Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Daughter of the Eternal Frost

“Zenithia, I need that sword!” demanded Adeline as she pushed away an advancing undead, which fell and crumbled away.

“Give me a moment!” said Zenithia as she started glowing.

Hans already got the situation handled. He realized that he did not need to use a sword, considering his enemies were walking corpses. He could wrestle them, overwhelm them with his strength, and use his werewolf physiology the best he could. However, he was still reluctant to bite them. The taste of rotten flesh wasn’t something he wanted to taste, especially the rotting flesh of ghouls that had been dead longer than he had lived.

Meanwhile, inside the circle trap, the pain of the Mark covering Azureath caused her to roar and thrash around, but it was no use. She was stuck in place, waiting for her fate, with the pain starting to overwhelm her.

Despite it all, she could faintly hear Shalaka’s impatient voice saying, “The Mark doesn’t advance at all. What is going on? I thought I already gave them more mana that their body can’t even handle!”

“Shalaka!”

Zenithia’s roar as she opened her wings was enough to surprise the still unseen light dragon. The anger and frustration in that voice was apparent, and so was the rage. Zenithia managed to find where Shalaka was by concentrating hard enough to sense her before she flew towards where she sensed the invisible light dragon.

She bared her claws and grabbed something in the air while biting something. Her teeth sunk into flesh and she was being thrashed around in the air by an invisible force.

“You’re pathetic, Zenithia,” taunted Shalaka. “What do you even hope to achieve with that body of yours?”

“Something to prove,” said Zenithia.

Shalaka scoffed of the reply, but became confused on what Zenithia was doing when she saw prismatic fog flowing to the smaller light dragon. Bewildered by the uncanny sight, but also alarmed by Zenithia somehow sapping her energy by unknown means, she slapped Zenithia away, with the smaller dragon unable to defend herself. She was thrown towards the repelling force barrier and thrown across the cave into a rock wall. The impact was enough to kill a normal dragon her size, but for Zenithia, her increased resilience as a light dragon meant that the worse she got were some bruises.

Sensing Shalaka’s retaliation, Zenithia quickly continued doing what she planned. Adeline saw her broken sword hilt glowing. She pulled it off her belt and the light blade formed into a longsword.

“Finally! That took some—”

Zenithia was slammed to the wall by an invisible force. The impact caused her to cough out blood. Adeline, horrified by this, then rushed towards where Zenithia was, cutting down the ghouls standing in her way. Then, predicting where the invisible dragon was, she slashed the air. The attack connected as black-colored blood dripped off in the air along with a horrifying roar that could not come out from a dragon.

“That light!” said Shalaka as she turned to Zenithia. “This is beyond insulting, Zenithia. To see you lower yourself like this is unbecoming of a light dragon!”

“She’s a fearless woman,” said Zenithia with a grin and a sharp glare. “And not even the invisible can unnerve her.”

An angered roar echoed through the cave as Adeline held the light sword in front of her, ready for anything. Hans, on the other hand, realized that he could try and stop the Mark’s progression by dealing with the mages reciting it. With their ghoulish body, it should be something simple.

Unfortunately, Shalaka had got that covered. Hans was repelled just as he was going to pounce a nearby mage. His werewolf form gave him the agility to recover, but he wasn’t going to attack again if the result was the same. At that point, he really wished he knew how to use magic to fight the barrier equally. He did not want to see Azureath suffer, especially not if she was suffering the same thing that drove her away from the continent in the first place.

All he could do was to say, “Azureath, please, hang in there!” as he hacked away all the ghouls attacking him.

As he did so, a fireball flew across the room and burn most of the ghouls where it landed. Hans turned to the source and saw a human wearing cloak and carrying a staff. A mage, much like Ritik.

“I am sorry, dear friends, but it is time for you to rest,” said the mage. Hans recognized the voice.

“You’re the old man from before!” he said.

“I was half-expecting you to be terrified by that story, or at least be discouraged by the whole ordeal,” said the mage. “Either you’re all fools, or that azure dragon has a reason to be here, and I was right. I can’t believe you’ve returned after all this time, Azureath.”

