--- Cor ---

“I have something to tell you.”

“I like you,” Urnoth confessed. I overheard his conversation with Elena, so I knew what this was all about, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it. I turned around to leave the two of them alone. I already heard more than I should have, but I can’t shut my ears…

“I’m sorry, but I have no such feelings for you,” the girl replied. I was twenty meters away from them, covering my ears, but I still heard it. Unlike the others, I had no way to tone down my senses and the whole world was bustling with life around me. I heard and sensed everything, all the time, so I liked to go to secluded places and enjoy my silence.

“I understand, but I’m not going to give up. I’ll become the strongest and show you that I’m good enough for you!” Urnoth stated with confidence and then I heard his footsteps nearing. Shit, where should I go? It’ll seem as if I was trying to listen in on them… Wait, am I an idiot? We’re in the desert and the others are here too, why would he notice me of all people?

Just as I thought, he returned to his brothers and sister. I decided to take a walk, but it took only a minute before I noticed I got a bit far from the others. Having nothing better to do, I sat down on the top of the sand dune and waited for Elena and Dred to return, but they were taking their sweet times.

“At least it’s silent here,” I sighed and closed my eyes. These days I felt tired for some reason, not something an undead should do.

“Mind if I join?” I heard a familiar voice and as I opened my eyes, I realised it was none other than Urnoth.

“No, sit down.”

“I know that you heard us, everyone knows you can’t control your senses as an undead,” he muttered after a few seconds of silence.

“Mhm. What about it?”

“Do you think I still have a chance?” he crossed his fingers.

“I believe you always have a chance, whether you try to take it or not is up to you, but then again, I’m not sure you’re asking the best person for romantic advice,” I laughed as I ruffled his hair.

“That might be the case, but I don’t want to talk about this with the others around and it’s likely that you were the only one who heard us.”

“Ah, got it, so I’m the last resort. Do you want me to bite you? I can give you a nice curse!” I opened my jaws.

“Hahaha, thanks but I don’t need it,” he laughed as he pushed my face away.

“Nah, that’s better. Cheer up! There will be a better day when you get together! If there won’t be, then don’t worry, there are other girls in the world!” I patted his back, trying to encourage him.

“You might be right.”

“Might? I’m sure I’m right!”

“Yes, yes, you’re,” he waved his hands.

“You’re a cheeky brat… Did you come here to lower my reputation?!” I opened my eyes wide.

“No,” he replied seriously this time.

“I was just kidding,” I remarked.

“I know, but I respect you enough to take your reputation seriously,” he smiled at me.

“You should have joined the defenders. I’d have enjoyed beating you,” I laughed at his change of expressions.

“It’s nice of you. And I thank you, I feel better now,” he turned to look at the others.

“It’s nothing,” I shrugged my shoulders and noticed Dred running towards the camp with Elena on his back.

“We should go back,” I mumbled.

“Yeah,” he sprung up from the ground and held his hand. I took it to help myself up and then returned to the camp.

After Dred shared his newfound knowledge with everyone, Elena voiced her decision, which was to split up. We could have complained and questioned her why she didn’t even bother to ask for our opinions, but we all knew that we wouldn’t refuse her will, no matter what she wanted.

After finishing up, Dred came closer and shoved some kind of old book in my hands. “This is your life-story. You should read it,” he added.

Raising my brows, I opened the book and as I finished reading the first line, a mind-splitting pain rushed my head. Considering I shouldn’t have felt pain, I was sure it was related to my soul. There was no other way for me to feel pain. With the help of minor devour, I destroyed the book and filled my mind with its contents.

The pain intensified and everything turned black.

---

I woke up to the star-filled night sky and the warm fire next to me. A shudder ran through my body and I couldn’t help but climb a bit closer to it. I didn’t feel cold, but I still liked warm things.

“I see you woke up,” I heard Dred’s voice from my left. He was sitting next to me.

“Were you tending to my wounds?” I laughed as I sat up.

“Haha, you could say.”

Seeing him look at me in silence, I knew he was waiting for me to say something. “So I’m dying, even though I’m dead,” I shook my head.

