Dragon's Soul: An End's Beginning

by Tony Tran

  “Then we should take our time and just wait for others to find flags.” Yuying said with an equally devious smile.

  “You guys keep talking I’m going to sleep.” Ai said as she jumped onto a huge bed.

  “You are going to sleep without me?” Zhang said as he hopped onto the bed also landing on top of Ai.

  “Brother! Go back to your own bed!” Ling yelled as she tugged at Zhang’s arm.

  Without saying a word Zhang rotated his arm and grabbed Ling’s. With a smile on his face he pulled her onto the bed also. Then he slowly moved her face closer to hers and gave her a peck on the cheek before rolling off the bed.

  “Ok I’ll go sleep all alone on this bed.” Zhang teased.

  Ling laid in bed blushing due to the small kiss on her cheeks. Yuying couldn’t help but shake her head and smile at this situation.

  The very next day the group decided to stop traveling and fish from the river. They were using thread from silky to make nets to catch fish. And since Silky’s thread was super sticky they managed to snag a ton of fish. This fish of course was shared amongst the group of four and the five hundred soldiers.

  They had decided to wait and travel once the participants traveling on foot arrived. They were in no rush to reach the demonic forest after Zhang pointed out they did not need to be the ones to actually find the flag.

  Although it would be somewhat unethical to steal a flag the rules only stated that as long as they had a flag on the sixth day they would be a commander. So even if they did not get to the demonic forest for the first couple days then it would still be fine.

  “It seems that the king has made the tournament very interesting, everything is more than meets the eye.” Zhang said to Yuying, Ai and Ling while lying in their tent for the second night.

  “Indeed he did brother.” Yuying replied.

  “Tomorrow the people traveling by foot will most likely have reached the forest. A large number of them had passed us earlier today.” Ling said.

  “Tomorrow we will head out toward the forest and I will have our five hundred men spread out and see if anyone has found a flag yet If someone found a flag then we will ambush them and take the flag.” Zhang said as he pulled a blanket over himself and tried to fall asleep.

  “Good night brother.” Ai said from on top of her bed that she shared with Yuying and Ling.

  That was when Zhang suddenly yelled out.

  “Their hatching! Yuying come quickly.”

  The next morning the group traveled to the border of the Demonic forest. Many participants had already began searching within the forest and tents could be seen set up all around the forest.

  “Split up into squads of five and see if anyone has found a golden flag.” Zhang order his men.

  “Yes my lord.” The men said in unison. These men had followed Zhang from Aurora and after seeing him in battle at Red Mist city had sworn their utter allegiance to Zhang.

  “Let’s go look also.” Zhang said while looking at the three beauties.

  Their group of four decided to go to a less occupied part of the forest. Once there Zhang opened his Ruler's Domain and from within it countless fist sized spiders crawled out. Last night their eggs had finally hatched. Yuying spent the whole night mind washing them to become obedient to Zhang, Ai, Ling and herself.

  She saw that Ling was one of them now thus she decided to add Ling in when she was using her magic on the spiders.

  Once the spiders all crawled out of the Rulers Domain which had grown to the size of a small house. Yuying ordered them to spread out throughout the forest and search for a golden flag. These little spiders were very agile and many in number which would allow them to quickly comb the forest.

  And as demonic beasts of the 6th rank they most likely out classed any demonic beasts they might live in this forest. Despite their size these Titanic Golden spiderlings when working together could wipe out all of the living animals in this jungle.

  Yuying had also ordered them to eat their fill while roaming about in the jungle. While in the Ruler's Domain these spiders would enter be supplied with a large amount of essence water like Silky but Zhang could not drop in enough food for all of them at one time. So it was best to have them feed in the forest for now.

  “Alright let sit here and wait. Either the spiders will find the flags or our men will find someone who had found a flag.” Zhang said.

  The group laid out a small picnic in the forest and ate lunch as they waited. A short while after a group of five soldiers came back to make a report to Zhang.

  “My lord it seems that nine of the ten flags had already been acquired. We learned this from another participant we encountered.” The soldier said.

  “Good now go inform the others to search for the location and names of the nine people who have those flags.” Zhang commanded.

  Chapter 44: Dead Forest

  Zhang’s group had set up camp within the forest. Tomorrow would be the fourth day of the tournament so Zhang was sitting in his tent looking at a list that was compiled by his men. He had to pick out a target to take a flag from. On the list there were nine names and locations. These were the names of the people who had the nine flags that were found.

  The soldiers Zhang had brought with him had spent most of the day gathering information from the other participants. From this they were able to learn many things. Of the nine flags found, two of them were found on the first day sticking out of the middle of a river that ran through the forest. Then next two were found sticking out the side of the mountain that was in the center of the forest. The other five flags were found at random locations within the forest.

