"So when I told him about the Locus—" Ryan started. "He realized that time was getting short. He had been stockpiling orichalcum, and had secretly fashioned the Dragon Heart—an item designed to manipulate mana on a scale such that it would be able to destroy unnatural spikes. Dunkelzahn had his solution then, but he needed to power it. I believe he’d been set up to sacrifice himself all along. It was just a matter of when."