Chapter 7: A New Name

“Ask me anything you like, Verath,” the huge emerald dragon—my mother—stated plainly. “I can tell that you have many questions. You have, after all, earned this right by winning this death-match.”

“Verath?” I inquired, slightly confused at this term. My mother and I were both standing in an upright position, our back limbs supporting our weight entirely. Yes, you should be very jealous. Our front forelimbs, after all, can act as arms just like a human's could. It is only when we want to use our maximum speed that we resort to going on all four of our limbs.

“Yes, it is the new name I have chosen for you. You have, after all, passed your first tribulation as an Arkanan, one of the seven superior clans of the old generation dragons of which I belong to. Your success with this first trial is why I am being so considerate with you.” She lowered her piercing, green eyes at me. “Of course, you have no doubt guessed that I do not like talking.”

I decided to pretend not to know what she was referring to and ignored her not-so-subtle show of awareness. Curious, I asked mother what her name was. All this time, I had been referring to her as mother, after all.

“That, my wyrmling son, you do not need to know. Perhaps after you have passed your third and final tribulation as an Arkanan, I will tell you. Until then, mind your own business.”

I nodded my head at that while digesting the fact that I would have two more tribulations on top of this first one. I could not imagine what would be even more arduous and difficult than killing all of your siblings. Cruelty seemed to be a dragon's forte.

“How long until my second and third tribulation, mother?”

“About two years and a half, after you have shed your wyrm-hood and go into dragon-hood. Then you will undergo your third and final tribulation after another two years and a half, at age five.”

I ponder at her words for a while before safely storing it away in my mind. “What happened to Scarlet near the end of this death-match, mother?”

The huge, emerald mother dragon gave me a grin that showed off her fangs. “Truth be told, Verath, I had not expected you to win that match. Rather, I expected the twins or Scarlet to win. And to answer your question, that was Scarlet's inborn ability, Berserk Rage. Most Astlan or old generation dragons of the red hue have this ability to an extent.”

Mother then stopped for a moment to think. “Scarlet was more blessed, as his strength almost doubled and due to the fact that he lost control of himself, judging from the deep red of his eyes. But that was probably just due to his young age.” She hesitated for a moment, before continuing. “One of our red dragon ancestor was rumored to even have the ability take control of this Berserk Rage and use it at will. Astlan history even states that he could even delve deeper into this ability...”

I nodded at this before asking, “Then what is my ability, mother?”

“That,” mother pondered for a moment, “I am not very sure of.” She had a little curious look on her face as she wondered. “Judging from the match, you seem to gain power from the blood of others, and perhaps it is only limited to our race.”

I closed my eyes and nodded in response as that seemed to be in line with my thoughts on my ability. It was strange how I did not felt any desire for blood when I had killed the gremlin. Perhaps the ability was still latent or something.

Thus, this was how my conversation with mother went as we went back to our home, or rather, caves. On the way, I had also taken a quick plunge into a lake to cleanse myself of the blood of my brothers or as my mother calls it, the Blood Baptism, which every broods of Astlan—the old generation dragons—have to go through in the arenas. Yes, that dilapidated arena was not the only one in this continent and neither were we the only ones here.

By the way, I also learned that the enormous forest where I was born was called Jarl Forest, which I found quite interesting as it is part of our clan, the Arkanan's territory. The arena from which I had just left was to the north of this place and the stray gremlin I had killed was in the southern reaches of these mazes of forests. The lake near our home, where I had taken frequent dips in, was called Tranquil. But I would not want to bore you with such measly details.

The most important thing to note would be the fact that I was near the northern tip of Valian continent, located in the western part of the world. I sighed in relief after asking this of mother, because my former human life had been in the somewhat southern reaches of this huge continent, which was where most human cities were located at. Yes, this enormous continent was still unexplored, especially the northern parts. I suppose that was why I had never seen dragons or gremlins before.

Needless to say, mother, not being a very patient dragon, was annoyed by my multitude of questions. Her only reaction was to sigh in exasperation as if expecting this of me.

I was not bothered by her look telling me to shut up, however, so I continued asking questions. And so as to not bore you with this tedious conversation between my mother and I, I will make it short.

In summary, we aged extraordinarily faster than humans—you can tell because I already outweighed a horse when I was barely a week and a half old—and we stopped growing at the age of five, fully coming into our stature. Mother also told me that once wyrms reach adulthood, we can survive on very little food, only eating about two times as much as a normal human. It was quite an amazing fact, as I wondered how we could possibly survive on such little diet. I had, after all, seen mother eat a whole deer. Perhaps she was just an avid food-lover. Interesting.

“Now then,” mother said, “you shall have a free day before I give you further instructions.”

By now, I was already dreading her “free days” and could already feel the dread rising in me. But I did not let it bother me, determined to enjoy this supposedly lax break.

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Thus, after two weeks of arduous training that passed by swiftly, I was now flying free in the air. Temporarily, that is to say, more specifically, a day. Just like that, I leisurely spent the day away, swimming in lakes and playing a nice game of cat and mouse with those animals that look like big, ferocious cats, except I was not the meek mouse.

The next day I went back to my mother and as usual, she had on her most prized indifferent face, the one that told nothing and the one that felt unfeeling to everything. And although her face painted a different picture, I could sense tension—or was it nervousness—from her enormous emerald body.

I was suddenly cautious and perhaps a little filled with dread as I thought about what could scare mother.

She turned to look down at me, who was many times her smaller. “We are going to meet the eldest of our clan, the glorious and ferocious Arkanan. Be respectful, young Verath.” She gave me a knowing look that suggested that I should curtail my enthusiasm with questions.

“We shall see,” I said, feeling a little relieved that it was not anything dangerous and a few questions already popping into my mind.

She shrugged mightily. “It is your life.”

Chapter 8: Eldest of Clan Arkanan

Discourse #3:

I looked toward the “guest” that was in my lair. Now there must be many questions running through your mind as to what sort of human, or rather dragon now, I suppose, could do such a thing as killing all of his siblings without remorse. I had already passed my third tribulation and had made this area my lair. Well, no need to worry, I will assuage your curiosity.

My birth, as a human that is, was a difficult one, or so my father tells me. The process eventually ended up killing my mother, which devastated my father. Still, my father kept those feelings bottled and pent-up inside, determined to raise me as best as possible for a single parent. He never remarried, solely focusing on his merchant work. If you put it in a different light, I suppose my mother dying was a good motivational factor for my father, who was, at best, a mediocre merchant.

His definition of rearing a child was just to oversee my basic needs. Thus, as soon as he saw I was sufficiently independent, he gave me full reign. Left to my own devices at the age of ten, I was thoroughly exploring everything, ranging from watching wounded deers die from infection and hunters' arrows to stealing small kisses from girls my age. What could I say? We traveled a lot. You could say I had a little adventurous trait inside me.

Most kids my age would be suckling on candies or playing those childish games with others their age, but I would be observing people in taverns and workers in other shops. I had even persuaded the mistress of the brothel in one of the local town to let me in to see the inner workings. Of course, I had to smooth my way in with a few silver coins before she finally gave in. Nonetheless, that was an interesting experience; a strange new atmosphere, a wide variety of emotions, and sounds of pleasure, of which some of them seemed false to me.

The first time I realized I was a little different from others was when a drunk from a caravan described me. The words—I can still remember it crystal clear—went like this. “Well, aren't you a right little bastard.” I know, it was not a good description.

I was curious as to why he would describe me as such so I asked the swaggering guard the reason. This was his reply:

“You have the coldest, blue eyes I have ever seen on a person. That, and you have the look of a noble bastard.” He chuckled to himself as if that was the funniest thing ever and that he wasn't insulting a ten year old child. With that little morsel of statement left behind, he left swaggering toward his post, just like the way he came in for a piss. I stared for a moment at the little pool of urine he had left at the base of the tree before I went back.

Truth be told, I did not feel any surprise at that revelation. I suppose in some small part of my mind, I already knew that I was different. That is to say, at best, I was an indifferent “bastard.” A mind with most emotional aspects dampened, one could say. I realized then that trait of mine was the reason why my father left me to my own devices. Don't get me wrong or anything, he was a good father; he made sure I never lacked money.

True to the words of that guard, there was not much that could get reactions out of me. That said, the fainting thing when I realized that I had been reborn was a rare exception. After all, who wouldn't be surprised?

This little trait of mine was what had helped me survived so far and the reason why I did not mull over the death of everything and everyone I had known when I was a human. Okay, that is not really all. It was that little trait, my unbridled curiosity, and a need, almost unrelenting, to survive.

Now then, my guest, I will get on with my story of meeting with the eldest of my clan. It goes without saying, but I would not tell my guest everything and leave out the dragon secrets.

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“Hurry up Verath. We do not want to keep the eldest waiting,” mother said impatiently. “We still have a long distance to cover.”

“I cannot fly as fast as you, mother,” I said, exerting all of my efforts at flying to barely keep pace with her speed. “Perhaps we could go faster if you help me out.” I eyed her back and then looked back at her face, meeting her green eyes to hint at my idea.

She sighed and muttered a little to herself about the follies of giving birth to a brood of wyrms and their relative weaknesses. “Very well.”

With that, my mode of travel was decided and our speed increased significantly, or rather, my mother flew faster. After all, I did not need to do anything as I was settled in an almost comfortable position on my mother's back; I was thankful that mother did not have any spikes on her back like Blue and yellow did, though theirs were still growing and were the exact opposite of formidable. Thus, I could even lie down on her back and have enough space to stretch lazily, but the view below her caught my attention.

It was a series of backgrounds interchanging; lakes, mountains, small plains, and forests. And as often as not, I would sometimes see another full grown dragon like mother traveling who knows where. It was unusual that I did not see many dragons. I guessed that the population of Astlan, the old generation dragons, were small, but elite, I thought, thinking about the first tribulation. Yes, that made much sense, I thought, nodding to myself against the torrents of wind buffeting my face due to my mother's furious flying.

I also had not seen any dragons which belonged to Xieth, the collective name for the lesser dragons, most of which could not fly. They were also generally much, much smaller than Astlan dragons and not very intelligent. Perhaps dragons from Xieth were not allowed in these areas as these areas were most likely the territories of Astlan.

After almost a full day of travel and changing scenery, mother told us we had arrived. The scenery I had arrived at, however, was shocking, to say the least. I was at the base of a mountain which made mother look tiny in comparison. And that was saying a lot. Night had fallen and the twin moons were shining brightly. I could still see clearly, however, as I had a relatively good night vision, added to the help of the moonlight.

The mountain looked as normal as any other mountains except for its obvious size; you know the deal; small tufts of dry shrubs growing in random areas, the few trees interspersed here and there, and a wide array of rocks. That was as far as the similarities went, though. At the base of the mountain, there was a huge, dark entrance. To be precise, a huge half-oval hole that was neatly cut and which three dragons of mother's size could fit through at the same time. There was also a strange symbol of a fire wrapped around a darker red liquid in the shape of a tear just above the entrance. Perhaps it was the symbol of our clan, I thought.

“There it is, the home of the eldest of our Arkanan clan,” mother said to me while looking at the entrance with what appeared to be, dare I say it, nervousness.

Although mother was not exactly helping my tension with her nervousness, I was still feeling quite calm as curiosity was overpowering the rest of my emotions, as mitigated as they were.

“Follow me,” the huge, emerald dragon said, not even looking back once to see if I was following as she headed toward the entrance. Naturally, she had assumed that a mere wyrm would dare not disobey his superior and mother.

Her assumption was correct as I followed her, walking upright, into the dark entrance without a complaint; the hierarchy of dragons, as explained by mother, was absolute and in the foremost of my mind.

Inside of the mountain, I saw that I was in a passageway. I could hear the heavy footfalls of my mother as she led on with me following behind obediently. Twenty paces in—my mother's, of course—with only the sound of our breathing accompanying our steps, we arrived before an enormous door, which was similar in shape and size to the entrance. The door was entirely black all over and plain looking, and looked like those obsidian rocks I had seen as a child while visiting foreign vendors. The only difference was that I could sense a strange, heavy presence from the door. Intriguing, to say the least.

Suddenly, mother let out a huge breath of fire that almost covered the obsidian-like door and alighted the whole passageway. The light only lasted for a brief moment, however, as the door sucked in the flames with a hungry desire, lighting up with a small, circular glow of satisfaction around the middle. That is to say, after mother had breathed fire on the seemingly living door, a glowing circle appeared in the middle.

Not even wasting a second, mother walked up to the door, and without even hesitating, went through it, entirely. I had been expecting a great collision to happen as she walked into the closed door, but nothing had occurred except her disappearing entirely into it. It was as if the door had sucked her inside.

I, not being one to distrust my senses, which told me what had happened was reality, followed suite. Tinged with curiosity, I went through the door. No sensation accompanied me except for a stronger glow of light.

Looking around, I could see that I was in a huge, hollowed cave-like room that could have fit more than a few dozen full-grown dragons inside. Interspersed evenly on the rocky walls of the room were rocks that looked to be glowing. It lit the room brightly, but my eyes adjusted to the change of lighting instantly.