  “Perhaps I should wait until the last day before making my move.” Zhang thought. Making his move too early would do more harm than good. Once he took their flag the previous owner of the flag would definitely go after him. Once a flag was stolen then everyone who did not have a flag would also try to steal one for themselves which would cause lots of chaos.

  “Although a little bit of chaos isn’t too bad.” Zhang thought as an evil grin appeared on his face. However, he quickly erased the thought from his mind. He could probably get all nine flags if he confronted the other groups however ending the tournament early was not his goal. What’s the fun in doing that?

  Although the Demonic forest was not very big it still encompassed a large area of land and was complete with a large river and mountain within it.

  These nine flags were currently in the possession of nine different people. Of the nine people eight of them were the dignitaries that were invited by the king and the final person being the leader of some clan that lived in the capital city.

  The dignitaries had hired many of the participants to join their group using gold. With large amounts of manpower, they were able to locate flags.

  Now since there was only one flag left everyone was frantically searching for it. For the commoners this would be their last shot at a once in a lifetime opportunity. People combed the mountains and others swam the rivers. However, the last flag was not found.

  “Odd the spiderlings combed the entire forest today but have yet to locate the final flag.” Yuying said while facing Zhang inside their tent.

  “It’s ok no need to keep thinking about that we will just snatch a flag from someone on the last day of the first part of the tournament.” Zhang said as he laid down on his bed.

  “Guess so.” Ai said as she hopped onto her own bed.

  “Silky you be careful tonight when looking for food okay? Also make sure not to attack people.” Yuying said as she took Silky off from the top of her head and put it onto the ground. She was going to let Silky go roam the forest with the rest of the spiderlings. It was best to let it gain some experience hunting other demonic beasts.

  Thanks to being fed essence water since hatching Silky’s power was many times stronger than a regular spider queen hatchling. It also seemed that by being near the Underworld Heart affected it also. And since this is was the first time th
e Underworld Heart appeared in the mortal plane who knows what effect it would have the things around it.

  Yuying, Ai, and Zhang had been able to grow their cultivation at extremely fast speeds thanks to it. The heart did not have very high battle capabilities but it had a wide range of uses which have been very beneficial.

  The group’s small horde of spiderling roamed the forest hunting prey at an astonishingly fast pace. Individually there were too weak however thanks to their numbers despite their small size the spiderlings were able to hunt pretty much any demonic beast or animal in this forest without suffer any casualties.

  Once a target was spotted the spiderlings would start deploying their threads of silk. The thread would be used to seal off all routes of escape and then they would move in on the prey. Yuying had used her magic to increase the intelligence on these spiderlings making them able of cooperating with each other unlike the spiders at the ruins.

  Thanks to the fact that they had just hatched it was easy for her to use her magic to manipulate them. It is easier to break and rebuild something undeveloped compared to something that was. Unlike Silky she did not cast magic on them individually. Yuying had casted her magic on the small horde of spiderlings all at the same time.

  This would save lots of time compared to casting the spell on them individually. Although it meant she would have to cast the same spell over and over a few times before it had the full effect it did like on Silky.

  Tonight the moon was out and throughout the forest countless animals were being hunted down. However, in the morning when the people wake up there wouldn’t be a trace of these animals.

  This was because the Titanic Golden spiders unlike many spiders actually consumed every part of their prey. Leaving almost nothing behind after they were done. And when they ate their prey was sedated by venom so there was no struggle.

  In the morning when everyone woke up there was an eerie silence looming over the forest. At night all of the animals had been driven very deep into the forest by the spiderlings.

  When Zhang woke up he found that his tent was empty and not a single soul was around.

  “Wonder where they are.” He murmured as he got up from bed and began getting dressed. Once he was fully clothed Zhang walked outside of his tent to find that it was almost empty. Besides for a few people the rest were gone.

  “Where do everyone go?” Zhang asked one of his men.

  “My lord a hot spring was discovered in the mountains and the madams wanted to go there to bathe. They did not wish to wake you my lord so they headed off by themselves. However, how could we let the three madams go into the mountains alone? So we large number of our men went to guard them.” The soldier replied.

  “Could you show me which way they went. Also once the other men come back split this with them. Thank you for your hard work.” Zhang said as he made a bag leather bag appear and handed it to the soldier. Inside of it was a few hundred gold coins.

  “My thanks my lord. The madams and the other men headed in that direction.” The soldier said as he pointed Zhang to where everyone went.

  “My lord would you like for the rest of us to escort you?” The soldier asked.

  “No need I will be fine by myself. You guys may rest for the remainder of the day.” Zhang replied as he began walking in the direction the soldier had pointed to.

