“You’ll understand how to use the Call eventually, but for now, we’ll do the following,” Traves lifted his sword-reed and pointed it at a spot between Hadjar’s eyes. “Breathe, my disciple, and remember, whatever happens in your life, the most important thing is to never forget to breathe.”
Hadjar started breathing deeply, freely, and evenly. The wind ruffled his clothes and played with his hair. The amulets gifted to him by the Bedouin shaman tinkled as they rang out. Instead of the usual darkness, his consciousness rose toward a light. It was soft and enjoyable, and shone like a reflected midday ray of sunlight across a rippling water surface.
Hadjar heard the laughter of thousands of different voices, children’s and adults’ alike, male and female both, merge into a single stream of irrepressible fun. They whirled around Hadjar, dancing and offering him a chance to join them.
Hadjar couldn’t resist. He danced with them. Mountains and rivers, lakes and seas passed by, as well as thousands of amazing cities and countries. Perhaps he’d lived in some of them and then died in order to be born again in the others.
He heard thousands of stories and told hundreds himself. However, a lonely figure wandering through the canvas of reality constantly drew his eye. He touched the man’s raven hair and looked into his blue eyes that were filled with an unyielding willpower. He told him stories. And then Hadjar looked carefully at his own face and recognized...
Hadjar awoke from the strange, mystical slumber. Lying in the grass at Traves’ feet, he tried to catch his breath and recover. Never before had he experienced anything like it. While living as someone who wasn’t quite him, he’d looked at his own face.
“Your Call will help you stay in the wind, disciple,” Traves said.
The dragon gradually melted away, as did the world around Hadjar. The endless valley covered in tall grass seemed to evaporate, almost like a mirage. He was returning to reality, now a little stronger than before.
Traves looked at the stone where his disciple had just been sitting. He’d once again returned to his endless journey, leaving Traves behind to look at the depths of the azure sky. Hadjar probably didn’t even realize, sitting beneath the blue heavens, that this was his soul: clean and serene, free and unstoppable. Traves’ shadow liked being here. Maybe, if they’d met many years ago, they would’ve become good friends. A dragon and a mortal man... Even myths didn’t claim that a Lord of the Heavens would ever become friends with a human.
“Your descendant is worthy, Ancient Enemy,” Traves whispered.
In response, a bird cry sounded in the distance. There, far away, within the azure heights, hidden among the clouds, a miniature black dot soared. It was almost invisible and Hadjar hadn’t seen it... Maybe it was for the best.
Traves closed his eyes and began to slumber. He hoped that the next time he would see his disciple was a long ways off. After all, the more often they saw each other, the sooner he would have to reveal his secret and name the price for his heart. This would have two major consequences: Traves’ Shadow would disappear from Hadjar’s soul and consciousness, and the young warrior would then be doomed to a fate worse than death. After all, even myths didn’t mention a...
“Northerner!”
Through a muddy, almost viscous haze, Hadjar made out the familiar voice. Slowly, straining to do so, he opened his eyes to see he was sitting in the center of what had once been their camp. Now it looked like the aftermath of a battle between several true cultivators: sand had melted and turned into glass, dunes had been split in half, and several deep cracks ran along the ground. The islander was unharmed, but anxious.
“It’s all right, Einen,” Hadjar smiled and tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t obey him.
“Don’t try to bluff me, barbarian,” Einen pressed down hard on his friend’s shoulders, forcing him to lay back down on the blanket. “Since you’ve accepted your Inheritance, your core will be unstable for some time and, by the Great Turtle, I have no particular desire to-” Hadjar cried out in pain. Against his will, energy swept out from his hand, taking the form of a wind blade. It flew across the sand, leaving behind a deep cut. “…get stabbed in the back,” Einen finished.
He lit an incense stick and held it up to Hadjar’s nose. The northerner fell asleep instantly.
Chapter 316
Two days later, when his core had accepted the change, and the tattoo no longer burned on his skin, Hadjar decided to try out his new abilities, or, to be more precise, his old ones that were now under his direct control.
