“Haah.. haaa… argghh.. gggrr… haaa… haa…”

Kiefer kept panting heavily and moaning in distress all while unconscious, his head gently laid on Isana’s lap. Isana had started to calm down as soon as Kiefer’s convulsions stopped, but his body was heating up rapidly.

She could tell that mana was pouring out of Kiefer as if the floodgates had just been broken, and with the mana came the intense heat that brought the room to a sweltering temperature. Even her own chilling aura as an ice dragon could do little to abate the rising temperatures.

“Dammit what’s taking Rashael so long!? I knew I should have just brought Kii to him instead of asking him to come here.” Isana cursed as Kiefer continued to struggle in his state of slumber. Kiefer’s mana was still flooding out with no signs of slowing down. Isana’s state of mind was slowly deteriorating as time went on, watching her loved one suffer while being unable to do anything to help. His body was so hot that even her magic imbued ice melted upon contact.

It had been 3 hours since Kiefer first started convulsing and while he was considerably calmer now, anyone could tell his condition was far from stable. There were still random uncontrolled jerks of his limbs and the constant groaning and turning of his head from side to side, as if he was experiencing a horrifying nightmare.

Finally, just as Isana was about to start weeping again, Rashael burst through the door and immediately sprinted over to Kiefer’s side. The whole room was so hot that he had already begun sweating beads as he concentrated his senses on Kiefer’s mana signature.

“It’s no good. There is nothing I can do. I can heal wounds, cure diseases and stabilise panicked states of mind, but this is something else altogether. I have absolutely no idea what is happening to him and I don’t think I can figure a way to stop whatever is going on in his body.” Rashael spat, angry that he was so helplessly useless in a dire situation such as this.

“What is happening? I can only tell that his mana is leaking out to no end. What happens when he runs out of mana?” Isana asked, worried about Kiefer’s future.

“It’s not just that his mana is leaking out. It seems to be in some sort of turmoil within his body, as if there were 2 conflicting sources of mana and the losing one was being forced out. I honestly don’t know what is going to happen when he runs out of mana, that is if he ever does. I can’t sense the decrease in his overall mana pool despite all that is gushing out. For a human, his mana pool is unusually large, I would say even comparable to ours. Kiefer is an enigma for all I know and there are so many things about him that defies common logic. I don’t think this is a problem we can solve using normal means.” Rashael replied, his hands still moving around on Kiefer’s body and checking for his vitals.

About 15 minutes after Rashael arrived, Sher returned alone through the window and similarly stayed by her master’s side. Finally, moments after Sher’s return, Feir came trotting back with Alwin and a high elf healer on his back. Even after taking a look and casting several high level healing spells, the high elf simply shook his head and apologised, before being ordered to leave the room by Alwin.

As if sensing that his family and friends had gathered around him, Kiefer finally opened his eyes to reveal a pair of piercing bright golden pupils with a single black vertical slit down the middle. Opening and closing his mouth slowly, Kiefer gasped for air as his throat made wheezing noises that signalled just how dry it was. Then, without allowing Isana to pour a glass of ice cold water down his throat to quench his thirst, Kiefer uttered one word painstakingly. “Run…”

Having said that, he shut his eyes once more as his body resumed its original convolutions, twisting and cracking in awkward positions. The mana pouring forth was even greater than ealier and Rashael having sensed it quickly tried to warn everyone.

“Everyone quick! Get out of this house! The mana in Kiefer’s body is starting to become unstable! I’ve seen this before! It happened on my sister’s moon! The mana catastrophe caused by high concentrations of conflicting mana. Isana! Hurry! Let go of him! He told us to run!” Rashael urged as Isana and Sher clung onto Kiefer even more tightly, unwilling to let go of him.

“Stop stopping and RUN!” Rashael bellowed at the 2 stubborn titans, having pushed Feir and the 2 high elves out the house. “If he dies, I can always revive him again! You 2 need to get out now!” He yelled, yanking on the girls’ arms and trying his best to pry them away from the twisting body of Kiefer.

Finally, Isana let go and grabbed Sher, jumping out the window with Rashael. One last look at Kiefer made her regret her decision immediately as the moment his body left her chilling aura, it burst into flames and Kiefer began screaming in agony. However, not even giving her a chance to turn back around to her beloved husband’s side, the room, together with the rest of the house exploded into splinters and dust, leaving a deep crater that exposed the basement levels.

The explosion sent out a physical shockwave, followed closely by a mana wave. The combination of the 2 sent the falling snow blasting away from the epicentre, the mana wave devouring any mana in its path, leaving an entire space devoid of mana behind it. As the shockwave passed through the city, lights in every house came on to inspect what had happened. This was followed by an intense sense of nausea coupled with unconsciousness of every living thing as they succumbed to mana exhaustion.

Even the Titans were not spared from the mana devouring wave, though they managed to stay conscious thanks to their innate ability to generate mana. As the 4 titans were kocked far away from the epicentre by the sheer force of explosion, they struggled to stagger back on their feet, the lack of mana eating away at their minds.

