The Path to Ascension (6)
Slicing through a dragon's scales was no easy feat, even with the Demon King's blade in hand. I wrestled with the scales for a long while before I finally managed to cut away a portion of Orgmar's hide.
The dragon's heart was enormous. I'd assumed it would be big—it was the organ pumping blood through that massive body—but I never expected it to be larger than I was.
The great organ lay wrapped in white membrane, cold and steadily cooling.
Deep within the thick heart muscle, I found a mana core the size of my own head. Glowing red like Ruby, the source of mana was still radiating a staggering amount of power despite the dragon being dead.
However I looked at it, the idea of consuming all of this alone was absurd. It was far more power than I had anticipated.
One careless misstep and the overflow would come, leaving me a broken husk of a man. And there was no one around who could fix me if it did.
So I split the mana core in two. I would take half for myself, and the other half could go to someone—or serve as material for a staff.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
Zaktar asked.
"I did."
"Then come and help me."
Zaktar jerked his chin toward the fortress gate. Roughly twenty lizardmen were filing out of the gate and approaching us.
"It is King Ksilak. He seems to have words for me."
"I doubt they'll be pleasant ones."
"Perhaps not."
Zaktar's men moved to bar King Ksilak's path. The atmosphere was far from ordinary. The battle was over, but no peace had been declared.
"Let him through."
Zaktar ordered his men to allow Ksilak to pass.
King Ksilak was a lizardman with white scales—a coloring found in no other of his kind.
He wore a crown studded with gems, and in his hand he clutched a great staff set with a mana core. Draped over his body was a coat made of animal fur.
"Captain of the Royal Guard."
Ksilak called to Zaktar in a hoarse voice. A flicker of inner conflict crossed Zaktar's eyes.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Even after everything that had happened, he still honored his duty as a subject.
"How in the world did it come to this?"
Ksilak rebuked Zaktar, his body trembling.
"For two hundred years, this kingdom has known peace. No tribe of the underworld dared covet what was ours, protected as we were by Lord Orgmar's blessing. And now look at this. You have slain the kingdom's guardian deity... Who will protect us now?"
"That creature was no guardian. It was a parasite."
Zaktar spoke in a low voice.
"How many children had to be sacrificed to sate that old lizard's appetite? How many more sacrifices would have followed?"
"And did we not purchase peace with those sacrifices? Our ancestors were defeated by the demonkin and fled to the underworld. Compared to what they paid back then, the offerings we gave Lord Orgmar were nothing."
"Those 'nothing' offerings included your children and mine!"
Zaktar roared.
"Which is exactly why you should have endured it!"
Ksilak raised his voice in turn.
"Look at the state of us now. How ridiculous do we look, you and I? If you had only kept still... if only you had, then those children's sacrifice would have meant something. But now it means nothing at all. Now, truly... doesn't it amount to nothing more than the dragon devouring them after all?"
Even as he spoke, Ksilak seemed to age before my eyes. He finished his words as though muttering to himself, then pulled the crown from his head and let it fall to the ground.
It clattered and rolled...
The crown spun noisily across the stone floor.
"It's yours."
"Your Majesty, don't do this."
Zaktar snapped at him.
"You think I wanted to be king? All I ever wanted was to kill that vile lizard. My wish has been granted, so I have nothing left to hope for. Charge me with treason if you like—do whatever you please."
"You didn't kill only Orgmar."
Ksilak said.
"...You killed my era as well."
Leaving the crown where it had fallen, Ksilak turned his back and walked away. Zaktar stood rooted in place, watching him go. A long while later, he picked up the crown—but he did not put it on.
"Put on the crown, Zaktar. You've earned it."
I urged him on. And I meant it.
Zaktar had handed his own son over to the dragon on the grounds that he could not demand sacrifice from his people while sparing his own blood. How many vassals under any duke's domain could honestly claim the same?
Besides, if the man who hammered the back of a forty-meter dragon's skull with a war mace had no right to be king, then who possibly could?
"Srudal, let me say this again—I didn't do any of this to—"
"Didn't you hear what King Ksilak said? Who's going to protect you now?"
"..."
"The answer is nobody. You have to protect yourselves. If you want peace, you need a strong leader."
'You people,' is it? Drawing a line between us, are you?
Zaktar spoke bitterly.
"I expected as much. Our shamans learned their craft from Orgmar. All they can manage are a handful of fire-type spells. But you—the variety of magic you command is staggering. Not to mention that absurd power of yours..."
Zaktar's yellow-green eyes bored into me.
"You were never one of our kingdom's people to begin with, were you? If someone like you existed among us, there's no way I wouldn't have known."
"Sharp as ever. I'm not one of your kingdom's people."
I admitted it readily.
"...And I'm not a lizardman, either."
It seemed the time had come to reveal myself. I snapped my fingers and withdrew the transformation spell. Zaktar did not so much as flinch at my changed appearance. Instead, he nodded as though everything finally made sense.
"So that's how it was."
"You seem to have suspected."