As interesting as the surroundings were, what truly caught my attention was the throne about fifty feet in front of me and mother in a respectful posture as a sign of deference to the man sitting on it. Situated in the middle of the room, the throne was majestic and entirely black, possibly made of the same material as the door.

But what was even more impressive was the human—or was it a dragon. I was perplexed and many conjectures were running through my mind. The human had long, white hair that would have made snow the darker color in comparison and he had his eyes closed, as if deep in contemplation. In an extremely rigid, yet somehow relaxed sitting posture with his limbs on the respective footrest and handholds of the throne, he had an intimidating air that made mother feel like a mere child in his presence.

The emerald dragon gave me a quick look, snapping me out of my reverie. Without hesitation, I went beside her and adopted a respectful posture just a few feet away from the eldest of our clan. The “human” on the throne, however, did not even deign to open his eyes, ignoring both of us. I could not even hear him breathing. It was as if we stood before a statue.

Minutes passed, but mother still remained there calmly with a look on her face that betrayed none of her emotions. I knew, however, that her indifferent face belied her impatience.

Then I heard the footfalls of three creatures, one which I judged heavy enough to be a full-grown dragon. Looking back, I saw a huge, blue dragon along with two other wyrms obediently following the adult. Judging by the two horns on the blue dragon, he was a male and both the wyrms were females, having three horns to signify that. One wyrm was green while the other was a soft-white.

They came up to us and adopted similar postures of respects, but not before the blue dragon gave mother a little nod. Mother did not give a nod in reply to acknowledge it, so I guessed it was a nod of deference. With all of us in a line, I could now tell that the emerald dragon, who was my mother, was the largest of us all, by a far cry. Now all we needed to do was wait for the eldest in the throne, I thought.

As if hearing my thought or perhaps sensing that all of us had arrived, the white-haired human dressed in a simple, black robe opened his eyes. The first thing I noticed about them was that they were of a deep brown. I could tell that those eyes had seen everything, as they almost seemed to ooze age.

“You may leave now, brood-keepers. I wish to be alone with these children,” the eldest said, his voice a soft whisper that seemed to reach us all as if we were standing right next to him.

A quick look of surprise flashed before they winked out instantly on the two adult dragons. “By your command, eldest,” they said, before turning around and heading out toward the door.

Those ancient, brown orbs of the eldest of our clan then settled on all of us. “Interesting,” the eldest said. “So this generation of wyrms that survived are green, white, and black.”

Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard a brief pause before the eldest said black.

“You may all leave this place now. Except for the black one,” the eldest commanded.

Having heard his order, the two wyrms quickly left in fear of the eldest. Apprehension filled me as I was the only one signaled out. Could he have possibly sensed that I was different from the other wyrms? I dared not run, however, knowing the difference in power between us. I was pretty sure those ancient eyes themselves could have overwhelmed me and rooted me right to my spot. It seemed like my only choice was to wait, so I did exactly that.

A soft laughter emerged from the mouth of the pale eldest on his throne. “Relax, young wyrm, I will not harm you. I am just curious about your appearance. After all, I have seen the rise and fall of numerous kingdoms, the deaths of dozens upon dozens of dragons, and the ancient beings that deign to walk this world when I was just a mere babe, but never have I seen the color black on a dragon.”

So the eldest was just curious about my appearance, I thought, sighing in relief to myself. I was also quite curious myself in regards to the eldest's appearance. In a way, we were both similar in this regard.

A strange, small smile formed on the face of the pale, white-haired eldest. It gave me chills to see it as it looked so abnormal with his ancient eyes and on a face that had possibly never smiled in a long, long time. “I can already feel my boredom lifting, my young, black wyrm.” His ancient brown eyes turned smoldering red as he rested them on me.

Hot, red flames suddenly sprouted in random areas all around the room before instantly becoming extinguished. It was as if it had never occurred, so quick were the flames that ceased to exist. In front of me, the eldest had stood up and I could now see his impressive height, which would have made him stand out in any given human dwellings.

“Meet your new brood-keeper, young wyrm,” the eldest said, his powerful, ancient, smoldering red-brown eyes freezing me right to my spot.

Chapter 9: Slaves, Death, the Scantily-Clad Woman, and Human-form

Discourse #4

I suppose I should tell you now, my guest, about the second time I came close to death when I was a human. It occurred when I was just fourteen years old and, as usual, full of curiosity for the world. It was an incident involving a slave.

My father, who had become quite an established merchant in the years after my mother's death, now had a not-so-insignificant reputation for trading. He was, I suppose, regarded as reliable by the customers and the sometimes highborn patrons.

Venturing on one of his numerous trading routes, we had arrived at the outpost known as Milgard, located near the northern edge of the kingdom of Shail. It was a small-sized kingdom near the unexplored southern part of the central area of the continent, way to the west.

By that, I mean the western boundary of Shail kingdom bordered the ocean; its southern boundary was to a small desert. Not needing to be that vigilant against its southern and western flanks, the kingdom had most of its outposts in the north and the east. And Milgard was one of the kingdom's finest and largest outpost to the north.

I think you will recognize these names, my guest, since we are not so far from there.

Shail kingdom, in addition to being small, was also quite crude in comparison to its well established neighbors in the southern parts of the continent. Still, this was the kingdom I was born in. Well then, “my guest,” I believe that is enough background information to get some relevance.

Continuing on with my tale, my father had undertaken a contract with a noble of the kingdom to deliver weapons and other miscellaneous items for the outpost. This noble's name is not very important anymore, at least, not to me. I am a dragon now, after all, I said, looking at my guest with my piercing, emerald eyes. The reaction of my guest was quite amusing as I could almost taste the fear on my guest.

Thus, my father and I, along with a few trusted guards we hired and our chain of caravans, arrived at this outpost called Milgard. We were astride on horses, as we did not felt like staying inside a carriage. With the view from my horse, I looked around at this novel place with curious, blue eyes, taking in everything noteworthy.

Among my observations of this outpost, I noted three observation towers facing the north and two more facing the east. They were all spread out evenly and were about fifteen feet tall. What impressed me the most was that this place was a misnomer. This place did not deserved to be call an outpost. No, instead, this place was more like a fort and a medium-sized town combined to form a sprawling mass of various people. Judging from the relatively unmarked ten feet walls surrounding the perimeter of the outpost, I could tell that this place was safe from attacks.

A call from my father snapped me out of my observational trance.

“Come on now, son. We can't dawdle here forever, waiting for you,” he said. It was a soft rebuke, which was lessened by the smile on his pepper bearded face. Even after fourteen years since mother's death, the smile still had vestiges of sadness traced to it.

A small part of me felt a little twinge seeing this. I knew I was the cause of the death of the love of his life, but I could not feel much sympathy or sadness no matter how hard I tried. I would have felt distraught at my emotional impairment had I some form of capacity to do so, but since I did not, I could not.

“Coming, father,” I replied simply, giving a smile in return. Looking into myself, I suppose I did feel some form of affection for my father. It was not enough to develop into love, but nonetheless, it was something. In the end, the only lover, mother, father, and best friend I had was my indifferent curiosity.

Along with our helpers and guards, I followed father to the front of the outpost's entrance, which was an opened, twin door reinforced with steel. There were two people on each side of the entrance, totaling four people, all of them males. On the left side was a scribe wearing a simple, white robe, who was listing all the names and businesses of the people in front of us. I could see that among those people, some of them were peasants who looked like they were half-starved.

Being the poor bastards they were, the peasants had most likely come here to enlist. At least then, they would be fed, sheltered and given just months of training before being sent as fodder to defend against the raiding of small parties of monsters. Such was the way of life for the downtrodden and poor peasants everywhere, not just in this kingdom. It was a universal thing and what could I say, except that life was a cruel mistress for the unlucky.

“State your names and your business,” the guard on the left side said, his voice brisk and short. I could tell by his dissatisfied and annoyed face that he did not wanted to be here under this hot weather doing such menial tasks.

“My name is Falin Mead,” father said. He gestured a thumb to the few covered wagons behind us, which was filled to the brim with swords, axes, and various other weapons. There were also some miscellaneous items. “And this is my group. We are here to deliver weapons from Baron Serle.” Reaching into his personal leather satchel, father pulled out the writ the baron had given him and handed it to the guard.

The guard barely gave it a cursory glance before he returned the writ to father and waved us in, while the scribe just silently jotted down father's name and his business. As quickly as he had taken the writ out, father put it back into his satchel. The guard then saw me and his lips curled in distaste as he muttered under his breath that I was a fucking good-looking bastard. No one heard it except me as I was the one closest to him. I gave no signs that I had noticed, however, being quite indifferent to things like these. By the way, just in case you were wondering, that guard was pretty average; a little taller than the usual height, average looks, dark brown eyes, and squat shoulders.

An amusing thing I had noticed about my father's leather satchel, which he had ordered, giving specific directions to a leather-smith, was that most people looked down on it. I have only seen the few, rare merchants with leather satchels. Most people just tended to stick to coin purses hanging from their small belts. It was as if those people were asking to be robbed, displaying their money openly. The few wise people attached a small bag to their belt in which they put their coin purses, but that was still quite laughable as a quick slash of a knife could easily make a hole large enough for the experience thief to steal it quickly. I did not blame their unwariness, however, as most people with coin purses were grown adults who could take care of themselves and thefts were infrequent.

Unlike father, I tended to use a coin purse and was wise enough to hide it under the folds of my clothing, which always had a secret pocket inside. Had I not done so, I would have been robbed or perhaps even killed uncountable times during the many towns and cities my father traded in. After all, a wandering, young child with a fat purse full of coins was a very easy target.

Father would have hired a trust bodyguard to follow me around as a child, but I had denied him, telling him not to worry. It would have only made me an easier target as it would obviously show that I was fairly rich to the somewhat trained eyes of experienced thieves.

Inside the outpost, my father turned back and nodded at me. “I shall not be long, Alan. I just need to report to one of Baron Serle's man. The name of our inn is The Sleeping Bear. If I am not there before you, just tell whoever is in charge there my name.”

Father knew that I was going to wander around the outpost, taking in the new sights, so he just told me the name of the inn we were going to rest at for the night. He had resigned himself to the fact that I could take care of myself years ago when I was just a child of ten.

Having said a farewell to my father, I walked around inside the outpost. I could see some of areas of the ground of the outpost were cobbled with stone, but most were just cleared of obstacles, leaving only hard earthen ground, suitable for the comings and goings of a military outpost.

I could see that almost half of the population of the outpost were soldiers, whereas the other half were commoners and tradesmen, such as blacksmiths; all of those essential things for a military place.

There were also brothels, ranging from cheap to ordinary to expensive, judging from the buildings and the few women and girls at the front, trying to attract men. One of them even had a sign that said in bold letters: “Almost Free.” It was amusing, to say the least.

There was also a scantily-clad woman who showed off her entire leg from a balcony, teasing the men below. It was a leg with pale thighs ending with dainty toes with nails painted scarlet.

A few of the men on the streets even stood still for a while to stare hungrily at her and some even bumped into each other, desire making them lose themselves. It was amusing to see such reactions on the other men whenever I frequently observed these types of places.

That beautiful woman with her lips as red as blood on the balcony of that expensive looking brothel continued to tease the men below mercilessly, her soft, brown eyes twinkling with mirth and amusement. She gave the ground below her a further cursory glance and then her soft, brown eyes stopped on a person.

It was me. She had caught me looking at her with my strangely curious, yet indifferent look, as this look of mine had been described many times by the targets of my observations. Most men thought I looked like a cold motherless bastard, just to name one of the many less savory names I have been called as a child. Some women and girls my age—fourteen as I was during this time—even looked at me lovingly, likening me to a lovely, and pitiable pet that they would like to take care of. Those were one of the strangest and intriguing conversations I have had, leading me to a conclusion that women are strange creatures.

Those soft brown eyes of the woman on the balcony stared into my own twin blue eyes, almost like an insect caught in honey. Then she snapped out of her reverie and gave me a small, sensuous smile, which earned me the ire of many of the male passerby who had stopped to look at this woman. She arched her back like a lithe creature, and her eyes looked invitingly at me.

This is quite strange, I thought to myself as I looked at her indifferently. I should have been dressed in durable, but not very expensive attire, yet this woman of this expensive brother had invited me in with her seductive, painted eyes.

I was a little intrigued, but not so much that I felt the need to go inside that expensive-looking brothel. I just attributed this woman's curious invitation to my face and the fact that I looked older than my real age of fourteen. Thus, I ignored the woman, turning around and went back the way I came from. I did not know it then, but it was only when I turned sixteen years old that I would take the final step with a woman. But that is another discourse best saved for later.

Having left that particular area of this medium town-like outpost, I went to another area, except this time my curiosity pulled at me. This particular region of the outpost looked dubious, perhaps even disreputable. I could almost sense it in the air and by the way the few men were walking as if they had an air of secrecy to them. It was like shame or perhaps embarrassment.

Those few clandestine men had come out from an extremely large building. It was large, not in height, but in length and its color was a shade of dark brown and white with a lighter brown roof. This whole region of this town-like outpost had been devoted to this building.

