crafted to stabilize the avatars themselves, or at least for the eight elemental avatars, least they too would leak into oblivion. And so the blades were created to act as both a seal (to prevent them from flowing out into a force of nature) and a vent (to allow the build of raw energy to be expelled in a controlled manner).

On top of the constructs acting as their medium for power and a fail-safe kill-switch, if the eight blades were combined they would bring balance to the eight elements should they become chaotically displaced (it should be noted that the eight and only the eight should be combined and not one extra).

There were two other blades crafted, the Kronosbane (Blade of Time) and the Gemátos Akyró̱soun (Blade of Space). The Kronosbane cannot ever be combined with the other blades since time cannot be undone and is ever flowing. The Gemátos Akyró̱soun on the other hand can be combined with any other blade, allowing the respective avatar to [temporarily] have an infinite amount of power. This is usually done to combat the flawed doings of Chaos; in a sense it creates a Blade of Chaos (of course augmented with the element).

This is exactly why the eight blades should nevar be combined with the Gemátos Akyró̱soun (the combination of the eight equals the power of a lord, adding the Gemátos Akyró̱soun would create a Diafthorá (Blade of Corruption), or a construct for the Corruption Lord [granting him a window, or a door, to this dimension and allowing him to further taint and corrupt what he already made degenerate and set for an eternal decay]).

The Shadow Dragons

Back on Dravon, with no immediate reference to this world’s connotation of the term “shadow dragon”, there is a rare type of dragon with the ability to shift into all the dragon-kin forms. They are called shadow dragons because of the infinite shapes and forms that shadows can be cast as. In the known universe of this dimension there exist (as in: have only ever existed, and can never be removed) two shadow dragons.

The first one, unfortunately (or quite possibly very fortunate for Tom) was malignant, hateful Kroythros the Death Dealing Demon. If there has ever been an entity more evil than the Lord of Corruption himself, it is Kroythros (Kro the Demon for short). Not much is known about him aside from the fact that he almost greedily consumed dravon itself. If it were not for his immense size and the sudden fear that manifested within the draken, Kro the Demon may have been still terrorizing the universe today, devouring one world after another. His defeat then, though, was not his last, he would fall into a near 1000 year slumber before waking in a suspended state (he was basically knocked out cold and then could wake up basically whenever crap he wanted).

Fast-forward another thousand or so years and we find Shadow the Xavado, the second shadow dragon and this time a player for our team. You’ll find him from time to time either referenced or seen in combat and conversation throughout the Galactic Conquest, but little is known that he was the one that sent Kro the Demon to the grave yet again. Apparently, during his more youthful years when he had just reached the precipice of his maturity, a visit from his future self greatly changed the course of history (Shadow of the Future and Tom find a great problem with the way things turned out and figure that it’d be best to send him back in time to correct a few things to ultimately save the universe). Long story short, Shadow of the Past was very arrogant and proud of his shifting abilities before he was possessed by Shadow of the Future. Shadow of the Future controlled Shadow of the Past and absorbed a portion of Kro the Demon’s soul (this is the unique ability of Kro, his power emanated from the soul and that is why he could not easily be defeated: because his very core was corrupted [he was as powerful as he was evil]).

After that fiasco was over and the corrections made, Shadow of the Future released Shadow of the Past, leaving him up to his own nature. Before the ripples of time could wipe Shadow of the Future, the once again arrogant Shadow of the Past absorbed Shadow of the Future in an attempt to become as strong as Kro, as punishment Shadow of the Future created an energy maker within the mind of Shadow of the Past so that forever until he dies he will always live with the haunting voice of a much more omniscient Shadow. When the ripples of time finally caught up, this left Shadow of the Past, and he became known as Shadow the Xavado, literally meaning Shadow the Shadow since he was a shadow of his former self.

This is why he now carries this sense of dread with him, this is why he is calm one moment and boiling with anger in the next, he is (in a sense) one with the planet (since the planet is known as the planet of change) because there are two very different personas in constant conflict. Shadow the Xavado is the product of madness and out of the destruction of the Future and Past’s souls, out of the fragments of what remains, Xavado exists. It is not known for sure if this is what Tom and Shadow from the Future intended to happen since that Tom no longer exists, but it seems to be working out quite alright so you can’t complain. 

Looking back on everything I just stated, I guess Shadow Dragons are innately power hungry.