“Impressive, is it not?” he chuckled.
“You’re this strong?” I asked. “You could have taken out the entire Dark Alliance without needing anyone else!”
“No I could not,” he said in a tone that made me know better than to push further.
“My lord!” Raffiel came running to me from ahead, about five men behind him.
“Raffiel, how are the forces?” I asked. “Are you healed? Is everything fine?”
The man and his soldiers paid no attention to what I said, their eyes all gazing up at the Dragon that stood behind me.
“A dragon,” Raffiel whispered softly.
“Raffiel!” I said, a lot louder.
“Yes, my Lord!” he turned around, his eyes looking right at me.
I smiled. “How are our forces doing?” I asked.
“We…lost a few people,” he said, not showing much emotion, but I could tell he felt a lot more than what he expressed.
“Have you all healed up?”
He nodded. “We’ve taken a good share of health potions.”
“Good.”
I saw two figures approach me from the street on the side, and I could tell immediately it was Freya and Nazu. The young kobold charged ahead of her, nearly smacking into the dragon as he stopped.
“A dragon,” he giggled.
Acnologia looked at the young one, and I could tell he was amused. “A dragon-blood,” he said.
“Indeed,” I said softly, a smile on my face.
“So you actually did it,” Ijyela walked up to us, Krof at her side. “You actually resurrected the Shadow Dragon.”
“Not intentionally,” I chuckled.
All of a sudden, I heard commotion come from outside, as though a flurry of voices had all started yelling at once.
DING!
WARNING! Ikarius has been attacked! Invaders have entered the village borders.
What? I blinked. I could see no one in here.
All of a sudden a thundering boom sounded from the outside, and the shield of silver light tremored.
“Hmmm?” the Dragon looked up, sensing something off. A massive crack tore into the shield, and in less than a second, the entire thing broke, shattering into tiny pieces and dissolving into the wind. A flash of lightning struck the floor, sending tremors through the surface.
When the burst of light had died down, Markus stood a few yards in front of us, adorning his suit of white armor, his helmet in his hand. His vibrant, blue eyes looked at the Dragon and he chuckled. “You actually resurrected him,” he said, amusement filling his tone. “I thought you might have but it is good to know that you did. Thank you for finishing up one step of my plan.”
“I did nothing for your plan,” I muttered. I used my Analyze skill on him, wondering if my increased strength now would let me see how strong he was.
DING!
Name
Markus Goodfield
Race
Human Dragonborn
Level
1067
Health
19610
Mana
18450
Stamina
12320
Those numbers made me wish I’d never seen them in the first place. What the hell, I muttered. How have I even been able to keep up with him when he’s double my level?
“Your race is significantly stronger than his,” Acnologia said.
But enough to make up a two-fold level difference? I asked.
“He’s also not been trying that hard,” Nyx said.
“Anyway,” Markus said. “This has been fun, but I should probably finish this while I can.”
“You’re not finishing anything,” I said, stepping in front of everyone.
“Are you sure, Diablo?” he asked. “Surely, it is time for you to stand down now.”
“Hardly,” I muttered.
He snapped his fingers and a blast of air shot into me, sending me straight against the dragon’s leg and knocking the breath out of me on impact. I wheezed as I stood up once again.
“The Curse of the Phantom Lord is quite the status affliction,” Markus chuckled. “Are you sure you still want to take me on?”
Dammit, I cursed. For a second, I’d completely forgotten that my powers had been greatly nerfed.
Freya stood in front of me, a stern expression on her face. She snapped her fingers, and her form immediately flickered. Winds swirled around us, and sparks showered the air around her. All of a sudden, her hair turned blood red and her eyes changed to the same shade, with runes of black forming all over her visible body.
She lifted the longsword on her back as it changed form, glowing white and expanding until it was a massive broadsword of jet black.
“Ah, the Queen of Iskaeil,” Markus smiled. “I have already taken you down at the Ulhur mountains. What makes you think you can defeat me now?”
“Because now it isn’t just me,” she said, pointing her sword at him.
“Hardly,” he chuckled. He thrust his hands into the air, letting out a rabid cry. Clouds of darkness emerged into the sky, collecting around just our village. Thunder rumbled, and almost immediately a blast of lightning struck Markus where he stood. The Dragonborn’s body began to glow a faint white, sparks of mini-lightning shooting from his armor as he stood straight, a smug smile on his face.
He snapped his fingers and a multitude of lightning bolts struck down from the sky. I heard the claps of thunder follow, but not a single one of us were left injured. I looked up confused, and saw that we were now under the wings of the Shadow Dragon.
He protected us, I realized.
Acnologia retracted back his wings, letting us into the open once again, a stern look in his eyes.
“Hmph,” Markus scoffed. “So that’s what you wish to do, Acnologia.”
The Dragon stayed silent, looking right at the Dragonborn.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll just have to take you down then.”