It took him four hours of Einen explaining things and about twenty attempts to manage to use the Call for three seconds. The islander could withstand channeling his Beast ancestor’s power for almost a minute and a half. To be fair, he’d had years of practice and good, experienced teachers.
As always, Einen had claimed that his knowledge wasn’t enough to teach him. So, their training was based on the ‘do like I do’ principle. However, even that much was enough to make Hadjar feel confident in his ability to use his Inheritance.
At the moment, they were shielded by the dunes. The sun was rising to its zenith. They were examining Kurkhadan through their telescopes. Rahaim’s caravan was about to set off. It was unlikely that they would head out under the worst of the sun, which meant that the two guards who’d been chased off still had some free time until sunset.
Einen, sticking his staff into the sand, closed his eyes and then sharply opened them wide. His violet eyes flashed with a bright light, and instead of one pupil, he now had two pupils per eye. His skin flickered with all the colors of the rainbow, and scaly armor covered it in some places. From his distant ancestor, Einen had inherited the gift of being able to call upon armor that was superior to sheikh Umar’s own. Indeed, his Inheritance would rightfully be considered a trump card, one that shouldn’t be used frivolously.
“First, try using your best attack without the Call,” Einen suggested.
He pulled his weapon out of the sand and assumed a defensive stance. The shadows around him soared upward, taking the shape of an ape seemingly hugging him and covering him with its body. Through the veil of darkness, the flickering of his now scaly skin looked beautiful.
Hadjar, unsheathing Mountain Wind, made a test swing. While his tattoo was silent, he didn’t feel a change. This blade suited him much better than his previous one had. Caused by just a simple swing, barely noticeable cuts had appeared along the sand. This would’ve delighted a practitioner who knew the Way of the Sword, and even made a cultivator pause.
Harnessing his internal black sword, Hadjar used a simplified version of the ‘Spring Wind’ stance. A cheerful wind whirled around him. It played with the sand, shaping it into miniature tornadoes. Holding his blade in front of him, Hadjar imagined a leaf falling on Einen’s chest.
“Falling Leaf!” Hadjar cried out, swinging his blade down sharply.
The stream of wind that soared out of his blade turned into a dragon’s maw. The attack left behind a light blue trail as it rushed at Einen’s defense. After leaving behind a deep cut along the ape’s hands, it melted into the darkness. Einen swayed, but resisted the force of the blow. Not a single cut could be seen on his body, only drops of sweat that ran down his high forehead.
Hadjar realized that if they‘d been having a serious fight, the islander would’ve easily deflected his strike. Not because he was stronger, but because he had mastery over his trump card.
“Now use the Call,” the islander’s voice had changed slightly. The echoes of a fish splashing in the water could be heard in it. It was a fairly creepy difference. “Do everything like we practiced and try not to lose consciousness.”
“That only happened once,” Hadjar waved it off.
Einen half-smiled in response, as he was clearly provoking him. Nevertheless, this was a huge deal because, for the first time ever, Hadjar was about to use his Call together with his Techniques.
Hadjar focused on the tattoo on the left side of his chest. He �
��brought’ a stream of energy to it and it flared up. A slightly ragged, shabby cloak comprised of black and blue fog appeared across Hadjar’s shoulders. The exact same kind of fog that occasionally seemed to exude from Mountain Wind.
Hadjar didn’t know this, but Einen was always a bit wary when Hadjar accessed his Call. There was a hierarchy among the Inheritors, something the islander wasn’t going to tell his companion about. He had too many painful memories about it...
On the islands, where the Call was a common occurrence, everyone was well aware of these levels. If the body of an Inheritor changed when they used their Call, then they were at the lowest level. The weakest of the Calls gave someone a short-term increase in any ability or their physical prowess. In Einen’s case, the Call made his skin unusually strong for his level of cultivation.
