"Where am I?"

Tai looked around, finding himself in front of a giant, white, fantasy castle, standing in front of the entrance. Beside the entrance of the castle, which was a giant, white double door that looked to be made of marble, there were 2 dragon statues, made from the same marble-looking material.

The entrance of the castle opened, the doors swung open and a big, white dragon greeted him. "You must be Tai."

The white dragon gave off an aura of royalty as the bottom of its head and the top of its long neck were covered in white hair that seemed to flow with no wind in sight.

"And you are?" Tai asked as he looked at the white dragon, wondering why he was in this place. Last he knew, he was in his new apartment room and then it was all black from there and whenever he tried to recall any information after that, his head would start hurting which he found odd.

"Cherdom, young one. You are in this place since you are a dragon that has died. A shame though, the Dragonforce liked you very much and your energy was one of the strongest I've felt."

Died? No, there's no way. I can't have died. No, no, no. How? Did I just die in my sleep? How though? NO. This is a lie. It has to be.

"I know you are confused, young one. Even I do not know the cause of your death, but whatever happened, your physical body has been stripped from you, killed, and your soul has been sent here. Normally, ordinary mortal's soul are sent to the underworld where they'll have a chance to escape, but dragons are different. The first dragon wanted a peaceful place. A place better than the underworld, a place exclusive to dragons, so using the power of the Dragonforce, he created a realm similar to the underworld, Raevana."

"No, no. Listen, Cherdom, was it? There's no way I'm dead. I was in my apartment. Nothing could've assassinated me. Hear that? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Why is it that I can't fully remember my memories too?" Tai was confused. He couldn't believe it. No, he wouldn't believe it. There was just no way. Maybe if he was in the open, but assuming that the apartment said, no one except the people he allowed could enter meaning that there was no possible way that an intruder entered his room.

"You can remember your memories, young one? That is odd. Usually, dragons who enter Raevana won't remember their memories of their lives until a couple of years, yet you can remember them normally?" Cherdom was confused. This was a rare occurrence.

"Not normally. One part of my memories has seemingly been 'erased' for lack of a better word."

Suddenly, Tai's head started to hurt as he heard voices in his head.

"M-m... master... come back... please. ...or it'll be too late." The voice sounded like Nagi's, but something clearly happened. Not only was Nagi telling him to come back, but the tone of his voice also didn't sound good.

Tai tried to reach out to Nagi, but no matter what he did, he got no response back.

"Cherdom, you have to help me get out of here? How do I get back to my body?"

"Oh, well that's surprisingly simple. Just remake your body. The hard part is carefully transporting your soul back to your body and I can say with absolute certainty, that you won't be able to do that."

"How so? Wait..." When Cherdom spoke about remaking his body, Tai started remembering bits of his lost memory that he thought were erased.

Memories of when he spoke to the entity and when he was converting his body into darkness flowed through his mind.

"Holy shit. That's why."

Cherdom looked at Tai weirdly. "What do you mean? I'm confused."

"That bitch has my body. I was in the process of fully merging with my darkness. Do you know how I can get back?"

"Oh, is that why you remember your memories? It does make sense. This is easy and nowhere near as hard as carefully controlling your soul since your actual soul is still in your body."

"Great, what do I have to do?"

"Nothing, just disappear from this realm." Cherdom opened his mouth and a beam of golden lightning erupted from his mouth and contacted Tai's body, destroying it instantly. "So long, young one. It is great that you are not actually dead. Good luck in taking back your body."

Tai felt himself return to his body, his head instantly hurting.

"Y̥̭̭ͅo͖̞̘͈̹͉͞u͎'͇͙r͎̤̟̺̝e̷̗̣̬̺͕̬ ̹̱̣͙b̵̲a̗c̖͡k," the entity said, not expecting him to be back so soon.

"Hell yeah I'm back and I'm taking my body back," Tai replied to the entity.

The entity laughed as it increased the pressure on Tai's mind. "Y҉̮̯̣̞̮ͅo͎͉u̢͉̤̙̜ ̸̖̼c͙̜͖a͖͍͇̕n͘ t̨̮͍̗r̦̙͍y̶͖."

There are many different ways that Tai could use to regain his body, but this being his first time, he could only go on what he thought would work. First, was the most crude, and primitive method and that was overcoming the entity with his own darkness. This was considered crude since the entity was also made of darkness so that would mean that he would have to overpower the entity with its own element. The second was to use a different energy, or element. This wasn't as bad as the first, but it is still not the best. The best method is to have someone help you, but being alone, and Nagi being suppressed by the entity, he couldn't exactly do the last one.

After thinking up a plan, he tried a method that he used when Ohm, the being that appeared in his trial and tried to absorb his darkness. He was going to regain control of his darkness and overpower the entity.

It wasn't easy and it felt like his mind was about to break and burst into tiny little pieces, but it was doable. Parts of Tai's new body that was made of darkness changed form, changing from its pitch-black appearance to what Tai looked like before.

This method was crude and primitive, but it was the simplest one out of all the methods, although this method required one to be in tune with their element and really have mastery over it.

"What... did I say?! You are my tool!" Tai's body completely reverted to his old form, only this time, his new body was completely made of darkness, his darkness. Dark smoke emanated from his figure, distorting the space around him. It seemed that his Darkness Aura became even more potent.

Tai's head was also clear and he could see the entity clearly now. The entity was a pitch-black orb, floating inside his mindscape.

"Good job, mortal. You have passed with flying colors, but I do have to say. You're one of the few beings that I don't mind being a tool for."

The entity vanished just as fast as it appeared, and Tai heard clapping inside his head.

"That wassss a nice sssshow. I never doubted you," the familiar voice said, chuckling a bit as it finished eating its snacks.