by Ryan Johnson
“But now you have a new leader,” Valverno continued, pointing at Teutates. “That man holds that sword, a wooden toy sword I never should have held. Do whatever you want to do, without me. It would have been better, if the entire Mortal Realm died on the first day it was created. But that won’t be the case; I will kill Lusìvar even I have to die myself to do it.”
With a flap of his wings, the hybrid took off and flew toward the northwest.
“Oh, Valverno, my Elder Brother!” cried Sora. “How could you give up this easy and become an evil being like the Shadow King?” Sora cried loudly as she saw Valverno fly into the sky and disappear into the horizon.
THE TITANS RELEASED
Valverno flew afar to see where he was going. He strongly had the scent of the Shadow King. Beforehand, the hybrid didn’t. Now, he is on the trail to find the Shadow King Lusìvar and kill him. This is an ability he gained when he drank from the Pool of Shadows. The black magic he once casted away he regained but not in his skin; Valverno has the black magic coursing through his veins, and it has corrupted his personality.
The power was very awe inspiring the moment he gulped down the black liquid from the Pool. It indeed gave Valverno more magic power than the leg armor and the gauntlet armor combined. With this black magic he has coursing through his body, he could finish off Lusìvar, and Valverno would no longer live in the Mortal Realm.
As he drew further away from Isla Maeli, Valverno could sense the presence of Lusìvar and where the Shadow King was lurking. Valverno trailed over the ocean’s surface at a rapid paste. He flew northwest and away from the corner of Isla Maeli. His path was taking him away from the island and into unknown territory of the open ocean.
And in no time, the sky grew dimmer and darker and the clouds morphed into grey rainclouds. The ocean’s surface began to wave wildly and vigorously like during the storm of a hurricane. Then Valverno halted when he saw a fog ahead of him.
I am about to enter Lusìvar’s territory, and this might be the place where the Titans must be trapped, thought Valverno. There’s no way for Lusìvar to release the Titans when the moons haven’t conjoined in the eclipse yet. So, why am I being drawn out here?
Before he thought of flying further, Valverno grabbed hold of Marina’s neckless and held in both his hands. The diamonds and pearls of blue weren’t sparkling as they once did when Marina was alive; they looked dull and lifeless like a buried corpse.
Never again, thought Valverno as he released his fingers from the neckless; the neckless fell from his hands, and he watch them fall toward the water down below. He released of what he had given Marina, and he felt he was releasing a chain that gripped his heart from wavering him down.
After he dropped the neckless, Valverno flew through the fog and without seeing where he was going. His eyes were blind as a bat’s flying through the dark, but the scent of Lusìvar trailed into the fog. There was no telling how far Lusìvar was deep within the fog. It was if Valverno was flying through heavy rainclouds floating above the ocean’s surface.
Then Valverno decided to halt, as he felt someone was watching him closer. He couldn’t see anything in the heavy, clouded fog, but he smelt someone was nearby.
“So you to come alone?” yelled Lusìvar’s voice.
Suddenly, the fog faded away in a blink of an eye, and Valverno found himself in a terrain of evil. Clouds above thundered the air. Tornados hovered across the ocean’s surface. A hard hurricane wind gushed through the hybrid’s face. Whirlpools spiraled beneath the ocean as far as the eye can see.
Lusìvar was seen nearby on his chariot flown by his black Pegasi. “And here I thought you would have brought your friends with you. But I was wrong.”
At the sight of the Shadow King, Valverno burst his wings and legs with black mist flowing over them. His eyes glared with dark crimson. And his hair was blowing in the powerful wind. “It’s over, Lusìvar. This is where your Titan life ends.”
“You know, from the beginning, I had everything planned out perfectly. However, everything changed when those twin boys ruined everything. Arron and Nerio were the ones who messed up my plans of slaying that village I knew you lived in. They came and stole a piece of cloth that was stitched together by Belverda and her dragon partner, and that cloth couldn’t burn so easily. How they decided to map where the armor artifacts is beyond my knowledge of why they would leave three magical items on the island. Maybe it was that Ralenskrit who decided to make the cloth and tried to get it to you, but I don’t know.