Next was the level where an Inheritor, while using their Call, received an external item, like, for example, ghostly armor. There were relatively few of these kinds of Inheritors and their Call’s power was many times greater than their less fortunate fellow inheritors’ was.
The third, and last, level was when an Inheritor received a special weapon. Einen had only heard about that level and had never seen it with his own eyes.
Why hadn’t he told the northerner about all of this? Purely because he couldn’t determine which category his friend belonged to. The cloak of fog on his shoulders clearly identified him as being at the second level. However, the black haze around his blade... maybe that’s what the third level looked like? This barbarian was full of surprises. Something unusual was constantly happening around him.
Hadjar was lost in the sensations of his Call. Like never before, he clearly felt the currents of wind around him. They looked like never-ending streams between which empty space sometimes appeared. While training, Hadjar had found out that he could move much faster than normal in this space.
That was what he did now. After waiting for a gap between the wind currents to appear, Hadjar stepped into it. To an outsider, it would’ve looked like Hadjar had turned into black smoke and then disappeared from one place to reappear in another. Crossing more than ten yards in a single instant, he moved behind Einen. The islander, despite the sheer speed of Hadjar’s attack, managed to glimpse his opponent’s silhouette and several of his movements.
Using all his energy, the islander strengthened his defenses as much as possible. He didn’t intend to counterattack, only withstand Hadjar’s strongest blow. Einen was sure that they were equally powerful.
Hadjar, surrounded by streams of blue wind, put in practice what he’d tested during his battle against his inner dragon. Taking the black sword that resided within him, he didn’t simply attach it to his real blade, but instead placed it inside his sword.
A moment ago, wisps of black fog had only occasionally come off the blade of Mountain Wind, but now the dark fog was oozing from its cutting edge.
With a powerful roar, Hadjar, imagining a leaf landing on Einen’s back, slashed his sword upward. His blade moved at such a speed that it cut through the flows of wind. They broke off, raging and kicking up clouds of sand dust. Behind the sword came a dark trail, inside which the barely noticeable silhouette of a dragon seemed to pace restlessly.
The blow struck Einen’s shadows, just as planned. Pliable and resilient, they softened the roaring energy up, but, to both of the practitioners’ surprise, couldn’t completely stop it. The attack, after getting past Einen’s defenses, now at almost half power, nevertheless kept coming toward the back of the islander’s head.
Hadjar didn’t have time to redirect his sword or cancel the Technique as there was too much speed and energy behind the attack.
Feeling the icy fingers of death squeezing his heart, Einen turned on his heel. His scales flashed with rainbow colors and his spear-staff leapt up. When it met the sword, there was an explosion of such force that both fighters were thrown ten feet in different directions. They landed in the sand, breathing heavily.
The black cloak disappeared from Hadjar’s shoulders, and Mountain Wind once again looked like a normal blade. An unpleasant, purple bruise was spreading across Einen’s back — the echo of the attack had been enough to cause that much damage. But still, the islander was intact. Except his skin wasn’t flickering anymore.
“What tribe did you say your Ancestor Beast was from again?” Einen asked, panting.
They were still lying in the sand, unable to move.
“The Dark Storm tribe,” Hadjar answered.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Einen shook his head. “That tribe wasn’t in the List of Monsters, even though it’s almost three hundred thousand years old.”
Hadjar didn’t reply. He knew that back when his Master’s tribe had been exterminated, the islands hadn’t existed yet and there hadn’t been a sea there. Ironically, it had once been a vast desert.
After resting up, they both began their daily meditation, and by nightfall, they were picked up by Kharad’s squad. That’s how they returned to the caravan. It kept travelling deeper into the Sea of Sand.
The wind played with Hadjar’s amulets. Now he could hear it a little more clearly. It was as if the mark that the Sword Spirit had left on his back now had less power over Hadjar’s essence.
Chapter 317
“Hadjar! Hadjar!” The little girl running around him screeched.
Serra, like any other little girl, could both miss someone and get tired of them rather quickly. However, she never seemed to get tired of Hadjar.
