TAKEN BY THE DRAGON KING

CHAPTER SIXTY

MIRANDA

The wind howled with a ferocity as I made my way through the woods, the landscape had slowly begun to change from the lush forests to a cold and a harsh rocky terrain, the elements themselves seem to be well against me, pretty hell bent on getting me farther and farther away from him.

The wind howled with a ferocity, but even with it’s harshness the voice of the entity seemingly stuck in my head yelled out even harsher in my head, it was a miracle that I managed to even move given the burden that weighed down on me.

I’d just made camp for the night and from the distance I could hear the faint howling of the wolves, for safety I cast another layer of protection around my tent, maybe such a huge one had been a mistake but it’d been deemed necessary along with two other guards who’d been quickly dispatched off by the teeming monsters in the woods of Valor.

It was all the same to me though, I could finally drop the glamour and travel freely across the woods, not to mention my powers were effective in dispatching of the monsters, honestly the journey was becoming all to tiring.

“Follow the order of things,” the old hag had said like it was the complete map to the mysterious person she’d claimed to help her, if only the sincere look in her eyes hadn’t made me believe her, but then again-

No, this wasn’t the plan, more like Chaos infiltrating the depths of her mind, a low hissing sort of laugh echoed in the vast void of her mind and immediately she knew she was right, it angered her, it was getting harder to stop the melding of her mind with the entity and even much harder for me to distinguish our separate thoughts.

“Get out of my head,” I hissed out loud.

“Our head, you mean,” he hissed with a crazy sort of laughter. “You feel it, you’re almost mine, mine.”

It was hard for me to sleep afterwards with the harsh laughter echoing off in the corners of my mind, I awoke shivering and pissed off trying my very possible best to move even as the cold wind blew and my stomach warbled with hunger, I should have packed more supplies who knew the damned journey would take so long.

I was on edge, magic depleted and I swore on whatever humanity that had not being eaten up that I wouldn’t devolve into using his powers but still whatever magic I had left I used animalistically, the terrain had changed once again as I moved into the region the damned bastard was last seen. The cold bit harshly into my skin despite the layers I’d summoned, my tapped out reservoir was focused solely on scaling the madness of the highlands and staying alive.

I should have made better preparations, should have prepared better and the evidence of my lack of better analysis of the situation appeared before me when a large Beowulf appeared in my path, large and foul smelling with two full rows of jagged teeth that was just as sharp and deadly as the mountain terrain, pure white fur covered it’s huge muscular frame, giving it a kind of blend in with the snow save for the piercing blue eyes that gave it away.

One Beowulf might have not been a problem, I’d had just about enough left ine to scare or wound it, but then it howled and from the corner of my eye I spotted two more appear from caves, and amidst the snowing, I spotted the dull shimmer of frozen bones it was clear, this was an ambush.

All four beasts growled in unison, venomous drool dripping from their slavering maw, hissing as it hit the snow evaporating it into steam. I summoned as much energy and induced as fear as I could, a fragment of my bloodlust should have sent the running but they stood menacingly to show how tapped out I was.

“Let me help,” Chaos whispered in my head and I couldn’t picture a gruesome face grinning. “Your magic is weak but I am strong let me help.”

I growled low, almost as hard as and ferocious as the animals around me and the attack began. The first one lunged and I sent back with a shower of ice shards, it’s body too dense it shook off the attack and reared up to attack again while the other three made a lunge for it, High grade magic burst forth from the tips of my fingers in succession, but like all animals they could sense the fear and weakness coming off me, even with one’s leg hanging limply they still kept coming and my spells kept getting weaker, my defense weaker, I was losing.

Blood alongside sweat trailed down from my forehead and heavy breaths fueled by exhaustion escaped me, I clutched my mangled hand tightly, deep claw marks with a side of teeth, bringing the lush red color of blood to light, I was going to die, I was going to die., Two of the wolves lay unmoving, but the others came with ferocity, their eyes trailed on my reddened flesh.

“Let me help,” his voice growled louder into my head. “Your foolishness has gone on long enough.”

“Scared,” I say panting. “I won’t let you win, fucking bastard, I’d rather-”

“Die,” Chaos finished for me musing. “I don’t have enough strength for permanence and this will be quite a drawback but-”

It’s hard to describe what happened next, I was suddenly immensely full almost the point of bursting my fingers trembled and tingled just like it felt when I’d stayed in a position too long and my arms were dead, suddenly I was drawn back into the recesses of my mind, it was a kind of harsh pain as my mind was forcefully detached from my body putting me in the position of an observer who still felt every bit of things the body felt.

“See how it feels to be in my shoes for awhile,” Chaos sneers

It’s a good and frustrating thing my mouth is gone, because a million curse words come to mind, I’m forced to watch as he lifts up my mangled hand, the pain tears through me, it’s a sort of maddening torture, something I cannot express, he knows and it delights him, instead of finishing them of in a single blow dealt with magic, he lets them come and then with pure brute strength he smashes my fist right into the heart of the first Beowulf, I do nothing but wallow in pain as my bone crunches audibly, the Beowulf squeals and whines and despite the pain there’s a sickening feeling of joy as my hand closes around it’s heart.

The last one, on seeing it’s partners dead, decides to make a run for it, I’m already elated at this point, I won, not by my power but enough to let me get by, but apparently Chaos was not done with his show of power.

“Humnera e Djallit, Zemra e ligësisë!” The words erupt from my lips in a guttural baritone

The words of the spell are unfamiliar to me, so are the effects, if I had any control of my lips, it’d hang open in awe, complete changing the landscape, a vortex of fire descended from the heavens, laying waste to everything with a ten kilometer radius. The effect was however on me, with a painful shift I was thrust back into my body and a sudden wave of tiredness overtook me, on the side the charred remains of the Beowulf laid strewn everywhere by the hot wind that blew heavily.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“This is what we can achieve,” Chaos voice filters into my head once again, back in his own corner of my mind. “What puny magicks I have seen you wrought, witness but a fragment do my immense power, we can be so much more, all you have to do is open the door.”

“Fuck you,” the word comes out weakly. “Fuck you.”

His hold on my mind is not as strong as it is and his voice begins to fade off as I get on my knees and began to crawl.

“You approach him,” his voice comedy fainter and weaker. “My hold is weakened all too non-existent around that prick.”

“Who?” I ask my voice coming out weaker than his.

“Like you My naive little Miranda, I have a nemesis,” he says to me. “A self right sniveling prick, who wormed his way into the world taking all of it from me, a self proclaimed good guy, why, I can already heard the whispers of the name forming in your mind, you should know the name of the one whom you truly seek, say it Miranda, say the name of that bastard.”

“Order,” the word tumbles from my lips.

It’s almost as if I set a big tuning fork into the earth, as it begins to resonate loudly with a loud boom the world seemed to explode in a shower of light momentarily blinding me, when it cleared the world was as it was restored with lid vegetation growing around despite the snow, my head was empty, quiet, the way it used to be and even as I stood on the brink of unconsciousness, a portal stood in front of me just a few meters, large and bright, with slow and painful motion I began crawling towards it, each step more painful that the last, my fingers reached for it, my fingers tingled as it touched the portal, I’d done it, I’d soon be free finally.

Then the darkness took me.