Chapter 21 - Lies and the Secret Truth of the Second Tribulation (2)

I did not respond to their looks. Instead, I took out my bastard sword out of the sheath and swung it at the skull with the flat of the blade with both hands. The skull only shattered into just a few pieces since I held back.

“Oh, I guess it is not a magic treasure, after all.” There was a disappointed look on Elisa's face.

“Oh well, who knows what monsters think about,” Ryia said. “He, she, it, or whatever, was probably just trying to substitute what it was lacking in that department with the skull.”

With that said, the three women adventurers cleaned all their weapons by wiping them onto the hide of the minotaur. After a short while, we all got out of the cleared center of the labyrinth and Elisa once more cut her way through the maze, leaving behind dozens of hastily made entrances.

Outside of the maze, we arrived before an extremely large, wooden door more than twenty feet tall. It was just about tall enough for the minotaur to pass through comfortably. Yes, almost like it was made for the monster.

“This better be the treasure room, or I am going to make a new asshole on the first monster I meet,” Elisa commented on the side.

It took the three of them, along with a little more-than-human help from me, to push open the door; it was just how strong that minotaur was.

Inside this enormous room—a chamber—everything was bare except for the marbled floor, the throne far off the other end of the room, and the hooded man sitting on the throne made entirely of bones. There was also a disturbing, large rectangular pool of something red behind the throne, which I guessed to be blood, judging from the smell. There was also a small orb-like object beside the throne.

It was the treasure the eldest had told me about. And it was just beside that man in a black, tattered, robe and whose face was hidden by a black cowl.

These were the only observations I could make with these limited human eyes.

Suddenly, my gift for sensing danger slammed into my mind, telling me that the man on top of the throne was dangerous, almost or probably as powerful as me.

“So you are the one,” the deathly, chilling voice of the man on the throne reverberated inside the enormous, empty chamber.

I looked toward the three women adventurers and saw them shivering just from the voice itself and the air that had instantly turned cold since the beginning of that voice. They looked determined, however, the deathly cold not even faltering their bravery.

I no longer needed these three women adventurers and did not wanted to take any chances fighting alongside them, not that they would be of any help even if they did fight.

In half a human heartbeat, faster tan a blink of an eye, I took out Milli with an aimed strike toward the back of her neck with just enough strength to knock her unconscious. Now the most dangerous, most cautious, and the nearest woman to me was out of the way.

“What—” both of the women said, not even being able to finish their sentences before I knocked them both unconscious in the other half of the human heartbeat from carefully aimed strikes.

The three unconscious bodies fell to the ground at almost the same time, just near the entrance to the door. They would most likely be safe there.

“How droll,” the man on the throne said. “Such kind heroics to not let women do your battles.”

It was not out of heroics that I had done that, but I did not bothered to correct the hooded man, who seemed to be emitting cold air.

I took off both my swords strapped behind my back in an X position and went ahead a distance away from the three unconscious women. The faster this battle was over, the faster my second tribulation would be done.

With that thought, black-colored magic flowed out from me and surrounded my whole body. And in an instant, I transformed into my real form—a jet-black dragon with black scales harder than steel. I was now around the height of sixty feet and weighed much more than a dozen horses, but this enormous, empty chamber could still fit me. My clothing was ripped into tiny shreds as it could no longer fit me.

Although I could not see the face of the man on the throne due to his black cowl, which almost covered the entirety of his face, I could sense the surprise he held for my true form.

“Damnnation,” the man shouted, “that damn, ancient little girl told me you were going to be an easy opponent. Fucking liar. I knew I shouldn't have trusted her words. Bloody ashes and whorish fate, I thought such a powerful being that could have rendered me helpless in just a second would not lie. Fuck, does she think I am a toy to be played with?”

Then the hooded man stood up and took off his black cowl, revealing a bleached-white skeletal face, human in its nature. There were two red orbs glowing with unearthly life inside the two eye holes of the skull. Bits of flesh that had not decomposed yet stuck to the cheeks of the skull. “No matter, I can sense that you are not as powerful as that lying, little girl. Yes, once I kill you, you will be a greater minion than that minotaur would ever make. Imagine! An undead dragon!”

With a flourish of his skeletal, right hand that came out from the long, black tattered sleeve of the robe, the skeletal mage shot forth tendrils of magic, which was of the same color as mine—black. Then another skeletal hand came forth with a flourish adding a dozen more tendrils of black-colored magic. In just a second, he had fired two dozen tendrils of magic toward me. And that mass of tendrils of magic came hurtling toward me, freezing everything in its path.

I countered with my own attack, breathing fire and feeding it my black-colored magic to strengthen it. From my wide-opened jaws, an enormous fireball that more than matched the size of the skeletal mage's black magic shot forth.

The two magics clashed in the middle of the enormous chamber, each trying to overcome each other. Then the two opposite magic, no longer being able to withstand each other, ate into each other and caused a large enough explosion that the ensuing wind reached each end of the enormous chamber.

“Very well, dragon. It seems I have underestimated you.” I could feel surprise coming from the skull of the black-robed man. Black magic in the form of fog started flowing out from underneath his robe, which fully covered his legs and feet. The dense fog kept on spreading out until it covered almost half of the chamber, until the marbled floor was no longer visible.

Then the spread out fog came rushing back toward the skeletal mage in an instant, covering him in a black aura of icy death. Every step the skeletal mage took from his throne, a small area of the marbled floor instantly froze over. “Time to die, dragon.”

Seeing this gave me a similar idea. I pour forth my magic and covered my whole dragon body in fire, the element of magic in which I was the most gifted in. Then I charged toward the skeletal mage on all four. At the same time, the skeletal mage came rushing toward me, not even caring about the fact that I had the size advantage on him.