“And if it weren’t for those two boys, then Shimabellia would have fallen three years ago in the autumn you traveled to the Northern Region. The village would have fallen and the bloodline of the White Knight of Loyalty would have ended. You would have survived, but you would have been flying elsewhere. The Minotaur was meant distract you while the soldiers with the Giants and Cyclopes were ransacked the village. Everything I had planned from the beginning was destroyed by those two boys, but it just seems the gods were favoring you more than me. You. A miserable Demon Prince who brings down life.”
“I am no longer a Demon Prince nor am I a demigod. I can see now the gods have abandoned me and watch me to suffer. You killed Marina. You killed my mother. You brought down Shimabellia and Pangaea. You deserve to die for what you have done to my life.”
“Funny. I could say the same about you, human dragon hybrid. You destroyed the land the Titans ruled in the early years you and I have existed. You tormented how stupid the Titans were and easily fooled them into bathing from the Pool of Shadows, of which you did yourself. In the end, the Mortal Realm is just the puppet show, and the Three Gods are the audience and the puppeteers.”
“Then let the curtains fall down on this and end this show, False King.” Valverno raised his hands and charged toward Lusìvar.
“I don’t think so,” replied Lusìvar, raising up a hand.
Valverno halted in his flight; his body floated still if frozen in an iceberg. “Wh-what is happening? I can’t move.”
“That is because I have drunk from the Pool of Shadows, too,” said Lusìvar. “I lived as long as you have, but I experimented with the Pool’s black magic a lot longer than you. And I know every exact skill and power the Pool of Shadows offers, and I know how to steal other people’s magic power!” Then Lusìvar made into a fist and aimed his fist at Valverno; a purple glowing pulse appeared from Lusìvar’s hand, and a powerful wind-like gush burst from Valverno’s body to Lusìvar’s hand.
Valverno felt fainted and exhausted when he felt this unnatural feeling like something was trying to burst out of his chest like a caged animal trying to free itself from its cage. In a full minute, everything stopped and Valverno suddenly felt weak. Too weak to even crawl on his arms and legs. “What… has… happened?” he asked.
“I’ve stolen all the mortal magic power you hold within you. Your Pangaean power, the power from two armor artifacts and your Demon Power still lurking within you, which hasn’t awaken it since your mother turned you back into an infant. When she turned into an infant, she inserted her Pangaean power into you. I also have taken the black magic power you drank from the Pool of Shadows, but a trace of the Shadow will be left within you.
“Now thanks to your mortal magic power, this will suffice and draw the moons into the eclipse in seconds and not months.” Lusìvar raised his hands and crunched his fingers into fists, if he was breaking bread into crumps.
The clouds were whisked away, and the sky became clear. The moons lit the sky above Valverno and Lusìvar. Then the moons slowly began to move and be drawn together. Two moons were about the same size, and the third moon was the biggest, about three times the size of the smaller two. The large moon was placed behind the two smaller moons, which were aligned in front of the large moon.
And there was the sun behind all the moons. The yellow sun was soon covered by all the three conjoined moons and th
e color of the sun faded to a black sun: a solar eclipse. Yellow rays shined around the eclipse and the yellow rays shot down toward the ocean and a whirlpool was made, right beneath Valverno and Lusìvar.
At the bottom, the seafloor was in view. Seven orange diamonds laid at the bottom and each of them large as a mountain. Within each diamond were glaring eyes and more than two eyes were glaring from within. Each was shaking like a rolling egg trying to hatch. And there was a loud echo of roars and grunts that’d make a Dragon’s roar sound like a dragon hatchling.
“My brethren! Titans! It is I, Lusìvar, son of the Leviathan. The son of your king, the Titan King! I have returned to summon you all up from your prison! And who is the one who forced you all into that prison you were left to rot?”
“THE DEMON PRINCE!” Loud voices of the diamonds sparked with the worst rage that could tear down an island, and it was no mistake that each diamonds was holding a Titan.
