Dragon's Blood
Dragon's Blood
The sticky sensation underfoot jolted Aslan awake. It clung to the soles of his boots—the death rattle of what had once been souls, a heap of corpses. Piled high, they swirled at his feet and rose in a ghostly wail.
In the gap between them, he crushed another spirit beneath his heel. It subsided without a sound. Another death.
The death he had sown lay scattered across the floor. Aslan wiped a smear of blackish spirit from his cheek, his face twisting with irritation.
He had been fighting every soul that rushed at him in this place.
The souls were an attack by the Evil Gods themselves—an annual rite performed by those gods who had failed to lure him to their side. It was their assault, and only when he saw them charging did he realize he had been unconscious.
He couldn't tell how long it had been, or when it started. One thing he was certain of.
He was still alive.
But that was the only comfort. A soul came diving at him, falling from the sky like a comet given form. Seeing the long tail of lingering regret trailing after it, Aslan twisted sideways and kicked the floor with his whole body.
A wet splash of souls burst upward as his leg carved an arc nearly the full circle of the moon. The spirit's head crumpled on impact, and as he landed, Aslan crushed it beneath his foot. The dry crunch of a shattered watermelon echoed phantom-like through his senses, and another soul scattered into the pool.
This was one reason Aslan hated sleeping.
The Evil Gods didn't stop at simple seduction.
When their temptations failed, they hungered to seize his soul by force, and that hunger took the form of shoddy recyclables—the souls of dead priests—hurled at him in waves. At least this space was his own dream. He felt neither exhaustion nor injury; he could literally kick, hammer, and slaughter spirits for eternity.
By the time he had smashed through the onslaught, the remains had pooled like a black reservoir across the floor.
Aslan crushed one more soul, then let his irritation surface as he surveyed his surroundings.
In Geladrion, dreams were never mere phantoms woven by the brain. The soul opened during sleep, becoming receptive to other souls. It made sense, considering how even in the game the Ancient Gods had used dreams to contact the "protagonist."
What didn't make sense was the obsessive fixation the Evil Gods had on Aslan himself.
The very landscape of this dream proved it.
A dream in Geladrion should have unfolded beneath a vast canopy of stars. Aslan's dream was always a starless, fathomless abyss.
He knew exactly why. He had been scanning the void for a long moment when he bellowed at it.
"How long are you going to stand there watching?"
No one answered, but the staring presence grew heavier.
"Are you afraid you'll end up like the Spider? Do you think you can grab me without letting go of what's already in your hand?"
Aslan flung his arms wide and shouted at the sky.
"I am right here! Come down and face me, or all of you get the hell out!"
His voice bled fury. Twelve years of pent-up bitterness poured into words, and the whole universe shuddered.
The space around him trembled violently. Aslan scowled up at the sky, and the sky tore open.
Through the rent, innumerable gazes peered down.
Eyes beyond counting—skin, feelers, legs, sensors, and what passed for sensory organs in things that barely had names.
The countless stares of the Evil Gods fixed on Aslan and flared, one after another.
Their flickering wasn't the death of stars; it was the darkness that swallows stars whole.
Feeling those gazes burn like the screams of dying suns, Aslan gave a snort.
The dream's landscape crumbled slowly around him. The stares grew distant, and Aslan muttered.
"Cowards."
And then he woke.
The first thing he felt was sunlight. Pure, bright sunlight slipping through his eyelids and prickling his retinas. Aslan opened his eyes, blinking at a ceiling that was unfamiliar but still carried a trace of the familiar.
He rolled his eyes to assess the situation.
What he saw were lines of text.
[LEVEL UP]
[Main Quest in Progress]
[Travel to the City of Mages and Have the Dream Interpreted]
The level up was welcome. The quest was not.
Aslan sighed and laid his forearm over his eyes.
Just as I thought. The quest order's messed up. How many stages did I skip...? This is going to get annoying.
Still, a level up was good. He instinctively stretched out his left arm—and flinched.
Why is this here?
Baffled, he blinked. Before he could process it, a shrill, joyful cry rang out beside him.
"Aslan...!"
A woman's voice. A voice Aslan knew intimately. In spite of himself, his eyes flew wide and he turned.
Ereta was there.
The same Ereta who had confessed to him countless times.
The same woman. She covered her mouth with both hands, staring at him.
The thousand confessions surfaced in his head, and Aslan's poise faltered. He tried to rise and speak, but Ereta flung herself onto him before he could.
A soft, full weight pressed against his chest, and through the thin cloth he felt the rough hammering of her heartbeat. Wearing nothing but a sheer shift, Ereta pulled him tight into a fierce embrace, cheek to cheek.
