Dragon's Soul: An End's Beginning

by Tony Tran

  “We have your back brother!” Yuying yelled.

  When Zhang looked toward her he could see that a bow was in her hand that was free while Ai was holding an arrow in her hand. The two had used one hand each to help each other shoot the arrow.

  “Alright time to get down from here.” Zhang said as he jumped over and grabbed the end of the chain everyone was gripping.

  A white light appeared within his hand and the chain began to extend. The group seeing this began to climb downward. Zhang being the one extending the chain was the first one to reach the bottom. The pit was actually a hole in the layer of rack and lead to a massive chamber.

  When he landed he saw the fate of the man whose grip slipped and the fate of their horses. Surprisingly enough the two Inferno Wind Walkers survived the fall but sustained heavy injuries to which Zhang treated.

  In the chamber there were hints of light from glowing stones however the visibility was very bad. So Zhang decided to ignite a fire using some of the spider silk he collected as fuel. He wrapped the spider silk around an arrow he had and ignited it with magic.

  Once the fire was lit it illuminated a part of the chamber. In the distance Zhang could see something reflect the light from the torch and walked closer. When he walked closer he was stunned. It was a pile of ice jade bricks!

  As he looked around he could see tens or maybe hundreds of these bricks scattered about. Of course he collected them if he used them to make a cultivation room or a medicine storage room then they would be extremely useful.

  A short while after the rest of the group had descended and caught up to Zhang and he provided everyone with a torch. He then told them about the bricks that he found. Upon hearing what Zhang said a weird look appeared on Jian Wei’s face however he did not say anything.

  Yuying and Ai now lead their horses to follow the group.

  The group began walking in one direction hoping to find an exit and not to run into anymore spiders. They found a tunnel and entered it the tunnel stretched for miles on end and after a few hours the group finally was able to navigate through it.

  When they did however they saw a marvelous sight. In front of them was a lake that shone and emitted dazzling light that could blind people. Water seemed to be dripping from the ceiling down and over thousands of years formed this lake.

  Thinking back Zhang remembered the Xi Ning mentioned that there was a hidden spring that was great for cultivation along the path however Zhang only saw signs of where there used to be water.

  Throughout the lake pieces of buildings were sticking out and all of these buildings looked very ancient and old. In the center of the lake sat a large broke down palace.

  That was when Jian Wei yelled out.

  “It can’t be!! This is the lost capital of the Sai Empire!!”

  “The Sai Empire?” Zhang asked

  “The Sai empire many thousands of years ago was the first and only empire to ever unite the warring states region. But their reign was short lived because a natural disaster happened and their entire capital along with the royal family sank beneath the ground. Many say that the empire had angered the heavens and the entire capital was dragged to the underworld.” Jian Wei said.

  “Over the countless years the exact location of where the capital city had been long forgotten but to think we would be the ones to find it. When you told me about the ice jade bricks I had a feeling that they were related to the Sai empire. This is because it was said that before the capital sank the emperor had order for thousands of those bricks to be made so he can create a grand palace out of jade. But before construction began the entire city disappeared.”

  “If this is the capital then we must explore it! There is something that is extremely valuable here that may decide the fate of the entire region!” Jian Wei said with excitement in his eyes.

  “Alright let’s go but we can’t stay for long or else we may run into those spiders again.” Zhang said.

  To reach the ruins they would have to tread through the large lake so the group left their things by the shore along with the two wind walkers and jumped into the lake.

  Once in the water Zhang felt its energy rush into him. What Xi Ning said was true the lake possessed high concentrations of energy and just by soaking in it one’s power would slowly raise.

  Deep in the water of the lake many skeletons could be seen. These probably belonged to the citizens of the Sai empire within the capital at the time of the disaster.

  As they got closer the group noticed that one some of the ruins there were strands of webbing. However, they did not see or hear any of the spiders so they kept moving forward. After a while they reached the center of the lake where the ruins of the palace had ended up.

  The part of the palace was submerged while parts of it was sitting on top of land. Once in front of the palace Zhang somewhat marveled at how some of the buildings were built. The architecture was outstanding and beautiful from what’s left of the now ruined palace.

  A massive gate was still standing and it most likely was the entrance into the palace. By the gates side there was a small crack in the wall which probably happened when the city fell into the earth.

  The crack was big enough for one person to barely squeeze in. One by one the group squeezed their way into the crack. Once inside they saw what used to be a lavish hall with scattered things all around on the floors.

  Surprisingly the interior of this part of the palace was pretty much intact. Statues were still standing with slight damage and treasures from the ancient empire was lying about on the floor.

  Jian Wei told the group to especially go to the throne room where the thing he said would affect the fate of the region most likely was located.