The mana wave seem to increase in intensity and speed as it propels itself further from Kiefer’s house with each and every mana particle it devoured in its path. Within seconds from the explosion, it had already left the physical shockwave in its dust and had covered half the continent. Sentient beings in Alluviate, Arigan, Latiase, Luminas, and even as far as Diantes were not spared from the mana wave that knocked each and everyone’s lights out.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the mana wave stopped expanding, as if it had hit an immovable wall that prevented it from proceeding any further. Immediately, it contracted backwards, falling rapidly back towards its origin. As it returned on its original path, the density of the wave increased exponentially, all while pulling and stretching existing mana outside its area of influence along with it. As if the natural mana on Aioa were a drop of food dye dropped in a tank of water, the wave of mana washed past it like a hand that was pulled through the metaphorical water tank, pulling the dye along with it and stretching it thin to fill the void left by the wave.

Without giving the titans any time to rest or recover, the mana wave came speeding back through the lands and the sea at astonishing speeds. Rashael only managed to utter a single command to tell the titans to run before they saw the silvery pulse returning from across the horizon, heading straight for Kiefer’s home.

Mustering all their strength, the titans all transformed into their true forms and scattered as far as they could from the house while carrying the 2 unconscious high elves, praying that they would escape the wrath of the mana catastrophe by the skin of their teeth.

Surely and truly, as predicted by Rashael, the moment the mana wave returned to the source of the explosion, a blinding light lit up the entire city. A sphere of swirling silver and blue light began expanding rapidly from Kiefer’s house, first devouring the remains of the house, then the surrounding land. Eventually, it stopped expanding when the sphere of light ate away at the wall of the first brick house that was the start of the city.

The sphere was so blinding the titans could barely open the tiniest slit in their eyes to stare at the sun that had been born on the coast. A whirling storm of mana that is the sphere of light emanated a gentle blanket of heat that melted all the snow within the same radius that the mana wave had extended earlier, bringing a short temporary reprieve from the cold chilling winds of winter. The odd thing though, was that the temperature was uniform throughout, unlike what one would expect where it was supposed to be the hottest at a position closest to the source.

The titans stared at the shimmering ball of silver and blue streaks from afar, with Alwin and the high elf healer hanging by their clothes from Feir’s maw. Isana’s face was ashen, dreading that after just one night with her loved one, he perishes from right within her grasps. Secretly and unknowingly, she feared that she might have been the direct cause of this catastrophe. As fresh tears began to roll down her cheek once more, the ball of light dissipated in the most unusual way.

Random parts of the massive ball seem to dive towards its centre, creating deep cuts on the surface. Within moments, the once completely spherical ball now looked like a sea urchin, with spikes of light extending from the middle. Slowly, the spikes began withdrawing as well until finally, as the last spike dove back towards the centre, one final shockwave was released. This shockwave was significantly smaller and less powerful, but the titans felt the force nonetheless.

Sher and Isana rushed towards to middle of the gaping hole left in the coast after the ball of light ate away all things physical. There, they saw a shimmering black dragon a little bit bigger than Isana’s true form snoozing away peacefully. There were horns protruding from each side of the eyebrows and 2 rows of spikes that ran down the entire length of the body. 2 giant scaly wings were folded neatly and wrapped by a long powerful tail. With each breath the dragon took, a silver flame shimmered from its nostrils.

“Wha.. who is that?” Rashael stammered at the sight of the dragon.

“It’s… Kiefer… I don’t know how, but I just know it… deep within me, something is telling me that that dragon is my Kiefer.” Isana muttered back softly.

“Are you sure? I thought he’s human… are you sure it’s not something else and that you are just forcing yourself to believe that he is Kiefer?” Rashael questioned suspiciously, afraid that the loss of her beloved might be causing her to have delusions.

“nn… no… that is master.” Sher joined in. “He smells just like master.”

Isana gently landed next to the slumbering beast and carefully inspected him. The dragon’s body was pitch black, blending in perfectly with the darkness of the night, and yet there were shimmering silver runes that ran in 2 neat lines down the back, next to the 2 rows of spikes. The silver words were small compared to the size of the giant dragon, making it seem like 2 silver lines instead.

As Isana stretched her hands out fearfully, she hesitated just before her fingertips made contact with the scales on the dragon’s face. “What if this is not Kiefer? What if he is just a new Titan born in place of Kiefer? What if he doesn’t remember me?” she thought, as doubt and fear filled her mind. Deciding to cast aside her hesitation, she gently caressed the dragon’s face.

The instant her fingers touched the dragon, his eyes snapped open to reveal bright golden iris with a vertical black slit for pupils. The Within the Golden iris were streaks of blue and red that extended radially from the pupil, creating a deep contrast while giving the eyes a sensation of being on fire. As their minds connected like their bodies had mere hours ago, Isana was pulled into a dream like world where she caught glimpses of Kiefer’s past.

