[Happy reading! Below is an artwork I aggressively peer-pressured my sister into making. As for who it is, y’all can guess. Not really a spoiler since she’s showing up next chapter anyway.]
The swirling darkness almost felt alive as we descended deeper into the Abyss. It twisted and churned around us in ways I really didn't appreciate, because there were only so many times reality could start looking hungry before it became a personal problem.
Dorrusk flew beside me without questioning the fresh set of draconic wings I had sprouted from my back. At this point, I was reasonably certain he knew what I was. How he figured it out, or when, I had absolutely no idea. I had been careful. Extremely careful. I was pretty sure I hadn't gone full dragon anywhere during this trial.
But Dorrusk's sudden shift in behaviour and the almost uncomfortable reverence rolling off him did not leave many explanations. The simplest answer was that he knew I was a dragon.
Then again, considering what I knew about their species and every other species in this trial, maybe dragons naturally carried some instinctive weight to them. These creatures had been made by a dragon. Maybe some buried instinct made them revere us automatically.
Maybe.
The problem was that every single thing I had just thought of was speculation stacked on top of more speculation, and I had to shove the entire pile aside when a dark screeching mass suddenly locked onto our descending forms.
A High Wraith.
Oh, I remembered these bastards.
They might have been dangerous once. Back when I fought them while completely unprepared, they had actually managed to be annoying. Right now though? I did not think anything below Gold Core could make me sweat even a little.
Dorrusk let out a threatening growl toward the incoming monster.
"I'll dispatch this filthy beast, ma—"
Something massive and foggy shot past us at absurd speed before he could finish. His last words vanished into the air.
The wraith vanished too.
To lesser eyes it might have happened too quickly to even process, but I saw all of it.
I looked upward toward Curious descending alongside us. She was staring at the Ice Key with an expression that somehow managed to be intensely analytical and deeply concerning at the same time.
"The Ice Phantom's power certainly exceeds earlier estimates."
That foggy blur had been the Ice Leviathan's Apparition. I recognized it immediately. I had seen Alexei ride it before, had seen it coil protectively around him while he channeled the Ice Key's power.
Now Curious held that same key.
"Hmm. I suppose I understand why this aspect was underutilized. While the Ice Phantom possesses a degree of autonomy, its independent function is lacking. It allows deeper control, but common mortals and their lesser cognitive abilities make proper utilization inefficient. Our elevated Intelligence compensates for that significantly."
Hmm. Sure. Whatever you say.
More shapes emerged from the darkness as they sensed us pushing deeper into their territory, but Curious barely acknowledged them. She kept muttering observations to herself, collecting information.
None of the wraiths got close. One moment there was nothing, the next there was a streak of blue, then there were dead wraiths.
Dorrusk did not even realize what had hit them before they were already gone.
I saw his eyes widen slightly.
He caught me looking, and those big slitted eyes somehow widened even further with reverence.
Ugh.
I really did not like that. Not even a little.
Still, Curious was doing good work, so I let her continue until her timer finally ran out. The moment it did, I dismissed her and immediately felt a rush of knowledge flood into my mind. Everything she had learned transferred over seamlessly, settling into place like information I had always known.
I grinned.
That was easily one of the best parts about having clones. Anything they learned, discovered, or figured out without me instantly transferred back once their timer ended. Honestly, it made me weirdly excited about all the spells I had unlocked from Xaleth's spellbook.
Before figuring this out, I had been learning everything the hard way.
By myself. Like an idiot.
Worse, I had done it for a long time before realizing my clones could bypass the problem entirely. I felt genuinely stupid afterward for not abusing the feature sooner.
Now though, whatever nightmare nonsense that spellbook threw at me, I was certain I could master it far faster than before.
It was not long before we finished descending and my feet touched solid ground.
The Abyss felt distinct enough from the Shadow Dimension that I could tell the difference immediately, but the similarities were close enough to make the comparison uncomfortable.
That was part of why this place fascinated me.
I knew this was not the real Abyss. I doubted anyone could spend meaningful time in the actual place and remain sane afterward.
I had only encountered something abyssal once before.
That abyssal emissary during Belle's supplication ritual. That thing had been horrifying.
Even now the memory still sat somewhere unpleasant in the back of my head.
The creatures lurking around us here were nothing like that. I could see shapes moving through the darkness around us, but they mostly consisted of undead and wraith variants. Dangerous enough in numbers, sure. I could easily see how someone overwhelmed by a swarm would die very quickly.
But compared to actual abyssal creatures, they were not even remotely close.
I resummoned Curious.
She immediately got back to work.
Blue flashes tore through the fog as she stress-tested her speed, pushing herself harder and harder. Monsters that had initially started swarming us suddenly shifted priorities toward surviving the next five seconds.
They fled from pure primal instinct.