  Zhang of course wanted to go take a look at the treasury. An ancient empire that ruled over the warring states region had to be filled with treasure and the best treasures of course with be in the empire's treasury. There had to be lots of mystical weapons, riches, and other unique things just there waiting for him to take.

  A while later the group reached the throne room. Large columns of gold extended toward the broken ceiling and at the end of the room a lavish throne made of gold and jade could be seen, the group walked up toward the throne and began searching.

  Jian Wei had told them to look for a small cube made of jade, he mentioned that this was the imperial seal of the empire. However, after searching the entire throne room they found nothing except golden plates and this and that.

  “It might be in the treasury.” Jian Wei said.

  The group began heading toward the treasury but before leaving Zhang with a wave of his hand took the throne made of gold and jade. Only the trio and Jian Wei had interspatial rings so naturally only they could take large things such as this throne while the sailors would take smaller things.

  The treasury was located just behind the throne room. Two beautifully carved gates stood in front of the entrance to the treasury.

  Everyone in the group had to work together to push the gate else it would not even budge. Once the room opened and the light from their torches shone into the room they could see mountains of dazzling gold.

  “You three take your shares, as for everyone else I will hold onto your shares within my ring and give it to you once we return to the city.” Jian Wei said.

  “Thank you my lord.” All of the men said in unison.

  Beautiful swords gleamed in the mix of gold coins. Jewelry and many other things were hidden within the piles of gold. The trio each took their pick of things they wanted. One thing that stood out the most a large map made of golden silk. Zhang took the map because he was the first one to notice something shown on the map.

  The trio was going to pick out the more unique items before just storing away their portion of the gold.

  This map did not map out cities or empires but mapped out the dragon’s vein. Which are places where essence is highly concentrated. If he could find one of these veins and use the underworld heart to absorb it,
his power would increase greatly.

  “I found it!” One sailor yelled out

  The man was pointing at a skeleton and in that skeleton’s hand was a cube made of jade. The cube as carvings of dragons all around it and looked extremely delicate.

  The sailor wanting the merit of being the one to present the imperial seal to his lord run toward the skeleton and began working the seal loose from its grasp.

  As the man was busy getting the seal a yell rang out.

  “Get back now!!” Jian Wei screamed with a face filled with horror.

  When the man looked up the blood in his face drained and became pale as a piece of paper.

  Chapter 28: The Swarm

  As the man looked up horror and fear chilled him to the bone. Before he can utter a word two giant fangs embedded themselves into him. He felt something being pumped into his neck and soon his body went limp.

  “There is nothing we can do, now everyone take up positions and prepare to engage that thing.” Zhang yelled out.

  Yuying and Ai both pulled out bows and began shooting arrows rapidly at the giant spider.

  This spider was huge and hundreds of times larger than the ones they’ve encountered so far and instead of the golden color like the rest it had a slight pinkish shine to it. However, it did not look as horrendous as the other spiders. Its features seemed a bit more refined and it gave off a sort of dignified aura.

  Being in the treasury of the Sai empire it made this spider seem more like a guardian of the treasure then a monster.

  Numerous arrows were shot out by Yuying and Ai but only a few hit their mark. The giant spider although very large was extremely agile for its size. When the arrows got close to it the spider would jump into the air and come crashing down elsewhere.

  Each time it landed it would cause the mountains of gold and treasures to shift and splash everywhere.

  Although not every arrow hit its mark a few still managed to embed themselves into the giant spider. Luckily the trio had arrows made from the scales of the Lightning Eater. These scales not only are extremely tough but also sharp.

  However, the arrows did little to no damage to the queen spider. They simply did not penetrate deep enough and only made shallow wounds.

  While the two beauties were keeping the spider busy Jian Wei ran toward the sailor who was bitten and with the help of another few men moved him outside of the treasury. Once they place the man in a relatively safe place they ran back in hoping to help.

  A few sailors threw their spears at the queen spider. The spears pierced through the sky and homed for the queen spider’s abdomen. The majority of the spears upon impact simply bounced off the spider’s hard exoskeleton. All but one spear, this spear managed to penetrate one of the spider’s leg joints.

  The spider shrieked horrifyingly once the spear connected. The joints of its legs had little to no protection due the nature of its design, which made it so they could quickly propel the spider.

  A dagger shot out toward the spider as it was distracted by its punctured joint. The dagger weaved its way around two of the spider’s legs wrapping them tightly together while looping around many times. Following that another dagger appear and wrapped around the same pair of legs.

  If Zhang had tried to cut the legs off it most likely would have failed due to their thickness. So he decided to bind the legs hoping to prevent the spider from being able to propel itself up into the air.

  “HELP ME PULL!!!!” Zhang screamed.

  Upon hearing him everyone stopped what they were doing, ran up to him and began pulling on the chain attached to the dagger.