As quickly as she lost her mind to Kiefer’s, she was back, realising that everything she saw, all his memories, all his thoughts and feelings, were all transmitted in an instant. Then a loud familiar voice echoed inside her head.

“Sana…” (Kiefer)

Immediately, Isana started weeping and hugged Kiefer’s giant head, her tears falling and bouncing off his black scales. Sher rushed in to hug Kiefer as well. She seemed to have heard Kiefer calling out to her as well and soon, the 2 girls were crying with joy, embracing the giant dragon that was still curled up in his wings and tail.

Kiefer began to rouse as he slowly lifted his thick neck, looking up at the stars and then at Rashael who looked like he had just passed his driver’s exam after an uncountable number of time. As he spread his wings and extended his tail, Kiefer looked at his body by turning his head around, carefully lifting his arm and checking the underside of his dragon form.

Finally, with a single thought, the runes along his back began to shine immensely bright as a sea of silvery threads extended and wrapped his body, slowly compressing it and changing its shape. After a few seconds, the threads unwound and what stood in the middle of the crater was a nake man with golden eyes and jet black hair.

He looked up at the stars once more, just in time to see multiple shooting stars streak across the darkness. Paying them no mind, Kiefer promptly opened his PD and got dressed, not wanting to expose his little brother to the cold air that was beginning to set in again.

“Sorry to have worried all of you. And also sorry for the apparent destruction. I guess I’ll have to rebuild our home from scratch again huh?” Kiefer chuckled as he pulled Isana and Sher into a tight embrace. Feir brushed his small furry head against Kiefer’s leg as the family was once again reunited.

“Well, seeing as you are alright, I’m just going to go and check on the residents, see if they are fine. Then I have to get back to work at home. I’m still in the middle of installing the generator you gave me.” Rashael commented as he took off, leaving the family to their own privacy.

They remained silent for a long time, without the need for words. Kiefer was soul bound to Isana, who had given him a fragment of her dragon soul. He could easily read her mind as well as Sher’s. Being able to communicate with their minds seemed to make words useless as they could feel what each other were feeling though their unique connection.

[[On Hope]]

[Captain. My sensors picked up a large radiation outburst from the target planet. Should I redirect the probes to investigate?]

“No need for that Rowanda. Just prepare to put us into orbit around the planet. Maintain the probe’s trajectory. Make sure they are spread evenly across the surface of the planet. I don’t want to miss out on anything.” Captain palmer instructed the ship’s AI as he stared off into the small blue dot in the distance. It was gradually growing bigger owing to the ship’s current trajectory towards the planet.

Switching on a button, Palmer finally spoke into the mic as his voice echoed through every nook and cranny of the ship, his face appearing on every display device. “Dear residents of the Hope, colonists of the human kind. We are now approaching what is most likely to be our new home world. There are still many mysteries about it, but I’m sure we will discover them as we go along. There may or may not be intelligent life on this planet, but our scans have confirmed it to be able to sustain human life. Should we make contact with intelligent or even sub-intelligent life forms, please remember that we are their visitors, ambassadors from the great beyond. Please behave appropriately for we will be landing on THEIR home, trying to make a home for ourselves. Our estimated time of arrival is 170 hours. The probes have landed safely and are now beginning their operation. We should have their first reports within 24 hours. That is all. I hope you are looking forward to this as much as I am. We’ve had a long trip with a few minor setbacks, but this is where all our decisions have ultimately brought us. Please enjoy the rest of your short stay on Hope.”

[[Back on Aioa]]

As the first of the pods deployed their parachutes and crash through the thick forest canopy, the undergrowth caught fire from the sheer heat of the pod that had plummeted from space. The fires did not last long in the cold winter air and when the sensors on the pod’s body indicated that it was safe, the pod split open into 4 pieces from the top.

A white robot with the roman numeral III started whirring into life as it unfolded and assembled itself. 4 rotor blades unfolded and connected to the top of the robot as the blades slowly begun spinning, kicking up a strong wind to lift the streamlined body of the probe up.

[…]

[…]

[All systems functional. Mobility 100%. Oxygen levels, 32%. Toxic gases, NIL. Atmospheric pressure, 0.96 atm. Wind speed, 2kph. Scanning immediate landing site. Plant life detected. Sending report to Hope.]

[…]

[Beginning protocol 1.1.0. Searching for animal life.]

The blades kicked into full gear as the probe rose through the canopy along its descent pathway, finally hovering above the jungle. It then made a decisive turn towards the south and began flying in the direction.

I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas special. Here is today's release. Please tell me in the comments what you thought about the way i included the christmas special. It was vastly different from the Halloween special in that the holdiay event was integrated into the story, unlike the Halloween on which was a stand-alone chapter.

I have plans to include more of these special chapters for upcoming major days like valentines day. So do tell me if u prefer and integrated chapter or a stand alone one.

Here is what Kiefer's dragon form looks like, with a size comparison. I did not draw this, but instead found it online on google. All credits go to the artist on deviantart for his amazing work.