Chapter 267: Cracks on the surface (1/2)

”This place is seriously way too weird…” Aiden sighed, as they found themselves at the end of yet another soulless hall. These empty floors kept repeating, without any sign of stopping. The only difference, the only sign that neither he nor the broad figure next to them that carried a still unconscious silver-haired prince was the fact that the paintings were different on every floor.

They mostly depicted strange, horned, thick, dark, ebon-skinned figures with scarlet-colored eyes, but every now and then they showed a scene of some great and bloody battle, or just a charred, barren, hellish landscape.

The figures, the scenes, the lands they showcased, weren't familiar to either of them. Even for Roas, who was under their influence couldn't recall anything. It wasn't that he forgot, it was like that after Aiden managed to free them, his memories of these beings were just gone. Erased.

They have been crossing floors after floors for almost an hour with no end in sight. Their already limited time was creeping towards the dawn ever closer to Aiden's steadily increasing annoyance.

Reaching yet another staircase, that looked exactly the same as all the others they crossed in the last hour, something finally snapped in him. All the pent-up emotions, the anger, the rage, the sorrow, the helplessness were no longer containable inside him. It began to boil, reaching the critical point.

In the depths of his soul, somewhere in the deepest, darkest place, a seed of energy, with the size reaching momentous sizes, began to tremble with excitement, as if it had its own consciousness. The thin crack on the barrier that kept him locked away, that appeared when Aiden first lost control due to his rage in the Pocket World widened slightly. Several spiderweb lines began to travel across the transparent surface, reaching ever closer to releasing this… ancient power from its eternal hold.

As if connected to it, some distance away, a milky white ball of energy, a spiritual entity suddenly quivered. Turning towards the direction of the sealed space, the being spoke in a familiar, feminine, mature voice.

”This is bad… He is losing control over his emotions way too quickly, and I'm still too weak to help him…” The entity raised its gaze, looking upwards to the limitless void above. It sighed, its tone was full of worry and trepidation. ”Aiden…”

Worried about the potential consequences, the ball flashed, and in the next moment, it vanished from its spot...

Aiden finally had enough. All this stupid farce has been going for far too long. He stopped in front of the first step, clenching his fists. The air began to buzz with excitement around his body, his long locks floated from their resting position, floating in the air.

The air around him continued to whirl and churn around his body, a miniature hurricane of energy was in the midst of forming, surrounding, protecting the tall, lean dark green figure. A golden light began to shine from his eye sockets with increasing intensity from an initial faint glow to a glorious luster.

The transformation continued after the seals from his [Draconic Heritage] innate was released one after another. The anger, the wrath kept providing fuel to his ability. From his back, a pair of leathery golden-scaled wings sprung out giving an interesting contrast to his dark green saturated skin color. Along with the wings, a tail began to grow at a rapid pace, with similar characteristics. His arms also changed, similar, golden scales grew from under his skin, covering his entire lower-half of his arms. At the end of his fingers, thick, dark claws warned everyone to steer clever away.

The swirling, tempestuous invisible energy exploded with an incredibly loud thunderous bluster, shattering most of the close-by pictures and even some of the doors along with their frames. The explosion was powerful, its sound rang through several floors reaching much higher than otherwise possible, even destroying, shattering some of the windows where the doors were also torn out.

To his great surprise, Roas was completely unaffected by all this. He could feel the impossible amount of energy that just continued growing inside his young master until reaching the boiling point. By reflex, he raised his free left hand and covered his face with his strong, thick arm, ready to grit his teeth to withstand the pain that would follow up the tearing of the entirety of his forelimb.

But the pain never came, his appendage did not receive any tearing, searing, or any sort of damage, not even on the surface level.

Surprised, he first carefully checked his limb, incredulous of the fact that he was somehow, miraculously spared, before his eyes slowly turned to take the first look up on his seething young master's true form.

The figure that was in front of him, was marvelous. Majestic even. A being that was neither goblin, nor orc, nor any sort of humanoid creature he has ever laid eyes on. It was beautiful. The pair of huge leathery, scaled wings that rested at his back was shining with a similar golden hue that was reminiscent of the young master. A thick, long golden reptilian-looking tail rested on the floor, motionlessly.

As he kept scanning the figure, a low, thunderous growling sound came from the being. While its tone was now much lower than what he was used to, inside his mind and through the magical connection they shared as master and servant, Roas knew it was the young master speaking.

”[Orc] Roas.”

Hearing his name being mentioned, Roas went on his knee and lowered his gaze respectfully on the ground.