“Well, something like that. But you’re wrong if you think that we’ll let you disappear.”

“Believe it or not, I’m enjoying my current life… or death? Whatever… and I plan to keep it, so tell me what to do and I’ll do it!”

“We’ll have to capture Shin and take him to Trinity. We’ll also have to save Khax and ask for his help. He is in the knowledge of a soul manipulative spell and is on the brink of reaching the six hundredth level. Once we break the seal, he’ll be able to help you. But we also have to deal with Padinyss and prepare for the kobolds,” Dred listed one thing after the other.

“So we’re going to be busy.”

“Yes,” he nodded his head.

“Good! I was getting bored of our peaceful destruction anyway!”

“How can it be peaceful… though?” he asked confused.

“Well, it’s not like we had an opponent,” I shrugged my shoulders.

“That’s true. Wait here, I’ll call the others. We need to divide work and create teams.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, the five of us sat in a circle beside the campfire.

“We need a team of two who are going to get Shin and Khax and take them away from Padinyss. We need another team of two who are going to try to level up as quick as possible and prepare to deal with Padinyss and lastly, one person is enough to control the Dark Scars and help the Kings prepare for the incoming global war. Said person should also continue cleansing the remaining kingdoms or make it so they’d fall victims to the kobolds,” Elena put everything on the plate.

“I suppose I and Dred should be the ones to prepare for the battle against Padinyss, but tell me if you think otherwise,” she added towards the end.

Like hell, there’d be anyone.

“Okay, that’s decided then,” she nodded her head seeing that nobody replied. “I know that you two probably want to go together, but I’m not sure about it because Cor’s presence could make things easier if he met Shin,” she pointed at Audrey and Jake.

“Well, I did plan to, but if that’s the case,” Jake sighed. “I’ll go with Cor. I’m confident Audrey can take care of the remaining kingdoms and prepare the rest,” he added.

“I’m fine with it,” Audrey shrugged her shoulders.

“Alright, that went better than I imagined. It’s good to be around reasonable people…” Elena remarked. “Let’s go to bed for now and we’re going to start tomorrow. Everyone should take a good rest.”

“Okay.”

“Mhm,” we all agreed.

--- Jake’s POV ---

I took up Dred’s wyvern form and after saying goodbye to everyone, I left with Cor. We changed our faces and body structures before getting anywhere close to the Dragon Empire. Our first destination was a bay in the Thihan Dynasty because we couldn’t just dive right in the capital city of the Dragon Empire.

I was expecting to see a sand covered beach like back on Kriton, but what welcomed me was a cliff leading into the see. After asking around for a bit, we were led to a stairway. Five meter wide steps were engraved into the side of the cliff, which led down to a bay.

“How come this didn’t fall?” Cor raised his brows in confusion. “With a calm sea like this, there shouldn’t be cliffs.”

“I think it’s related to the seal or something. I suppose the Moonlit Sea was much wilder in the past,” I said.

“Could be.”

As we reached the bay a good five hundred steps later, we were met with two guards.

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“Passports,” he held his hand.

Huh? I haven’t heard of this. Seeing my confused face, the guard grabbed the handle of his sword. “Give me your passports!” he repeated.

“Wait, wait! We don’t have one. We’re coming from far away in hope of seeing the capital city of the Dragon Empire. It’s been our dream since childhood!” I raised my hands in defense.

“Well, it’s true that we had no passports before and implemented its usage because of the devourers,” the guard explained. “But these days only people who have businesses travel,” he added.

“I can assure you we’re just travellers,” I smiled at him. “We’ve been to so many places before! The Sea of Fire, the Deep Lake, the Est Canal, the Sand River, and even more!”

“Come to the office if that’s the case because we’ll need to make a passport for you. We can’t let you pass otherwise,” he turned around and walked towards a small boathouse, only a few steps away. We were led to a small office where a bearded man sat, who was doing paperwork.

“Han, they’re new,” the guard gently pushed us towards the man. He stopped in the doorway, his weapon on his hand.

We have to be careful, these people are prepared, I furrowed my brows.