“Now, with his demonic power and my Titan power, I will set you, the last seven Titans, free!” Lusìvar clapped his hands together and summoned two long black spears made from black smoke. Then he clashed the spears together and an electrifying beam shot down the whirlpool where the seven glowing diamonds were stuck to the ground.
“And once your free, what revenge will you take?” shouted Lusìvar.
The whirlpool stopped swirling around the exploded spheres and the gulped over the strange eyes appearing. Then the water splashed high and the ground was no longer seen; only the surface of the ocean was waving after the whirlpool ceased and splashed.
“CONQUER THE MORTALS!”
Then seven large, gargantuan, colossal over-the-mountain sized giants emerged from the ocean’s surface like a corpse from a grave. Seven giant stretching up to hundreds of miles long and wide roared across the sky.
“Behold, hybrid; the last seven Titans, and I gave them names to fit your modern language. They are a Kraken, a Cerberus, a Wendigo, a Thunderbird, a Blemmyae, a Hydra, and an Ushioni.
“The Kraken is a large squid with twelve tentacles. The Cerberus is a three-headed dog and its heads are as hounds. The Wendigo is a two-legged, two-armed creature with a humanlike torso, but its head is shaped as an elk’s with long antlers composed from unused bone marrow. The Thunderbird is a gigantic bird looking like a bald eagle, but its blue feathers strikes with thundering shocks. The Blemmyae is exactly a human, but it has no head; its humanlike face is on the body that joints the arms and legs: eyes on the chest and mouth on the belly but no nose. The Hydra you once heard of but this Titan has nine heads, and if you cut off one head, two heads grows back. And the Ushioni is a spider with six legs and a head of a human with arms and tail of a scorpion.
“There were many more Titans, but these seven Titans weren’t the only ones who didn’t bathe and drink from the Pool of Shadows. Therefore, they saw through the lies you passed to the Titans you killed, by sending them into the Pool of Shadows. What you did to me, Demon Prince, is what I will do to you over and over again.
“But instead of having you watch from the Mortal Realm, you will watch from the other Realm and watch as I bring the Mortal Realm to its knees. Then will come the end of the Third Generation and a new Generation of Shadow. And so ends the final tale… of the human dragon hybrid!”
Lusìvar turned to see the hybrid still floating frozen in his statue-like position. He raised both spears and shot them both. One struck through one of his wings, which ripped from his torso and it made Valverno growl loudly. And the second one…
… pieced the hybrid’s chest.
Valverno felt the shot piecing through his heart felt like how he pierced through the Five-Headed Dragon. He felt his muscles breaking free and his wings clapping in one, hard flap; a hard gush blew right on Lusìvar’s power shot and a waving wind circulated to the Shadow King.
It hit Lusìvar’s chariot and sent the chariot flying away, but Valverno fell from the sky. Valverno’s eyes felt his muscles weak and all his magic power he once wielded was all gone and wasted. Even after being freed from a reaction his dragon wings gave him, Valverno couldn’t feel any more or move a limp on his body; he was on the edge of being dead and his heart was shot.
With nothing to do, Valverno’s body fell and splashed into the water’s surface. He felt his wings carrying a heavy height like carrying a heavy chain ball on his chest. Valverno felt too fainted and weak to do anything and the weight he carried made him drown and sink deep into the water.
Valverno’s eyes barely saw a faint of light above the water’s surface and could only see a darkness rising over him. He couldn’t breathe in the water and felt a crushing weight bearing down upon him. As he sank deeper into the water, his eyes began to close and felt his mind slipping away and could feel cold and see the crashing darkness… and no more.
AWAKENED
Sometimes there is darkness when someone dies or a light shining when a person’s eyes closes. Valverno had a sense of himself floating in a shadowy abyss. His eyes were closed and he felt very numb to his very bones. He couldn’t move and was felt frozen still like a carved stone statue.
