A burst of fire surged onto her body, setting it alight. She screeched, and the sound echoed past the now crumbling walls. And then she died.
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated:
Giant Spider Queen (Lv. 867)!
If the Spider Nest was one thing, the Queen was so much worse. You should be glad you got all that over with. Reward: Spider Silk. Reward: Poison of the Giant Spider Queen. Reward: 3900000 XP
I closed my screen, once again not too interested in the rewards. A section of the roof came down, along with the walls holding it up. Much needed sunlight entered the chamber, lighting up the forms within.
I walked to the object covered in spider silk, and ran my hands along it. The silk was smooth, but it was something I could cut into. I held Dawnbreaker before the strands and sliced them open with a few slashes.
The torn silk fell to the side, and a statue of white stone appeared from within. The form of a dragon stood before me, and a large ruby was studded into the space between its eyes. Before I could utter a single word, the jewel caught the sunlight, and glowed vibrantly, sending a loud hum through the floor.
All of a sudden, the entire temple rumbled, and in seconds the whole structure collapsed to the ground. I threw my hands up, bracing myself for the fall. But it never came. I opened my eyes a second later and saw that I was not in a field of grass and trees but a pure white space instead.
“You have done well.” A voice spoke — a lady.
“Thanks,” I said. “But who are you?” I looked around.
“Espaniona.”
“The Dragon of Light,” Acnologia said.
“I see you are here, Shadow Dragon.” She sounded annoyed.
“You’re the one that brought us here,” Nyx said. “You did all this.”
“Indeed,” she chuckled. “As you can probably tell, I am just a spirit, a dead Dragon unable to move on. I was tortured by the fiends you call Eternals. Tortured to death because they wanted to find a way to harness my powers.”
Wait, does she know I’m an Eternal too? I wondered
“In my state of horrid anger, I was unable to pass on,” she said. “This temple within your space is the physical manifestation of all the anger I harbored. I tried to get rid of it, but I was unable to. Thus, I searched for someone else to do so. When I found a man with a high mental power coming through my chamber under the Itamori Mountains, I seized the chance.”
“So that’s what happened,” I sighed.
“Thank you, Eternal,” Espaniona said.
“So you did know I was an Eternal.”
“Of course. I am quite perplexed about why I thought it was a good idea to make you cleanse my temple of hatred. Maybe the Shadow Dragon’s presence inside you made you seem familiar.”
“Okay, now that we’re done,” I said. “Can we go?”
“Indeed,” she smiled. “However—”
“Ugh, ‘However’s are not good,” Nyx said.
“I wish to help you for what you have done for me.”
“Oh never mind, this one sounds good.”
“What do you wish to do?” I asked.
“I understand you are seeking the man beyond the mountains,” she said.
My eyes widened. “Why do you know that?”
“When minds are joined there is much I can learn of the other.”
“She was able to hear of that since it is what you desire most at the moment,” Acnologia said.
How does that even work? I blinked.
“Do you know anything about this man, Espaniona?” the Dragon asked.
“Of the man? No,” she said. “However, I do know of his castle, and of where it is. I can take you there.”
“You can?”
“You and your friends will find yourselves in a close by forest when you wake up,” Espaniona said. “Even the ones who have been trapped outside of this tunnel. They will be brought to the forest as well.”
“You know too much,” I mumbled.
“The time has come for me to leave, Eternal,” the Dragon of Light said. “I bid you a fair thank you. My spirit will happily pass on.”
I smiled. “If you ever decide to build another temple, just don’t put any spiders in it.”
“So you ARE afraid of them,” Nyx chuckled.
“I will consider it,” Espaniona said. “And remember Eternal, no amount of blood can mend a wound to the heart.”
My chest tightened. “What?”
“Farewell, Diablo.”
***
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I hated it when someone gave me an obscure piece of information, and then just disappeared.
“Yeah, that’s always pretty annoying,” Nyx said.
I opened my eyes, and felt a gentle chill under my body. I sat myself up and saw that I was now in a small forest, with a few trees standing around me. Acnologia lay on the ground before me, and lifted his head up as I looked at him.
“ZORAN!” A voice yelled.
I turned around, just in time to see Irmeia throw herself at me. I caught her in a panic, and the Eternal put her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tight. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah,” I said awkwardly. “Could you stop crushing me?”
She pulled back. “Sorry,” she chuckled.
“Is this really a time to be chummy?” Oris stood behind her, an annoyed expression on his face.
“Hello there,” I smiled. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried to kill anyone yet.”.
“You don’t know that,” he said and walked away, as if that was all he had come to say.
I stood myself up, and noticed that Raffyr, Viola and Freya were on the ground before me, with the three of them slowly stirring as well.
DING!
A screen popped up.
Congratulations! You have cleansed Espaniona’s spirit of the hatred plaguing it. In return, the Dragon has rewarded you with an accessory. Reward: Ring of Vengeful Light.
Ooooh, I thought, tapping on the Reward name and bringing up the equipment’s info menu.