I went inside the building to find out the cause of this furtive atmosphere. And to my surprise, I found myself in a plain white room. In its center was a man of perhaps thirty dressed in an expensive-looking tunic made of soft material. I believe it was silk, but was not very sure. I also cannot describe to you the man's face as my memories become a little hazy regarding that building, but I do remember that he was wearing a tall black hat also. Behind that man, a few feet away, was a plain, black wooden door.

When I first came in, the man looked at me in distaste, his eyes looking down on me the moment he saw my cheap attire. From his haughty, distasteful look, I could tell that I would need to perhaps show the man my coin purse. Cold, motherless bastard I may look like to most men, I was also a rich bastard. I dug into the secret pocket of my cheap black tunic, grabbed my heavy coin purse, and then opened it a little to show the coins, most of which were gold and some silver. There were barely any coppers.

And in case you were wondering, “my guest”, this was my own money, not my father's. My years of traveling with father was not wasted. I had become a somewhat experienced merchant, learning a few things here and there from father and other people I met.

Almost instantly after I showed him the coins, the man in the center of the room sitting on a plain, wooden chair behind a plain, wooden desk, accorded a slick smile at me. “Welcome, my good sir. Just write your name down on this sheet and you can go browse around after going through the door behind me.” The man pointed a thumb behind him at the door. He pondered for a little moment after looking at my clothing, then back to my face, his nondescript eyes resting on my face for a little while, before going back to my clothing (I neither remember his eyes nor his face). “If you do not know how to write your name, then I shall do so for you.”

I nodded indifferently at his words, walking up to the table. I took the quill resting just beside the parchment of paper with various names, of which I also do not remember, and wrote my name down. I was fairly educated as my father had more money than he knew what to do with, so some of it trickled down toward my education in learning how to write and read.

The black-hatted man nodded, apparently satisfied that I had written my name in good style and told me that I could go inside. Having gained his permission, so to speak, I opened the door and felt a little strange spark as I touched the knob. Ignoring this little curiosity, I went inside and while I was watching this strange spectacle in front of me, the door softly closed itself behind me with a soft thud.

In front of me were dozens upon dozens of cages with many various creatures and beings trapped inside. Some of them looked half-starved while a few others looked emaciated. Those cages were all lined up in neat rows behind the transparent doors and there were signs in front of each door. From my left to my right, the signs read; Ferocious and Loyal Soldiers, Sex Slaves (Male and Female), Fetishes, Preserved Dead, M Slaves, Wife Material, Husband Material, and Other Miscellaneous.

I felt a little surprised as my suspicions of this dubious place was not unfounded. I also felt intrigued as I looked at the few clandestine men and the rare women browsing around behind the door that read Sex Slaves. From my position here, just a few feet away from that door, I could make out humans of various skin colors ranging from black to brown to pale white.

I look behind the door that read Fetishes and found that I could make out creatures that look like humans except for their various animal ears and tails attached to their humanoid bodies; most of them were naked. That was truly interesting to me. I had heard a few spells and tales from hunters that there were strange humanoids, which looked a bit like animals, living in the unexplored deep central and northern part of this continent, but I had never believed it until now.

And curious enough, I could hear the moaning sounds and sounds of what I believed to be whips coming from behind the M Slaves door. I went closer to the door and saw a more-than-a-little fat, rich-looking man holding a whip, looking dominantly at the humanoid, female monster inside the cage in front of him.

They were all intriguing, but what made me the most inquisitive was the door labeled in black writing: Other Miscellaneous. Before I could even head for the door I had chosen, I heard a blood-curdling scream come from behind one of the door. I quickly looked for the source of the disruption and found that the transparent door labeled M Slaves had been dyed red with blood.

Then I heard a deep inhumane voice, feminine in its nature, shouting loudly. “How do you like the taste of your own medicine, you dirty, fucking pig. Oh wait, you cannot even taste it anymore, since you are dead.” That inhumane, feminine voice suddenly turned into giggles, which sounded quite insane to me.

I only realized then that I was now in danger as I was the only one outside of all these doors and the M Slaves door was quite near me. I knew that the slave, however insane it had become, judging from the giggles, was going to flee this place and the only way it could was through the plain, black door behind me.

Quickly, I turned around and just as I was about to open the plain, black door by pushing the knob, a furry hand with five digits that ended with sharp talons tore through my back and out my stomach. Then just as quickly as the talon hand went through me, it went back out the same speed.

The agony and pain did not hit me until I fell to the soft, carpeted floor with a thud and blood spurted and flowed from the hole in my stomach, dying the carpet from brown to red. I could feel my consciousness ebbing away slowly and I could only see in a daze, almost as if I was dreaming, but less faint.

There was a shrill laughter coming from beside me and I turned a little to see this source. It was a faint image of a female, humanoid monster with curved talons on both her furry hands and feet; she also had what appeared to be feathered wings jutting out from her back. A graceful, yet cruel creature with an insane look on her face. “And now another pig is dead.” The bird-like humanoid let out another shrill giggle.

Slowly dying on the floor with a demented bird monster hovering beside me, I saw a person wearing a simple, black robe that almost seemed to flutter around unnaturally come inside through the plain, black door.

With an index finger, that black robed person scratched at his scraggly black beard, looking at the scene in front of him as if it was a common everyday thing. Then with his free left hand—the hand which was not scratching his beard—he pointed his palm, fingers curved a little inward, at the insane “M Slave” hovering beside me. Tendrils of blue light shot out from his palm and the monster beside me was instantly encased in ice, a look of frozen terror forever captured on her feminine face.

Without even missing a rhythm by stopping to see what he had done, the black-robed man pointed it at the hole in my stomach and shot out another of his blue tendrils of energy. Only this time, it was aimed toward the gaping hole in my stomach. The wound started closing at an extremely fast rate, but at the same time, I felt myself getting even weaker. Then I fainted.

When I opened my eyes and realized that my consciousness had returned, I could see the black-robed man still standing before me with his right index finger, scratching his scraggly black beard. Strangely enough, I could feel a little annoyance. It was a curious emotion, the way I was reacting to just that little action. I rarely, if ever, felt annoyed unless it was something truly horrendous and well, annoying.

“Welcome back to the world of living,” the man said in a deep, baritone voice. “I am truly sorry that you had to experience such a thing as an escaped and untrained harpy, but no harm done, eh?” The black-robed man gave me a small smirk as if nothing had ever happened.

I nodded apathetically and looked down at my stomach, to find that the hole had healed. My tunic had torn around the area too and I would have to go buy another. “Thank you, I suppose,” I said, nodding to the man, no, the mage.

I had only heard of magic, but had never seen it firsthand as there were very few people gifted in this aspect. They were treated very preciously and kings coveted them.

“Since you had to experience such a thing due to our incompetency with one of the cages, I will compensate you with a slave,” the mage said. “I do hope you will find nothing remiss and harbor no grudges against this fine institution.”

That was how I, at fourteen years old, obtained a slave, but more about her later and my father's reactions to it, I mean her. Thus, I left that “institute” after choosing a slave, thinking to myself that it had been an intriguing day.

<><><><><>

“So, my young Verath, how do you like your human-form?” the eldest asked.

I nodded at his words, or was it her words, a little bit excited at not having to stay in my wyrm form anymore. I could never tell the true gender of the eldest even after I had turned two years and a half old. I was finally now in my dragon-hood, and at the moment, was supposedly a thirteen year old human child.

As if guessing my thoughts, the eldest said, “You will look about twenty six years old or around there in your human form once you are a full-grown dragon of five years old, and stay that way for centuries.”

The reason I could not tell the gender of the eldest of our clan—I still did not know his name even now—was because on the second day of the excruciating training, he appeared to me as a full-bosom female, entirely naked, pale, and hairless except for her head. Then the next day, the eldest appeared before me as an eleven year old girl with hair as red as blood, this time wearing only a see-through silk gown.

This went on and on with the eldest appearing before me in many different forms, some not even humanoid and which, quite frankly, scared me a little. Each day, however, I showed no reaction to his or was it her, pranks. A strange personality, I thought, for a being of such an ancient age.

From the first time I had met the eldest in his human-form on the throne, I had a lingering suspicion that it was either a dragon ability or perhaps magic. He had enlightened me on that subject by telling me that it was dragon magic, which I, a wyrm, had no right to use and it was only restricted to gifted Astlan dragons of the old generation.

The eldest was quite patient and unlike mother, had allowed me to ask all kinds of questions, satisfying my growing curiosity. I suppose with age comes patience, especially when you are more than a thousand years old. He had never told me his exact age, only hinting at it, and I had never dared to ask. Since I am quite unsure of the eldest's gender, I will just conclude male.

The eldest, back to his “original” form like the day I had first met him, looked at me with his ancient, brown-eyes, no longer dyed red by magic. “So are you ready for your second tribulation? I assure you that you will at least half-die, for my tribulation is different from the normal one.”

Right then, even with my dampened emotions, I could feel a tinge of fear. I could remember his excruciating training lessons where I had fainted many times from overexertion and horror. Since this was inevitable, I took an amusing count of how many times I fainted.

The tally, so far, was seven hundred and ten days, including the five day break...

CHAPTER 10: The Second Tribulation and Damned Adventurers, Monsters, and Raiders

In the form of a little twelve year old girl with green hair, red eyes, and wearing only thin, pink undergarments, the eldest gave a large, ferocious grin that looked out of place on such a small, snow-white girl. Blood dripped down from the girl's small mouth, which when opened, however daintily it may looked, still had sharp rows of fangs in it. I almost felt unnerved seeing the eldest in this form, chewing on the meat of a female orc. It was even made more gruesome when that little girl was hovering ten feet above the ground as if it was the most normal thing ever.

Furthermore, the scene behind the little, flying girl was the bloodied corpses of around a hundred green-skinned orcs consisting of males, females, and children. Some were decapitated, others were cooked well-done, but most were burned beyond recognition; a few had even turned into ashes by the eldest's fire magic.

The eldest had tried both cooked and uncooked orc meat, but said that he liked uncooked the best, for it tasted far better. I suppose cooked meat was only accommodating to the palate of humans.

You wish to know the reason why I was subjected to such a horrifying scene before my second tribulation? That is because before the eldest would give me his blessing to go on the second tribulation, he said that we should have a last meal together, for one never knows what will happen. So I suggested hunting down some orcs for their meat.

Delighted with this idea I suggested, the eldest teleported both of us right into the middle of a crude, orc settlement, where about a hundred of them lived in wooden shacks. Imagine my surprise when the scenery of the eldest's lair changed while I was in mid-sentence into that of orcs surrounding us. It was inconceivable how much magic power it would take for a teleportation when most old-generation dragons could barely cast magic. I suppose one should never underestimate this ancient monster, I thought, looking at the inhumane destruction behind the hovering, little girl.

Then the girl's cold, yet delicate voice interrupted my thoughts.

“My young Verath, the time limit for your second tribulation shall be two weeks. However, if in some infinitesimal chance, you manage to finish this trial earlier, then the rest of the remaining days will be your break.” The little girl gave me a small, bloody smile. “If you fail, I will personally kill you for disappointing me. I cannot have you muddying my reputation among Astlan dragons, after all.”

I nodded to show the eldest that I understood. “So I just need to get this treasure from the labyrinth?”

“Indeed. I shall even help you a little bit by teleporting you to a place near this labyrinth. After all, you would not want to spend a month traveling there.”

Once more, I nodded. The eldest had thoroughly described to me this treasure hidden in the depths of the labyrinth, so I had no pressing need to ask anymore questions about my second trial.

“Remember, Verath, just cast fire magic into the blood-mark I drew on your stomach to let me know that you have finished. It will remain unseen to other eyes until you do so.”

As soon as the eldest said that, I instantly saw red-colored magic flowing from him and surrounding me in a cocoon.

Then all of a sudden the little girl's face and voice turned serious. “Oh yes, by the way, I advice you to change into your human-form.”

Without even a second of hesitation—I had become quite familiar with the eldest's sudden tricks—I changed into my thirteen year old human form. It barely even took half a second as my black-colored magic transformed me. Then my whole surroundings winked out of existence and then rushed back into existence, invading my senses. It was a moment of extreme disorientation, which quickly passed away.

The uncomfortable feelings passed after about two seconds and I opened my eyes to find myself in a surprising place. Looking at my surroundings, I realized that I had been tricked. A little trickle of annoyance took place inside me and I could not help but curse to myself.

That bastard! I cannot believe he teleported me right into the middle of a human settlement.

Finishing that thought, all the annoyance left me and indifferent calm, as usual, took root inside me. I silently reviewed the problems I was facing right at this moment in the middle of this human settlement.

1) Although every human in the center square of this small town was currently staring at me in disbelief and amusement, the reason was not due to my sudden appearance in the cobbled square. No one had been paying attention, luckily, and even if they did, they would not believe themselves of that impossibility. No, the reason I was the center of attention in this town was that I was entirely naked due to my transformation. And I suppose my long, unnatural, white hair that reached almost to my waist did not help.

2) The second problem I faced was that I did not wanted to be the ridicule of this small town or perhaps even arrested or even kicked out of this town for streaking naked. Although I would usually not care about such a measly thing, I was hoping to ask directions since I had not one jot of clue where I was.

