Ash stood like a statue, her eyes had begun to buldge as she noticed something wrong with that final word he had spoken. She tried to reach out with her hand, but was caught unawares and in the middle of lunging towards him.

Frezar, behind him was the closest. His outstretched hand almost touching him. His aged and wrinkled eyes filled with worry.

The three bandits looked on with their previous fear. They nocticed the pulse just like the rest, but didn’t know how to react.

Jonas tried to move but found himself paralyzed.

“What’s going-”

He countined finished his statement before another pulse shook his entire existence, soul and all.

One moment he was in the pavilion and the next, he was staring into an eye as large as he was tall. It was covered in bright red scales and with a slitted pupil.

The eye was all he could clearly see, the fog covered everything around him. Only the shadowed highlights of the massive head told him with was more than an eye-ball.

And yet, that scared him even more.

To think something so behemoth could possibly exist.

Jonas stood in shock as the eye readjusted and focused on him.

The world shook as the being grumbled like it had woken from a deep sleep. It blinked once and the fog was blown by a herculean wind almost taking Jonas with them.

He fell to his knees. The thing blinked…

It blinked and it could have obliterated him.

“It has been ages since the last one chose to follow my Path. Much longer since one of your race had attempted to become the epitome of my element as I had once been. To be frank, I had assumed your kind extinct.”

The thing spoke and Jonas screamed. His eardrums exploded and blood ran down his ears.

But he understood every single word spoken by the…

Dragon.

---

“Well then, puny thing. Will you respond or cower in fear? Have you come to waste my time or attempt to be baptised in my Fire?”

“F-Fire,” Jonas whispered listlessly. Eyes zoned out.

It was the word that started it all. The key that had opened this door to hell and would be the same one to help him escape the unfathomable existence that was before him.

“Very-” It blinked once again, sending Jonas careening backwords. But no matter how far he was blown, the eyes size never changed.

“You do not know? You had not expected this? Why? Where were your mentors and instructors to prepare you once the time of your entrance to this realm was made clear? Or...it couldn’t be.”

It blinked again, this time with much more force.

Jonas was sent flying into the distance.

“What do you know of The Old Ones. My brethren! My Kin! Speak Human!”

He felt his body burn and blacken at the words. He couldn’t even exist in the presence of such a monster.

“Nevermind, I will find out be myself!”

It let out a pulse of red that covered everything, Jonas included. It searched and searched but found nothing. It sent out another pulse, madly trying to find a single inkling that its kin were still alive somewhere out there in the vastness of the universe.

“No.” It then began to speak in a language unknown to Jonas. Something primal and filled with potential power to shake the heavens. He could not understand a single letter, but he could feel the grief as it radiated out of the dragon. For that moment, soaked in emotions so raw and unfiltered, he could do not but exist in a state similar to it.

“You! Human! My Kin are gone! What happened to the Old Ones. The source of the elements themselves. Why does their powers run rampant without control. Why are the life forests of the far north filled with ice. The land of stone covered storms? When did the domain of deah sink to the bottom of the ocean floor?! Speak, damn you!”

Jonas grit his teeth as he began to bleed from his eyes and mouth. “I-I don’t understand. Who are your kin?”

Dragon’s still existed, rather were one of the strongest existences in their world, yet, none could ever compare to such a monster before him if they lived for eons upon eons. They would be small ants with no true ability.

“Be still, for answers are easy to come by. Especially in such hollow creatures such as you. For the briefest of moments, agony would be your only friend. A confidant for you to rely on if you hope to exist. It comes in no part or doing of your own. Just the circumstance you have found yourself in. I must get my answers, the Truth Must Be Seen!”

Jonas knew nothing beyond that moment except a red flame burning him, then remaking him, only to melt him once more. Every aspect he could ever thought to even exist about himself was baptized in a fire neither cold nor hot, yet left its scorching marks along his bones and body.

He questioned why this had happened, what sin must he have committed? What horror could have done to be the recipient of this punishment? Why him of all people?

Was this the only way to get a Path—to be of worth in a world that decided your place in life based on your lineage and strength. What would be his future if he failed this day?

As he thought of it, it became clear what his destiny was without a Path. He would be nothing more than a castoff not even worth the time to speak to.

Because, even the lowest of commoners had a chance to achieve enlightenment, while he after failing this test would be forever without.

Jonas tried to cry or scream or laugh in madness, yet any form of emotion was stripped from him just like his mortal skin had been.

He was utterly without a modem to release any of the suffering, forced to let it bottle up and soon to explode.