Curious eventually requested dismissal after running herself dry on mana. The Key was absurdly powerful, but it also chewed through resources aggressively enough to empty even my ridiculous mana reserves.
One strange contradiction with my clones was that while summoning them only cost a hundred mana, each one appeared with a completely full mana pool of their own.
At any given moment, I was effectively operating with four times my normal reserves.
Which was also exactly why clone detonations had a tendency to become catastrophically everyone's-problem-at-once levels of disastrous.
By dismissing Curious after she had completely emptied her mana reserves, I could immediately resummon her with a full tank again.
It was completely ridiculous.
I recalled what Markus had written down on that paper. Looking at it now, I could absolutely understand why this thing cost so much mana to use efficiently.
Name: Fogbound Frost Type: KeyRank: Gold IAffinity: Ice
Description:A trophy carved from conquest. Forged from the remains of the Ice Leviathan after its fall. The creature's soul still lingers within, unwilling to surrender, preserved in eternal stillness deep beneath layers of frozen divinity.
Attributes:
[Frozen Stasis]Ice created by the Key naturally resists movement and change. Targets hit with such frost experience slowed movement, delayed mana flow, and reduced recovery speed.
[Leviathan's Stillwater]Mana expenditure for Ice abilities is drastically reduced. Constructs and summoned frost persist longer before breaking apart.
[Frozen Interval]Briefly suspends momentum within a small area. Projectiles slow. Falling debris lingers unnaturally. Wounds bleed slower. The stronger the target, the weaker the effect.
[Phantom of the Fog]Summon a small Ice Phantom resembling the Ice Leviathan.
The phantom lacks true intelligence but inherits predatory instincts from the original creature.
Abilities scale with mana supplied.
The phantom naturally projects cold capable of freezing terrain and restricting movement.
[Permafrost Dominion]Continuous combat slowly transforms surrounding terrain into frozen domain territory.
Ice generated within this area becomes harder to destroy.
Enemies remaining inside for prolonged periods accumulate layers of irresistible Frostbite.
[Conquest of Stillness]The soul fragment within recognizes strength.
Those weaker than the wielder experience increased pressure, mana expenditure and fear when facing the Key directly.
[Suspended Ruin]Wounds inflicted through Key-generated ice preserve damage unnaturally.
Healing magic struggles to restore frozen injuries until lingering stasis energy dissipates.
[Dreamtide Interment]
Ice is absolute stillness; the Dream Sea is pure flow. The wielder can release a pulse of absolute zero through the surrounding Dream Sea, flash-freezing its surface and encasing any lurking entity, dream-constructs, trespassing minds, or bound spirits, mid-movement in crystalline ice, unable to act as long as the user has mana. The more attuned the entity is to Water, the more completely it's seized.
[Fractured Sovereignty]
[Sealed]
— unlock condition: Key must be made whole —
Powerful indeed. The last few entries caught my attention more than anything else. The second-to-last one made sense considering this key was a direct counter to the Water Leviathan. Also, it apparently wasn't whole yet. I was reasonably certain I knew what whole meant too. It was talking about the rest of the Keys.
Curiouser and curiouser, but not exactly relevant right now.
My eyes drifted back toward Curious, who was very enthusiastically demonstrating what the Key could actually do. It only cost me a hundred mana points and, in exchange, I got a fully functional clone with, uh... wait. How much mana did I even have right now?
Hmm.
I had been constantly devouring monsters and their cores ever since stepping into this trial. Between me and my clones exploding things into unfortunate educational examples, I had probably hunted close to a thousand already. At first my targets had been the fog dwellers. Now it was the Abyss dwellers.
I was starting to love this place.
No matter where I went, there was food waiting for me.
The Quantum Explosions reduced most things down to nothingness, but monster cores were fundamentally stubborn little things. They survived. Which meant my clones could sweep through afterward and shovel them down while I cycled everything as efficiently as possible.
I knew there was supposed to be a limit to how many cores I could consume during each evolution.
For some reason, I still hadn't found it.
Which was great news for me.
More cores meant more maximum mana. Soon I'd have enough that running out wouldn't even be something worth thinking about anymore. And evolution was only going to push that even further.
For now though, I wasn't about to let Curious have all the fun.
My tongue lolled out as I shattered the ground beneath me and lunged forward.
Dorrusk's eyes widened when I finally dropped the act.
Well, I didn't particularly care anymore whether he knew or not.
My glorious golden-scaled dragon form unfolded into the open without restraint, displayed proudly for the world to witness and, preferably, fear appropriately.
Curious glanced at me, shrugged, and shifted forms to match.
I summoned Terrorist and Lazy.
Four golden dragons stood side by side for one brief moment before we charged the distant fleeing shapes like actual predators.
Though Lazy required some motivation.
The threat of three-on-one violence worked.
Lazy became motivated.
The wraiths fled.
"STOP RIGHT THERE, FOOD!"
They did not stop.
That was fine.