3) The third and final problem I would probably face was from the group of three men, who were giving me small smirks, as I had noticed in my observations of my surroundings. They were standing beside a vendor who had laid a blanket down on the cobbled, stone floor of the square. Laid out on the blanket were various cheap necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and earrings. But what interested me the most were bulges near their waists, under their black tunics, which I guessed to be hidden daggers. They were most likely slavers who were going to buy cheap gifts for the whores of the brothel they were about to visit until I caught their attention.

It took a few seconds to process these thoughts for me due to the fact that I was fully naked while under the stares of so many people. I suppose standing indifferently like a statue in the middle of the square also did not help lessen the stares. In a way, I even found this quite amusing, because the reactions I invoked were a multitude of fun to observe.

Slowly and calmly, I started walking out of the town, ignoring all of their looks, the whispered voices, the pointing fingers, and the mothers covering the eyes of their children, especially their young daughters. But before I could even take a few steps, a man dressed in leather armor came running into the square. Just as he was about to yell, he saw me and his mouth formed an “o” in surprise.

The next second, however, the man, possibly a scout or a soldier, shook free of his surprise and yelled. “Get to the safety grounds, people! We are going to be raided by goblins! The town guards has been alerted, so stay calm!”

Then the whole square came alive. Dozens of people stopped staring at me and started mad scrambles toward the place the soldier called “the safety grounds.” None of them listened to the scout's advice to stay calm. Mothers carried their small children into their arms, the street vendors quickly wrapped up their blankets, and tradesmen and merchants went into respective buildings and took their valuables. All of them headed toward that place called “the safety grounds.”

Naked and calm, I slowly walked toward the direction where most of the throngs of people were running. It seemed as if I was the only one that took that scout's advice. In a way, I almost felt sorry for that soldier. There were also a few times where I had to dodge the incoming groups of families to avoid collisions as I walked toward the safety grounds.

In a short while, I caught up to the leading group, who had stopped outside of town. There were a few town guards there, but I guessed that most of them were at the other side of town, preparing to do battle against the raiders. And although I had walked to this place, I was not the last one to arrive because there were still stragglers who were busy taking valuables with them from their homes.

The safety grounds did nothing to reassure me of its safety. It was just a relatively large clearing with makeshift defenses around the perimeter. Some makeshift defenses included wooden barricades that were sharpened, wooden spears tied together in a line. Better than nothing, I suppose.

The total number of experienced, fighting men were the dozen assigned guards around the perimeter and the few stray men that carried swords. Most of them wore iron chain-bodies and open-faced helmets that only protected the top and the back of the head, leaving a clear view for the face.

Many people were already inside the safety grounds with fearful looks on their faces. I could also hear some of the children whimpering and crying, while the mothers and fathers tried to reassure them, but the looks of fear on their faces did nothing to reassure. I walked through the only entrance around the variety of makeshift defenses and calmly stood in the safety grounds with the dozens and dozens of people.

Now, I only needed to wait patiently for this farce to end. And though the safety grounds was just a crude defense, I judged that since the fighting men did not look alarmed nor fearful, everything was under control. The raiders would most likely be forced to give up and retreat or be defeated. Either way, I did not care what the outcome was so long as I got directions to the labyrinth. I was also sure that a tall, naked, and white-haired thirteen year old boy asking questions at this importune moment would not be very welcomed by the people.

Though I say that, once again, I was at the center of attention due to the fact that I was the only naked person in the safety grounds. And being near the entrance to this place did not help at all. A few of the people even got over their fears and asked why I was naked. Most of them, however, looked at me with a little bit of suspicion. The guards and fighting men just ignored me, probably thinking that I had hit my head when I was a baby or was naturally touched in the head. A few of the young women and some girls even looked interested in me, staring at my body and my unnaturally, bright, green eyes and white hair, which were rarely, if ever, seen.

I did not need to inspect myself since I had checked thoroughly when I could first transform into a human; I knew that I had skin that leaned on the pale side, a high nose, thick, black eyebrows, a proud jaw, soft-white hair, and lips that were made for smiling, some might even say kissing. I suppose, even after my reincarnation, I still looked like a noble bastard, not that all nobles were handsome or beautiful. I was also well-endowed in a certain area even at this age, more so than my previous human life. My muscles were still developing, but I could certainly be called lithe and wiry, a few shades from being brawny. All in all, it was quite interesting.

I ignored all the questions directed at me and stood still, silent and calmly waiting for this to be all over. I looked outward at the nearby town and just as I was about to concentrate on a far-seeing spell, I felt a slap on my ass.

Turning around, I found myself face to face with a woman just about my height, which was probably around five feet and a half—I was quite tall even as a supposedly thirteen year old human, or so the eldest says. She had a small smirk on her face, which was, I suppose oval shaped. She had a little above average look, brown hair cut short, brown eyes, and a soft-brown skin tone. Her description just screamed out the color brown. I also noticed that she had a long sword sheathed behind her back, just slightly slanting toward her right shoulder.

“That's nice. You have quite a firm ass,” she said nonchalantly. “So what is the reason for your nakedness?” Her left hand did a downward gesture, starting from my chest and ending with my private part. Her face was casual, but I could sense a withheld mirth behind that facade. “And do not ignore me like you did the other people. I know you are not dumb or mute or deaf.”

My momentary interest in her had passed so I ignored her and turned my back to her, concentrating again to cast my spell. But once again, I was interrupted by her smooth voice.

“You should not ignore me, my good sir, I can keep on slapping your ass all day. And perhaps I might even escalate the action into shoving a sword up it.” For some reason, I could imagine this woman, who was starting to turn annoying even for one such as I, patting the hard leather of her sword scabbard behind her.

I turned back around to face her, knowing that she would go through with her intentions if I ignored her again. Seeing the nonchalant look on her face, I decided to ask nicely instead of killing her. I would have done the latter, but it would be too troublesome in such a crowded place as this. Definitely not worth the trouble. “Could you please not touch me without my permission, miss. Also, please leave me alone.”

“What's that? I couldn't hear your name. You should speak louder, but I forgive you. Instead, I will tell you my name and then you can tell me your name again.” She had ignored everything I had said. She was in her own little world, and she was the sole master of it.

So troublesome, I thought.

“My name is Elisa Ballad, and I am an adventurer. But I am pretty sure you already guessed that seeing my leather armor, and the weapon on my back. So what is your name, good sir?”

And talkative, I thought again.

“Verath.” I paused, seeing the expectant look on her face. “No last name,” I added.

“Nice to meet you, Verath. Oh, by the way, those two women right over there are also adventurers and are in my party. They are also quite handy with their respective weapons.”

I looked at the direction she pointed and saw two women wearing black, leather armors. One was quite average-looking; long black hair, a small-round face, small lips, a small bosom, and could have very well been mistaken for a young child if one did not look very closely at her large, brown eyes that could have swallowed someone whole.

The other one, whereas, was very tall—most likely taller than me—and her sleek muscles were tight against her armor. She was also extremely endowed in the breast area and had a thin, faint scar that lined her whole left cheek, marring her beautiful, no it was more like handsome, face. Short, jet-black hair was cut short purposely to reveal the scar, as if she was not shameful of it and instead proud of it.

After taking some slight observations with those two, I looked back at the woman in front of me. “Are we done?”

Once more, she ignored me and continued on. “We just arrived at this town this very day and to our misfortunes, there just had to be raiders coming, especially so in this warm weather.” She sighed softly. “Still, we couldn't leave these people helpless, so we volunteered to protect the townspeople along with the assigned guards.” She gave me a little shrug with her shoulders. “How about you? What are you doing here, all naked, and showing off your parts,” she said, looking brazenly at my private part.

She had asked me an interesting question, one which I was hard-pressed for an answer. I had none on my mind that could sufficiently explain the reason I was naked without giving myself away.

“Just taking a stroll,” I said.

I knew there were better answers such as I was in the middle of sex with my lover or a whore and the warning of raiders just came suddenly, so I abandoned everything I was doing, but could not find any clothing. But that would have been too long to explain and I was impatient for this conversation to end.

Elisa raised both her eyebrows at me and gave me a small smile. “That is quite a unique answer, Verath,” she said, as if slowly savoring my name.

“So we are done, right?” I said calmly, but was almost ready to pray to whatever entities out there to finish this conversation.

“You know, Veeerath, the more reluctant you are, the more happier I am to chase.” She accentuated the “e” in my name and gave me a feral grin that suggested our conversation was far from over.

Seeing this, I almost felt like I should just kill her and troubles be damned. It was still not worth it so I gave up and sighed to myself inwardly, but outward, I had my usual indifferent face that showed nothing. “So, adventurer, what are you doing, coming to this town?”

“Well, you see, an explorer working for the guild we are in found this mysterious labyrinth not quite far from here and put out a request. This labyrinth, however, was filled with strong monsters so he could not go any further,” she said, her voice so excited I could almost see sparkles coming out from her eyes. “And we were the closest ones so we headed out over here, way ahead of all the other adventurers.”

I was pleasantly surprised at hearing the word labyrinth. And to think I was going to ask the townspeople directions to a secret labyrinth, of which they had no idea of. This adventurer, however, knew the way to it.

“My party and I will successfully excavate and explore that labyrinth,” she declared proudly, as if it was already a foregone conclusion.

“I see. That sounds very nice. Would you and your partners mind if I tag along?” It would have been downright suspicious if I gave her a very seductive smile right there and then after she had so casually revealed such a secret place. And I doubt it would have worked either way, since I was not used to doing such a thing. Thus, I stuck to my indifferent curiosity.

With her energetic, brown eyes, she surveyed my body, up and down, before resting at my lower part. A slight blush tinged her face. “Well, you do look like you can handle yourself. But can you handle a weapon?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic! But you still need to be tested before joining my party. Would you rather have me or spar with Ryia Altard, that tall woman over there?”

Her words were rather amusing and I could tell that she was quite sly and any other men would have fallen prey to her words; she had, on purpose, said “have me,” in regards to herself and “spar with Ryia,” the woman that looked the toughest in their group.

“Ryia,” I said, looking calmly at her face for one of her amusing reactions. Just for a second, I saw a disappointed look at my rejection of her advances and then a face that seemed determined. Intriguing, I thought, looking at this energetic woman, who seemed to flit through emotions as fast as I had chewed through meat when I was a starving wyrm.

Suddenly, I had a sense of danger and killing intents come into my mind. This had happened to me many times before when I was “sparring” with the eldest, but with him, however, it was a sense of danger that almost rooted me frozen, so overwhelming it was. I barely lasted a moment each time I sparred with the eldest, even when he was in his tiny, little girl form. I do not think I could even touch the eldest if he were to come at me in a baby human form, so overwhelmingly strong was he.

This time, however, it was not exactly a sense of danger. It was more like a warning of a small inconvenience. This was one of my exclusive ability like my ability with the blood of others. I had a few more, but this one was the most uncertain as it only worked sometimes. I am not exactly sure, but I had learned enough to judge the degrees during the training with the eldest.

My sense was not unfounded because up ahead, I saw a large group of goblins come through the town. There was also this one male goblin in the lead with strange, black markings all over his half-naked body. They were all riding dire wolves and were waiting just ten feet away from the safety grounds. All of them were confident since none of us had any weapons with range.

The lead goblin with the black markings came forward and gave a grin that showed of his sharp, yellow teeth. “We broke through your defense by flanking the guards and now we will ki—”

Before that goblin leader even had a chance to finish speaking, a small throwing knife was stuck at his throat, forever cutting off his words, as the red blood trickled downward from his throat. The staff he was also holding fell down to the ground with a hard thud. All of the goblins were shocked into disbelief along with most of the humans in the safety grounds.

Only a few people saw where the knife came from and I was one of them. I looked at the long, black-haired girl who was average looking. She was in a black, leather armor and had two sheathed daggers jutting out from behind her waist. It was one of Elisa's party member.

Interesting. That girl was most likely hiding many, many throwing knifes beneath her armor other than the obvious place, which was her belt that carried all sorts of throwing knives.

“Nice throw, Milli!” That certainly shut him up.” Elisa said, giving the knife-thrower girl a small nod of praise. Milli just nodded silently in return, her small head bobbing down an almost unnoticeable length.

The goblin warriors behind their fallen leader finally shook themselves out of their disbelief and howled with outrage. Their dire wolves, about two-third the size of a horse, also howled along. Then they charged at the safety-grounds.

“Well then, time for some fun exercise,” Elisa said, stretching both of her arms overhead, before finally drawing her steel sword, whose length was almost her full height. I also noted a strange symbol on the middle of that plain, steel sword. She held the longsword with both her hands on the long hilt and was strong enough to lift it gracefully.

Crazy as a squirrel whose nuts had been stolen by another, she actually charged toward the dozen goblin warriors and their dozen dire wolves. And flanking her right was that tall, handsome woman with the thin scar on her left cheek, whose name, if I remember correctly was Ryia Altard. This woman held a short spiked mace in her right hand, which was dressed in a thin, brown glove.

