NOVEL NEXT Chapter 19: Sea Serpent
[White Fang Clan]
In the months following Darganth's mana heart forming, the journey continued without any attacks. While this was something to celebrate for the tribe, Darganth grew wary. Less attacks normally meant less beasts which meant the presence of at least one beast strong enough to keep the others away.
By the time they had managed to reach three quarters to the central continent with no attacks since entering the most dangerous stretch of the journey, he started permanently projecting a field of dragons fear in the water in addition to launching regular scans of the surroundings.
When he had started doing this, Allaire quickly noticed his worries growing by the day. This lead her to also try to convince the tribe of the danger, but she had as little luck as he. In the eyes of the tribe slowing down to receive less attention would only serve to stretch their journey. The closer they got to the coast, the better the atmosphere became and they didn't want so dampen the mood. So they believed the intuition that the most dangerous part is also the deepest part more than Darganth's warning.
This made him give up after a while as even if the beasts in the center were stronger than in shallower areas, they also had more space to spread out. Adding in the factor that the mana concentration is normally the highest at the ground, the distance to stronger beast would be quite large. Instead shallower areas with high mana density were more dangerous as the beast were mostly just as strong or even stronger than those in the depth, while being closer to the surface and having less space to spread out over.
With them now approaching the transition area to the parts of the ocean where the navy of different nations would at least periodically keep the beasts out, his wariness reached its peak. He and Allaire had spend the last few days nearly permanently on deck, watching out for any dangers. Only periodically one of them would go to their cabin to sleep, with Darganth having less need for sleep due to him being a dragon.
Currently the two of them were standing on the deck of the ship, talking with each other while still keeping a large part of their focus on the surrounding waters. With their current speed they would reach what he estimated to be the are where the naval presence of humanoids starts by tomorrow, so should an attack come it would likely be today.
When he suddenly stopped talking, Allaire got ready for an attack. Sensing nothing and with Darganth also not preparing any attacks, she looked at him with a questioning look.
“I thought I had sensed something, but it instantly vanished again. Maybe the waters I know from before have made me slightly paranoid.”
“Better over-prepared than under-prepared.” She said with a light smile.
“Yes. Maybe it is only due to my past strength leading me to not even look at comparatively weak worlds like this and making me compare these oceans to those filled with much stronger entities.”
“Maybe.”
Seeing that there were currently no threats, Allaire threw her bow back over her shoulder. Focusing her senses back on the surrounding waters, she noticed nothing wrong.
“How are those oceans you mentioned like?”
“Extremely deadly. Even mythical rank beings died like fly’s as there were even some gods around. For mortals these areas were dangerous due to the aura permeating it alone. Besides that it was actually quite similar to here, just upscale. Ships like ours still drove on the surface, just manned with nearly only mythical ranks, but still having as much if not more trouble than we do.”
“For the current you it would probably still be easier to get through there as I doubt you don't have a lover there.” She added with a laugh.
“You say that as if I would sleep with every women I meet.”
“But you do, or?” Seeing that he doesn't reply she takes it as confirmation.
When Darganth notices her looking at him with a face that screamed 'I knew' he rolled his eyes at her antics. Giving her a short kiss to placate her, he turned his attention back towards the surrounding ocean.
A while later he again noticed something entering his senses just to retreat again. Not believing it to be out of chance, he tells Allaire to prepare herself and took flight. Once sufficiently high in the air, he returned to his true form to increase his senses before unleashing his full dragons fear.
While his senses initially didn't pick anything up, his dragons fear stunned the beast for long enough for its cover to be broken. Picking up its signature, he focused his senses on it to prevent it from slipping away again. Seeing that it had been found, the beast abandoned its ambush.
Breaking out of the ocean came a gigantic sea serpent. Its body of over a two hundred meters curved out of and back into the water, with it looking directly at them. Its head had nearly no similarities with snakes, instead looking like a cross between an Asian dragon and a crocodile.
Seeing that it was an early third class beast, Darganth quickly became happy that Allaire had managed to reach the third order by now. Sadly he was still quite a bit away from this despite both mana criteria being higher that for her due to him being a dragon. While he could have done advanced in aura anyways, to do so with magic forced him to meet the requirements as the third order in it was the first time they were required to be able to use the ability.
Waiting for her to attack, he saw an arrow filled with aura fly towards its head, quickly followed by what looked like a ball made out of pure aura. This was the ability of third order aura soldiers, to fire projectiles made from pure aura.
This was quite versatile, as it could be a punch or a sword slash that would send them. There is a large variety of ways to utilize this, with near infinite different fine adjustments, despite the projectiles properties always remaining similar to the attack that created it. An attack made from the swing of a fist would never result in a cut, but the ways it can impact can vary greatly.
Watching from the air, Darganth saw how the serpent started to manipulate the surrounding water to counter these attacks. Using his elemental control that he had regained together with his mana heart, he prevented the beasts defense to form. Panicked by this, it barely managed to dodge the arrow, but was still pushed back by the aura strike.
Using this chance, Darganth used his dragons breath for the first time since his rebirth. Making the decision to use the lighting element, a bundle of lightning bolts made their way towards their target. With nearly no delay, they struck at the serpents head, making it roar in pain. Despite this reaction, the damage that done was minimal. Once she noticed this, Allaire tried to follow up with another arrow, but their enemy had anticipated a follow up attack. Diving back under water, the snake started encircling the ship, swimming around it and searching for a good moment to strike.