  “Pull towards there!” He commanded while pointing to a pillar sticking out of the ground and extending into the ceiling.

  Their goal now is to wrap the chain around the pillar and immobilizing the queen spider. But instead of trying to get away the spider became furious and although three of its eight legs were disabled it sped its way toward the group.

  The spider pounced on Jian Wei who was busy pulling the chain and was the closest person to it. With its fangs and mouth wide open it jumped at Jian Wei.

  With no time to escape Jian Wei resigned to his fate and closed his eyes waiting for death’s embrace. But with his eyes closed he felt a shove from his side knocking him a short distance away. When Jian Wei opened his eyes he saw that Yan Li had pushed him out of the way and was punctured by one of the spider’s massive legs.

  A smile could be seen on Yan Li’s face as blood spewed from his mouth. He tried to open his mouth and say something however all that came up was bright red blood.

  “NOOOO!” Jian Wei screamed. Yan Li was a veteran of a hundred battles and had followed Jian Wei for countless years. The two of them had become close friends over the years and there was no one Jian Wei trusted more than this man.

  With a sweep of its leg the queen spider sent Yan Li’s body flying and slamming into a pile of gold coins. Yan Li laid there gasping for his final breaths.

  “My my family….” Yan Li struggled to say as blood kept coming up his throat as he tried to speak.

  “Rest assured I will treat them as my own.” Jian Wei said as he ran up to where Yan Li landed and grasped his hand.

  The spider ignoring the two began targeting other people and this time spat thread from its mouth. The queen spiders thread was extremely tough and hard to cut through and once it hit its target the thread would retract and pull the target into the queen’s mouth.

  “Kyaa!” Although Yuying rolled to dodge the thread it caught her leg. Once it latched onto her leg the thread pulled her toward the spider’s jaws.

  Everything happened too fast for anyone to react by the time they came to their senses Yuying was already in front of the spider’s jaws and its fangs about to bite into her.

  However, when it bit down the spider’s fangs slid right off and was not able to penetrate the armor she was wearing. The scale armor was too slick and strong to be penetrated by its fangs. Drool and venom from the spider queen's mouth sprayed all of Yuying’s armor coating her in a layer of slime.

  “EAT THIS!!!” A scream sounded out. A figure appeared toward the side of the spider’s head and in its hand was a glossy black shield.

  It was Zhang holding a Lightning Eater scale shield! With the shield attached to his arm Zhang bashed the spider crushing one of its eyes. Then using the bottom end of the shield which was sharpened Zhang slashed at the spider wildly.

  The spider shrieked and cut loose the thread that was pulling Yuying toward its mouth. Still wrapped by the thread she rolled onto the ground.

  From his interspatial ring Zhang withdrew an arrow and plunged it into one of the larger eyes of the spider queen. Like regular spiders it possessed two large eyes and six smaller eyes. Once the arrow was lodged into the beast’s eye while gripping onto it Zhang made another arrow appear and stabbed it into one of its smaller eyes.

  The spider jumped up into the air with Zhang hanging onto it. The chains that Zhang’s comrades pulled on slid out of their grips freeing the queen spider’s legs.

  Once in the air the spider queen landed on a nearly invisible web. From a distance away no one would be able to see this massive spider web. Unlike the webbing it spat out this web was not as sticky.

  Zhang had let loose his grip on the two arrows embedded into the spider queen's head and fell onto the web. When he landed onto the web he noticed hundreds of cocoons laying around on top of the webbing. Some of the cocoons were too big to be human so most likely they were the remains of demonic beasts that the spider queen preyed on.

  Without even a moment to rest the spider queen lunged at Zhang with its two front legs. Lifting his arm with the shield attached to it Zhang took the blunt impact of one of the incoming legs. The spider began pounding again and again against the shield. It’s massive weight alone made it hard for Zhang to continue keeping his shield up however if he didn’t the weight of its legs hitting against his body would give him heavy internal damage.

&
nbsp; Zhang patiently waited for the next time the spider lifted up its leg and using the sharp end of his shield slashed at the webbing of the giant spider’s web. He held on to one of the loose threads and swung to another part of the spider’s web.

  “BURN!!” Zhang screamed as he lifted his numb arm and shot out a fireball. Once the fireball shot out of Zhang’s hand it soared through the air and splashed itself onto the spider’s web. The instant the two touched the spider’s web light on fire.

  The flame began spreading rapidly setting a large portion of the spider’s web on fire. Being brushed by the heat of the burning web the spider queen shrieked. But eventually it’s body also caught on fire and it began shrieking even louder.

  Zhang had used this chance to use the loose threads to lower himself back onto the ground.

  “Is everyone ok?” Zhang asked as he got to where the group was standing.