That was better, actually.
***
I might have gotten a little carried away earlier, though "a little" is arguably doing some very heavy lifting in that sentence.
It had been a while since I last went all out hunting, and I had been hungry, and taking the edge off every now and then is simply good sense.
I absentmindedly chewed on a strip of wraith flesh. Mmyes, fresh and smoky, exactly how I liked it, while Dorrusk knelt in the dirt beneath me, refusing to look up.
"You've known for longer that I am a Dragon," I said, since I might as well ask while I enjoyed my snack. "Was that why your behavior changed toward me?"
"When we made that contract, Master." His voice grew increasingly animated despite his continued refusal to lift his head. "The way your blood reacted to the Sacred Energy within me, the way they rushed together and mingled, I knew in that moment you couldn't be a Vrathi. Only those carrying Divine Dragon lineage would have Sacred Energy react that way toward them. I apologize for hiding this from you, Master."
He lowered himself even further into the dirt, somehow finding more floor to grovel at.
"PUNISH ME!"
I stopped chewing and looked at him slowly, because even the way he said punish me sounded concerningly enthusiastic.
"Shut up. And look at me."
"No, no, how could I—"
I smacked him with a tentacle.
"I order you to look up. This is going to become increasingly annoying if you keep acting like this." I sighed and resumed chewing. "Just act how you acted before. And before you say anything, yes, that's an order. I don't like this whole servant thing. I... well. I believe in making friends."
I grinned at him.
It still took a concerning amount of command abuse and several increasingly specific instructions to get him to relax and actually act like himself again, but eventually I succeeded.
Part of me briefly considered hiding my dragon form if all Kovraths were going to react this way, since there were obvious advantages to having people worship the ground beneath my claws. But the tradeoff felt wrong somewhere I couldn't articulate, and besides, Dorrusk's reaction was probably an outlier.
He knew because of the contract, when my blood had mingled with his, and he had seen firsthand how divinity reacted to me up close, which was considerably harder to dismiss than simply spotting a very large golden dragon and deciding to have feelings about it. What Dorrusk had was lot harder to dismiss than visual proof.
I filed it away for later and kept moving, not really hunting so much as accepting whatever threw itself at us as the occasional light refreshment.
I shared some with Dorrusk, who looked up at me with an expression so alarmingly grateful that I braced for immediate relapse, but he just accepted it like a normal person.
Er.
Normal Kovrath.
Soon enough we got close enough for the next problem to rear its ugly head. Getting into the Fold. The homeland of the Kovraths.
We reached the edge of a chasm buried deep within the Abyss, and I found myself staring down into it wondering just how absurdly deep this thing actually went.
"The entrance is closed, as expected..." Dorrusk said, pressing a claw against something invisible hanging in front of us. My eyes couldn't see it. My senses couldn't feel it. Yet somehow, it was there.
Curious stepped forward first, but her claw passed straight through whatever Dorrusk was touching. I tried too and felt absolutely nothing. Then we phased at the same time, thinking the exact same thing, and suddenly something solid pushed back against my claws.
There really was something hidden inside this chasm.
The shadow dimension version of this place looked nearly identical to the outside one. Which made sense considering how heavily overlapped everything here seemed to be.
I narrowed my eyes at the invisible wall in front of me. I was touching something. I knew I was touching something. Yet every sense I had, including my own eyes, kept insisting there was absolutely nothing there.
Hmm. I tried a few more times. Punch. Claw. Punch again. Nothing.
"Is there an alternate way in?" I asked Dorrusk after stepping back out of the Shadow Dimension. The world stayed the same this time.
Dorrusk shook his head.
"They must have sealed it as a safety precaution against the Depth Dwellers, Master. We may need to wait for someone to open it from within. Perhaps someone will come out eventually. If that happens, I can guarantee safe passage. They will certainly recognize me." He lowered his head slightly. "But yes, as it stands, there is only a single entrance into the Fold. And if another exists, then... someone of my stature may simply be unaware of it. I apologize for my uselessness and I DESERVE TO BE PUNISHE—"
I smacked him across the head before he could spiral.
My eyes drifted back toward the empty space.
"How strong is the lock on this Fold?"
The question caught him off guard.
"Quite powerful, Master. You would need enough force to pierce the scales of Sacred Leviathans to breach it—"
He stopped.
I watched the exact moment his brain caught up to his mouth.
"Oh no." Dorrusk stared at me. "Master, I know what you're thinking, but please reconsider—"
I ignored him and slowly grinned, baring my full set of dragon teeth.
I didn't have time to sit around waiting for fate to politely hand me opportunities.
Terrorist manifested beside me without needing a single explanation. She already knew the assignment. She looked at the chasm, looked at the invisible wall, looked at me, and her tail began swinging in slow, anticipatory arcs.
"Boom?"
"Hell yeah.”
Dorrusk made a sound I chose not to interpret.