The third party member, whose name I did not know yet, silently watched this affair and shook her head to herself. And if I heard correctly, I think she muttered “crazy bitches” under her breath. Then she gave a small, fond smile toward the backs of her two party members. The smile instantly disappeared, however, as if it had never occurred.

I, near the entrance of the safety grounds, observed all of this quietly and with, dare I say it, mirth. I was almost close to laughter. Almost.

Before long, they met their respective goblins brandishing short swords on dire wolves. Elisa swerved left at the last moment, right before the wolf pounced at her and still managed to dodge the downward swing of the goblin's weapon. Using that momentum, she spun back around using the heels of her booted feet, and with both hands on the hilt of her longsword, executed a downward slashing motion, which traveled through the goblin's neck, only stopping after decapitating both the goblin and the wolf he was riding. Both the wolf and the goblin came to a sudden halt and their newly-formed corpses dropped to the ground, their heads rolling from the momentum.

Now, there were only eleven goblin raiders left.

I found myself a little surprised at this inhumane feat. Perhaps the sword she was carrying had a magic enchantment that could cut through such thick bones so smoothly without even a nick.

At the same time this had occurred, Ryia Altard also swerved right at the last moment, dodging everything and then spun back around, smashing both the goblin's and the wolf's faces with two, quick hits of her spiked mace. They died instantly as their faces became unrecognizable, pounded flesh with a sickening crunch that could be heard even from here.

The two women became heralds of death, their weapons flashing instantly from goblin to goblin, a beautiful dance of weapons and blood. They were not stupid, however, knowing that if the goblins surrounded them, they would be hard-pressed or even killed. But the two women were quick on their feet and did not stay still even for a second, not even to regain a little bit of their bearings after killing the goblins.

I was no longer the center of attention in the safety grounds as most of them, excluding the children sheltered by their parents, turned to look at the fighting, entranced by the two death-dealing women. The guards, who had an idea of the skill shown before them, stood dumbfounded and envious.

In just a short while, all of the dozen goblin raiders and their wolves were all proned against the hard, earthen ground. Most of them were dead while a few were moaning in pain as they bled, slowly dying.

Seeing this victory, the people started cheering, and Elisa gave them a small wave. Then she frowned, looking at her blood-stained sword. She tried to clean it on the fur of a brown wolf, but some blood still remained on the longsword, so she just shrugged and sheathed it behind her back in one smooth motion. She turned around to look at me, walking up to me.

“Now then, Verath, the next point of business shall be you getting some clothing,” Elisa said, a joyous, bloodthirsty smile on her face. Her black, leather armor was stained with the blood of her foes and a few specks of blood that had flown onto her face were already drying. “But you can just stay naked that way if you want. I do not mind.” She paused for a moment. “We will also need to take a bath to clean up...”

I was not too sure, but it seemed like I was included in this business without even being asked.

“Oh yes, I forgot to introduce the third member of our party. Her name is Milli Gobumi,” Elisa said, gesturing her hand toward her.

As I stared at the corpses of those goblins and wolves behind the smiling Elisa and the smirking Ryia who were high-fiving each other, I could not help but come to a conclusion that women are strange creatures.

Quite intriguing.

Chapter 11: The Spar, The Labyrinth, The Boss, and Unwanted Advances

Elisa Ballard gave me a small, pouting look. It was a strange clash against her short, brown hair that was stained with dry blood. “Are you sure you do not want to take a bath with me? There is a nearby lake at this town and it is quite a warm day today too.”

“Quite sure,” I replied, offhandedly.

She sighed her small, soft sigh and then raked her eyes all over my body. From this action, I could get the feeling that she probably did this when inspecting her weapon too. “Very well then. You should probably get dressed and we will meet at this town's inn later at night. That is, if you have any clothes...But you can come naked, I do not mind.”

With that said, she gave me a slight wink and turned around, heading out of the safety grounds to catch up with Ryia Altard, the tall woman with the thin scar, who had went ahead of her to the lake.

“Oh yes, and bring along a weapon if you have one for the spar with Ryia!” she shouted at me, already a small distance away. And as usual, she walked with flair infused with a presence of boundless energy.

Her personality was definitely a little interesting. Most normal women would not show their unprepared faces, especially if there were smudges of dried blood on it, ruining the image of a dainty woman, which was the fantasy for the norm of most men. I could almost attribute a quality of insanity to her, but perhaps that was just what adventurers were like.

Looking around, I saw that I was one of the few people left in the safety grounds as all of the families had headed back into town after hearing the news that the raiders were defeated. Of the few people left, one of them was the third party member, Milli Gobumi, who had a withdrawn and silent look. You could almost get the feeling of a sulky, small girl from her even with her aloof face and large, brown eyes, which matched perfectly with her long-black hair that flowed just down below her small shoulders. Being flat-chested also only added to this feeling.

“I do not trust you, stranger named Verath. You are quite suspicious, but Elisa just had to insist on talking to you,” Milli said, her dainty voice turning dangerously soft and threatening. “If you choose to betray us, I will personally castigate you slowly and painfully, before digging out your eyeballs, even if Elisa likes them a lot. But I doubt you will be coming with us, as you do not even look like you could handle a weapon.”

“Little girl,” I said. Then I felt a little surprised at myself for saying that.

I would never have sought to antagonize someone if it would bring trouble and not even one jot of benefit to me. But for some reason, I could not help myself at this comical sight of a woman who was more than a head shorter than me, taking such a threatening posture in front of me.

True, she was dangerous, especially with those throwing knives. But to me, she looked like a sexually, precocious young girl, rather than a young woman in her low twenties that could kill someone in the blink of an eye, except she would not blink her eyes. No, she would barely bat an eye at killing monsters, or perhaps even humans.

Milli Gobumi gave me a long, strange look, which soon turned into an evil, dirty glare and then turned around abruptly in the direction of her two friends, and left the safety grounds, her footsteps, so very silent and coldly efficient.

She was possibly either feeling sexually hyped up like a male squirrel who had been given free nuts and had just obtained a beautiful mate or was just a bit miffed at my apparent unconcern of her. Frankly, I think it was the latter as I was just feeling a curious amusement going through my mind, thus probably observing like a first-time stalker.

I hope you are not too surprised, “my guest”, that I consider myself a stalker. It is true to an extent, but instead of observing in a too-close-for-comfort fashion, I observe with purer intentions: indifferent curiosity. It was not as if I had the intention of transforming from a stalker into a rapist or a depraved murderer, so no harm done.

If I had to transform into something, it would be a dragon or a human as that is my sole transformation magic. You would have to ask the eldest if you wanted to know the secret of transformation magic, but I doubt you would get an answer. Instead, you would probably be turned into ashes, not that you are going to come out of this alive after I have told my story to you.

As soon as I said that, I could sense the hidden despair in “my guest” who had accidentally wound up in my lair, running from the group that was giving chase to “my guest.”

Anyways, continuing on with my tale, I could also sense that the dagger-girl was trying hard not to be aware of my nakedness as she coldly walked away from me.

<><><><><>

That was an interesting encounter, I thought, not even the slightest worried about her threat. Now, there was just one problem left.

It was those three men, supposedly slavers, who had given me black smiles when they had seen me naked in the center of the town. Two of them looked to be around their mid twenties while the last one looked like a young man just turned eighteen or so. That young man was the only handsome one out of that group as the other two older men had crisscrossed scars all over their already ugly faces. One of the older men had a head that was entirely shaved while the other had shaggy, unkempt hair that had the quality of grease.

I suppose, to them, I looked like a good catch with my long-white hair and my unnaturally green eyes. It was either that or the fact that the young man just did not condone me, the obvious hatred burning in his glare, not even slightly hidden. Why he hated me, I did not know nor cared enough to venture a guess.

The three of them walked up to me, all of them glowering at me. The bystanders had the sense to quickly avoid this and pretty soon, only the four of us were left at the safety grounds, as the assigned town guards had left to clean up the aftermath of the raid and to patrol for any looting of some of the destroyed buildings in town.

It was quite easy to carry out the destruction of a town, because many buildings were made out of timber, which would burn quite easily with a strong enough fire. Only a few buildings were made of quarried stone as this process was time-consuming and expensive, so only some of the most important buildings, such as a garrison, would be built with such a method.

That is why the bigger, richer towns, and the cities, most of which had protected stone walls, were safer. A bigger congregation of humans in one location usually meant more safety as raiders, either humans or monsters, would not have the liver to attack such fortified places.

The three slavers were now just before me and I could only sighed inwardly. Did troubles follow me everywhere, even in my second life? It seemed as if I was loved by a god or goddess of mischief, not that I did anything to warrant such extreme, dedicated love.

“Before you say anything, why don't we move to that forest up ahead. I like the scenery there and it is better suited for talking.”

Without even waiting to hear their replies, I strode toward the forest, a small distance away from the safety grounds. They obviously made light of me as they followed with barely a doubt on their faces, probably laughing at their good fortunes that their target was so stupid, thinking that unarmed and naked, he could take on three grown men.

By the time we were all alone at the forest, hidden away from any witnesses, the three men had pulled out their crude, iron daggers hidden near their waists. They pointed their weapons threateningly at me, but two of them were holding it with bad form. With such incompetence displayed before me, I could have easily disarmed them with just a quick, sudden hit to their wrists or even their arms. The only one that looked competent was the bald man, the largest and the most scarred of the group.

“I think I will break in the fresh meat a little,” the bald-headed man said, his square face and nose a mass of scars. The nose also looked like it had been broken and healed numerous times, so misshapen it was. His tiny, beady eyes looked excited as he licked his crude dagger with a long, pointed tongue. A snake would have felt jealous with the finesse he displayed with his tongue. And I suppose some women might like such a thing, although I had a distinct feeling this man did not like women. Not at all.

Before the bald-headed man had a chance to retract his tongue back inside his mouth, I had moved toward him, my movements just a blur to their untrained, human eyes. Then my hand shot forth toward his tongue and in mid-movement, I transformed my index finger into a foot long, black, dragon talon. This talon then proceeded to cleanly slice off the man's tongue.

An inhumane scream burst out from the very depths of the bald man's throat as he dropped his dagger onto the soft, earthen forest floor at the same time his sliced-off tongue hit the ground. Blood spewed forth from wound, but none of it hit me as I was already moving.

Not even giving the two other men time to react, I transformed my whole right arm into my real, dragon forelimb and slammed it, all five talons first, into the youngest man. The force of my dragon forelimb was so strong that it pierced through the young man's whole upper body, went through him, and then through the man next to him. Both of them died instantly with a huge gaping hole that almost covered the entirety of their torsos and part of their heads.

Now, only one of the slaver was left. It was the bald-headed man, the ugliest of them all, who was now pissing himself in fear at seeing what I had done. In just mere seconds, he had been reduced into a blathering, wet-from-his-own-piss, mute.

Incoherent words blubbered out from his mouth, but without his tongue, it was a futile attempt at asking for his life as I did not understood anything he said. I only ventured a guess as to what he was saying because any such creature that valued his own life, faced with such overwhelming power, would do so.

I gave him a quick death, as I sliced his throat with a talon finger and warm, human blood splashed onto the forest floor, dying some of the strewn green leaves and the brown twigs, red. I had made a bloody mess, and the splatters of blood had even sprayed onto nearby trees. I suppose the trees would find some nourishment from the water in the blood, so it was not too wasteful.

My whole body was also a mess of blood, especially my right arm, which was soaked to the brim, like a new born babe who had been delivered from a messy, hard birth. My curiosity had gotten the better of me once more, causing another problem. I should have just killed those three men quickly, efficiently, and cleanly, but I had been curious to test out the extent of my transformation magic. After all, I have not had a chance to do so since I had only learned it the day I got my second tribulation, coming into my dragon-hood at two years and a half old.

I almost regretted rejecting the offer of a bath with that woman adventurer named Elisa Ballard.

Still, I suppose I got a chance to try out this magic and felt a little pleased when I was not fatigued from the use. The eldest said that everyone had an inborn and immutable magic capacity, which was decided from birth. And transformation magic for dragons was especially consuming, so much that the less magically gifted Astlan dragons should not even attempt it. Perhaps this was the reason why I had not seen dragons in human forms except for the eldest.

There was still another curious question I needed to find the answer to and the answer laid in the blood soaked all around on my arm, which was just a human one now. My suspicions and hypothesis were correct as I swallowed the blood and felt no arousal or even strength from ingesting the red liquid.

Yes, it seemed like I could only cannibalize the blood of my own race, which was a confounding ability, leading to even more questions. I had no doubts about this conclusion as I had ingested the blood of orcs, goblins, and other creatures when I had been allowed to eat with the eldest's express permission.

Still, my bloodied body posed a problem for me and I would usually not care for such a small annoyance, if I had no pressing need to go back into town to meet the adventurers. My whole appearance practically screamed murders, foul deeds, and killings. I knew I would be arrested instantly by the town guards if I went like this.

The clothing of the men were also no longer salvageable as they were either bloodied, torn into two, or had large holes in it. It would also have been a futile attempt If I tried to pass off the bloodied tunic and pants of the young slaver as a “red tunic,” or “red pants.” It would have undoubtedly worked on the blind, but not the ones that could see.