“What?” Hans wondered how the old man knew Azureath. If he did, he would be so young. Azureath left her home decades ago, and the human could still be a child then. She wouldn’t be able to recognize him.

Azureath started to become overwhelmed by the pain caused by the Mark, which clearly did not grow and only burn her through the scars. It wasn’t even just the pain, but the burn opened the wounds and caused the azure dragon to bleed. The blood loss and the pain put her on the verge of unconsciousness. The lack of progress turned into a painful torture.

The mage knew her peril and did his work. He murmured an incantation as magic circles slowly formed in front of him. Then, he extended his hands, and the circle hit the barrier surrounding a nearby mage. The barrier quickly dissipated, enabling Hans to pounce the undead mage and disrupted the ritual of the Mark. The pain and the burning scar abruptly stopped.

“That’s how it’s done,” said the human mage calmly. He then turned to Azureath and said, “We can talk later, Azureath, but for now, focus on your strength. You have a certain strength that prevents the Mark to get a hold on you. You are different from any dragon.”

“Different…how…?” said Azureath weakly.

“Focus on your strength, Azureath. Focus, and no magic trap can stop you.”

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Azureath tried to, but the pain was eating on her consciousness. What was the human talking about? Did it have something to do with the first time she broke free? If that was the case, then she wasn’t sure what, because she knew she was unconscious back then.

“Your power, Azureath,” she heard, faintly. “Unleash your power.”

It was not the mage’s voice. She was drifting away, so that voice could be her imagination.

“You have powers beyond your ice,” said the female voice. “No ritual or magic can stop you. Use that to your advantage.”

“W-who…who are you? Avila?”

“I am a daughter of the eternal frost. A force of nature,” said the disembodied voice. “It is time for you to awaken the power bestowed upon you by your blood. It is a gift that will save you and your allies. Show them what you are capable of, azure dragon.”

“How? I can’t even use my ice with—”

Azureath’s vision returned to the cave as she heard a loud noise of someone being thrown to the barrier. She saw Hans, one of his shoulders dislocated after being thrown by an invisible force, being held in place by the same force. The force barrier let out a repelling force that hit him from behind as he was held in place. He screamed in pain as blood came out of his mouth. His body was being wracked by being held in place, damaged by the repelling force.

It didn’t last long, however, for Adeline cut the air and let out blood, causing a roar to be heard. The mage kept breaking down the barriers surrounding the mages, but he was distracted by the ghouls pestering him. Azureath realized that everyone was trying their best to free her, but it was only time before they couldn’t go on.

She saw all that, realizing how everyone fought so hard for her. Even Zenithia, with her limited, young body, tried her best. Azureath became determined to fight, overcoming her fear of the Mark and replacing it with rage and determination.

“I will not fear the past,” said Azureath, slowly regaining her strength. “I will not let you take what matters to me again!”

Azureath focused on what the voice said: her powers. She only knew one: her ice magic. She let out a strong ice aura all over her body, freezing the area around the barrier solid. However, the barrier’s repelling force also applied on the other side, and the ice broke off. However, she kept focusing on one of her claws while also unleashing freezing aura that got repelled off the barrier. Then, she managed to do it. She made an ice sharp enough to cut through rocks, a feat that should’ve been normally impossible without a great amount of mana and concentration.

However, she drew her power from her desperation, anger, and the fear of loss. She would not want to lose everything, not after what they did to bring her back. She was a dragon. She was supposed to be the one protecting them. She also had a dragon’s pride to maintain.

With renewed determination, she manipulated the ice in the air to cut through the rock and one of the runes that sustained the magic trap. The circle was broken, and she was free. Knowing that her enemy was invisible, she realized she needed something strong enough to make her visible or at least stop Shalaka in place.

“Zenithia, mage, get the two to safety,” said Azureath. “And you, invisible dragon. Come! Let’s end this!”

“Do I look like I am going to fall for that?!” said Shalaka’s voice.

“You already did, insufferable one!”

Azureath heard the dragon’s voice and grabbed the air, feeling a flesh under her claws. She glared and said, “This is your end, light dragon.”

Azureath wasn’t sure what the voice meant, but she concentrated on her own natural ice to freeze Shalaka. It wasn’t enough, so she kept pushing and kept making more ice as they broke off the invisible dragon. Her determination fueled her as it fueled her ice.

