Dragon Heart

by Kirill Klevanski

  He pictured himself holding a needle, which formed much faster this time. Since he was still being affected by the drug he’d taken (it would certainly cause the most unpleasant side effects later but he didn’t care), his nodes were working like pumps.

  Hadjar, biting his lip as he concentrated, began to gradually change the pattern. He easily singled out the piece responsible for binding the ring to the Patriarch. It looked like the emblem of ‘The Black Gates’ sect and, apparently, no one else could ‘open’ the ring because of it.

  At first, everything progressed smoothly and Hadjar even had time to rejoice and relax, but then he suddenly felt a sharp prick near his temple. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know he’d just spat out some blood.

  The accursed ring was resisting! The pattern seemed to bristle with sharp blades, which were trying to cut into Hadjar’s mind.

  It was clear that trying to re-bind the ring could prove to be deadly, but Hadjar had a feeling that this artifact wouldn’t only help him get to Mage City, but would also save his life at some point.

  Hadjar Darkhan won’t capitulate to a goddamned ring!

  Hadjar continued to push onward.

  Chapter 387

  The seal resisted so desperately that it didn’t seem like just an artifact, but a cultivator fearing for their life. Hadjar was frowning as he kept spitting out blood. In the world of energies, he frantically fought against the shield that the seal had erected to turn him away.

  A copy of Mountain Wind, replacing the needle in his hands, flashed with incredible speed. Hadjar kept hitting the energy shield with it. It trembled and sometimes even cracked, but the harder Hadjar attacked, the more effort he put in, the more the seal resisted. Sharp blades shot out from the shield, striking at Hadjar’s soul.

  Hadjar didn’t give up. His eyes flared brighter with each new wound. An angry dragon raged within them, and it wasn’t clear what caused the shield to bend further — his insane rage or his sword.

  “I defeated you in life,” Hadjar growled, battering the emblem of ‘The Black Gates’ sect, “I won’t lose to your remnant!”

  Imagining the miniature black dragon waking up in his soul, Hadjar called on the black blade. He combined his two swords into one and, after adding his Call to the attack, delivered a powerful blow to the seal.

  In the world of energies, the sword strike left a clearly visible trail behind, black lightning bolts wrapped around it. It made the seal’s shield bend and almost crack, but it quickly retaliated with a vengeance, shooting out long blades. They speared Hadjar, casting him into the depths of the endless World River.

  Back in the physical world, Hadjar flinched, bent over, and vomited viscous, dark blood onto the sand. For a few seconds, he froze in this position, and then, after wiping his lips clean, sat down again in the lotus position. Fortunately, after their terrible battle against the desert spirits, the other squad members were all too exhausted to pay attention to Hadjar.

  Emerging from the turbulent streams of the World River, Hadjar hovered over the seal again. As if mocking him, it flickered slightly like it was winking at the unsuccessful intruder. Hadjar realized that this construct couldn’t be opened by swift, brute force. Whoever had created the ring had foreseen a barbaric simpleton trying to break its defenses. As a result, the shield that had formed above the seal absorbed most of his attacks, and even used them to strike back. To overcome such a defense, Hadjar needed something that would bypass it without harming the shield itself, striking directly at the seal.

  Mountain Wind was still in his hand, or rather, its mental copy was. It looked almost the same as the real blade, except that it had been created using a floating blue mist of energy.

  Calming his fury and battle lust, Hadjar sat down opposite the shield and began to ponder. What could attack right through the shield without damaging it, and only break the seal? The answer was actually fairly obvious once he thought about it — the ‘Falling Leaf’ stance. Hadjar had never used stances inside the world of energies before. Still, what was a stance? No more than a special way to manipulate the energy within one’s body. The weapon served as little more than a guide, as a way to shape the energy more easily.

