Chapter 297: Desperation....
For a moment, he could not help but find a trace of doubt within himself; was he truly doing right to himself? Despite numerous advantages, he wasn’t able to immediately crush Heinz’s martial prowess, yet there were still many areas where he needed to develop much further and faster. With a sigh, he picked up Heinz’s body.
He then brought out a pre-written spell-engraved letter from his tool space, after sending the small letter through a special type of messenger beast. The letter would be delivered to Axel, then he continued walking in a specific direction and stood in front of a vast tree with a large cavity at its center. Pushing down a special section inside that cavity, activating a spell mechanism, the bottom part of it opened, revealing a wooden staircase that no one knew of, as the area itself was quite deep within the beast forest.
As he walked down, he found a spacious and well-decorated room. There were multiple individuals already present, all of whom were covered in tightly wrapped black clothes. They were both informants and assassins. One of them came forward and stated, "Hello, Your Highness Lucien, I’m the one in charge of helping with this request of yours. Please refer to me as Envoy."
Lucien asked them in suspicion, "Are you sure you all can keep this all a secret? And that letter must not be traceable directly to me, even if Axel uses some unknown form of Runic sorcery, right?"
"Please be assured, we have already disabled the magic card carried by Heinz Gil, alongside fooling the signal of your own Magic Card as soon as you take care of Axel Nomrad. We will handle the rest in a way that no one will ever find out about. We have been doing this for a very, very long time, after all. And never have we failed to deliver on our promises. Specifically, when your highness has a special request token," the envoy reassured him in a confident tone that somewhat eased the worry of Lucien.
His eyes took on a ruthless resolution filled with controlled hatred as he thought back to how Lumina was so close to death if not for him, barely managing to save her.
***
Spreading his large golden draconic wings and two golden curved horns protruding out of his forehead, his whole figure glowed in a golden light, barely managing to illuminate his surroundings. He continued to follow the silver thread, which stretched for almost infinity. At least that’s what it felt like to him, as the surroundings remained the same regardless of whether he increased or slowed down the speed.
That was perhaps the scariest part of the void, apart from the assimilation. In fact, no one knew why it existed, how it existed. Or anything about it was utterly unknown. In fact, the very reason it was called the false void or the imitated void is because this is the middle ground, the in between of reality and the true void. If not for that, how could anyone even enter here and remain alive?
The void abominations continued to gather around him, but the dragon’s golden light kept them at bay, maintaining a proper distance; nonetheless, they followed him from afar. Some of the void creatures occasionally attacked him, too. But that did not even need active intervention from his part. They were vaporized by the effect of the light on its own. Not to mention, he was too worried about Lumina to think about these damn pests. The situation was truly precarious.
Despite the powerful effect of the dragon’s light against the false void and the creatures within, the encroaching influence of the void remained utterly endless, and the scenery around him remained unchanged. It was tough to understand if he was even moving or not. But he continued to fly through gritted teeth; he tried to conserve more energy by using less and less of the Dragon aura around him, as this was taking far longer than expected.
More abominations attacked him as a result of the dimming golden light, so he began killing the abominations actively at this point. At least that kept his anxious mind occupied with a little something. This continued indefinitely, within the false void; just as it was impossible to understand the passage of distance, it was also impossible to measure time. As if the concept of void itself, which represented emptyness, was a concept that cannot be calculated or measured in any way. When you enter here, all the other measurable concepts of the material universe that give meaning to life itself also lose their functionality and measureability in here.
Just as he was about to lose hope, he finally saw it, a barely noticeable silver dot quite far away from himself. His body worked automatically; he stopped conserving his power, putting immense power behind the draconic wings. His speed of flight increased significantly as he drew closer to the silver dot. He could see it now; Lumina was there, glowing in complete silver, just like when she had used the artifact.
But she was unconscious, hundreds... no, almost thousands of void abominations were surrounding her. The lingering silver light barely managed to keep them away. Some of the stronger ones even tried to get close forcefully. One of the powerful abominations was almost upon her. Lucien shouted in desperation, "Nooooooooooo....."
His dragon bloodline stirred violently, as all the power inside of him converged on his throat, driven by pure instinct, a golden ray of powerful light shot out from his mouth, and a mighty dragon roar resounded throughout more than a kilometer within the false void.
"GROOOAAARRHHHHHHHMMM!!!"
The heaven-shaking roar of the Golden Dragon was truly mighty, especially against the creatures of the void, as the golden ray of light disintegrated the thousands of void abominations circling Lumina in an instant. But strangely, it did not harm Lumina in the slightest. Even the sound of that roar was extremely lethal to all the surrounding void abominations that were following Lucien.
They all halted in their tracks, howling in pain and screeching in a maddening frequency of sound that no living being of the material universe could comprehend. In fact, it was an utterly revolting sound in Lucien’s ears. His eyes looked complete like a dragon at the moment, but the look in them conveyed such desperation, which was unbecoming of the bloodline holder of the most powerful dragon.
He gently landed right beside Lumina; his partial dragon transformation had become much more prevalent. Lucien hurriedly picked up his little sister, who seemed to be mostly alright. But she wasn’t waking up, despite his many attempts to rouse her. With no choice, he began to inject his most potent dragon aura inside of her. The dim silver shine of his sister’s face began to glow more brightly in response to that gesture.
The moment she opened her eyes, she saw Lucien’s face; his dragon eyes looked daunting, and the partial transformation had made him look like a beast infused with human qualities. Lumina backed away unconsciously in fear, not understanding if what she was seeing was real or not. Lucien dismissed his transformation immediately and hugged his little sister, tears falling from his face, "THANK THE HEAVENS YOU’RE OKAY, YOU’RE OKAY. YOU’RE OKAY...."
Lumina barely managed to calm her brother down, though the monster-like form of Lucien took her by a fearful shock for a moment. She recollected herself quickly and instinctively knew that it was her brother indeed. Lucien hurriedly explained,
"This is the false void you’ve always heard me talk about. You’re consciousness was dragged here as the aftereffect of using that .....damn thing. We need to get out of here now....."
He urged, the urgency in his voice quite clear for Lumina to understand the severity of the situation.