After a moment of pondering my problems, I finally came to a decision.

Very well then, I thought to myself. I will just stay and practice my magic here for a while and then go to the lake. And by the time I am done with my experimenting, those adventurers should be done. However, I will have to settle for going naked into town as I had no coins with me, seeing that I was a dragon and had not expected to be in human settlements.

And then it hit me that there was a lake nearby town where I could wash the blood stains off the clothing. How this simple fact did not come up before was quite stupid of me, but now that it did, I had a method to solve my problem.

Thus, I set off to strip the most salvageable articles of clothing from the slavers. The most salvageable ones came from the bald-headed man whom I had killed in the cleanest method, a slice to the throat. I took off his over-tunic and then set to strip off his white undershirt. Then I took off his black trousers, leaving the bald-man half-naked with only his thin, black undergarment. I would go as far as to take the pants, but underwear, I would definitely not. And I had no pressing need to see his genital.

My lack of money problem was also solved very easily as I felt bulges under their tunics. Digging into those secret pockets, I found three coin purses, one from each man. They were mostly silvers and coppers, but a few gold coins were mixed in there too.

“Your meager life-savings shall not be wasted, my dead friends. They will be put to good use for my second tribulation,” I said to the three corpses, almost feeling affection for them for helping me out at my time of need. “I shall not forget our bonds...that fast.”

Now I just needed to waste some time by experimenting with my magic before leaving for the lake. Thus, I stood there at the edge of the forest practicing my transformations, the blood slowly drying on me. There was also a pile of neatly folded black trousers on top of a neatly folded thin, white undershirt beside me.

Time quickly passed by like this.

But strange enough, I did not feel any fatigue, mental or physical, even after consecutive transformations. I even learned some new things with my experimenting.

In summary, it seemed like I could transform any part of my body into that of a dragon's part. Furthermore, I could even change the size of the talons and other dragon bodily transformations, but I could not make it larger than my original dragon body. A logical limitation, I suppose, though the eldest of our clan seemed to defy this rule.

I had also burned all evidence of everything that had taken place into ashes. This was done quite easily by sustaining fire magic over the corpses of those three men. It took a while, but I got that job done quite easily.

The reason why such fire magic came naturally to me, even in my human form, as I had found out during experimentation, was that a dragon's natural aptitude with fire made them experts with fire magic. Even as a wyrm, I could breathe out fire easily, and as I grew older after the Blood Baptism, my fire-breathing ability became even stronger.

The eldest had also explained to me that a wyrm's magic capacity stayed latent until he or she reached dragon-hood, fully coming into their magical power if they were born with the capacity. However, fire magic could be used even as a wyrm due to our natural kinship with fire. This was probably why Scarlet, my dead brother wyrm, had made such powerful fireballs.

And even if a dragon was not born with any magical capacity, the dragon could still breathe fire generated from within themselves. It would just be far weaker than a magically strengthened fire breath.

My ability with fire magic was also so strong that the eldest gave a little, mocking praise to it. Though said mockingly, it was the only praise I received in the two and about half years I had been training under him.

But even in regard to the strength of my fire magic, which was the strongest of all my gifts, the eldest could overwhelm me easily.

For example, in one of the rare mock-duels I had against him, I breathed out a fireball so intense and so condensed, that I was certain it would have at least injured him in his little-girl form, so sure was I of its power. To my small dismay, however, the eldest just hovered in the air, blocking the fireball with a hand and even had the audacity to fake a suppressed yawn.

This display of power from him had actually made me feel like a mere wyrm, even with my blunted, emotional capacity. Still, I was more powerful than other wyrms my age; the eldest had reassured me of that fact.

I looked around at the burnt ground and the small piles of ashes and nodded to myself, a little satisfied. The blood-stains on the trees, however, would be impossible to get rid of unless I burnt down this small forest entirely to its roots. Still, the red marks on the tree would not be noticed much even if someone were to see it as that someone would not be able to make any connections to the event that had transpired. I would make sure the ashes were scattered so thoroughly that any evidence that the three slavers had lived, would be obliterated.

Following the advice the eldest gave to me as a wyrm that I should play around with my magic to discover the aptitudes I had with the types of magic, I found that I could use only fire, earth, and transformation types, with earth being my weakest. I was curious as to why I could only use these three as the eldest seemed to be able to use a variety of types such as ice and wind. Still, I suppose I should not be so greedy, because most dragons would be lucky to even be born with a magic capacity.

With this new revelation about magic, I fixed the ground to a degree with my earth magic, so that a cursory glance from a passerby would not reveal anything.

Finished with my experimentation and hiding the evidence of my deeds, I gathered my black-colored magic, which could only be seen by those born with the rare gift of magic, toward my shoulders. It took less than a second for the black-colored magic to change into transformation magic. As soon as this occurred, jet-black, leathery wings that spanned more than eleven feet sprouted from my shoulders instantly. At the joints of my black wings were cruel, sharp black bones jutting out. And the edges of my thin, yet extremely durable wing membranes ended in random, zigzag patterns that made them look tattered.

I felt a slightly uncomfortable feeling near my shoulders as I was not used to having wings as a human, but I was certain that this would pass. It was just like riding a horse for the first time and getting used to using muscles you have never used. A better thing to say, I suppose, would be that I had grown two extra limbs.

I gathered the folded clothes into my hands and with a starting jump from both my legs, I shot up into the air, much faster than a hunting bird swooping down on its prey. High above the air where I would just be a speck to anyone looking up, I searched for the nearby lake and found it with my far-seeing spell, which worked by sending magic to my eyes and giving them a dragon's eyesight. It was a simple trick that I had been trying to do before the woman adventurer had interrupted me.

Remembering the direction Milli had slunk off to after threatening me, I traced it and quite easily found the small lake located to the east of the town. It was situated in the middle of the forest and had a shape that looked like a fat crescent whose bottom tip slowly became an oval. A weird shape for a lake, I suppose.

With a speed that would have easily made a normal human faint, I arrived at the lake and quietly landed on the top of a tree, whose branches looked steady enough to hold my weight. Now, I just needed to get into a comfortable, sitting position on top of the wide branch where my folded clothes would act as a cushion between my ass and the branch. It was only logical. After all, even with my durable human skin, I would not dare sit naked on such a rough branch. The green canopy of the tree also allowed a cool shade below, not that the warm weather bothered me any.

With indifferent eyes, I stared at the three women adventurers. Two of them, Elisa and Ryia, were having a swimming race back and forth across the clear, blue lake, entirely naked. Milli, the dagger girl, just sat silently at the edge of the lake, both of her feet inside the shallower part of the lake.

A lot of time had passed in between killing the three slavers and experimenting with my abilities, yet these three adventurers were still here at the lake. I could tell by the strewn undershirts, undergarments, and stainless black leather armors on top of the huge, flat rock nearby that they had spent some time washing out the blood.

It was a possible reason why they were taking so long at the lake, but I doubted that, seeing the energetic race still going in between the two naked women.

No matter, I thought, I was a patient dragon and the sight was not half-bad as I could observe everything quite clearly even from far away by relying on my dragon eyes. After a long while of observing and waiting patiently, I was finally rewarded with the sight of those two finishing their “baths.”

Both of them got out from the lake naked and laughing and headed over to their respective piles of clothing. Not one of them seemed embarrassed of their nudity around each other. Elisa was lightly panting from the exertion of the swimming race, her sweetly curved mounds, which ended in pink tips, going along with the motions. The light, fine brown hair on her bottom mound was glistening with wetness from the swim. Then she arched her back lithely like a cat, her flat, lightly toned stomach showing.

Just a few feet beside her, Ryia, was also panting lightly from the race, stretched herself, her heavy, twin breasts bouncing from just that small motion. The fat, brown nipples of those twin mountains stood with excitement from the efforts exerted from swimming. She was undoubtedly the tallest and the most muscular out of the three women. But it was not the flagrant kind of muscles, instead, it was the wiry kind. She also had a faint outline of muscles along her stomach.

I could also see on Ryia's back, many faint scars which seemed to be made from the sharp edges of various weapons, and perhaps even some made from whips. It caused a little tug at my curiosity, but I left this alone for now.

And although these sights were interesting to me, I was more curious about the conversation the two were holding while Milli just sat nearby, silent and withdrawn in her own little world, only coming out when her two friends spoke to her.

Judging from the looks the two naked women gave to each others' breasts, I ventured a guess that their conversation was something along the lines of that topic, most likely about sizes. I could have cared less about that.

I did not even bothered to eavesdrop into their conversation by transforming my ears for sharper hearing, since I felt that the topic of the labyrinth would not be brought up. I suppose I would just have to wait for nightfall after being tested with the spar against Ryia.

I would not have to wait long as it was already far past mid-day and as soon as night fell, the two moons would be seen atop the sky, their moonlight bathing the town.

Another long while passed before they got dressed and their weapons all cleaned of blood. I felt a slight discomfort at the dried blood coating my whole body, but luckily for me, blood had not gotten onto the more private parts.

The three adventurers soon left and their shrinking backs disappeared as they got out of the forest. Seeing this, I stood up and jumped down, falling thirty feet to the ground, before landing softly on my bare feet.

The ground near the lake felt wet and soft against my bare feet. Still, it would not have made a difference to me even if the ground were filled with spikes, as I would not feel anything since it would be tough to pierce my skin, even if it was human skin.

The skin of my human form felt soft and was sensitive to touch just like a normal human's, but that was where the similarities ended. I felt that even if a sword was swung with full might at me, it would not cut my skin. I do not know the reason, but it was about half as formidable as my black, dragon scales, which was saying a lot.

It did not take very long until I had washed myself free of all the blood and my appearance no longer screamed of bloody murder. My next step afterward was to wash the clothing, which I did so quickly and efficiently. Then I left them to dry upon the flat rocks, on which the sun's rays were still shining upon.

<><><><><>

The sun was slowly retreating inch by inch and day was turning into nightfall. I was now back inside the town square, except only this time, I was not naked. No, I was wearing a white-undershirt and rough, black trousers with no undergarments beneath.

The twin moons of this world, Seli and Vali, were shining brightly atop the sky and giving off their soft moonlights, which illuminated this town, making the dark bearable. They were, as usual, two lovers longing to join together, but it would just be a fleeting, eternal dream.

The reason why I mention these two moons, “my guest”, is because it has some relevance in my former life as a human when I had been trying to flirt with women just out of curiosity when I had turned sixteen. But more on that later.

In the town square, there were also lanterns, which were black, iron cages that held candles inside to give off light. There was also the cheaper variety that was made from simple wood and rawhide. Evenly distanced around the town, the lanterns and the moonlight made the dark recede.

There are also the rare magic stones which can hold a little bit of magic to emit light, but only the richest towns and cities had them. They were prized because they had a variety of uses and would never cause accidental fires.

Before I could head to the inn, I needed to buy a weapon for the spar with Ryia. Any weapon, so long as it was durable, would be a good one for me. After all, my strength, even in human form, far overshadowed the strongest of men or women. I would be hard-pressed trying to maintain a precise control over my strength to avoid killing that scarred, handsome woman. Most sensible creatures, if they had no death-wishes, would run away in the face of such powerful opponents. So I needed to control myself to avoid killing Ryia accidentally and to avoid making them fearful of me, as I had very little practice in my human-form. Just half a day in fact.

This world, being a dangerous place even for heavily populated human areas, had forced the weapons business to go up and the might of the army to increase. In this town, there were two blacksmiths who had opened up stores in front of their smithies.

But there was no such thing as equals in this world or in any worlds, as a matter of fact, so I went to the better weapon shop, the larger and the more expensive. Inside were two young men, who I guessed were the journeymen under the master blacksmith. One of them was manning the store counter while the other was inspecting the various weapons and armors and every day items dealing with metal, on the many rows of shelves.

“Welcome, my good—” the young man at the counter said, before breaking off in mid sentence. “Oh hey, you are that naked man I saw in the square today. Aside from those nasty goblin raiders, you certainly brightened my day, today. It was such a funny thing seeing such a thing in such a crowded place. Ah the reactions of those people and those children and those daughters.”

“Oh yes, what is your name, mister. And if you prefer, I could even call you Mister Naked Man.” He slapped his right thigh as if that was the funniest joke he had ever made.

Another talkative human, I thought, almost wanting to kill the young man with the faint signs of a growing beard. Were it not for the trouble and the fact that I wanted to buy a weapon with my newly-earned money, he would have been dead. His sense of humor was a thing I wanted to spare the humans from.

I ignored everything he had said, only making my intention to buy a weapon which met my specifications known. “Give me your strongest and most durable weapon. I do not care if its a sword or not, as long as it meets those requirements.”

It would have been useless for me to care about the type of weapon, because I did not know how to use any weapons at all. The only useful techniques I knew in relation to weapons were called “bashing,” “slashing,” “cutting,” which almost everyone could do, including idiots. Although there were many fine points to these techniques to improve them, I was only talking about the execution of these techniques, and not mastering them perfectly.