  The Shadow of the Immortal, whose real power had been far beyond Hadjar’s comprehension, had once demonstrated this theory in practice. The shadow hadn’t even really moved its finger forward, let alone swung a sword, but a deep gouge had appeared on the opposite wall of the cave, about half a mile away. Hadjar hadn’t seen the Technique or the weapon that the Shadow had used. The Immortal had claimed that if it had used a suitable, strong sword, its attack could’ve gone right through the cave wall. Hadjar hadn’t believed it back then. Nowadays, he suspected this world didn’t even really understand the concept of something being ‘impossible’. So, if the stance could be used in the physical world, then it could be applied in the world of energies as well.

  Cracking his neck again, Hadjar turned away from the seal. He completed all the necessary steps with his sword, energy, and ‘body’, then launched a short cutting wave, imagining an autumn leaf landing somewhere in the space in front of him.

  A barely perceptible, ghostly blade soared through the air for about twenty paces before it melted away in midair. Such a weak attack reminded Hadjar of the past. That had been the height of power for him once and had even saved his life in battle several times.

  The amount of energy that had to be spent on it baffled Hadjar. In the physical, ‘real’ world, the attack would’ve been ten times more powerful and required significantly less power to launch. Now, however, Hadjar had lost almost half of his energy supply.

  The shield over the seal seemed to sense its impending defeat and darkened a little. Its radiance disappeared, and it lurked inside the intricacies of the energy strands as if it didn’t exist. It was a primitive trap that would only be useful against very desperate intruders. Nevertheless, Hadjar was almost tempted to believe that the power inside the seal had been drawn back and its protection had disappeared.

  Raising his sword over his head, Hadjar almost brought down all his fury and power on the barrier, but then he suddenly froze. He looked at the copy of Mountain Wind in his hands. Suspicions crept into his soul. He’d just used the ‘Falling Leaf’ stance and the attack had travelled in a perfectly straight line. Of course, he’d directed it to do so, but he doubted it would be possible to change the attack’s trajectory because he seemed to be ten times weaker in this state. Hadjar had only recently learned how to strike from any angle with the help of this stance.

  Lowering his sword, Hadjar looked at the seal. As if feeling its enemy’s hesitation, it flickered again defiantly. Whoever had created this construct had had a twisted and arrogant sense of humor.

  Approaching the problem from a different angle, Hadjar tried to find a way to get around his weakened state in the world of energy by returning to ‘reality’ for less than a moment. That was all the time he needed to launch his attack properly. That way, he might not need to grow stronger in the world of energy.

  After all, how could Hadjar grow stronger in it? Of course, if he’d had a couple of years to train and dozens of Heaven Soldiers ready to spar with him, it would’ve been a piece of cake. He would’ve probably been able to do it without using any special resources. They weren’t a requirement to reach the verge of becoming a true cultivator. However, Hadjar had no time. None at all.

  Maybe he could use alchemical potions and pills? However, those weren’t available to him. Or rather, they were available in Underworld City, but they cost absurd amounts of money.

  The only thing he could possibly use was a weapon. Where could Hadjar get a weapon powerful enough to influence the world of energy from the physical realm? Maybe Imperial level artifacts were capable of this, but according to rumors, they were rare even in the Darnassus Empire.

  Suddenly, as if answering his question, the black blade separated from Mountain Wind. He’d gotten it from the Tree of Life, and it
had always been nearby, but had somehow remained unnoticed.

  Separating from Mountain Wind, the black blade swam toward Hadjar. It went farther and farther from the World River. Hadjar caught it. For the first time, Hadjar used this sword as more than an addition to his attacks. This time, he actually grabbed hold of it directly.

  He was only holding it with the hand of his soul, but still. What had he expected from it? Maybe sudden enlightenment, or something surprising, perhaps even frightening, but no. He was holding the most ordinary of swords in his hand, one that truly wasn’t much different from any other. Apart from being made of black fog and located somewhere deep within his soul.

  After dissolving the copy of Mountain Wind, Hadjar shifted the black blade into his right hand. He used it to attack with the ‘Falling Leaf’ stance once again. The instant his energy rushed into the weapon, Hadjar felt something. Something wild and unbridled. Dark and cruel. Something hardened by thousands or hundreds of thousands of battles. It was as if he wasn’t holding a sword, but the scythe of Death itself. It was as if the blade didn’t care who or what stood in front of it — it would gladly charge into any battle, even ones it knew it couldn’t survive.