“Give me your hands,” the bearded man said with a monotonous voice.

“What for? I hope you don’t want to take me as your bride or some weird stuff,” I fooled around.

The man looked up with furrowed brows as he replied, “I need to check your blood. It’s a decree made by the Dragon Emperor.”

“Oh, I understand,” I nodded my head and held out my hand as I looked at Cor from the corner of my eye. I used Shadow Step to appear behind the man, while Cor appeared next to him. The guard was already thrusting his swords towards me, but it couldn’t penetrate Cor’s tough shell and the man stumbled backwards from the recoil.

I took care of the bearded man by slitting his throat and then used blink to appear behind the falling guard. A thrust my weapon into his heart and held his mouth with my hand to stop him from shouting.

“I’m sorry, but you took the wrong side,” I whispered into his ear as I felt him turn weaker and weaker until the lights of his eyes faded out. After cleaning my hands with my mana, I looked at Cor. “How do I look?”

“Exactly the same as the other guard,” he nodded his head, seeing me change my body. The cosmological constant was an amazing element. “Good, I’ll be back in a bit.”

I went out of the boathouse and found the other guard waiting. “Yo! I’m back.”

“I can see that,” he shrugged his shoulders. I have no idea what sort of relationship these two had, but he surely isn’t going to suspect me.

“But I need your help for a bit. I know that we shouldn’t leave the path here empty, but there are some complications. I’m sure the two of us can deal with it in a moment,” I said.

Raising his brows, he walked towards the boathouse and followed me to the office. But when I grabbed the handle of the door, I turned around with my weapons in hand. His hand moved towards his weapon as despair appeared on his face.

He wasn’t close enough to block me with his hands but was close enough to not be able to escape my reach. His head landed on the ground with a thud and rolled into the corner. After devouring their bodies and the blood they left behind, we looked around and entered the bay.

“Hi! Could you take us to the Dragon Empire?” I asked one of the shippers. The ship was at least fifty meters long if not more. Seeing its mast and sails, I felt as if I was in some old pirate movie.

“Of course! Get on,” he waved his hand.

“How much is it?” Cor asked as he jumped on the deck.

“Three gold coins per person if you have no packages,” the hairy man held out his hand.

Cor reached into his pocket and gave him the necessary amount. I too jumped on the deck and the man left the bay shortly after. We sat down on the stairs which led to the steering wheel.

“I’m a bit tired after staying up for so long. Could you watch over me? But if you feel that something’s wrong, please wake me up,” I asked Cor.

“Yeah, I can’t feel tired anyway,” he shrugged his shoulders.

I leaned on the wall of the captain's cabinet and closed my eyes. I knew that Cor was a bit tired of hearing everyone. I could imagine how terrible it must have been… to always hear everyone. Sometimes we needed silence, but he had no way to shut out the world unless left alone.

I wasn’t very talkative anyway, so I wanted to leave him alone, but the captain thought otherwise. “What brings you two here?”

“We’re travellers visiting the Dragon Empire,” Cor muttered.

“What?! Could you speak louder? I can’t hear you because of the wind, hahaha.”

“He just said that we’re travellers and sorry, but could you let us have some rest?” I replied, trying to hide my annoyance. I probably did a good job considering the man just waved his hand and looked ahead in silence.

“Thanks,” Cor said.

“It was for myself too,” I chuckled and then went back to sleep.

I woke up a few hours later and found myself on Cor’s shoulder. “Ah, sorry,” I rubbed my eyes and sat up yawning.

“It’s alright.”

“Captain, how long till we reach the island?” I asked.

“We should reach it in two hours.”

“Ok, thanks.”

---

After reaching the bay, we left without a problem. It took another two hours to reach Dragon City. Seriously… all these names with dragons, they must really love themselves.

“We snuck into the city without anyone’s notice and made our way towards the palace. “We must hurry up or we might get caught. I’m sure somebody will notice that two guards disappeared without a trace,” Cor remarked.

I nodded my head and looked after the draconic humans that walked past us. They looked quite strange with dragon heads and human bodies… but considering their numbers, I believed it was normal here. And not just humans, there were other races mixed with dragons.