The young man could sense that I was not willing to humor him, so he soon gave up. Looking toward the other journeyman, who was quite busy with inspecting weapons, he sighed to himself before muttering, “Looks like I will have to get it myself.” Then a small smile formed on his face as he inspected the shape of my body.

Minutes later, the journeyman came carefully walking back to the counter, carrying and heaving a monstrous weapon covered with a heavy, grey blanket. He lifted that monstrous, covered weapon with two hands, effort clearly displayed on his scraggly face as his huge muscles, forged from years of training as a blacksmith, bulged outward along with the veins.

Then the journeyman dropped it onto the counter in front of me before going back behind it, and faced me with a huge grin on his face. “This, my friend who does not want to tell me his name, is the strongest and most durable sword we have.” He paused dramatically. “We call it a bastard sword and have named it Reaver.”

There was a mocking look on his face. “But I highly doubt you can even lift this, my good friend with tiny muscles.”

“I will take it,” I replied.

Then he gave me a derisive laughter and shrugged his broad shoulders. “It's your money.”

After saying that, the journeyman took off the thick, grey blanket, finally showing the form of the weapon to me.

This weapon, a weapon known as the bastard sword, christened “Reaver” by them, was huge beyond practicality. It was a broad sword made for the strength of monsters or giants, not for human strength. It was an inelegant looking thing with a long hilt that allowed for two hands to hold, and did not look very sharp at all. Instead, its main strength was its thickness, which would effectively allow a person to “reave” its foes if that person had the strength to swing it.

It was a bastard sword and would come into good use with my dragon strength, allowing me to quickly kill many opponents at once with its thickness and long reach. The name was also quite ironic.

“Also, give me another weapon. A little, strong, short sword will be good. It should also be steel like this bastard sword, though a bit more refined, if you would.”

“Once more, Mister Naked Man, it is your money to waste. Don't move and I will be back with the sword,” he said snidely, thinking that I was just saving face by buying the bastard sword along with the short sword.

The journeyman soon returned with a short sword and a hard, leather scabbard for it. Along with those two items, he also carried another scabbard, only this one was a much bigger size and with a much longer strap.

“That is going to cost you about six golds,” the man said, trying to inflate the prices as high as he could.

Money was of no concern to me as I had an abundant of it obtained from the three slavers, which, when added, totaled around fifteen golds. I could also have haggled with the journeyman to bring the price down to about four gold, but I did not care much about staying here any longer. I had an appointment with the three adventurers, after all.

I took out six gold coins and handed it over to him. Then I reached out to the bastard sword with a right hand and held it up effortlessly. Now that I could compare it with my height, I could see that it was a little more than five feet. Then I put it inside its scabbard and with my other free hand, I grabbed the sheathed, short sword.

Calmly and without any effort, I headed for the door of the store and not being able to resist my curiosity, looked back at the journeyman sitting at the counter. His face looked flabbergasted, as if a hundred, beautiful wives had been granted to him and then he was mauled by a black bear a short moment later.

“You are right. This is quite hefty,” I said, holding the middle of the hilt of the bastard sword with my right hand and the short, sword in my left hand. Then I turned back around to leave the door, this time not even looking back to see the amusing face of the journeyman.

Now outside the town's square, I headed toward its only inn and soon arrived there. Just above the large, wooden square door was the name of the inn painted in a neat style; it was called The Glamorous Cock. Seeing this, I felt a little amused at the owner's naming sense.

It was most likely a man who had named this inn as women who owned inns were usually more sensible. I spoke from experience as I had traveled a lot with my merchant father when I was a human. Trust me, some of the women merchants whom I had met would make you revere their fierce, business senses. You would pretty much be thanking those women, instead of them thanking you for your patronage.

The world of humans was also mostly patriarchal; that is to say, being born a man was much better than being born a woman. There were few exceptions, as there are some parts on the southern part of Valian continent where woman were matriarchs and leaders.

The armies of most human kingdoms were also exceptions since there were so many rampant raiders and monsters. Women could become soldiers also, but they were in different divisions as it was not a good idea for males and women to live together. Three obvious reasons would be sexual harassment, pregnancy, and discipline would be expensive. It would just be too much trouble.

Near the door to The Glamorous Cock were the three women adventurers waiting with impatience looks and postures, except for Milli Gobumi, the short woman who was partly veiled in the shadowy areas where the light did not reach. She remained partly hidden among the shadows and actually glared at me with what I suppose was hatred, when she saw me coming towards the inn.

“I guess clothes do not make the man, eh Verath,” Elisa said, her brown eyes dancing energetically, the impatient look on her face instantly removed. She checked out my clothing and her lips curled a little in distaste. “You need some fashion sense, dear Verath. With the way you are dressed, you are better off naked. At least that way, I will get some sweets for my eyes.”

Then her eyes widened a little as she saw the two weapons sheathed behind my back, the larger, bastard sword slanted to the right, and the smaller, short sword slanting to the left, making an X. The reason she was surprised was because the bastard sword, which reached almost to the ground, probably weigh as much as her. The way I was effortlessly walking with the two weights only added to her surprise.

Then the look of surprise on her face and the two other adventurers, including Milli, were gone. It just lasted a few moments.

I was not surprised at the fact that they were only a little surprised, because, in a way, all three women adventurers were quite inhumane too. I also had a suspicious feeling that Elisa Ballard's longsword was enchanted with magic. Still, I was not too sure, because I was not very familiar with the magic of humans or whoever had made that sword.

“Ah, a weapon to match your manhood,” Ryia commented with mirth in her voice. “I do hope you won't be “sparring” against me with that.” Her twin maces were hung behind her back in an X position like my two weapons.

“No, just with my short sword,” I said brusquely. It would have been an instant kill if I used the “Reaver” with my dragon strength, which I still could not control precisely, in my human form. I also did not wanted to raise more suspicions about my strength.

“Then I shall also duel with just one mace since you are going easy on me,” Ryia said, winking her left eye at me. She did not look offended that I chose to underestimate her, probably having some doubts as to whether I could use my two weapons at all with efficiency.

Thus, under the moonlights of the two moons, Vali and Seli, my spar with Ryia Altard, the handsome woman with the pale scar running down her whole left cheek, started. Her twin, dark-brown eyes had a look of loneliness and nostalgia, as if I was a former old friend.

Her eyes looked lonelier than the moonlight from the twin moons, who could never, in an eternity, unite, always a distance apart from each other atop the night sky. Like tragic, star-crossed lovers, those two moons and her deep, brown eyes were untouchable, like a heartbeat.

Those eyes, lonely as they looked under this moonlight, were ready for the spar. Thus, I took off the strap of my bastard sword and laid it on the cobbled, earthen ground beside me. It would only impede my movements if I did not take it off.

“Well then, let me test the extent of your skills, Verath. There shall also be no killing blows allowed, but still, try not to die. Accidents do occur, you know.” There was a feral grin on her face that bespoke of determination and taking an insane joy in fighting or killing.

Ryia dashed toward me, a mace already held out in her right hand from a quick, fluid withdrawing motion. She had already closed the ten feet gap, but fast as she was, she still looked like she was in slow-motion, like taking a slow stroll around town.

I had a long time to think about what to do and since I knew no techniques regarding weapons, I decided to just block the spiked mace. The journeyman, after all, had gotten a short sword for me that was suppose to be durable and strong. I hoped that it would not break after clashing with the spiked mace.

A distinct sound that only a steel mace could make from clashing with a steel sword was heard outside of the inn, but no one bothered to look for the source of the noise, so I guessed that the three adventurers had already warned the people of this town that there would be a spar going on. It was probably for that reason or because the people inside the inn were drunk or the music from the bard was too loud, that no one checked out the commotion.

“Strange, you are an amateur, yet you could see through my move. This will actually be fun.” Her feral grin actually got wider as she said that, making me feel that she was like a cat that had found a new toy to play with. A very sexy toy, might I add, feeling confident of myself.

It was strange, and perhaps it was just due to the atmosphere of the night or the amusing things I had seen, but I was in one of my rare, not-quite-jovial mood. It was akin to a feeling of companionship. It was like being a little tipsy. My dampened emotional capacity would only allow me to feel to the extent of being tipsy; I could never get drunk enough to pass out or even more than being tipsy. Trust me, I had tested it out of curiosity when I turned seventeen. But that is another story, which I shall not discuss at this moment.

Our weapons still clashing, Ryia aimed a sudden knee toward my genital. Seeing this, I could either overpower her with my sword and instantly defeat her, or I could move back, or even block it with my own knee. I chose to move back.

Her feral grin turned into a little frown at my calm, indifferent face as if I was just taking a short stroll. I was unaffected and could see through everything she did.

Then a voice interrupted us. It was Milli. “I think that is enough, Ryia. The stranger has shown enough of his skills, suspicious as they are.”

Hearing that, I felt a little curious. Milli, the dagger-girl, was the most vehement about me joining their party, and now she wanted to stop this spar just a little moment after it begun.

Ryia gave Milli a little pouting look as if she still wanted the fight to continue. Then she conceded when she saw the short girl's unmoving face. “Very well.” She sighed a little. “I suppose he can take care of himself well enough to come along with us to the labyrinth.

“Well then,” Elisa interjected, “let us all get some drinks at the inn and then Verath can share a room with me.”

Thus, we all went inside the inn where the bard was singing a funny tale about a knight rescuing a princess, only to find out that she was fat, so the knight left her in the throes of the monster's clutches, not even looking back once after defeating so many of the monster's minions.

That was quite amusing.

And just in case you are wondering, “my guest,” nothing happened between Elisa and I. I just went into her room after a long night of drinking and slept on one of the two beds. She was drunk and I was barely affected by the alcohol, seeing that I had a dragon's constitution and tolerance now, even in human form. It felt as if I had sat down on the cheap, wooden chair of the inn, drinking water all night. My dampened emotional capacity also did not help in getting myself drunk.

I will admit, though, that an accidental petting occurred, which was initiated by her. She also slept fully naked, so the view was also not that bad. There was also an open window in the room, letting in cool air. I meditated beside the window, unaffected by the view of the naked woman sleeping on the bed, deep in my thoughts about everything that had occurred to me since my human life. As a dragon, even in human form, I needed very little sleep, perhaps only an hour or so to feel refreshed. Dreams also did not occur to me anymore and I missed it a little, for what was sleep, but perchance to dream?

<><><><><>

And wipe that perverted look off your face, “my guest.” Nothing happened other than that.

“My guest,” who was in my lair, which was just an enormous cave, seemed to flit through many emotions. I was not surprised as he was in the presence of a huge, black, ferocious dragon, which was me. So it was only natural that my guest would move from fear to perversion and to whatever other emotions my guest felt. In the end, none of it mattered because my guest was going to die after I told my story.

I had shared secrets not meant to be shared to other creatures other than Astlan dragons, after all. I also did not tell my guest these thoughts. I only said that I would continue on with my story.

<><><><><>

Six days of traveling on horses and we finally arrived at the entrance to the labyrinth deep in some godforsaken forest far away to north of the town. I now only had a week remaining to finish my second tribulation and to obtain the treasure.

We had hunted some animals inside these forests for food and the meat was used along with dry bread we brought in backpacks that hung around her horses; I had paid about five golds for the horse and now only had about around four golds left, which were mostly in silvers and a few coppers. We even killed the few monsters that dared to face us. Naturally, since I was now a temporary member of this party, I helped them fight the monsters off, controlling my dragon strength to just a little above a human's. I had gotten very precise these past few days, and could now control it almost perfectly.

Elisa also furiously flirted with me, but as the days passed by, some of her enthusiasm died down as we moved closer to the labyrinth, and her face became serious. But the flirting receded mostly because of my unresponsiveness and short sentences.

The entrance to the labyrinth was a deep square-like hole with dilapidated stairs that led underground. There was an eerie atmosphere that was almost tangible making its way from the entrance of the labyrinth. Even fifteen feet away from this, I could feel that cold air. It was just a tiny inconvenience for me though and my gift for sensing danger was not alarmed.

I was a bit suspicious of this place, however, since my gift only worked sometimes and due to the fact that this labyrinth was the place of my second tribulation, handed lovingly by the eldest.

“This will be so much fun,” Elisa commented. “I can feel myself already warming up to this cold.” She had a look of serious determination on her face that outright declared that nothing would stop her, even death itself.

“I agree, those monsters were just fodder for my maces. I need something more challenging,” Ryia added, her hands and body itching for a fight. She had not been satisfied by the short spar against me and I knew that she also went easy on me, only drawing one of her spiked mace out.

Milli stayed silent, her eyes alert for anything out of the ordinary, and every few seconds or so, a wary glance toward me.

When we descended down the stairs, there were a few spiderwebs and some dust, but none of it bothered us. I guess these women adventurers were fearless and perhaps just a little insane. We also left our horses tied to a few trees and just left it to luck that they would not be killed by stray monsters. Not that there were monsters around the entrance to the labyrinth. It was that way for more than a hundred feet around the perimeter...as if monsters, animals, and other creatures were avoiding this place.

Still, I was neither alarmed nor fearful. And even if I could heavily feel such things, it would affect me very little, only becoming dampened by my unfeeling mind. I was just born this way and all of it felt natural to me, like a predetermined thing. It was as if fate was clutching me in its expansive grip.