I swerved left in an attempt to flank him and opened my fiery mouth to shoot fire at him. At the same time, I slammed my fire-covered spike tail on the skeletal mage. My fire magic and my fire-covered tail clashed against his icy death aura, but it did not even last a second. I flew sideward from the impact of meeting the mage, my fire instantly extinguished without even weakening his aura. I hit the side of the wall of the chamber, instantly breaking it into rubble.

A moment of disorientation passed before I regained my bearing and stood up on my two back limbs. Cold, fiery anger filled me to the brim, focusing all my senses and attention into one finely honed weapon.

This anger gave me power and further increased my affinity with fire magic. It had occurred almost every time during the training, battles with the eldest, and when I was just a wyrm. Now, I would put it to good use. I gathered as much magic as I could and shot forward a dense, beam of fire toward the skeletal mage, a distance away from my opened mouth.

The skeletal mage, however, did not even have a look of worry on his skull face. He just calmly walked toward the beam, his icy death aura blocking and dissipating the beam as fast as I shot forth it from my mouth.

Five steps, ten steps, fifteen steps, the skeletal mage walked closer and closer toward me. Finally, he was so close to me that I had to aim the fire beam almost perpendicular just to target him. A burst of cold, fiery anger, far more intense than I had ever felt, filled me and I put forth all of my magic into the fire beam, increasing the power of it multiple times.

A look of nervousness instantly flashed across the skeletal mage's skull face. His icy death aura wavered and looked faint enough that it would almost disappear. His skull face now looked like a man fearing for his life, however undead it was.

Then I ran out of magic and my fire beam winked out into nonexistence. Fatigue hit me so hard I could barely stand up, trying to support all of my heavy dragon weight.

A victorious, skullish grin with bits of flesh and rotted teeth flashed toward me. “Know your killer's name, dragon. My name is Osiris, a man who has given up everything to become a lich.”

An evil laughter resounded from his rotted mouth with the white bones showing.

With a palm pointed upward, toward my snout where my unprotected nostrils were located at, the lich sent out tendrils of his black magic. They reached all the way to my sixty feet height and went inside my nostrils. I could do nothing to block it. All of my magic had been drained into that one last attack and I was now helpless, so much that I could barely move from the fatigue. Even the anger had drained out from me.

Intolerable agony burned through my snout and I felt myself dying.

A short moment later, I fell into a state of unconsciousness, knowing that Lady Death would soon come for me.

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wondered to myself. Was this the after-life?

All around me was pure darkness and I could not see anything. Not one speck of light reached this place. This darkness, however, did not seem ordinary at all. It made my flesh—I was in human-form for some strange reason—tingle with fear and I even felt a little scared of this pure darkness.

Two glowing red eyes then came into my view. They were the only source of light around this darkness.

“You are too weak. Too soft...too useless...too human...a waste of space. You need to get rid off all your emotions and let go of everything and then kill every being in this world,” the dark intense voice, slick with pure darkness said.

“Who are you?” I said in a voice tinged with a little fear. The fear came involuntarily in this pure darkness that seemed to have no beginning nor ends.

“Your other self,” the voice said. “When you have abandoned everything you know, we shall meet again” A slight pause before the shadowy voice continued. “Yes...abandoned even your curiosity..until all that is left are indifference and death...”

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Consciousness came rushing back toward me and I opened my eyes, a remnant of darkness clearing away instantly. I could feel that I was in my dragon-form even without looking, but the lich was nowhere to be seen.

Then I saw the pile of ashes in front of me. Had I done this? I could not remember. The last thing I remembered was closing my eyes for a bit and then just darkness itself surrounding me.

It was a curious thing and I would store it for later inside my mind to think about it.

The lich named Osiris was now just a mere pile of ashes.

I looked backward toward the huge, wooden door and saw that the three women adventurers were still unconscious. My two weapons were also lying there just beside their bodies. I went to pick up the bastard sword with my right, dragon forehand, which had long digits that could almost match the dexterity of a normal human's hand. Then I looked down at those three women from sixty feet above in my dragon form.

Did I feel anything seeing that they were relatively safe and unharmed? I suppose I did felt a little relieved knowing that lives were not wasted fruitlessly.

I put everything else out of my mind and walked toward the throne, heading toward the treasure, a small orb that was greenish-white in hue, leaning more on white. I had now obtained the treasure needed to finish my second tribulation.

Not wanting to grab that fragile-looking thing with my dragon forelimbs, I instantly transformed into my human form, black-colored magic flowing outward from me to cover my whole body. Then a second later, I became a wiry, naked human with long-white hair and intensely emerald eyes.

As soon as I grabbed the orb, it glowed intensely and a young girl's voice came from within. It was the eldest's voice in one of his numerous, little girl forms.

“I see you have beaten the lich, my dear Verath. Thus, consider this pool of blood made from various creatures to be a symbolic gift from me. It took a small amount of my time to threaten this lich, who had made this labyrinth his lair, into making this. But do not worry, you will soon be making and waddling in an ocean of blood. Your second tribulation has just started, after all.”

“Oh yes, there is also a condition. You may not transform into your dragon form.”

Then I was teleported along with the greenish-white orb held in my hand.

There was also just enough time for me to grab the bastard sword that had dropped onto the floor when I had transformed before I winked out of existence from the enormous chamber.

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When the disorientation left me after a few seconds, I opened my eyes to find myself on a large, grassy plain, which stretched on for quite a distance. I also found myself in between the camps of two human armies, too numerous to count, and too far off in the distance.

“Your final part of this second tribulation, dear Verath, is to kill all of these humans in your human-form. You have six days left.”

Then the small orb in my right hand shattered into hundreds of pieces.

I was entirely naked and was once again in a similar situation, except this time, there were soon to be many more spectators. Much more...