“There are two guards coming this way, just be natural and ignore them,” I whispered seeing Cor’s body stiffen for a moment. I patted his shoulders and continued to walk. Of course, the guards just walked past us like every other citizen.

“See? There is no need to worry.”

“I know, but it’s still unnerving,” he shook his head.

“Haha, I know. Now that I think about it, do you know anything about my or Audrey’s past?” I raised my brows.

“Not really. You two have been living in your own little worlds.”

“Hmm- I can’t deny that. It’s quite sad, though. I mean, we did nothing but destroy kingdoms, gather intel and stuff these days,” I sighed.

“But we were busy, it couldn’t be helped,” he shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah. So do you know anything new about yourself?”

“What do you mean? I know only new stuff!”

“Then don’t talk about it if you don’t want to,” I rolled my eyes a bit annoyed.

“Don’t give me the cold shoulder, I was just kidding,” he laughed. Being met with silence, his face turned more serious as he said, “The truth is that I was an orphan. My family threw me away and I struggled to learn how to use chi and the abilities that were common in the world I came from.”

“We had no tables and notifications and stuff like these,” he pointed at his status table as he showed it to me.

“Of course, I was young, hated the world and screwed with a rich sect which chased me out of the world and that was how I came to this place. But my travel here took a lot of time and I also learned many things, so I arrived to Dunk as another person.”

“But then I met Padinyss and the rest is history. Nothing big or legendary if you ask me,” he shook his head.

“Well, but you’re taking part in a legendary creature’s plan this time, though you’re doing bad stuff… along with us!” I patted his back to cheer him up.

“Don’t pat me, I don’t feel down. I never had a place to belong to, so I’m much happier this time. It’s a bit strange to be an undead now that I remember my past, but I’m sure it won’t take more than a few days to get used to it again.”

“Ah, I can imagine,” I nodded my head. “I feel much better than back on Kriton, as well. I don’t have to pretend to care about those people anymore.”

“Those? Who do you mean?” he raised his brows.

“Have I never told you about it?”

“No.”

“Well, two weeks prior to Elena’s and Dred’s birth, an apocalypse struck our planet. It happened because of the devourers’ birth, though we didn’t know anything about that at that time. I did my job as a soldier and helped people get to the school where we formed a fortification of the sorts and held back the monsters. But as the place turned more ‘peaceful’, many showed their true colours. All they cared about was power and domination above the others.”

“Then Elena came and screwed up everything, but in a good way.”

“Oh, so you meant the people you saved. But what makes you think that she did good to them?” he tilted his head to the side.

“Ah, haha, considering that she killed most of them, I imagine I shouldn’t say something like that. Honestly, it was nice to be a soldier and serve the country, but looking back now, it feels stupid,” I replied.

“Why? I think that it’s a respectable-”

“No, it isn't. What was I fighting for? There were wars because people wanted to. It’s in our veins, humans aren’t tame sheeps. There were two types of soldiers. One which became a soldier to serve his country, the second which did so to be able to legally kill and shoot and stuff.”

“I was the former and unlike the second type, I and my friends were used to play the leaders' stupid games. Serving a community? As soon as the school became safe, they started fighting each other as well. Legends, verses, and tales about humans uniting and fighting the evil! I call it bullshit and I’m happy that Elena did what she did with those people. I’m very satisfied with our current goal and I say our because I feel that it’s my goal as well.”

“Eh? You seem to hate humans,” Cor looked at me in wonder.

“You could say that, but there are exceptions to everything. And even if it’s Elena’s blood that does all this to my mind, I don’t give a fuck about it!” I raised my hands!

“Although I look at humans more like food and have nothing against them, I can still agree with you. They’re a terrible and greedy bunch. Not that the other races are any better…”

“Haah- I should lower my voice now that I think about it. I was caught up in the heat of the moment,” I scratched the back of my head.

“Indeed,” Cor nodded his head.

I was about to continue when I noticed the huge palace in front of us. “It seems like we’ve arrived,” I furrowed my brows.

“Mhm.”