A/N: *big sigh* updated at last~!

-Kris’s POV-

The journey to Udaranna took me two days as I’ve made a stop over to the city of Amaria which was the closest one to my destination. The place was rather a peaceful land with a massive wall built around its eastern border where the next place was. I remembered my father telling me about these fortifications when I was a child. It was to protect the people from the creatures that dwelled on the next town. Amaria was quite well-known for the fact that people go missing or get slaughtered on a daily basis. Half of the town was uninhabited and I’ve only found a place to rest at the center where an old couple offered me an abandoned cottage to sleep in for the night.

Flying for such a long distance took its toll on me. Countless times, transforming into my spirit form had crossed my mind, but I had to set out inconspicuously. As far as I was concerned, the purists had gained power to detect our life forces which were stronger when we assume our spirit form and I had every reason to believe that they were on a look-out for us. If they’d want to come after us, the chances that they planned to take us out one by one with our guards down would be very likely. I decided to compromise my physical strength momentarily rather than to waste my time coming across those traitors.

Carrying Jinhae’s words with me, I set out the following morning to Udaranna. It was rather silly that she had to threaten me with her words, making herself superior to the devil himself. I didn’t fail to see through her point and the others were just as severe as she was when I let go of those words that must’ve hurt her more than she let on. It wasn’t that I was being callous, but rather practical. It was an indirect way of saying that I didn’t want them to stop striving should things make a turn for the worst. Despite of the circumstances, I wanted them to see through their aims. I was merely trying to acknowledge the fact that we were targets, ready to be pounced at by the purists when left out in the open. It was a struggle we all must live by since taking the oath for Elyxo.

Compared to open grounds, I would be on the safe side of the line once I’ve reached my destination. Purists were keeping ‘tabs’ on me, as Jinhae would put it. Purists would deliberately come after me, but the beasts that were said to terrorize the place act by instinct to slaughter as they were nothing but animals in a sense. They were designed for that purpose except for one – the black dragon I was after.

Upon reading the scroll, I have found out that I was supposed to retrieve something that it protects. The black dragon, according to the stories I have been hearing in my childhood, was a monster that craved for the taste of noble blood with the ability to sense an intruder’s presence in its abode. That little piece of information was very comforting. It would be able to tell the moment I step on the land and finally, with anticipation and blood pumping through my head, I have reached the domain of myths that had come to life.

Udaranna was a small piece of land that stretched out to the northern seas with the southern borders lined with year-round, snow-capped mountains. It was a gale-stricken land, hostile in every sense with treacherous terrains and dangerous creatures appearing here and there. I decided to fly over and take a quick sweep of the land from above it and I haven’t more awed and flabbergasted at the same time in my life. The legends were true to every word. I have never seen such a plague-ridden place with the vast array of atrocious creatures running amok, mostly dragons in their most bizarre forms. 

I sighed. “Why can’t I be chasing after kirins?” I muttered to myself.

I continued my surveillance until I got to the center and found a ruined fortress. At a closer look, it appeared to be a shrine, void of a roof, but with its remnants strewn about, including pillars and pieces of plaster. The four walls that once sheltered the insides of the citadel were somehow intact, probably about to crumble anyway. They provided a dark shade to the sides of the vast hall, but I could still sense something breathing and moving in those corners. Dust motes floated, obscuring my view, as if it was in constant chaos. It pulled me in as if inside me, I knew that what I was searching for was somewhere there.

From where I was in the sky, I was able to see a hole that led to a staircase just by where a massive pillar had fallen. As I hovered closer, something, or rather someone, emerged from the dark opening.  Without second thoughts, I quietly swooped down and landed on top of the walls where a window used to be, keeping myself away from the line of sight of whatever demon I was about to encounter by peering through the small fissure on the wall.

Instead of a beast, I was confronted by a pale woman clad in a black, tattered dress that glittered despite of its darkness. She possessed an extremely dark hair that extended to her ankles, walking with unmistakable grace. She was a vision, but besides the fact that it was unlikely for women to be wandering around a place like Udaranna, her presence dominated the place in a very anomalous manner. It didn’t need a wizard’s prowess to determine what she was. She was the one I was after. She was the sentinel that kept the heirloom from the Flight Nobles for centuries. She was, without a doubt, the black dragon by which the place was named.

She walked through the fortress floors and I caught sight of the dark corners stirring to life as dragons, asleep before, rose and walked into straight lines on either sides, bringing their heads low to the ground in unison as if they were bowing to their overlord. Suddenly, she stopped walking and turned around, facing the way she came from then her head snapped from left to right, sniffing like a hungry predator that sensed its next prey.

My blood ran cold when I realized that she sensed an intruder – me. The creature might have assumed the form of a woman, but she was powerful. Her life force was what dominated the whole land, instilling fear even to the mindless winged lizards that surrounded her. I watched as she looked around, her facial expressions contorting into that of distaste before she turned back and descended through the opening on the floor where she came from until she was nowhere in sight.

I took a deep breath as I turned around, seeing a flash of red light momentarily. My breath snagged when the realization that I just stared right into the eyes of the beast dawned into me. Her presence was burdensome, but I wasn’t about to hold back. As I was veering around, I felt hot air crash against my side, making the air that I was breathing quite acrid. The next thing I knew, I was staring right at a pair of huge amber eyes, about the size of my fists combined. It was a dragon and not a tame one. Its nose flared as it opened its massive maw and let out an ear-shattering cry that shook the fortress. I stared at the hideous being momentarily before finding the resolve to escape. Just as I leapt off the wall, it breathed fire, charring everything that it touched. The hem of my cloak caught fire and hurriedly doused it with my foot, stepping on it against the ground.

The dragon growled when it saw me running away from the bastion through the forest. The chase went on for a while with it flying overhead as I ran through the thicket. To my utter alarm, the massive lizard plunged into the forest floor a few feet from where I was. It was just in time that I made my boot skid sideways, making my way back to the fortress. As I was expecting, it began pounding its massive clawed feet on the ground, making the earth shake underneath me. It breathed fire once more, burning the dried leaves on the ground, nearly missing my arm by inches, but the heat combusted the fabric I was wearing. I quickly shed off my cloak and made a quick round on the first huge tree I saw, cutting through its trunk with air blades. The dragon came just in time for it to fall. The tree collapsed right on top of the dragon’s head, crushing its enormous skull to splinters.

I breathed in as I stood by, watching the fire die down as rain started to pour down immensely. I decided to make my way back to the black dragon’s lair. I didn’t realize how far I’ve gone off from the place. I decided to take the rest of the way flying and went back up to the spot I’ve left earlier. The dragons that guarded the place were once again asleep on their corners, the floor that surrounded them emitting steam as water touched it.

I carefully sneaked right into the fortress hole and I was immediately engulfed in darkness and humid air. The dark, underground chamber made it hard to breathe with the heavy mist and sweat-inducing temperature. I walked through the tunnel and as I drew nearer to the end, I could hear the wails and weeping of a woman, seemingly lamenting for something terribly.

“You’ve always been the weak one…” the woman’s voice said in a mixture of growl and agonized cry. Suddenly, her cackles echoed through the tunnel, bouncing off the walls in different directions, giving off the effect that there was more than one person producing the sound. “I would have been glad to share that lad’s blood with you.”

I unsheathed the sword I have been keeping hanging on my side, about to pull it off when I reached the stone room where she was. I found her kneeling on the floor. She quickly turned to face me, black tears falling from her eyes, staining her cheeks. She didn’t seem surpri