Meanwhile on the ships deck, most warriors of the tribe had gathered despite being under-prepared. Having learned from their previous encounters with sea beasts, they held back from shooting into the water, instead preparing themselves to launch a volley once the beast reemerged.
Darganth was meanwhile circling above, always staying above the snakes head to dive down once it left the water. This continued for some time, with their attacked not daring to show its head due to the previous attack, while Darganth and the tribe didn't have the capabilities to attack it.
While such a stalemate would normally favor the beast, Darganth clearly noticed it to become more restless with every minute. This made him confided that his evaluation that they would soon enter human controlled waters was correct. While it would still take a few days, he could stay awake for this long despite still being slightly difficult for the current him.
After a while of this stalemate, the snake suddenly made the first move to break it. The beast dived down before reeling around with the intend to use its upwards momentum to reach Darganth. While his attacks had dealt a major amount of damage, it was confident in enduring a few more.
Seeing his opponents intention, Darganth inwardly smiled. He could roughly guess the logic behind such a move and knew that while it would work against most dragons, it had one large problem. This problem was that it operated on the idea that his breath couldn't be more powerful, an assumption that would be correct in the case of most dragons.
Dragon species with more than one breath were rare, those with one of the two being significantly more powerful even more so. With very few exceptions this was only the case is with those few species that could employ the so called 'breath of destruction'. This was a gift based on his power over the concept of destruction that he had given a few dragon species as well as all ascended dragons and it held significantly more power than any other breath.
While he could also employ those, using the more powerful breath variations that mixed multiple elements would empty his mana pool much more, while holding less power. Of course some of them had the advantage of being capable of more than simply destroying something, but that was his current goal.
Drawing on his mana, he gave it the destruction attribute before opening his mouth and letting loose a beam of pure destruction. It seemed to devour light itself, looking similar to the void, even having dark emerald and silver streaks in it. As soon as it came into contact with the jumping serpent, it didn't even stop for a fraction of a second, destroying every piece of its body it came into contact with instantly.
The tribe watched with wide eyes how this beam that lasted for not even a single second tore through the serpent without any disturbance, moving through its entire body in a completely straight line. Even the water wasn't spared as every last drop in the beams path was completely destroyed, leaving behind a hole with a diameter of around one meter with a depth of the entire three hundred meters the beam had traveled.
Watching the few body of the serpent fall back into the ocean before sinking, Darganth did a quick search for further beasts and once he was sure that there were none in the area, he turned back towards the ship. Sadly his attack had destroyed the serpents heart, making it impossible for him to grow stronger through it.
Meanwhile some distance from the tribe, a man sitting in a baren room opened his eyes. After looking at them, he waited for a few seconds until the two other individuals who were in the room with him also opened their eyes. Waiting for a few seconds until they were completely focused, he started to speak.
“I assume that you two also felt it?”
“Of course” The only women among the three of them answered, followed by the other man nodding.
“The we need to decide what to do. Whatever killed that mana beast is something we have to keep an eye on.” The first man said.
“I say we just keep away and let the land dwellers deal with it. Whatever did than seems to move towards the coast anyways. Maybe it can destroy a city or two before getting killed” The women says with spite in her voice.
“Ruby, don't let your emotions control you again. Just because of your hate the Kingdom you shouldn't forget our code.”
“Tsk, then what do you propose? Killing it to prevent innocent deaths?”
“No, lets first try reasoning. To kill the serpent it has to be either another third rank beast or a second rank of a higher species, meaning we can reason with it.”
“And what if we can't? Get slaughtered by it and risk our entire progress?”
“As much as I hate it, I have to agree with her Parton. We started this to prevent the kingdom from shipping slaves, forcing them to go through the steel mountains, and only later added protecting the coast from beasts. When we did, we had agreed that we would never do so when it endangered our original mission and it isn't our fault that the king neglects the coastal region.” The second man said, inserting himself into the conversation.
“But we don't know whether it would attack us.” The man, Parton, tried to argue.
“When it wouldn't attack us, it likely wouldn't attack any towns and city's. We only attacked the serpent because we knew its capabilities well enough that it was no danger. This new beast is completely unknown, attacking it is not worth the danger.” The women, Ruby, said.
“We can try and keep an eye out for it, should it be needed we can always decide to intervene later.” The man said, trying to lift his comrades spirit. Hearing his colleges words, Dell took a deep breath before nodding in agreement.
“Its alright Dell. You don't have to worry that I would do something stupid.” At his companions reassurance the man, Dell, also nodded with a small smile.
With the conversation ending, the two besides Parton close their eyes again. Despite his disappointment at this development, Parton closed his eyes shortly after the other two, also preparing to enter the same meditative trance they were in before. Just in that moment a man bursts through the door, clearly in a hurry.
“Vane went rogue.” At those words all three reopen their eyes, their shock visible.
“When?” Dell asked after a few moments, his voice laced with disappointment.
“Probably somewhen yesterday. We just noticed that he made his way to the north-west with his crew and supplies.” Hearing this the three looked at each other.
“What if he angers this new beast?” Ruby asked after a short silence, clearly worried.
“We have to prevent that.” At Parton's words the other two also nodded.
Without further words, all three stood up and made their way out of their room in a hurry. The risk that a rogue member of their group could attack a beast of unknown strength was too great for any discussions. They knew that should it get angered it is very possible that all future ships under their flag would become its target.