“I do not need to remind you two, but since Verath is along with us temporarily, we have to be wary and cautious,” Elisa said as we descended the stairs, cutting the few spiderwebs that impeded the way down.

The flight of stairs downward was quite long and it to us a while to finally arrive. Then I saw what looked to be a complex maze with walls as high as ten feet, just enough to impede our views so we could not easily navigate through the maze. There was just one dark entrance in the middle, but there was just enough light coming from the torches spread out on the maze. It seemed like this place was inhabited by someone...or something.

“Fuck it. I am tired, dirty, and I want a bath. I haven't taken one in days,” Elisa said in an impatient tone, her usual smooth voice gone.

She then walked to the maze, her plain longsword with the strange symbol in the middle already out in her right hand. She didn't walk to the entrance, however. Instead, she walked to the wall beside it and actually swung at the wall. With a high jump, she started a downward slashing motion at the wall, her sword smoothly cutting through the ten feet tall, thick stone walls like butter. The thin, thorny vines running along the walls were also cut.

In just a few seconds along with a few more swings, there was a sizable entrance made, enough for three people to go through at once.

“Well that is one way of solving a maze,” Ryia said in a wry voice. “And also taking out your frustration. I could almost make love to your mind right now. It has the funnest ideas ever.”

Just like that, Elisa cut through the maze, making square entrances on every wall or obstacle we met, her sword not even dulled from such an arduous task.

The maze was enormous, and after a few dozens or so entrances made, we arrived at what I judged to be the center due to the enormous cleared space.

There was also this huge, fifteen feet tall creature with rippling muscles in the center. It was brown in color and had two sharp, black horns on his head that reached almost five feet in height. So in total, including the height of the horns, the creature was about twenty feet tall.

It was called a minotaur, a humanoid monster with a bull face and two bull legs that ended in heavy hooves; I only found out what to call this creature in the future, later on.

It also carried a heavy axe that was more than ten feet long in both hands, and hot heavy air was being expelled from his nose with a piercing, each time he took a heavy breath.

He, the minotaur, judging from the bulge hidden behind his only clothing—a black underwear made from the hide of some animal—stood there in the center with hatred in his eyes. It seemed as if it was waiting for us to come here, as if it knew we were coming...

Was this the boss of this labyrinth? Well, the only thing I could do was find out and I did not know if the minotaur could speak human language. If it didn't, it still did not matter, for my gift as a dragon to be able to understand every spoken language would help me communicate with it.

A short while later, I found out.

“Time to die, humans!” the minotaur shouted, his deep, stony voice making the air tremble and his heavy hooves causing small earthquakes on the stone ground. His red eyes, almost the size of human fists, glared at us in hatred and hunger. It planned to make us into his next meal...

Chapter 12: Lies and the Secret Truth of the Second Tribulation

Discourse #5:

I suppose now is as good as any time to bring up the topic of the sexual anatomy of dragons. Male dragons do not have the sexual, anatomical part of what makes a human male differ from the female. Bluntly put, we do not have a dick. Put euphemistically, we do not have a phallus. Put even more euphemistically, we do not have a pecker.

Instead, we had these openings near our bottom that were similar to females for our reproductive needs, our shitting needs, and our pissing needs. It felt weird at first when I was first born, but now I am much more comfortable with this three-in-one part.

Still, I was much more comfortable with my human-form, though it is not my true dragon form. Perhaps that was why the eldest liked his human form so much, not that I have seen his dragon form.

With this small discussion ended, I shall move on to the fight with the minotaur.

<><><><><>

“Finally, a potential fight,” Ryia said in a happy tone as she looked at the fearsome minotaur. He was glaring at us with his fist-sized, red eyes and his tail, which was about eight feet long, was swishing back and forth in anticipation of his next meal. “I had been bored for so many days and us women need to pent our frustration.”

“Just stay back and we will do all the work, stranger,” Milli coldly said toward me. It seemed like she was still wary and did not trust me at all. I believe her suspicions of my nighttime prowling, since I barely needed more sleep than an hour, also did not help relieve her wariness toward me.

“Yes, I agree. Just stay back and we will soon make short work of this monster,” Elisa said, a huge joyous, grin already forming on her face.

I suppose being female adventurers in such a patriarchal, human world had given these women nerves of steel. The three women looked at each other and nodded, not even one word passing between them about how to face the minotaur. It seemed like they were experienced with working together and did not even need words to coordinate with each other. Perhaps that was why they left me out of the fight, since they were more comfortable with just fighting by themselves.

Like an embodiment of a small earthquake, the minotaur came running at the three women, his two-sided axe brandished before him. The black, cutting edge of the axe head looked wicked, sharp enough to cut through a god.

Reality was not kind, however. So as sharp as that axe looked, it was just a normal axe and would not be able to cut through a dragon's scale. Humans, though,were an entirely different matter. Against the skin of a human, the axe would cut through it in a heartbeat, especially with the minotaur's brute strength.

The thought of women should not do battle for men while they do nothing came into mind, but I did not care much for that. I would not have even minded if a ten year old child was fighting to protect me.

Do you think me cruel for saying such a thing? Then you are delusional, for this is a cruel world where monsters eat monsters, where humans eat humans, where humans eat monsters, and vice versa.

Would I harbor any feelings of regret or attachment when those three women die? No, I would not. I was not that unfeeling, however. I would at least offer a little prayer and a regretful minute for my new companions.

Here I am talking to you like those three women will die in the battle with the minotaur. But, the unlikelihood of these three women, who were adventurers of high-grade caliber, dying to the minotaur was so unlikely as to be impossible.

Instead, when the minotaur came charging at them, the three women split up, whereas I just stood there watching with an indifferent look on my face, curiously observing the extent of their skills and strength.

Milli, the dagger-girl, stayed unmoving as the minotaur charged at her. The other two, Ryia and Elisa, moved left and right respectively to surround the minotaur.

The minotaur, however, ignored the two women trying to flank him. After all, he was confident of his tough hide and skin to protect him.

Calmly watching the minotaur come running at her, Milli shot out three knives toward the monster. Two of them were aimed at the minotaur's pair of eyes, while the last one was aimed at the monster's groin.

The two knives, however, found no purchase; the minotaur had deflected them with his huge axe and they dropped to the floor harmlessly. Only the last knife aimed at the minotaur's groin hit successfully, lodging itself onto the black, hide underwear; it looked like the minotaur had a metallic protrusion instead of erect flesh and blood. Quite an amusing sight, really.

And what would have made any males flinch or howl in pain from such a cruel attack, the minotaur was not even fazed and continued charging at Milli. The bull monster swung his axe in a wide arc, so quick and furious that Milli barely had any time to react. For a monster his size, his speed was suprising.

Not being able to swerve either left, right, or retreat backwards because the arc of the swung axe was so wide, Milli had no choice but to dive forward, the weapon just missing her by a hair's breadth. Directly underneath the minotaur's two furry legs, right under his private part covered with a black underwear, Milli took out both her sheathed daggers strapped to her waist in one fluid motion.

Not even wasting a second, she stood up and jammed both those daggers into the black underwear where the bulge was, all the way in until only the hilts of those two black daggers were seen. Finished with her attack, Milli sprinted out from underneath the minotaur, only stopping after regaining a short distance and turning around.

At the same time, Elisa swung her longsword at the minotaur's left leg. A look of surprise flashed across her face as her sword only made a small, red gash on the left thigh, instead of cutting through all the way. The surprise was most likely due to the fact that she thought her supposedly enchanted sword could cut through the thick thigh.

On the right side, Ryia slammed both her maces onto the right thigh, but they only left a bruising pain for the minotaur.

Enraged by the attacks of the three small flies around him, the minotaur wildly whipped his tail, making an effort to hit one of the women. At the same time, his weapon swung around in a whirldwind-like arc.

Pushed back by the onslaught of those furious attacks, the two women had no choice but to regain distance against the minotaur.

“What the hell, Milli! Are your daggers dull or something? That male, bull monster should have at least flinched from those three weapons stuck in his groin.” Elisa shouted.

“I do not think he is a male, Elisa...” Milli responded.

Both Milli and Elisa then turned to Ryia.

“Don't look at me. Its not like I am an expert in telling the differences between the sexes of bull monsters. I thought she was male too.”

Judging from the flow of this conversation, it was probably my turn to be asked next. When I saw all three of them flashing me questioning looks, I only gave a small shrug. Like them, I also had no idea except that it was a comical sight, seeing the three small weapons jammed into the minotaur's groin. Even I felt a little twinge of pain from seeing that.

Already mad, the minotaur became even angrier when he heard the easy-going conversation occurring during the battle. Thick veins bulged out from his, or was it her, muscles as the minotaur held onto the axe with one meaty hand and used the other free hand to take out the lodged weapons stuck in his underwear.

The two daggers and the throwing knife fell harmlessly onto the floor, not even the slightest bit bloodied.

“What the hell is your thing made of, monster...” Elisa said, disbelief dyeing her tone.

The minotaur roared in response and came charging at Elisa. This time, the enormous axe was only held in his right hand. Elisa also met the minotaur's charging speed, but she was faster by far.

Dodging expertly and wasting no motions to avoid the minotaur's free hand which was trying to capture her, Elisa made small red gashes everywhere on the lower body of the minotaur whenever she had the opportunity.

Seeing Elisa being attacked, the two other adventurers went rushing toward the minotaur's back.

In mid sprint, Milli also picked up the two daggers which had fallen to the floor and still arrived at the minotaur before Ryia; she was even more quicker and dexterous than the fluid Elisa who was battling the minotaur.

She continued right on sprinting without even stopping and scaled the minotaur's back until she stood on top of the minotaur's right shoulder. An inhumane feat was performed by her where she scaled thirteen feet of an unstable wall of monster, muscles, and hide.

The minotaur finally took notice of the small woman on top of his shoulder and used his free hand in an attempt to knock her off. But it was too late.

Milli jammed both of her black daggers into the minotaur's fist-sized eyes. This action elicited an enormous bellow of agony from the minotaur, shaking the very air and ground itself. The monster's whole body went wild, furiously trying to shake the woman off of him.

Not having the time to stabilize herself, Milli was thrown off and went flying a far distance away until she hit the stone floor with a smack, rolling for a few seconds before groaning in pain as the collision of her leather armor against stone took all of her breath away. She then laid there unmoving.

She had soften her fall by rolling and used her arms to block any injuries toward her face. Thus, the hard fall had most likely only caused some heavy bruising.

Blinded in both eyes, the minotaur was wildly swinging his tail and his weapon around, hoping for a lucky hit.

Both Elisa and Ryia quickly took advantage of this opportunity granted by Milli. Running as fast as she could, Ryia scaled onto the monster's shoulder in the same method as Milli did. Then she used both her spiked maces to smash the jammed daggers stuck in the minotaur's eyes. The end result was like a hammer driving a nail into two large, eggs. Blood gushed out from the eyes of the minotaur as the two daggers went all the way inside the minotaur, until the hilts of the twin daggers were not even seen.

Before the minotaur could even shriek his death-throes, Eliza, down below in front of the minotaur, threw her longsword with such force that it pierced through the front side of the monster's throat, and out the other.

After a few seconds of reflex twitching, the minotaur fell down onto the ground, making such a loud thud that it resounded all over the center of the labyrinth.

Ryia came falling down with the minotaur, but she landed like a cat with her feet anchored to the shoulders of the monster.

“Now that is what I call a little brawl. I only wished it was more challenging,” Ryia said, giving a bloodthirsty smile to Eliza.

“I would not wish such a fight again, else my whole body will become a giant bruise,” interjected Milli from behind. She had already gotten up from the fall and had come to check out the corpse of the minotaur.

“Shit, don't scare me like that, Milla. Though I should have known you weren't even knocked out from that hard fall. You small, tough, eatable cookie.” Ryia said, giving Milli a small grin.

“Do not tell me it is just me or is no one wondering what is hidden behind this bull monster's black underwear,” Elisa said, furiously trying to take back her sword lodged in the minotaur's throat.

“Yes, and we will have Verath check it out,” Milli said with a cold look aimed toward me. “After all, he did not do anything.”

I did not respond, not even a little bothered by that task assigned to me without even my permission. I suppose it was only natural since I had not done anything to help with the battle.

While Milli was reaching into the eyes of the minotaur to grab her twin black daggers, I removed the minotaur's black underwear with my short sword, cutting it into pieces until the whole thing fell apart.

“So, I guess this thing does not have a dick, after all,” Ryia commented bluntly from beside me. “In fact, this thing does not even have a genital. Instead, there is only this skull underneath the underwear. Probably how the bulge was made.”

“Think its a magic treasure?” Elisa said with an excited look on her face.

“You would not get me to touch that skull even with a ten-feet long pole, dear Elisa.” The bloodthirsty smile on Ryia's face had changed into one of disgust.

“Agreed,” Milli added.

All three women turned to look at me, expectant faces put on.

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.

<><><><><>

I 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...”

<><><><><>

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.

<><><><><>

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...

Volume 1 (Chapter 13-15)