Is this it? Valverno pondered in thought. Is this the realm all souls come to when they die? Or is it all fake and there is no afterlife? Or is it the misdeeds and fall to the Shadows that led to me this dark abyss? I don’t know. I don’t know what is good or evil anymore.
Then he felt a flicker of his legs like a needle poking his feet. He woke up and suddenly found himself sitting up on a hard ground. He breathed very fast and hard, if he woke up from a bad nightmare.
At first his sight was blurred but began to see a bright light emerging from his a darkened vision. He shook his head and slapped his cheek several times and finally opened his eyes to see a flickering bright light. He looked around and a big white cloth hanging from atop of another white cloth and it surrounded him; he quickly figured he was in a tent.
“Is this the afterlife?” he asked loudly, moving slowly. “It is not what I quite expected to. AHH!” Valverno grunted as he felt pain aching on his left shoulder and his chest. Valverno looked down and saw his entire human torso covered in white bandages, from his belly to the chest and round his left shoulder. Then he released something else: he turned to see and a large lump on his shoulder stood out. His left wing was slashed off, but he still had his right wing.
“My wing! And my arms.” Valverno gazed at his arms and saw they were red scales that stretched from his hands to meet his elbows. Human skin stretched from beyond his below to his shoulder. Then he touched his head and felt his hair had been cut to a thin cut; he felt like he was back in the form he once had before he attached the gauntlet armor to his arm. “What has happened to me? I don’t understand. Am I dead? Or am I dreaming? I don’t’ know what is going on.”
Valverno leaned backwards and put his weight on his arms. He looked toward the tent’s ceiling and closed his eyes and felt a soft wind blowing in from a nearby opening. He soon sniffed the air and caught the scent of a cat’s fur. “I just don’t know what is going on.”
“It seems he’s confused,” said a boy’s voice.
“It seems that way,” said a girl’s voice.
Valverno was startled at the voices his body shuddered nervously. He looked to where the voices were heard and saw two kids looking at the age of twelve or thirteen staring at him. They both were holding hands and their cheeks were compressing together; their faces seemed emotionless while staring at him.
They wore robed clothes and were strange: the boy wore a blue robe and the girl wore a green skirt and a striped shirt.
More importantly, what strange Valverno saw were their ears; the two kids had pointy ears but not ears with skin, ears like cats. And tails waving behind them. These kids had ears and tails humans don’t have. Valverno shook his head and looked at the kids again, and his face was plundered shocked.
“Who are you?�
�� he asked.
“The stranger is talking to us, sister,” said the boy, waving his tail faster.
“Yes, brother,” replied the girl, waving her tail fast as her brother’s.
“Are you kids trying to poke fun at the guest?” asked a woman’s voice. From the opening, a full grown woman entered. She wore a dark green dress. Dark brown hair curled all over her back. Her brown hazel eyes looked at Valverno. “Oh, you’re up?”
Valverno caught the most unusual furry ears of the woman, and he was picking up the scent of a cat, something similar to the two kids already in the tent.
She is a human who smells like a cat like those kids, thought Valverno.
“Hy, hy. What’s with all the commotion in here?” complained a man’s voice. Then a man came walking in behind the woman. He had short pale white hair with white furred ears on his head. He wore a slim white jacket and black leather pants. “Oh, so he is alive, after all. And I thought he was dead.”
He defiantly has the scent of a wolf, thought Valverno, picking up the scent of a wolf from the man.
“Hey, don’t be so peaky,” said another woman’s voice. From another opening, a gorgeous woman with short, pointy ears and long golden hair shining with the sun’s reflection entered from another opening to the tent. She wore a thin, emerald dress hanging around her chest and dragging down to her thighs. She was carrying a wooden tray with a wooden cup and a wooden jar. “We found him still breathing when he was washed up to our shores. It is a vile deed to leave a living creature to die.”
Unless if my mind is playing tricks on me, that’s an Elf, thought Valverno.
“And I keep telling you all we should have let him die instead of him living,” said the man.
Valverno couldn’t believe what he was seeing of the people in the tent: Pangaeans.