She did not realize it at first, but the others did. As she kept forming more and more ice around Shalaka’s invisible body, the surrounding area experienced a rapid temperature drop to the point it was cold enough to start snowing. The wind that came into the cave was chilly and freezing. It was so cold that even the furred werewolves started to feel it.

Azureath also realized that she no longer created ice, but instead causing her opponent to start freezing instead. Her invisibility failed as Azureath kept freezing her. Then, when her body was revealed, the azure dragon realized that she might had gotten a bit too far due to blinded by her rage.

Her light dragon opponent was not encased in ice, but her body looked like it was frozen from the inside out. Her white scales were blue and the flesh black as if rotten due to frostbite. Being frozen solid also made her visible, revealing the white-scaled dragon with her body wracked with frostbite.

“I-Impossible,” said Shalaka. Her head was spared from the frostbitten state of the rest of her body. “How did her ice…?”

“You took my family away through the Dragonsbane,” said Azureath. “This is my vengeance, light dragon, and my ice is the testament for that!”

“This…is not even close,” said Shalaka with a deep, menacing chuckle. Her frostbitten body slowly regained their white luster. “Even if you destroy my body, it won’t matter. Just because you push your ice to freeze my body from the inside, you forget. I am light. Ice means nothing to me. You managed to resist the Mark, but so what? You will still die by my hand, and nothing, not even your magic, can resist my—”

“Prismatic fog?” said Zenithia’s voice. “Well, that is true. But then, you failed to mention one crucial point, Shalaka. Only light can defeat light. Azureath did her part. You know what happens next, right?”

Shalaka realized what Zenithia said. Her draconic expression turned from smug to fear. She tried to move, but Azureath’s ice had completely robbed her of her mobility.

“Zenithia,” said Shalaka with a deep voice full of contempt and murderous intent. “You will never be forgiven. You will share your fate with him, and I will see that you will beg for a mercy you will not deserve!”

“I do not seek one. This is a choice I made,” said Zenithia. “And as for you, you won’t reborn fast enough to see everything ends. This is goodbye, Shalaka.”

With a final, defiant roar, Shalaka’s body was frozen solid, with her head completely frozen.

“Finish her, Adeline.”

Adeline obliged, and with light sword in hand, effortlessly decapitate the frozen dragon. The head fell off and shattered as it touched the cold rocks of Azureath’s lair. The body then dissipate, leaving nothing behind.

With the dragon dead, the ghouls she raised lost the magic reanimating them and they all fell to the ground. Their bodies, sustained by the light dragon’s magic, turned dust, leaving nothing but rusted armor and a lair still damaged by the memories of the dead.

Her determination then turned into an anguished realization that the lair was still there, and she could not even mourn properly with everything that was going on. All she could do was lay on the side, exhausted and sad.

“I can seal the cave with the help of the kingdom’s mage, if you want,” said the human mage. “I know it won’t do much, but that is the least I can do for a friend.”

“Who are you?” asked Azureath. “You claim to be a friend, but we have just met. Did you come from the kingdom of Nolingrod?”

“I was, and still am. Do you remember me, Azureath? You bestowed me the honor of being the only human you ever trusted. I still feel that is the greatest honor I have achieved, even more than being declared the mage king of Nolingrod. Though I suppose you met me long before then.”

“King?” asked Adeline in surprise. “You are a king?”

“Former king. It’s not hereditary, much like a city mayor. I simply retired.”

“Oh…I remember. I know a child who did not fear me and…wished to play with Lalla. I know…I remember you now. You are Aaron, aren’t you? Aaron Daselen?”

“The same one.”

“Has it been…that long ago? You were still 8 when everything…when everything happened.”

“But it’s all over now. I invented the story about a curse to prevent looters. Dragons don’t come here often, so it sat empty for years, hoping that nature reclaims it. Though I suppose my story ended up being true.”

Azureath was both glad and sad that the person she knew before Raptor Island was still alive and well. Glad that Aaron grew up to be someone great, and sad that he reminded her of Lallaen, her daughter.

Yet, in the end, she was glad to have finally exacted her vengeance.