  After walking for a while Zhang found himself on the small mountain in the forest along the way he had spots quite a few people combing the forest. About half way up the mountain Zhang spots his soldiers dressed in black armor. They were currently sitting in front of campfires and eating breakfast.

  “My Lord!” One soldier said the moment he saw Zhang and got up to salute.

  “No need you guys continue eating.” Zhang said to the soldiers.

  “Where are they?” Zhang asked.

  “My lord we did not want to intrude so we created a perimeter around the hot spring. The madams are currently a short distance behind the underbrush.” A soldier replied.

  “Ok once you finish eating you can all return to the camp and rest for the remainder of the day.” Zhang said.

  “Many thanks my lord.” The soldiers said in unison.

  After talking to the soldiers Zhang slowly began walking into underbrush. He stealthily maneuvered himself through until the hot springs was in sight. Puffs of steam can be seen rising from the water and into the air.

  As he got closer Zhang can hear the sounds of frolicking reverberate in the air. Splashing of water could be heard and cheerful laughter also. Once Zhang got close enough he saw a scene from heaven. Three fairy like beauties were stark naked and splashing each other with water in a hot spring.

  With his attention elsewhere Zhang kept walking and eventually stumbled on a rock and fell into the hot spring fully clothed.

  “Kyaaaa! Someone was peeping!” A voice rang out.

  “Wait wait! It’s me!” Zhang yelled as his head popped out of the water.

  “Oh it’s you brother.” Yuying said. However, once she noticed Zhang’s gazed she quickly used her hands to cover herself and once Ai and Ling saw her they too used their hands to cover themselves.

  “Yo-you look away!” Yuying, Ai and Ling yelled in unison.

  Zhang not wanting to be attacked looked the other way and began walking out of the water.

  “It’s not like there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Zhang murmur.

  “What did you say?” Ling yelled.

  “No-nothing.” Zhang replied as he began taking off his wet clothes.

  “Wha-what are you doing!?” Yuying yelled.

  “Changing out of these wet clothes of course.” Zhang replied while in his hand a pair of dry clothes appeared.

  The three beauties seeing that he was stripping looked away. Moments later Zhang had already stored away his wet clothes into his interspatial ring and worn new dry clothes.

  After putting on his clothes Zhang found a nice looking tree and sat down under it facing the opposite direction of the hot spring.

  “You guys continued I’ll keep watch over here.” Zhang said.

  However, sounds of people getting out of water could be heard. A short while later Yuying, Ai, and Ling came to the tree Zhang was sitting under and sat beside him.

  “Next time no peeking mister.” Ling said as she sat down and leaned on his right arm.

  “Yea there better be no next time brother!” Ai said as she sat down in his lap.

  “If there is a next time we won’t pay attention to you anymore.” Yuying said as she sat down and leaned on his left arm.

  Anyone who happened to pass by and see this scene would most likely turn green from envy. Perhaps if an artist was able to capture this scene he might even be able to sell it for a lot of gold. Many men would want to buy the painting and imagine that the young man in the painting was them.

  The group of four soon fell into their own little world and sat together enjoying the atmosphere. Being in a peace forest with each other was more than they could ask for.

  Soon a hissing sound could be heard from the top of the tree and when they looked up they could see Silky dropping down from above. It was dropping down as it hung from a single strand of thread. Its target was the top of Yuying’s head.

  Seeing this Zhang couldn’t help but somewhat chuckle. Silky being a queen spider looked more adorable than creepy so as it tried to crawl onto Yuying’s head it looked very silly.

  The group proceeded to hang out by the hot springs for the next few hours. Ling enjoyed this very much being the first time she was able to have quality time with Zhang after three years since his disappearance.

  Life was full of unpredictable things so she wanted to create as many good lasting memories as possible. Having lost him and missed out on being with him for three years Ling felt she had to make up for all the lost time.

  After a while the group headed back to camp to find something to eat. They were in no rush to get a golden flag so as everyone else fr
antically searched they would leisurely do nothing at camp. Tomorrow would be the last day of the tournament and the king will arrive to initiate the second part of the tournament.

  As the group rested at camp the received news that elsewhere someone had found the tenth flag. It was well hidden at the bottom of the river. Someone was fishing for food and luckily hooked and pulled it up from the water. Once news of this got out hordes of people came looking for this individual.

  Some asked to be picked by him to enter the seconds stage while others asked to buy the flag off of him. This particular person was only a simple farmer who had joined the tournament to get a shot at possibly being selected for the second stage and getting some gold.

  Who would have thought that he would find one of the ten flag? One should know that despite having close to a hundred participants there were only ten flags. It meant that whoever possessed a flag was incredibly powerful or extremely lucky.