The Eternal: Dragonborn - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 2)

by Dhayaa Anbajagane

  “Good,” I said, and put my hand out, keeping it directed to the men on the ground. “Osulier!” I said. One of the men’s shadows rose from the ground, wrapping around him and pulling him down into the floor in a flash. He let out a scream as he was dragged down, but not even half a second passed before he sunk into the darkness and was lost forever.

  The men around him panicked and Freya immediately launched her assault. Spears of light formed all around her and sunk down, shooting into the men rapidly. The strikes didn’t cause any one hit K.O.s but there were enough of them to take down a significant amount of men.

  “Uher!” I yelled and my dark phoenix rose from the ground, sinking into the remaining men and sending them all to death. About ten seconds had passed since my first attack and all the Knights and soldiers were on the floor, dead.

  “Come on,” I said, jumping down onto the floor beneath and Freya followed me down, using her Wind Arts to soften her fall. I rushed to the rustic door and used my moment to thrust my hardest punch at it, hoping a part of it would shatter.

  But it stood there, still and sturdy, not even shaking a bit from my strike.

  “Well that’s inconvenient,” Freya said.

  I touched the grooves on the door, a little stunned that it hadn’t budged one bit from my strike. “What are you?” I asked. I felt a sharp pain on my finger when I touched the groove, as though electricity had hit my nerves. I blinked for a second, and then realized what was going on.

  Nyx, I said.

  “On it,” he replied promptly.

  I closed my eyes and placed my hand on the door. I focused hard on the rock structure against my palm, and my clarity of thought increase tremendously as well, a sign that Nyx was playing his part as well. With my increased mental strength, an image began to form in my mind. I saw a large door of purple in front of me, with gaps of darkness scattered within it.

  So that’s what this was, I realized.

  I focused on my inner energy, wounding it through my body. I made it flow through my hand and into the door, letting it fill up the gaps that were within it. The darkness in my mind’s image turned to purple quickly, and in about a minute, all the gaps in the door had been completely fixed.

  I heard a loud click, and the doors swung out, creaking loudly as they did.

  There’s no way no one heard that, I muttered.

  “You’re right,” Nyx chuckled.

  Behind the doors was a large staircase of ice that swirled down below. I wasn’t sure where it went, but at this point I was certain I had to check it out.

  “Heading down?” Freya asked, standing beside me.

  “Yup,” I said and skipped down the icy steps, slipping over a few, but making my way down fast. It took us about a minute of climbing down before I could see the end of the staircase. I ran forward, noticing that the path opened up into a smaller chamber, this one made of ice as well.

  That seemed to be a recurring theme in here.

  I will say however, this chamber was multiple steps above the rest, aesthetically speaking. A pool of crystal clear water lay at the center, and fresh creepers of emerald green ran along the walls, climbing up pillars and running across parts of the ceiling.

  I looked into the water, and noticed an odd reflection on its surface. I glanced up and saw there was something on the ceiling right above it. I focused closer and made out a symbol drawn into the ice with a black liquid; a circle inscribed with a downward pointing triangle and three lines running from the center, meeting each vertex of the triangle.

  “Oh gods,” Nyx said immediately, his voice shaking. “That symbol. This isn’t good.”

  “What?”

  “That symbol belongs to one of the most powerful races to have ever existed,” he said. “The Dragon Clan.”

  ***

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “The Dragon Clan,” I whispered softly.

  “A race whose strength was second only to that of the Eternals,” Nyx said.

  I froze up, my thoughts pausing in light of the words that had just been uttered. There was far too much for me to process at once. Unknown clans, Dragons, and a race nearly as strong as the Eternals.

  Wow, I thought, the only word I could think of.

  “Indeed,” the spirit said. “I haven’t heard anything of the Dragon Clan since we…well since we were put under the seal. I did not expect to see this symbol here of all places.”

  “Zoran?” Freya touched my shoulder gently. “Is everything fine?”

  I turned to her, and the pale tone of my face told her more than enough about how I was feeling right now.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, worried.

  “That seal,” I said. “Nyx says it’s from an ancient race. The Dragon Clan.”

  Her eyes immediately widened. “The Dragon Clan?”

  “Wait, do you know about these people?”

  She shook her head. “All I know is they were nearly as strong as you Eternals were,” she said. “I found their name mentioned once or twice while I read through documents regarding the Eternals.”

  “I am not surprised that their names are scarce in the records,” Nyx said.

  Why? I asked.

  “The warriors of the Dragon Clan were merciless,” he said. “They were a vicious group of beasts that murdered with no pause. They were said to kill anyone who crossed their path, whether friend or foe. It follows that it was hard to get any accounts of them. The only ones who saw them and left alive were ones strong enough to escape.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. Wow, that’s scary, I said.

  “Tell me about it,” Nyx said. “I definitely don’t want to know what it’d be like to face off against these clansmen at this time and age.”

  I agree, I said. I definitely don’t want to find out what someone could do with proper control of their powers.

  “I’d hate to agree, but you definitely don’t.”

  Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, I chuckled.

  “What does this mean?” Freya asked. “This symbol being present here?”

  “I don’t know and neither does Nyx,” I said. “We should probably focus on finding Nazu first, mysteries like that of this symbol tend to take a while to move forward.”

  “I don’t think there are any indicators of Nazu ever having been in here though,” she said, scoping around the place.

  I looked around, shielding my eyes from the light that shone through the ceiling. “You’re right,” I sighed. “It doesn’t look like he’s been in here.”

  “This trail is just a dead end,” she said. “Other than for the dragon stuff.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “That’s going to take us a while to figure out.”

  “We could ask Ijyela,” she said. “Of all the people I know, she’s the one most well versed in the ancient documents. Plus, she’s been around long enough to know more about the Dragon Clan than even the documents currently know.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “We should try asking her. I’ll send her a Ga’em message.”

  She nodded.

  “I can do it for you if you want me to,” Nyx said.

  Are you just integrated with all of my Ga’em menu stuff now? I grinned.

  “Well that’s not far off from the truth,” he chuckled. “Actually, that’s probably exactly the truth at this point.”

  That’s good to hear, I smiled and looked up at the sign. Snap a picture of that and send it to Ijyela, I said. Ask her if she knows anything about this and if she can look something up. Tell her you figured out it was from the Dragon Clan. She can work stuff up from there.

  “Aaaand done,” Nyx said. “She’s received the message. You should get a notification when you receive a response from her.”

  Got it. Thanks, I said.

  I turned to Freya. “I sent Ijyela a message with the image of the sign,” I said. “If she gets us info of what that thing is we can start figuring out what exactly is going on here.”

  “Yeah,”
she said. “I’m very intrigued by why the Dark Alliance and the Black Guardians were both guarding this door. Did they know of this chamber inside? Or was it just chance?”

  “There are a lot of possibilities,” I said, thinking through them all at once. “I can’t really decide which one would be most likely. I don’t know what the Dark Alliance would want with an empty chamber containing the sign of the Dragon Clan.”

  “That’s true,” Freya said. “But you never know. They might have some big plan that depends completely on that sign for some reason.”

  “It did seem like the door had to be opened a very specific way, so I’m not sure they’ve even been down here in the first place,” I said. “And now that we’re the ones right beneath the sign, we should have the upper hand.”

  “Speaking of upper hand,” she said. “How long do you think until they figure out all the knights were taken out?”

  “I’m actually surprised we lasted so long,” I chuckled. “I’d expected to see men running down these stairs about five minutes after we walked in.”

  “Wow, talk about a vote of confidence.”

  “Hey, I’m just being realistic okay?”

  DING!

  The reply came fast and both of us looked at the screen that emerged in front of me.

  Zoran, I’ve analyzed the image you sent to me. Lucky for you I studied many a scroll about the Dragon Clan before a lot of that material went missing. The sign that you saw does indeed belong to the Dragon Clan, but I don’t know anything specific about it. I’m assuming that means it’s a very common sign and so doesn’t have any special significance around it. However, I would err on the side of caution given how mysterious the Dragon Clan had been.

  Wow that’s a lot of useful info, I said.

  “How does she even know about all this?” Nyx asked.

  Are you just jealous she knows more than you do? I chuckled.

  “Well, kinda,” he said. “I mean, you and I are beings that lived ever since the start of time and she knows more than we do.”

  We were also sealed away for many millennia, I added.

  “Yeah, but the Dragon Clan showed up for a bit before we went away.”

  Oh, I said.

  “Zoran, can you ask her why the Dark Alliance or the Black Guardians would be interested in such a sign?” Freya asked.

  “Already did,” I said, checking with Nyx for a second and confirming he’d sent her the message. It took about five minutes before we got a reply back.

  DING!

  I don’t really know what’s going on with that. It’s not exactly clear why the Dark Alliance or the Black Guardians would be in pursuit of something like this symbol. Doesn’t make much sense to me at all. I would suggest you try to find something out if you can, since this seems like it could be a more serious issue than it looks like at the moment, and I’d like to know more about it so we can take appropriate action.

  “Hmm,” I said looking at the message.

  “So she doesn’t know anything,” Freya said, looking over my shoulder.

  “Yeah, but that’s expected,” I said. “It’d be hard for her to accurately predict the motivations of those two groups.”

  “True,” she said. “What do we do now?”

  “We better head back up,” I said. “We can try to find the two groups and see if that leads us anywhere. Any clue is a good clue at this point.”

  “Mmm, I agree,” she said, and turned to look at the staircase we’d come down.

  A gentle draft ran through the air, as though the chamber was bidding us goodbye. I looked at the crystal water and the fresh vines one last time and turned around, heading up the way we had come down.

  The steps of ice creaked as we pushed our weight onto them, climbing back up to the entrance. Freya’s ball of light came in handy once again as we walked further from the chamber, leaving its light and heading into the darkness. I felt chills run up my skin this time, even though we were walking through areas that were warmer than where we had just been. The fact that we knew what was down there added a certain unease to this place now.

