Mid Morning - Mid Winter : Hera's Rest | The Scar

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"Hooh... HYUP!" *wwwooOOOOOOMMMM* Tensing every muscle in my body, my aura, flowing in every direction without exception, was slowly directed upward before forming a column of mana 10 kilometers wide and over 13,000 kilometers tall. *GASP* "HAAH..." Nearly collapsing to my knees under the unbelievable weight of my own aura, I let out a foggy breath. -Holy shit, it's always so much more than I think it is...-

It felt like I was fighting the flow of countless tsunamis rushing in every direction. Like I was redirecting the flow of an entire ocean at once.

"Your aura is really.. something," Hera remarked with awe as she gazed up the unfathomable column of mana. "I thought mine wasn't too much smaller than yours.. but..."

"Hah... Hah..." Laboring for breath, I finally released control of my aura, unleashing a blast of mana that disintegrated the ground around me. *VWOOOOM* "Your aura has what.. an 80 kilometer radius?" Seeing her nod, I continued between breaths of exhaustion. "Mine is about 100 kilometers.. meaning I have just shy of double the volume of yours."

"Hah," A bead of cold sweat formed on her forehead as her gaze settled back on me. "And here I thought our auras were similar..."

*Thump-CRACKLE* The brittle ground seemed to shatter as I slumped down. "Well, it doesn't matter how much I have if I can't control it..." -Even after just holding it for a second, I feel like my head is splitting apart...-

"But you've made so much progress over the last day and a half... you should feel accomplished." Her voice carried a hint of concern as she used her aura to make me lie down. "My techniques can only help so much, and by the looks of things, your mind is still extremely cluttered."

-Right...- Mental clutter. It was a term I had become painfully familiar with over the last couple days.

According to Hera, during a regular dragon's dragon sleep to the demigod stage, their minds begin rewiring and reprogramming themselves to use divinity, essentially attempting to upgrade the mortal mind like updating the wiring of a computer.

It was a process called the divine shift, a long and slow process that took thousands of years and countless near-death experiences, but, unbeknownst to me, I had already started it, even before my dragon sleep. -Looking back.. I'm pretty sure it's the only reason Vidar's sword didn't blow my brains out when he hit me...-

But, while it was a necessary step on the road to ascension, it brought along a unique struggle known as mental clutter.

In short, it was when the body laid out strings of divinity but didn't make use of them right away because of preexisting neural pathways.

During dragon sleeps, the body was supposed to naturally destroy and replace the neural paths as the strings of divinity were laid, like unplugging an old cable and plugging in a new one.

However, because of the sheer amount of divinity I acquired during my last sleep, my body couldn't keep up with its production, leaving my brain a tangled mess of divinity that I now had to 'declutter' manually. -What a pain...-

And I meant that literally.

According to Hera, the only way to clear mental clutter was to strain my mind to the point of destroying neural pathways and forcing my subconscious to switch to 'the new cable'. The issue with that was I couldn't manually destroy the neurons, otherwise the string of divinity wouldn't be 'forcefully reprogrammed' by my subconscious. "It honestly feels like I'm playing with fire..."

Hera's worries seemed to stem from a similar place as well. "Most dragon's typically don't have to reprogram their own minds to such an extent, but I can at least assure you that you won't be able to strain the parts using divinity enough for them to destroy themselves. At most, it'd just rewire itself to something more efficient."

-How convenient,- I wanted to say with sarcasm. "But what if the divinity doesn't get reprogrammed after the neural path is destroyed? Will I just lose whatever knowledge is tied to that pathway?"

Thankfully, Hera immediately shook her head, but it wasn't because my assumption was wrong. "If the destruction is due to strain, the divinity will reprogram itself. You won't lose anything, I promise."

She tried to be reassuring, but I could only sigh. "Haah..." -That pain isn't going to be fun to deal with... But..- "For now, I'll just save it for later..." Glancing at the sun, my time with Hera was running out. "It looks like it's about time for me to head back."

"Hoh?" Hera's curiosity was piqued instantly. "Where to?"

"Valtivar. I brought my family there for a vacation, but we told the public it was a diplomatic visit." Slowly getting back up onto my feet, I gently shook my head back and forth to try and alleviate some of the pain.

"Oh? Do you have children?"

Her sudden change in tone caught me off guard. "N..no? I'm with my sister and our parents."

She immediately let out a short breath before continuing. "I see... I guess I have never asked, but.. I'm assuming you are of the ruling class?"

I continued with a nod. "As far as I know, after the fall of the Chalastís family, we are the only family in the ruling class now."

"Huh... I see..." She sounded both intrigued and confused simultaneously. "In that case, you wouldn't mind if I came to Valtivar with you, would you?"

-What?- "I don't, but I thought you said you needed a few more months to finish healing?"

"I do, but it's mostly minor things. More importantly than that, if what you were saying earlier is right, I need to totally reshape everything I know about the world, and going through your family would probably be the safest way to do that..." She seemed to get a little flustered as she spoke as if she were asking for too much.