The heat of her skin against his, the tender yet substantial press of her breasts against his chest. Aslan froze between sensations for a moment.
Those thousand confessions had all happened in precognition. They had never actually taken place. So while Aslan might feel relief and a touch of embarrassment toward Ereta, her reaction was something else entirely.
The way she acted, it was as if he'd come back from the dead.
Aslan blinked. A strange feeling crept up on him, and he looked at his left arm.
If his memory was right, his left arm had been cleanly severed.
Even worse, when he had reversed his grip on Purity and stabbed it into himself at the end, he had already lost consciousness. If Eternal Dominion were a game with "level-up recovery," he might understand the situation. But the game had no such system.
In other words, his current condition was blatantly abnormal.
His brain should have melted. His left arm should have been gone.
But his body was completely intact.
Given that he was here, he must have won even after his consciousness had blinked out in that final moment. This wasn't a dying hallucination, either—the Evil Gods had been in his dream, so this was reality.
Considering all that, Aslan could not comprehend his physical state.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Aslan... I'm sorry..."
While patting the sobbing, apologizing Ereta on the back, Aslan tried to piece things together. Finally, he gave up and opened his status window.
Maybe checking the completed quests would give him a clue.
What caught his eye when he opened the window was not what he expected.
[Aslan]
[Strength 2] [Agility ■] [Health 2]
[Magic Power 7] [Fighting Spirit 7] [Luck 10]
Aslan stared at the number 2 displayed on his Health stat—the stat that should have still shown a black box—and frowned.
Why is this at 2 points? How?
He hadn't acquired any new wild magic. And if he had increased it by allocating points the way Angie had done, his fingers would have triggered a response from the status window when they brushed past Health, Strength, or Agility. They didn't.
Aslan frowned in thought, and Ereta rubbed her cheek against his. Her sweet feminine scent teased his nose, but he deliberately ignored it and kept thinking.
The answer came quickly. Ereta's reaction was exactly what she'd give someone who had truly come back from the dead.
No way, Aslan thought, and spoke to her.
"Ereta, hold on..."
"I'm sorry..."
"No, it's just..."
The arms wrapped around him held considerable strength. The Valor of the Flying Bird had boosted her physique, and she clung tightly, refusing to let go. Consequently, her breasts molded against his chest with a slightly altered shape.
"Ereta, just a moment. Can you let go for a moment? I need to..."
"No! I'll never let go again..."
Can't even ask a question. Aslan kept patting her back. If he really had almost died, her reaction was understandable. Hadn't he pushed his own mind past its limits because Ereta had seemed about to die? Telling someone else not to do what he himself would do didn't sit right with his nature. Aslan hesitated for a moment, then sighed.
He had no choice but to be firm.
Reaching up, he cupped Ereta's cheeks and gently pulled her away. Only then did she seem to regain her senses, flinching slightly.
With the embrace broken, Aslan met Ereta's eyes. Holding her small face at a distance where their foreheads nearly touched, he looked at her.
"Ah..."
She couldn't look away. Held in his gaze, Ereta's ears flushed crimson—whether from embarrassment or something else, it was hard to tell.
Her initial agitation at seeing Aslan, who had been unconscious for so long, finally awake, had now heated into a different kind of excitement.
Two people, eyes locked. Their lips were close. A premonition whispered that something wonderful was about to happen, and Ereta closed her eyes. Aslan looked at her quietly, then spoke.
"Ereta."
"Y-yes."
She opened her eyes. Those pink irises were vivid with excitement and overwhelming emotion. Seeing that, Aslan smiled a wry, apologetic smile. He felt a little guilty for what he was about to destroy.
"Did I... by any chance... drink Dragon's Blood?"
Ereta blinked at the question. A tiny flicker of disappointment passed through her eyes before she answered.
"Yes..."
The simple confirmation made Aslan groan.
His face crumpled into deep consternation. He let go of her cheeks and sank back onto the bed, pressing his fingers to his brow. Ereta watched him, looking as though she had committed a crime.
"I... drank it?"
Had she done something wrong? Ereta nervously searched his face and nodded.
"Yes."
Aslan exhaled a heavy sigh.
"I'm going to lose my mind..."
He barely bit back a curse and clutched his pounding head. Every word he muttered was in Korean, so Ereta couldn't understand a syllable. It was painfully clear something was wrong, and she watched him warily, as if she had sinned.
Dragon's Blood.
A national treasure of Belus Alpen. One of a kind.
Had it only been that, he wouldn't have cared. What made Aslan groan now was its effect.