Equipment Title
Ring of Vengeful Light
Special Effects
+10% attack to all Light Arts Spells
+10% attack bonus after 10 revenge kills
+5% Health Regeneration
+5% Mana Regeneration
+50% agility after taking damage from Dark Arts Spells
+40% Agility if health is below 20%.
Durability
Unbreakable
Rarity
Legendary
Value
Priceless
Equipment Title
Ring of Vengeful Light
Grade
Six Stars
My eyes widened. Holy hell.
“Espaniona was quite generous,” Acnologia said.
“Generous?” Nyx exclaimed. “This thing is freaking Legendary-class equipment!”
“When a Dragon has lived for so many years, they collect things.”
Still. I read its stats once again. This is amazing.
I hit the ‘Equip’ button at the bottom of the screen. The screen shut down and a stream of lights surged out of nowhere, collecting around my finger as a ring of light. In seconds the brightness died down, and in its place was a ring of metallic silver. A black line ran through the middle, all the way around the ring, and a single dark rune was inscribed onto it.
I held my hand up. It’s beautiful.
“Zoran,” Freya walked up to me, properly awake, with Raffyr and Viola at her side. Viola smiled at me widely as she approached, and I returned the gesture.
“How are you guys feeling?” I asked.
“We’re fine,” she said. “What happened to you?”
“A Dragon summoned me.”
“Eh?” Raffyr blinked.
I spent the next ten minutes explaining to them and everyone else what exactly we’d gone through — about Espaniona and her quest to release her spirit, and how th
e Dragon was the one who had teleported all of us here. At the end of it, Freya seemed really exasperated.
She smiled. “Only you could end up finding problems like this to solve.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault okay?” I complained. “That Dragon made me do this. I did not agree to solve this problem for her. I was forced to.”
“What’s that?” Viola pointed to my hand. Everyone glanced at my ring, and a confused expression showed on their faces.
“You got…married?” Raffyr blinked.
“What?” I stared at him. “Wait, how on earth does one get there from—”
I stopped. Oh, because it’s silver. I twisted, and showed them the inscribed rune. “It’s an equipment ring,” I said.
“Ah,” the old man said. “That makes more sense.”
“Where did you get this from?” Freya asked. “It seems quite rare.”
“It’s a Legendary Class item,” I grinned.
“WHAT!” Oris exclaimed. Clearly, the Legendary Label had gotten his attention. “You just randomly obtained it?!”
“Well, I had to fight a whole nest of Giant Spiders and their queen, so not sure I’d say I randomly obtained it.”
“Tch,” he said. “You Eternals are amusing with your sudden strokes of luck.”
I was about to tell him how many times misfortune had harmed our adventure, but I didn’t mention it. No wasn’t the time for an argument.
So, I thought. Where exactly are we?
Mountains loomed in front of us, one behind and two ahead, and the three of them formed a triangle, with this small section of land locked in between them all. Trees and shrubs grew around us, but they didn’t seem too lush or in abundance. After all, it was hard to grow properly when you were in a small section of land between mountains. It probably wasn’t as easy to find water and nutrients at such a place.
Growling sounded behind me, and I knew this wasn’t coming from the volcanic bears. I glanced around and picked out wo pairs of glistening yellow eyes watching us from within the woods.
Perfect, I grinned.
“Irmeia, start up a fire,” I said. “Freya, come with me. We’re going hunting.”
The elf picked up her longsword, as I did Dawnbreaker, and we ran into the grove. The eyes vanished quickly, just as we approached it. I hastened my pace, and ran deeper into the forest. The trees around me weren’t too tightly packed, but certain sections had dense enough canopies to dull the sunlight.
The creature I’d seen wasn’t anywhere within the vicinity, and so I focused, analyzing my surroundings and trying to find any indicators of where it went. I saw a few footprints, but they weren’t really anything useful, just some smudges in the ground. They didn’t really have any good form either, which meant I couldn’t use them to find out what kind of animal we were chasing.
“Let’s move ahead,” I said. “Be on the lookout.”
“Got it.” Freya stepped forward, walking beside me
I noticed something odd with one of the trees ahead and strode up to it. I ran my hand along the odd pattern on its trunk, and realized quickly that these weren’t patterns.
They were scratch marks. My eyes turned to a thorny bush growing at the base, and I noticed something grey in its brambles. I knelt down and carefully removed it from the thick thorns.
I rubbed it between my finger. “A piece of fur.”
“It’s most likely chasing us.” Freya said.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re probably chasing a—”
My eyes widened. Climbing Tree Wolf.
I jerked my eyes up, just in time to see not one, not two, but ten sets of eyes in the set of trees before me. “FREYA, ABOVE US,” I yelled, slashing Dawnbreaker up into the air.
The wolves descended onto the ground in an instant, with angry growls echoing and rabid claws slashing as they came down. I used my superior agility and moved out of the way from their drop point. It would have been useful for me to just slash at them before they came down, but I knew that wasn’t going to be useful when there were like ten or fifteen of them.