  Hadjar grinned. Such a sword suited him perfectly. It was a pity that the blade didn’t exist in the physical world.

  Just as Hadjar had predicted, his attack flashed behind the shield, breaking the seal in half. The construct faded away, and at that very moment, Hadjar felt himself being pulled in by something.

  Chapter 388

  Hadjar’s consciousness was transported to a small space, one that was only about twenty square feet. Unlike with the World River or his own subconscious, Hadjar didn’t feel the presence of his body in here. He was only a bare mind floating in space and looking at objects.

  He immediately recognized some of them. For example, the two piles of Baliumian gold coins. Before, they would’ve been very valuable to him, but now... Hadjar was now eagerly staring at nine imperial coins instead, each of which was worth at least five thousand simple gold coins. In all honesty, the Patriarch hadn’t really been rich. There were only eleven imperial coins in here. But even that was a lot, given how ‘leaky’ Hadjar’s pockets were.

  He also saw two flasks. One of them, made from an unknown, extremely hard glass, contained a substance that Hadjar instinctively recoiled from. The muddy brew beating against the walls like it was trying to break out was the poison that had nearly killed Nero. Remembering how the Patriarch had claimed that one drop was enough to poison a whole city... Well, this would be enough to exterminate the entirety of a small province in southern Lidus.

  Nearby, in the other bottle, was a similar substance, except it was green. There were only three drops of it in the bottle. It was the antidote. The very thing that Hadjar had sacrificed the Inheritance of the Immortal’s Shadow for. However, he’d never regretted it.

  The following two objects gave Hadjar pause.

  A fair distance away from each other, a red pill and an incredibly ancient scroll seemed to dominate the space. The energy oozing from the cherry-sized pill made Hadjar want to vomit. It seemed as if so much pain, blood, and despair had been poured into it, into just this one, small pill, that it would be enough for several generations of people to endure. Hadjar heard the screams of the dying, their pleas and prayers to everyone: the gods, demons, spirits, the world, and their relatives. They begged them for help. But no one came. Their despair — the absolute loss of even the tiniest shred of hope — oozed from the pill. It emitted a sense of power, promising the ability to subdue all these cries, but Hadjar, without even touching the abomination, sensed the price that would have to be paid for such power. He remembered the Spirit Knight, Raven Wing, with whom the Patriarch had spoken before his death, and how skeptical he’d been about this kind of ‘medicine’. Hadjar now understood why. The one who took the pill would probably advance to the initial stage of the Spirit Knight level. However, the person would most likely not retain their sanity or be able to advance ever again. The red pill gave one terrible power, but it also limited them, trapping the cultivator at the level of a weak Knight until the end of their days. Many from the barbarian kingdoms, and perhaps the Empire itself, would’ve gladly agreed to this. After all, most cultivator’s chances of becoming a Spirit Knight, even after a thousand years, were extremely low. And on the other hand, how many geniuses were born in wealthy clans and families who reached this point by thirty? The envy and powerlessness of those who coveted others’ success weren’t the best advisers.

  And yet, Hadjar overcame his urge to destroy the pill. Even in the face of imminent death, he wouldn’t use it, because death was better than losing his soul. Maybe he could find some other use for it, apart from selling it, of course. Hadjar wasn’t going to be responsible for creating a crazy demon that thirsted for the blood of others.

  As for the scroll, that was the only thing that really interested Hadjar. It was old, shabby, not made out of paper or papyrus, but some kind of fabric instead, a silvery and slightly flickering one. However, it was difficult to estimate how magnificent the fabric had once been, because now it was covered in green spots. In some places, the threads had even torn loose.