Dragon's Blood was a miraculous elixir capable of saving even someone on the brink of death—and it doubled the drinker's Health stat. A Health of 10 became 20.
Aslan had always intended to obtain it, but he had never planned to use it on himself. He wanted to give it to Angie, granting her a level of regeneration comparable to Ereta's when she had been a high priestess. That would have dramatically boosted her combat ability.
That plan's gone.
He could understand why they'd done it. Given the state he'd been in before losing consciousness, feeding it to him had been the correct decision. Without it, his wounds would have killed him.
The problem was, he still thought it was a waste. Anyone who'd first encountered Geladrion as a game would. A man with a Health stat of just 1 drinking it turned it into a measly 2.
Of course, there was the perk that came with it. That perk would be useful to Aslan, but it still felt like throwing away the primary effect. He couldn't help but think of it as a loss. Aslan sighed, let his hand fall from his brow, and slumped his shoulders.
Ereta hesitated, then asked, "Aslan... are you all right? Are you uncomfortable or in pain? Should I... call someone?"
"No, no... I'm fine."
Once swallowed, it was done. No point dwelling. He'd wring the maximum out of what he had. The Health of 2 did mean he no longer needed to reinforce his legs when he used Thunder Call—a genuine plus. And the perk that came with Dragon's Blood, Dragon Blood (Effect), was fairly solid: high fire resistance and a one-time fatal-wound prevention effect. If he had it, he'd use it. Dwelling on the past wasn't his way.
Aslan turned back to his status window and distributed his points. He put 2 into Agility and 1 into Strength for Angie, and poured all of his own points into Magic Power. As he did, a few lines of text and a handful of Grims materialized.
[Magic Power 10 Achieved]
[Perk 'Unique Magic' Generated]
[Generating Unique Magic based on acquired magic systems and highest magic skill]
[Select Unique Magic]
Alongside the messages, the Unique Magic choices appeared. Attainable only when Magic Power reached 10, these were singular spells that only a single player could acquire. They were so powerful and distinctive that some said a mage or spellblade build didn't truly begin until this choice was made.
Aslan studied the list, deliberating—until he felt a moist, warm gaze on him and turned his head.
Ereta.
She was watching him. Their eyes met, and she shyly lowered her pink gaze, then lifted it again to meet his. The glistening, fervent light in those eyes was layered with a dozen tangled emotions. Aslan rubbed his mouth and thought of the Ereta he had known in his precognition.
He couldn't count the exact number of confessions, but there had been thousands. That wasn't a number you could simply brush off.
Aslan deliberated. In the end, the dying voice he'd heard still rang faintly in his ears. He made up his mind and gestured to her.
"Come here."
He meant it simply enough. Ereta flinched.
"A-are you going to hit me? Or..."
She looked so uneasy, hesitating to approach. Aslan tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. Finally, she gave in and crept closer, perching on the edge of the bed and shutting her eyes tight. She was still a little too far.
Aslan looked at her and said, "Closer."
Ereta gave a small shiver, equal parts hope and worry. Aslan couldn't quite read her. At last, she gave up and drew nearer. Aslan watched her and let out a quiet laugh. Then he reached out.
He wrapped an arm around her back, pulled her in, and held her.
"Ah."
Her voice, right against his ear. Unlike her voice in the precognitive visions, this one was wet with emotion. Aslan drew her head down to rest against his chest and gently stroked the white hair that caught at the corner of his eye, then smoothed the back of her head.
Ereta's body trembled with a kind of quivering elation. Aslan spoke.
"I know exactly how you feel."
The trembling stopped. She stiffened.
"But... for now, let me give you just this."
Does he really know? Ereta tried to lift her head, but Aslan's soft voice stopped her. No, it wasn't just his voice.
"I need time too. I have my own circumstances."
Usually Ereta was the one who embraced him first. This time, Aslan had been the one to hold her. The fact sent her heart pounding so fiercely that she couldn't form a thought. She struggled to quiet the thunder in her chest, breathing carefully—though it came out more like panting.
"You can understand that, can't you?"
When he released her, Ereta stared at him with a face dyed bright red, then hid her face behind her hands.
"Y-yeh..."
"Thank you."
Aslan's gentle smile was more than she could bear to look at. She only squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to breathe, sure her heart would leap out of her chest.
Aslan listened to Ereta trying to steady her breathing and turned his head. From a distance, he could hear the sound of running footsteps.
He let out a quiet breath and said, "Looks like they're here right on time."
To the ears of the Master of Combat, the footsteps were those of a girl with a very impatient temper and an immense reliance on Aslan.