He hadn’t seen her on the first night of their return to the caravan. Then, after she’d learned that her beloved guard had returned, Serra had immediately rushed over to Hadjar.
Her father, Zurkh, looked at this happening with a stern frown, but didn’t comment. He would just rest his hand on the hilt of his heavy broadsword when his gaze would meet Hadjar’s.
“And what can I do for the most beautiful girl in the caravan?” Hadjar smiled.
Leaning down, he lifted the laughing Serra up by her armpits and put her on his shoulders. The girl weighed little, even by a mortal’s standards, so, to a practitioner, she was like a feather.
“Is it true that you fought in a war?”
Hadjar stumbled but didn’t drop his little passenger.
“Yes, my star.”
“Did you kill many enemies?”
“All of them,” Hadjar smiled. “Every last one, your highness.”
The girl laughed and asked him to put her back down. Hadjar immediately obeyed, and then bowed deeply. At that moment, his eyes met Serra’s. Hadjar’s heart nearly stopped. Her normally lively, child’s eyes had clouded over, as if Serra had fallen asleep, and ‘something’ indescribable had woken up inside her.
The girl’s warm, tiny hand touched Hadjar’s cheek. It looked so alien and unnatural that he almost staggered back.
“Take this gift in return, Hadjar,” Serra’s voice sounded wooden, lifeless. “In the Sea of Sand, it isn’t customary to receive gifts without giving gifts in turn.”
The girl rummaged around in the folds of her caftan and pulled out a small, pink pebble. It was a simple, smooth river pebble, but not a jewel. And yet, Hadjar sensed that, in addition to the fairy’s body and tears that he held in his wallet, this was now his most valuable property. Either Hadjar’s intuition was wrong, or Serra and her father weren’t actually who they pretended to be.
“Don’t refuse my gift, Hadjar,” the girl smiled slightly. “Let me experience the joy of someone being grateful to me.”
A chill ran down his back. How often did one hear such words coming from a little kid? Hesitating, Hadjar accepted the gift. The girl’s eyes became normal again, she kissed him on the cheek, and then disappeared among the numerous caravan carts. The rest of the children were waiting for her, always eager to have new adventures. They were guarded vigilantly, but from a distance.
Hadjar, watching Serra, toyed with the stone in his hands. It warmed his skin slightly, as if it were exuding
some kind of energy. With the help of light meditation, he could see the World River and all the currents of energy around him, but the stone looked like a simple trinket when he observed it.
There was a light breath.
“If I were you, I’d hide that, Northerner,” Einen advised.
Appearing out of the shadows, he stood next to Hadjar. Nearby, the wooden springs of the many carts were creaking. The caravan had left Kurkhadan behind long ago and was now cutting through the crests of the dunes, going only Rahaim knew where. At night, when no one could see him, Hadjar sometimes checked the map he’d obtained during the battle.
“Have you been watching Zurkh?” Hadjar asked.
The islander looked around, making sure no one was listening to their conversation, and then answered in his native language.
“Yes, Northerner. I’ve seen nothing suspicious. He’s an ordinary traveler, except for the fact that he watches his daughter too closely.”
“He’s probably worried about her.”
Einen shook his head.
“I don’t know how to explain it to you, Northerner. When an ordinary person worries about their child, they look after them. Zurkh watches her like Rahaim watches the caravan.”
Hadjar didn’t quite grasp the difference between these examples. Apparently, this lack of understanding was reflected in his expression, as Einen sighed and continued: “Parents look after their children. Rahaim keeps an eye on his property. Zurkh is doing that too. The girl is property to him. Like a valuable object.”
At that very moment, Zurkh, adjusting his turban, called back his daughter because she had moved too far away. After apologizing to her friends, she immediately rushed over to her father. Along the way, she waved to Hadjar, and then hid in her father’s stagecoach.
Dragon Heart: Sea of Sand. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 4 Page 27