  Hadjar didn’t know how to take anything out of the ring, but as soon as he thought about it, he felt the cool fabric in his hand. Opening his eyes, he saw that his right hand really was clutching the scroll. It looked exactly the same as it had inside the ring now that it was in the physical world. By the Evening Stars, something inside Hadjar longed to read it. Hadjar was usually able to resist temptation. This was one of those rare moments where he gave in.

  With a trembling hand, Hadjar unfurled the scroll. Inside, on the threads, he found the faded portrait of a man. He wore black armor with a blue belt, and held a black sword in his hands, the image depicting him swinging the sword down.

  Hadjar looked at the image for only an instant, and then abruptly folded the scroll back up. Something inside Hadjar desperately wanted to see more, but his instincts were screaming at him that it would be dangerous. Gritting his teeth from a sudden, sharp pain in his chest area, he put his hand over it. When he moved it away, he saw that it was covered in blood.

  On Hadjar’s chest, starting from his navel and going almost all the way up to his clavicle, was a cut. It was as if some invisible entity had struck him with a sword, grazing his flesh with only the tip of their blade. This had been caused by just a split-second glance at the portrait which now seemed to be carved into Hadjar’s memory. He could remember it easily, but he felt like he couldn’t ‘look at it’ for more than a few minutes. The level of Sword Spirit mastery concentrated in that single movement of the swordsman wasn’t just incredible, but left even the most powerful Techniques that the Shadow of the Immortal had been able to show him far in the dust.

  “Where did the Patriarch find this?” Hadjar whispered, trying to figure out how to put the scroll back in the ring.

  First, he put the ring on the scroll, then vice versa, then he tried saying:

  “Go back.”

  None of it worked. Hadjar, still holding his hand over his wound (more out of shock than pain), mentally slipped back into the ring. Immediately, he found himself back in the small space where the rest of the Patriarch’s things were stored. Now, after just thinking about returning the scroll, Hadjar saw it in front of him. Back in reality, his hand was once again empty.

  Emerging from the ring, Hadjar looked at the destroyed steal. Well, he had to repair it now. Imaging the needle once more, Hadjar began to sew the seal back up. Only this time, using his own energy, he embroidered a completely different coat of arms on it.

  He lacked neither the power nor the energy required, but just as before, he was too clumsy, so it was a very crude seal. The seams were visible to the naked eye, and energy was clearly leaking from them. The shield he’d made was weaker than the previous one. But even so, no one except Hadjar, at least on their first attempt, would be able to access t
he ring. That would be enough.

  Opening his eyes, Hadjar sighed quietly. The simple but rather elegant gold ring now looked rusty and dented. He could easily put it on his finger now. No one would suspect it was a spatial artifact.

  “I didn’t think you could handle it.”

  “Damn it!” Hadjar jumped in surprise.

  That damned islander... Because of his perpetually half-closed eyes, it was difficult to determine when he was sleeping, when he was meditating, and when he was carefully observing someone.

  “It’s good that you were able to open it,” Einen almost yawned, “it might come in handy.”

  “I thought so as well,” Hadjar nodded. “Get some sleep. We don’t know what kind of creatures we’ll have to fight tomorrow...”

  Hadjar stopped talking. Judging by his even and slightly louder breathing, Einen had fallen asleep again.

  “May the algae in the sea love you...”

  “Barbarian.”

  “Damn it!” Hadjar was startled again.

  The damned islander hadn’t fallen asleep after all... Hadjar hated his friend sometimes.

  Chapter 389

  In the morning, everyone was woken up by a loud cry:

  “Stay away from me, sand monster!”

  Glen, suddenly jumping to his feet, swung his saber around wildly. A golden ribbon of energy streaked out from his blade. It cut through the air and disappeared into the nearest dune. Immediately after, the Baliumian clutched at his chest and began to choke. Einen rushed over to him and forcibly threw Glen’s head back, pouring the remains of the broth down his throat. The Baliumian coughed again, but after half a minute, he was able to breathe normally.

  “Try not to overdo it in the near future.”

  Einen patted Glen on the shoulder and then returned to his few belongings — the staff and blanket.

  “What happened with the...” The Baliumian waved his hand vaguely.