  Soon we came upon the door from before and it stood closed, just as we had left it. I tried pushing it open, but like the last time, that did not work one bit. And so I shifted to plan B. I closed my eyes and placed my palm on the door, focusing on its presence and trying to sense the energy within it.

  That’s odd, I thought as I viewed the mental image of flowing purple energy filling up the door completely. It should be unlocked, I realized, double-checking and confirming there were no gaps of energy within it.

  “Is anything wrong?” Freya asked.

  “The door,” I said. “It’s almost as though it’s been locked in a different way from before.”

  “What?” she blinked.

  “Give me a second,” I stepped back and focused on my fist, letting my energy sink into it. I thrust forward, sending it crashing into the rocky door. A rumbling echo tremored through the walls around us, but the door itself never budged. I tried once again, infusing my fist with even more energy and slamming it into the rock, only to have the same result occur once again.

  DING!

  Congratulations! You have learnt a new ‘Hand combat’ special move: Meteor fist. Send enemies and foes into the air with a punch worthy of a meteor crash. Attack and/or speed may increase by a random amount for every five kills made with the move.

  Wow, I said. Did not expect to learn a new special move at this point in time.

  “Looks like the door is completely locked though,” Nyx said. “I’m actually quite impressed it managed to bear an attack like that from you.”

  Sturdy door, I said.

  “What do you want to do?” Freya asked. “I’m assuming your Shadow Travel skill hasn’t recovered yet.”

  “Yeah, I won’t be able to use it for the next few hours.”

  “Ugh,” she said. “I don’t know what other options we have.”

  “Let’s head back down for now,” I said. “Maybe we can find another path out of here if we try.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Nyx said.

  I’m still confused about what happened here, I said, talking to just Nyx. I mean, the door was unlocked before. And now it doesn’t even budge?

  “I’m more intrigued about how it has been locked this time. It appears to be in the same state. I have no clue what changed within it to even cause it to lock in the first place.”

  Exactly, I said. That bothers me a lot.

  “Likewise,” he said. “I have no clue what exactly happened, but I can tell it wasn’t normal.”

  We headed back down, the creaking steps from before consuming the sounds of the air once again as our steps ran across the ice. I took my time walking down, letting my mind float into whatever thoughts it came by. I wondered what exactly was going on here, and how it could be connected to everything else I’d seen recently.

  In a span of a day, I’d been attacked by the Black Guardians, seen the Lumina Knights use some weird machine, had the Dark Alliance attack my village, and had their men kidnap one of my compatriots.

  It was definitely no mere coincidence that all of this had happened so close together. I knew now that the Black Guardians and the Dark Alliance were working together, so those attacks being together might actually make a lot of sense, but the Lumina Knights were still quite confusing to place within this mess of an event list.

  What exactly are they all after? I wondered as I stepped of the last slate of ice and onto the floor of the serene chamber. The pool of crystal water glittered, reflecting soft light into my eyes. A part of me wanted to dip my feet in the water, just relax and let everything go.

  “Should we try to find another way out?” Freya asked.

  I nodded.

  “Why can’t you just blast out of here or something?” she asked. “Pretty sure you’re strong enough to do that.”

  “I can break through maybe a few feet of solid rock if I try. I doubt I
can break through a whole freaking mountain.”

  “Well, never say never,” she grinned.

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just try to find another way out for now.” We walked alongside the walls, and I ran my hands along the ice, feeling the burning chill underneath my fingers. I don’t know what exactly I was hoping to find, but I did it anyway.

  We went around the chamber twice and still found nothing to lead us out of here. “Ugh,” I said. “We’re stuck in here.”

  “Looks like it,” Freya said. “Unless of course you can break through the ceiling.”

  “I can’t,” I sighed. “And I doubt I’d want to break through this ceiling. Don’t think it’d be a good idea to damage the symbol.”

  “Oh, that’s true,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  My mind drifted around, thinking about possible plans to get us out of here. I couldn’t find anything for the moment though. The best option we had right now was to just wait until my Shadow Travel skill activated again and then use it to get us out of here.

  However, I’d really prefer we didn’t do that. At the moment we were certain the Dark Alliance and the Black Guardians had something planned, and odds were we’d find out what it was very soon. I’d really prefer I had a means of escape if it came to that and that meant not using my Shadow Travel for something like this.

  Unless of course, things got much more serious than we expected over the next few minutes.

  “How bad could things get?” Nyx asked.

  You realize this is me, right? I asked.

  He chuckled. “Fine. Good point.”

  I smiled to myself. Nonetheless, we need to get out of here somehow, I said.

  “Wait a minute,” Freya perked up. “What if you tried to melt the ice around the door?”

  “What?” I blinked.

  “You can use your Fire Arts and burn the parts of the ice sticking to the door,” she said. “If you loosened the structure around the door maybe you’ll be able to bring it down.”

  “Wow,” I said. “How did I not think of that before.”