"I knew nothing at all. But a few days ago, when you asked me what I thought of humankind, I found the question terribly out of the blue. Now, at last, the pieces fit."
"Disappointed that I'm human?"
"Quite the opposite. I was thinking that with someone like you around, we could hardly afford to look down on humankind. We've shut ourselves away in the underworld for far too long. Perhaps this whole affair will prove the chance we needed to tear down our dusty old prejudices."
Zaktar spoke with refreshing candor. As I listened to him, my resolve hardened. Yes—the crown belonged on this man's head.
I returned to the stronghold village with just one day left before my engagement ceremony. Because I'd come back early, I missed seeing Zaktar crowned king.
But it couldn't be helped—this was no time to be crashing someone else's party. It was time to prepare for my own.
The moment I returned to the village, I went straight to Uncle Ruka.
As always, he was in his workshop teaching his apprentices. Every one of them was a handpicked Awakened with a crafting-type ability, but art alone didn't carry a smith—craftsmanship is forged through effort, a fact you could verify with a single glance at my uncle's forearms.
"Uncle."
"Iden!"
Uncle Ruka's eyes went wide.
"They said you were scouting the lizardmen's fortress. You made it back safe."
"Yes, hale and hearty, as you can see."
We shared a brief embrace.
"How were things up top? Nothing went wrong, I hope?"
"Nothing on this end either. Mavel sent a threatening letter, but I dealt with it before it reached your hands. All the trials have been concluded, and I've signed off on the backlog of bills as well."
Uncle Ruka had served as acting lord in my absence. As head of the faction that backed me and the elder of the household, he was a man I could trust with the work.
"By the way, there was a rather peculiar prisoner locked up in the south tower. I went to look into an urgent petition, and there she was..."
My uncle cleared his throat once.
"Quite the refined lady."
"...A lady?"
"Indeed. A very cultured and cooperative young woman. She seemed capable, too—might not be a bad idea to put her to work for us."
The lady my uncle mentioned could only be the witch Isolde, King Shandor's concubine. Wrapping my uncle around her finger in the space of a moment—she really was a woman you could never let your guard down around.
"I'm still watching to see if she can be trusted. In the meantime, would you take a look at this?"
I pulled the staff from Sanpedla's bag and showed it to my uncle.
"What is it?"
"That's what I'd like to know. I figured you might recognize it."
My uncle took the staff and examined it carefully.
"A vessel for a bound spirit. The shaft is Oradium. But it doesn't look like the two were simply slapped together. The craftsmanship patterns are remarkably intricate."
My uncle turned his head to look at me.
"Will you entrust this to me? It seems worth studying."
"That was exactly what I came to ask."
There was only one dragon. Whatever he intended to make from its remains, he would need to proceed with the utmost care.
My uncle tucked the staff away. I left the workshop and, for the first time in a while, climbed up to the surface. It happened to be morning—and the sunlight pouring down felt impossibly unfamiliar.
Back at the ducal residence, Lily unleashed a whole torrent of scolding at me. Engagement ceremony or not, how could the man getting married tomorrow run off all over the place without a word of notice?
It wasn't as though I hadn't sent word. Srudal and I had exchanged messages through our communication charms—but I'd lacked the foresight to pass the news along to Uld. The concept of having someone waiting for me apparently hadn't quite sunk into my head yet.
The moment I sat down at my desk, I summoned Commander Varga.
"Do not let a single soul into this building until tomorrow."
"As you command."
Varga saluted and left the office. Once I was alone in the room, I let out the breath I'd been holding. My breath was thick with frost. A thin layer of rime had formed on the teacup in my hand.
This had been my state ever since I felled Orgmar.
Presumably because I'd burned through far too much of my Daoist arts.
My prognosis felt worse than when I'd fought the flame giant. Age was probably catching up with me—another few years older now. As things stood, I was liable to freeze to death before I ever made it to the ceremony.
I drew the halved magma dragon's core from Sanpedla's bag, walked to the center of the room, and settled into a cross-legged position.
A long exhale.
Facing the dragon had felt easier than this.
A martial artist is at his most vulnerable when he attempts to ascend to a higher realm. If anyone so much as brushed a finger against him at that moment, his qi channels would convulse and qi deviation could take hold.
In my past life, I never had to worry about qi deviation. My master had stood at my side as my guardian throughout.
But if you asked whether anyone in this life could be entrusted with my life the way I trusted my master—honestly, I couldn't say.
The two people I trusted most, Thalia and Vitten, were away on the battlefield, which left me no choice but to rely on Varga.
Conversely, from Chris's or Mavel's perspective, this was the perfect opportunity. They could kill me without exerting themselves in the slightest.
...Here we go.
I entered the state of Sammae Jinhwa and absorbed the magma dragon's core in a single breath. A searing heat spread through every organ in my body. A colossal energy roiled in my dantian like a raging torrent.
Would I part the waves and rise to an uncharted realm—or run aground, like the countless immortals who could only die as humans? It all came down to my will.