Freya had fallen back as well, and was now beside me, breathing heavily. “Had not expected that,” she grinned.
A shadowy form approached from the side, and I knew it was Oris. He must have heard me yelling out to Freya. Our camp wasn’t too far from here at the moment, all the more reason to clean this place of wolves.
“Let’s get as many of them as we can,” I said.
She nodded. “Pick them off one by one.” She gripped her sword. “No mass attacks.
“Got it,” I grinned and shot forward, eager to cut into the wolves. I swung my hand, slashing and hacking at a few wolves. I moved away for a few seconds and then went in once again.
Rinse and repeat. About five times over.
Freya did the same, with Oris coming in and helping us a few moments in. More wolves joined the fight, coming in from all sides. However, the beasts had no chance against the three of us. In about five minutes we’d cleaned up the entire pack that had attacked — about twenty of them in total.
DING!
Congratulations! You have advanced a skill.
Tracking Level 2!
You understand animals a little better now. (Maybe it’s the undead bears helping you out). You can now discern certain animal types from the kinds of sounds you hear.
Effect 1
The chance of finding target’s trail increased by 2%
DING!
Congratulations! You have advanced a skill.
Hunting Level 7!
Most people hunt rabbits and chicken. You hunt climbing tree wolves. Small difference, am I right?
Effect 1
+11% to Strength while hunting
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated:
Climbing Tree Wolf Pack (Lv. 441)!
Wolves are annoying enough as is. There was no need for someone to give them the ability to climb. It was a good thing you took them all down. Reward: Wolf meat (x15). Reward: Tooth of the Climbing Tree Wolf (x7).
Meat, I grinned. The other two had gotten Ga’em prompts too, and I figured they’d probably obtained meat as well.
We made our way back to the camp, where a confused group of people sat waiting for us, wondering what the hell had just happened. A moment’s explanation later, we gathered some firewood and set up a fireplace. Then it was on to preparing the meat for dinner, and that was Irmeia’s forte. Although, now that I had my Cooking skill I was much more helpful than I’d been previously.
Raffyr and Viola still had quite a bit of water stored, so we seemed set on that end. All we had to do was eat and rest out the night now.
“Do we really need this?” Raffyr fetched one of his canteens and placed it on the ground. “Don’t we have to get to this man’s castle as soon as we can?”
“We do,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we give up on food. I can usually go a few days without food, but I doubt it’s the same for you guys. It’s been more than a day since we last ate, and given everything that just happened. It’d be nice to take a break.”
The old man’s stomach growled softly. He looked at me, and smiled. “That’s true.”
I saw Viola working on something at the side and walked up to her. She glanced up from the sound of my footsteps and gave me a polite nod.
“How are you doing?” I asked, and noticed that she was picking up dry twigs.
She nodded once again. “Everything is fine,” she said. “Although being shut out of the tunnel was a little jarring.”
“Mountains are annoying.”
She laughed. “These ones are.”
“Listen,” I said. “I just came up to tell you to stop worrying about what I think of you. I know things happened in the past, but I can tell those are things you regret. As far as I’m concerned you’re a good friend.”
She smiled. “I understand. Thank you.”
I nodded and stepped away, letting her go back to her task. Soon, the
sun had disappeared from the mountains and darkness was beginning to set in. Irmeia finished her preparations, and this time the food looked even better than before.
We all sat around the fire and dug in.
“Slow down, Oris,” I chuckled, watching the Knight stuff everything in with gusto.
“Shut up,” he muttered. “You’re not the one who hasn’t eaten anything since he got here.”
“Fine, fine.” I bit into my meat.
An amused smile curled onto my face at the sight of the Knight eating with us. He was from the Dark Alliance, a group that had actively worked against me — both directly and indirectly — for the past few months. And yet, in recent moments, I had not regarded Oris as ‘the enemy’. It was more like he was slowly banding with us.
That’ll probably change when we get back to the present, I sighed.
“So Zoran,” Freya said. “Who exactly was this Dragon you met?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “Just know that she was called Espaniona.”
“Espaniona. Nope, have not heard of her.”
“Yeah, I hadn’t either. We were lucky she knew about the castle though.”
“But nothing about the man inside it?”
I shook my head.
“I see.”
I could see a bit of nervousness on everyone’s face, and that was understandable. This man in the castle was a mysterious entity for all of us, and that caused a lot of concern. Of course, I, Nyx and Acnologia still had the piece of information that Polaris had given us — that the Analyze skill had responded with ‘Does not exist’ when used on this man.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Nyx said.
I know, I sighed.
After an hour or two more of silence and occasional questioning, we all decided to take a nap. Acnologia agreed to keep watch, because according to him ‘Dragons don’t need sleep’. I wasn’t protesting so I said it was fine. The only way I’d been sleeping over this journey was by falling unconscious. A proper nap was a welcoming idea.
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 68