He surged up to the dragon in a flash and slammed into him with his fist. The large beast went flying through the air, crashing to the ground and sliding across the streets, destroying every house he touched until he came to a stop.
“Huh, that was easier than I expected,” Markus chuckled, flexing his wrist.
“ACNOLOGIA!” I yelled.
“You can join him, don’t worry,” the Dragonborn disappeared, and before I could even find out where he was, I found his fist against my stomach. I went flying back, pain exploding through my body. My limp form landed hard against the dragon and I slumped to the floor, my health now just a fractionth from death.
I can’t, I thought. I can’t die. Not here.
“There is only one way left, Eternal,” I heard the Dragon’s voice rumble in my head.
What? I asked. I’ll do anything.
“Are you certain?”
I heard Markus chuckle as he walked up to us, his fist ready to strike into us again.
I am. I said. Help me.
“Very well, initiating the ancient process,” the Dragon said, and shadows rose from the floor, covering and suffocating me like an ocean of darkness. Fear gripped me tight, sending confusion through my mind, and shivers down my spine. The blackness consumed me, taking over my senses.
What is this? I asked, my voice trembling even in my thoughts.
Acnologia spoke back, but with just one phrase, one that shook my very being.
“Dragon fusion.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Darkness surrounded me.
I wasn’t sure how many times I’d been in this situation before, but this time it felt different, almost as though there was something going on that I didn’t understand.
“Diablo,” a voice said. A rush of lights surged from nowhere, assembling in front of me. In a flash the Shadow Dragon emerged, eyes of silver and wings of black, resting comfortably in the space opposite to me.
“What’s going on?” I mumbled.
And then
the words of the past few minutes flashed before my mind, my thoughts catching the one phrase that mattered.
“Dragon fusion,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” Acnologia said.
“Why are you doing this?!” I yelled, anger coursing through me. “I don’t want for you to die! There must be something else we can do to go after Markus.”
The dragon laughed. “Who said anything about death?”
I blinked. “But dragon fusion…”
“Is not the same thing as becoming a Dragonborn,” he said.
“Huh?”
“A Dragonborn...” he stayed quiet for a few seconds. “To become a Dragonborn one must strike the heart of a dragon and consume a part of its blood.”
I shivered where I was, the very thought too inhumane for me to handle. The imagery invoked was a lot more gore than what I’d heard before from the Guardian.
“Dragon fusion is different,” Acnologia said. “You do not need to…kill a Dragon to have it occur. It is simply two individuals fusing their consciousness together.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“It is anything but that,” he chuckled. “There is lot that could go wrong, and a lot that could hurt very much. However, when the consciousness of both parties synchronize the power they wield as one increases tremendously.”
“Fine,” I said. “If that’s the way things are going to go, then I’m fine with it.”
“Good,” he said. “Let us begin the process then.”
A howling wind entered the space around us, sending a chill up my skin. I saw a point of white light shine from high above. All of a sudden, the darkness around us stripped away, like layers of cloth had been shrouding us within. We were in in darkness no more and found ourselves in some kind of forest.
Large trees stood around me, dark leaves hanging from their many branches. I could see the sun high in the sky, shining rays of light onto my face. The scent of flowers and berries floated in the air, the smell carrying through the gentle winds that ran awry through the forest.
“We are here,” Acnologia stood next to me, a little cramped for space between the trees. I was quite certain he could just fell them over if he wanted to, but he probably preferred he didn’t.
“Where exactly is here?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “The Dragon fusion process chooses of its own accord.”
“So the process is what put us here?”
“Indeed.”
“Okaaayyy,” I said, not really sure how or why that happened. “What are we supposed to do now?’
“A crystal,” he said. “We must find what we call the Stone of the Dragon, a perfectly cut crystal rock that emits rainbow light when kept under the light of the sun.”
“Is this like a trial?” I asked.
“You could say that. Yes.”
“Very well,” I said. “Where do we head to?”
“Climb on,” he said.
“What?”
Acnologia knelt onto the ground, letting one wing drop as a sort of incline onto his back. “The crystal will be in a well identifiable location, like a cave or a hilltop, not something obscure like inside a tree. If we’re in the air we’ll be able to see if there are any special landscapes around here.”
I waited for a second and then shuffled up his wing, climbing onto the back of his neck and holding on tight. “You sound like you’ve done this before,” I said.
He flapped his wings powerfully through the air, and in a second we were up into the sky. “Once,” he said quietly, his voice barely heard over the sound of the rushing air. “It was back during the war with the Eternals.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be,” he said. “Those were pressing times, and they were trying on many of us. Moreover, you were one of the men on the side of reason.”
“I was?” I blinked.
“Indeed,” he said. “You and I never knew one another, but I had heard of you many times. There were quite a few dragons who respected your effort to stop the war. It was unfortunate it ended up the way it did.”
“Yeah…” I said, still doting on his words. All this while I’d been told I was the evil Eternal, the dark Overlord who’d killed for fun and showed mercy to nothing and no one. This was the first time I’d heard anything positive about my past self, and it was a little stunning that such a thing even existed.