"I already planned to have you work with my mother for that. We can't exactly have you just waltz back into Bahamut after everything that's happened." Over the past couple days, we spoke quite extensively about just how much the world had changed from what she knew, including how her name and image were tarnished. But thankfully, it all went over well. "It will definitely take some time to adjust, but feel free to stay as long as you need." Finally standing up, I glanced over my shoulder. "In any case, if you're coming, change to your humanoid form. We can continue our chat while we fly."

"Are you sure you can handle my weight?" she asked, intrigued.

"You think I'm weak just because I'm small?" Looking up at her towering form, a confident grin crept onto my face.

And before long, a grin came to her face as well. "Alright! If you say so." *flash*

Quickly changing to her humanoid form, I was presented with the view of a regal, mature woman in her early 30s, with bright white horns and deep blue scales, exuding the air of a monarch.

She truly embodied the queen of a nation. -How befitting...-

But to me, it seemed more of a facade than anything.

*CRUNCH-CRACK* Shattering the ground with each step, she walked over to me radiating a mix of childish excitement and confidence. As if certain she was certain she would best me.

But, sure enough, while her weight felt akin to a mountain concentrated in the palm of my paw, she only weighed about twice as much as I did.

"How impressive... I really thought I'd be too heavy..." She was quite impressed.

"I told you I'm not weak." -She's too heavy for me to ignore though.. I might pull a muscle if I blast my thruster magic right off the bat...- "Regardless, since you seem situated, let's get going."

With a quick spread of my wings and a bit of help from some antimatter, we quickly took to the dark starry sky and started making our way back to Valtivar, engaging in idle chatter while we flew.

But while she asked quite a lot about my thruster magic, among other things, as we finally approached Valtivar, the conversation ended up at a question I had forgotten to explain.

"I apologize if this is a bit much to ask, but earlier, you said your family are descendants of Atlas. If that's the case, then why are your scales black?" She spoke curiously without a hint of skepticism.

And without giving it much thought, I spoke nonchalantly. "Almost immediately after I hatched from my egg, I touched an artifact that messed with my genetics, turning my scales black among other things. That was actually the artifact I mentioned earlier, the one that split my soul from my body."

"Ah, I see... So, are you still a pure dragon, or..?"

My expression quickly became complicated. "I was born a pure dragon, but am now half dragon and half Ancient Fenrir."

I spoke as if it were nothing, but if Hera had a drink in her mouth at that moment, she would have spit it everywhere. "WHAT?!"

-Oh, shit... I forgot to tell her that, didn't I...- "Haha," I let out an awkward chuckle as I glanced toward her. "I guess I forgot to tell you earlier.. I apologize."

Her shock was honestly palpable. "Half.. ancient fenrir?"

As we started quickly reentering the bright blue afternoon atmosphere, I nodded. "Although I only figured it out during my dragon sleep, I am, in more than one way, Nott's reincarnation."

There was a long silence that followed as she looked up toward me with questions ringing behind her eyes. "Do you.. have his memories?"

But I hastily shook my head. While it would have certainly been convenient, I knew even less than Hera about the matters regarding the end of the war.

However, that would change in due time. For now, all I had to do was take one step at a time and jump the hurdles as they came.

But little did I know, a hurdle would find its way to me before I could even realize I needed to jump.

*Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* Coming in to land on Lief's estate, I cut a hole in the roof of my room before descending into it, landing, and quickly patching the hole in one swift motion.

Krystallo, who was sitting over by the bookshelves with Mother and Father, immediately hopped up as I came in. "Brother's back!" But her happy trot came to a screeching halt as I finally landed and set down Hera.

Even Mother was caught off guard. "Welcome back, Va- Huh?" The moment she saw Hera, confusion blasted across her face, but eventually, her expression just turned smug. "Hoho~, to think our Vasilias finally found himself a wife~." Quickly hopping up with her obscene assumption, she lowered her head toward Hera for a moment before matching her gaze. "My name is Zachari Ragnarok. If I may ask, who was given the pleasure?"

Thankfully, Hera wasn't too taken aback by her antics, but rather than directly clearing the misunderstanding, she simply gave a very humble bow. "My name is Hera. Hera Monachikós." The whole room froze in an instant. "It's truly a pleasure to meet you, Zachari."

She spoke very casually, befitting the age difference, but Mother was so drowned in shock that she couldn't even find words to respond.

-I guess that's one way to correct her...- "Mother, Father, Krystallo, please meet Hera." I paused as I overlooked them and saw Father was thankfully finally able to at least withstand my aura without passing out. "And before you ask, yes, she is 'The' Hera Monachikós." I had hoped her name would be enough to clear Mother's insane deduction.

But while only silence followed my voice, I felt like I could smell something burning, and after looking down I saw Krystallo, her gaze aimed at Hera like a laser that could melt diamonds.

-Oh boy... I guess Hera's name wasn't enough to clear Mom's assumption for her...-

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