“You seem a little taken aback,” Acnologia said. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It is nice to hear of how I was back then.”
“Memories are wonderful.”
I smiled. “Indeed, they are.”
A burst of chilling wind hit us, and Acnologia climbed even higher up into the sky, the clouds now level with the dragon.
“This is quite high up,” I said and looked down. My eyes immediately widened at the sight I saw before me.
Down below was a large island, covered with trees, bordered with fresh sand, and surrounded by glowing blue water. The island inclined up towards the middle, and the mouth of a volcano opened up at the epicenter, at the topmost section of the island. There was no smoke coming from the open mouth, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing was active.
“Where could this jewel be?” I mumbled, looking down at all the surfaces beneath. I could see green treetops all around the island, but nothing apart from that. From what Acnologia said, we were searching for a place that stood out, and so far, the only one that did was the-
“The volcano,” the Dragon said, voicing my thoughts. “That’s where.”
“That’s a good idea,” Nyx’s voice popped up out of nowhere.
“Whoa, hey there,” I said.
“I was not aware you were here, spirit,” Acnologia said.
“Uhhh, you realize I live in Diablo’s Spirit Space, right?” Nyx said. “And that that’s exactly where we’re in right now?”
“What is this space he talks about?” Acnologia asked.
“A section within my consciousness where I can host spirits,” I said.
“Ah, I see,” the dragon said.
“I just kept quiet for a while because you guys seemed to be talking important stuff and I didn’t want to intrude,” Nyx said. “However, I felt given the situation it might be useful to let you know I can sense a weird presence at the Volcano.”
“You can sense the Gem of the Dragon?” Acnologia asked, surprised.
“I don’t know how things are usually supposed to work here, but it seems I have greater knowledge of this place we’re in since it was constructed within the Spirit Space.”
“Interesting,” Acnologia flapped his wings hard, taking us many yards closer to the volcano with each stroke. We quickly began our gliding descent, arriving close to the mouth in about a minute.
“Nyx, do you know where exactly the presence is?” I asked.
“I don’t have that much information,” Nyx said. “Maybe I’ll get more when we get there.”
Acnologia tilted his body, and opened up his wings, catching the air and stopping right above the volcano, letting us hover there. I looked down, and saw that there wasn’t magma inside the volcano, but crystal clear water instead.
And that god the water was crystal clear. One look and I could tell there was an entrance in there that lead to somewhere much deeper. And much darker. That’s where we had to go.
“There,” I pointed to the water and the dragon understood immediately. He retracted up his wings, streamlining his body, and then we dived down. Acnologia didn’t pull up even when we neared the water and instead kept speeding up
“Take a deep breath,” he said and we plunged into the surface. The Dragon used his wings as paddles and moved around underwater. In seconds, we located the entrance I’d seen and swam down. The path itself was a little small but still big enough for us to move through easily.
The big dragon shot in, while I focused on keeping all the air within my lungs. You’d think being t
he Phantom Lord plus my knowledge of the Water Arts would be enough to let me breathe underwater, but that apparently it wasn’t.
A shot of purple light came from ahead of us, splitting into multiple beams inside the water and radiating in an ethereal glow. The Shadow Dragon surged down with vigor, heading right for the light. We exited the water all of a sudden, collapsing onto the surface. I brushed the liquid out of my eyes and found myself on solid ground once again. I looked up and noticed the water stick up to the ceiling, not a drop falling down to the floor.
“Spirit Spaces are odd,” Nyx said.
“How interesting,” Acnologia said.
I avoided commenting on the water and looked around us instead. We were in a small rocky chamber, and right there, on the wall to our far right, stood the stone head of a dragon. And within its open mouth lay a jewel of silver, radiating brightly in its own light.
“There’s the stone,” I said. “What now?”
“You must pull it out,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, a little surprised that the task was this simple. I walked over to the bust and put my hand into the dragon’s snout, my fingers wrapping around the jewel and tugging it. It slid out smoothly, with basically no resistance at all.
I held the jewel in my hand and held it up to show Acnologia. “What happens now?” I asked.
“This will hurt, Diablo,” the Shadow Dragon said.
“What are you-”
A spark shot out of the jewel, and all of a sudden, blasts of electricity burst through me, causing a silver glow to cover me whole. I slumped to the floor, a scream on my lips, my body completely immobile. The dragon neared, his silver eyes looking into my frozen gaze.
He uttered a word, and pain struck me even harder, as though my very blood was boiling. I felt my muscles squeeze and tear, as though my body was beginning to crumble like a plate of paper.
And then everything went dark.
I lay in the darkness, breathing heavy, feeling my body to just make sure I was still here. What was that? I gasped, wishing I could forget the feeling.
“Thank you, Eternal, for bearing with that,” Acnologia said. “The Dragon Fusion has been completed. We are now one.”
The Eternal: Dragonborn - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 2) Page 24